A Hard Day's Night Review

A Hard Day's Night

1964

Director: Richard lester

There’s no doubt The Beatles is the most influential band of all time. From 1962 to 1969 they created what’s often considered as the best music of all time. In 1964, the Beatlemania was at it highest, it was during this year that A Hard Day’s Night came out. The film, originally intended as a star-vehicle for the fab four is a surprisingly funny journey through a day in the life of the band, filled with hilarious moments and charismatic performances.

The film follows the British group during two days as they travel from Liverpool to London for a TV show performance and find themselves in the craziest of situations. With them is their manager, the director of the TV show and Paul’s “villain, a real mixer” grandfather. During the course of the film we see The Beatles running away from their screaming fans, partying in a hotel, performing their most of the songs from the soundtrack and even running away from the police during a hilarious chase sequence.

The movie, shot in a mockumentary style borrows heavily from the Marx brothers’ brand of comedy and shows The Beatles being as zany and anarchists as the famous brothers . They’re not the greatest actors in the world and can’t be really compared to Groucho or Chico for example, but for first time actors, they all do a great job with it their dialogue, though their Liverpool accent is sometimes hard to understand. John being the most natural of them, he’s surprisingly good with slapstick comedy and I think that if he had acted more he could’ve become a great comedic actor. George is the stiffest of them, he seems rather nervous most of the time, but this actually helps his scenes and gives it an air of deadpan.

The influence the film had is undeniable. Though not technically perfect by any means, the film uses quick cuts and zooms in a way that hadn’t really been done up to that point and it helps the pacing of the dialogue. The editing of the scenes according to the pacing of the songs also predates music videos by a few years. Modern mockumentaries shot in cinema verité style such as This is Spinal Tap, Naked Brothers Band and even Borat owe their existence to A Hard Day’s Night.

There’s not a dull moment in Hard Day’s Night, every scene is full of charism. There are so many memorable scenes that are just fall the chair hilarious, such as the interviews with the band members or when George ends up working as a fashion consultant for a TV station, but the best of them all is the aforementioned chase between the cops and the band near the end of the film to the sound of “Can’t Buy Me Love”.

Perhaps the best thing about A Hard Day’s Night is that it still is watchable, it doesn’t feel dated at all and it never gets old, even after multiple views and that’s what makes it such a great film.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time review

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

2010

Director: Mike Newell

The Prince of Persia series has a special place in my heart as one of the most involving, deep and just plain fun series of games I’ve played (Warrior Within being my favorite) so when I heard that a movie based on the first game of the Sand of Times series was being made I was naturally worried. Expectations were low considering previous video game adaptations and producer Bruckheimer claiming it’d be “the new Pirates of the Caribbean”. Now that I’ve seen the movie I can safely say that this is one of the most functional video game adaptations made so far, if only in terms of perfectly capturing the style of the games.

The story follows Prince Dastan, played by former gay cowboy Jake Gyllenhaall, who is tricked alongside his brothers to attack the sacred city of Alamut and steal the dagger of time. Soon, he finds himself framed for the death of his father and must escape with Tamina, the Princess of Alamut. During his adventure, he discovers that the dagger allows its possessor to reverse time for a minute and that someone in his own family has deceived him to take over of the dagger which combined with the sandglass can go back to any point in time to become the king of the Persian Empire.

At this point, anyone who has ever played the original Sands of Time game is probably saying “wait what?” There’s no Vizier, no Farah, no Maharajah, no sand monsters and the dagger doesn’t have the Time-slowdown or Sand bomb powers which is disappointing. I’ve always thought the Sands of Time story was a perfect fit for the screen, it had tension, romance adventure, drama, it was short and it wasn’t complicated for anyone to follow so it’s beyond me why it was changed so much. While the story in the film subtly keeps some aspects from the game it has changed into a cluttered, convoluted and boring mess.

And while the story is disappointing, what kept me in awe most of the time and what makes this movie good for me is how they perfectly capture the style and feel of the games. The prince is acrobatic, running across walls, engaging in impressive parkour sequences, climbing ridiculously high structures, jumping from ledge to ledge and fighting with his trademark double blades (from Warrior Within). Persia looks exactly like it did in The Two Thrones and Alamut borrows heavily from Azad in the first game. The lighting is fantastic and it adds a lot to the setting, though sometimes everything looks a bit too yellow. The music is also atmospheric, relying mostly on sitar tunes and Arabic corals with drum-based beats for the action sequences. The CGI though, looks very bland and almost archaic, especially the last sand storm that nearly devastates the city.

While Jake Gyllenghaal is certainly not the right man for the role, he at least looks the part and plays it well considering it’s not the most demanding role. Gemma Arterton, who plays the Prince’s love interest, Tamina on the other hand is rather robotic in her performance and seems bored to death for the most part, this hurts any little chemistry they had. Ben Kingsley is functionally sinister and honestly, but he also seems bored as hell, this being another one of his “fuck it, I already have an Oscar” performances. The real jewel in the cast is Alfred Molina as the obligatory comic relief character Sheik a tax-hating entrepreneur who is easily the best addition the filmmakers made to the story.

I can’t say it’s the best video game adaptation, I still think Mortal Kombat combined perfectly the heart and style of the video games to make a good movie. Here the impressive style makes up for the uninspired story obviously aimed to the Disney/Pirates fanbase. It is not a terrible movie and it’s certainly one of the better video game adaptations, but there’s not enough substance to make it worth watching a second time, or even pay to see it.