DVD/ BLU-RAY REVIEW: HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (2013)

It immediately ocurred to me to compare this to the Twilight films and to Ender's Game to the detriment of both. In the case of Ender's Game, it's based on a science fiction novel (albeit the middle part of a trilogy) but unlike that movie it doesn't water down its source material. And, really, there is no comparison to Twilight which is a cliche-ridden trite vampire romance. Catching Fire (and I also include its predecessor in this) is vastly superior to both. 

This series is rich in substance, packed with subtext, drenched with genuine emotion, and feels completely believably real. 

As the film opens, Katniss is back home in District 12, the most depressed, downtrodden and oppressed of the 12 districts, though most of the others aren't much better. She's become a symbol of hope to the masses though, as she admits to the President who wants to destroy her, all she wanted to do was survive. Despite that she's forced by events to be that symbol and, at first, even her phony boyfriend, previously a bit of a wimp, displays more moral strength than she does. As they go on nationwide tour to publicise their victory of the previous year and demonstrate how powerful the government is, discontent spreads. So, in order to first destroy her heroic image and then kill her, a new Hunger Games is announced consisting of previous winners which then takes up the second half of the film.

The second part of a trilogy (though the films have been extended to a quartet and may the inventor of the word quadrilogy burn in hell forever) is always the hardest to pull off but this works well building on the first film and intensifying certain aspects of it. It'll be interesting to see how the two films based on the third book do when there are no Hunger Games to focus on.

Jennifer Lawrence is, as I've said before, the best young (under 25) actress around and here she displays as thoughtful a nuanced performance as she does in more mainstream roles. 

Two films in, this is the best blockbuster series around: exciting, intelligent, thoughtful.

DVD BLU-RAY REVIEW: BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR (2013)

Yes, this really is a terrific film but there is one thing about it which makes it, at times, a problematic watch. There is no clear time scale or indication of how much time has passed. Now this may be because of cultural indicators; there may be signifiers which are clear to a French audience but not to non-French viewers, or it may be deliberate. The only one time when the age of one of the protagonists, Adele, is stated is when it's her 18th birthday; everything else is left for the viewer to work out for themselves. It's not helped by the blurb on the DVD box which states that the age of Adele at the beginning of the film is 15 when it seems clear, to me at least and it could be my misreading, that she is in the French equivalent of the UK's sixth form and she has to be 17. I then, naturally, assumed that only a few months passed between the opening of the film and her birthday. But this may not be the case. Shortly after that, she (seemingly) goes straight from school to teaching a reception class with no indication of college in between. She is also now living with Emma. If, for no other reason though there are many others, I'm going to have to give this a second viewing to see if it becomes clearer.

As the film opens Adele is in the full flush of confusing exploratory adolescence. She's in love with literature (which she's studying at school) and ideas and philosophy, and just beginning to explore her own nature, who she is becoming, though her girlfriends seem to be more interested in talking about sex. She finds a slightly older boyfriend at school and has sex with him but things don't seem to work out for reasons she's not sure of. It's around this time she sees a blue haired girl walking around hand in hand with another girl. When one of her girlfriends kisses her, Adele finds herself responding but, later, when she wants to take it further the girl says it was just a spur of the moment thing and didn't mean anything. After school, and after having had a fight with another girl who accuses her of being a lesbian which she denies, she goes to a gay bar with a male friend, wanders off as he's more interested in snogging a guy, and finds herself in a lesbian bar where she meets Emma who briefly looks after her. It isn't long (or is it? I'm not sure) before they meet up again and eventually fall in love.

And that's pretty much the first half of the film. In the second half Adele and Emma are living together. Emma's painting seriously, having completed her degree in Fine Art and Adele is her muse. Adele is teaching full time.

That's all you need to know about the key events and the film's structure, at least without me spoiling it for you. Now I can talk about it.

And we all know why the film is so controversial so let's get to it. There are two very explicit scenes of lesbian lovemaking separated by a short gap. But if anyone is tempted to watch this film specifically for those scenes then they're wasting their money. Everyone knows you can download for free off the Net videos of girls kissing, and both softcore and hardcore lesbian porn. So, are these scenes justified? 

The simple answer to that is that there's no simple answer because it partly depends on how you view the film. If you are calling it a film about a lesbian romance then, I suppose, yes it is. However, that isn't what the film is about. The focus is always Adele, not Emma. It's Adele's story, the story of an intelligent working class girl trying to discover who she is and about how her experiences affect her and how she changes. Even though her long love affair with Emma forms the central core of the film it's a long way from being the whole of it. That said, it is the centrepiece and the love scenes reveal the intensity of their feelings for each other and their intense desire for each other and form a strong contrast with one scene of Adele's sex with her boyfriend. So, yes, the scenes were justified. Whether or not they were justified in being so long is another question and one I'm not going to answer.

However, there is so much more to the film than that. It's a film of many nuances in which important things can be revealed by the hint of a gesture. Sensationalistic (if that's what they are) sex scenes aside, this is a low key film and actress Adele Exarchopoulos is absolutely stunning as Adele (which came first, I wonder, was the character named after the actress or was it just a coincidence?). Her performance is so convincing and naturalistic that she takes your breath away. Also, mostly makeup free throughout, she is very beautiful but again in a naturalistic way. In contrast and as a personal reaction, I didn't find Lea Seydoux (excellent though she is) as Emma anywhere near as appealing; there was just something about her face and her teeth which put me off. But, though the film covers many topics such as class, politics, sex roles, etc, it's never overt, never hammering home any message, though they may be there subtly embedded. Instead it unfolds gradually, easily over its three hour length and it never feels like three hours.

Is this a classic film, deserving of all its awards? Maybe. Brilliant directing, superb acting, riveting to watch, etc. One thing I do know is that it's one which will repay repeated viewings as things I missed the first time, though they were always there in plain sight, reveal themselves and I intend to watch it again soon.

DVD/BLU-RAY REVIEW: ENDER'S GAME (2013)

Well, it's as decent an adaptation as you could expect given an enormous budget which dictated a rating that meant it had to be suitable for kids. Despite that though it was always going to be a simplification of the novel. For all that, it did make an attempt to keep the spirit of it despite being watered down.

The cast is good and Asa Butterfield as Ender is excellent. Harrison Ford is fine as does his grumpy win at all costs commander. The supporting cast, young and old, do what is necessary. And the special effects are terrific.

While I quite liked it and never found it dull there just seems to be something missing. By that I don't mean the reduction of Ender's brother to a cameo role and the complete omission of the political text in the form of Demosthenes which would have been too intellectual for a film that had to appeal to a younger audience. Also omitted are the effects of time dilation. Perhaps it just lacks the intensity of the book and might have been more effective as a TV miniseries where there would have been more room to explore both ideas and characters.

So, though I quite moderately liked it, if anyone wants a cheap copy 'like new', mine will be up on Amazon by the time you read this.

Update: It sold within three hours.

DVD/BLU-RAY: PRE-REVIEWS or WHAT I'M ABOUT TO WATCH AND WHY

After getting my arse kicked by a couple of mates over the previous post  -and yes guys I will get round to putting your comments in the comments section- I thought I'd go for something a bit lighter.

I'm coming to the end of a Doctor Who marathon; that is all the box sets of the new Who: the Eccleston one, the three Tennant ones plus Christmas Specials and the half season, and two of the three Smiths (the third is too close). So, what to follow them up with?

Well, films/tv series I'm not going to mention include: Lois & Clark Season 2, Flavia the Heretic, The Ghastly Ones/Seeds of Sin (by writer/director Andy Milligan whose name will crop up later), Combat Shock, Naked Lunch, Superman Blu-Ray Box Set, Dogma, Universal Monsters Blu Ray Box Set, and a few more.

But the obvious follow up to Doctor Who is-

Watered-down Dr Who, perhaps. Kids TV, certainly. But I make no apologies or excuses. Good kids TV/books/films are simply good TV/books/films that can be enjoyed by all ages. Plus it's good to see the character again after her four year stint on Dr Who back in the 70's and to see the sadly late Elisabeth Sladen who, by all accounts, was an even nicer person than the character she portrayed.

As I seem to be connecting the dots then the next to watch has to be-

I've read the books and they are very good teenage SF novels. I enjoyed the first film and Jennifer Lawrence is the breakout young actress of the last ten years simply because, with only Saoirse Ronan on her heels, she's the best young actress to turn up in the last ten years.

As a Science Fiction reader for pretty much all of my life I can state, with little fear of contradiction, that the novel on which the following film was based is one of the best SF novels of the 80's.

It's a shame that the controversy over author Orson Scott Card's homophobia and objection to gay marriage has obscured why the book was filmed in the first place, though it's deeply ironic on several levels that the name given to aliens was changed from buggers in the book to formics in the film. It's very probable that Card didn't know that bugger was a derogatory British term for a gay man, a theory which is supported by the two immediate sequels in which the hero Ender attempts to make amends for his act of genocide. Most of the novels by Card which I've read contain strong humanitarian elements and a well of compassion and it's a shame that these have been tarnished by his bigoted Mormon faith.

I'm also a bit of a fan of cult movies, schlock horror, grindhouse, and the like. Having recently read an interesting piece about writer/director Andy Milligan, whose oeuvre covered psychodrama, horror, early gay cinema and sometimes all of them at once, I thought I'd see if I could find any cheap and came across this one, not only in Blu-Ray but issued by the BFI (the prestigious British Film Institute for you non-cineastes) but with an excellent booklet containing essays by film director Nicholas Winding Refn, well-known writers on horror/cult movies Stephen Thrower and Tim Lucas, and biographer (Neil Young, et al) Jimmy McDonough.

Although American, Milligan came over to London and, when not looking for rough trade, made a few films there and made them fast and cheap as always. Nightbirds (1970) is a psychodrama and the disc also includes another complete movie The Body Beneath. One of the things about Nightbirds is that it stars Berwick Kaler who happens to be a local lad. He comes from South Shields just four miles up the coast on the mouth of the River Tyne. He's possibly best known to soap opera fans for a stint in Coronation Street but has made his living for the last decade and a bit masterminding (writing/directing and probably playing an ugly sister in) the annual pantomime in a York theatre. He also appears in a bit part in The Body Beneath as well as all the other London movies Milligan made. He also contributes a commentary to Nightbirds.

Oh okay, I'm going to treat you. Here's the jacket image of-

Moving on swiftly we come to an award-winning subtitled teenage lesbian psychodrama which, if one of the lesbians had been a flesh-eating alien, would have a ranked 100% on Ian's criteria for a perfect movie. Curiously there actually is a film which almost matches that description except that it's British, it never came within shoelace-sniffing distance of an award, and the carnivorous alien is humanoid who can look human and comes between a lesbian couple who live in an isolated cottage. It's called Prey and was directed by Pete Walker in the late 70's. And it's not actually that bad. This one, however, is, and I'm sure you've guessed-

And there we have it, my near-future viewing. Feel to make comments on my obvious dubious character made on the choices and comments on them therof above. I reserve the right to review any or none in future posts depending on whether I can be bothered or not.

POLITICS: UKRAINE AND THE SECESSION OF THE CRIMEA

Well golly gosh but isn't this a bad thing?

I mean, it has to be as the entire western world and great big enormous chunks of the rest of the world seem to think it is. Bad boy autocrat Putin is rattling sabres (well, lots of really powerful guns and a big army) because of what's happened in most of the Ukraine, except The Crimea that is. But, let's look at a few facts.

First off, the Ukraine's democratically elected president was ousted as the result of what appears to be massive popular show of discontent at his policies. Wait, what were those two significant words -democratically elected, that's them- and by the majority of the voters. That means over 50%. In other words, he was given a mandate. Okay, so he turned out to be a corrupt power-hungry greedy bastard who promptly imprisoned his predecessor Yulia Tymoshenko on mostly trumped up charges (she wasn't exactly an angel herself and the voters seemed glad to be shot of her). 

Secondly this massive protest came about with the connivance of western politicians (say hello, Angela Merkin and William Hague) who weren't happy about the president's rejection of closer links with the EU in favour of close ties with Russia. There is a strong case for saying that this overthrow wouldn't have happened without western support. So you can see why Putin isn't happy -having a pro-western EU let me in wannabe on his doorstep.

Thirdly, most of the inhabitants of The Crimea are Russian-speaking and of Russian descent. Why? Because The Crimea used to be part of Russia until Nikita Khruschev moved the borders so that it was incorporated into the Ukraine back in 1953. While the majority of Ukrainians supported getting rid of the president, the majority of the inhabitants of The Crimea certainly weren't.

Everybody on the UN Security Council, except Russia, has denounced/condemned/what have you the current ballot in The Crimea to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. It's undemocratic! they cry. Sure it is. It's about as undemocratic as a Scotland voting on independence from the UK. Okay, it's been shoved through in a hurry and Putin has sent in the troops which, technically is an invasion, but when the vast majority of the inhabitants are welcoming them with open arms you could well see it as liberation. It's only hours away from the result being known and it's estimated that around 80% of voters will have voted in favour of becoming a part of Russia. Hastily organised or not it still has more legitimacy than a mass protest forcing out a democratically elected president no matter how much of a shit he was.

Now I'm no fan of Putin by any means but it seems to me that he's only protecting Russia's own security and coming to the defence of an area that wants to be a part of Russia and once was.

The EU has to bear a large responsibility in this case and to portray Putin as a villain and aggressor is somewhat wide of the mark.