Seeking Justice (3 Stars)

This is a 2011 action thriller that takes place in New Orleans. Will Gerrard is a meek English teacher. One evening his wife is raped on her way home. In hospital he's approached by a man who says he knows who the rapist is and can deal with him. It's not certain that the police will find him, and even if they do it will mean a harassing trial for his wife, and he might not get more than a year in prison. The stranger, who introduces himself only as Simon, says that the rapist is currently on parole after a previous offence.

"Deal with him"? The word "kill" isn't used, but it's obvious what he means. After short hesitation Will agrees. As a condition he has to agree to do a favour at some time in the future. So there's a catch? Never mind, Will wants justice for his wife.

We see a man shooting the rapist at home. Gradually the plot unravels. Simon runs an organisation that seeks justice for rape victims. A man is sent to kill a rapist. Next time there's a rape, the victim's husband is asked to kill the criminal. It's a chain of killings. The killer can never be found, because he has no connection to the rapist. The person who has been wronged always has an alibi.

Six month's later it's Will's turn to kill someone. He's given the photo of a paedophile and told to kill him.

By this point, I was having problems with the film's premise. It's very infeasible. Will isn't a killer. Probably many of the other men in the chain weren't killers. The film made me think about myself. I'd be happy if someone came to me and offered to kill my wife's rapist. He deserves to die, doesn't he? But if someone asked me to kill a rapist, I couldn't do it. I'm not a killer.

Will only consents to commit a murder after his wife is threatened. So Simon isn't such a good guy after all. After killing the man he finds out that he wasn't a paedophile, he was a reporter who was gathering information on Simon's gang.

This is a strange story. I kept shaking my head as things were uncovered. I just couldn't believe it. I enjoyed Nicolas Cage's acting, but a good actor doesn't make a good film. In fact, all of the main characters are played well, but the story still doesn't hold up.

Success Rate:  - 2.2

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Alien: Covenant (3½ Stars)

Disney Wednesday #17

Today I carried out a little experiment. I watched this film without the sound and relied on the subtitles for "the deaf and hard of hearing". After the first half hour I grew used to it, but there were still things that I missed by pretending to be deaf. There's a scene where the android Walter is learning how to play a flute. There was no way for me to experience his rapid improvement from random sounds to skilled playing.

I'm glad I'm not deaf. If I ever became unable to hear, it would spoil my enjoyment of films.

Success Rate:  + 0.5

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The Rover (4 Stars)

This is an Australian film made in 2014, starring Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson. When the film began and the introductory text "10 years after the collapse" flashed on the screen, I groaned. "Not another dystopian film!" I thought to myself. They're usually full of absurd speculation about what might be the case after society as we know it has collapsed. It's a concept that rarely works. "Planet of the Apes" (the 1968 film) is a rare example of a successful dystopian film.

I needn't have worried. The dystopia in "The Rover" isn't exaggerated. There's no nuclear fallout causing absurd mutations. It's a collapse of law and order, but Australian society still exists. There's still a police force, even though it seems to be fighting a losing battle against armed criminals and vigilantes.

Four men carry out an armed robbery. One of them (Ray) is shot badly and left behind when the other three flee. One of the other three is Ray's brother, and he argues in the car about whether it was right to leave Ray behind. He starts a fight, which leads to the their truck swerving off the road. They can't start the car again, so they steal the nearest car they see and drive off.

The car belongs to Eric, a man who used to be a farmer, but now seems to be doing nothing. He's angry about the theft of his car. He manages to start the robbers' truck, and he pursues them.

In the meantime, the badly wounded Ray manages to find a car and follow his brothers. He sees the truck and accuses Eric of stealing it. Eric takes Ray to a doctor, then demands that he take him to where the robbers live. Ray isn't completely unwilling. He wants revenge for being left to die.

What follows is a road movie through the desolate Australian outback. Everyone they meet is poor, struggling to make an existence.

Eric, played by Guy Pearce, is fiercely intense. He only speaks when it's absolutely necessary. He has a past which is only partially revealed; the viewer is left to fill in the blanks. Ray, played by Robert Pattinson, is an American who's come to Australia to find work, suggesting that the economic collapse is global, not just an Australian issue. Like most Britons who pretend to be Americans, he has an annoying accent which can't always be understood. After having to pause and repeat a few sections of dialogue, I decided to turn on the subtitles.

This isn't an uplifting film. Eric is a cold-blooded person who doesn't hesitate to kill anyone who gets in his way. The only humanity he shows is when he tells Ray, "You should never stop thinking about a life you've taken. That's the price you pay for taking it". Maybe that's why he's so quiet. He has a lot of lives to think about. Ray is a more pleasant person that we can almost but not quite sympathise with. Like Eric, Ray's background is only revealed in subtle hints, but we get the impression that he was drawn into a life of crime by his older brother.

A friend of mine calls "The Rover" a masterpiece. I wouldn't go that far, but it's still a very good film.

Success Rate:  - 2.7

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Mary Queen of Scots (4 Stars)

My knowledge of English (and Scottish) history is poor. All I knew about Queen Mary of Scotland before watching this film is that she was the mother of King James, the man who united England and Scotland. After watching the film I read summaries of her life online. That's not enough to make me an expert, but at least I know more now than I did before.

Mary became Queen of Scotland when she was six days old. She lived in France while others governed Scotland on her behalf. When she was 15 she married Francis II and became Queen of France, but she lost this title when he died three years later. Aged 18, she returned to Scotland to claim her kingdom from the current regent, her half-brother James. That's where the film begins.

It was a time of political and religious upheaval. Protestantism was rising in Scotland, but Mary was a Catholic. She tried to make peace by saying that everyone was free to follow whatever religion they wanted, but that wasn't good enough for the Protestants, because they considered Catholicism evil.

Mary also considered herself the rightful Queen of England, although after looking at the royal family tree I don't understand what the basis for this claim was. Queen Elisabeth was her cousin. She insisted on being named as heir in the case of Elisabeth's death, which was rejected by the English noblemen. England was completely Protestant at this time. Elisabeth tried to make Mary marry an English nobleman who was under her influence, but Mary refused and married another English nobleman.

The English nobility made several unsuccessful attempts to get rid of Mary by supporting Scottish rebellions. Mary remarried and had a son, James. She reached an agreement with Elisabeth that if Elisabeth had a child that child would become King of England, otherwise James would become King.

Eventually, after the assassination of her second husband, the Protestant fanatic John Knox stirred up the people, and she had to run for her life. Her one-year-old son James became King in her place. She met Elisabeth, who offered her asylum in England. For 19 years she lived in comfort, but with no freedom to go where she wanted. Then false charges were brought against her that she was planning to assassinate Queen Elisabeth, and she was executed. In 1603 James became King of England, at the age of 36.

The film has excellent performances by Saoirse Ronan as Mary and David Tennant as the religious fanatic John Knox. Margot Robbie's acting is very subdued and unemotional, but that's appropriate for a portrayal of Queen Elisabeth. This is a beautiful film throughout, though tragic in its outcome.

Iron Man 3 (4½ Stars)

This is the seventh film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, released in May 2013. The sixth film, "The Avengers", was the end of the first phase of the MCU. All the main characters were introduced in the first phase. Now there are new films about each of these characters, except for the Hulk. His solo film was the only financial failure in the MCU so far.

Stan Lee plays a cameo as a judge in a beauty contest. We only see him for 2½ seconds, but he seems to be overly excited by one of the contestants. I wonder what's so special about her. Maybe he reacts the same way to all of the girls? I've never been a big fan of beauty contests. The girls considered beautiful are always too thin for me. They're not as bad as the anorexic models who do silly walks at fashion shows, but they rarely have the big breasts and the big butts that I prefer.

As far as actresses go, Ai Shinozaki is the most beautiful woman I know. She has a perfect hourglass figure. Curiously, she's said in interviews that she doesn't consider herself attractive. Women are weird. Some women, anyway. They look at themselves in the mirror and see flaws, but the men who look at them just say Wow! If Stan Lee had seen her in the beauty contest he would have been too excited to hold up his score card.

I've been promising my readers an Ai Shinozaki gallery for more than a year. Here's another photo to keep you happy until I finally keep my promise.

"Iron Man 3" introduces the Mandarin, Iron Man's deadliest foe from the comics. Unfortunately, he's only a fake Mandarin, an actor hired by AIM to be the face of global terrorism. That was a big disappointment to me when I first saw the film in the cinema. I've gotten over it now, after hearing that the real Mandarin will appear in a future Iron Man film.

What makes the fake Mandarin even more tragic in my eyes is the fact that the actor Ben Kingsley looks perfect as the Mandarin. He looks just like the comic book character. Who can possibly be chosen to play the real Mandarin?

What's remarkable about "Iron Man 3" is that Tony Stark spends more than half of the film doing battle without his suit. There's a 45 minute sequence in the middle when his suit is damaged after AIM destroys his house, and there's about 20 minutes at the end of the film in which the Iron Man suits fly around under remote control while Tony chases the AIM leader Aldrich Killian with a gun. This emphasises that the real hero is the man himself, not the Iron Man suit.

For most of the film Tony Stark is suffering from anxiety attacks after flying through a portal into a far distant galaxy at the end of "The Avengers". This is rounded off by an unusual after credits scene in which Tony Stark is talking to Bruce Banner as if he were a psychiatrist.

Success Rate:  + 4.1

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I've been adding my little box with links to Amazon since 2016, but I've recently noticed problems when I click on them. Some links are broken, because the products I've linked to are no longer on sale. Even worse, some DVDs are out of print and are only available from Amazon Marketplace sellers for exaggerated prices. For instance, the Blu-ray disc that I recommended from Amazon.com in my last review of "Iron Man 3" now costs $49.99. Ouch! The triple pack of Iron Man 1–3 in the box for this review is only $24.99. Much better. I can't go back and change the links of old reviews, but I recommend that my readers check prices before they buy.

I've started to take more time to watch the television series I'm interested in. Until further notice I'm going to watch a maximum of one film each day, with the exception of film festivals. I'll use my additional time to watch one or move television episodes each day. Yesterday I watched six episodes of "Supergirl", today I watched three episodes of "Agents of SHIELD". It's a long-standing problem with me and television series. There's so much that I want to watch, but since I give films priority I have so little time.

Memento (5 Stars)

It's four years since I watched "Memento" for the first time. Click here to read my review, because I don't intend to go into the film's plot again. I don't know why I waited so long to watch it again. "Memento" is possibly Christopher Nolan's best film, surpassing even the big budget "Inception" in its mind-bending originality.

The film was made in 2000 and is a product of its time. The methods of detective work used by Leonard Shelby are relatively low tech in comparison with what he could do today. He suffers from anterograde amnesia, an illness that prevents the creation of new memories, even though he can remember everything that happened before the illness began. Leonard uses Polaroid photos, notes and tattoos to tell himself what he found out the previous day. If the film were made today he would use a smartphone, combining photos, videos and audio recordings as a replacement for his memories.

Leonard's sole purpose in life is to find and kill the man who murdered his wife. He's scared that he has enemies who might be falsifying his notes or destroying his photos, so he has his most important notes tattooed on his body. What he doesn't suspect is that he himself might have written false notes to lead himself astray. Maybe there are memories too painful to remember, so he's decided to forget them.

This is a fascinating subject. I don't suffer from an illness like Leonard Shelby, but my memory isn't perfect. It's good, but not perfect, as I realised yesterday when I found an old photograph that I haven't seen for years. It was taken on my graduation day in 1978 with the eight members of my university course. I was shocked to realise that out of the seven fellow students in the photo I could only remember the names of three of them, even though we sat together in classes for years. I'm at the top dressed in green. Bottom left is Susan Busby. She's easy to remember because we had a relationship for a few months. She was the only girl from my university that I ever dated. Next to her is her best friend Pamela Flaws. I spent a lot of time with her in the last year helping her study, because she was struggling to keep up. It went well for a few months, but then she began to resent my help because she thought I was talking down to her. I wasn't, I genuinely wanted to help her, and I was overjoyed when she passed. Top right is Ian, who invited me to his wedding in York, but I've forgotten his last name. He's lucky. I can't remember the other four at all.

Now the question is: what would happen if I had deliberately labelled the photo with the wrong names 40 years ago? I would look at it now, and because I can't remember the correct names I would assume that the wrong names are correct, that I've merely forgotten them.

What about more recent memories, like films? I watch a lot of films, more than 400 a year. Even if I only count the films which I'm watching for the first time, it must be over 100, maybe as many as 200. There are some films that I remember vividly. I have no trouble remembering the best films and the worst films. It's the average quality films that are fuzzy in my memory, even if it's only been a year since I watched them. My brain throws out the irrelevant clutter. I've got into the habit of always reading my old review (or reviews) when I watch a film that I've seen before. The main reason is so that I don't write a new review that repeats everything I've already said, but it's also to deepen my analysis, by reminding myself of what I already know so I can concentrate on finding new things.

What if I deliberately sabotaged my blog? What if I wrote that a film is brilliant, even though I hate it? What if I love a film, but I give it a bad review? I'm not saying that it would be good to do things like that, but if I did, what would be the result? I might return to a film after a few years and say, "That's weird, it's not the way I remember it at all". Alternately, if I've forgotten the film my incorrect review might replace my memories when I read it.

Putting it bluntly, if I lie about something often enough, will I believe my own lies? It's not something I've ever done, but I've seen others, including my own mother, who have done it. She told lies about my father to cover up her affair with another man, but when I spoke to her 25 years later I had the impression she really believed what she was saying. The lies weren't just to persuade others, they were to convince herself, and when she was in her 70's she no longer remembered the past events, she just remembered her words about them.

If, like Leonard Shelby, you've done something very bad you have a reason for wanting to forget. My mother wanted to forget. I've never done anything as bad as my mother. If I had I might want to forget it, but could I? I confessed my darkest secret in a recent post. It's not something I think about a lot, but it's something I've never forgotten, and when I think about it I feel guilty. Could I have reprogrammed myself to forget this memory? I would have forgotten the guilt, but the guilt would have remained. The deeper question is, if it really is possible to reprogram myself to forget, have I done it already? Was I a serial killer in my teens, and I've forgotten all about it? That's a scary thought.

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Alien: Covenant (4 Stars)

Today I decided to watch "Alien: Covenant" in the cinema, despite not having seen the previous film, "Prometheus", I had no trouble understanding or enjoying it. The beginning tells a completely new story, and when the tie-in to "Prometheus" finally comes everything is explained to newcomers like me.

A colonisation ship is heading on a long journey to a new home planet, Origae-6. I don't think it's stated how long they've already been travelling, but they're still seven years away from their destination. There are 2000 colonists and 15 crew members, all of whom are asleep in cryo-pods. (For those uninitiated with science fiction jargon, that means deep sleep chambers). The only sentient being awake on the ship is an android called Walter. He's stoic and efficient, but he's also been programmed with a depth of literature and philosophical knowledge. Though not explicitly stated, I suspect this is not just to make him more human, but also to store the great works of human civilisation to be shared with the colonists in future generations.

There is a solar storm that damages the ship. Some of the crew are killed, but the rest are awakened. The damage to the ship is extensive, but it can be repaired. By coincidence they notice an Earth-like planet in the vicinity and decide to examine it to see if it could be as suitable as Origae-6.

The real star of the film is Michael Fassbender, who plays two roles, the two androids Walter and David. He, or rather they, are a lot more fascinating than any of the crew members.

Some things were revealed to me that are new developments from what I knew from the first four Alien films. I don't yet know whether they were already revealed in "Prometheus", so I won't write about them here. I don't want to give away spoilers.

In its style "Alien: Covenant" reminds me of the first Alien film, made in 1979. It has a slow-moving plot full of suspense, rather than depending on a series of action sequences. That's no coincidence. Ridley Scott is the director once more. He's in his element telling science fiction stories.

Iron Man 3 (4½ Stars)

I don't celebrate Christmas. I say that so often that by now my friends are tired of hearing it. However, I weakened today and watched a Christmas film, "Iron Man 3". I hope that all my readers enjoy this day, whatever it means to you.

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Memento (4 Stars)

"I always thought the pleasure of a book is in wanting to know what happens next".

But what if you read the last chapter of a book first? And then the one before it, working backwards until you finally get to the first chapter, which explains the background for everything you've just read?

The film deals with a man who suffers from "anterograde amnesia", a rare illness that I've never heard of. The illness seems so unusual in the film that I doubted at first that it really exists, but evidently it does, and the portrayal of the illness in the film has been described as realistic. Anterograde amnesia is an illness in which a person is unable to form new memories, even though he remembers everything that happened before the illness began. This means that only the person's short term memory is impaired; he can remember what happened a few years ago perfectly, but he can't remember what he did a few hours ago.

I suspect that people with this illness would be totally unable to function in society, but the film shows a man, Leonard Shelby, who has found a unique way to deal with it. He carries a Polaroid camera with him at all times, taking photos of important people and objects, and making notes on the photos to read when he has forgotten what they are. The problem with this is that he suspects people around him of falsifying or destroying notes, so he tattoos the most important notes onto his body.

The film starts with Leonard waking up in a hotel room with the photo of a man and the written instruction "Kill him". A few minutes later Leonard sees this man, so he shoots him. The rest of the film, shown backwards, unravels what led to this murder. As we work our way backwards through the chapters of the book we think we understand what it was about, but we don't find the answers until we reach chapter one.

This was the breakthrough film for Christopher Nolan. When it was made in 2000 it received great critical acclaim, as well as box office success. Interestingly, it wasn't shown in America until a year after its release. The American distributors turned it down, since they thought it would be too difficult for American audiences to understand. They only changed their minds after they saw how successful it was in England and other countries.

Just one hint, something that I missed when watching it. The film is shown in alternating colour and b/w sequences. The colour sequences are in reverse chronological order, which was obvious to me, but the black and white sequences are in chronological order. If I'd known this I would have picked up some of the subtleties. I'll pay attention to this next time I watch it.

This diagram, copied from Wikipedia, shows the correlation between the film and the real life events. You can click on the image to enlarge it.

Iron Man 3 (5 Stars)

This was the world's most successful film in 2013, based on box office earnings. Personally I prefer an adjusted list, based on the profit (earnings minus budget), but I'm not aware that anyone does a list like that. I'd have to do it myself, which would take too much time if I wanted to do it for more than one year.

When I reviewed the film last year on June 3rd I criticised the farcical elements of Tony's suit constantly falling apart. I still don't like it, but after watching the film a second time in the comfort of my own home it doesn't seem so bad. It is a very good film, and it almost has a James Bond feel to it when Tony Stark is running around without a suit with a gun in his hand. I was initially disappointed that the Mandarin, Iron man's greatest enemy, was reduced to a Trevor Slattery, but I've heard that a future film will introduce the real Mandarin, so I'm satisfied.

It's very much a Tony Stark film, not an Iron Man film. We don't see much of Iron Man, and even when we see him it's mostly the suit operating under remote control, not Tony wearing the suit. Other fans and reviewers criticise this, but it's not a problem to me. In Detective Comics #272 Steve Engelhart wrote a story in which Bruce Wayne never donned his Batman costume, and this was praised as an innovation. The real hero is the man behind the mask.

The recent Marvel films (since "Captain America") all contain a short film on the Blu-ray release, usually about 15 minutes long. These features, which are referred to as "Marvel One-Shots", are so good that I'm considering reviewing them separately. In this one-shot we see an adventure featuring Peggy Carter shortly after the end of World War Two. It's a great little spy thriller. 15 minutes isn't enough, I'd like to see more of Hayley Atwell.

Iron Man 3 (4 Stars)

I may be a few weeks late, but I've finally seen the latest Iron Man film in the cinema in glorious 2D (sic). I'll say as little as possible about the plot itself, since I don't want to give away any spoilers. It's definitely the weakest of the three Iron Man films. I've heard criticism from other people that it's a Tony Stark film, not an Iron Man film. That doesn't disturb me. On the contrary, the scenes where Tony isn't wearing his armour are the best. What disturbs me is that whenever he begins to fight as Iron Man it turns into ridiculous comedy capers. He keeps falling on the ground; he keeps bouncing; his armour keeps falling off at inopportune moments, only to reattach itself when we least expect it.

Stan Lee appears briefly, far too briefly, as a beauty contest pageant. And I can give my readers one spoiler: there's footage after the credits, so don't walk out of the cinema too soon.

Of course, this is a film that I need to watch again before passing final judgement. I'll review it again when I have the DVD in my hand.

Fragments (4 Stars)

This film is based on the novel "Winged Creatures", written by Roy Freirich. If anything, it is a treatise on chaos theory. A random event happens. A madman enters a diner, shoots guests at random, then kills himself. The film then follows the effects this event has on five of the survivors and their relationships to their families.

Bruce Laraby, a surgeon, loses his operating skills. He begins to experiment with an untested migraine medicine on his wife.

Carla, a waitress, loses her affection for her son.

Anne, a teenage girl, becomes deeply religious, alienating her non-religious mother.

Jimmy, a school friend of Anne's, loses his ability to speak. This causes arguments in his family.

Charlie abandons his daughter and lives in a hotel, spending his days gambling.

The randomness of the film might make it difficult for many people to enjoy. But this is what real life is all about. Things happen which have consequences. If a stone falls in the water the waves ripple long distances and have no connection to one another, apart from the initial stone.

The novel is not completely original. It copies ideas from the Japanese film "Eureka", made in 2000, which deals with the effect that a killing spree on a bus has on the surviving passengers. In "Eureka" Naoki becomes mute and only communicates with his sister Kozue, just as Jimmy only communicates with Anne via the Internet in "Fragments". I can only rate "Fragments" by comparing it with "Eureka", and "Eureka" is the better film.

Click here to view the trailer.