Movie review - "The Adventures of Tintin: The Search for the Unicorn" (2011) ***

Probably the best film that could be made from a Tintin comic... or is it? There's certainly a lot of love and care, the technical stuff impresses, the casting good (Jamie Bell, Andy Serdakis), the script very respectful... But there's too much noise, chases and crash boom-bang and a John Williams score that never seems to end. That's a personal opinion of course - others may like it, especially kids. But I can't help feeling they missed a lot of the satire in the comics, the characters don't seem as rich (there's Bianca Casatfiore but no Calculus), the villain is a bit light, it... I don't know, it just doesn't get the magic. Maybe they missed out by not going to the island a la Red Rackham's Treasure. I'm glad it did well though and that there will be a sequel.

Movie review – “The Lovely Bones” (2009) **1’/2

Obviously made with love and care but it doesn’t quite work. Could it have ever worked? The story is about a young girl’s rape and murder – it’s never going to be completely feel good. Peter Jackson gives lots of screen time to the father character, not much to mum (I didn’t buy it she took off for so long). But this is really about the girl and Jackson doesn’t quite crack it. They try to give it more action by having the father and sister investigate – it still doesn’t work. Some very good acting – Saoirse Roman and Stanley Tucci in particular, and period design. It shouldn’t have cost as much money as it did.

Book review – “Rebels on the backlot” by Sharon Waxman

Waxman tries to do an “Easy Riders Raging Bulls” for Gen X, concentrating on six hot directors of the 90s: Tarantino, David O Russell, Fincher, PTA, Sodebergh, Spike Jonze, with emphasis on the director’s personalities and love lives. Problem is, its too soon to get a real idea of the impact of these directors and rather than concentrating on their careers Waxman instead rather gives case studies of specific films – a lot of time is taking up on the making of Boogie Nights, Being John Malkovich, Three Kings and Fight Club, for instance, whereas other movies from the directors are passed by quickly (why not tell us a bit more about Se7en or Adaptation or Kill Bill?). Those are good films and the book is worth reading from that point of view.

There was a fair bit I didn’t know – Clooney and Russell came to blows making Three Kings, Jonze got John Malkovich to appear in his film by calling on father in law Francis Ford Coppola to make a phone call, Sodebergh had an erratic love life, Aussie producer Ross Bell got Fight Club optioned by having actors read a copy of the book, taping that and playing it to a producer, Russell Crowe was interested in the project and had a bigger fan club so probably would have made the film a bigger hit, Tarantino spent a lot of the late 90s smoking cones watching crappy old movies. And its always worth being reminded how hard it is to get a good movie through the Hollywood system.

But the book is full of irritating inaccuracies (Peter Jackson is not Australia) and hyperbole (there was such a thing as independent film before the 80s – heard of John Cassavetes?). Waxam also takes an annoying narky tone towards her subjects, tsk tsking Tarantino for snubbing his former video mates (maybe they were losers – although it was mean to dump his manager), creating the “myth” of his poor upbringing and not giving his mother lots of money (OK he hyped it a little and his mum was an achiever – but he still had no father, his mother went through several relationships, he was raised by his grandma for a few years when mum couldn’t hack it, and went away for a year to Tennessee – it wasn’t the most stable upbringing), and for crying out loud – this goes for most writers on Hollywood – stop taking writers claims “I wrote most of that script” at face value, you have to actually read the different versions.

She also takes PTA to task for being an egomaniac (which sounds very believable – his films do need cutting) and Clooney for continually going on about the fight with Russell and Russell for hiring a publicist. She seems to like Sodebergh, Jonze and Fincher. There is a lot better book to be written about this period.

Movie review – “King Kong” (2005) ***1/2

Everyone loves Naomi Watts in the new King Kong - the monster of course, who not only beats up dinosaurs for her on Skull Island but then basically dies for her in New York, plus the crew of the boat that goes to Skull Island and mostly gets wiped out looking for her (at what point do they go "hang on, she's not worth 15 of us" - its ok for Aiden Brophy because he's going to get to have sex with her but what about the rest); there's also Peter Jackson who gives Watts lots and lots of close ups.

I really enjoyed the film: tremendous special effects, good performances, a great gorilla, plenty of roller coaster action, moving finale, better developed love story between monster and girl (he likes her partly because of her acting skills, which is a nice touch), the humans on Skull Island are truly terrifying, all of Skull Island is terrifying, they improve on the original by making sure that Watts is no part of Kong's humiliation in New York.

Some debits: a bit overlong (did we need all the Watts backstory?), why all the emphasis on that young kid (Jamie Bell) and the Heart of Darkness?, the captain comes to the rescue twice when once was enough (and what happends to his character?), the scenes with tommy guns smacks a bit too much of thinking-about-the-video-game spin off. But a worthy remake of the original.