What We Do in the Shadows - Mock the Vamp

Once again I was lead into a cinema on nothing more than good word of mouth online and the idea that I maybe once saw a teaser for the film. It's surprising how often this results in a pleasant experience.

"What We Do in the Shadows" is a mockumentary following a group of vampires who all live in the same house. One of the pillars of being a vampire is not telling it to anyone, as it will only end up with fighting, and humans are just better off not knowing. The camera crew shooting an exposé excluded, of course.

The word I head of this film was that it would be one of the funniest of the year, but I was still taken aback at how funny this film actually was. They don't really do any jokes about vampires you haven't seen or heard before, but they do them in a refreshing and incredibly fun way. Having each vampire be from different points of time is one of those ways. It's often glanced over how old vampires are, and how much of an age difference there can be, but here it's all on the table. You have your present day vampires, and you have vampires dating back eight thousand years.

There has been a lot of mockumentary style comedy over the last decade or so, to the point where I myself often can be put off a bit just by the mention of it being used (even though I quite like a lot of mockumentaries). But this proves that the genre does indeed have merit. They use the mockumentary aspect more to their advantage than things like "Parks and Recreation" or "The Office" which might be the best known examples of this type of storytelling. This isn't just a comedy in the style of a documentary (i.e. shaky camera, talking to the camera), they incorporate a lot more into it. Making it feel like a proper documentary a lot of the time, making it all the more ridiculous and hilarious. If you only see one film about vampires this season, make it "What We Do in the Shadows".

Paddington - A Lovely Reunion

I can't say that Paddington Bear had the biggest influence on me growing up. But I do remember watching cartoons about him, and my parents getting excited when visiting Paddington station in London. The thought had never crossed my mind that he should get a live action film, but here we are.

This film tells the "origin story" of how Paddington (or Roaaawrgck as he's called in Bear) comes to London and gets to live with the Brown family. In just over ninety minutes we get to see everything from the jungles of dark Peru to the suburban telephone booths of outer London. This is the first film in a long while where I felt it was exactly the length it should be, not too long and neither too short. It never felt rushed, but there were no parts where it really dragged either. Far too rare these days. Although there are still some storytelling issues which can be mistaken for dragging, but it's more of an imbalance of tone. The film starts of with quite an absurd segment. We get to see talking bears who live in houses for one, but it's also generally filmed and told in very absurd and bizarre way. It's hilarious, and makes you feel right at home in the film. Unfortunately right after this segment ends we rarely get to see that kind of storytelling again. It pops up here and there, and times when you don't really expect it. It puts you off for a moment before you realise how fun it is, and then it's all over.

The film is just amazingly cosy. There's not really a better word for it. It gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling throughout the experience. I was actually left wishing I had seen it for the first time at Christmas times when there's that special hint of fuzzy already in the air. Paddington as a character is just delightful. There are times when he can feel a bit too naive, but you are supposed to feel that way, especially when you're my age and suddenly identify more with the dad of the story than the children. The villain of the film is one of the most efficient ones I've seen. From the get-go we know what she want, and she never appears unless it is to do something necessary. There's not much dillydaddling with exposition and gloating (though there's always some) and Nicole Kidman manages to make this extremely cartoonish character feel real and scary.

This film is just a treat. It's not the best of anything, don't get me wrong. There are better films, but there are few that are more delightful. There are few that I believe can be loved by so many members of a family. It's got a little something for everyone, and I absolutely recommend everyone watch it at some point.

American Sniper - Good but Forgettable

"American Sniper" surprised everyone when it went on to absolutely shatter previous January wide openings. It earned close to 90 million USD in its opening weekend, more than twice that of the previous record holder. It's currently tracking upwards of 300 million in the US alone, something only two films managed in 2014. Both of which ("Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Mokingjay Pt. 1") opened in the second half of the year. "American Sniper" is also nominated for Best picture at this year's Academy Awards. With all this success, how good is it?

It's above average, but that's the furthest I can stretch. It's not fantastic, but it's more than good. We follow Chris Kyle on his journey from a bachelor wannabe-cowboy in Texas to becoming the most lethal sniper in American history. We get to see several sides to the story, contrary to what many on the internet will lead you to believe. Kyle himself may be solid in his believes of what he did was for the best, for the overall good, but that isn't necessarily the film's message. We get to see the Kyle deal with having to kill so many, and we get to see Kyle deal with having so many of his friends killed. There are also detours set around his family, where we see how much it tears them too apart.

But I would still agree that they do lean a bit too much towards the "America best, foreigners evil" trope. I mean, I expected it, and I understand it. It's a film by Clint Eastwood called "American Sniper" after all. But it's still horrible to see how much every foreigner is treated as a terrorist until proven otherwise. However, that only adds to the story's emotional connection. I didn't just connect with Kyle and how he felt with what he had to do, I also connected with the Iraqis who live in an occupied country, caught in the middle of a war many of them want no part of.

Overall this film is more than decent. I doubt anyone will remember it in a few years' time, but even though it feels a little out-of-date it still strikes the right chords. The acting is the best part of the film, and I fully understand Bradley Cooper getting a nod for Best male lead. Whether he deserves to win it or not is something we can discuss when the Academy Awards ceremony is a bit closer.

Big Hero 6 - Disney Is King

"Big Hero 6" is Walt Disney Animation Studios' first dive into Marvel's superhero universe after their parent company, The Walt Disney Company, acquired Marvel Entertainment. Despite being based on a Marvel superhero comic, it has nothing to do with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is a standalone picture, not even Marvel Animation's films have anything to do with this.

"Big Hero 6" mainly follows the 14 year old boy genius Hiro and his older brother's robot nurse Baymax. Hiro spends a lot of his time building bots that he uses to hustle big-time bot-fighters around the city. His brother, Tadashi, feels he is wasting his talent and tries to convince him to join San Fransokyo Institute of Technology where he himself is part of a team of tech developers. Hiro goes to present an invention of his own in hopes of being accepted into class, but a lot goes wrong. The rest of the film we follow Hiro trying to fix his mistakes, and Baymax aiding him however he is asked.

"Big Hero 6" has all what you have come to expect from Walt Disney Animation Studios over the last couple of years. If you enjoyed "Bolt", "Tangled", "Wreck-It Ralph", and "Frozen" chances are you will enjoy this as well. If you happen to also enjoy superhero films in general, you are in for a treat. This isn't just a good animation film, this is a good superhero film period. No, it doesn't have the same tones as most live-action superhero films these days, but that shouldn't matter. It has traded the more serious and intense drama for delightful and wonderful adventure. It reminds me of the best parts of both "Astroboy" (2009) and "The Incredibles", and is yet more proof that Walt Disney Animation Studios have reclaimed their throne from Pixar whose success has been their own slightlydownfall.

This is the first film in a while where I was left wanting more, not because I felt that there were things left untold, but because there was so much amazing happening that I just wanted to see more of it. It is packed full from start to end, never wasting too much time with exposition. Why does it appear that we are in a weird blend of Japan and the USA? We don't know, we just are, and we don't really care because that's the way it is. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this film gets mentioned again on this blog next January first.

Blackhat - Chris Hemsworth's Abs

I never really expected "Blackhat" to be particularly good, but I never bought the opinions coming in from the US about it being absolutely horrible. It cost 70 million USD to produce, and only brought in just under 4 million USD in its opening weekend (16th - 18th of January). On the overall list for its weekend it made a million less than "The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies" which had already been out for a month. Opening weekends are always the best weekends, so "Blackhat" is a certified bomb. But did it deserve to lose that much money?

I wouldn't say it deserved to be such a huge flop as it is, but I would neither say that it deserved to earn as much as its budget suggests it should. It was a completely standard film that had very little going for it. There's nothing to see here that you haven't seen done better before. But it is entertaining, most of the time. It didn't feel like a 133-minute film. I can recognise parts that could have been cut out to tighten it up, but it didn't drag on like a lot of other films do when they reach that kind of runtime. The beginning is its worst part, which will serve it no favours when it will eventually have to cater to cable and VOD customers. It takes ages to get to a point which is interesting enough to catch your attention. We are not even sure who the main character is until maybe ten minutes into the film.

It doesn't do itself any favours in term of visuals either. They switch back and forth between being generic and readable, to experimental and distracting. Suddenly they'll cut to something completely different and move the camera differently than they did in the previous cut. And some of VFX shots look like actual placeholders that never should have made it into a film of this caliber. There is one in particular where they have placed a blurred out person on top of a surveillance feed to make it appear to be hidden in a public place, but the person never moves. I am not talking about a person who just stands still, I'm talking pixels that stand still. At some points they move the person slightly, to make it appear not completely static, and it's so easy to see. If it's not a placeholder shot that somehow made it to the final cut, someone deserves to have their job history looked at.

Overall this is a completely okay film. There are better films to watch in theatres if you absolutely want to go. This can wait till a cold Sunday afternoon when it happens to pop up under "related titles" after a Netflix binge watch of "Boston Legal". Unless you want to watch Chris Hemsworth's abs on the big screen before "Age of Ultron" later this spring. Then hurry before they cut the release short!