Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to watch a very long movie with a plot as thin as the ice on the Thames in London in January and actual plot holes bigger than Alec Baldwins cheesy grin.
Admittedly the opening scene is great, action packed and it's exciting to watch Tom Cruise hanging from a plane (don't try it at your local airport), shouting "Benji open the door". Benji, played by a sparkly Simon Pegg (Spaced) is trying his best to assist his friend. The film tries hard to keep the plot together but whenever it threatens to thin even more, they change location. A great trick, the movie jumps around locations, from London to Havanna, to Vienna, to Casablanca and back to London, it looks like a travel guide for lost spies. Tom Cruise is good, he routinely plays the agent Ethan Hunt and after 4 Mission Impossible films by now he surly knows the character inside out. But Rebecca Ferguson (The white Queen) is a new character and she is a tremendous actress. Her chemistry and timing is impeccable and she's a great heroine. The cast has quite a few British people as an addition to the usual American team, Tom Hollander as British prime minister is hilarious as usual, Sean Harris who is often cast as the steely, hard bitten outsider does a great job as a pretty evil villain and Simon McBurney as head of the MI 6 is also very good. There are a few good camera shots by cinematographer Robert Elswit, particularly in Vienna, but nothing outstanding. The scenes in Vienna are pretty impressive, I'm sure that it wasn't easy to co-ordinate the fight scene with the opera performance in the state opera house. And why does everybody want to kill the Austrian chancellor?
Let's face it, Mission Impossible - Rogue Nation is an entertaining action blockbuster with some astoundingly good acting. Director Christopher McQuarrie who wrote "The Usual Suspects" managed very well to direct a very interesting group of actors.
And in terms of plot, well unfortunately not every movie can have a brilliant plot like the Matrix.

Good Kill

Drop everything and go watch that movie now! Andrew Niccol a director from New Zealand knows his stuff. It's astounding how casual death comes. By pushing one button you can kill a lot of civilians. The Americans have been doing this for quite a few years. Bloody hell. That film really opens your eyes (if they have been closed for a while) I saw it at the Venice film festival last year and it was one of the overlooked contenders. It was nominated for a golden lion and in my opinion should have won but maybe it was just a bit too critical. Ethan Hawke plays a fighter pilot who is now based in Las Vegas and sends drones to Afghanistan but from a cubicle in Las Vegas rather than bombing from above. What an easy thing to do except the characters in the movie are humans and they start to doubt their actions once they've blown up a few civilians. The enemy (the Taliban in Afghanistan) has a face now, because the cameras are so good that you can see the face of the person before you blow them up. Welcome to the future. The acting is very good, Zoe Kravitz joins Ethan Hawke in the cubicle and there are some seriously tense and very well acted moments. Andrew Nicoll creates a seemingly normalish world in a crazy world. There is a parallel world in suburbia when Hawke goes back to wife and child and that part of the movie is  pretty similar to Mad Men. Maybe that's because his wife is January Jones and her performance is similar to Mad Men's bored housewife Betty Draper. They have a seemingly normal life, barbecues with friends over but the former pilot is starting to doubt the mission and the cracks start to show. I would categorize this movie as very much an anti war film. And it's not entertaining. It's not meant to be entertaining! The casualty of war is shocking, the fight pointless. What they are doing surely creates more terrorists. It's a vicious circle. The enemy evil, presumably Taliban men and helpless women. Quite a convenient generalization. Nicoll seems to be conflicted and couldn't resist the temptation to give his characters a chance to be "heros"and "heroines" after all. To decide who to save and who not.
But there's now a new documentary on Al Jazeera which will talk about the other side, the victims who have to live with the drones. Apparently the drones are always there and you never know if they will shoot you. I will be watching it because it is always vital to see both sides. And that one is reality and not just a movie.

Rango

The chameleon has been drinking, this film is awesome. It's really arty from the witty script to the mad and very detailed animation. There are countless references to numerous Westerns and of course Hunter S. Thompson. Johnny Depp's performance varies from deranged everyman or everychameleon to delusions of grandure, funny, super crazy chameleon. He's great and this part suits him soo much better than the ridiculous Tourist. He carries this film effortlessly and it sums up his career: Arizona Dream, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Pirates of the Caribbean are all mixed in one crazy movie and the result works very well indeed.
Rango, a former pet, ends up in the desert and encounters a few very strange animals in a town called dirt. The animals have run out of water and are desperate to find some. Rango becomes the sheriff of the town and decides to help them.
Isla Fisher does a nice mad Southern accent as Beans who is trying to save her ranch and there are cameos from Bill Nighy, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina and many others. The story is action packed and sometimes it's a bit much, but when it slows down it works beautifully and the animation is breathtaking and full of fascinating ideas. The mexican owl band for example is hilarious and they act as narrator. The dialogue is very funny and has all the characteristics of a good and entertaining Verbinsky script. You'll find yourself quoting quirky lines pretty quickly. If you like any kind of animation or Westerns, or any former Johnny Depp films you'll love this one. It's the good stuff and will have you in stitches.

The King's Speech

Movies about the British monarchy are a tricky subject. They are usually quick to convince the audience that monarchs are also human beings, no matter what. Of course nobody ever makes a movie about the fact that they spend heaps of tax money on random goods, parties and useless fox hunting equipment. So yes the Kings speech is one of these movies.But it still managed to move me on a very profound level.

Firth plays King George VI, who, to overcome his stutter, is introduced to Lionel Logue, an unorthodox speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush. The two men become friends as they work together, and after his brother abdicates, the new king relies on Logue to help him make a radio broadcast at the beginning of World War II.

The acting is truly superb, splendid performances from Firth, Rush and Bonham-Carter and Guy Pearce. They all worked hard and yet they deliver their lines with such ease, Geoffrey Rush is something else all together : he's more a magician than an actor, his performance is funny, witty and sometimes very innocent. Rush has the rare ability to change his face from funny to tragic without doing much in a matter of a minute. He managed to add a touch of Shakespearian magic to Pirates of the Caribbean. Without him the story would have lacked a serious undercurrent of deep emotions. The chemistry between Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush is breathtaking. Rush's character is so upfront and unafraid, he's the teacher so take it or leave it, he makes his own rules and stands firmly by them.

Firth is equally amazing, but after his performance in Single Man I wasn't very surprised that he managed to improve his acting even more so. You can truly see and feel how he struggles, mentally and physically to speak without stammering. Bonham-Carter as the Queen Mum is the ever patient, kind and loving wife, who has a lot of character and knows how to deal with the rather unusual teacher of her husband. So with all these amazing performances you can be forgiven for really liking the film.

Firth's King has a temper which is excused by psychological problems, he can understandably get quite frustrated. But these movies about the monarchy can do a lot if damage to historical accuracy, people can quickly forget that monarchies are of a certain dictatorial evilness. The series "The Tudors" is another tricky subject, the evil king is far too hot. Are the British trying to idealize their monarchy with subtle hints that we are all human beings? Even if we can believe such a worrying conspiracy the King's Speech is still amazing and has deserved all it's four oscars. The cinematography by Danny Cohen too is fantastic and contributes greatly to the claustrophobic intimidating feeling of the new technology towards the King. The scene where the microphone reflects cruely his struggling to address the nation is both tense and electrifying at the same time. So all together an amazing film which perhaps kind of refuses to underline and accept the fact that King Edward VIII was a Nazi sympathizer and King George was not.

No Strings Attached

This is an interesting romantic movie choice. Sassy-check. Sexy-check. Acting: good acting from Kutcher and Portman which surprised me a bit. I wasn't too worried about him, but wasn't too sure about her, but she was good and sold the story and the character well. The story is fun and modern:

Emma (Portman) and Adam (Kutcher) are friends who have sex one morning and worry about their friendship being ruined. They make a pact to have "no strings attached", to have casual sex without falling in love with each other. The best part was that it wasn't cheesy which was very refreshing, because romantic movies can easily swim in the sea of cheese and that is unbearable. But this film didn't make you squirm in your seat and the dialogues were funny, clever and witty.

There was also some nice acting from Kevin Kline, Greta Gerwig, Ludacris, Mindy Kaling and particularly Lake Bell who was funny in the awkward part of Lucy, Adam's colleague who is interested in him, but isn't quite sure how to deal with him. So all in all very enjoyable. And sure Adam has a huge house and everybody's loaded in California, but at least Emma's flat isn't too big and she shares it with a few other doctors. So there's something normal about that. Besides it's just nice and cosy to watch a film shot in a sunnier climate when it's freezing outside. This totally makes you leave the cinema with a dreamy smile on your lips.

Inside America

This is a masterpiece. We really need more films like that. What kind of impression do we have of America? Hollywood is very busy delivering one sugar coated blockbuster after another. Well move over cheesy film factory, because this is a breathtaking, raw, edgy film with great characters who you want to follow much longer than it's 2 hours. Barbara Eder and Constanze Schumann have created a really moving film which understands its characters and sympathizes with them without being preachy in any shape or form. Unlike many other filmmakers who decided to enrich the world with their ideas of a place and attitudes to it (e.g. Slumdog Millionaire) Eder has spent some time as a teenager in Brownsville and can really communicate the emptiness of the architecture and the nowhere feeling of this place.

The acting ( Raul Juarez, Aimee Lizette Saldivar, Patty Barrera, Carlos Benavides, Zuleyma Jaime and Luis de los Santos) is some of the best I have seen in a while and the camera is just right. Not too arty and contrived (yes too arty is actually possible) and no sugar coating whatsoever. Instead I had the feeling that I had actually been there and got to know the people. Even Linklaters "Dazed and Confused" which is a cult movie is glossy compared to Christian Haakes camera. Bright colours make you taste the heat of Texas on the tip of your tongue and the natural light of the summer heat is edgy and fascinating. The story intwines the lives of different teenagers, they are all from the same school and they have different ways of coping with boredom and their daily lives. These nowhere places, there are also many in New Zealand and Australia, these endless suburban spaces where you are stranded if you don't have a car are somewhat arty and disturbing at the same time. Anything can happen, I find them alien like and unpredictable.

In the beginning you could assume that the movie is slightly tempted to play with your typical cliches, which we know soo well from the O.C or Gossip Girl. The cheer-leader, the nerd, the rebel, the woman who seems to want a family. But Eder doesn't waste any time on that, every character is deeply fascinating in itself, the problems of each individual are carefully observed and you can't help but like all of them and sympathize with their lostness and sheer boredom. The ending is left open and that's a good choice, because what could be a happy ending? Moving away perhaps, getting out, starting afresh, but is there any difference from any other place? And does the lost feeling ever subside? One thing is for sure: this film lingers in your head long after the lights have been switched on, because of its sheer perfection, achieved by the small team of five people. So drop everything and go and see it now.

Tron

The clue is in the poster. This is gonna be a weird film. To be honest I never liked the original much. It had only been created for hardcore nerds. This one (apparently a sequel) boasts stunning special effects, but the story has plot holes the size of Italy and the obvious story of Dude creates weird computer world, dude disappears, what could possibly have happened? son decides to find dad, quickly becomes boring.

The orchestra is crazy, there is this constant mad soundscape, which sounds like R. Wagner has come back from the dead, it is always present, even when the character is making a ham sandwich. Brooomm crazy amounts of sound, which are desperately trying to distract the audience from the poor and obvious dialogues are there from the beginning, trying to create tension and drama.

The acting is sort of random. The characters don't seem to have decided who they are. Jeff Bridges character veers between zen and crazy creator and isn't very convincing or moving. Garrett Hedlund as his son is equally strange, he's trying hard and at the beginning of the movie his acting is alright, but as soon as he descends into the computer world his acting abilities quickly dwindle. Olivia Wilde is interesting, but her part is split between savy fast driving, futuristic looking and submissive student to Bridges and that is at times cheesy and irritating. The wonderful Michael Sheen is trying his best and shows a range of possible acting methods to tackle the pointless script, but fails. His character might look like David Bowie in his best years, but doesn't come across as intimidating or scary.

It is very well designed, from the Tron like futuristic Disney logo at the beginning (the house of the mouse has finally arrived in the 21st century) to the perfect square computer city and the slick, dark streets. But Matrix it ain't. It's trying hard though, borrowing even small details from Star Wars and the Matrix, but you can quickly tell that it won't be as fantastic as either of them ( Star Wars had a strong story, a mad script but fab actors and Matrix excelled in every way possible) Tron won't even come close to any of them. Game over.