A bloated history lesson

Lincoln (2012)

This was like a short excerpt from a history book blown into epic proportions for blockbuster movie values. I'm wondering what's the reason behind this movie, it doesn't bring any new views or opinions on the matter, it just tells it as it was. Sure it's a huge event in the history of that country, but for me as a Finn I don't have that patriotic urge to love a movie like this. I already knew the events and I just kept wondering what's the point, isn't reading a history book for 10 minutes enough so you need a two and a half hour spectacle to get the point? And I really don't mean that historical movies are bad, they are great but they either need some new perspective to the events or some kind of an development arc to the story so we would see where it started from and how it got to the end. Especially uninteresting is the way it's filled with political jargon, sure some people might like that but for me it got rather boring. I also wouldn't have minded a movie about Lincoln, he's an interesting character, but that would have needed a wider timespan, so we could have seen what made him the man he was, not just the few weeks around the vote and those couple of speeches everyone has heard many times before. And don't get me started on the racism issue, this movies message to it is like Mr. Mackey from South Park saying "Slavery is bad, mmkay?" I'm guessing people love this movie because it's bad not to, especially if you're American. Well I most certainly didn't love it, but it's not totally a bad movie.

The acting is brilliant, Daniel Day Lewis is amazing as always and Tommy Lee Jones surprisingly good as well, but the best in my opinion was Sally Field. She didn't have any of these momentous lines most of the actors had, sometimes even in the same scene, but still her performance even outshadowed Daniel Day Lewis at times. And that takes some serious skills.

Also it's technically quite brilliant, even though I do have some complaints on those departments as well. One thing which is just plain criminally wrong is the praise Janusz Kaminski gets from the cinematography of this movie. Now sure, mostly this movie looks gorgeus, but really this is like a half assed swing for an artist like Kaminski, there's even plain mistakes in this one, something I haven't seen in ages in big Hollywood movies. For example the introductory shot of Thaddeus Stevens struck my eye as there were 2 quite bad mistakes in that one, first of all the eye light on Tommy Lee Jones shakes a bit during the dolly move and worse yet the camera shakes as the dolly move stops. I do understand why they used that take as Tommy Lee Jones gives out a stellar performance on that one, but still that's just amateurish, and Kaminski got an Oscar nomination for this movie. Give me a break. And speaking of the Oscars, this movie will most likely clear the table, the Academy is mostly American after all, some of the nominations are spot on. But in addition to best picture and cinematography, the music nomination is quite a miss. I mean John Williams is great, but really the guy has been basically making the same freaking song for years. All of his scores from the past couple of years sound the same, hence he should definitely not get an Oscar.

This movie was worth the watch mostly because of the cast, it's kind of like an acting lesson, too bad the story around it was rather dull and that makes this just an ok movie.

55%

The quest for Osama Bin Laden

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

When doing a fictional movie based on true events about the 9/11-aftermath you usually have to take sides. This movie tries to avoid it, but as it focuses on an American CIA agent it's kind of forced to take a side on the matter. However it's not a bad thing at all, covering all the sides to a complicated matter like this would make quite a dull movie to be honest. But enough of politics and on with the movie. It starts about 2 years after the 9/11, though the events of 9/11 are reminded at the beginning in a simple but surprisingly effective manner. The movie follows a CIA agent called Maya, played brilliantly by Jessica Chastain, on her seemingly impossible efforts to track down Osama Bin Laden. The movie picks out notable moments during the years most of you have probably read about in the newspapers and provides a sort of inside look on how things supposedly looked from the CIA's perspective. Not really any need to go into the plot any more than that as it's kind of self-explanatory what's going to happen, unless you spent 2011 in a closet without any form of communications. The style of the movie is a bit documentary like, sometimes combining news footage and surveillance tapes into the film. This does increase the feel of realism nicely and especially at the end when they go and get the guy those night vision shots almost puts you in there with the soldiers. This movie will surely divide opinions, mostly because of political viewpoints, so it's definitely kind of a provocation. But I'll look past that and I rate it as a quite a strong drama which it is with great performances from nearly all of the cast. There are some problems with it though, pretty much the whole first half of the movie is a bit dragging and kind of seeking a tone for the rest of the movie. Sure the first half also brings out some of the big questions in the movie, like where to draw the line in interrogations and what are people prepared to do when they believe in something strongly enough. But all of those we could have gotten in a lot shorter time as well, though once the movie finally gets going and the second half kicks in, it's quite brilliant. And just to point the obvious out, no it doesn't matter that you already know what's going to happen, so it's well worth watching.

77%

Making movies to save lives

Argo (2012)

Even though I already saw this earlier last year I'll put a review of it here as it's a strong contender on the Oscars and I plan on giving my opinion on all of the nominees. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Ben Affleck is a bad actor but he's a very good director. It's just a shame he can't stay behind the camera as this movie would have been quite a bit better with some other actor in the lead. That being said it's not completely Affleck's performance that hinders this movie, it's partly the script as well. Most of the rescuees are left with very little to nothing to say and even though Affleck does the right thing as a director and gives them time, they are still left rather meaningless. Another proof that he actually is a good director, but also a proof that the script wasn't that great as it leaves the people the viewer should care for in the shadows. But I'm getting ahead of things here.

So the movie tells a great little story about a crazy CIA operation to get six American diplomats out of Iran in middle of a revolution when Americans are the prey of the day. The plan is to make a fake movie, stage a location scout tour to Iran and escort the diplomats out of there. The story was actually great, highly interesting and surprisingly fun as well. I really loved the little nods towards the 70's sci-fi movies and the Hollywood of that time. I also liked the look of the movie, it really looked like it was from the late 70's or early 80's and the somewhat corny camera moves supported the illusion perfectly. Another thing I liked was the soundtrack, the whole movie was highly entertaining music wise. The acting was rather good as well, apart from Affleck's one expression performance, though no one really stood out of the crowd. Maybe Alan Arkin if I had to name someone, he was quite great as this washed out producer who didn't take crap from anyone. With a better script and a better lead actor this story would have been close to brilliant, now it's "just" good.

75%

A documentary not quite finished

A Film Unfinished (2010)

This documentary uncovers a piece of propaganda some historians have considered as true representation of the situation before. It's a film about the Warsaw Ghetto which the Nazi propaganda machine doctored to show the "cruel" nature of Jews. The "documentary" film is uncovered with new evidence of a reel with outtakes and alternate scenes which show that the whole film was set up the way the SS officers wanted. There's also excerpts of a diary that survived from the ghetto which describes the filming, there's interviews with survivors from the ghetto and even from an actual cameraman who shot pieces of the film. For anyone interested in history of propaganda this is surely a must see documentary. For everyone else it's a thought provoking depiction of the horrors of the ghetto. The subject matter is of course important and quite shocking, but this documentary has it's flaws. The thing is that it's a bit boring. I mean it's facinating and shocking for sure, but even though it's quite short all those slow motion shots seemed to drag it on a bit too much. With a better pacing this would have been a brilliant documentary as the subject matter is surely worth seeing.
70%