A twilight zone of films: not quite summer, not quite winter, and not quite end-of-year blockbuster
It’s 5:20am. I step outside my door. It’s still pitch black as the solitary street lamp seems to operate on Pacific Time. With my breath misting, I stomp hurriedly to the car as I realise the windshield is covered in a thin yet stubborn film of ice. I plump for the Blockbuster card as a rudimentary scraper to get me out of this quickly and off to work -I snapped my National Insurance card a long time ago in a similar endeavour, and the loyalty card of a well-known supermarket is teetering on the edge of its endurance.
After about 10 minutes of scraping and turning the air as blue as my toes, the task was complete and I was off to face the day.
Why is this important? It’s not (it doesn’t hold a spark to forgetting your lunch money, let alone world hunger). It just served as a reminder to me that with the weather turning from autumnal to wintry that the film calendar is also in transition. This week sees the last of those tricky in-between films, those ones you haven’t heard much about and are released before we head into more traditionally seasonal fair. Or to put it bluntly, before Harry Potter comes along and reduces the box office receipts of everything else on release to teeny tiny pieces quicker than you can say Quidditch.
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That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad. This week I was treated to Red, Easy A and as an appetiser for Halloween, Paranormal Activity 2.
Red must already hold a record somewhere for having a cast with a collective age of over 300 firing the most number of ammunition rounds in a two-hour running time. I superbly executed a stunt of derring-do myself before Willis, Mirren, Malkovich, Freeman et al had even warmed up their electric blankets. Dodging the freshly painted hand-rails on my way into the screen with flare that belied my years (no witnesses, but take my word for it, it was legendary).
What followed was jokes about getting old linked together by explosions. While unoriginal and wholly deserving of its in-between title, it did have Dame Helen Mirren letting rip with an enormous Gatling-gun to an Aerosmith track, so it sort of balanced out.
Easy A was a happy accident. I missed my intended screening of Paranormal Activity 2, and Easy A filled the gap perfectly until the next showing. Although the satisfaction of great time management didn’t last long, it was overshadowed by the discovery that I was a lone adult male in a screen occupied mainly by groups of teenage girls. I felt like I’d walked in on a rite of passage, and like anyone who stumbles into a house of worship without a clue what they’re doing I stayed quiet and concentrated on drawing no attention to myself.
Despite running out of the screen the second the lights came up I had a great time. The film is an energetic shake-up of teen high school flicks and was kept on its toes throughout by the wit, charm and downright awesomeness of its lead Emma Stone. I have sworn to watch everything else she’s been in.
Which left me with even less enthusiasm for Paranormal Activity 2. The first instalment pretty much tied everything up, but due to the lemming-like predictability of the British movie-going public it will no doubt be number 1 at the box office next week, so thought I should at least have an opinion about it.
I admire the filmmakers for their continued ability to get genuine scares out of a house seemingly terrorised by an invisible man with a serious chip on his shoulder. I jumped just like last time, I needed scraping off the ceiling tiles just like the last time, but unfortunately just like last time I got bored with all the stuff in-between the night vision and demonic possession.
In summary, the film about old people made me feel spritely. The film about young people made me feel old. And the film about ghosts taught me never to hang your saucepans up and left me wondering ‘Why does no one ever listen to the Latino nanny in these things?’
(image: still Easy A)
- Was 2011 a good year for movies? - January 4, 2012
- Caught in the thrall of the movies’ science of excitement - October 15, 2011
- It’s Ryan Gosling week! - September 24, 2011
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