What’s on TV this Autumn?

I’m really disappointed at what’s on television this Autumn. Because there isn’t much. Where have all the good shows gone?

The new shows starting this autumn are far and between on Finnish TV. The only one I could get excited about was Mentalist and even that isn’t very original, though it’s been very popular over in the US. Simon Baker is okay, but he is more or less another Charlie Crews. Life is taking a break over here and instead we get Desperate Housewives which I abandoned already after two seasons.

I was looking forward to Harper’s Island but that show is such a load of tosh I can’t believe it. I’ve seen three episodes but can’t care enough about the characters to continue long. Maybe I should just let it be.

All I have to watch is CSI, Bones and Mentalist, and that’s not much. Of course there are always reruns of shows like Simpsons, but that’s not much of a consolation. I even have to wait a couple more months for Prison Break’s final season, though that definitely isn’ as good as it was in its first season. The following seasons have mostly had the sole attraction of Wentworth Miller who surely is pleasant to look at.

Where is the second season of Pushing Daisies? Or Breaking Bad. Or IT Crowd. Flight of the Conchords? I want Lost back, as well. So many great shows that will not get air time on the Finnish TV. Because apparently we need another season of Big Brother, Who wants to be a Top Model or a Fashion Designer or an Idol who’ll fade to obscurity by the time the credits roll. TV is shite at the moment and I’m pissed.

At least our National Broadcasting Company renewed its contract with HBO so we’ll get True Blood and Pacific, though not until next year. For the mean time I have to raid my DVD shelf and that of my roommate’s. I just recently bought Green Wing box set and she all of the three seasons of Arrested Development so I’m set for a while. And I still haven’t started watching Deadwood which I bought a couple of months ago and I’m still viewing the third season of the Wire. Those will keep me satisfied for a little while. It seems that if I want to watch good television, I have to buy the DVDs and that doesn’t seem right, does it?

Helsinki International Film Festival

We here in Helsinki are in the mids of the Helsinki International Film Festival or HIFF or Love & Anarcy film festival as it is also called. This is my third time attending. I would’ve attended earlier, but I’ve lived elsewhere and it hasn’t been that easy. The HIFF is different to other film festivals because no awards are given to any of the film makers or actors. Mostly it is for the viewers who for once get a chance to see films from all over the world. Outside the film festival it can be difficult, because American and European (mostly British)  films dominate the markets.

This year I only have time to see 10 films, and even that is a challenge, because I have a job (and thank god for that). But I’ve tried to select films as diverse as possible, though I am partial to Asian cinema and animation. But here are the movies I’ve seen or plan to see this year.

1. Just Walking (Mexico-Spain 2008)

The first film I saw at the festival was the Mexican heist movie Just Walking starring Diego Luna as a righthand man to a sleazy Mexican ganster who marries a Spanish prostitute and kills her. Her sister and friends plan a heist as a revenge. It’s easy to see that the director Augustín Días Yanes is a fan of Quentin Tarantino what with the graphic violence. There is also a measure of levity in the whole movie which makes is occasionally funny. Diego Luna is very good.

2. Gigante (Uruguay 2009)

An endearing film about a heavy metal loving and shy night guard Jara, who works at a supermarket and falls in love with a clumsy cleaner. He follows her every move via surveillance cameras. He also follows her around during the days. It really isn’t as creepy as it sounds, because he’s just too shy to talk to her. A quiet and subtle romantic comedy that makes you wanna smile.

3. Ponyo (Japan 2008)

This is by far the best film I’ve seen this year at the festival, though none of them have been poor. Ponyo on the Cliff is the latest movie by World’s Best Animator Hayao Miyazaki and it reminds me a lot of Totoro. It is innocent, funny, brilliant and lovely with a most wonderful imagery and a story that resembles that of Little Mermaid. Everyone should see this movie, especially the adults, because it will make you smile!

4. Thirst (South Korea 2009)

Thirst again demonstrates that the South Koreans are very weird. And I mean that in a good way. Thirst is a movie about vampires. It’s also very bloody and graphic in its sex scenes (directed by Park Chan-wook, he of Oldboy). And utterly, absurdly funny! No one in the US would ever dare to make this kind of a movie. It’s very difficult to say at the beginning where the movie is headed and you’d never guess on the outcome. I had to keep on covering my eyes quite frequently, but at times I was laughing until my sides hurt. It’s just that kind of a movie!

5. Kisses (Ireland 2008)

Next door neighbours Kylie and Dylan have both a very hard time at home. One day they’ve had enough and decide to run away. They head for the big city and have a blast until they realise that life on the street is nothing to look forward to. This is a wonderfully shot movie with brilliant turns from the two young leads.

6. The Hurt Locker (USA 2008)

I was quite literally sitting at the edge of my seat the whole runtime of The Hurt Locker, it was that suspenseful. I read one viewer’s comment somewhere that said that the movie took no stand on the horrible situation in Iraq but I have to disagree with that. It’s true that the story is told only from the viewpoint of three, American, men in a nerve-racking job and doesn’t show that much what the Iraqis feel. But, the movie shows how horrible war is. For the soldiers, yes, but also for the people living in the middle of it. They’ve become so accustomed to the terrible situation that they gather to watch American soldiers dismantling explosives on their home street. There is something tragic about that. And who in the audience didn’t burst out a horrified laugh when the American military psychiatrist told a disturbed soldier horrified at his situation that being in Iraq was “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”. Tragic. The movie is thrilling and thought-provoking at the same time.

7. Still Walking (Japan 2008)

This was a beautiful and insightful movie about a family that still struggles to come to terms with the death of the oldest son many years earlier. The other children and their families cannot fill the void left by their older brother’s death. The slowly paced movie has flashes of humour and plenty of real life. Very beautiful, but not sad.

8. The Mermaid (Russia 2007)

This one I’m going to see today. It was described as a Russian Amelie. Don’t know how I feel about that. I’ll find out today.

9. The Good, the Bad and the Weird (South Korea 2008)

This is on my schedule tomorrow. A Korean western,  or a kimchi western (as opposed to a spaghetti western). It starts Song Kang-ho (also the vampire in Thirst) and is supposed to be funny, I think.

10. In the Loop (UK 2009)

Also tomorrow, I’m going to see the British political comedy In the Loop, and I’ve heard good things about this.

What I saw this summer

Wow, I just realised that the last time I wrote a word in this blog was way back in July and I had just seen the latest Harry Potter. Since then I’ve seen a number of good films on which I’ve had loads to say, but as ever, life interferes. I was forced to move houses which completely threw off my well-organised excistense. Thank god that’s all over and I’ve managed to settle down in my new flat.

There are so many movies I’d love to comment on, but it would take loads of time, so I’m just going to single out a couple.

(500) Days of Summer

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is wonderful in this movie. And I didn’t know he could be so… I don’t know, adorable and real. It was such a sweet and honest movie and I just wanted to keep watching it. Alas, it still ended. It is unbelievable that I could ever dislike Zooey Deschanel who is such a brilliant, and brilliantly funny, actress but I did in this film. And I was meant to as well, because it’s a rom-com with a difference, because it really isn’t one. They even warn about that at the beginning. Everyone should see this!

Moon

I went to see this film at my favourite cinema in London, the Prince Charles on Leicester Square when I was visiting London a couple of weeks ago. It stars Sam Rockwell and not really anyone else. He’s a man stationed alone in moon and longs to be home with his wife and daughter. Things go wrong when he’s in an accident and wakes up at the moon station (Sarang which is Korean for love) with a fuzzy memory. What a brilliant movie Moon is! It has an endearing retro quality to its sets and special effects which works in favour of the movie. Sam Rockwell shows once again that he is one of the best actors around today having mostly to play against a robot (voiced by Kevin Spacey, who I love, by the way).

Public Enemies

I was eagerly awaiting for Michael Mann’s new movie, what with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale heading the cast. The most obvious thing in the movie was that it was shot in digital. And I love how it looked. I think most people need some time to get accustomed to it, though. Public Enemies was as good as I’d heard and anticipated, so no dissapointements there. Johnny Depp was on fine form and I just adore Christian Bale, as an actor that is.

Inglourious Basterds

Another eagerly awaited film, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds was very good. Not as violent as his other films, Basterds consisted of very long scenes that were connected to each other. There was much more talk than in other of Tarantino’s movies (and that’s saying something, I think) but that doesn’t mean that the violence was less shocking just because there was less of it. Brad Pitt was good (and very funny) as nazi-killing Aldo Raine but the best performance was undoubtedly that of Christoph Waltz who played Hans Landa. And it was just plain weird seeing B.J. Novak (Ryan from the Office) in the movie, not that he was bad or anything.

District 9

I went to see this film without too high expectations. Sure, I hade heard good things about it, but wanted to judge for myself. I’m glad I did, because, wow, what a movie. It’s so different from the big-budgeted explosion-heavy action-scifis (phew!) we’re used to, instead putting some thought in the plot and premise. There’s some serious subtext, which is pretty obvious. The real revelation aside from the documentary style telling of the story and the impressive computer effects is Sharlto Copley as the clumsy and eager-to-please bureaucrat Wikus van der Merwe. There are flaws, but they are not so glaring that you get distracted.

Brothers Bloom

Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo as charming conmen, Rachel Weisz  is an oddball love interest and Rinko Kikuchi is, well, just odd. All set in beautiful city of Prague, among other locations. A charming and nicely quirky movie. I love quirky. 

And the movies I saw and shouldn’t have

Year One  (the funniest bits were in the trailer) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (quite frankly, pointless and stupid).

The Problem of Harry Potter

I usually go into Harry Potter movies knowing full well that I’m not going to like them as much as I like the books. That’s why I leave all criticism at the theatre door and enjoy the films without thinking too much. But reality intrudes as it always inevitably does. All of the Harry Potter movies are flawed in some ways. Some are better and some worse, but the thing is, you’re not going to “get” them if you haven’t read the books and even if you have, there’s something missing. Therein lies the problem of Harry Potter. The movies are never going to measure up to the expectations set by the books. The movies are all about money and pleasing the audience who are eager to see their favourite scenes up on screen. Sure, there are bound to be disappointments but also the occasional whoops of delight.

I have tried to avoid any spoilers in this review, but if you don’t want to know anything about the latest movie, stop reading now.

What the latest movie Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince did was give us a lot of  nice scenes, but not much else. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the film, but afterwards it was pretty difficult to ignore the (glaring, obvious, giant) weaknesses of the movie. According to a friend, the sixth book in the series is the only boring one. And although I don’t subscribe to that opinion myself I do understand what she means. The book mostly deals with old memories of Lord Voldemort/Tom Riddle and that is the driving force of the book. It gives us the background of Harry’s nemesis before the final, climactic battle between them in the seventh book.

Yet, in the movie, there is no driving force. We do get a few glimpses into the very important memories but the rest of the film, aside from the serious beginning and the final scenes, is devoted to a wholly different kind of movie, namely a teenage comedy with I-like-him-but does-he-like-me dialogue. I really liked watching the kids falling in and out of love, but that’s not what Harry Potter should be about. The puppy loves should not be ignored, but they are not supposed to be the most important thing either.

As already mentioned, if you haven’t read the books don’t expect to understand who The Half-Blood Prince is and why. Although the identity of the prince is revealed in the movie, it doesn’t come across as very important (the movie is called Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for Pete’s sake, maybe you should’ve tried explaining? No?). Instead, the focus is somewhere else entirely. Okay, this rant makes it seem like I didn’t actually enjoy the movie. I did enjoy it, but it’s pretty difficult to ignore such huge gaps in the plot (although I have read the books). There were a few very nice scenes and the movie was as visually interesting as ever, even scary at times. It doesn’t stand on its own as a film, though, which it ought to have done.

I just hope the last two films, namely the two different parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows turn out better. I still can’t be very disappointed in Half-Blood Prince: The Movie because it has a lot of scenes with Ron Weasley, my favourite character alongside Snape.

At Cinema: Coraline

I absolutely love Neil Gaiman’s books. My favourite is American Gods, but I’ve read almost all of his other books as well. So far Neil Gaiman’s books have only been put up on the silver screen once. Stardust is one of the writer’s softer and easier books. It’s a fairy-tale, but with occasional darker twists. The movie was good, very enjoyable and lovely, but perhaps not a masterpiece.

I can’t help but think that putting together Neil Gaiman’s dark and twisted fairytales with Henry Selick’s direction is a match made in heaven. Selick’s Nightmare Before Christmas is visually stunning and a wonderful tale both scary (not much) and sweet (not too much). Therefore I had high hopes for Coraline. And indeed it was a wonderful film. The stop motion is a captivating medium and there is much to be done with it. Gaiman’s characters are very colourful and Selick has managed to represent them on screen so that each and everyone has retained their personalities. Still, Coraline is the best of them all. She has personality and grit, but still feels like a lonely girl looking for love from her parents, or neighbours. That’s why it’s so easy for the Other Mother to get a hold of her. But Coraline does not take it lying down. There are so many delightful scenes that it’s difficult to pick a favourite but among the best are the performances of both the jumping mice and Misses Spink and Forcible.

So all in all, I liked the movie a lot. The only thing I didn’t like was that it was a 3D showing, and although gorgeous, I really don’t care too much for 3D. Mostly because the 3D glasses are really uncomfortable.

At Cinema: The Hangover

After almost four weeks without a single visit to a cinema I finally went to see a new film. It was The Hangover, which was freaking hilarious! I mean, I literally laughed out loud from the very beginning until the very end.

I like comedies of almost every kind. The only kind I’m not drawn to at all, are the so-called modern spoof movies that reference every single movie made in the last twelve months (Epic Movie, Superhero Movie, Scary Movie). I like the old spoof movies, such as Airplane! and Hot Shots, but the joke has grown old after the umpteenth version.

I like romantic comedies, buddy comedies, clever comedies, British comedies, tragic comedies and now the new kind of comedy perfected by Judd Apatow and friends. The Hangover falls in the same category as Knocked Up and Superbad. These comedies rely on the shocks and stupid situations but also on clever dialogue and good actors. And boy is there a lot of shocks in The Hangover. It’s just as I said to my friend when we were exiting the movie theatre after seeing the film, wiping away tears of laughter, that modern audiences need the shocks. They have seen it all by now, and need something new. Of course it can be overdone – I wasn’t a big fan of that one particular scene in Zack and Miri make a Porno, but it was there for the same reason. To get a reaction out of a jaded audience. This is exactly what Sacha Baron Cohen does with his films, Borat and now Brüno. It’s all about breaking the taboos and shocking the audience into startled laughter.

But yea, The Hangover is funny. The funniest thing in it is undoubtedly Zach Galifianakis’ oddball Alan. Though Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms (Andy from The Office) are very funny as well in their more straight guy roles, it’s Galifianakis who owns the movie. He plays the role straight despite the character being a total weirdo and somehow manages to make him sympathetic. How, I still cannot say.

The Hangover isn’t for everyone. It’s a story of four guys who go to Vegas to have as much fun as possible and all sorts of crazy things ensue. Still, the whole audience seemed to enjoy it last Saturday. Except for maybe the two middle aged couples who seemed like they were in the wrong movie theatre.

Trailer: The Twilight Saga: New Moon

I’m gonna give in to my inner fangirl and teenager buried somewhere deep within me and squeal in delight over the new New Moon trailer that I just discovered has been published. Yea, I know, it is a bit meh as a trailer and the dialogue is not what it  could be. But I like Twilight for what it is - awfully entertaining teenage angst. That’s what I call guilty pleasure.

At Cinema: Terminator Salvation

Okay. I can explain. Four weeks of vacation took me off the map completely. I hardly got a chance to get online all month and had to give myself some time to recuperate from all the hard work I’ve done all year. I spent the most of the vacation away from civilisation in my home region in Eastern Finland. The movie theatre in my home town is so small that I only went there once, to see Terminator Salvation. This means that I have a long list of movies I have to see now that I’m back in a city that has cinemas that show more than one film a week.

But back to Terminator. I know I’m really late giving my thoughts about the movie, but here goes nevertheless. I have to say that I was very much suprised that the movie was actually enjoyable.  Major concern for me was the director McG, whose movies haven’t been to my taste. But I’m a huge Christian Bale fan so it was a given that I’d go see the film. Actually Christian Bale takes a back seat in the movie, which in my opinion is mostly carried by Sam Worthington, the Aussie actor, who immediately shot up on my hot list (I don’t actually have a hot list, but if I did, he’d be on it with a top billing). I was tickled by all the references to previous movies (and was the only one in the theatre chuckling when John Connor promised to be back). All in all, Salvation was a good action/scifi movie with lots of potential for sequels.

And inspired by the new Terminator movie I finally managed to buy a DVD of The Terminator, which is my favourite of the bunch. You just gotta love Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese. In fact, I like him more than the Terminator or John Connor.

Ooh, and I just realised that the kid playing young Kyle Reese, Anton Yelchin, is the same bloke who played Chekov in Star Trek, the movie I saw at the cinema before Salvation. Well, maybe that wasn’t such an intresting thing after all…

At Cinema: Star Trek

I’ve always been more of a Star Wars gal than a Star Trek fan. I’ve seen snippets of the different shows and even the occasional movie, but I’ve never seen the attraction. I know who Captain Kirk and Picard are and that Spock is Vulcan (or some such) and that Scotty always beams everybody up, but that’s about it. I wasn’t too interested in seeing the new Star Trek movie either, but after reading the favourable reviews decided I’d better go and see for myself.

Which I did. And I have to say, I kinda liked it. Which suprised me a lot. The movie was very exciting and for the uninitiated like myself a very nice introduction to the whole Star Trek universe. It’d be interested to hear, what people who love the previous instalments, think about J.J. Abrams’ vision. I’m a big fan of Abrams. I love Lost, Fringe is pretty good and I watched every episode of Alias when it ran. He did a good job with Star Trek.

The new Star Trek is pretty clever in that the whole plot gives the origin story, but also opens a whole lot of possibilities for sequels that are not restricted by what happens in the earlier tv-series or movies. Zachary Quinto (Sylar from Heroes) is pretty good as Spock and even Chris Pine was okay, though I had my reservations about him. The best thing about Star Trek was that it was funny and didn’t take itself too seriously.

And one more thing. Who else went WTF when they realised that Winona Ryder is Spock’s mom?

At Cinema: Angels and Demons

I’ve read Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons and thought they were pretty good thrillers. The books themselves play like movies, so you’d think it’d be relatively easy to translate them on the silver screen. But as you know, Da Vinci Code was a disaster. Some seem to blame Tom Hanks’ mullet, but the movie was way too stiff. Therefore it’s easy to say that Angels and Demons is much better. I really enjoyed the movie up until the very end, where director Ron Howard ruined the whole thing by being way too understanding of the merits of religion. Let us not offend anyone! I’m not gonna say anything more about the ending, other than it let down the whole movie. Still, Angels and Demons was fun, if not very deep or philosophical. And boy, isn’t that Robert Langdon fella a smart cookie… Managed to solve a centuries long mystery in one day! Hurrah!