Jon_Mathias Reviews

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: The Gang Saves the Day (2013) Season 9, Episode 6

One of the best episodes

[10/10 · 7 May 2021]

Extremely funny and creative episode that really showcases the different types of selfishness and idiocy between the gang members. Great running joke that all the guys imagine Dee getting killed and Charlie's animated sequence with all the rats was superb.

Only possible weakness was Mac's fight sequence dragging on too long and being too repetitive but its a minor gripe.

A Late Quartet (2012)

Simply Excellent

[10/10 · 13 April 2013]

Well, the reviews are a mixed bag. Some people seem to have thought they were going to see either an account of the life and works of Beethoven or a documentary about professional musicians. It seems a bit unfair to mark down a film because you thought it was going to be something else, especially as even a cursory bit of research would have avoided making that mistake.

I loved it. It's a beautiful meditation on ageing, love, friendship, loss and the importance of art as part of the human experience. The cast are all excellent (with one exception) and Walken steals the show with a reminder of why he's one of the finest living actors, even though he has appeared in some dross over the years. His performance in A Late Quartet is Oscar-winning by any standards. The only duff note (did you see what I did there?) is sounded by the performance of Imogen Poots; it's all very well casting these pretty boys and girls in TV dramas but their lack of talent and experience really show up when they're in with troupers of this calibre. There is zero chemistry between her and Daniel Lerner and a scene where Poots' character confronts her mother (Catherine Keener) is completely unconvincing.

Yaron Zilberman directs extremely well for what appears to be his first feature film and the whole thing is beautifully photographed. Locations are particularly well used with the warm, dark, welcoming of interiors contrasted sharply with the wintry exterior shots of New York.

It's not flawless; I've already mentioned Poots' poor acting and the musical metaphors are laid on a bit thick in places. There's also a scene where Walken's dead wife appears before him whilst he's listening to one of her recorded performances and the apparition is unnecessary - Walken's face alone says it all. However, I'm being very picky here. Overall, it's a marvellous film that's thoughtful, human and never descends into sentimentality.

Dredd (2012)

At Last! An Action Film for Grown-ups.

[9/10 · 15 September 2012]

Like many fans of Judge Dredd, the abysmal 1995 Stallone offering had left me resigned to never seeing the Mega City lawman on the big screen again so Pete Travis's film is most welcome.

$45m for a sci-fi actioner is peanuts these days but Travis has got real value for money and all the cash is right up there on the screen. The film has a gritty, urban feel and is much more contemporary than the 2000AD comics strip but that actually fits much better with the film's overall aesthetics. The vehicles are also 20th century, as are most of the firearms.

The cast are universally excellent; Urban does a brilliant job, especially so given the confines of the helmet. Thirlby gives a striking and understated performance as Judge Anderson, although I felt that Ma-Ma could have been fleshed out better.

The violence is brutal, explicit, realistic and beautifully choreographed. Forget the recent fad for the hero to fly 100 metres through the air in CGI somersaults, firing 2 pistols with unerring accuracy as the bad guys somehow miss with every shot; gunfights are brutal, with bloody consequences.

The sound and cinematography deserve special mention. Sound has been used particularly effectively to create mood, from the zooming slowdown to indicate the effects of slo-mo to the manipulation of bass to indicate menace. The cinematography is excellent; again, the over-saturation of colour to indicate drug-induced heightened reality to the startling and seductive 3D effects on water drops or glass particles. I've never been a fan of 3D; there was a trailer for the latest Resident Evil offering before Dredd and I struggled to make out what was going on because EVERY shot was in 3D. The makers of Dredd understand that it needs to be used selectively and I might just be converted...

So, overall an excellent, well-crafted film. It drops a point for the pedestrian plot but I'm being really picky here.

Horrible Bosses (2011)

Hollywod Just Can't Do Comedy

[3/10 · 25 November 2011]

A genuinely funny comedy film is extremely hard to make. Humour tends to work much better in shorter formats like TV episodes. However, films like Monty Python: Life of Brian show how it can be done. In Horrible Bosses, Hollywood once again shows how not to do it.

The premise of three ordinary Joes wanting to kill their intolerable bosses is a good one and the first 40 minutes setting this up are OK. Kevin Spacey is excellent as the manipulative corporate monster and Jennifer Aniston is surprisingly good as the sexual predator, particularly as she has to act being sexually attracted to a whiny, bearded dwarf like Charlie Day. It's obvious that Aniston has only been cast for the novelty of having her talk dirty on screen but she makes a pretty good fist of the part. Colin Farrell puts in a pedestrian performance as a selfish coke head. Then the film starts to unravel with the bumbling attempts of the three stooges to accomplish their plan.

The three leads (Bateman, Sudeikis and Day) just don't work as an ensemble at all. There is no chemistry between them and the lack of direction is woeful. The dialogue appears to be improvised, such is its lack of timing or comedy content. Day tries to steal scenes by talking very quickly in a screechy voice and the other two are just flat and unfunny. At no time do you feel sympathy for any of the three. Some of the attempts at humour are hopelessly out of date; do 21st century audiences really find a crude attempt at acting high on coke funny? The plot is also weak. For a great premise, the comedy possibilities were excellent but the story lurches from predictable misunderstanding to tired cliché to a ludicrous deus ex machina at the end. It cops out on dealing with the sexually predatory dentist, who is blackmailed by Day's character into leaving him alone, raising the obvious question of why he didn't just do that in the first place instead of involving himself in a plot to kill her.

Hollywood has never been good at comedy but it doesn't seem to be getting any better. It's either bland and clichéd or else trying to get laughs from extreme behaviour (what the Yanks refer to as 'gross-out'). Neither is funny in itself. Good comedy, like good drama, starts with good writing. US TV comedy has learnt this lesson and been reborn as a result with shows like My Name is Earl, 30 Rock and Curb Your Enthusiasm. When is Hollywood going to wake up and smell the coffee?

Megamind (2010)

Great Film But Not Really For Kids

[8/10 · 30 December 2010]

As the father of a 10 year-old girl, I have had to sit through some pretty dire kids' movies over the years. Prior to "Megamind", the most recent ones were "Despicable Me" and "Toy Story 3", the former good but sentimental and poorly paced, the latter a predictable by-the-numbers instalment in the franchise.

I wasn't expecting much from "Megamind" and knew nothing about it, not even having seen a trailer but I was very pleasantly surprised. There was excellent characterisation and voice acting, spot-on animation and a great soundtrack. However, the plot was the high point for me - genuinely clever and original, avoiding the normal Hollywood ending. In the hands of Pixar, for example, Metro Man would come back to save the day but in "Megamind", there is a much more interesting ending.

The design is also excellent, with influences from DC comics and a 50s sci-fi retro feel to Megamind's guns and battle suit. I see that Guillermo del Torro is credited with creative input and it shows.

The characters are some of the most convincing that I have seen in an animated film. Will Ferrell plays Megamind with a talent that belies his previous dire offerings in American "comedies", Tina Fey is a great Roxanne and Brad Pitt hams it up enjoyably as Metro Man.

The only observation that I would make is that many of the jokes are going to be over the heads of kids. I know that film-makers like to insert in-jokes and references that only adults will understand in order to keep their interest but there are too many in this film, including Megamind's incarnation as Marlon Brando's portrayal of Superman's father and Megamind's existential introspection.

However, it is undoubtedly the best children's film that I have seen over the past few years so if you don't have a child, try and borrow one and go and see this.

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life (2008)

Beautiful, very French, I loved it

[9/10 · 13 August 2010]

I've just finished watching this for the second time as it overwhelmed me emotionally the first time and I had to check if it was just the wine.

Well, it wasn't.

It's a marvellous film - beautifully crafted, played by a cast of quality actors, great soundtrack.

Watching this film reminded me of why we need the French film industry. Today I saw Toy Story 3 (not a bad instalment in the franchise, but nothing special) with my 9-year old daughter and as we came out of the auditorium, I looked around and saw ads for (1) an animated dog flick for kids, (2) a standard "blockbuster" CGI-fest, all shot in blue and (3) a loads-of-explosions bog standard actioner. Why is no-one making films about reality anymore? Are the lives of real people no longer worth considering? Why is Hollywood producing such a deluge of crap these days?

La Premier Jour de la Reste de ma Vie tells the story of a family by way of a few individual days over the course of c15 years. Don't expect any contrived pivotal moments of misunderstanding - this film is above that. It shows the conflicts between family members and the frustration and bitterness, yet attempts to demonstrate how these rifts came about. It also shows how people learn from the failures of their parents and how they try not to repeat them. Look up the poem "This be the Lesson" by Philip Larkin for how important this is...

It is also about love, the bonds of family, redemption, nostalgia and if the final scene doesn't have tears pissing from your eyes, then you have no heart.

Harry Brown (2009)

A Missed Opportunity but Caine is Magnificent

[7/10 · 13 August 2010]

The premise looked good - juvenile crime blights the lives of millions of law-abiding people in British cities, the police are largely powerless to prevent it, so why not a British vigilante movie? Deathwish meets Taxi Driver meets London? The nasty reality of life on rundown estates (projects for our American readers) in Britain is rarely portrayed in film, so Harry Brown is a welcome attempt to address the issue. The film is a basic revenge flick where a previously law-abiding guy, appalled by the death of a friend and the powerlessness of the cops, takes the law into his own hands, so far, so Deathwish etc. This is a well-worn theme and the film makes no attempt to try anything new.

Where it does break new ground is the subtlety and pace of the story. It's pretty much built around Michael Caine's performance and that is not a bad thing. I can't remember the last time I saw such a great job of acting from Michael Caine; he's sucked some rank Hollywood cock over the years (I briefly saw him in some piece of junk called Miss Congeniality last night) but he has redeemed all this in Harry Brown.

The close-ups on Caine's face tell you all you need to know about the character's internal dialogue; the ever-so-subtle changes in his eyes from scene to scene are masterfully evocative. Caine is a great movie actor and finally is in a film where we can see it.

The script is OK but the casting could have been better. The producers lost their nerve by portraying all the thugs on the estate as white, in a glaring reversal of the reality in London. The only concession is that one of the gang members has a fake Afro-Caribbean accent (usual "Blud and t'ing" garbage copied from Yank hippity-hoppity bollox).

The female Detective Inspector was really a wasted opportunity - the character was passive, flat, meek and not at all what a DI in the Met would be in reality. A dialogue between Harry and her could have really added to the film.

Sadly, I think it was a great opportunity but sadly missed.

American History X (1998)

Great performances, unconvincing story

[20 November 2002]

Warning - spoilers herein.

I've only just seen this film on DVD and rented it to see Edward Norton, one of the most watchable actors of his generation. His performance, particularly in the first half of the film, is stunning. The opening sequence where we see Norton's character, Derek Vinyard, gun down two black men intent on stealing his car, is breathtaking.

Norton is utterly convincing as the angry, articulate skinhead of the first half of the film. The film never really makes it clear why he has become a racist and the scene where his father warns him against positive discrimination is not plausible as a basis for his becoming a Nazi. I can forgive the film-maker this omission; what I cannot forgive is the trite, sentimental way in which Vinyard apparently abandons his extreme views to the extent that he betrays his former Nazi comrades. What is his motivation for this Pauline conversion? A few conversations on sport with a black guy he is obliged to work with in the prison. This simply beggars belief. As another reviewer has already commented, the point where the concerned liberal teacher asks him 'Has anything you have done made your life better?' is ridiculous - you do not fight for causes to improve your personal circumstances.

The film is very lazy in that it takes the audience's liberal viewpoint for granted. At no point does a character convincingly question Vinyard's opinions on race or immigration. It is simply accepted that he is a complete lunatic and that no challenge is therefore necessary. This is of course extremely dangerous. In Europe, anyone who questions immigration or racial integration policies is simply labelled racist by the political establishment with no further comment deemed necessary. This has led to the rise of the far right in France, Holland and, to a lesser extent, in the UK. Lazy, complacent films like American History X will contribute to a similar process in the US. It was great to see an American film dealing with such a difficult topic as US Nazism but American History X is a lost opportunity.

Great performance from Edward Norton but he was badly let down by the script.