The Notebook

The Notebook
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

If you need to score points with your girlfriend by going to a tear-jerking romantic movie and enjoying it, here's how:
Buy two tickets to Nick Cassavetes' film The Notebook, then visit your local bottle shop, and pick up a pocket sized bottle of your favourite booze.
The game that you'll be playing is simple; every time you recognise one of the planet sized cliches being thrown at you, take a swig.
Here's a few you can't miss:
There's a rich girl and a poor boy. They're meant to be together, but outside forces threaten to tear them apart. He (Ryan Gossling) doesn't fit in her (Rachel McAdams) high-class world, and her over-bearing mother (Joan Allen) won't see her daughter fall in love with a boy from the other side of the tracks.
As their one perfect summer draws to a close the couple fight, and the girl is dragged back to her upper-class world. He writes her every day for a year apologising, but alas the mother again intervenes, as does WW2, and a tremendously bad battle scene where his best-buddy dies in his arms.
You can make your own list, but chances are you'll get through that bottle pretty quickly, so do your best to stay alert. You'll have plenty of comforting to do when the lights come up as the second half really steps up a gear and you could be drowned in a sea of sentimentality and grand gestures of love. Your behavior here could determine the course of the rest of the evening.
Yes, the scenes with James Garner and Gena Rowlands lift this exercise to an acceptable level, and Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gossling have a great chemistry and aren't bad to look at, but you will need the booze. It's not terrible by any means, but there's nothing great about it either.
The Notebook rates 2 and a 1/2 stars.

Steamboy

Steamboy
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

A large part of the West's fascination with Asian cinema has been its distinct storytelling and visual style. Steamboy disappointingly has neither.
As the title suggests, Steamboy is a film about steam and a boy. Set in the 19th century, the awesome power that is about to be unleashed through steam and the use of brilliant yet disturbed scientific minds, is an allegory for the nuclear arms race.
The story involves a young boy, Ray, who has been entrusted by his grandfather with a steam-powered invention that he can't let fall into the wrong hands. Everyone is after him, and he can trust anyone, perhaps even his own father.
It was a curious decision of the distributors to screen an animated feature, where the action takes place in England with a cast of Caucasian characters, amidst the industrial revolution, with a Japanese language sound track and English subtitles.
As we have come to expect from Japanese animation houses, Steamboy is visually spectacular and intricate detail, but at over two hours in duration it falls noticeably short on substance.
While Steamboy is obviously a Japanese production which was made for a Japanese audience, it is quite annoying to see English characters completely devoid of any Englishness, which equates to fertile comedic ground that is completely ignored.
There are a few tense moments early on in the piece, but things become more and more ridiculous as Otomo, (Japanime classic Akira) tries to continually up the pace by throwing bigger and louder explosions, as the if he'd spent the last few years at the Michael Bay 'more is more' school of action cinema.
It is curious to see a film which has been made with such painstaking care and attention to detail whilst resting its laurels on a wafer thin plot.
The characters are supposedly driven by their intense relationships, none of which are given time to establish and are therefore unbelievable.
Good and evil ambiguity, and loyalty are themes littered throughout Asian cinema, yet in Steamboy they are, for lack of a better word; cartoonish.
The one redeeming feature of Steamboy is the interesting subplot that less than subtly criticizes the American military industrial machine.
Steamboy is a visual feast, and rates 2 stars.

Before Sunset

before sunset
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

Before Sunset is that rarest of commodities, a sequel made for reasons other than a cash-in on previous success.
Nine years after the release Before Sunrise, director Richard Linklater (Tape, Waking Life) has thrust together Jesse (Ethan Hawk) and Celine (Julie Delpy) to again walk around a picturesque European city, this time Paris, discussing where their lives have gone, and ponder where they might go from here.
Written by Delpy, Hawk and Linklater this is a philosophical musing about life, the paths we choose and the paths that choose us.
Hawk is a novelist who has written a book about their previous encounter and is at the end of a European press junket when Delpy appears in the bookshop window.
We watch as they re-build their trust through small revelations, Jesse apologetic and eager to please, while Celine is more coy, having read a newspaper article about Jesse's life with his wife and daughter.
There is a real sense of chemistry to this couple, who after an initial awkwardness, fall into the comfortable patter and playful flirtations of their previous Vienna stroll.
Despite having both moved on with their lives (Celine has a boyfriend), they have each been trapped by what they remember as that one perfect night they shared nine years ago.
With simple camera work and a simple story, Before Sunset is a simple joy. It's a joy to see a film that is concerned with people, and with decisions that aren't life and death, but are none-the-less life altering.
Before Sunset is joyous and wonderful and will leave you wanting more of this wonderful couple, and a romantic stroll through the streets of Paris.

Before Sunset rates 4 stars

The Village

the-village-poster
Originally uploaded by Struthers.

You know there's going to be a twist and that's why most people shucked out their twelve bucks for M. Night Shyalaman's fourth film The Village. And if you see this film and are disappointed then I think you're just asking for a little too much.
With more than a little nod toward Danny Boyle's "The Beach", The Village is about the holding together of an idyllic but fragile agrarian community as the sinister world outside threatens to encroach.
Shyamalan (director, writer, cameo) has pulled together a wonderful cast who absolutely eat up the difficult nineteenth century dialogue without it ever becoming distractingly obvious. And it is good dialogue, that traverses everything from ideological speeches, to grand statements, uncomfortable confessions of love, and intimate moments.
The real surprise in this film is the discovery of talent within the Howard household. Bryce Dallas Howard (Ivy), daughter of pedestrian director Ron, (Ed TV, Backdraft) delivers a stunning performance as a blind girl who of course has a wisdom beyond her years and physical abilities. She provides to be a personal challenge for the taciturn Lucius (Joaquin Pheonix), a village elder in waiting and love interest, they are where the real movie is happening.
Sigourney Weaver and John Hurt also stand out as elder members of the pilgrim community trying to best handle a crisis which threatens to destroy their community. It is the fear that comes from what is close and not understood (the war on terror), rather than the 'impending destruction' films of the past decade.
Shyalaman has proven himself to be a technically excellent filmmaker, more than adept at adapting his own material, and unlike the more plodding Unbreakable, the tension and anxiety are maintained as well as the pace, and there are of course the plot turns that we've come to expect.
Into the woods.

Three and a half stars.