World’s End

While the majority of the films appearing on this list were seen in the most reserved fashion, in that I had minimal hope I would enjoy my cinematic experience, World’s End was the exception to the rule and for that I was severely punished (I’m beginning to feel like 2013 was the year I fell out of love with Edgar Wright). The final instalment to Wright’s trilogy of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and World’s End, I was genuinely rooting for this film. I had hoped it would buck the trend of sequels producing diminishing dividends (although I enjoyed and own Hot Fuzz, I’ve only watched my DVD copy once, while Shaun of the Dead gets repeated viewings). All hopes were dashed. Although it’s not as terrible a film as the rest on this list and I almost feel bad for including it, I feel that as a film that proved to such a let down it’s my most disappointing film of 2013, I have to include it here.

World’s End fails because despite sharing familiar components of previous features including seasoned players Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine et al, it still felt like a great departure from the other two films. I felt that including it in the same canon as Shaun and Hot Fuzz has done World’s End a disservice by encouraging fans to expect the same standard as the other two, which it doesn’t reach. The biggest difference is the scale. Yes the first film is about the undead taking over the world and the second about criminally minded pensioners, but these are still grounded in a sense of reality (we’ve all seen enough Midsummer Murders and Murder She Wrote to know that looks can be deceiving when it comes to the older populations). The two previous films were confined to intimate locations: although Shaun of The Dead, zombies are taking over the world, the action is confined to a few streets in London. For Hot Fuzz, the action is confined to a village. For the World’s End the action is extended to the whole planet eventually. The ambition of this increase in scale is clunky to say the least.

What made the previous two outings different to World’s End is also the relate-ability of the leads, in particular Simon Pegg. He is usually the audience surrogate. Whether the slacker Shaun or the super cop Nicholas , there is something about him that the audience likes and understands.  His reactions often reflect how we’d react. However in World’ End, Pegg’s Gary King is no ordinary Joe. Worse than being no ordinary Joe, he is also the most unlikable of the group.

Here for me lies the problem, I found myself not wanting to see the film from his perspective nor did I want him controlling the narrative. I cared neither for his perspective nor his character. He is a man trapped in late adolescence, desperately holding onto what have proved to be the best years of his life. I’m sounding heartless in saying that I found his character more pathetic rather than sympathetic but that is down to the fact that the character is underwritten. His obnoxious behaviour is not properly addressed until the very end, where the moment which is supposed to be poignant is overwhelmed and lost in the action that’s happening all around. I know that it’s not Wright’s style to be precious with sentiment (precious moments not needed here folks!), in fact the way this revelatory scene was executed is Wright to a T. However, I still stand that he has directed similarly confrontational, pivotal scenes before and in a much better way. I don’t know if I didn’t like the execution this time round because of the seeming role reversal in character between Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the seeming lack of story behind Pegg’s fall from grace or because by then I was tired of the film. Regardless, all my goodwill had been lost and I found myself rather sadly not giving a damn.

A sense of underdevelopment permeated throughout the film, with other characters playing friendship groups stock types rather than a sense of developed bonds and complexities in long-term friendships done to perfection in Shaun of the Dead. The film relies too heavily on its fanbase being open to going along for the ride rather than adding richness to the story and characters. I also took issue with the repetitiveness of the film. The ‘reveal’ if one can call it that is exposed early on in the film and from then on the characters are essentially video game characters moving from one location to another doing the same thing. Fighting the same fight. Everything got old very fast. It’s conceit was weak and I found myself watching with a sense of dread. I was becoming bored. Even my slightly sycophantic feelings towards Edgar Wright’s filmography couldn’t carry me through. All the throwbacks to the two previous films were lost on me.

As I’ve said before the film falls short of the standard set before it, so as a finale piece I really don’t believe it holds well. However as a stand alone film I could be more forgiving. But it’s not a film I’d want to revisit any time soon. While not being bad enough to sit in the worst film of 2013 category, it does head the most disappointing, alongside:

Blue Jasmine

I loved Cate Blanchett, she should win all the awards, but I’m not sure whether I get the overall  tone of the film, nor am I convinced of Woody Allen’s writing for women. Also don’t get me started on the ending. It seems Woody Allen has a strict time limit and he must finish his film at exactly the 98 minute mark lest the devil takes his soul. Blue Jasmine should not just win awards for Best Actress it should also win for most abrupt ending. Where it not for the performances, this film would be trash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=FER3C394aI8

Side Effects

This film had me feeling like I was suffering side effects of my own. The first half of the film was like the feeling of euphoria one experiences when taking the drugs (so I’ve been told). It starts as a taut thriller about big pharmaceutical companies and experimental drugs and the nature of big money clouding over the sense of responsibility of public health. The acting was good, the story jumped at a fresh pace, I was thinking this makes a fine departure from Steven Soderbergh, one of the genre-diverse directors of recent filmmaking. Then came the second half or what I like to call the comedown. It was a period of confusion and extreme disorientation. What has happening to the taut storyline I’d been following so avidly? Where was all the nuanced acting going? Why was the story quickly descending into soap opera farce. When did I start watching Hollyoaks: After Dark?!

I seem to be watching a production unraveling in front of my eyes. I wasn’t sure for some time if this was some Kaufman-esque narrative within a narrative. Maybe everyone involved in the film were taking experimental drugs and the film was exploring the side effects. Regardless what saves this film from being on the ‘Worst Of’ list and just on the disappointing list is the very well made first half, which I would recommend watching and then maybe halving the dosage of the second half by giving it a miss.

Frances Ha!

Please note Hollywood: While a person’s twenties are about the toil and struggle to find one’s place in life and it seems that it now seems to take longer than ever to do that, for the majority of us it’s not through like of trying. Most twenty-somethings are focussed and motivated and trying to navigate the world the best they can, we are not entitled adult-children relying on others hard work to make life’s tough decisions for ourselves. 

Frances Ha! is another entry into the Hipster film cannon that has more than worn out its welcome in my opinion. The people in Frances Ha! including the main gal herself represent a fetishised view of what contemporary young people are like. Poverty and struggle is so chic right now!

I’ll tell you what it is. It’s tiresome. Most of us don’t have the luxury of meandering through life until we’re discovered to be the next big thing. Even if we did major in art subjects. Most of us are willing to work much harder than most, do jobs we don’t like to allow for the things we do.

While in Frances Ha!, the titular character does come to that realisation by the film’s end it appears to take her nearly a decade to realise what the rest of us release soon after finishing college or school. Lucky for the film, it has natural charisma and likeability of actress Greta Gerwig, to not make the general conceit entirely loathsome. I still had trouble adjusting to the notion that things kind of fall in place for her. She’s never in such a dire situation that happens to many of us where the door can be completely shut in your face. Everything that happens to her is from a softly softly approach. She manages to find a place that is practically paid for her by a rich friend, she finds work at her old university, she can go to Paris and stay at a friends. If any of that were happen to me, I’d think I’d had a pretty good year, not the scene of deep despair and self realisation it becomes in the film. Regardless, the film was too cutesy and quirky for its own good with the alienating ways in which friends talk to each other and ‘quirky’ behaviours of people on screen. It wasn’t entirely twee but it touched its toes in the pool. 

I know that this is a work of fiction attempting to poeticise the experiences of a generation. Despite my disdain for this singularly specific kind of portrayal of young people of aimlessness and entitlement, I can see the film does try to put across the sense of abandonment one feels when they have been told to do things in a particular way all their life in order to succeed, only to find that life works in the opposite way. For many in this situation, your twenties are not necessarily about aimlessness rather than adjustment and I’m still waiting for a film to portray it that way.  

Despite its charismatic lead and certain themes the film did try as described, the film had an air of smugness that was overwhelming.  Noah Baumbach’s work always has a sense of smugness and yet while not so completely noxious as in Greenberg it didn’t work for me like it did in The Squid and the Whale. It in fact reminded me of the black and white slightly more palatable version of the three episodes I’ve seen of Girls.

I do not like Girls.

Promised Land

Again the title belies the truth. So much potential but actually very little pay off. With the likes of Matt Damon, Frances McDormand on board and a chance to see John Krasinkski step out from behind his Jim from Office persona, I was anticipating something more. The subject matter is also intriguing because in 2013, the UK was introduced to fracking, a controversial environmental issue plaguing the US for years and I thought it’d be interesting to see if the film reflected, the many talking heads airing their grievances and opinions on the news.

While it does to a degree reflect the differing support and opposition to fracking –  the film’s local communities both having fears concerning environmental effects and their wariness to sell their souls to unscrupulous big businesses trying to buy their trust and those fully willing to do so if the price is right – the film is more concerned with plot twists and back stabbing between the leads.

The results are hollow and a little disingenuous to be the crux of the film if I’m being honest. The film wants Matt Damon’s Steve Butler to be the archetypal hero, who rolls into town a blinding beacon of his company’s ethos and causes, only for all that to be threatened by the charms of country life and it’s inhabitants (in this case in the form of Rosemary Dewitt). This formulaic plot device, could be forgiven were it not for the fact that the character’s are not well-developed enough and their chemistry not strong enough for it to be believable that a man of Matt Damon’s experience would be so easily changeable as he is in the film.

This also points to a problem with the casting. While Matt Damon is competent in making the best of the material, his character and motivations would be much better suited to someone younger. It would go to some length to make his character progression that more believable. There are casting issues in other areas, primarily John Krasinski, who co-wrote the screenplay with Damon but is severely miscast as Dustin Noble (I’m not even going to mention the terrible pun that is his character’s last name. I sincerely hope it was not intentional.) Once again, despite having a natural charisma that made him so popular as Jim Halpert in The Office, Krasinski stays very close to that persona, which makes it harder and harder for me to give him the benefit of the doubt as something more than a one-note actor. The closest I’ve ever seen him be not Jim is in the Sam Mendes Away We Go so I think he has it in him to not play it so safe. I was waiting to see this in Promised Land but alas as with the rest of the film I was left disappointed.

I won’t even begin to go into the travesty that was the misuse of Frances McDormand who literally had nothing to do the whole thing but stand on the sidelines pushing the spotlight on Damon. This is demonstrable of a film that had much promise in its subject matter and cast but resulted in a formulaic piece of nothing movie. This film is without fight one begins to wonder if some fracking companies got involved somehow. The film certainly  doesn’t pose itself as an advocate for fracking but it doesn’t put up  much of a fight against it. It seems to finish as it began. Forgettable fare that doesn’t really create much of a discussion about fracking. For a real conversation about the subject, I would recommend you check out the documentary Gasland, available on Netflix.

Enough about 2013! Now it’s time for the new year offerings! About time I hear you say! Well it’s going to start with a bang. My next review will be 12 Years A Slave. It’s gonna be a deep ‘un!