Flickering Myth’s Top 10 Movies of 2010

Well, it’s that time of year again when we’re inundated with critics’ picks for the best films of the past twelve months and - after resisting the urge in 2009 - it’s about time we got in on the act here at Flickering Myth. Rather than presenting individual lists from our writing team we’ve taken everyone’s choices and processed them through a complex algorithm to compile our selection of 2010’s best cinematic offerings (or rather, we gathered together our individual choices and assigned points to each film based on their positions in said lists). So without further ado, let’s begin the countdown of our Top 10 Movies of 2010...

10. The Wolfman (dir. Joe Johnston)

Just managing to fend off competition from Green Zone (dir. Paul Greengrass) and Winter’s Bone (dir. Debra Granik) for tenth place is Joe Johnston’s Universal Monster remake The Wolfman. Released way back in February, The Wolfman stars Benicio del Toro as Lawrence Talbot, an actor who returns to his family estate after the death of his brother and becomes infected with lycanthropy after he is attacked by a wolf. Co-starring are Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving, while the creature itself was brought to life by legendary make-up and effects artist Rick Baker.




9. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (dir. Niels Arden Oplev)

Adapted from the first instalment of Swedish novelist Stieg Larsson’s best-selling Millennium Trilogy, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo sees reporter Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) teaming up with troubled computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) to investigate the strange disappearance of a young girl over thirty years earlier. The highest-grossing Swedish movie of all-time with over $104m at the world-wide box office, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo spawned two sequels and has every chance of appearing in next year’s list with an English language remake from director David Fincher.




8. Four Lions (dir. Chris Morris)

The only British film to make the top ten comes courtesy of Brass Eye creator Chris Morris, who made his feature debut with the controversial terrorist satire Four Lions. Written by Morris and Peep Show scribes Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong, Four Lions follows a group of radicalised British Muslims who decide to become suicide bombers. After a successful premiere at Sundance in January, Four Lions struggled to find a North American distributor (it eventually received a limited release in November) but enjoyed strong returns at the UK box office. Read our review here.





7. A Prophet (dir. Jacques Audiard)

Jacques Audiard’s French prison drama A Prophet stars Tahir Rahim as a young Arab man sentenced to six years in a brutal prison, where he soon comes under the protection of a Corsican mafia group and begins to rise through their ranks. A Prophet had already earned a host of accolades prior to its UK release in January, taking home 9 César Awards, the BAFTA for Best Film Not in the English language, the Grand Prix at Cannes and Best Film Award at the London Film Festival, not to mention an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.





6. Kick-Ass (dir. Matthew Vaughn)

Based on the comic-book series by Mark Millar, Matthew Vaughn’s satirical superhero movie Kick-Ass stirred up quite a storm with outraged critics kicking off about the film’s levels of violence and profanity, particularly with regards to 11 year-old Chloe Moretz’s Hit Girl character. Of course that didn’t put off audiences, with the independently-funded feature more than tripling its $28m budget at the global box office and delivering a damn fine action-comedy to boot. Aaron Johnson stars in the lead role as ‘real-life’ superhero Kick-Ass, and is joined by a strong supporting cast including Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Mark Strong.




5. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (dir. Edgar Wright)

Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World may have bombed at the box-office [read our thoughts as to why here] – earning just $47m worldwide from an estimated $60m budget – but the critical consensus was generally positive and the comedy seems destined to gain cult status as it finds an audience on home video. Scott Pilgrim’s (Michael Cera) quest to win the heart of Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) by defeating her ‘seven evil exes’ was chosen as film of the year by two of our contributors, which helps it to secure an impressive fifth-placed finish overall. Read our review here.




4. Shutter Island (dir. Martin Scorsese)

Legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese followed up his Academy Award-winning The Departed with Shutter Island, a psychological thriller based on Dennis Lehane’s best-selling 2003 novel of the same name. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Teddy Daniels, a US Marshall who ventures to a secluded mental asylum in order to investigate the disappearance of a patient from a locked room. The film – which also stars Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Max von Sydow and Jackie Earle Haley – went on to give Scorsese a career high in terms of worldwide box office, banking an impressive $294m. Read our review here.




3. The Social Network (dir. David Fincher)

The creation of popular social networking site Facebook may not have seemed like the most obvious of source material for a feature film but David Fincher’s drama has received near-universal acclaim and will be looking to make a big impact come awards season. Jesse Eisenberg stars as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and is joined by Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, Rooney Mara, Max Minghella and Rashida Jones. The Social Network was selected as film of the year by three of our contributors for a third-placed finish overall. You can read our reviews of the film here and here.




2. Toy Story 3 (dir. Lee Unkrich)

Pixar continued its incredible run of critical and commercial success this year with their latest animated masterpiece Toy Story 3, which became the first film from the studio to break the $1b mark at the global box office and more than doubled the combined haul of its two predecessors. Pixar seem to have eschewed the Disney tradition of churning out sub-standard sequels and with Toy Story 3 they delivered one of the most entertaining and moving films of the year (come on, you know you were fighting back the tears towards the end). Read our review here.





1. Inception (dir. Christopher Nolan)

Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to The Dark Knight was described as a ‘smart’ blockbuster, delivering a complex story to compliment the usual action, thrills and excitement expected of big summer movies. The gamble paid off handsomely with audiences flocking to see Leonardo DiCaprio and his team (including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Ellen Page and Tom Hardy) infiltrate the dreams of a wealthy businessman (Cillian Murphy) to extract corporate secrets. Inception banked a mighty $825m world-wide and topped the lists of four of our contributors, while it just managed to pip Toy Story 3 by a whisker to take the crown as our film of 2010. Read our review here.




Notes…

In all there were sixteen of us who participated, selecting 69 films in total and with eight different titles managing to take home number one spots. Here are our individual picks for best film of 2010…

Jamie Baker – [Rec] 2
Gary Collinson – Toy Story 3
Oli Davis – The Social Network
Jon Dudley – The Social Network
James Ellis – Inception
Louise-Afzal Faerkel – The Killer Inside Me
Amy Flinders – Toy Story 3
DJ Haza – Inception
Trevor Hogg – Inception
Roger Holland – Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Vicki Isitt - Mary and Max
Tom Jolliffe – Inception
Simon Moore – Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Luke Owen - Toy Story 3
Cherokee Summer – The Illusionist
Liam Trim – The Social Network

Update - 08/01/11

We've been running a poll since New Year's Eve asking for your votes for your favourite film of 2010 and the results are in. Thanks to the 299 people who took part, and here are the results...

Inception - 40% (121 votes)
Something else, you fools - 20% (61 votes)
Toy Story 3 - 11% (33 votes)
The Social Network - 10% (30 votes)
Shutter Island - 5% (15 votes)
Kick-Ass - 3% (10 votes)
Scott Pilgrim vs the World - 3% (9 votes)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - 2% (8 votes)
A Prophet - 2% (7 votes)
The Wolfman - 1% (5 votes)
Four Lions - 0% (0 votes)

What are your choices for the best movies of 2010? Please feel free to leave your thoughts…

Frustrated Ramblings: Cinema 2010 - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

DJ Haza reflects on the highs and lows of 2010 with more "Frustrated Ramblings Of An Aspiring Filmmaker"...

As the final days of 2010 pass me by I’ve decided to reminisce and rant about the films that have flickered through my brown eyes over the last 12 months. Some have quite rightly amazed me. Others astounded me. Some were so damned disgusting that it led me to begin writing my series of articles named The Frustrated Ramblings Of An Aspiring Filmmaker. So here goes. I’ll keep it brief. Short and sweet. All killer and no filler. No waffle. Maybe a bit of waffle. No, I shouldn’t waffle. Shit. I’ve waffled!

Firstly, the good. There have been a few films this year that have truly amazed me, had me glued to my seat and fuelled my own ideas and ambitions of filmmaking. Some true masters of their craft have given us some cinematic masterpieces in 2010. And so...

My top 5 films of 2010 are... (drum role)...

1. Inception
2. Shutter Island
3. The Social Network
4. The Town
5. Tron: Legacy

Inception was exactly what I want from a visit to my local multiplex. It had me thinking whilst I was watching, talking about it when I left and I couldn’t settle until I had seen it again. It was visually stunning, deep and meaningful, ambiguous and was so well thought out and made by Christopher Nolan, who is fast becoming a cinematic heavyweight. From the opening titles to the closing credits I was glued to the screen. The film could have easily been another hour in length without me feeling bored, fidgeting or going to the toilet. I would have rather wet myself than miss a minute. Accompanying Nolan’s vision was Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance, which as always was stunning. Film of the year!

Close behind was Shutter Island. Again it had me thinking, second-guessing and talking afterwards about a film that had me glued to the screen. I watched Shutter Island in the cinema, on Sky Box Office and then on Blu-Ray and every time I watched it I got something else from it. When you know how it is going to end you can see the hints, tricks and tips that are cleverly incorporated into the story, the setting and the directing. Martin Scorsese’s directing was truly stunning at times when watched with the knowledge of the ending. The scene in which Teddy, played beautifully by DiCaprio, is interrogating the patients in the cafeteria had me grinning from ear to ear. When you know who Dr Sheehan is watch that scene back and see the clues left by Scorsese. Brilliant.

The Social Network, from first impressions, looked like a film that was going to bore the pants off me. One geek’s dream to create a social network and get some friends! Who cares? Then I found out David Fincher had directed. I was then interested. I watched. I laughed out (a rarity for me). I enjoyed. Immensely. Fincher took the story of a friendless uber-geek working tirelessly to make his new social networking website a success whilst alienating everyone around him and intercut it with two court room battles between the geek and those suing him. And he made it work. More than work. It at no point had me bored, checking my watch or feeling bogged down in various geeks babbling back and forth. On paper the film shouldn’t work. However, It’s definitely a film I’ll be watching again. And again.

Another surprise was The Town. Directed by Ben Affleck, I almost tried not to like it. I mean, more men have walked on the moon than the number of good films Affleck has been in. But I loved it! The story of a group of friends living in the bank robbing capital of the world, Boston, and drifting apart was emotive. Despite him being a bank robber I think a lot of men could empathise with the leading character, Doug, played suprisingly well by Affleck himself. The film worked on several levels and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Tron: Legacy was a 3D cinematic experience that showed just how far cinema has come since the original Tron blazed a technological trail across Hollywood using computers with less power than a TV remote. The story was pretty basic; bloke gets stuck in a cyber world and has to battle to get out, just as expected. The visual feast that accompanied the film was worth going for and I didn’t even mind the fact that the characters talk non stop to each other so that we understand them, their stories and the cyber world they are stuck in.

I also loved The Wolfman, despite every filmmaker I know berating me for even considering it worth watching. It was a generic and clichéd werewolf movie, but it was enjoyable to watch. It didn’t try to be too clever or different and was a sort of homage to classic monster movies of the past that used a dark woods, unbelievably thick mist and simple village folk as story telling tools. I liked it and I don’t care what you think!

Over the course of 2010 I also saw a lot of films that were bad or just out right ugly. Some were poorly written, others poorly shot and some were just plain shite!

Edge of Darkness was okay, but not amazing. Whoop-de-doo that Mel Gibson brought his racist face back to cinema screens. Green Zone was Jason Bourne in Iraq. But boring. And no drama. And hardly any action. Kick-Ass definitely did not kick ass. The main character was boring and I didn’t care about him. From Paris With Love was just inexplicably violent and explosive to the point where I wondered what the hell the film was actually about. Iron Man 2 was a bit too cheesy for my liking. Robin Hood was a let down, but it was always doomed for comparison against Gladiator with Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe teaming up for a period epic. Prince of Persia was Pirates of the Caribbean in the desert. Mildly entertaining, but ultimately pointless. Get Him To The Greek saw Russell Brand under acting in order to play a wild, drug fuelled British rock star. I can’t help but think that the director missed a trick by not letting Brand just go to town with his character and light up the screen in his own twisted way.

However, my biggest disappointment of 2010 came with my long awaited trip to see Mr. Nice. I’d waited six years since having read the book from cover to cover in only a week whilst hanging on Howard Marks’ every word. I tried not to get overexcited when trotting down to the cinema with my mother in tow. I tried to keep my expectation from running away with me. But despite all this it still sucked. I understand the difficulties involved in adapting a book to film, but so much of Marks’ life was missing. It just felt like fragments of his life thrown together in order to tell a portion of his story as quickly as possible. And the decision to use stock footage and then green screen Rhys Ifans over the top had me tutting in my seat.

I was hoping for a British Blow, but it wasn’t. We weren’t privy to enough of Marks’ life in order to care for him in my opinion. Unlike George Jung in Blow I don’t feel people cared about Marks or empathized with why he did what he did. He just looked like a dope smuggler who was too bone idle or lazy to do anything meaningful with his Oxford education. I shed a tear at the end of Blow because it was such a great and tragic story, especially when he lost his daughter. I shed a tear at the end of Mr. Nice for completely other reasons.

Overall 2010 has been a year of ups and downs in cinema for me, but 2011 is set to kick off with a bang. 127 Hours, True Grit, The King’s Speech, Black Swan and The Green Hornet are all set for launch in the UK over January and I can’t wait. If the year continues with the same quality as January we could be in for a great year. However, knowing how cinema works I’m sure there will still be plenty of films to rant about in 2011. I’ll see you on the other side.

D.J. Haza

Follow my blog at http://djhaza.blogspot.com/
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Little Fockers tops the UK box office over the Christmas weekend

UK box office top ten and analysis for the weekend of Friday 24th - Sunday 26th December 2010.

It looks like there's still plenty of life in the Meet The Parents franchise as third installment Little Fockers takes the Christmas number one spot with a decent haul of £3m. Little Fockers also manages to repeat the feat over in the States where it pulled in just over $30m this past weekend so expect to see more of the Robert De Niro / Ben Stiller double-act before too long, although surely the series will run out of steam before we get to Meet the Great-Grandparents some time around 2025.

Also enjoying a healthy festive season is The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is the only film in the top ten to retain its position from last week as it holds firm in second place with £929k. Less fortunate is Disney's big-budget sci-fi sequel Tron: Legacy, which falls to third after debuting in the top spot last week, while Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 slips one to fourth and pushes its total gross beyond £46m.

The chart is also home to two other newcomers this week; Bollywood action thriller Tees Mar Khan takes fifth with a strong opening haul of £319k, while Luc Besson's fantasy sequel Arthur and the Great Adventure manages to take in just £83k to finish up in ninth. Meanwhile animated offerings Megamind and Animals United fall one apiece to sixth and eighth respectively, with The Tourist down three to ninth and Burlesque suffering the steepest decline as it plunges four to prop up the chart in tenth.

Number one this time last year: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

Pos.	Film	Weekend Gross	Week
1	Little Fockers	£3,035,717	1
2	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader	£929,958	3
3	Tron: Legacy	£486,065	2
4	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1	£416,556	6
5	Tees Mar Khan	£319,870	1
6	Megamind	£303,861	4
7	The Tourist	£164,836	3
8	Animals United	£157,858	2
9	Arthur and the Great Adventure	£83,875	1
10	Burlesque	£81,574	2

Incoming...

With Peter Weir's epic WWII tale The Way Back (cert. 12A) and family adventure Gulliver's Travels (cert. PG) both opening this past Sunday and Love and Other Drugs (cert. 15) arriving yesterday, there's little in the way of new releases to look forward to this coming weekend. In fact, the only 'new' film hitting screens is a limited reissue of the Howard Hawks classic The Big Sleep (cert. PG) starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, which opens on Friday.

U.K. Box Office Archive

DVD Review - The Undercover War (2009)

The Undercover War (a.k.a. Réfractaire), 2009.

Directed by Nicolas Steil.
Starring Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet, Arthur Dupont, Guillaume Gouix, Pierre Niney, Carlo Brandt, Marianne Basler and Judith Davis.


SYNOPSIS:

In Nazi-occupied Luxembourg a young man chooses to embark upon a clandestine life in the Resistance and joins other deserters in an abandoned mine.


The Undercover War was Luxembourg’s submission for the 82nd annual Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and while it failed to make any kind of impact in that particular category it must surely be a front runner for Most Misleading Cover of 2011. Released internationally as Réfractaire, you’d surely be forgiven for picking this up at your local branch of ASDA and expecting your typical run-of-the-mill WWII war film full of tanks, fighter planes, explosions and Nazis. However, there are no tanks here, no fighter planes, no explosions, and really only a handful on Nazis, for this isn’t your typical run-of-the-mill WWII film. Instead director Nicolas Steil delivers an interesting character-driven coming-of-age drama which takes a step back from the front lines to focus on the devastating cost of war to civilian life, an area that is so often overlooked in the years following Saving Private Ryan’s reinvention of the war movie.

After returning home to Luxembourg from a German university, François (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) is faced with the dilemma of being drafted into the Wehrmacht where he will be sent to the front to kill Allied soliders, or resisting and giving up his life to go into hiding. François opts for the latter and is taken by a family friend to an old abandoned mine that houses a number of deserters, known as ‘réfractaires’ (‘refractory people’, or to use the American translation, ‘draft dodgers’). Tainted by the actions of his father, who had collaborated with the Germans before being murdered, François has to earn the trust of the men and eventually begins to serve the resistance movement, where he soon discovers that the struggle to liberate his homeland is equally as dangerous as the battle on the front lines.

Complimenting the main storyline are a number of interesting and well-rounded supporting characters such as the lonely and promiscuous collaborator’s wife Malou (Marianne Basler), whose shame at her husband’s actions drives her into the arms of François, and fellow réfractaire Jacques (Carlo Brandt), a Communist extremist who looks to stamp his authority on the mine regardless of the cost to others. The cast all deliver believable performances, particularly those ‘buried alive’ in the mine, and you really get a sense of the desperation the men must have faced in such trying circumstances. This is no doubt helped by the fact that Steil and his crew shot twelve-hour days on location in actual disused mines, while production designer Christina Schaffer does a fine job of recreating 1940s Luxembourg for the exterior scenes.

Although some elements of The Undercover War are a tad clichéd – particularly François’ journey from timid student to resistance fighter – Steil does a good job of tying everything together and creating a thought-provoking piece that, while it was never likely to trouble the Academy voters, certainly provides something a little different from usual WWII efforts. As I implied at the start of this review, I’m sure a number of people will be disappointed based on their expectations from the cover art, but if you can get past that you might be surprised by what The Undercover War has to offer.

The Undercover War is released on DVD on January 3rd, 2011.

Gary Collinson

Movie Review Archive

Visual Linguist: A Darren Aronofsky Profile (Part 2)

With his latest feature Black Swan currently on release in North America, Trevor Hogg profiles the career of filmmaker Darren Aronofsky in the second of a two-part feature... read part one here.

“I walked out of The Matrix [1999] and I was thinking, ‘What kind of science fiction movie can people make now?’,” marveled Brooklyn born filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. “The Wachowski Brothers took all the great sci-fi ideas of the twentieth century and rolled them into a delicious pop culture sandwich that everyone on the planet devoured.” The solution arrived in the form of a college buddy who had left neuroscience to become a writer. “I remember Darren saying, ‘How cool would it be to cut from a battle scene in some historical period to a man traveling alone in space for an unknown reason?’,” remarked Ari Handel who co-wrote the script for The Fountain (2006). “To convince Warner Bros. to give us the big budget to make this very experimental film, we knew we needed real stars.” Brad Pitt (Fight Club) and Cate Blanchett (Robin Hood) were originally signed to be the leads in the initial $75 million production that was to feature three stories: a present day scientist and his cancer-stricken wife, a conquistador and his queen, and a space traveler who meditates on his past love. Elaborate sets were built including a ten story pyramid on the Gold Coast of Australia. The production started to unravel when Brad Pitt and the studio demanded extensive script revisions. Matters got worse when the science fiction fantasy lost the financial backing of Village Roadshow and New Regency. In 2002, the troubled cinematic endeavor collapsed when seven weeks before principle photography was to begin Pitt left. “After working together for two and half years, Brad had lost trust in me and faith in the project,” admitted Aronofsky who suffered a near mental breakdown.

Escaping to India and China for a self-imposed month long exile, the filmmaker returned to New York where he sat for months playing Xbox snowboarding games. Looking at the series of research books for the movie, the director came to a final conclusion. “I could feel that The Fountain was not out of my blood,” confessed Darren Aronofsky. “And then I remembered I don’t have to write for the studio or Brad Pitt or any other movie star. I decided to start acting like an independent filmmaker again.” Realizing he would have to significantly scale back his vision in order to secure the necessary financing, Aronofsky hired Kent Williams to create a graphic novel based on the original screenplay which was published by DC Comics in 2005. “If that many people had tried to shut me down, I would have believed them and given up,” confessed actress Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener) who was recruited to play the female lead in the revised version. “But Darren has a kind of tenacity that I’ve never come across before – tenacity or madness. So The Fountain didn’t have Brad Pitt anymore, for however many gazillions he cost. Writing a cheaper version of the movie let Darren take a more indie route to getting it made.” Selected to replace Brad Pitt was an actor whom Darren Aronofsky saw performing in the Broadway musical The Boy from Oz, Hugh Jackman (X-Men).

“The whole approach of my team was to take old-school techniques and street technology and figure out how to do something fresh and original with them,” stated the director. “No matter how good CGI looks at first, it dates quickly. But 2001 [1968] holds up. So I set the ridiculous goal of making a film that would reinvent space without using CGI.” Warner Bros., which was anxious to recoup its initial $20 million investment, was skeptical about choosing practical effects over computer generated ones. “The studio gave Darren a hard time,” stated Peter Parks, a marine biologist and photographer who, along with his son, runs a special effects company. “Nobody believed he could make this film without CGI. The studio thought he was crazy. He had to fly that reel across the Atlantic five or six times.” To create the nebula scenes, a device used by the Parks called a microzoom optical bench, that has ability to magnify a microliter of water up to 500,000 times, was deployed. “When these images are projected on a big screen, you feel like you’re looking at infinity. That’s because the same forces are at work in the water – gravitational effects, settlement, refractive indices – are happening in outer space.” Peter Parks believed Aronofsky made the right decision. “The CGI guys have ultimate control over everything they do. They can repeat shots over and over and get everything to end up exactly where they want it. But they’re forever seeking the ability to randomize, so that they’re not limited by their imaginations. I’m incapable of faithfully repeating anything, but I can go on producing chaos until the cows come home.”

“On the set, I got to meet a different person from the Darren I knew at home,” remarked Rachel Weisz. “He got us to do some really crazy shit. Darren just keeps the cameras rolling, take after take, which pushed me and Hugh to places of extreme vulnerability and nakedness. It was sexy to see someone be so good at what they do.” Ellen Burstyn and Mark Margolis, who both appeared in Requiem for a Dream (2000), star in the epic with Sean Patrick Thomas (Honeydipper), Donna Murphy (The Astronaut’s Wife), Ethan Suplee (American History X), Cliff Curtis (Whale Rider), and Stephen McHattie (A History of Violence). Costing $35 million The Fountain earned $16 million worldwide; the story, partly inspired by the parents of Aronofsky being diagnosed with cancer within weeks of each other (they successfully recovered), received a nomination from the Golden Globes for Best Original Score, and competed for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

“The idea of doing a movie about a wrestler had been floating around in my head for six or seven years,” remarked Darren Aronofsky who made the observation upon graduating from film school that no one had given the sport a serious cinematic treatment. “I started to develop some of the ideas with producer Scott Franklin and discovered he was a bigger wrestling fan as a kid than I was.” Aronofsky added, “When you meet someone who ten or fifteen years ago was playing in front of 50,000 people and now they’re suddenly in front of 200 people, they’re not just doing if for the money. They’re doing it also to hold onto their craft and the glory. It’s really dramatic.” The Wrestler (2008) revolves around a retired professional wrestler who is drawn back to the ring with the goal of making a comeback. “It was a very hard role to cast,” admitted the Brooklyn native. “[I needed] someone to pull off the humour as well as the sadness and tragedy.” Aronofsky made a controversial choice. “No one believed in Mickey Rourke [The Rainmaker]. He has no value as a commodity. Well, I sat with him and looked into his eyes. His eyes aren’t dead. They’re alive, yearning, thinking.” The director did have some doubts about his leading man. “He’s a big guy but he’s nowhere the size of these wrestlers; he had to put on thirty-five pounds of muscle. So when I first met him, I didn’t know if he could do something like that, and [after] six months of lifting and five thousand calories, he did it.” Rourke impressed the filmmaker with his acting talent. “When you meet him, he has all this armor on him, but that’s because inside he is soft as jelly and he has such a big heart. Technically, he’s an incredible actor and completely in control of his craft.”

Completing the cast are Marisa Tomei (My Cousin Vinny), Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen), Todd Barry (Road Trip), Mark Margolis, and Judah Friedhandler (Date Movie) along with professional wresters such as Ernest Miller, Ron Killings, Kevin Matthews, Johnny Valiant, Tommy Rotten, Rob Eckos, Necro Butcher, Ref Hanson, and Danny Inferno. “We put on real wrestling promotions and put on the matches,” revealed Darren Aronofsky regarding the guerilla filmmaking approach he adopted for the $6 million production. “When the [wrestling] match was over, me, Mickey and the camera woman would run out into the ring. We’d shoot a piece of the [fake] match, [and] leave.” The director sought to achieve a documentary tone for the picture. “I did a lot of preparation but I didn’t come to set with a shot list. I just waited for the actors to create what they were going to do on set. I really wanted to be open to what they were doing and then figure out how to photograph it.” Aronofsky gave an example. “We were backstage with the wrestlers and I said, ‘Hey, guys just talk about your matches’ and we just shot it.” Some things were staged such as the fight sequences. “It was an interesting sound issue because the hits are fake in one way but they’re real as well, in the sense that Mickey was actually getting hit but he wasn’t getting hit full-force like a real wrestler.”

Asked about incorporating a stripper played by Marisa Tomei into the storyline, Darren Aronofsky replied, “The truth of the matter is that when real wrestlers are done with their matches, they usually take their gate and go to the strip club.” The filmmaker went on to say, “The more we thought about it – an aging stripper and an aging wrestler have a lot of similarities. They’re both onstage using their bodies and have stage names. They both create a fantasy for the audience. They’re both endangered by time.” The character portrayed by Tomei serves a dual purpose. “As much as she is a romantic interest, she is [also] a mentor for him.” On selecting the Oscar-winning performer for the role, Aronofsky remarked, “She’s often cast as being very sweet and I liked the fact that she played against it.” The three years spent developing the script with the former editor of The Onion, Robert Siegel, paid off for the director as the drama grossed $45 million worldwide and became an awards circuit sensation. The Wrestler won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and received Academy Award nominations for Best Actor (Mickey Rourke) and Best Supporting Actress (Marisa Tomei). The BAFTA Awards presented Mickey Rourke with Best Actor while nominating Marisa Tomei for Best Supporting Actress. At the Golden Globes the picture won Best Actor – Drama (Mickey Rourke) and Best Original Song while competing for Best Supporting Actress (Marisa Tomei). The Gotham Awards nominated The Wrestler for Best Film whereas Independent Spirit Awards lauded it with Best Cinematography, Best Feature and Best Male Lead (Mickey Rourke). On the union front, Mickey Rourke received a Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination and the Writers Guild of America handed the film a nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

“At one point, way before I did The Wrestler,” remarked Darren Aronofsky, “I was actually developing a project that was about a love affair between a ballet dancer and a wrestler, and then it split into two movies.” The director hired screenwriters to rewrite the script called The Understudy by Andres Heinz (Origin of the Species) which was about off-Broadway actors and explored the idea of an individual being haunted by a double. Developing the psychological thriller, about a ballerina (Natalie Portman) who competes for the dual roles of the innocent White Swan and the sensual Black Swan in a New York City production of Swan Lake, was initially hindered by the lack of cooperation from those professionally involved with the performing art. “For people that do ballet, ballet is their universe and they’re not impressed with movies. I did find dancers that shared their stories with me, some retired, [and] some working. Eventually, I got to stand backstage when the Bolshoi came to Lincoln Center, standing in the wings watching some of the greatest dancers in the world. I got to see some amazing athletes up close and experience what they were going through.” Aronofsky added, “For me what’s so interesting about ballet is these athletes have done it for years – some of them start at four or five years old – and they make it so effortless.”

A serious issue the filmmaker had to deal with was securing the necessary financing for the $13 million production. “Having Natalie Portman [Beautiful Girls], a legitimate movie star, Vincent Cassel [Eastern Promises], an international movie star, and Mila Kunis [The Book of Eli], a big domestic star, and my supporting cast of Barbara [Hershey] and Winona [Ryder], I didn’t think it would be as hard. It was a nightmare.” On the other hand, attaching Portman to the fledging project was an easy matter for the director. “I am trying to find roles that demand more adulthood from me because you can get stuck in a very awful cute cycle as a woman in film, especially being such a small person,” stated Natalie Portman who has longed to star in Black Swan (2010) even since a fateful meeting with Aronofsky in Times Square. “We started talking about it in 2002 when I was still in college. Darren had a very specific idea. What he told me in our first meeting became what the movie ended up being.”

Portman was not entering into unfamiliar territory. “I did ballet until I was twelve then I stopped when I started to take acting seriously.” However, what the actress did find difficult was the amount of preparation required for the part. “Physically I trained starting a year ahead of time, and then the six months prior to [shooting] the film went into a hypertraining where I was doing five hours a day of ballet and cross-training with swimming.” All the work was worthwhile in the eyes of director Darren Aronofsky. “She was able to pull it off. Except for wide shots when she has to be en pointe for a real long time, it’s Natalie on-screen. I haven’t used her double a lot.” As for the notorious love-making scene with her co-star Mila Kinus, Natalie Portman stated, “Nina really doesn’t know who she is – she an ego without an identity, living to please other people and seeing herself through their eyes. This is the first time she lets go – her first real moment of finding pleasure for herself.” Portman enjoyed working with Aronofsky. “Darren gave us these really complicated characters and… the freedom to bring what we wanted to the roles.” The director was equally praiseworthy of his star. “One of the best things about the film is the casting of Natalie. She took the part and ran with it. I don’t know if when I was working with the writers we were consciously channeling Natalie or Natalie somehow transformed herself to the part, but they grew together.”

“The best thing with this movie is that everyone seems to be having a strong visceral response to Darren’s filmmaking,” stated Natalie Portman. “It’s both thought provoking, emotional and pure entertainment.” Screening for the first time at the 2010 Venice Film festival, Black Swan received a long standing ovation and Mila Kunis won the Mastroianni Prize for best emerging artist. Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, “You might howl at the sheer audacity of mixing mental illness with the body-fatiguing, mind-numbing rigors of ballet, but its lurid imagery and hellcat competition between two rival dancers is pretty irresistible.” He added, “[The] White Swan/Black Swan dynamics almost work, but the horror movie nonsense drags everything down the rabbit hole of preposterousness.” Mike Goodridge from Screen Daily observed in his review, “She [Portman] captures the confusion of a repressed young woman thrown into a world of danger and temptation with frightening veracity.”

Reuniting with Hugh Jackman, the moviemaker is helming The Wolverine (2011) which sees Jackman reprise his role as the Marvel Comics superhero. Wolverine travels to Japan to train with a samurai warrior. Darren Aronofsky has been quick to point out that the action picture, which is based on the script by Christopher McQuarrie (The Usual Suspects), should be viewed as a “one-off” rather than a sequel. Also, in development for the director is a cinematic adaptation of an online serial by Max Barry; as it currently stands, the cybernetic thriller Machine Man will be released in 2012.

“It’s not about taking chances; it’s about making memorable films,” remarked Darren Aronofsky. “You’re in the world with so much media, so many distractions, that you have to give people something they’re not going to forget.” Along with declaring Terry Gilliam (Brazil) and Roman Polanski (The Ghost Writer) to be his heroes, the Brooklyn native admires the work of Tim Burton (Alice in Wonderland), David Fincher (The Social Network), and Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood) who are “interesting filmmakers making films on a big level within the [Hollywood] system.” Having to prove himself with every movie he makes is nothing new for the director. “There’s always been a lot of pressure and tension on the line. If Pi [1998] hadn’t worked out, I have no idea what my career would be. I don’t think I would have gotten another shot at it. If Requiem of a Dream hadn’t worked out, they would have called me a ‘one-hit wonder with a sophomore slump.’” Upon contemplating his career choices, Darren Aronofsky replied, “I try to choose the road that I have the most passion for because then you can never really blame yourself for making the wrong choices.” As for some words of wisdom for aspiring filmmakers, Aronofsky remarked, “Ultimately, every film has its own visual language. You have to figure out what the theme is and then apply style to it.”

For more on Darren Aronofsky visit his official website and blog, along with the fansites Darren Aronofsky Online and Aronofsky Films.

Be sure to read our review of Black Swan, and visit the official site.

Be sure to check out the screenplay for The Wrestler, along with a preview of The Fountain graphic novel and the official site of Machine Man.

Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.

DVD Review - Circle of Pain (2010)

Circle of Pain, 2010.

Directed by Daniel Zirilli.
Starring Tony Schiena, Dean Cain, Bai Ling, Heath Herring and Kimbo Slice.


SYNOPSIS:

When a friendly sparring session between an MMA champion and his best buddy goes horribly wrong, a ruthless promoter discovers a golden opportunity to set up a lucrative ‘dream clash’ between him and the fearsome new and undefeated title holder.


As something of an expert in action movies of all levels, I took up the challenge to watch and review Circle of Pain. My first impressions looking at the artwork, were that this would involve fighting and pain. True, and true! I was also under the impression that Kimbo Slice would be the star of the film as he takes centre stage on the cover. However by the time the credits were rolling, Kimbo, who for those who don’t know, is a UFC fighter, had appeared briefly in two scenes. Now you kind of get how little the remainder of the cast are as a selling point for the movie. That may well be harsh on poor old Dean Cain (Superman in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman) who appears in a fairly significant role.

So I plopped in the disc, pretty much knowing what to expect, having seen a vast array of fight based films, from Bloodsport, to eight (yes eight) Bloodfist films. Believe me, when it comes to action films, I’ve taken some punishment, and I’ve done my time. Why? I have no idea! But I’ve seen more Don “The Dragon” Wilson films than any man really should. Circle Of Pain follows a classic formula. Once great fighting champ, who disappeared from the game because of a tragic incident, is called back in for another fight, against the current big dog of the circuit. It’s kind of Rocky Balboa, but with Kimbo Slice (sorry, I just like typing Kimbo Slice, because it’s a brilliant name!) appearing briefly to start a fight with the lead. Of course there’s blackmail to force the reluctant fighter back in, and then we also have obligatory training scenes. Sadly in Circle Of Pain there’s not a torture device in sight, or any bamboo, or even a shot of an eagle who somehow shares a spiritual connection with the lead. It’s all rather uninspiring. The film has no momentum and never really knows how to get from A-B.

Now it is quite clear, that I didn’t think too much of Circle Of Pain. It’s pretty awful. I’ve watched films as bad, some worse, that I actually enjoyed though. The biggest problem is the lead, Tony Schiena. For a time in the late 80’s, and early 90’s, with the dawn of video, any one with a black belt and/or six pack, could become an action star it seemed. To follow in the wake of Van Damme, Seagal and Norris, there were a vast array of kickboxing stars, such as Michael Dudikoff, Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Olivier Gruner, Billy Blanks, Gary Daniels, Lorenzo Lamas, Mark Dacascos, Jeff Speakman and Jeff Wincott. Most of these guys were horrible actors true, and often charisma voids as well. However they all had fairly lengthy careers in the video market. Why? Granted there was more demand back then for these kind of films, but also they all had a certain star power with them. Yes I have just said that Jeff Wincott had star power! I don’t care! But he kind of did. Had he not, he would never have done so many action films as a leading man, including a few sequels. Say what you will about Don Wilson as a thespian, but the guy had enough viewers to warrant eight Bloodfist films, two Cybertracker films and two Ring Of Fire films. Tony Schiena however, may well be one of the dullest action men I’ve ever seen. It’s harder to launch yourself these days in comparison to the early 90’s, true, but this guy I’m pretty sure will never have a fan base to sustain himself as a leading action man. He appeared alongside Van Damme in Wake Of Death, and in a supporting role, he wasn’t too bad. I then spotted him in a film, his first leading role, called The Number One Girl, which was even worse than this. It was that film I new for sure, he’d not become the new Lorenzo Lamas (I love name checking B-movie video action stars!). In fact whilst watching this film with my brother we both decided that Tony Schiena is the poor mans Jeff Wincott. Circle of Pain is the first action lead role he’s had since his previous, five years ago.

The remainder of the cast do little to inspire. Dean Cain is okay, but perhaps made to look a lot better than he is due to the other supporting players. He’s got little in the way of character though, playing Wyatt, the best friend of Dalton (Schiena), wheelchair bound after a sparring session between the two got out of hand. Question: Is there anything Ling Bai won’t appear in? This lady is totally fucknuts, and will do appear in as wide a budget range as you can think of. Not only that, despite this film being so pointless and low rent, she still finds time to get her kit off, so it would appear it doesn’t cost much to get Ling Bai out of her clothes. Needless to say she’s terrible in this, though because she’s well known for being nuttier than a squirrel turd in real life, there’s something strangely compelling about her performance at the same time. The antagonist of the piece is played by another UFC fighter, Heath Herring, who though bad, at least managers to come across as a mean S.O.B.

The fight scenes are also disappointing. The trouble is they look slow, cumbersome and rehearsed. This isn’t always a terrible thing in a fight film when it comes to standard Kickboxer style fights. But they’ve gone for UFC style fighting here and there’s none of the blood and thunder, nor intensity of being in the circle of pain. There’s no energy in the fights, and that’s not helped in the slightest by dire editing and poor sound. Films like this normally live or die by their fight scenes. Even if they are completely terrible, there’s something comical to be taken from that. Many a Don the Dragon film has been so bad it’s funny. This film is just plain old, mind numbingly, bad!

All in all, Circle Of Pain isn’t a film to recommend. Not even for die hard action fans, nor even MMA fans. Beer fuelled enjoyment of this piece isn’t even an option for a lads night in. It won’t excite or even (unintentionally) amuse. With a total lack of star power, excitement and originality, this is a rather pointless use of film. Go watch Bloodfist 2 instead.

Tom Jolliffe

Movie Review Archive

Five Essential... Movie Supervillains

Gary Collinson selects his Essential Movie Supervillains...

If there’s one thing any good superhero needs it’s a strong nemesis; someone who can push them to the very limits as they set about realising their diabolical plans for world domination. From the A-listers of Batman’s Rogues Gallery to classic Marvel bad guys such as Doctor Doom and the Green Goblin, the superhero world is littered with great antagonists. However, when it comes to translating them to movie screens most of these fail to live up to their comic book counterparts, resulting in a stream of missed opportunities, outright misfires and close-but-no-cigars.

Of course that’s not always the case, so here we present our selection of the essential movie supervillains...

5. Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus.

Having come so close to getting it right with the Green Goblin in the first Spider-Man movie (a good performance from Willem Dafoe let down by an overly action-figure look), Sam Raimi tried his hand with another of the Marvel Universe’s most treasured villains for the webslinger to square off against in Spider-Man 2. Alfred Molina’s Dr. Otto Octavius is a sympathetic figure, benefiting from the injection of human qualities not present in his comic book form, and his tragic story is the main reason why the 2004 sequel is the highlight of Raimi’s series.





4. Jack Nicholson as The Joker.

When up-and-coming filmmaker Tim Burton was handed the reigns to Batman he turned to legendary screen psychopath and two-time Academy Award winner Jack Nicholson to ensure that Gotham’s protector would meet his match against a worthy adversary. Nicholson’s Joker is a fine representation of the comic title’s ‘classic’ Crown Prince of Crime and he really is the star of the show, overshadowing Batman at every opportunity. In return for his enormous pay check, Nicholson delivered the definitive portrayal of The Joker until Heath Ledger reinvented the character almost two decades later in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight.




3. Terence Stamp as General Zod.

The problem with the Superman franchise is that when you’re main character is The Man of Steel, it’s pretty hard to find a villain that can give him a good go. Step forward General Zod - a guy with the same abilities as Superman and a pair of similarly-powered lackeys to back him up - who conquers Earth with ease before demanding that the son of Jor-El kneels before Zod. Stamp’s turn as the ruthless Kryptonian General in Superman II made Zod one of Superman’s most popular foes and will be a hard act to follow should the character’s rumoured return for the Zack Snyder reboot Superman: The Man of Steel (2012) prove true.




2. Ian McKellen as Magneto.

A veteran thespian such as Sir Ian McKellen may not be the most obvious choice for a movie supervillain he certainly makes the role of Magneto his own in the original X-Men trilogy. McKellen is pretty much perfect in the part and his interactions with Professor X (Patrick Stewart) deliver the kind of punch you'd come to expect from two such respected actors. Both Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy will have their work cut out to match up as younger versions of the friends-turned-arch-rivals in Matthew Vaughn's upcoming X-Men: First Class (2011), but as we shall see, it can be done...




1. Heath Ledger as The Joker.

The only actor on this list to receive an Academy Award for his efforts (and indeed, the only actor in history to receive such an accolade for a comic book movie), Heath Ledger delivers a masterful turn as the antagonist of The Dark Knight. Ledger's Joker is an out-and-out psychopath, stripping away much of the humour to bring the character back to his roots as a ruthless, cold-blooded killer. Rumours persist that Ledger will make a posthumous appearance in The Dark Knight Rises (although Nolan has continuously denied this), but regardless his efforts in The Dark Knight are more than enough to make Ledger's Joker the essential movie supervillain.




Note...

The original plan for this article was to include ten selections to keep it in line with our Ten Essential Movie Superheroes, but in all honesty it was hard enough picking five worthy of inclusion.

And the epic fails…

5. Ryan Reynolds / Scott Adkins as Weapon XI (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, 2009)
4. Colin Farrell as Bullseye (Daredevil, 2003)
3. Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut (X-Men: The Last Stand, 2006)
2. A cloud as Galactus (Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, 2007)
1. Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze (Batman & Robin, 1997)

Agree? Disagree? We'd love to hear your comments on the list...

Gary Collinson

Essentials Archive

Season's Greetings and a look ahead to 2011's big releases...

Just a quick note to wish our readers a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from everyone here at Flickering Myth, and to say thank you for your support during this past year.

We'll be posting our 'Top 10 Movies of 2010' on New Year's Eve, but for the moment here's a selection of films to look out for in the coming year...

The Green Hornet (dir. Michel Gondry)
The Way Back (dir. Peter Weir)
The Mechanic (dir. Simon West)
Sanctum (dir. Alister Grierson)
The Eagle (dir. Kevin Macdonald)
Gnomeo and Juliet (dir. Kelly Asbury)
I Am Number Four (dir. D. J. Caruso)
Unknown (dir. Jaume Collet-Serra)
Drive Angry (dir. Patrick Lussier)
Hall Pass (dir. Farrelly Brothers)
The Adjustment Bureau (dir. George Nolfi)
Rango (dir. Gore Verbinski)
Battle: Los Angeles (dir. Jonathan Liebesman)
Red Riding Hood (dir. Catherine Hardwicke)
Paul (dir. Greg Mottola)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2: Rodrick Rules (dir. David Bowers)
Sucker Punch (dir. Zack Snyder)
Win Win (dir. Thomas McCarthy)
Hop (dir. Tim Hill)
Source Code (dir. Duncan Jones)
Hanna (dir. Joe Wright)
Rio (dir. Carlos Saldanha)
Your Highness (dir. David Gordon Green)
Scream 4 (dir. Wes Craven)
Fast Five (dir. Justin Lin)
Thor (dir. Kenneth Branagh)
Priest (dir. Scott Stewart)
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (dir. Rob Marshall)
The Hangover: Part II (dir. Todd Phillips)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (dir. Jennifer Yuh Nelson)
The Tree of Life (dir. Terrence Malick)
X-Men: First Class (dir. Matthew Vaughn)
Super 8 (dir. J.J. Abrams)
Green Lantern (dir. Martin Campbell)
Cars 2 (dir. John Lasseter and Brad Lewis)
Rise of the Apes (dir. Rupert Wyatt)
Larry Crowne (dir. Tom Hanks)
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (dir. Michael Bay)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (dir. David Yates)
Winnie the Pooh (dir. Stephen Anderson and Don Hall)
Captain America: The First Avenger (dir. Joe Johnston)
Cowboys & Aliens (dir. Jon Favreau)
The Smurfs (dir. Raja Gosnell)
The Darkest Hour (dir. Chris Gorak)
Conan the Barbarian (dir. Marcus Nispel)
Fright Night (dir. Craig Gillespie)
Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (dir. Robert Rodriguez)
Final Destination 5 (dir. Stephen Quale)
Colombiana (dir. Oliver Megaton)
Warrior (dir. Gavin O'Connor)
Drive (dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)
Johnny English Reborn (dir. Oliver Parker)
Pirahna 3DD (dir. John Gulager)
Straw Dogs (dir. Rod Lurie)
Abduction (dir. John Singleton)
Moneyball (dir. Bennett Miller)
Dream House (dir. Jim Sheridan)
Anonymous (dir. Roland Emmerich)
Real Steel (dir. Shawn Levy)
Footloose (dir. Craig Brewer)
The Thing (dir. Matthijs van Heijningen)
The Three Musketeers (dir. Paul W.S. Anderson)
Contagion (dir. Stever Soderbergh)
Paranormal Activity 3 (dir. Tod Williams)
Tower Heist (dir. Brett Ratner)
Puss in Boots (dir. Chris Miller)
Immortals (dir. Tarsem Singh)
Happy Feet 2 (dir. George Miller)
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (dir. Bill Condon)
Arthur Christmas (dir. Sarah Smith and Barry Cook)
The Muppets (dir. James Bobin)
Hugo Cabaret (dir. Martin Scorsese)
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (dir. Brad Bird)
Sherlock Holmes 2 (dir. Guy Ritchie)
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (dir. David Fincher)
The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn (dir. Steven Spielberg)
We Bought a Zoo (dir. Cameron Crowe)
War Horse (dir. Steven Spielberg)

Looks like it could be a very busy year indeed! Feel free to tell us what film you're most looking forward to in 2011 and please, if there's anything that's slipped under our radar do let us know.

Short Film Showcase - Jesus vs. Santa (1995)

Jesus vs. Santa (a.k.a. The Spirit of Christmas), 1995.

Written, Directed, Produced, Animated and Voiced by Trey Parker and Matt Stone.

After seeing the original 1992 version of The Spirit of Christmas, Fox executive Brian Graden commissioned Trey Parker and Matt Stone to create a follow-up which he could use as a video Christmas card to send to friends. The resulting film (known as Jesus vs. Santa) features a more-refined and familiar animation style along with named versions of Cartman, Kenny, Kyle and Stan, who find themselves mediating an argument between Jesus and Santa Claus over the true meaning of Christmas (which is of course presents).

The short was initially distributed to Graden's friends in December 1995 and went on to generate interest as a bootleg before coming to the attention of Comedy Central, who hired Parker and Stone to develop the film as a series, South Park, which debuted in 1997. That same year Jesus vs. Frosty also received the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Animation.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Blu-ray Review – Family Guy: It’s a Trap! (2010)

Family Guy: It’s a Trap!

Directed by Peter Shin.
Featuring the voice talents of Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green, Mila Kunis Mike Henry, Patrick Warburton and Dee Bradley Baker.


SYNOPSIS:

Return of the Jedi gets the Family Guy treatment as Han Solo (Peter), Chewbacca (Brian), Princess Leia (Lois) and Luke Skywalker (Chris) continue their battle against Darth Vader (Stewie) and the Evil Empire.


Back in 2007 Seth MacFarlane and his Family Guy team earned rave reviews (not to mention an Emmy Award nomination) for Blue Harvest, their hilarious parody of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope that saw characters from the hit animated show recast into roles from a galaxy far, far away. Two years later it was the turn of The Empire Strikes Back with the sequel Something, Something, Something, Dark Side, and now the circle is complete with this latest offering, It’s a Trap!, which – perhaps unsurprisingly, given its source material – results in the weakest instalment in the trilogy. But hey, even Lucas couldn't keep it up for this long.

Following the same set-up as the previous episodes, It’s a Trap! begins with the Griffin household losing power before segueing into the familiar Star Wars opening crawl, this time littered with self-referential gags about how the writers are all out of ideas and have been coerced into completing the trilogy by the suits at Fox. I guess they’re only partly joking with this disclaimer, for while they aren’t completely out of ideas the episode just doesn’t live up to the standard of its predecessors. That’s not to say it isn’t funny (it is) but the allegations of filler that surrounded the previous instalments really comes to the front here and at times you feel you’re just watching an animated recreation of Return of the Jedi (which, depending on your persuasion, could be a good thing or a bad thing).

So, getting past the fact that It’s a Trap! isn’t the greatest of episodes, what’s good about it? Well, it’s Family Guy doing Star Wars, and for fans of either that should be more than enough to secure a purchase. And of course there are some great, laugh-out-loud moments that include sock-puppet ‘Special Edition’ enhancements, an extended sequence of nodding as our heroes prepare to face the Sarlaac monster, hilarious interaction between Darth Stewie and Carter Pewterschmidt’s Emperor and Stewie criticising Seth Green to tempt Chris towards the Dark Side. There’s also some funny guest appearances from Seth MacFarlane’s other animated shows, including American Dad!’s Roger and Klaus and The Cleveland Show’s Rallo and the bears, while Patrick Stewart and Michael Dorn also pop up to reprise their roles from Star Trek: The Next Generation in a quick cameo.

It’s a Trap! marks the first time I’ve seen Family Guy in glorious 1080p high definition and the improvement in picture quality between the Blu-ray and DVD really is impressive. The colours are bright and vibrant and the recreation of the space scenes in particular look absolutely fantastic. I’m yet to be fully converted to the HD bandwagon but this has went some way to convincing me otherwise and if you have a Blu-ray player then this is certainly the way to go (and as it’s released in Triple Play format, you can see the difference for yourself). Meanwhile both the DVD and Blu-ray come with a decent selection of special features including ‘A Very Special Message From Darth Stewie’, production featurettes, sock puppet outtakes and the obligatory audio commentary.

Scheduled to air in the US in May 2011, Family Guy: It’s a Trap has just received a North American release on DVD and Blu-ray and hits UK shelves on December 27th.

Gary Collinson

Movie Review Archive