Awards!

Yes that's right, I've decided to show up the Oscars with my very own awards ceremony. The only problem being that I haven't yet been able to see The Social Network or others such as Of Gods And Men or The Kids Are Alright... So instead I shall shamelessly rip off the Kermode awards and only have winners that haven't been nominated for an Oscar for that particular film, except with the additional caveat of being lucky enough to have been seen by me. So here goes!

Best Actress
Honourable mentions:
Chloe Moretz, Kick-Ass
Marion Cotillard, Inception

Winner:
Noomi Rapace, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (well, everyone else seems to be pretending it came out last year...)

Best Actor
Honourable mentions:
Tom Hardy, Inception
Tahar Rahim, A Prophet

Winner:
Casey Affleck, The Killer Inside Me

Best Director
Honourable mentions:
Martin Scorsese, Shutter Island
Jacques Audiard, A Prophet

Winner:
Christopher Nolan, Inception

Best Film
Honourable mentions:
Shutter Island
Kick-Ass

Winner:
A Prophet

Biggest Pile Of Dogshit Masquerading As A Film:
Sex And The City 2

Well, there we have it, 2010 in the films I've seen, that haven't been nominated. Perhaps I shall do a proper one of everything if I see the outstanding films soon enough, but I wouldn't get my hopes up...

Paranormal Activity

Don't see it alone? Don't see it at all...

Having recently set up an account at a postal movie rental service, I have decided to try and catch up on a few films I missed when they were released to cinemas, wether caused by not being born, inability to go to the cinema, or laziness. The first of these was Paranormal Activity (I think one of the latter two was responsible for missing this). Since I am over a year late on this particular movie I would expect most of you to know the general gist of the story, but for those who don't I shall quickly run through it. Basically an entity of some kind has followed Katie around since she was about 8. Now sometime in her 20s she is living with Micah and the entity is becoming increasingly badly behaved. The disbelieving Micah buys a camera so they can see what happens during the night. It is the footage from this camera that we see.

Now, I have been getting into horror movies a lot of late (mostly, it has to be said, dating back from the 30s through to the 70s) so I was really quite looking forward to it. It's been a while since I've been so disappointed by a movie. I was expecting a suspenseful tale of which Hitchcock himself would have been proud. I was hoping for a film to prove to the purveyors of torture-porn that gore isn't as scary as mood. Unfortunately, the filmmakers had only read a small part of the A-Z Guide to Creating Suspense deciding that the handheld camera would be enough to put people on edge. In modern cinema there seems to be just two kinds of horror movie, the ones where gore is thrown at you (Saw and the slasher remakes etc.), and ones where absolutely nothing happens till the last five minutes (this and all films in thrall to this). I'm sorry, but there's building suspense and then there's just boredom. The scare tactics consist of doors moving on their own and that kind of thing. That's all well and good, but there is no sense of menace or terror to accompany these small things. At no point did I feel at all scared. The Haunting is now almost 50 years old, yet is far more scary on every possible level. Speaking of which, this film is totally unimaginative. There are portions taken from The Haunting, there's the camera technique from Blair Witch, there are a few possession elements that are more than a little Excorcist-like as well as (SPOILER coming up now) more than a little of Ringu and the other Japanese avenging ghosts at the end.

And we haven't even talked about the characters yet. Initially Micah is the sceptic, whilst Katie believes. So why, then, do they swap roles on more than one occasion during the 90 minute run-time? Also, they are just unbelievably, unforgivably and unsympathetically stupid. Not only do they wander around for half the film trying to find the ghost/demon/whatever having already discovered that it cannot be seen, but they do so with the lights turned off. I mean, I don't know about you, but the first thing I do when I'm scared is turn all the lights on. At another point, they call a professional in and he advises them to see a demonologist. Micah decides that he can do a far better job, despite not knowing anything about this subject. But what's worse, is that he continues to do take this line despite the blindingly obvious fact that he is doing nothing but making it angrier.

I suppose the acting from Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat is perfectly acceptable, though nothing spectacular. And the Oren Peli's direction doesn't get in the way at all, it's just a really uninspired, overhyped 90 minutes of a door opening and closing and a couple running around with a camera around a massive house.

★★☆☆☆

The King's Speech

Yes! You're beloved guide to the world of films is making a glorious return to the world of film reviewing! The first film to be reviewed this time around, is the new release The King's Speech. Colin Firth stars as King George VI who has a chronic stammer which makes his Royal duties difficult to perform. Attempting to rid himself of this he hires common Australian man Lionel Laugh portrayed excellently by Geoffrey Rush. Alongside the two excellent performances from the leads (more on this later), the supporting cast is stronger than a student's breath on a saturday night featuring Helena Bonham-Carter, Guy Pearce, Michael Gambon, Timothy Spall, Derek Jacobi and the little girl from Outnumbered.

Many may write the film off as 'just another period film about a British monarch', but these people are idiots who are missing out on one of the best dramas from the last few years. While some elements of the story are a little predictable - the required altercation and subsequent reunion between the two leads for example - but the energetic performances and direction are always enough to keep you entertained. It was Tom Hooper's direction that surprised me the most. I had heard much about Firth and Rush's performances, but was expecting just the normal camera positions and movements. The words 'functionable' were words I was expecting to be using to describe it. I could not have been more wrong. The previously used 'energetic', or perhaps 'kinetic' are infintely more appropriate. Let's return again (for the third time now...) to Colin Firth. If his name isn't written on an Oscar in a month and a half's time then I shall lose what little faith I still have in the Academy. It is nothing short of astounding. To capture not only this man's problems with speech, but also his other, deeper flaws such as a quick temper and chronic lack of self-belief so completely is some of the finest acting I've seen since... probably since Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood.

I realise that this is all more than a little bit gushing, but I really like this film. The worst thing about the whole experience was having to sit in the worst cinema in the western hemisphere (Odeon Dumfries, by the way) to see it. I couldn't recommend this film more if it sprouted legs, wondered out of the projector as the credits rolled and pressed a £50 note in my hand. Utterly superb.

★★★★★