Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)

Toilet Review: One of the first comic book movies I’ve seen that matches the tone and feel of the graphic novel perfectly.

When I first read “Scott Pilgrim vs The World” a long time ago, I wasn’t overally impressed. It’s not that it was bad series of books or whatever, but I just didn’t gel with it as much as I would have liked. It didn’t draw me in the way I wanted it to. I wanted to be excited about it and love it as much as I thought I would. The characters, whilst I could see some of my friends in them, just didn’t seem real to me. It was like I was looking at them through opaque glass.

Then I watched this movie, and everything I liked about the series was present, and then some. It was almost like the whole thing just clicked together for me. Michael Cera does a fantastic job of walking the line between lovable nerd and total loser with such ease that is hard to see any actor and just to see Scott. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is equally as perfect as the aloof and mysterious Ramona Flowers.

The movie focuses on our hero, Scott, as he falls in love with Ramona. Surely, it is a simple tale of boy meets girl, something we have all seen a thousand times? Nope! Turns out Ramona’s ex’s all belong to league of Super Evil Exs and plan to do battle with Scott now that he is dating Ramona. Can Scott defeat them to finally get the girl of his dreams?

The overall visual is spot on, and it captures the look and tone of the graphic novel in a way that I don’t think any other movie has, before or since. The sound effects, the video game graphics, the collectables, the coins, the music, it’s awesome in every sense of the word.

Let’s not forget the soundtrack! The music of Sex – Bob – Bomb plays to this movie in such a way that it is almost organic. The two are intertwined and each makes the other better. I loved it, and honestly would go see them if they were to ever play.

Also, it was nice to see places that I familiar with now in Toronto in the city. I always get a little thrill whenever I see somewhere familiar in movies or tv, and seen as how this movie is set in the beautiful city of Toronto, I loved it all that more.

Insidious (2010)

Toilet Review: *exhales deeply*

For some reason, “Insidious” and “The Conjuring” are linked in my mind. Sure it’s the same director and sure one of the main actors are the same, but I keep thinking that they came out in the same year and I honestly could not be more wrong! Maybe it’s because it’s the same tone, and pretty much the same movie but told in a different way. I’m not sure.

Anyway, “Insidious” is another movie that was recommended to me to watch for my horror binge as of late. I was promised terror and horror and scares by the buttload. Alas. That was not to be.

The story focuses on a young child called Dalton, who inexplicably falls into a coma like state that has his parents worried sick. There is something odd happening in the house that his mother cannot seem to place her finger on, but she keeps seeing odd things and eventually gets so freaked out, she has her mother in law call a psychic.

Turns out the kid is trapped in a dream like state and that entities are preventing him from returning. Only his father, who had the same memories as a child but had them repressed, is the only one who can save him! What a shocker!

If you’ve seen one horror movie, ever, it’s going to be better than this. There isn’t anything scary, there isn’t anything thought provoking and there certainly isn’t anything worth a rewatch it in it. Save yourself the trouble and go watch paint dry instead.

Made in Dagenham (2010)

Toilet Review: Who thought a story about workers in a auto factory would be so interesting?

This is one of those movies that I was putting off for ages. I’m not even sure why I was putting it off, but I remembering seeing it sitting on my desktop for weeks, and each time I was going to watch a movie, I would glance at it. feel guilty for not watching it, and then watch something else. But obviously, I did get around to watching it, and am I glad I did!

The story is set in the Ford factory in Dagenham, UK, in 1968. We meet Rita O Grady, a normal working mother of two, who works at the factory stitching interiors by hand. She and her female co-workers work in less then ideal conditions, but when they get wind that their work status is about to be downgraded from “skilled” to “non-skilled” (meaning they would get paid less), they decide to do something about. So, the women strike, and the story follows a rather reluctant Rita in her position as leader of the strike.

What I really like about this story is that it is a dramatisation of an actual event that happened in 1968 in Dagenham. At the end of the movie, we see snippets of interviews of women that were actually involved in the protests/strike. They talk about how hard it was and what the end goal was for. They talk about how the strike effected their family life and how they were often criticised for leaving their “men to do women’s work”.

This movie is an important movie. It shows how society viewed women at this moment in time, especially when it is supposed to be the decade of “free love” and “equality”. Doesn’t exactly translate that through this movie! Little gem of a movie, and it is the awesome Bob Hoskins in it. Definitely worth a watch.

The Expendables (2010)

Toilet Review: Another by the books action movie, with more than one action movie star.

That description there? The one you just read? That’s the movie. There is nothing more to it than that. I tried to find more meaning, a deeper way of looking at it, but nope. It’s exactly what I described. Throw in some 1970’s old school action violence, some 1980’s action stars and some 1990’s plot lines and you get “The Expendables”.

Sylvester Stallone directs and stars in this movie as head of a mercenary group that is hired by the mysterious Mr. Church to investigate a military dictatorship on the fictional island of Vilena. Of course, the mission is not straight forward and soon the boys find themselves in a whole heap of trouble.

In saying that, this movie is infinitely better than anything I have seen from Michael Bay, the current King of Action movies. The main characters were a little bit fleshed out and we got to see relationships, such as Lee’s relationship with his girlfriend and how this is effected by the work he does. Sure it’s a brief snippet, but hey, it’s more than we have seen from any of the Michael Bay movies.

This is the sort of movie that will be the day after Christmas, when everyone is too stuffed to change the channel. It’l be the 9.00 pm movie and will be played year after year after year until people are sick of it. As my husband says, you gotta think with your lower brain, not your higher one, to really enjoy this movie.

Howl (2010)

Toilet Review: A movie about poetry? Yes please.

I have a soft spot for poetry. I always have, It’s one of my favourite ways to write. It’s something I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember, and I adore finding new poetic mediums to dive into. My latest love is slam poetry, I seem to spend hours at a time soaking up as much as I can on Youtube. I highly recommend it. Beat poetry is another medium. It stems from a group of poets and writers in the early 1950s. “Howl” is probably one of the most famous poems of this type, and I would argue possibly the one poem that encapsulates the Beat movement more than any other. It is an epic poem, and one that caused a lot of controversy in it’s day, due to it’s language and imagery.

That’s where this movie kicks in. We meet James Franco, playing the poet Allen Ginsberg, as he sits and talks to us about how the “Beat Generation” came into being. He is almost dismissive of the whole thing, merely informing us that it was “just a bunch of guys trying to get published.” At the same time, this footage is interspersed with footage of the censorship trail that Ginsberg and his publishers faced after “Howl” was published, and features numerous experts giving us their opinions on what makes a piece of art, and whether “Howl” meets these criteria. Finally, we see Franco reading out excerpts from “Howl” as beautiful animations echo his words.

The whole movie feels like three different interlinked stories, and whilst this does have the effect of trying to show us more than a single story could, sometimes it is very disconcerting. I found Franco’s portrayal of Ginsberg spot on, he even has the same inflections and intonations in his voice, especially in the segments where Ginsberg is talking to the camera.

Would I recommend this? It’s hard to say. I enjoyed it because I enjoy poetry. Even still, I probably wouldn’t watch it again. It raises interesting questions in terms of how we define what is considered literature and what isn’t. What we deign as to be good and what is bad. That in itself is a pretty interesting conundrum.

Another Year (2010)

Toilet Review: A normal family? With no crazy or mental things happening? I don’t believe it.

“Another Year” is one of those rare gems of movies that only happen so often. There’s nothing big or stunning, or shocking or murderous about it. It’s a simple story of a married couple who are getting on in years, and their family and friends, who all have varying degrees of unhappiness or troubling times.

Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen are wonderful as as Tom and Gerri. They compliment each other so well, I could completely believe that they had been married for decades. My favourite character is the hapless Mary though. There is something so desperately normal about her troubles. Her husband left her just as she thought they were finally getting a handle on life, and now she has to face doing everything for the first time as a middle aged woman, including learning to drive, going on holiday and learning how to be on her own. She tries so hard and yet fails so horribly. She casts a pathetic figure, and her plight is the one that is left unanswered by the film. Her little sad smile at the end, as she sits to dinner with her friends and they talk about experiences that she has never had, nor probably never will, is just heartbreaking.

This movie is sedate and slow paced, and the story benefits hugely from it. Don’t watch it if you are in the mood to escape, it’s so like life that it is almost depressing. Almost.

The Man from Nowhere (2010)

Toilet Review: All of this, just.. yes.
This is the first Korean movie I’ve seen in absolute age. I had not heard a thing about it, so I was watching this movie knowing little to nothing about it, and honestly, if I could do that with every film I watch, I think I would be very happy little camper. It really plays like Russian roulette; will the film be awesome or the biggest pile of crap ever known to man?

Thankfully, “The Man from Nowhere” lands on the awesome side of that scale, and when I say “awesome”, I truly do mean in every sense of the word. Yes, the film is hella cool, and whilst the plot is not the most original in the history of film, it certainly is more than sufficient. The fight scenes are truly awe inspiring. They are vicious and lightening fast. They are visceral and efficient, and I truly believed in Tae-sik’s super solider background because of it.

Won Bin, the actor who portrays our hero Tae-sik, did a masterful job in bringing life to what could be considered a stock character. Even though we do not everything that Tae-sik can do, we see enough of his skill set to know that he should never have been disturbed from his pawn shop. We meet his neighbour, a little girl called So-mi, who seems to be the only person that Tae-sik speaks to on a regular basis.  When it becomes apparent that So-mi has been kidnapped by drug dealers, Tae-sik goes to find her.

The last scene of this movie broke my heart. I was hoping the entire way through that everything would be ok, and that everyone would live happily ever after, and whilst we get a conclusion, the best that is honestly on offer at that stage, it’s still awfully bittersweet.

This movie kept me enraptured the entire time I was watching it. The two stories on offer, Tae-sik’s quest to find So-mi, and the police department doing their best to stop him, are so entwined and meshed together that it is seamless. An amazing movie, and I loved every second of it.

Trollhunter (2010)

Toilet Review: I could totally be Trollhunter, if I didn’t value my life as much as I do.

Trollhunter is not generally the kind of movie that I like to watch. I had no idea what to expect beyond the title. I didn’t even know it was Norwegian. I’m not sure I agree with the various genres it seems to be categorised into, such as horror and dark fantasy though.

I found the whole premise of the movie to be rather flimsy. I just couldn’t understand why these 3 college aged kids cared about an illegal poacher and the ongoing bear hunts. In fact, I still don’t, but it was the vehicle that drove the plot. I also couldn’t understand why Hans, the poacher, suddenly became so accepting of his little Scooby Doo investigative gang, beyond the fact that he stopped giving a shit.

The plot itself seems to pick up and die off several times during the movie, and it is only at the very end that it is discovered the reason behind the plot. There was once or twice that I felt a tension building, including a really good scene in an abandoned mine-shaft, wherein asking God for help is a really, really bad idea…

The trolls themselves are painted as towering, lumbering creatures with IQs of little more than the rocks they eat. As Hans so eloquently put it “they eat, shit and mate”, and live to be a 1000 years old. Hans appears to be the only troll hunter in the whole of Norway, and is incredibly jaded by his job. It is for this reason perhaps that he allows the crew to follow him around.

To be honest, I probably wouldn’t watch it again, its predictable and quite long for what it is. It could easily have ended after the second encounter, and not lost anything. It is a very beautiful movie however, the scenery is breathtaking, and the urge to take up arms to kill trolls just to be surrounded by such beauty is never too far away during this film.