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The Sting
Classic Paul Newman and Robert Redford caper - the one last con so everyone can retire, the Bellini if you will. As always the real secret of the hustle is to make the mark really want it and walk straight in. More twisty turny than a twisty turny thing and holds up well without getting bogged down in period detail.
Kill Bill Part Two
I saw Part One at the cinema and, whilst I loved parts of it, and it was clearly ambitious, I didn't really care. The heroine smashing her way out of a coffin chimed rather amusingly with an acquaintance who claims he can smash his hand through the bar at The Doves. Okay, but still don't care. Revenge movie. Stylish but dull.
The Bourne Ultimatum
High budget tosh with pedigree (political documentary maker Paul Greengrass who did Supremacy and United 93) so that you can read in political alligators. I'm not sure I've seen the middle film - running all over the place to little effect and killing off the love interest presumably - but I didn't miss it. In a way it's a computer game. Bourne goes into a situation, has to kick ass, duck, hit the cicle, now the triangle, lose a life, move up a level. These could happen in any order. There's double crossing and second guessing and they can't work out if a character is called Neil or Neal. I loved it.
Glen Garry Glen Ross
Film version of a stage play, hardly opened out, but what a cast - Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce, Alan Arkin, Jack Lemmon and Al Pacino. And Alec Baldwin. They are salesmen trying to scratch a living with duff leads, knowing that if they don't sell they'll be out of a job. The best salesman will get the best leads - so failures will get worse. Mamet is to expletive bejewelled dialogue what Beetoven is to the symphony - and this film is endlessly rewatchable and depressing.
Welcome To Collinwood
Based on I Soliti ignoti (1958) - although this is not mentioned in any of the extras - the story of a caper so big that everyone can retire. Luis Guzman has been told the perfect robbery by a prisoner and so needs to be sprung so he can carry it out - unfortunately Sam Rockwell steals the plan but leaves Guzman in jail. Of course, the fun is watching the plot unravel, although I'm not sure it is as neat as the craply presented extras suggest. I wonder if the broken arm Macy sports in the second half is a substitute for the baby he caried in the first - we're suddenly told he's broken it and not shown it. Still, I'd watch Macy in anything - save for Magnolia which even he can't redeem. Also reminiscent of Palookaville.
A History of Violence
Viggo Mortensen is just a normal guy living in a small American town when his diner is held up. Unbelievably he kills both robbers, and becomes a local hero - which brings him to the attention of a gnagster family who claim who used to be one of them.
Fascinating and gripping chamber piece - which chimed with a Brookmyre I've since read - although less visceral than your usual Cronenberg. Mortensen just about holds his own against scene stealers Ed Harris and William Hurt. Go rent.
Children of Men
You know the story: no women have given birth, so Clive Owen has to transport a woman across England because she's pregnant. There is some very nice world building - Fleet Street full of animated advertising, refugge camps - but it just don't make sense. We're told Owen wants the job because he needs the money (in the film, not the real world) but we're not told why he's skint. Michael Caine is living near (or not near) Bexhill for no readily apparent reason. The journey from London to the south coast (I think they mention Brighton) is via Canterbury - which seems to consist of a pine forest, ho hum. Clive Owen gives his usual splintering performance - he's like Jack Davenport on valium. I've liked him is stuff but he's sleep working.
It is pretty tense, and I loved the long takes and great to see a down beat ending. It just don't make sense.
I'll talk about Millions and City of God later.
