Editorial - The Movies of the Decade

As 2009 rolls to a close and with it the 00’s as a whole, the time has come to reflect on the best and worst this decade has produced.

As for the best, well there was always one clear winner, 2007’s Hot Fuzz, directed by Edgar Wright and written by him and star Simon Pegg, the Fuzz brilliantly combined action and comedy as well as embracing the whole “movie geek” culture in a way no other film has, prior to seeing this film I hadn’t had that one cinema experience that blew me away, after seeing this film, I had an answer.

But that doesn’t mean there were others that tried, as there most certainly were, and here are the other runner ups:

2. Avatar: James Cameron’s absence has left a gaping hole in action filmmaking, with Avatar he makes a heroic return that at this moment is on track to become the biggest film since his runaway hit Titanic, despite a somewhat choppy beginning, Avatar showed Cameron’s skill with combining heart and hardware in a way only very few can.

3. The Dark Knight: director Christopher Nolan’s 2008 follow up to his earlier film from 2005 Batman Begins was faultless in combining a tense story and high end action that rivals Cameron’s efforts as well as those of director George Miller and John McTiernan, as well as a riveting performance by Heath Ledger as the crazed out Joker, the film was a non stop thrill ride that was both exciting and terrifying.

4. Pan’s Labyrinth: Easily among the top 5 films of the decade, Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro constructed a modern day fairy tale set against the backdrop of fascist Spain in the 1940’s, some of the creatures here are among the most imaginative ever created and despite the film being in Spanish, it never lost my interest.

With the best out of the way, we now head to the worst of the entire decade, and the worst was easily this year’s Dragonball Evolution, taking a series I was fond of and flushing it down the toilet, but apart from that the film made little to no sense at all, looked very cheesy and wasted the talents of both Emmy Rossum and Chow Yun Fat, truly a complete piece of shit if there ever was one.

But some weren’t that bad, and here are those runner ups:

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen: This failed to make my worst of 2009 listing but became the second worst film of this entire decade because of one thing: the film was a complete mess as it had no shooting script before production started, there was far too many characters, subplots and lame jokes all of which were in a movie that went for 2 and a half hours, now I didn’t think it was that bad as Peter Cullen and Frank Welker were good in their limited scenes and I also liked the battle in the forest and Starscream’s final monologue, but this film to me was a sign of what Hollywood has become in the last 10 years, the special effects comedy club.

Eagle Eye: A truly preposterous rip off of the Terminator, in which an all powerful computer tries to kill the US President (I know it’s a spoiler but in this case I’ll save you your $4 to rent it) and using Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan as the means to do so through it’s control of the power lines, the mobile phone network, the construction yards, construction cranes, the subway system, the traffic lights etc oh and apparently you can fit two grown people inside a crate and put it on a cargo plane without anyone noticing, ridiculous screenwriting.

Get Smart: Not only was this not very funny but it was one of the most depressing experiences I’ve ever had in a movie theatre, the action was dull, the actors annoying and wasted, the jokes not very funny and hardly any storyline to tie it all together, as I watched this film I thought “I would like MAD and Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget to come and hijack this movie” as that might have held my interest more than what I saw.

Gladiator: All the way from 2000 was director Ridley Scott and actor Russel Crowe’s first film together and also a very dull one as the battle scenes were poorly edited, the visual look of the film not very interesting and looking like being shot on large soundstages, a weak villain in Joaquin Phoenix and an overall disappointment when compared to Scott’s masterpiece Blade Runner, which had an extraordinary visual style and a truly dynamic villain in Roy Batty.

Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines: Following the first two Terminator films, which are among my all time favourite movies, this 2003 offering was the most anticipated movie for me that year and it ended up being a bitter disappointment as all it really did was serve as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s farewell to filmmaking before becoming the Governator later that year, Claire Danes was given nothing to work with and the film just didn’t have any heart to it as Cameron’s Terminator movies did.

Die Hard 4.0: Being a big fan of the original Die Hard, I was quick to see this in a cinema, and it just didn’t hold up, first off the plot was nothing more than an excuse for non stop action scenes and gobbledy gook computer dialogue, none of which made any sense or were exciting to watch, but both of those were nothing compared to the absence of the series trademark line and the Ode to Joy, both of which are staples of the series and their absence was nothing short of criminal.

Star Wars Revenge of the Sith: Concluding the prequel trilogy in 2005, this final offering for the Star Wars saga promised to deliver what the fans wanted ever since seeing Return of the Jedi in 1983, the rise of Lord Vader, the fall of the Jedi Knights and the birth of the Galactic Empire, well sort of as the film really only delved into that in the last 45 minutes and again suffered from the key problem it’s predecessor’s had, that we don’t care about anyone or anything that happens as we already know that from Alec Guinness in the original films but one moment near the end when the Vader mask is put on for the first time and the iconic breathing sound is heard for the first time left me with chills but despite that, nothing at all.

So there you have it folks, the best and worst of the last 10 years, I apologize for it being a very short list but for me the film had to be that good or that bad to qualify and I also didn’t see very many films from this decade to do 10 for each, hopefully the new decade upon us will give us a better outlook as 2010 already looks promising with Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3, Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and others but will these deliver, only time will tell.

Film Review - Avatar (2009)

Avatar is the latest film from writer/director James Cameron since his monstrous 1997 hit Titanic and concerns an ex-marine named Jake Sully played by Sam Worthington who is wanting an expensive operation to fix his legs but to get that he have to undertake a special mission on the jungle world of Pandora, full of wonder and danger.

Cameron’s absence has left a gaping hole in action cinema but with this he makes a heroic return, losing none of his magic touch from the days when he made such action powerhouses like Aliens and his two Terminator films, as well as those two films he also brings over the love story of Titanic and the mystery of the Abyss, the on screen action here is simply outstanding, expertly edited and showing us every move each side makes, as well as every act both heroic and otherwise, current action directors would do well to study this film to learn how to properly edit action scenes.

But like all of the other great Cameron films, there is a real beating heart in the form of the native Na’vi, who are one with the land and can see into a person’s heart, on top of that everyone of the major actors brings us their A game and the pacing is near perfect, despite a somewhat choppy beginning.

I can’t recommend this movie enough, to both Sci-Fi and Action film fans but also people who like good movies in general, finally 2009 delivers a film on peak form just as it looked it would wither and die, so this gets a full 5 out of 5, well done Jim and welcome back, you’ve been sorely sorely missed.

Editorial - A War on the Web

In my last editorial for 2009, it’s unfortunately not going to be a good one.

As recently as today, federal communications minister Stephen Conroy has released the results of his mandatory ISP filtering trial on his website, which were somewhat rigged by excluding high traffic sites as well as allowing people to go into the trial if they wished, it seems only a small few decided to do so as the results show near total success.

But I wouldn’t believe those results as any mandatory filtering of the internet in Australia, which would come with enormous problems as every connection would be placed under this filter and would strangle speeds enormously and in some places where broadband is only available as a mobile option, it would kill the internet almost completely.

But unfortunately, this is only one part of a growing problem, as all over the world there is a War on the Web being raged by Governments and Corporations who cannot see that the world has changed and want to take things back to the way they were before the Internet came into existence (for more info on this, see my editorial on the ACTA negotiations).

The reason for that being that governments could control the flow of information to bring the masses under their power and corporations would get record profits as consumers would be enforced to play by their distribution rules, which would mean Australians, would miss out as the release windows here are among the worst in the world and to buy a DVD or Blu-Ray would cost you upwards of $50.

But some hope remains, the filter has to go before the parliament so I will wait to see what happens there before giving up, but this war has only just begun.