King Lear

OK, I will be honest. I really tried to enjoy the National Theatre production of King Lear, I really did. Never before have I so easily been able to view a proper British theatrical production. And this one had everything going for it - a very personal script from William Shakespeare, the headline involvement of Sir Derek Jacobi in the lead cast, and an authentic performance taking place at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre. Not to mention a chance for me, a Brisbanite, to view the production from the comfort of the Dendy Portside Cinema seats, with a glass of red wine and a bucket of popcorn to boot? What wasn’t there to like?

Sadly, not a lot. So what went wrong? And why did I find myself focussing more on sending secret SMS messages during the last third of the production, rather than focussing on the cinema screen the gorgeous 1080p stream was being projected onto?

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The Fighter

I am not normally someone who enjoys watching a film about boxing. While I enjoyed Rocky somewhat when I first saw it, I’ve never been too keen to see any subsequent boxing films - either in that series, or indeed other standalone productions. This is because most of them follow a fairly generic pattern, one set by Rocky all those years ago. The focus is always on the actual boxing itself, and the associated elements to prepare for “The Big Fight”, as it were. The character moments tend to be awkward or ham-fisted in their inclusion, and the gratuitious use of violence as two blokes belt each other up inside the ring meant that there wasn’t a huge amount for me to actually like. I do prefer my films to have a bit more of a plot, and a bit more character interplay, than that. So imagine by surprise when I found myself in the Dendy Cinema in Brisbane recently, about to watch a film about boxing. I was hoping for something a bit different, mostly because of the Oscar nomination that the film had received. I was pleased I did see The Fighter, as it ended up being easily the best film I’ve ever seen about boxing.

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The King's Speech

A lot of good things have been said about The King’s Speech to me in recent days. Despite not normally being the sort of movie I go to the cinema to view (not enough monsters and special effects for me - which is what cinema does best), after hearing several recommendations from various work colleagues about how good it was, I figured I had best move myself towards popping along to the local Dendy Cinema and view the film. If only to see what all the fuss was about. In the end, I was really glad that I did go along and see it, because it was an excellent 2 hours of cinema, with a wonderful script driven home by some very good performances indeed. I guess you cannot go wrong with a film that boasts Colin Firth (The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love) and Geoffrey Rush (Shakespeare in Love, Pirates of the Caribbean) headlining the wide pool of talent contributing towards what happens in front of the camera. Supported by some lovely cinematography, and an effective score by Alexandre Desplat, it’s easy to see why The King’s Speech really has left so many people who’ve seen it, well, speechless.

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The Tourist

It seemed like the perfect recipe for a film - Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie headlining the cast, various exotic locations in and around Venice and Paris, and what was intended (I guess) as an interesting twist in the tale at the end. All of those sound like excellent individual elements, which they are, but what happened? Why does The Tourist end up being such a disappointing tale? I guess what it honestly comes down to is the complete lack of honest tension in the film - nothing feels exciting or surprising. Not the narrative, not the stunts, not the various low-key action sequences, it was all just so flat and pedestrian. This is really Hollywood by numbers.

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Tron Legacy

I never got to see Tron when it originally was released back in the early 1980s - that was simply due to my only having been a few years old when it was released. So I was one of those people who saw it on DVD much later, long after it had stopped being a film that featured cutting-edge effects. In fact, the first time I saw it was only a few years ago, when the 20th anniversary DVD set came out. By that time, however, while the film certainly had a reputation for being a major cult classic, it looked and sounded incredibly dated. Despite this, however, I found the original film to be a really rather good, if overly simplistic at times, attempt to make a serious computer-centric film. One that took the technology of the time, and extrapolated where things might very well go into the future. So while the notion of little tiny people running around inside computers seems absurd by today’s standards, let’s not forget that it was entirely possible people saw this as a real possibility. So with the release of Tron Legacy, has the 30 year gap between the two films allowed for a maturation of content, and more importantly the effects? Read on to find out.

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