Personality Soup

I was inspired to do this after I saw Anna @ Defiant Success complete her own 'Personality Soup'. It involves revealing which film characters have tints of your personality. It is actually quite hard. Here are the quite sloppy results I came up with:

He's not a specific character, but I have been told I look a little bit like Adrien Brody.

I possess the same somewhat naive values about love as Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) from 500 Days of Summer. In fact, I am yet to find a movie character so similar to myself.

I am a self-confessed cinephile the same way that Rob Gordon (John Cusack) from High Fidelity is an audiophile.

I gathered that Stan Fink (Mark Ruffalo) from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was a cool, down-to-earth, and genuinely nice guy who always tried to do the right thing by everyone. I like to think I am the same.

Yes, I have a little bit too much Larry David for my liking, but his influence on my personality is very evident.

So there you go. Which characters make up your personality? 

'Peeping Tom' (Michael Powell, 1960) and Cinematic Voyeurism

Michael Powell's extraordinary 1960 film, Peeping Tom, received such devastating reviews on its initial release that it took the better part of thirty years for the film to be recognised as one of British cinema's most interesting films and, more generally, as one of the greatest films about cinema itself. Martin Scorsese has named it as one of his favourite films, and Powell as one of his most inspirational directors. The critical reception of Peeping Tom contributed to the collapse of director Michael Powell's career at the time, a career that included acclaimed classics such as A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Black Narcissus (1947) and The Red Shoes (1948). The initial reactions were directed predominantly at the controversial subject matter which shined an uncomfortable light on the reality of the film experience in relation to the audience's typical role as the voyeur.

The central character of Peeping Tom is Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm), a shy, reclusive young cameraman who works as a member of a film crew and aspires to be a filmmaker himself. He works part time photographing erotic pictures of women and lives in his fathers house, leasing part of it, but posing as a tenant. The secret life of this mentally disturbed young voyeur and fetishist is quite horrific. He films the faces of his female victims with the sole intention of capturing their fear at the moment before they are killed. He later relives their murders in the darkness and loneliness of his apartment room, which he has transformed into a personal cinema. When their bodies are eventually discovered, he likes to be there to film that too.

'Australian Film of the Year' Update

I thought I was doing quite well with keeping up with Australian feature films in 2011, but on review I have only seen about half of the cinema releases. Earlier in the year I missed out on Wasted on the Young (which a friend of mine starred in), The Reef and Sanctum. The latter I'm not sorry to have missed. More recently The Tunnel, Blame and Here I Am all had limited releases at a few sites. The Tunnel was released simultaneously at the cinema, on DVD and on torrent I believe. I think my housemate has a copy. Oranges and Sunshine is a film I would like to see but haven't got around to finding the time. Cane Toads: The Conquest is playing in Melbourne, because Tom Clift reviewed it (here), but I haven't seen a release here in Sydney.

So, of the Australian films I have seen, here is how they stand:

5. Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh)

4. Mad Bastards (Brendan Fletcher)

3. Mrs Carey's Concert (Bob Connelly)

2. Griff the Invisible (Leon Ford)

1. Snowtown (Justin Kurzel)

Monday Links (04/07)

This week, amidst work and a few necessary errands, I managed to squeeze in screenings of Cars 2 and Kung-Fu Panda 2. I watched them on the same day last Monday. I took a few days break and then watched Transformers: Dark of the Moon and a repeat screening of The Tree of Life, also on the same day. The former was one of the worst films of the year, while the latter was one of the most magnificent experiences I have had at the cinema in some time. It was an interesting day.

I urge you to watch The Tree of Life again. The emotional impact really hits harder. The first viewing is quite overwhelming, because visually it is so beautiful and there is just so much to take in. What makes me so sad, though, is that people clapped and cheered at the end of Dark of the Moon, while often half of the Tree of Life crowd are walking out displeased and stating in their disgruntlement that it is the "worst film they have ever seen." I thought my cinema was supposed to attract more of an indie crowd with the capacity for abstract thought. For those who have walked out after half an hour, at least give it a chance.

Before I move on to my weekly links, I also posted a Recap of June and selected some films I think are essential viewing. Last night I finished my Half Way Report: Best/Worst Films of 2011. Though I knew the films I wanted to include, there was some last minute reshuffling. Would love to hear your thoughts. For some quality reading, here are some links to fellow movie bloggers (after the jump):

Half Way Report: The Best/Worst Films of 2011

Well, we have reached the half way point of 2011. Wow, that was fast. I'm not going to go over every week of releases throughout the first half, but I will say, if I hadn't seen the films I saw at the Sydney Film Festival, it would be a much shorter list. Very early in the year I saw mostly 2010 releases that had been delayed in Australia. So, Black Swan, 127 Hours, True Grit, Rabbit Hole, Another Year, Inside Job etc. aren't considered. They do appear on my 2010 list, though.

I think The Adjustment Bureau or The Green Hornet were the first 2011 releases I watched, with Rango being the first one to be truly great. I have decided to consider any 2010 films released after March though. So films like Incendies and In A Better World, even though they were considered for Oscars last year, appear on this list. Some of the Festival films were also 2010 releases (for example Even the Rain, The Trip, 13 Assassins and Armadillo), but they had previously never been released in Australia until the festival (or later). I'm going to count them.

As honorable mentions, or films that provided solid entertainment value and proved to be worthwhile viewing: Elite Squad 2: The Enemy Within, Paul, The Troll Hunter, Super 8, X-Men: First Class, Jane Eyre, Kung-Fu Panda 2, The Lincoln Lawyer, Insidious and Griff the Invisible.

  

My Best and Worst of 2011 after the jump... 

New Release Review: The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)

The Tree of Life has finally arrived in Australian cinemas. Notorious recluse and media-shy auteur Terrence Malick’s fifth feature has been highly anticipated for more than twelve months. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May where it was awarded the Palme d’Or. It actually opened in Australia at the Sydney Film Festival where I managed to catch a screening. But amongst all of the other films I was watching, I could not come up with an analysis of such a detailed and subjective film. I needed to see it again, and it is following my memorable and transformative second viewing that I am writing this. On the smallest scale, The Tree of Life chronicles the meaning of life through the O’Brien family, living in Texas in the 1950’s. On the largest, it also chronicles the history of the world, and in extension, the universe, with lengthy interludes of cosmic and prehistoric visions. It’s a magnificent and unforgettable experience. 

I adore all of Malick’s previous films, these being Badlands (1973), Days of Heaven (1978), The Thin Red Line (1998) and The New World (2005). Now including The Tree of Life, they all feature in conversations about the most beautiful films ever made. There is almost no way to describe this film, because every single person who watches it will absorb it differently. It's a cinematic experience; so don't go in expecting to watch a story with a three-act structure. First of all, Malick’s ambition is massive. Does he achieve everything he sets out to accomplish with The Tree of Life? No, I don’t think so. How could he, really? But I think what he has released in cinemas is something quite special all the same. While it at times becomes self-indulgent and meandering, the magnificence of the imagery turns this film into something larger than life. Expertly balancing something as monumental as the big bang with something as little as capturing a young boy staring intriguingly at his baby brother is something few of us have seen before.

Chills

I watched The Tree of Life again tonight, blowing the memories of Dark of the Moon out of my mind. It is a magnificent film, and an even more powerful, intoxicating experience on the second viewing. I still have chills from hearing this music (below). Those of you who have seen the film will know what I mean. Review to be posted tomorrow. Goodnight all.

New Release Review: Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Michael Bay, 2011)

I have to admit, I enjoyed the first Transformers film. It is one of actioneer and blockbuster director Michael Bay’s best films. It had a good dose of effective humour, engaging action and above all else, a sense of fun. Revenge of the Fallen, whose status as one of the worst films of the decade could be attributed to the writers strike at the time, did not possess such qualities. I originally had no intention of seeing this, but with Bay utilising the 3D technology in much the same way that James Cameron did in Avatar, and with a number of critics claiming it to be the best of the series, I thought I’d give it a go.

I went into Dark of the Moon desperately hoping to be surprised, but simultaneously feeling completely cynical and pessimistic about that happening. I was hoping that my personal distaste for Bay’s filmmaking would be forgotten, and that I would at least be entertained and blown away by some groundbreaking visual effects. I gave it a go. It was not to be. Why a seemingly endless budget for chaos and destruction was contributed to this loud, pointless, soulless and abominably directed mess makes me very sad indeed.