Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010)

This is an adaptation of the graphic novel series by Bryan O'Malley, of which I have read half of the issues so far, deciding to start before I watched the film. Edgar Wright ("Spaced", Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) directs this astounding adaptation, which has a visual flair beyond anything else this year, and a script that is just good enough to keep up.

The film stars Michael Cera as the title character, who we first see dating 17-year-old high schooler Knives Chau (Ellen Wong), though they haven't even held hands yet. Scott Pilgrim also has a band, Sex Bob-bomb, which has two friends of his, Stephen Stills ("The Talent", played by Mark Webber), and Kim Pine (Alison Pill), who Scott used to date. The band also plays at Young Neil's (Johnny Simmons) house. Scott's house is one he lives in with gay roomate Wallace Wells (Kieran Culkin), and sleeps in the same bed as Wallace, though nothing is going on.

This is Scott's life before he has a dream, where he sees a mysterious girl. He then sees that girl at a store, before meeting her at a party, where he tries and fails to pick her up. His desperation knows no bounds however, and he succeeds in picking her up the second time.

The description sounds pretty normal so far, but things take a somewhat drastic shift here. After Scott starts dating this girl, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), it turns out he must defeat her seven evil exes to continue dating her.

The plot summary is amazingly straight-forward, but the plot really isn't the most important part of this movie. The visual design replicates the comic-book feel amazingly, with transitions that look like panels side-by-side, and onomatopoeic sounds that pop up on the screen to show a phone ringing, and generally energise the movie.

Edgar Wright is an incredibly talented director, and a large part of that is in recruiting the best talent he can find to help bring his vison to life. His DP Bill Pope (Army of Darkness, The Matrix, and Spiderman 2, among other films) is able to create an amazing visual style, by far the best of a movie released so far this year (including Inception), that is incredibly good at replicating the video-games that the comic and movie seem to be inspired by (fighting games, early Nintendo). Wright also recruited Jackie Chan's fight choreographers, and it shows in the amazing fight scenes. The fight sequences are shot in such a way that, though it may cut incredibly fast, you actually get a sense of spatial awareness in the fights because they shoot in a way that is a little bit reminiscent of Hong Kong action movies.

The plot may be simple, but the performances are amazingly strong, with Chris Evans and Brandon Routh stealing their scenes as evil ex two and three respectively, not to mention Jason Schwartzman as big bad Gideon Graves, and the dialogue is great, with words such as "Hasbian" used to describe bi-sexuals. Michael Cera is able to finally show that his comedic style doesn't have to be annoying, with the possible exception of Arrested Development, in this movie. He delivers the lines in a brilliantly deadpan way that plays against type a little bit, with Scott being a bit dumber than the average Michael Cera character, but works quite effectively.

The references, as you would expect in a Wright movie, come thick and fast, but often aren't the centre of the jokes, which is something that people seem to forget these days. The only joke I can think of where the reference took a primary role was the "Seinfeld" gag, which was a hilarious parody. The visuals are full of sight gags, such as Scott's shirt, which has, by my count, Astro Boy, the Fantastic Four and Rock Band references. There are also moments where he turns convention on it's head, such as Nega Scott, who turned out to be a really nice guy instead of evil Scott the way you would expect in a video game.

Overall the film plays much more like a $60 million version of Spaced, though the subtle British comedy isn't quite as present. Not that there's anything wrong with that. This is a fine entry in Edgar Wright's body of work, and hopefully it will allow him to continue to do what he does best with the money it makes.

5/5

Cyrus (2010)

Well, at the end of my last review, I put Four Lions before Cyrus, but it turned out that the tickets we had booked put Cyrus before Four Lions. Not that it really matters anyway.

Cyrus is a film about John (John C. Reilly), and Molly (Marissa Tomei), and her son Cyrus (Jonah Hill). John has been divorced for seven years, and the film begins with his ex-wife Jamie (Catherine Keener) coming over to visit, only to catch him masturbating. She has came because she is worried about his increasingly depressed state, even more so after she announced her engagement to Tim (Matt Walsh). Jamie invites John to a party, where he embarrasses himself in a way that you only do in comedies, before meeting Molly at the party.

Molly and John hit it off instantly and, after Molly leaves in the middle of the night when she comes over for the second time, he stalks her to her house and falls asleep parked outside her house. He wakes up the next morning, goes to her house, and finds Cyrus, who seems friendly at first, but turns out to be worse for their relationship than they could imagine due to him and his mothers' relationship.

The reason that this plot summary is sitting here is because I want the very few of you who read this blog to understand the sort of movie I am talking about here. It is a romantic comedy, albeit an "indie" rom-com, but a rom-com nonetheless. It is formulaic, and follows the conventions throughout the movie. I find rom-com's excruciating to watch, and leave the room very abruptly if there is one on.

Cyrus was not excruciating to watch. The hand-held camera shook like hell, objects were zoomed in on with home-video techniques, the dramatic moments were telegraphed like there was no tomorrow, and the whole thing, frankly, stank of that sickening sweetness that only a modern Romantic Comedy has. But I watched it, without thinking of nails on a chalkboard as I do when stepping in to see a romantic comedy playing on the TV.

The reason behind this is the way the Duplass brothers make their films, similar to the way that Apatow makes his. They give a huge amount of freedom to improvise, knowing that with talented comedians they are more likely to be funny when they improvise than when they stick to the script. Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly, both talented comedians, use this to breathe life into a movie that otherwise would have had none. Their interactions, which still follow the conventions of romantic comedies, with Cyrus being the obstacle that comes between the happy couple, are hilarious. They play off each other naturally and their ability shines even in scenes without each other. It doesn't take a talented comedian to make a drunk character hilarious, but it sure as hell helps.

The movie can't escape the plot with improvisation, and that is ultimately the downfall of what could have been a far better comedy. The improvised scenes, particularly the beginning where the rom-com plot hasn't started yet, are very funny, to the point that I was chuckling through most of the first third or so. The plot was thin, but it was just present enough to be cloying, particularly towards the end, where the bulk of the plot seemed to be for some reason.

The technical elements really didn't help, with the music being designed to reinforce the rom-com stereotype, and the camera-work a stark reminder of the way that cinematography seems to have taken a back seat over the last decade or so, with film-makers who started in the last decade often not bothering with the conventions of their antecedents, to the point that tripods are supposedly unecessary. The editing was good though, moving along at a good clip, though the plot would have moved at a fast clip anyway.

Overall, I would give this a 3/5, based on the hilarious performances of Jonah Hill and John C. Reilly, who stood out in the dramatic moments as well. The rest of the movie should have just functioned as a frame-work for their performances, but in the end it interfered far too much with my enjoyment of their performances, and made the movie a lot worse, in my mind at least.

Predicament

This review is a bit old, seeing as I watched the film on Sunday, but I was a bit too busy with other things to get around to it. Either way this is my first (out of three) reviews from films I will be watching at the New Zealand Film Festival.

And what a way to start. Predicament is the new film from director Jason Stutter (Tongan Ninja, Diagnosis Death), making his first "real feature", collaborating yet again with Jemaine Clement, who is such a New Zealand icon he needs no introduction. The film also stars Heath Franklin ("Chopper Reid"), Tim Finn (musician from Split Enz and the Finn Brothers), and first-time film actor Hayden Frost.

Predicament is an adaptation of a New Zealand crime novel of the same title by Ronald Hugh Morrison, and it is a visually stunning dark comedy about student Cedric Williamson (Hayden Frost), who is a scrawny loner, and sometimes slips into fantasises about his dream girl. He is then unsuspectingly used by black-mailer Mervyn "Merv" Toebeck (Franklin), as an alibi for the "suicide" of his father. Merv pretends to be distraught so he can crash at the ill-kept mansion that Cedric lives at with his grand-mother, and insane father (Tim Finn), who is building a giant tower to heaven to see his dead wife. Soon Merv has brung in his friend Spook (Jemaine), and they decide to rope Cedric into a blackmailing scheme, where they take images of men having affairs at the local club. Cedric goes along with their plan, trying to get back at the Bramwell family, who swindled his family out of land.

Unfortunately things don't go to plan with their plan as Cedric, torn by guilt, decides to tell their mark, who was poorer than they expected, about the fact they had no camera, only the flash bulb. After a little bit of persuasion they find Blair Bramwell, the spoiled son, sneaking off with his step-mother. Spook screws up the plan, and suddenly the police are on their tail.

In a lot of ways this is essentially a Coen Brothers-esque film set in New Zealand. A lot of the dark comedy parts in the film clearly owed a lot to their films, but to call it that would be dismissive. After watching the New Zealand TV series "This is Not My Life", I was shocked at the poor quality of television in New Zealand. This however, along with "I'm not Harry Jenson", is showing that our film industry is on the rise. The comedy, though borrowing from the Coens, is very much in the New Zealand style that has been developing recently. Clement is, as always, hilarious in his slightly off-kilter way, showing his skill at comic timing. Franklin is very good as the boorish bludger Merv, and Frost shows very good skill at playing the awkward teenager.

The cinematography is very good, if a little showy, with quite a few crane shots, and a general sense of polish that really helped to sell the film. The art direction is where the film really succeeds. Very ably re-creating 1930's New Zealand with an almost fairy-tail like brush, the set design adds a lot to the movie. The true show-piece of the set is the tower that Tim Finn's character is building throughout the film. A tower built out of every-day objects, it's haphazard nature makes for some very amusing sight gags, and general jokes made at the Williamsons' expense.

The end isn't the strongest around, and is very much a tonal shift from the rest of the film. It is very strange to have a dark comedy that ends on such a saccharine note, though it does sell it reasonably well. Stutter definitely showed potential as a "proper" director with his two other movies I have seen, but this really realises that promise into a film that is very strong.

I would give this a 4/5, a quite well-realised dark comedy. It loses points on the ending though, and a few minor issues that are ingrained into the movie. The other two films I will be reviewing are "Four Lions", a British comedy about a group of would-be terrorists, and "Cyrus", which is a Duplass brothers film starring John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill.