Film Review: Burn After Reading

Affairs and vanity are pretty high on this films targets. It’s a film involving spies rather than a spy film, the plot centres on 2 gym employees who come across a CD with “Highly classified shit” on it.

It gets a bit convoluted after that and pretty stupid in places, it’s hard to believe the characters sometimes because it’s like they’re being weird deliberately. It’s just distracting, I don’t want to notice the acting to the point it takes away the focus on the plot. The dialogue feels awkward in places especially when the characters have to swear, it just sounds like someone else’s words.

The plot is shaky so maybe that’s a good thing. They do a good job of making us jump through some hoops to get to the point, but it’s disappointing in the end.

This was missing that vital Coen brothers ingredient that makes their weird world believable and funny. It has the usual “hollywood” stars who should all be ashamed of their performances, maybe it was just miscast?

Here’s to the remake in umm… 3 years?

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Film Review: Persepolis

Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s story of growing during the Iranian revolution and ultimately moving to France. It’s very much a coming of age story, however the setting isn’t typical.

It’s set, for the most part, in Iran and it’s animated mostly in black and white. Based on a graphic novel of the same name it came out in France in May 2007 but were didn’t get it until now.

The film itself is pretty good, there are funny moments, like the music black market and the nude drawing. It’s set during a time where everyone was losing their personal liberties and many people were being imprisoned, often never to return.
The way the people in Iran were being treated was very much reminiscent of Nazi Germany, but the victims in this case were their own poeple. Persepolis however is a very personal story and politics isn’t at the forefront although it’s a very important aspect.

When Marjane’s home changes so much so can no longer be herself she is forced into exile in Austria and then ultimately France. As coming of age stories go, it’s very good and I enjoyed it. However because of the perspective it was quite a light story, despite the war going on around here and it didn’t explore the more interesting aspects. Worth seeing just for the different perspective.

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Film Review: Iron Man

Marvel comics have been churning them out for sometime now. It’s not surprising to see yet another comic being made into a film. The trick is to cast it right, and with Robert Downey Jr. I think they did pretty well. I don’t remember the comics that well so I can’t be too sure.

The pace of the movie was really good and it started with the action, which was pretty much the trailer played back. The main character Tony Stark is a super-rich arms dealer who is intelligent, charismatic, but gives little thought to where his money is coming from and is extremely vain.

The love interest is played by Gywneth Paltrow and she does well enough to keep it strictly PG while hinting at further romance. Which may mean more films?

It had the comic feel to it because there were a few parts where you’d expect more broken bones. The bad guys were introduced very well and it was kept fairly up to date, it didn’t feel like an old idea.

It’s one of the few comic films that I’ve been impressed with and it’s hard to find a lot wrong with it. Very good film and plenty of action to enjoy.

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