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Movie Train - FILM REVIEWS by Morgan Bell

 
Fresh critical film reviews by young Australian journalist Morgan Bell. A bight-sized opinionated analysis of popular movies and indie/art-house feature films. Explores plot, themes, characters, performances, soundtracks and film technique. Morgan Bell assesses movies in the context of what makes a successful cinema or DVD experience.

Movie Train - October 2008

The Happening: learn and laugh

October 31st 2008 17:08
I will post a full review on the film "The Happening" in coming days. It was a strange movie.

In the meantime, if you have seen the film I guarentee you will pee your pants laughing at the following list!

The users on IMDB started a thread entitled "100 Things I Learned From 'The Happening' SPOILERS" - I have plucked a list of the really funny ones from their suggestions.

I got so carried away with reading the thread and laughing hysterically that I temporarily forgot what I was going to write about it myself! It is insanely funny! Please enjoy my highlights!

Where To Run
If your wife won't answer the phone, leave your daughter and go look for her. How hard can it be to find one person in Princeton when you have no idea where in town she is?
A botanist who thinks that plants are behind the mass suicides thinks its a good idea to rush back to his greenhouse to get hot dogs
Vast amounts of airborne toxins don't sink into the ground and pollute ground-water.
Plants and huge toxic winds pay attention to state lines
Make sure that when after hearing a girl that you told on the phone to get away from the tree and then she kills herself for all to hear (because it is the plants) to go and sit in remorse in the middle of a bunch of weeds on the side of the road.
If safety is ninety miles away and you are in a car, don't drive past the dead bodies, walk through a field.
When you need to be in smaller groups make sure that you let two strange kids hang with you. You will probably need them to take a bullet for you.
Wind exists only in small, isolated patches. With determination, one may be able to run ahead of it.

The Lion
Lions now bring down prey by biting their arms off.
If you want to get mauled to death by a lion, make friends with it first.
When a lion sniffs your arm it will fall off
A trained lion will eat you for no reason as soon as you feel suicidal

The Jeep
Besides a little tear in the canopy, canvass-topped Jeeps are otherwise airtight.
Ramming a jeep into a tree will kill everyone in the back seat too.

The Model Home
Even if a glass is filled with coloured plastic and you reference that fact later in the scene you should still pretend to drink from it.
Model homes have working plumbing.

The First Psycho House
If trees are the killers please play around with them, using the swing.
If someone isn't sure whether or not you are evil, just sing "Black Water" by The Doobie Brothers.
If you are afraid of the toxic air, board up your house and leave some space in the windows in case you wanna be seen wandering through the house and shoot somebody. And open your door to do so as well.
If armed men barricade themselves in their home and refuse to feed you, kick the door and taunt them until they shoot you.
If a crazy man shoots the two kids, don't run, shake them and make sure they're dead.
After a black kid gets shot to death, tell him "we're going to get out of this nightmare." Maybe, he'll respond!

The Second Psycho House
Old hermits tend to have large houses with creepy-looking dolls sleeping on their guest beds.
Speaking through 100 feet of underground pipe sounds roughly equivalent to talking on a cell phone.
Sucidal people have the urge to walk backwards a bit before killing themselves
Betty Buckley has bionic ears.
If you invite guests into your home and you feel they are going to kill you in your sleep because they are whispering, don't kick them out or ask them to leave. Go to sleep and hope you wake up the next morning
Old women can magically become dolls. (Mark Whalberg, looking for the old lady, walks into a room and doesn't find her, but continues to head for a porcelain doll on the bed and say "Mrs. Jones?")

Suicide
Toxins can help you keep coherent enough to set up ladders and hang your self from trees.
Apparently losing the self preservation part of the brain means that you actively seek out amusing ways to kill yourself, rather than just giving up and lying down
Intoxicated humans always suicide in the most complicated and hard way. Why just bash your head on the ground, when you can climb ladder, find the good length of rope and hang yourself?
When the self-preservation mode is switched off in your brain, the ability to feel pain goes away as well.
Tractor mowers can cut through anything!
When trying to kill yourself, smashing your head off one wall won't suffice. Instead bang your head continually against various walls and windows ensuring you well ventilate the house.
When you decide to commit suicide by walking in a toxic zone, just to meet your husband, be sure to bring with you the girl you are supposed to protect.
Army privates carry guns with lots of bullets in them.

Randomly Funny
If you want to look for a child sleeping in the car, don't look through the window, open the door.
If you are a high school science teacher and a male student isn't paying attention, it is best to make a homoerotic statement in an effeminate voice and no one in class will mind.
When your daughter is about to commit suicide over the phone, put her on speaker phone for everyone to enjoy.
If a girl finds a radio hanging on a fence, call the man in the relationship over to turn it on and find a working station. Girls are too stupid to turn on radios. Whatever you do, don’t take the radio with you!
When the people on your backseat pretend to have taken the wrong route so that the little child won´t be scared, make sure you mention that it was actually corpses lying on the street so that the child is well-informed.
Boom Mics can be actors too.

The Happening







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REVIEW: The Duchess

October 29th 2008 10:37
Directed: Saul Dibb (Bullet Boy)

Written: Jeffrey Hatcher (Stage Beauty), Saul Dibb (Bullet Boy), Anders Thomas Jensen - based on the book by Amanda Foreman

Starring: Keira Knightley (Atonement, Bend It Like Beckham), Ralph Fiennes (The Constant Gardner, The English Patient), Hayley Atwell (Brideshead Revisited), Dominic Cooper (Mamma Mia), Simon McBurney (The Golden Compass, Friends With Money)

Ralph Fiennes may be the most despicable character you see at the cinema this year. His portrayal of The Duke makes you want to stab him with a butter knife. He is the much older un-loving husband of Georgiana Spencer Cavendish (Knightley). He is cold and selfish, treating Georgiana merely as breeding stock and essentially making her a prisoner in her own home. The Duke is not overtly evil, he is just a product of his times, but he entraps Georgiana in a painful marriage under the guise of promised love and then emotionally abandons her.

The Duchess is based on the true story of the Duchess of Devonshire. She married The Duke at age 17 and became an eccentric and influential figure in English politics, fashion, gambling and social events. Georgiana led a scandalous life around the 1770s. Her husband humiliated her by keeping a mistress in her home who he much preferred. She was something of an "un-shackled slave", used to produce a male heir and forced to stay in the marriage for threat of being severed from her children and financially and socially ruined.

Dominic Cooper and Keira Knightley in The Duchess


This film is brilliant and Keira Knightly is superb in it. She captures the naivety of youth and the pain of a woman scorned. Her character is disrespected and dishonoured in so many ways yet she is able to summon incredible strength and resignation. This is the story of jealousy, envy, isolation and neglect. Knightly is convincingly maternal and protective, and this really is a film about mothers and the lengths they had to go to in a time when they had no more rights than cattle.

The Duchess is beautifully executed, with the most lavish of costumes and wigs. The supporting cast all have a genuinely sweet dynamic with Georgiana, including Lady Bess Foster (Atwell), Earl Charles Grey (Cooper), and Charles James Fox (McBurney). The biggest tragedy in this story is that due to the lack of wealth distribution the people who cared for Georgiana had to sit back and silently watch while The Duke snuffed out her every happiness and freedom.

Keira Knightley and Haley Atwell (Bess) in The Duchess


Princess Diana and Fergie the Duchess of York are both descendants of Georgiana and many critics are drawing parallels between the lives and mariiages of these women. This "breeding stock" perception of women still exists among royals and aristocrats with their arranged marriages and nobel blood etc, but the big difference is that power and permissions that come with being recognised and supported by the law.

This film is very well done and successfully stirs many emotions of sadness, pity, and frustration, however the feelings that will stay with you long after you leave the cinema are anger at the way women used to be treated, and gratitude for how much things have changed.






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REVIEW: Iron Man

October 22nd 2008 12:30
Directed: Jon Favreau (Elf, Zathura, Made)

Written: Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby (Children of Men), Art Marcum, Matt Holloway


Starring: Robert Downey Jr (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Gothika, Wonder Boys), Gwyneth Paltrow (Running With Scissors, Sliding Doors, Emma), Terrence Howard, (Crash, The Brave One), Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski, The Vanishing), Faran Tahir (The Jungle Book, Charlie Wilsons War)

What a fantastic super-hero action film!
I loved it - great concept, great script, great cast - whats not to love!

Tony Stark (Downey Jr) is the wiz kid who grew up and took over his fathers weapons manufacturing business. The thing is he never really grew up, he got older but he is basically just living the high life, wining and dining women, but shirking all responsibilty when it come to the consequences of the products he distributes. When Stark is capturer by a terrorist (Tahir) in the middle east his eyes are opened to the destruction his company is facilitating and he decides his talents would be better employed helping people.

Stark is such a fantastic character, hes part Batman, and part MacGyver, but the most appealing part is Robert Downey Jr himself. He has injected a huge slice of his own personality into this role is a cheeky and charming genius!

Gwyneth Paltrow does a nice job as Stark's personal assistant Pepper. Her character is prim and proper but also intelligent and capable. Paltrow and Downey Jr have a pleasing chemistry and look like they are having alot of fun with each other. Stark also has a great relationship with his computers, one of them a mainframe (voiced by Paul Bettany), and the other a robotic-arm helper who aids him in his workshop and commicates through amazingly human-esque gestures and "expressions" for such a rudimentary machine. Stark is lord of the gadgets and Pepper is sensible and grounding.

Iron Man is set modern day in the real world, and the scenes in the middle east are at times quite grim in their realism. There are important and relevant themes about the ethics of being and arms dealer and developing technology designed to kill. Stark is a real sort of guy, he is flawed and troubled and he makes mistakes. This is one of the most enjoyable super-hero genre films to come out of the recent flood of mediocrity - dont miss it!

Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Downey Jr, and Jeff Bridges in Iron Man (2008)


Faran Tahir as the terrorist in Iron Man (2008)





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REVIEW: Transformers

October 17th 2008 12:45
Directed: Michael Bay (The Island, Bad Boys, The Rock, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon)

Written: Roberto Orci & Alex Kutzman (The Island), John Rogers (Catwoman, The Core)

Starring: Shia LaBeouf (Eagle Eye, Disturbia, Bobby), Megan Fox (How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen), Jon Voight (National Treasure, Holes), John Turturro (Secret Window, O Brother, Where Art Thou), Bernie Mac (Charlies Angels: Full Throttle, Guess Who)

I used to watch the Transformers animated TV series as a kid in the 80s, it was never fantastic but it had a really unique style - a heightened sense of drama like Astro Boy or The Mysterious Cities of Gold or Belle & Sebatian - lots of close-ups of shocked or pained expressions, bulging eyes etc. The robots were the stars and the show was about their lives and adventures.

I thought this live action adaption of Transformers might pay homage to the style of the original series a bit and bring back some old memories, but alas no. This film is just boring, its not even slightly stylised, the transformers show no distinct personalities, theres no humour, and it is overly focussed on humans. For the first half it seems like a vehicle for a series of shots of Megan Fox's midriff (a women who would look better with a bag over her head and looks waaaay too old to be playing a teenager), and the second half didnt even hold my attention it was so dull.

Overall I found this film extremely disappointing and un-interesting! It seemed more like the concept for Nightrider than for the camp classic Transformers. I wouldnt recommend Transformers (2007) at all!

Megan Fox bending over into an engine in Transformers


Heres a clip from the animated TV series:






Megan Fox looking ugly


And heres all the Megan Fox scenes, observe the bad acting, lack or chemistry, frozen piggy face, monotone voice, and more gratuitous skin shots than a soft porn calendar:






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REVIEW: Eagle Eye

October 16th 2008 13:40
Directed: D.J. Caruso (Disturbia, The Salton Sea, Taking Lives)

Written: Hillary Seitz (Insomnia), Dan McDermott, Travis Wright, John Glenn

Starring: Shia LaBeouf (Disturbia, Transformers, Bobby), Michele Monaghan (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, North Country), Rosario Dawson (Sin City, 25th Hour, Death Proof), Micheal Chikls (TVs The Sheild), Ethan Embry (Cant Harly Wait), Billy Bob Thornton

This is a very slick action flick, very fast paced, oodles of suspense, a heart thumping, adrenaline pumpimping thrill ride . . . but dont examine it too hard because it is riddled with plot holes and improbability.

Eagle Eye is basically a technophobes worst nightmare. It is equal parts government conspiracy and the ghost in the machine. It starts as a bit of identity theft reminiscent of Sandra Bullock in The Net, and is propelled along mostly by the mystery of who is behind it all, what they want, and why they want it.

This is not "smart" furturistic sci-fi but it is compelling. I wont spend time picking at the details because frankly it is too easy. Just throw Eagle Eye in the same basket as DejaVu, The Rock, Paycheck, or Total Recall. Watch it to be taken on a ride, a ride where you suspend reality, science, and basic gravity - it will be more fun if you dont think about it at all.

Solid performances all round, Shia BaLeouf is getting more handsome as he gets older, Michelle Monaghan is sassy and sensual, and Rosario Dawson is commanding in her mens button-down shirt and keen investigative skills (think Angelina Jolie in The Bone Collector)

Michael Chiklis and Rosario Dawson in Eagle Eye


Special thanks to Orbles own Jason (Salty Popcorn) for the complimentary tix!






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TOP TEN American Movie Presidents

October 4th 2008 09:28
With the upcoming USA Election dominating conversation, internet blogs, and the TV news I find myself wondering which man will be best for the job.

Personally when I reflect on the qualities that make up the ideal President I tend to think of Martin Sheen from the long running TV political drama The West Wing.

However, the movies have presented some accurate and memorable characterisations of what the President is, has been, should be, and never will be. There have been affectionate portrayals glamorising the role and presenting the President as having superior integrity and ethics. There are the super-hero presidents of action films who are fighting for good over evil, or fighting corruption, or fighting for their owns life or reputation. Perhaps my favourite of all is the flawed President who may be selfish or sleazy or misguided.

Heres TEN of the the most memorable American Movie Presidents . . . they may not be the ones that would be best for the job but they are the ones that stick in my mind!

Billy Bob Thornton
Love Actually (2003)
A British perspective on how the USA President is perceived as a disrespectful bully.




Kevin Kline
Dave (1993)
A look at how an everyday man with simple accounting and common sense could improve the government.




Dennis Quaid
American Dreamz (2006)
A sympathetic take on Bush-esque President who is bullied by his advisors and used as a puppet but is dreadfully unhappy on the inside.




Michael Douglas
The American President (1995)
The story of a single President trying to date - examines the intrusiveness of the media into the personal lives of politicians.






Harrison Ford
Air Force One (1997)
The action hero President who refuses to negotiate with Russian terrorists and then finds his own plane gets hijacked.




Bill Pullman
Idependance Day (1996)
The President who has to deal with a hostile alien invasion - of course the USA would be selected to represent the entire world, we all know hostile aliens would refuse to deal with anyone else and all the other countries would be lost without directions from the USA!




Morgan Freeman
Deep Impact (1998)
The President who has to facilitate mass evacuations due to a comet hurtling towards Earth.




James Cromwell
The Sum Of All Fears (2002)
The President embroiled in serious foreign affairs, missing nuclear weapons, spies, espionage and the CIA.




Tim Robbins
Austin Powers - The Spy Who Shagged Me(1999)
The 60s President who laughs at Dr Evils request of $100 billion dollars ransom, he and his boys-club buddies dissolve into hysterics saying that amount of money doesnt even exist!




John Travolta
Primary Colors (1998)
The Clinton-esque President during his campaign for election.





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