5: Movies Round Up No.1

I've had 2 weeks free (kinda) due to holidays so I watched some films. Here are the ones that I have anything to say about. 

Not necessarily the best ones.

Cthulhu 

(Dir. Dan Gildark) 

An homage to H.P Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, Cthulhu tells the tale of a man returning to his home town in sleepy New England, only to find that it has become subverted by the Dagon Cult, a group of religious nuts whose aim is to revive the ancient god Cthulhu in an attempt to bring about the end of civilisation. Having read approximately a third of Lovecraft's oeuvre of fictional work, I was apprehensive about this film.

Having watched it, I have rather mixed feelings. On the one hand, the cinematography is for the most part pretty good, especially considering the budget and the film is saturated with references to many of Lovecraft's short stories, evidence of the director's obvious passion for the source material. Then in the other hand, the acting and dialogue can be awkward and b-movie-esque at times. The plot, in trying to be surreal and disconcerting, comes across as scatty and poorly thought through.

While the film's attempt to handle the subject of religious intolerance against homosexuality is certainly admirable, it is to the detriment of the overall feel of the film. It comes across as preachy and overbearing, while at the same time shallow. The best horror essentially means nothing. It is driven by man's fear of the unknown, something that Lovecraft was a master of. While there are moments in this film which display an understanding of this, they are fleeting and the overall picture is very much a contrived gay-rights after school special, saying nothing new. Again I'd like to emphasise that I'm not a bigot. I don't dislike the message; it's that it's a blatantly obvious message that I didn't need to be told by a film that purports to be about ancient tentacle-gods. That's just condescending.

4/10

My Kid Could Paint That 

(Dir. Amir Bar-Lev)

When Abstract Expressionism became a prominent art movement in post-war America, headed by controversial figures such as Rothko and Pollock, people criticised it in a way that can be summed up with the title of this film; "C'mon. My kid could paint that". This film addresses that issue ...and the issue of cynicism in modern art ...and the ethics involved in media hype. In fact, this film is the antithesis of Cthulhu. Unlike Cthulhu, which simply has one crummy message which it chooses to stretch out for 100 minutes, this documentary has about 10 valid ones that it has to cram into 70 minutes, which in the end leaves you with plenty to think about, if a little bemused. 

Essentially, this film is the story of a 4 year old girl named Marla Olmstead (whose abstract paintings have been sold for up to $30,000) and her rise and fall from fame while she remains perfectly oblivious to it all. Reactions to her work vary from claims of child genius to claims of fraudulence, and even more so the claims that Abstract Expressionism is so shallow that it could be done by a child. After accusations that her father has been helping her - if not painting everything for her - on news show 60 Minutes, the film takes an odd turn. Suddenly you become aware of the position the film maker is in himself, with interviewees asking him questions about how he plans to portray the family on film. Will he become just another news outlet, shaming the family and trying to drag whatever entertainment they can out of them?

Bar-Lev pulls it off in the most honest way possible; by making himself a character. I won't give away too much more suffice to say that in the end everything seems to resolve itself, yet you're left unsure still what to make of the girls parents.

Decide for yourself; http://www.marlaolmstead.com/home.html

7/10

I'm out of interesting (well, I at least think so) opinions on films so here's a list of films which I've recently seen with an 'out of 10' rating beside them;

Survive Style 5+ 

Dir. Gen Sekiguchi

Colorful, funny and with a short attention span, you can tell that both the director and producer used to specialise in commercials. It's like Pulp Fiction and Gozu  had a love child (Gozu is by the way, one of my favourite filmsand you should check it out if you don't mind the lack of a coherent plot).

Made me gain some respect for Vinnie Jones.

8/10

Man On Wire

Dir. James Marsh

I have come to a conclusion as to why this film has 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.com (basically all the reviews have given it at least 60%). It's not because it's the best film of all time. It's because it's the least objectionable. With that said, I have no problems with the film. Pretty clear cut, nice, insprational film with nothing too controversial in it.

7/10

Religulous

Dir. Larry Charles

This documentary is basically one man's quest to show the world how much better off everything would be without god and the dangers of blind faith.

Ultimately, Bill Maher comes across as slightly bigoted, but he's funny enough that he get's away with it. Barely.

6/10