Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

#160 - Inception
Christopher Nolan, 2010



A professional criminal who specialises in entering people's dream states must assemble a crew in order to carry out an act of corporate espionage.

This is my first time watching this since it came out in theatres and the Christopher Nolan hype has worn off rather severely in the years since. As a result, I was skeptical as to whether or not I'd still like Inception as much as I had the first time around. Fortunately, the film still holds up and is definitely better than the bulk of Nolan's output. A lot of that has to do with the clever (if not all that original) premise involving inception itself. It boils down to a heist movie with plenty of those narrative beats intact - protagonist taking one last job, assembling a sufficiently mismatched crew to carry out the job, job goes disastrously wrong, etc. - but the world-building involved in setting up the concept is sufficiently elaborate and revealed quickly and deftly. There are flaws in the system, of course, often as a result of the various players' fragmented mind-states (but then again, some are plot holes - you win some, you lose some). The visuals are also good - sure, the dreamscape doesn't get totally weird aside from some shifts in gravity or collapsing architecture, but what there is looks spectacular even on a TV screen. Action sequences vary in quality. sometimes they are interesting (such as the fight scenes involving shifting gravity). Sometimes they're just regular car chases and gunfights - not bad ones, but surprisingly lacking in style considering the potential on offer. I guess some originality is better than none.

The biggest problem I have with Inception is that it feels like it's more concerned with developing its impressively detailed sci-fi scenario than it is with developing its characters. The film features some talented actors but talent only goes so far when the bulk of the characters have only the slightest amount of depth. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy trade banter as a pair of snarky specialists, Ellen Page shows some range despite spending much of her screentime serving as a recipient of exposition, Ken Watanabe as the team's intimidating employer, Cillian Murphy makes for a constantly bewildered mark, and so on and so forth. Naturally, the character with the most depth is Leonardo diCaprio's protagonist, whose professionalism is scuppered by his own personal demons manifesting in the form of his wife (Marion Cotillard, who gets a bit more to work with as a constantly-shifting dream character). Still, there's ultimately enough there that it doesn't get thrown out of balance with the plot's external action. These days I'm not as sold on Nolan as I used to be, but I'm glad that Inception is still an impressive piece of work. It's not quite as clever or inventive as it wants to be, but as far as recent blockbusters go it's definitely one of the best.

TBF hate is too strong, but Convoy is the only one I've seen that I really like, let alone love. I freely admit this is a childhood thing. It was the first film I saw on video. Many of the kids from the street were in my friends living room and we had a great time. I really don't know how many times I've seen that film and I just really enjoy watching it.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I am right with you on Inception all the way down to the rating.

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Letterboxd

That's fair.

What about the rating?

I need to catch up on my children's movies

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Buddha

I give it a as well. Sorry that wasn't more clear.

Ah.

It sounds like the How to Train Your Dragon movies were victims of over-inflated expectations. I agree that both movies have an aura of familiarity, but they tell that familiar story incredibly well. They're two of my favorite animated films from recent years. Gorgeous animation, spot-on voice casting, good characterization for a "children's film," effective humor, thrills and excitement galore. I find both movies incredibly joyous, which is the emotion that I most hope to achieve when I sit down to watch an animated film.

I've become a big fan of Mr. Peckinpah over the last couple of years. The Wild Bunch, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Straw Dogs, and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid are all favorites of mine. So far, though, Convoy is easily the weakest of his films that I've seen, although I found more enjoyment in it than you did. From what I've read, Peckinpah spent more time getting drunk during production than he did actually filming the movie. You mentioned that you had "very mixed feelings" on Peckinpah. Care to elaborate a little? (Something tells me part of your misgivings is going to be his treatment of women.)

Inception is my second favorite Nolan. (The Prestige is number one.)

Haven't seen the others you've reviewed lately.

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The voice casting was distracting because for some reason two of the characters have Scottish accents while the rest just have American-sounding accents. I know that Butler and Ferguson are actually Scottish but it feels weirdly inconsistent. I do worry that I'm becoming one of those people who shrugs off computer-animated films for whatever reason, but I'll take either Dragon film over Frozen, alright.

Eh, with the exception of The Wild Bunch, none of them have ever really amazed me. Maybe that's because they all come across as variations on that particular film and thus I'm inclined to think of them as "lesser" by default. I remember Pat Garrett and Cross of Iron being rather good (if not great) but it's been so long and I've forgotten so much that I think I could use repeat viewings of both of them just to make sure. The same applies to Straw Dogs, though unlike those other two it was a bit too basic for my liking so I doubt a second viewing would do much good. I have seen Alfredo Garcia twice, and it is a frustrating movie above all else because it seems like I'd be into it but it's horribly nihilistic at times, and while I do appreciate that in movies, here it just leaves me really cold. Why should I care? The Getaway, well, it's a fairly disposable for-hire gig but at least it's a fairly entertaining one. In this context, Convoy is probably the lightest film I've seen him do, but it also comes across as self-parody at times (case in point - the fact that multiple Peckinpah films have that whole "blaze of glory" kind of ending, which is gutted in Convoy). That's without mentioning the treatment of women, mind.

I did like The Prestige at first, but I think one viewing was enough. Last I checked, I had it at , which puts it on par with most of the Batman films and Insomnia (at the moment, anyway).

The Dragon movies are 2 of my favorite animations. I loved both of them.

Haven't seen Convoy in a while, but it was a favorite when I was young. I think I'd still like it.

#161 - Girl, Interrupted
James Mangold, 1999



In the 1960s, a young woman is committed to a mental institution after an apparent suicide attempt.

Girl, Interrupted is a solid enough film about the female inhabitants of a mental institution and both their internal and external conflicts with one another and themselves. Winona Ryder stars as the newest patient, who initially starts out denying that she belongs in an institution before gradually warming up to the rest of the patients. Angelina Jolie definitely steals the show as one especially unhinged patient who is constantly shaking things up and alternately awes and intimidates everyone she encounters. Though she fluctuates between being the best friend of all the other patients (including Ryder) or being an antagonistic wildcard, she still makes for a magnetic presence in just about every scene she's in. There are some decent supporting characters on both sides of the sanity divide, all of which play their relatively small parts well.

The film does go to some effort to communicate the disorder of Ryder's mind, complete with editing that is quick without being disorienting and encounters with some frustratingly obtuse authority figures. It does try to communicate the highs and lows that being in a 1960s mental institution might entail (so presumably I can write off a scene where Ryder more or less gets away with hooking up with her draft-dodging love interest in her room on the ward) and, though the climax feels a little forced and overly dramatic considering the relatively realistic tone of the rest of the film, it's still a decent enough drama about life in an institution.

#162 - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
David Fincher, 2011



A disgraced journalist is hired to conduct an investigation into the 40-year-old case of a teenage girl disappearing, enlisting the help of a hacker in the process.

I already watched the Swedish film of the best-selling novel a couple of months ago, so this is more or less a formality. Fincher's version of Dragon Tattoo has a lot of the usual visual grit and pallor that your typical Fincher film has, which definitely suits the grim nature of the story. While it's simple enough to accept that the American remake still takes place in Sweden, it's also a bit distracting how Daniel Craig (here playing the journalist) is the only actor in the film who doesn't seem to even bother trying to fake a Swedish accent. Fortunately, Rooney Mara as the titular girl more than picks up the slack with a fairly demanding role of her own. The cast is peppered with some recognisable faces who turn in solid performances with consistent accents and they serve the story well enough. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is appropriately artificial and ambient for the most part - even the cover of "Immigrant Song" that plays over the film's very Bond-like opening credits is solid. Though it plays out a lot like your typical slightly-above-average modern thriller and probably goes on a bit too long for its own good, it's alright if you want something that's appropriately dark and compelling.

I totally agree with you on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Unfortunately, that includes the part about it going on too long. Real good movie but it seemed to last forever.

#163 - Fatal Attraction
Adrian Lyne, 1987



An executive has a one-night-stand with a woman while his family is out of town, but things get complicated when the woman becomes increasingly attached to him.

I know that criticising a film by negatively comparing it to an older film is kind of an easy way out, but it's way too distracting just how many similarities there were to Clint Eastwood's Play Misty for Me, which also plays upon the same premise of a man being stalked by a one-night-stand. At least this is a bit smoother than Eastwood's incredibly rough-looking debut. Though there is quite a difference between Eastwood's care-free bachelor in that film and Michael Douglas's stifled family man in this film, it's all too easy of think of Glenn Close's character as a cinematic descendant of Jessica Walter's. Obsessive and unreasonable love, self-harm as manipulation technique, eventually resorting to murdering other people in jealous rages...it's all very familiar. At least Close really commits to it, which is a point in the film's favour. Douglas, well, he's Douglas, while the supporting cast is generally too bland to really care about (though Anne Archer does get put through the wringer a bit as the result of playing Douglas's put-upon wife). In terms of filmmaking, there are a lot of dry-looking dialogue scenes countered by the occasional moments of tension that are shot through with shrieking synthesisers and frantic camerawork, to say nothing of some heavily telegraphed jump scares. It also doesn't help that the film's most infamous act of brutality has become common knowledge in this day and age, and even when it does happen, the way in which it's revealed is at once too cheesy to take seriously yet too disturbing to find funny (which...is a success, I think?) It definitely feels like it's been imitated to hell and back in the years since its release and the similarities to Play Misty for Me didn't help, but it's still far enough from a bad movie.

#164 - Double Team
Tsui Hark, 1997



A counter-terrorist agent fails to take out his terrorist arch-nemesis and must join forces with an arms dealer to take revenge.

How I have managed to avoid watching a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie in full until now is a little baffling to me, but not nearly as baffling as this film. Double Team is an extremely absurd excuse for an action movie, as you can probably tell by the fact that Van Damme's co-star is none other than Dennis Rodman. The plot is extremely basic and features plenty of action movie clichés, but what really gives the film its flavour is how ridiculous it is. Never mind Rodman's turn as Van Damme's ally whose constantly changing hairstyles defy logic (at one point he somehow manages to change his hair colour in the middle of an action sequence) and ham-fisted references to basketball already make the film feel like a fever dream - there is plenty of weirdness to go around. After Van Damme fails in his attempt to take down Mickey Rourke's surprisingly capable villain, he winds up on a remote island full of retired spies (led by Paul Freeman of Raiders of the Lost Ark fame, no less - it just wouldn't be an awful movie without some halfway-respectable British actor slumming it, would it?) that is surrounded by a grid of lasers underneath the ocean's surface (don't ask).

Though the film is shot by respectable Hong Kong action director Tsui Hark, the action frequently comes across as laughable more so than genuinely exciting (unless the excitement you're getting is from what ludicrous development is going to top the last action scene you just saw - I would mention them all but that would take the fun out of it). The music is Nineties hell. Van Damme has an accent thick enough to negate whatever acting ability he has, while Rodman still sticks out like a sore thumb even in a movie like this. Not even Rourke is any good here, apart from maybe being a fairly convincing match for Van Damme in terms of fighting ability. There are plot holes and gaps in logic galore. Basically, Double Team is not a good movie but I'm still giving it two popcorn boxes out of five because if I have to watch a bad movie then I'd rather it was entertainingly ridiculous rather than boring. Recommended for lovers of unironic action trash.

RE: Inherent Vice

It was a film not interested in the story at all. At a ridiculously long running time with no end in sight and nothing but going around in circles, I found myself more interested in the cat sleeping in the corner of the room.

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Suspect's Reviews

Shame you pick Double Team as the first Jean Claude Van Damme film, even by bad Van Damme film standards, it's baaad.

Fair point. I'd argue that the film not being interested in the story was the point, but then again I concede that just because that's the point being made doesn't mean it being made well.

At least there's nowhere to go but up, right? (Anyway, I just found it on TV recently, what do you want from my life?)

#165 - Roadgames
Richard Franklin, 1981



A truck driver gets caught up in a game of cat-and-mouse when he suspects a van driver to be a serial killer.

Roadgames looked like it had the potential to be a dark little genre film with its Hitchcockian premise and gritty low-budget vibe, but unfortunately that potential gets kind of wasted over the course of the film. Having a pair of recognisable American actors in the form of Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis as the trucker protagonist and a hitch-hiker respectively was an alright idea that only helped to emphasise how out-of-place their characters were against the barren highway setting, but it doesn't quite pay off. It's a one-man show for Keach as he frequently ends up soliloquising to his pet dingo about his observations, with only the occasional human interaction where he (unknowingly and understandably) comes across as a little unsure of how to talk to people properly. Unfortunately, even an actor as good as he is struggles to make the most of the material he's given. Curtis isn't much better - she gets far less screen-time and her scenes with Keach still feel quite stilted. The locals in the cast aren't particularly memorable, though.

The thriller angle is teased well enough - there are plenty of instances that play up Keach's paranoia to the point where he may very well be imagining things, to say nothing of how complete strangers will treat him with disdain and hostility for no good reason. This plays well enough into the conclusion, but by that point it feels like too little, too late. Be sure to settle in for a lot of truck-driving, night-time footage, blandly mundane dialogue and third-act histrionics (especially on the soundtrack) when you watch this. Despite its promising outline, Roadgames struggles to fill out its running time with engaging material.