OK, as someone else has comandeered the TV, thus disrupting my plans for the evening and I'm feeling relatively lazy anyway, I'll throw together a couple more 'reviews'.
Firstly, and most excitingly, probably the highlight of my last weekend came on Friday evening when I made the trip to the London IMAX, to see
Inception for a second time. This time, my expectations were entirely different than my first viewing - I'm not the sort of person who normally gets excited by cinemas, but this one was something particularly special, and that, combined with a film that's worlds apart from anything else I've ever seen left me feeling more like I was attending a concert - and I wasn't disappointed. Firstly, I'm full of praise for the cinema itself; an always stunning soundtrack on
that system left me with 2 hours of goosebumps - I don't normally stay to watch credits either, but this time, I wanted to move in. The screen didn't disappoint either - I know it sounds like a bit of cliched marketing, but that's the closest you can get to feeling like you're actually IN the film (much better than the 3D bollocks which generally needs saving for animation) as the set up makes it almost impossible NOT to be drawn in, forgetting your actual surroundings altogether. In short, what was already the best film I've ever seen was made a good five times better - so if you ever find yourself with 15 spare pounds and an undying love for a particular picture, I really can't recommend the IMAX 'experience' enough. As for the film itself, its part of a rare breed that I found actually benefited from a second viewing, possibly because a relatively good understanding of the plot means less attention has to be spent on keeping track, though I figured out a few things that had thrown me last time, making the couple of mild annoyances a good bit less annoying - and thus your mind is better freed to appreciate more subtle background details as well as the actual acting, considerably more. I really could rave for hours on this occasion, but I'll spare you, and leave it with the word: brilliant. If it wasn't
quite so long, I could easily be persuaded to go back at least ever week for a while! The only remaining annoyance is the mess it's made of my subconscious, which needs telling to make it easy! Though surely I can't be the only one whose dreams have been odder than usual after watching? I'll go into my own experimentation with lucidity some other time...
Right, moving on, though not all that far... "You'll want to see it again the second it's over" boasts the packaging of
The Prestige, and I'd have to agree... though that was partly because its presented in such a way as to leave those of us less used to the complexity of cinema going "Wait... I think I may have missed something fairly vital? Because that ending has thrown me ENTIRELY?". However, aside from the fact that it left me reading the plot synopsis on wikipedia and feeling more than a little thick, as I still wasn't certain of how the ending worked, I think I enjoyed it - acting was great as usual, which made for compelling viewing as did the some of the ideas (even if I didn't always follow them, I DO like non-linear narrative
) and the effects and visuals in general are especially pretty. Consequently, while it may have to wait until I've got a free evening, and the unwatched DVD pile is taking over less of my white desk, I don't mind that that will also need watching again in order to do it justice.
And if you're wondering,
Memento is part of that pile, but from the few things I've heard about it, it shall have to wait for an evening when I'm in a good mood and thus have an especially good concentration span. Aside from making films that are possibly just a little TOO demanding of my attention, we've learned that Christopher Nolan is possibly my favourite non-musical entertainer, and while its perhaps because I'm making slow progress that he's made 4 of the 5 best films I've watched on the Top 250 so far, that's still no mean feat...
And thanks to my quest to get more notches on the metaphorical bedpost that is the list (Curse you, Furie... though you're a great advert for lovefilm!), I've discovered an approval of Filmfour, which played
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest last week. It wasn't exactly how I imagined it, and, expecting there to be more than 2 scenes that I felt uncomfortable watching, I was pleasantly surprised - though not as surprised as I was that something with intense, emotional and at times downright dark subject matter could end up being really funny at times... (I... was meant to be laughing, right? I was never certain, so maybe I was watching it all wrong!) Impromptu boat trip, and reasons why crazies should not be allowed to play cards deserve specific mentions in this category. Finally, as I said on Facebook, we learned that Jack Nicholson is even better than I previously thought, especially at playing the insane and beyond, that never before had I been so disappointed when the villain (and a fantastically dislikeable one at that) comes out of the fight scene alive, and that when the most depressing of stories manages to finish on an optimistic note. Those who've seen the ending will know where I was expecting the credits to roll, and why it made the film for me that it continued for just a few more short minutes
Perhaps because, along with Jaws, it's the oldest on my list by a clear decade, this one doesn't get the rave treatment from me, and will be unlikely to make a personal Top 10, but I could still see why a lot of people do hold it in such such high regard, as well as being probably the best use of that particular 2 hours.
