The Pursuit of Happyness

Year: 2006
Running time: 117 minutes
Certificate: 12
Language: English
Screenplay: Steve Conrad
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Starring: Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Thandie Newton

Smith's Chris Gardner, giving a more inspiring version of Gordon Gekko's
'Greed is Good' speech.

Call me cynical if you must, but the first thing I thought walking out of the cinema after watching The Pursuit of Happyness is: Is it Oscar season already? That time when the big stars and directors release their ‘serious’ films. Jaded as I am, I can still see that The Pursuit of Happyness ('happiness' is spelt wrong on purpose in reference to an early scene) has some good points. It’s a story about surviving any way you can and protecting your dreams and other Hollywood clichés. It is done with smooth professionalism and Will Smith puts in a very fine performance (he is by far the best thing in this film) as Chris Gardner, a man struggling to make something of himself (although if he didn’t win for Ali, how can he possibly win for this?).

His marriage falls apart and his wife Linda (Thandie Newton) leaves him to look after their son Christopher (played by Jaden Smith, Will Smith's real-life offspring, giving their on-screen relationship real heart). Having made a bad investment, Chris now needs to find a way to support him and his son following the loss of everything he has. He takes on a six-month unpaid internship with little chance of a job at the end to become a stockbroker, during which he needs to sell the bone density scanners he bought (the previously noted bad investment) to stay afloat until his first pay cheque.

Rock bottom, shortly before turning it all around.

The biggest problem I have with this, is that you can substitute the word ‘Happyness’ in the title for the word ‘Money’ and the film will remain identical in every way. It's the American Dream come true, where if you're determined enough, and lucky enough you can become very rich (never mind those who aren't as lucky - they obviously didn't want it as much and as such deserve the hardship they must endure until death is the unspoken cold, clinical and unsympathetic message regarding the many, many people unable to pull a miracle out of a hat like Chris Gardner managed; that this is a true American rags-to-riches story where cut-throat capitalism is not only accepted as the only way to live, but revered as some kind of wonderful way of life makes me feel more than a little queasy). But, to be fair, when things are so bad you and your son have to sleep in a train station toilet, money probably is the same thing as happiness.

It’s alright, but certainly doesn't speak to my particular sensibilities.

Score: 5/10

It seems I'm not the only person to place this film in the middle of the pack, as shown by these reviews by Chris at Empire and Lexi at Cinema Blend.

War of the Worlds

Year: 2005
Running time: 116 minutes
Certificate: 12
Language: English
Screenplay: Josh Friedman, David Koepp
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, Miranda Otto, Tim Robbins

No escape.

The cheesy 1953 adaptation of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds was one of my very favourite movies growing up. I reckon I must have watched it 100 times or more. It's been said, not entirely without justification, that I have a bit of a hard-on for Steven Spielberg. But now here he is updating one of my most treasured childhood memories. This, then, would be a real test. Would he ruin everything? Turns out he wouldn't, and my accusers can continue to accuse.

Although Spielberg is well known for films involving aliens, until he made this remake his visitors from the stars were benevolent and friendly. All that changed with War of the Worlds. These aliens are certainly not here to return missing navel officers or to retrieve a lonely family member left behind. These guys want our planet, and they want it bad. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Spielberg movie if it didn’t have an average family unit at its heart. Here, Tom Cruise is blue-collar regular Joe Ray Farrier, who is having his kids to stay over the weekend. He's not dad of the year, but then who is when you get right down to it? He's separated from the mother of his children Mary Ann (Miranda Otto), and while his son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) is resentful, his younger daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) still has a soft spot for him. So far, so standard broken family unit.

Ray runs for his life as the chaos begins.

During the weekend a very odd storm hits. Right from the off, this is disconcerting stuff; the striking sound effects accompanying each lightning strike feel like a punch to the heart. The tension is there from the beginning and only cranks up as the story progresses. Soon after the lightning strikes, gigantic three-legged machines erupt from the ground and start laying waste to all around them. There is a real sense of there being no escape from the marauding tripods, and Spielberg frames the action in a way that makes you feel the terror right alongside the characters. There is spectacle, and much of it, but the film is never afraid to leave huge events off screen if Ray and his kids aren't witnessing them directly - take for example the moments that leave them cowering in a basement while all hell breaks loose outside. The next morning, when all is quiet, they leave the basement only to find the neighbourhood destroyed and the wreckage of a plane spread all over. It makes the reveal of the destruction all the more effective and the way we never leave the central characters' sides serves to amp up the tension that bit further. Spielberg may be an old hand at this type of cinematic thrill ride, but he really can pull this stuff off like no-one else.

The most affecting scenes, however, tend to come when there are no aliens at all. Take for example, the scene shortly after the opening attack, which Ray narrowly survived. He notices in the mirror that he is covered in dust, and then slowly penetrating his shock is the realisation of what the dust is, or used to be, causing a suddenly desperate need to get it off him. There is also the horrific scene when Rachel witnesses the debris of corpses floating down the river. As Rachel, Dakota Fanning spends much of the film screaming, shouting or running, but during these quieter-but-nastier moments she is terrific.

Horrifying, terrifying, yet so beautifully filmed.

Far worse than these scenes, however, is the moment when our family becomes the victim of fear driving ordinary people to become a dangerous mob. Fighting for the only working car, they almost tear Ray’s daughter from him in their desperate bid to escape. My heart felt like it was literally in my throat. As well as the director doing the thing he does best, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and particularly the cast are on good form, being creditably believable as their world falls apart around them.

If there is a weak link, it is the writing. The machines have supposedly lain dormant underground for many years until the unnatural storm deposits an alien pilot in each of them at a time predetermined by the invaders. There are some problems inherited from H. G. Wells' original classic novel; the three-leg structure, while undoubtedly iconic, is highly impractical, and the fact that this obsessively planned invasion by entities capable of interstellar travel is thwarted because they forgot to consider some rudimentary biology issues. And there is the whole red weed thing (although this gets a pass due to the supreme creepiness of the idea). It seems odd then, that the writers saw fit to introduce even more impracticalities, the primary one being that for some reason the aliens planted a load of machines underground, none of which were discovered, and then go away to wait for ages before unleashing them. Spielberg's expert execution does much to paper over these cracks, but it wouldn't have hurt to have made the writing a little smarter.

Ray and Rachel's short-lived refuge in Ogilvy's basement.

After Ray must let his son leave to take up arms with the military to try to fight back against the seemingly unstoppable machines, he and Rachel find shelter in the basement of paranoid survivor Harlan Ogilvy (Tim Robbins). Ogilvy has long been driven out of his wits, and is entirely oblivious to the danger he's putting the three of them in when he starts to panic loudly. Murky survival morals set in when Ray gently covers his daughter’s ears and shuts the door to demonstrate exactly what lengths he will go to in order to protect her. The whole subplot within the basement felt tense almost beyond my ability to stand it, and although it deviates from the main story, it serves to ratchet up the claustrophobic terror to almost unbearable levels.

When the end comes, it feels like the first breath you’ve taken since the storm hit at the start, and although Robbie's survival does seem a little too tidy, there's an almost desperate need for this family to be given a chance to fix itself, so I found Spielberg's traditional over-sentimentality very welcome.

Phenomenal, but terrifying.

Score: 8/10

Spielberg's adaptation is generally fairly poorly thought of, but this review by Jake makes a compelling case, finding the film resonates with America's War on Terror in the wake of 9/11. The late Mr Ebert, however, couldn't get past the tripod issue.

The Devil's Backbone

Year: 2001
Running time: 106 minutes
Certificate: 15
Language: Spanish
Screenplay: Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Trashorras, David Muñoz
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Starring: Fernando Tielve, Marisa Paredes, Federico Luppi, Eduardo Noriega, Irene Visedo, Íñigo Garcés, Junio Valverde

The orphanage's unexploded bomb, dominating the landscape.

Guillermo del Toro has said that The Devil’s Backbone is a companion piece to Pan's Labyrinth. Both films are set around the same time in history (the Spanish civil war) and set supernatural events alongside some of the ugliest reality human history has to offer. There are a number of thematic similarities, but the most marked difference is where Pan’s Labyrinth is a fairy tale, The Devil’s Backbone is a ghost story.

During the closing stages of the Spanish civil war, a young boy named Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives at an orphanage seemingly in the middle of nowhere, run by two supporters of the left-wing Republicans Dr. Casares (Frederico Luppi) and Carmen (Marisa Paredes). They are assisted by a young teacher Conchita (Irene Visedo) and groundskeeper Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega). In the middle of the grounds sits the striking image of the mother of all Chekhov's Guns (albeit one that never actually goes off), an unexploded bomb, which fell to earth on the night one of the young boys, Santi (Junio Valverde) died.

Santi's ghost tries to communicate with  Carlos.

Whispered talk about the ghost of Santi haunting the orphanage spreads among the kids, and before long Carlos suffers through some terrifying encounters. In spite of his fear, Carlos works to uncover the mystery around Santi's death and the realisation that we have a lot more to fear from the living than we do the dead is powerfully brought home thanks to del Toro's skillful direction.

The juxtaposition of the ghostly terror and the real life danger is very effectively handled, giving us a tense supernatural thriller, that hides a core of melancholy, showing the characters doomed to repeat their actions without end, as much ghosts themselves as Santi, defined at the beginning and end of the film as "a tragedy doomed to repeat itself time and time again". Considering what must have been a modest budget, the ghost effects are very nicely handled, and del Toro's command of his colour palette, showing the days as sun-baked yellow and brown give way to otherworldly green and gold at night is absolutely masterful.

Well worth a look.

Score: 8/10

The Devil's Backbone is widely considered among del Toro's best films, as shown in these reviews by Dorothy and Orrin.

Juno

Year: 2007
Running time: 96 minutes
Certificate: 15
Language: English
Screenplay: Diablo Cody
Director: Jason Reitman
Starring: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons, Olivia Thirlby

Ellen Page is very impressive as the quick-witted Juno.

When Juno was first released it became the little indie film that could, with positive word of mouth helping it to break into the mainstream consciousness. It’s not hard to see why, with wittily sharp dialogue and impressive performances all round, particularly Ellen Page, who gives the title character a depth that is slowly revealed as the film goes on.

After having sex once with her best friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), 16 year-old Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) finds herself pregnant. Imbued with a sarcastic wit and fierce intelligence, thanks to a remarkable debut script from Diablo Cody, Juno refuses to become just another teenage pregnancy statistic, and instead researches and carefully considers her options, and after an aborted visit to an abortion clinic, she decides to have the baby and give it up for adoption. She finds and contacts a couple herself and comes to an agreement with them. By the time she tells her father Mac (J.K. Simmons) and stepmother Bren (Allison Janney), she's already got it all planned out.

Of course, nothing is ever that simple. The would-be adoptive parents Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) run into marital problems stemming from the fact that Mark hasn't ever really given up on his adolescent dreams of being a rock star and doesn't particularly want a child.

For all its sarcasm and wit, Juno's true power lies in its characters, who you
will come to love.

It feels genuinely original in its portrayal of a pregnant teen, showing her as intelligent and fully able to sort her problems out for herself, and the lack of stereotyping in this regard is extremely refreshing. The most surprising thing in this film for me however is Jennifer Garner, who, it has to be said, I’m not exactly a fan of. Here I finally saw that she is a fine actress in the right role, playing a woman quietly desperate for a child of her own with a touching and understated skill I’ve never seen in her before.

When Juno makes the decision to go ahead with the adoption even though Vanessa will be a single mom it's a happy ending as cleverly unexpected as the rest of the film. After watching this, you find yourself wishing that the subjects of abortion, adoption and teenage pregnancy could be approached with the same intelligence and empathy by everyone.

Consistently circumventing expectations, Juno tackles a well-worn subject in a new and refreshing way.

Score: 7/10

The excellent performances and even better writing are rightly celebrated in other reviews, such as this one by A.O. Scott at the New York Times and this one by Roger Ebert.

101 Dalmatians

Year: 1961

Running time: 79 minutes

Certificate: U

Language: English

Screenplay: Bill Peet

Directors: Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton S. Luske, Wolfgang Reitherman

Starring (voices): Rod Taylor, Cate Bauer, Betty Lou Gerson, Ben Wright, Lisa Davis, J. Pat O'Malley, Martha Wentworth, Dave Frankham, Fred Worlock

Pongo, Perdita and the pups indulge in the age-old American
past-time of watching TV.

101 Dalmatians, like most classic Disney, is an wonderful example of remarkable artistry being used to entertain children in a way that, for a long time, possibly not until Studio Ghibli, and then Pixar, no other movie studio could hope to match. Having said that, following the commercial failure of the ambitious Sleeping Beauty, a cheaper animation technique was developed for 101 Dalmatians, and while it certainly looks rougher around the edges than some of its fellow classics (Walt Disney hated the look), it still retains a certain charm and in fact stands out somewhat because of it.

Bored dalmatian Pongo (Rod Taylor) decides that his bachelor owner Roger (Ben Wright) needs some companionship, so he engineers a meet-cute with Anita (Lisa Davis) and her dalmatian Perdita (Cate Bauer). Before long the four of them are living happily together and Pongo and Perdita have a litter of 15 puppies. Enter one of the most memorable and dastardly Disney villains Cruella De Vil (Betty Lou Gerson), who wants the pups for herself so she can turn them into a new coat. Bumbling henchmen Horace (Fred Worlock) and Jasper (J. Pat O'Malley) are tasked with keeping watch over the abducted pups while De Vil gathers enough for her new coat.

"Dah-ling!" The undisputed star of the movie makes her entrance.

There are some really lovely touches in the writing, such as the film starting with Pongo on voice-over duties referring to Roger as his pet, and the animal-emergency-broadcast system. Making use of this ingenious communication system, Pongo and Perdita, with the help of heroic cat Sgt. Tibs (Dave Frankham) manage to recover not only their own 15 puppies, but a total of 99, with Pongo and Perdy themselves making up the 101 of the title. The escape is followed by a mad race to safety with Horace, Jasper and the bananas De Vil in pursuit. This animated incarnation of De Vil is gloriously bonkers and is among the very best Disney villains - Glenn Close never had a chance in the inferior 1996 live action remake (is it a good thing or a bad thing that so many of the best Disney villains are female? – see also Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid).

Not among Disney's very best, but that is no easy task, and in Cruella De Vil it has a villain that makes it much more memorable that it might otherwise have been.

Score: 7/10

Classic Disney never really loses its charm, as evidenced by this review by Pete. While this review from Eric at Slant Magazine shows a fair bit of contempt for much of Disney's back catalog, Cruella De Vil makes the film for him as she does for me.

Gremlins

Year: 1984 (Gremlins), 1990 (Gremlins 2)
Running time: 106 minutes
Certificate: 15 (Gremlins), 12 (Gremlins 2)
Language: English
Screenplay: Chris Columbus (Gremlins), Charles S. Haas (Gremlins 2)
Director: Joe Dante
Starring: Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, Hoyt Axton, Frances Lee McCain, Corey Feldman, Dick Miller, Jackie Joseph, Keye Luke, Polly Holliday, Judge Reinhold, Glynn Turman, John Glover, Robert Prosky, Robert Picardo, Christopher Lee, Haviland Morris, Kathleen Freeman, Gedde Watanabe, Tony Randall (voice)

Billy and Gizmo try to save Kingston Falls.

Some films are so much better suited to a certain time period. If either Gremlins or its sequel were released now, I doubt they would work as well. The films were shot back in the time of practical effects and the puppet work on display is extraordinary. They would almost certainly be replaced by CGI today, and as a result I have no doubt they would lose much of the humour that makes them so great. That said, it's probably only a matter of time before they do remake them. They are, in fact, doing that very thing to Thunderbirds right now over in New Zealand, although Peter Jackson's and Weta Digital's involvement is encouraging, because if anyone can make CGI look less soulless, it's those folks.

Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) is looking for a Christmas present for his son Billy (Zach Galligan). In a dark back alley he finds a shop run by the very elderly Mr Wing (Keye Luke) and his grandson (John Louie) where he acquires a mogwai, a fantastical creature he decides will be perfect for Billy. Peltzer is given three rules about caring for the mogwai - keep him out of the light, especially sunlight, which is fatal, don't get him wet, and don't feed him after midnight. Billy loves his present, promptly names it Gizmo and it doesn't take long for Billy's friend Pete Fountaine (Corey Feldman) to break the second rule, by accidentally knocking a glass of water over Gizmo. It turns out breaking the second rule leads to reproduction. Gizmo's offspring are jolly unpleasant little things, and set out to cause havoc from the off.

Gremlins: digging Disney.

The film steps up a gear when Billy is tricked into feeding them after midnight and they go into slimy cocoons that look a little like the eggs from Alien. It's here we discover that mogwais are like caterpillars and go through a metamorphosis, only instead of butterflies, you get scaly, murderous little fuckers the paranoid neighbour Murray Futterman (Dick Miller) names gremlins.

For a while after this point, Gremlins is a cracking little horror story in which the newly-hatched gremlins, led by Stripe get revenge on a blood sample-taking science teacher Mr Hanson (Glynn Turman) and terrify Billy's poor mother Lynn (Frances Lee McCain). But when Stripe finds his way into the local swimming pool, it changes to something else entirely, as a knee-high army of gremlins start to take over the town: suddenly it’s a series of comedy skits that come across as a live action Warner Bros. cartoon and any story simply disappears. There are many brief moments of blackly comic brilliance in every scene, from Mr Futterman and his wife Sheila (Jackie Joseph) having a snow plow driven through their house, through mean old woman Mrs Deagle (Polly Holliday) flying out of an upstairs window to her death after her stair lift is tampered with to a set of genius skits all taking place in the local bar.

Billy, Kate and newly Rambo-ised Gizmo brace themselves for more anarchy.

The moment during all the chaos when everything stops and Kate Beringer (Phoebe Cates - my biggest teenage movie crush? It's either Phoebe Cates or Meg Ryan in Innerspace) tells the tragic story of the death of her father, it has got to be one of the most blackly comic moments in film history, a moment which is perfectly spoofed in the sequel where the suggestion that Kate had a traumatic experience as a child involving a guy dressed as Abe Lincoln sparking uneasy laughter. It saunters its way up to the boundary of good taste, and, frankly, just keeps going, but in director Joe Dante's hands, the movie gets away with it.

There's something satisfyingly right about the gremlins meeting their end while laughing their asses off at Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in a cinema. Being such a huge part of my childhood, Gremlins is kind of synonymous with the movies for me, and I guess that's why it fits so perfectly for me. Stripe, having escaped the movie theatre meltdown, is on the verge of triggering the next generation at a mall water fountain when the first rule is broken and the sunlight melts him in a spectacularly gross death scene.

Preparing to take New York with a song.

The sequel retreads pretty much the same ground, just transporting the story to a New York skyscraper, and adding genetic engineering into the mix to brilliantly creative effect: “They come in electric too?” Billy and Kate now live together in New York and they both work in the headquarters of developer / media mogul Daniel Clamp (John Glover). Following the death of Mr Wing, Gizmo finds himself trapped in the lab of Dr Catheter (Christopher Lee). Events conspire to get Billy and Gizmo together and to get Gizmo wet and well, the movie tag line 'Here they grow again' says it all really. Dante once again cracks the black comedy into overdrive and it's once more a case of sitting back and enjoying the crazy as it flies past in quickfire skits. The fact that it is pretty much the same film in a different setting does Gremlins 2 no harm whatsoever, because the viewer is too busy laughing themselves into a stroke to notice.

Great, great stuff, but you may have to be part of a certain age group to appreciate it fully.

Score:
Gremlins: 8/10
Gremlins 2: The New Batch: 8/10

It's very hard not to love the anarchic spirit Dante injects into these films - see this review of Gremlins by Nathan and Scott and this one of its sequel by David.

The Usual Suspects

Year: 1995
Running time: 106 minutes
Certificate: 18
Language: English
Screenplay: Christopher McQuarrie
Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Kevin Pollack, Kevin Spacey, Chazz Palminteri, Pete Postlethwaite

The Usual Suspects is one of those films that has a plot so layered, so intricate, delivered so beautifully that it's just a joy to lose yourself in its twists and turns. It's no surprise that multiple viewings are rewarded, as new little things that you missed last time round are revealed.

McManus doesn't take kindly to Kobayashi's threats.

Roger "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey) is one of two survivors of an explosion on a boat that left 27 corpses behind. The other is dying of his injuries in a hospital bed. In return for immunity, the small-time con-man agrees to recount events leading up to the explosion to cop David Kujan (Chazz Palminteri). The plot then unfolds in flashback interspersed with scenes in Kujan's cramped office and Kint's narration.

Five cons are put together in a line up: Hockney (Kevin Pollack), McManus (Stephen Baldwin) & Fenster (Benicio del Toro), corrupt cop Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) and Kint. It turns out none of them appear to have been involved in the crime for which they were brought in, so they decide to indulge in a little criminal activity together to stick it to the cops, as Kint says at one point, "A little 'fuck you' from the five of us". Before long they meet attorney Kobayashi (the late and very great Pete Postlethwaite), acting for legendary crime lord Keyser Soze, whose reputation is so frightening even hardened cons like Keaton and co get a serious case of the willies. It turns out one of them did something to annoy Soze sometime in the past and now they all have to make it up to him lest Bad Things Happen.

Events get pretty convoluted and if you miss a few moments of dialogue, you’ll probably have to go back and listen again, or you may well be lost for the rest of the film. That sounds like a bad thing, but it really isn't. The thickly layered plot unfolds beautifully, and there's nothing wrong with having to pay attention while watching a film every once in a while. And pay attention you must. Even Gabriel Byrne was sure that he was Keyser Soze through the entirety of filming, and he ain’t stupid.

Master story teller, Verbal Kint.

Every line of every scene is masterfully delivered under Bryan Singers’ direction, but it’s particularly Kevin Spacey who steals the show as Kint, guiding us through the twisting plot. Spacey, to be fair, pretty much steals every show he’s in.

There are many films that have twist endings, but few can compare with the jaw-on-floor factor at the climax of this complicated story. It didn’t make big waves when it was released, but has since become an all time favourite through word of mouth, like both Fight Club and The Shawshank Redemption.

Keep up with the story and you will be rewarded. Then watch it again knowing how it ends and see every elaborate detail from a new perspective. Marvellous, although the swearing is sometimes a bit much.

Score: 8/10

Ian at Empire is a big fan, as is Peter at Rolling Stone.