think about it...

on the anniversary of his brother's death, jack o'brien (sean penn) begins to think about his childhood; specifically the time he spent with his overbearing father (brad pitt), down-trodden mother (jessica chastain) and his two brothers in a suburban neighbourhood in texas.

'the tree of life' is the fifth feature film that terrence malick has directed in the last forty years. prolific, he is not. still, it cannot be denied that malick does, indeed, have an artistic vision and, thanks to the money and sway of brad pitt, he has brought his vision to the big screen. eventually.

the film is quite beautiful to watch. emmanuel lubezki's cinematography, predominantly hand-held, and the quality of light, which makes its way into each scene through the almost ever-present shroud of trees, combine to achieve a really beautiful aesthetic. the production design inject into this sequences that douglas trumbull contributed, showing the origins of life and you certainly have something which is quite beautiful to watch, except for the extremely poor cgi dinosaur scene...

the performances are, on the whole, pretty strong. penn is fine for the five minutes he appears on screen and pitt puts in the kind of assured performance that he always seems to pull out of the bag when he's required to. still, the real stars of the film are jessica chastain, who is quite wonderful to watch, and hunter mccraken, who plays the young jack and is the film's central character. the boy done good.

now, much has been made of malick's choices when it comes to narrative structure and editing: projecting the adult jack's memories as a meandering stream of consciousness, interspersed with the origin of life departures and you certainly have something which is quite interesting in a cinematic sense. the stylisation is all well and good, although the final result makes the film feel as it it were a two hour and twenty minute advert for a bank or investment house. some might say it is masturbation over meditation, and i'd probably say that it certainly ends up being closer to the former, rather than the latter, as i'm sure malick intended. and, ultimately, i found the whole affair vacuous.

for me, the biggest problem with the film is trite, hackneyed americana conceit of the over-bearing father ("don't call me dad"), the pushover mother and the kid growing up confused, oedipal and unable to express emotion. regardless of the analogous nature of the film, the result is, for me, greatly flawed. so much so that it drew chuckles from me at numerous points of the film, which i found unintentionally amusing in their cack-handedness. "think about it"; being one such moment.

i also found the detached sound bites of prayer quite irksome and i wasn't a huge fan of alexandre desplat's score. i usually do quite like his work too.

in summary, i'd say that malick creates the packaging, at times stunning and interesting packaging, but still it is packaging that contains little more than a few very basic, very base ideas, which are given over with only the most surface level of exploration and perfunctory meditation.

not good.

the film is currently on general release.

who broke your balls?

soo-hyeon (lee byung-hun) works for the national intelligence service, but he's taking two weeks off work. two weeks to pursue the killer of his fiance, whose butchered remains were found dumped in a river. his fiance's father (jeon gook-hwan) is the chief of police and is able to supply him with the police records of the four main suspects in the case. soo-hyeon sets out to find out who is guilty, with kyung-chul (choi min-sik) quickly being outed as the murderer. and so soo-hyeon's revenge begins...

kim jee-woon is, perhaps, my favourite korean director, who has been responsible for some absolutely cracking films over the past decade and a bit. he is a director who seems to effortlessly slide from film to film and genre to genre, creating something rather special as he goes. unquestionably, all of kim's films are technically and aesthetically exemplary, whilst being filled with great performances from solid casts. 'i saw the devil' is, like his other work, a technical and aesthetic triumph.

one of the characteristics of kim's films, in my opinion, is the feeling of just how well crafted they are. lighting design, sets, props, costume and locations almost always look amazing when captured with a fine cinematographic sensibility. this is another film which is very, very beautiful to look at. the two leads are also, expectedly, strong. lee byung-hun is fantastically glacial but, perhaps, at his best when he shows the little cracks that are there. choi min-sik, on the other hand, is one big crack: thankfully, however, he is talented enough to communicate the character's real lunacy with a calmness that makes him all the more unsettling. the film is also populated with a fun and interesting selection of small roles, almost all of whom seem to make an impression, no matter how fleeting their appearances may be.

and, kim, as director and adapter of the screenplay, has to take credit for a lot of the good in the film. however, i guess that must mean that he has to take credit for the bad too...

at its most basic level, 'i saw the devil' is a meditation on revenge, its futility and how he who hunts the monster becomes monstrous. to be honest, i'm struggling to see anything beyond this most basic level. i also think that another korean director made a trilogy of films which covered the same ground with equal aesthetic brilliance, but with a lot more depth. actually, i think 'depth' is the wrong word; how about composure and... err... shit, i'm totally struggling here.

let me put it like this: there's a scene at the beginning of the film where, following on from the discovery of a carrier bag filled with body parts, the police descend on a stretch of river underneath a bridge. they're there, in the hours of darkness, with the press buzzing around in a ghoulish frenzy: it is like a circus. then, the victim's father turns up, her fiance too, they hear the police shouting about how they've found the head, it gets boxed, a state of delirium is reached, there's panic, people run, people fall, the head rolls out of the box and the music is loud and brash, it's telling you exactly what you should be experiencing at this moment in time. it is an extremely crass piece of cinema.

unfortunately, the film is littered with these moments. part of me wants to believe that kim is playing with his audience; milking the melodrama and throwing logic, logistics and likelihood out of the window. i don't think this is the case, though. what kim wants is to give you the awful experience of what these feelings of revenge, acts of extreme violence and the emotional turmoil associated with his subject matter. and, i'd be lying if i said that he didn't accomplish this with some frequency; there's some incredibly crafted scenes in the film and also moments which are purely awful and you are left in no doubt about how you should be responding. however, the narrative tools which kim uses to take you along this arc, like the hunt for the head, are executed in a way which jars you, they're at odds with their surrounds - they seem crass and, dare i say, stupid.

i'm not saying that 'i saw the devil' is rubbish, but there's a lot of rubbish in there. some scenes are done so badly, i really lent serious thought to whether or not he was attempting to parody brainless examples of such genre films. maybe i'm just saying that i thought it was poor and i expected something much better. i watched the 'theatrical' version on sunday and i managed an hour of the 'international' version this evening, before i got so bored with it that i had to stop. actually, i think i am saying that it is shit: perhaps kim has lost it and, the fact that his performers and stylisation are so amazing, that no one seems to have realised?

balls...

the dvd is £8.41 from play.com, unless you want the more expensive korean version, which is $34.99 from k2dvd.com

these things is out to get me, get me?

south london. after being mugged on her way home, sam (jodie whittaker) unexpectedly finds herself teaming up with the kids who robbed her, when aliens attack.

easiest intro ever.

this is a very enjoyable film indeed. i'd pretty much heard it was going to be made, then forgotten all about it, until i heard that it was getting some negative press and mixed reviews. personally, i thought it was a very enjoyable film...

the cast are all good: ms whittaker puts in a fine turn, as does john boyega, who plays the ring-leader of the kids. the rest of the yoofs also do a good job, as does the increasingly expanding nick frost and posh chops luke treadaway. as for the aliens, i like them too; nice big lolloping black furry things with big glowy teeth - what's not to like? as for the scrīpt, it is pretty damn funny and there's some very amusing dialogue indeed, it moves along at a cracking pace and entertains all the way. i did lots of laughing and thoroughly enjoyed it. well done, joe cornish.

good stuff.

the dvd is available for pre-order for £11.99 from play.com

come fly with me...

i'd forgotten that i watched this, but i did. it's the last film from writer / director shinobu yaguchi; the man who brought us 'waterboys' and 'swing girls'. as you may guess, there's a large ensemble cast who play a wide range of fun characters, triumphing in the face of adversity. so, he has a formula, but it works so very well...

here we have the coming together of a group at an airport and on board a long haul flight; things start to go a little awry and all the stops must be pulled out to make sure the flight is both happy and safe. like other works from yaguchi, the cast is brilliantly compiled, whilst the scrīpt is funny and feel-good.

good stuff...

the dvd is hk$37 from buyoyo.com

unless anyone prefers 'green bee'?

britt reid (seth rogan) is a hard partying, layabout waster and the son of james reid (tom wilkinson), a respected newspaper magnate. the two do not get on. when james dies, as a result of an allergic reaction to a bee sting, britt is left in charge of the newspaper; this is a duty he happily hands over to mike axford (edward james olmos), who has been his father's right hand man for years. this leaves britt free to track down kato (jay chou), a former employee of his father, who used to make a great coffee.

britt discovers that kato is capable of a lot more than making coffee and it isn't long before the pair of them are hatching schemes, running around town and having fun. then, when the pair kick some ass (well, it's mainly kato, but hey...) and stop a serious assault taking place, britt decides that they should team up and fight crime!

well, i like jay chou, so i was quite interested to see this. i don't mind seth rogan, although the only films i think i know him from are the two 'kung fu panda' movies. and, what i didn't realise until i was watching the opening credits, was that this was directed by michel gondry, who i like a lot. as for it being 'the green hornet', i wasn't arsed: never had any exposure to the character, barring the reference in 'dragon : the bruce lee story'.

any how, i thought jay chou did well in this; he did kinda have all the best lines, was a pretty cool cat and had the crazy martial arts skills, which did help. rogan does well as a big brash ball of brashness and, i guess, cameron diaz did okay in her role, which was little more than an excuse to have a pretty face in the film. and, thank heavens that nicholas cage was ditched in favour of christoph waltz, to play the film's baddie: chudnofsky. he is good.

over all, i found this to be a fun watch. it is a silly film, but one that embraces this and just enjoys going about its business. there's some entertaining action, fun things and clutch of chuckles along the way. it isn't going to change your life, but it will keep you entertained for two hours of it.

a bit of fun.

the dvd is £9.99 from hmv.com