The Tree of Life

This is a strange film.

We open to Mrs O’Brien receiving a letter that her son has died. She’s, understandably, upset. Her husband is upset. One of her other son’s is upset.
They all do narration to show they’re upset while the film shows some “artistic” images.

Then we reach the strange part.

The narration stops, any images regarding the family stop and the film starts showing a kaleidoscope of weird images.

A close up of the Sun, looking like something you would get on a screensaver
...planets... water...
... wtf?...
... sealife ... dinosaurs ... huh?...

This goes on a while. At least 10 solid minutes of random images, without explanation. It’s around this time that people started to give up and walk out of the cinema. I couldn’t blame them. It’s long enough to make you wonder if this is how the rest of the film is going to be, a series of random images, and boring enough to make that thought scare you away.

Then, just as suddenly as the randomness started, it goes away. That’s not to say the whole film isn’t desperately still trying to be “artistic” in every scene, but a story line comes back.

It’s the story of the family growing up, the mum, dad and three boys.

But after the mind rape of those 10 minutes it takes along time to get back into, and by the time you do it’s too little too late. The movie feels forced and drags out far too long.

Then we finish with some more random scenes – this time the equivalent of the “bow” at the end of a stage performance, with every actor in the film randomly walking around on a random beach.

Obviously fans of the film will call me an idiot. Tell me I didn’t “get it”. It’s “art”.

Yes, it’s weird enough so that it can be interpreted in various ways, cause debates about the “true” meanings, etc, but it’s a fine line between genius and insanity and I fear this film is often on the wrong side of that line.

This is a strange film.

Transformers 3

The nights are the worst.

I still wake up screaming in a cold sweat.

“NOOOO!!!!!!!!!”

How could they?!? How could they make Megatron kneel to some old bloke and call him master?

MEGATRON?!?

This is the guy who, when left for dead in the depts of space, said “I belong to nobody!” to an evil transforming planet who was offering him his only chance of survival.

It still hurts.
… particularly when Jean slaps me for waking her up again…

…anyway, could Transformers 3 succeed in its attempt to put right what once went wrong and finally give the Transformers the respect they deserve?

“NOOOO!!!!!!!!!”

I HATE Michael Bay.

This movie systematically goes through every little detail fans of the original cartoon would have grown to love and sh*ts on them one by one. I could write a book on how many things Bay has got completely wrong, but let me just summarise by saying:

If you grew up with the cartoons this film is NOT for you.

So, how about for the non-fans?

Yeah, the film still has very little to offer. Most characters are underdeveloped and/or annoying and the plot twists don’t make any sense.
It’s got lots of explosions though, if that’s your thing.

I hate Michael Bay.

Larry Crowne

Written by, directed by and starring Tom Hanks, Larry Crowne is a film that shows if you’re a major Hollywood Movie Star you can do whatever you want, even create a film for the sole purpose of kissing Julia Roberts.

We open with our hero, Larry, being called into an office at the supermarket where he works and being fired by a bunch of idiots laughing at him for not going to university. To add to the brutality, he has at some point in the painfully recent past just been through a divorce and is already struggling to pay off a mortgage.

But all is not lost.

He decides to go to college and make the best of a bad time, where, of cause, he is taught by Julia Roberts.

It’s not one of Tom’s finer moments. For a romantic comedy, it falls a little short on just two aspects: the romance and the comedy.

It’s a harmless enough film, but the story drags at times and really the only thing it has going for it is Tom Hanks.