Went to the cinema to see Atonement, which was very true to the book – indeed, perhaps more enjoyable, for where the book became dry and protracted with Briony’s necessarily grim life as a nurse and Robbie’s gruelling experiences in France, the film balances the dark subject matter with beautiful – if horrific – imagery and a brisker pace that may detract a little from the impression of long sufferings, allows for a more agreeable pace: it is an exchange, emphatic realism for agreeable brevity, perhaps dragging the picture towards middlebrow, but then, while this is probably McEwan’s most memorable concept and most ambitious story, it is also likely his most melodramatic piece, and not what one would call highbrow. I say that not at all as something that ought to detract from the impression the book gives.
The direction was excellent – camera movements were graceful and showed us by turns extravagant but retrained English wealth and the virtues and flaws of a privileged British child, the horrors of war in all their grand, terrifying scope as well as the intimate whispers between comrades, the stifling closeness of the flats of the poor and that of a military hospital run with meaningless precision, and best of all, the intricacies of thoughts and emotions, pleasant and unpleasant, funny and moving. The actors are perfectly cast and uniformly perform extremely well. All the characters look beautiful on the screen, from ethereally pretty Keira Knightley to the plain-faced Briony. The only irritating element was the use of the typewriter to make music, a twee concept that sounded messy and distracting. All in all, an excellent film of a clever, intelligent book.
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Mean Streets
Mean Streets (1973) was the first major project that Martin Scorsese both wrote and directed for widespread distribution. As with his student films, he tried to recreate the familiar sights, sounds and colourful personalities of New York’s Little Italy, the neighbourhood Scorsese grew up in. It’s a film full of the youthful exuberance of a young director given a chance to prove himself, and while it lacks the polished, neat storytelling of later films such as Gangs of New York, it is also much easier to believe in, much smaller in scale and as a result, far more likeable.
Admittedly, I came to Mean Streets thinking it would be a gangster movie, in the vein of Scorsese’s most enduring 90s films such as Goodfellas and Casino, all top mafia gansters dodging bullets and trying to move up in the company – involving and often shocking motion pictures, but focusing on characters who need to exaggerate themselves in order to survive. I was surprised to find that at the heart of Mean Streets is its flawed and very human characters, and as a result, this very early Scorsese film seems mature and intimate in a way latter films like The Departed have entirely lacked.
The plot in Mean Streets is loose. It centres on the relationship between Charlie and his loose-canon friend Johnny Boy (played by Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro, respectively, who would become Scorsese stalwarts, and it was the success of this film that really launched all three men’s impressive careers). Charlie’s uncle is high up in the local mafia, and Charlie does some low-key work for him. His close friend Johnny Boy, meanwhile, has run up big gambling debts and his abrasive personality is getting him a lot of enemies. Johnny is always asking Charlie to put a good word in for him, but Charlie knows that Johnny just isn’t cut out for it, and refuses – but leaves himself vulnerable when he gets romantically involved with Johnny’s cousin.
Charlie is the heart of the film, the identifiable everyman, but it’s Johnny who drives the plot forward, and this is one of Robert De Niro’s best performances – and that’s saying a lot for an actor of his calibre. It’s refreshing to see him playing a truly unappealing character. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver and Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull are deeply flawed, but they’re self-aware, they know they’re doing terrible things and regret the mistakes they make, and are heroic in a melancholy sort of way, but Johnny Boy is just irredeemable, because not only does he never show any sincere remorse, it never even occurs to him that he ought to be contrite – he’s just so egocentric and clueless about the world around him that he blunders through it thinking he’s doing the right thing. It’s brave for an actor to take on a role like this, and De Niro does it with astonishing believability.
What really makes Mean Streets stand out is that its stakes are ostensibly small; it’s not about Godfathers or men who are at the top of their game. It’s about the losers, the pariahs, the boys who haven’t quite grown up yet who’re struggling to become adults. In one of the best moments of the film, the two men just start fighting like kids with metal dustbin lids, not caring if they wake the neighbourhood, absorbed in their childish game and the bond it makes between them – and then Johnny Boy of course later takes everything too far, thinking it’s entertaining to shoot his gun in the air, even at the neighbours he dislikes. It’s the contrast between moments where the real strength of the friendships comes out, contrasted with the unreasonable things Johnny does that make Charlie’s situation so believable, and the skeleton of the film so strong, even if its flesh is mostly little more than random encounters, quarrels and conversations in daily life.
Also worthy of mention is the humour. This is a very funny film, as a result of its arbitrary structure, its sketch-like construction. A lot of the things that happen to the major characters are absurd or incongruous, from unwise business decisions from the small-time gangsters to a superbly jarring scene where these wisecracking, masculine gangsters are stuck in a car with an excessively flamboyant, posturing homosexual. It’s a clever movie, unafraid to make its audience uncomfortable, unafraid to take risks, and content just to tell the story of nobodies, and what happens to them when they stick their necks out that little bit too far, and that’s what makes this an excellent film.
Admittedly, I came to Mean Streets thinking it would be a gangster movie, in the vein of Scorsese’s most enduring 90s films such as Goodfellas and Casino, all top mafia gansters dodging bullets and trying to move up in the company – involving and often shocking motion pictures, but focusing on characters who need to exaggerate themselves in order to survive. I was surprised to find that at the heart of Mean Streets is its flawed and very human characters, and as a result, this very early Scorsese film seems mature and intimate in a way latter films like The Departed have entirely lacked.
The plot in Mean Streets is loose. It centres on the relationship between Charlie and his loose-canon friend Johnny Boy (played by Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro, respectively, who would become Scorsese stalwarts, and it was the success of this film that really launched all three men’s impressive careers). Charlie’s uncle is high up in the local mafia, and Charlie does some low-key work for him. His close friend Johnny Boy, meanwhile, has run up big gambling debts and his abrasive personality is getting him a lot of enemies. Johnny is always asking Charlie to put a good word in for him, but Charlie knows that Johnny just isn’t cut out for it, and refuses – but leaves himself vulnerable when he gets romantically involved with Johnny’s cousin.
Charlie is the heart of the film, the identifiable everyman, but it’s Johnny who drives the plot forward, and this is one of Robert De Niro’s best performances – and that’s saying a lot for an actor of his calibre. It’s refreshing to see him playing a truly unappealing character. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver and Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull are deeply flawed, but they’re self-aware, they know they’re doing terrible things and regret the mistakes they make, and are heroic in a melancholy sort of way, but Johnny Boy is just irredeemable, because not only does he never show any sincere remorse, it never even occurs to him that he ought to be contrite – he’s just so egocentric and clueless about the world around him that he blunders through it thinking he’s doing the right thing. It’s brave for an actor to take on a role like this, and De Niro does it with astonishing believability.
What really makes Mean Streets stand out is that its stakes are ostensibly small; it’s not about Godfathers or men who are at the top of their game. It’s about the losers, the pariahs, the boys who haven’t quite grown up yet who’re struggling to become adults. In one of the best moments of the film, the two men just start fighting like kids with metal dustbin lids, not caring if they wake the neighbourhood, absorbed in their childish game and the bond it makes between them – and then Johnny Boy of course later takes everything too far, thinking it’s entertaining to shoot his gun in the air, even at the neighbours he dislikes. It’s the contrast between moments where the real strength of the friendships comes out, contrasted with the unreasonable things Johnny does that make Charlie’s situation so believable, and the skeleton of the film so strong, even if its flesh is mostly little more than random encounters, quarrels and conversations in daily life.
Also worthy of mention is the humour. This is a very funny film, as a result of its arbitrary structure, its sketch-like construction. A lot of the things that happen to the major characters are absurd or incongruous, from unwise business decisions from the small-time gangsters to a superbly jarring scene where these wisecracking, masculine gangsters are stuck in a car with an excessively flamboyant, posturing homosexual. It’s a clever movie, unafraid to make its audience uncomfortable, unafraid to take risks, and content just to tell the story of nobodies, and what happens to them when they stick their necks out that little bit too far, and that’s what makes this an excellent film.
Full Metal Jacket
Kubrick isn’t a director who needed glossy perfection in his films’ aesthetics. He could make an epic like Spartacus and then four years later, still be content with a black-and-white film mostly constructed from long, static shots of Peter Sellers’ face. 2001 and A Clockwork Orange are full of staggeringly powerful visuals, but they make the best of small budgets and despite being far ahead of their time, don’t have the slick Hollywood look of his two 80s movies, The Shining and Full Metal Jacket. Everything about this film looks perfect. The war scenes may have been filmed using old crumbling factory buildings found around England, but when you see those pillars of flame pluming out from the torn-up edifices still plastered with old Vietnamese posters, and you see those tanks firing at distant warzones, I seriously doubt you will doubt the film’s setting for a moment.
But while the film looks slick, sharp, professional and always extremely real, Kubrick was an eccentric, an iconoclast and a visionary, and this film stands alongside his others, perhaps looking a little more polished, a little less dated, but with the same distinctive flavour, the same strength of image and subtlety of touch. And while it looks every bit as good as a any other big-budget blockbuster, it certainly does not make concessions to the familiar platitudes of Hollywood storytelling.
The film is divided into two distinct sections, following a soldier in the Vietnam war first through his brutal training and then during his active service. No exposition here, no easy introductory passage to let us know how good-hearted our main character is, how sorry he was to leave his home, or even any indication, at the beginning, of who our main character is going to be. We see men having their heads shaved before they enter military training, and then the anonymous ranks are yelled at and abused by their drill instructor Sgt Hartman, a bravura performance from real ex-drill instructor R. Lee Ermey that puts even Sgt Foley from An Officer and a Gentleman to shame, being able to go much further, even if the latter came out with the famous ‘steers and queers’ line first. The least able of the new recruits is mercilessly victimised by Hartman and resented by the other privates, until even the sympathetic squad leader Joker begins to fear he’s losing his mind. The bizarre mixture of camaraderie and dehumanisation gives rise to some of the most strikingly surreal images of the film, indeed, of any film, like the image of one man standing alone in his underclothes eating a doughnut while two dozen men do press-ups around him. The climax to this section is abrupt and haunting, but perhaps a little overdone.
The second section echoes the first. Joker is now a military journalist, his clever one-liners getting him close allies but also annoy his superiors, meaning he’s soon sent to the front, just as he was made squad captain in training. The film shows us vignettes of the war, some dark, like the helicopter gunman who takes great pride in killing defenceless citizens, some just as surreal and humorous as any in the first part, like when the journalists go to see a pit of dead bodies, and the soldier they interview in front of the dead keeps pausing to crack cheesy grins for the camera, a contrast all the more memorable for its believability. He meets an old friend and ends up trying to cross the warzone with him, until they run into trouble with a well-concealed sniper. The deeply human realisation of war, the idea that men can be joking and laughing while someone dies, that in the presence of someone who has just been blown up by a landmine, you can be awkward and not uneasy and not quite know what to say, makes a refreshing change from the seeming dichotomy of serious epic war films full of grand gestures and seriousness and the comic war films where everything is absurd and exaggerated.
In every way, a remarkable piece of work. A visual spectacle, a great soundtrack of period music, some moments that are immortal in motion picture history and a few extremely well-sketched characters, it’s another film that doesn’t rely on a clever plot or any kind of overall goal, but focuses on a setting and explores it with an intimacy that defies any doubt on its factual basis. This is what it looks like when a visionary looks at an everyday reality that is understood entirely by those who are participating but makes very little sense to observers, that is, war, and makes a film of it.
But while the film looks slick, sharp, professional and always extremely real, Kubrick was an eccentric, an iconoclast and a visionary, and this film stands alongside his others, perhaps looking a little more polished, a little less dated, but with the same distinctive flavour, the same strength of image and subtlety of touch. And while it looks every bit as good as a any other big-budget blockbuster, it certainly does not make concessions to the familiar platitudes of Hollywood storytelling.
The film is divided into two distinct sections, following a soldier in the Vietnam war first through his brutal training and then during his active service. No exposition here, no easy introductory passage to let us know how good-hearted our main character is, how sorry he was to leave his home, or even any indication, at the beginning, of who our main character is going to be. We see men having their heads shaved before they enter military training, and then the anonymous ranks are yelled at and abused by their drill instructor Sgt Hartman, a bravura performance from real ex-drill instructor R. Lee Ermey that puts even Sgt Foley from An Officer and a Gentleman to shame, being able to go much further, even if the latter came out with the famous ‘steers and queers’ line first. The least able of the new recruits is mercilessly victimised by Hartman and resented by the other privates, until even the sympathetic squad leader Joker begins to fear he’s losing his mind. The bizarre mixture of camaraderie and dehumanisation gives rise to some of the most strikingly surreal images of the film, indeed, of any film, like the image of one man standing alone in his underclothes eating a doughnut while two dozen men do press-ups around him. The climax to this section is abrupt and haunting, but perhaps a little overdone.
The second section echoes the first. Joker is now a military journalist, his clever one-liners getting him close allies but also annoy his superiors, meaning he’s soon sent to the front, just as he was made squad captain in training. The film shows us vignettes of the war, some dark, like the helicopter gunman who takes great pride in killing defenceless citizens, some just as surreal and humorous as any in the first part, like when the journalists go to see a pit of dead bodies, and the soldier they interview in front of the dead keeps pausing to crack cheesy grins for the camera, a contrast all the more memorable for its believability. He meets an old friend and ends up trying to cross the warzone with him, until they run into trouble with a well-concealed sniper. The deeply human realisation of war, the idea that men can be joking and laughing while someone dies, that in the presence of someone who has just been blown up by a landmine, you can be awkward and not uneasy and not quite know what to say, makes a refreshing change from the seeming dichotomy of serious epic war films full of grand gestures and seriousness and the comic war films where everything is absurd and exaggerated.
In every way, a remarkable piece of work. A visual spectacle, a great soundtrack of period music, some moments that are immortal in motion picture history and a few extremely well-sketched characters, it’s another film that doesn’t rely on a clever plot or any kind of overall goal, but focuses on a setting and explores it with an intimacy that defies any doubt on its factual basis. This is what it looks like when a visionary looks at an everyday reality that is understood entirely by those who are participating but makes very little sense to observers, that is, war, and makes a film of it.
The Queen
Caught The Queen with Helen Mirren. Not at all the picture Al Fayed would have made, with only one throwaway reference to the royal family actually being suspected of anything, but very entertaining - less because I can remember the events portrayed happening and am familiar with the characters than because of the dramatisation, the way the real people became big, prominent characters, and our stern, stuffy queen cries for deer her husband is hunting. Most amusingly of all, the film is shaped as a sort of coming-of-age story for Tony Blair!
And never have I found Alistair Campbell so appealing before this. The film is steeped in real associations and connotations, but never seems more than a drama on a stage – but that, I think, is why I enjoyed it, far more so than if a large part of me wasn’t thinking I was watching a real-life Spitting Image.
And never have I found Alistair Campbell so appealing before this. The film is steeped in real associations and connotations, but never seems more than a drama on a stage – but that, I think, is why I enjoyed it, far more so than if a large part of me wasn’t thinking I was watching a real-life Spitting Image.
The Fisher King
The Fisher King was brilliant. Certainly not a slick, well-structured story, but that’s hardly the point – it was the kind of quirky, bizarre film Gilliam does best. In fact, it may well have been my favourite of his post-Python films. Robin Williams is at his best when his character allows him to cut loose all his frenetic energy, yet is a bit unsettling and sinister. Jeff Bridges is superb with the different facets of his character, and that scene with his strong-minded, distinctively Jewish girlfriend that goes from unbridled joy to unleashed fury, was just amazing, the kind of thing two actors must dream of. The meandering story is fast and intriguing enough to make the ending really satisfying, and Gilliam’s little flights of fantasy are not only well-integrated, but look amazing – he’s come a long way from Jabberwocky!
Stardust
Stardust is a fun movie. You can see they’ve consciously tried to make a classic, old-fashioned fantasy story. Apparently, Gaiman’s original novella was subversive because it was very frank, full of sex and gristle, but suddenly-massive director Matthew Vaughn makes everything much lighter and sticks in a whole lot of Princess Bride-style silly humour and a naturalistic, improvisational dialogue style. It doesn’t completely work, and this is no classic film, but it’s very enjoyable to watch.
Yes, ‘Classic, old-fashioned fantasy,’ really means, ‘full of clichés.’ A simple shop boy goes on a quest to find a star knocked from the sky by the pendant of a king, only to find the star is humanoid, and the two of them end up pursued not only by ‘Lilim’ witches who want the star-girl’s heart to make them immortal, but also princes whose succession relies on getting hold of the pendant. People get turned into goats and goats into people, a young man finds what real love is and all the little missing bits and pieces slot into place neatly at the end in a series of outlandish coincidences we’re inured to by lifetimes of such storytelling. Groups fighting involves waiting your turn to challenge one another, even if it means the ally you ought to have helped ends up dead, and baddies who want to kill damsels in distress don’t just do so, but give the hero a chance to come to the rescue, standing there sharpening their knives. There’s also a middle section involving the delightful idea of storm-harvesting pirates, led by Robert De Niro in a really remarkable performance…reviewers seem to have alternately loved and loathed this surprising performance, one step away from Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, but I thought it just about worked – albeit probably less well than it would’ve with another actor where shock value doesn’t force you to remember that you’re watching an actor on a screen. Ricky Gervais does his Ricky Gervais thing, and Michelle Pfeiffer puts in a deliciously devilish and cackling performance that works a charm. Charlie Cox is an effective romantic lead, able to carry off gauche chump and charming champ well. Clare Danes goes well with him, reserved and petulant and just plain ordinary enough for the role to work, her strange accent somehow adding a little to the cuteness of the character with a propensity to glow when she’s happy.
There are some imaginative scenes (the swordfight at the end is one of the most remarkable pieces of choreography you’re ever likely to see, and the weak witch’s futile duel with her queen is somehow quite awesome – and the ghostly onlookers are an inspired addition) and stunning effects (an inn growing out of nothing, some great miniatures work), so if you can forget the camera shots recycled from Lord of the Rings and the usual tropes of purposely generic writing about young heroes and witches, this is a lot of fun.
Billing it as ‘The Fairy Tale That Won’t Behave’ was a mistake, suggesting a zany subversive comedy. This was very much a classic epic with a few interesting moments and a whole lot of old chestnuts.
Yes, ‘Classic, old-fashioned fantasy,’ really means, ‘full of clichés.’ A simple shop boy goes on a quest to find a star knocked from the sky by the pendant of a king, only to find the star is humanoid, and the two of them end up pursued not only by ‘Lilim’ witches who want the star-girl’s heart to make them immortal, but also princes whose succession relies on getting hold of the pendant. People get turned into goats and goats into people, a young man finds what real love is and all the little missing bits and pieces slot into place neatly at the end in a series of outlandish coincidences we’re inured to by lifetimes of such storytelling. Groups fighting involves waiting your turn to challenge one another, even if it means the ally you ought to have helped ends up dead, and baddies who want to kill damsels in distress don’t just do so, but give the hero a chance to come to the rescue, standing there sharpening their knives. There’s also a middle section involving the delightful idea of storm-harvesting pirates, led by Robert De Niro in a really remarkable performance…reviewers seem to have alternately loved and loathed this surprising performance, one step away from Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire, but I thought it just about worked – albeit probably less well than it would’ve with another actor where shock value doesn’t force you to remember that you’re watching an actor on a screen. Ricky Gervais does his Ricky Gervais thing, and Michelle Pfeiffer puts in a deliciously devilish and cackling performance that works a charm. Charlie Cox is an effective romantic lead, able to carry off gauche chump and charming champ well. Clare Danes goes well with him, reserved and petulant and just plain ordinary enough for the role to work, her strange accent somehow adding a little to the cuteness of the character with a propensity to glow when she’s happy.
There are some imaginative scenes (the swordfight at the end is one of the most remarkable pieces of choreography you’re ever likely to see, and the weak witch’s futile duel with her queen is somehow quite awesome – and the ghostly onlookers are an inspired addition) and stunning effects (an inn growing out of nothing, some great miniatures work), so if you can forget the camera shots recycled from Lord of the Rings and the usual tropes of purposely generic writing about young heroes and witches, this is a lot of fun.
Billing it as ‘The Fairy Tale That Won’t Behave’ was a mistake, suggesting a zany subversive comedy. This was very much a classic epic with a few interesting moments and a whole lot of old chestnuts.
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Hammer Horror’s Dracula
Hammer Horror’s version of Dracula actually wasn’t as silly or camp as I expected it to be. It was actually very entertaining, although yes, it was both silly and camp. After an introductory talk by the screenwriter, who endeared himself to all by flourishing a letter sent to someone that was looking for him, informing them that he had passed away! The film started rolling, and despite its slow start (albeit not nearly as slow as the book’s), it proved thoroughly entertaining. It deviates a lot from the book, and while I think that removing Harker from centre-stage and making him know what he was up against rather than being a terrified innocent, while giving Van Helsing more prominence, perhaps lent the screenplay a more movie-friendly chase/duel format, but removed not only the early suspense and terror but also the human heart from the film, and Arthur was far too much of a fey drama queen to become sympathetic. There were some very funny moments, some intentional (the cute kid, the scatterbrained undertaker, the classic slapstick border guard) and some not (‘I am a doctor!’, Arthur’s overreactions), but the boisterous and dictatorial score has dated badly – rather than raising suspense, it destroys it utterly in a way that Bela Lugosi’s Count doesn’t have to work against, because of the lack of an original score.
So rather than the fear and paranoia that might have made this really scary, we get a villain and a hero on his trail. Thankfully, Peter Cushing has enough authority and gravitas to carry the role effectively, even if he was given some daft lines (‘Have some tea or coffee, or better yet, wine!’), and Christopher Lee’s physical presence alone makes him an excellent Count. He can be taken seriously, without a silly voice and looking genuinely capable of violence, and even in the extremely dated effects of the last scenes, he manages to retain his dignity.
Certainly worth watching, and I’ll have to remember the slapping-a-hysterical-woman-to-her-senses move!
So rather than the fear and paranoia that might have made this really scary, we get a villain and a hero on his trail. Thankfully, Peter Cushing has enough authority and gravitas to carry the role effectively, even if he was given some daft lines (‘Have some tea or coffee, or better yet, wine!’), and Christopher Lee’s physical presence alone makes him an excellent Count. He can be taken seriously, without a silly voice and looking genuinely capable of violence, and even in the extremely dated effects of the last scenes, he manages to retain his dignity.
Certainly worth watching, and I’ll have to remember the slapping-a-hysterical-woman-to-her-senses move!
Hellraiser
watched Hellraiser, which I haven’t seen for…well, I’m not sure, but at least six or seven years. I could only remember bits and pieces, and I wasn’t expecting it to look quite so 80s, or to be a British film set in America, but it certainly holds up well and was scarier and more shocking than any horror film made in the last few years that I’ve seen, including Saw and Silent Hill. It’s not only gruesome and chilling, but centres on perversion as well, which remains surprisingly subversive. There are some really awful effects (including that stupid wheeled foetus thing, and especially those silly electric effects), the ending is just a cop-out followed by a really dated dénouement and the hair is immense, but it has to be said that the Cenobites are just timeless and brilliant, looking both terrifying and yet extremely cool. Here’s a film ready for a high-budget remake, and according to Wikipedia, it’s in the works for getting one, which I approve of. Just keep the Cenobites intact, eh?
Not as scary as I remember, though. Perhaps next time we should try Candyman.
Not as scary as I remember, though. Perhaps next time we should try Candyman.
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Yellowbeard
What a frustrating film. So close to being brilliant, so much potential…and such a terrible result. No wonder it’s been all but forgotten, but the trouble is that it’s so bad because it comes tantalisingly close to being superb so many times, and always slips, falling harder each time as a result.
It’s a great idea. A Python film about pirates – that’s what we could’ve had. A surreal swashbuckling adventure with lots of the usual subversion and memorable characters. The trouble is, too much is crammed in and none of it is given any time to actually get good. From a sound premise (the fearsome pirate Yellowbeard escapes from prison and heads for his booty, the map to which is tattooed on the head of his son, now a young man), we get a huge mess with too many situations and very few good jokes. It’s as if funny people have been thrown at the screen and are expected to just be naturally amusing. Peter Cook is the only one to actually manage this, by being a hapless aristocrat who, with extra swagger, would have been rather reminiscent of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean despite their very different roles. Oblivious people are just amusing, and Cook is very natural.
The rest is a shambles. Chapman’s Yellowbeard snarls and is about the only Pythonic thing in the movie, being grossly exaggerated in some very odd directions, but there’s nothing past that, no human side. Eric Idle is just one of his boring posh baddies (with Nigel Planer being a similarly unimaginative fall-guy), while John Cleese, in what he’s called the worst movie he’s ever done (or suchlike), does well with bad material but ultimately can’t rise above it sufficiently. Spike Milligan and James Mason may as well not have been there, and Cheech and Chong’s stupid babyish play-acting really makes the film start to stink (their prominence on the American poster is the only funny thing about them). Marty Feldman looks great and has some good moments in the role he died filming, but goes over the top a few times too many and is paired with the endlessly boring Peter Boyle. Madeline Kahn manages to squeeze out a few funny lines, and is one of the only redeemable things about the film, but her character is just another piece of driftwood in the formless detritus of this movie.
It’s a great idea. A Python film about pirates – that’s what we could’ve had. A surreal swashbuckling adventure with lots of the usual subversion and memorable characters. The trouble is, too much is crammed in and none of it is given any time to actually get good. From a sound premise (the fearsome pirate Yellowbeard escapes from prison and heads for his booty, the map to which is tattooed on the head of his son, now a young man), we get a huge mess with too many situations and very few good jokes. It’s as if funny people have been thrown at the screen and are expected to just be naturally amusing. Peter Cook is the only one to actually manage this, by being a hapless aristocrat who, with extra swagger, would have been rather reminiscent of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean despite their very different roles. Oblivious people are just amusing, and Cook is very natural.
The rest is a shambles. Chapman’s Yellowbeard snarls and is about the only Pythonic thing in the movie, being grossly exaggerated in some very odd directions, but there’s nothing past that, no human side. Eric Idle is just one of his boring posh baddies (with Nigel Planer being a similarly unimaginative fall-guy), while John Cleese, in what he’s called the worst movie he’s ever done (or suchlike), does well with bad material but ultimately can’t rise above it sufficiently. Spike Milligan and James Mason may as well not have been there, and Cheech and Chong’s stupid babyish play-acting really makes the film start to stink (their prominence on the American poster is the only funny thing about them). Marty Feldman looks great and has some good moments in the role he died filming, but goes over the top a few times too many and is paired with the endlessly boring Peter Boyle. Madeline Kahn manages to squeeze out a few funny lines, and is one of the only redeemable things about the film, but her character is just another piece of driftwood in the formless detritus of this movie.
Thursday, 18 August 2011
The Golden Compass
The Golden Compass movie was…well, almost exactly as I thought it would be from the trailers. It was a fairly entertaining film, but it was a long way from the film I would’ve liked to have seen. While the book seemed like an underdog that managed to develop into something great, the film seemed like it had everything, but messed it up.
It’s just a bad adaptation – I’ve said before that the book doesn’t have a very good story, but meanders and fits in lots of separate threads, but comes together because it’s a superb evocation of a world, with great characters and some superb ideas. Somehow, this film makes all the slightly iffy parts of the book that just about manage to work and throws them into such stark relief that they become quite embarrassing, and fails to evoke any of the redeeming sense of purpose or atmosphere that make the novel hang together.
I’m a strict critic because I read Northern Lights when I was 14, fell in love with the world, and fell in love with Lyra. I enjoyed the screen adaptation, but only because I can see it as a totally different entity from the story I know. It’s beautiful, but that’s not the Jordan College I’m familiar with. That’s not the Lyra Belaqua I care about.
One big problem is the great rush. A novel can take its time, flesh out each idea, develop them with subtlety. Here we get a great infodump for an introduction, and then a great rush of different plot strands colliding but never quite intertwining. I can understand truncating the slow Gyptians segment, which worked, and Lee Scoresby just about managed to seem necessary because Sam Elliot was so striking onscreen, but changing the Witches’ Council to one scene with Serafina just made them so extraneous, removing all emotion from their appearance in the battle – and I’m sure they showed Lord Faa in Serafina’s ‘flashback’ rather than Farder Coram. Lyra’s scenes with her ‘Gang’ were too twee, too babyish, and failed to evoke the sense of long familiarity – too eager to be cute, when what we really needed was cut knees and real scraps with the miner kids or whoever it was in the book. Mrs. Coulter worked well, Nicole Kidman radiant and intriguing, but Lyra’s escape from her was a wasted opportunity for real tension and fear – in the book, there’s a real desperation and fear as Lyra realised how lost and alone she is. Iorek’s fight with…whatever it was they renamed Iofur, Raknaar or something, certainly looked impressive, but was similarly too pat, too easily resolved, too much of an aside rather than being something Lyra really had to do. Because each segment had to be dealt with quickly, none of them get time to develop any atmosphere, and nor do any of the characters gain any depth, including Lyra. Even Mrs. Coulter only shows depth by being contradictory…which is just a teaser.
It doesn’t help that what in Pullman’s book is a cleverly-written evocation of a world that in almost every way is just like our own but subtly different (and with daemons) becomes as otherworldly as possible, with dodgy CG blimps and ridiculous glowing gyroscopes where Pullman’s ‘Anbaric’ energy was quite clearly just electricity.
Otherwise, what I expected from the trailer was true. Lyra is totally wrong. She’s too young, and not nearly wild, tomboyish or pure enough. She seems like a nice middle-class girl putting on a weird accent and generally thinking herself above most of what she does. She doesn’t have Lyra’s easy, honest emotions, and when she’s called upon to show some emotion, Dakota Blue Richards just doesn’t seem to believe in it, making her affection for Iorek seem hollow and…well, what happened with Billy got changed, but she didn’t seem very worried about Ratter, and nor did we see the sheer violation that’s supposed to happen when someone touches Pan.
On the other hand, the things I thought would work do work. Pantalaimon is adorable with Freddie Highmore’s voice, though there was a bit too much focus on him being scared and supported by Lyra, rather than the two of them being matches for one another. He and Iorek for the most part look great in a film where the CG isn’t always as good as it ought to be (the monkey often looks bizarre), and one shot of Pan through a magnifying glass is just superb. The music is generally good, though jangled somewhat when Lyra was running away. Shots of architecture, excepting the obviously-fake Magisterium, are excellent. I don’t really mind that the Church isn’t called the Church; it’s still very obvious, though I was a bit disgruntled that Christopher Lee and Derek Jacobi were quite so hammy. Their faces onscreen looked wonderfully sinister; the effect would actually have been potent without the panto act.
And I really, really hate the fact that they changed the ending. I know the book really climaxes with the bears’ fight, peaks again for a false ending where the film ends, and then finally finishes, but it’s that final smack in the face of what happens next, the sheer enormity of what Asriel does and where it leads us, that lets us see that this series is really something a bit different. The horrible ‘Sailing to our future, listing unresolved plot points,’ we got really annoyed me, and I’m sure vastly reduced the likelihood of many people going to see the sequel.
I’m worried, anyway. If the solid visuals and grit of book one looked a bit ridiculous in this film, what will dementors, fairy warriors, motorbike cattle and gay angels look like? The whole affair just makes me want to squirrel back into the book I loved. Not books – that single, first book, where I know I can find my Lyra.
It’s just a bad adaptation – I’ve said before that the book doesn’t have a very good story, but meanders and fits in lots of separate threads, but comes together because it’s a superb evocation of a world, with great characters and some superb ideas. Somehow, this film makes all the slightly iffy parts of the book that just about manage to work and throws them into such stark relief that they become quite embarrassing, and fails to evoke any of the redeeming sense of purpose or atmosphere that make the novel hang together.
I’m a strict critic because I read Northern Lights when I was 14, fell in love with the world, and fell in love with Lyra. I enjoyed the screen adaptation, but only because I can see it as a totally different entity from the story I know. It’s beautiful, but that’s not the Jordan College I’m familiar with. That’s not the Lyra Belaqua I care about.
One big problem is the great rush. A novel can take its time, flesh out each idea, develop them with subtlety. Here we get a great infodump for an introduction, and then a great rush of different plot strands colliding but never quite intertwining. I can understand truncating the slow Gyptians segment, which worked, and Lee Scoresby just about managed to seem necessary because Sam Elliot was so striking onscreen, but changing the Witches’ Council to one scene with Serafina just made them so extraneous, removing all emotion from their appearance in the battle – and I’m sure they showed Lord Faa in Serafina’s ‘flashback’ rather than Farder Coram. Lyra’s scenes with her ‘Gang’ were too twee, too babyish, and failed to evoke the sense of long familiarity – too eager to be cute, when what we really needed was cut knees and real scraps with the miner kids or whoever it was in the book. Mrs. Coulter worked well, Nicole Kidman radiant and intriguing, but Lyra’s escape from her was a wasted opportunity for real tension and fear – in the book, there’s a real desperation and fear as Lyra realised how lost and alone she is. Iorek’s fight with…whatever it was they renamed Iofur, Raknaar or something, certainly looked impressive, but was similarly too pat, too easily resolved, too much of an aside rather than being something Lyra really had to do. Because each segment had to be dealt with quickly, none of them get time to develop any atmosphere, and nor do any of the characters gain any depth, including Lyra. Even Mrs. Coulter only shows depth by being contradictory…which is just a teaser.
It doesn’t help that what in Pullman’s book is a cleverly-written evocation of a world that in almost every way is just like our own but subtly different (and with daemons) becomes as otherworldly as possible, with dodgy CG blimps and ridiculous glowing gyroscopes where Pullman’s ‘Anbaric’ energy was quite clearly just electricity.
Otherwise, what I expected from the trailer was true. Lyra is totally wrong. She’s too young, and not nearly wild, tomboyish or pure enough. She seems like a nice middle-class girl putting on a weird accent and generally thinking herself above most of what she does. She doesn’t have Lyra’s easy, honest emotions, and when she’s called upon to show some emotion, Dakota Blue Richards just doesn’t seem to believe in it, making her affection for Iorek seem hollow and…well, what happened with Billy got changed, but she didn’t seem very worried about Ratter, and nor did we see the sheer violation that’s supposed to happen when someone touches Pan.
On the other hand, the things I thought would work do work. Pantalaimon is adorable with Freddie Highmore’s voice, though there was a bit too much focus on him being scared and supported by Lyra, rather than the two of them being matches for one another. He and Iorek for the most part look great in a film where the CG isn’t always as good as it ought to be (the monkey often looks bizarre), and one shot of Pan through a magnifying glass is just superb. The music is generally good, though jangled somewhat when Lyra was running away. Shots of architecture, excepting the obviously-fake Magisterium, are excellent. I don’t really mind that the Church isn’t called the Church; it’s still very obvious, though I was a bit disgruntled that Christopher Lee and Derek Jacobi were quite so hammy. Their faces onscreen looked wonderfully sinister; the effect would actually have been potent without the panto act.
And I really, really hate the fact that they changed the ending. I know the book really climaxes with the bears’ fight, peaks again for a false ending where the film ends, and then finally finishes, but it’s that final smack in the face of what happens next, the sheer enormity of what Asriel does and where it leads us, that lets us see that this series is really something a bit different. The horrible ‘Sailing to our future, listing unresolved plot points,’ we got really annoyed me, and I’m sure vastly reduced the likelihood of many people going to see the sequel.
I’m worried, anyway. If the solid visuals and grit of book one looked a bit ridiculous in this film, what will dementors, fairy warriors, motorbike cattle and gay angels look like? The whole affair just makes me want to squirrel back into the book I loved. Not books – that single, first book, where I know I can find my Lyra.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
Super 8
I went into the cinema to see Super 8 knowing only one thing about it – it was written and directed by JJ Abrams, of Lost renown. That was quite literally the extent of my knowledge about the film’s particularities, but with it came certain expectations: the film was likely to have a monster or some other sci-fi element, and was bound to be well-written and intelligent. It was all of those things, but so much more – it may be the live-action film I’ve enjoyed most this year.
Before the credits began to roll, I knew that Spielberg had to be involved in this film in some way – everything from script to shot composition was an homage to him. Indeed, there he was, listed as producer, but while I suspect he had no more direct influence on the film than money and publicity, his shadow was everywhere. The head of his shadow was in the setting, nostalgic for the very end of the 70s. The hands were the child protagonists, and the sci-fi themes entering into their lives. The chest, where the heart is, were the broken homes, the well-realised but tragic lives that make us really care about these characters – and I did, much more than in any Hollywood film I remember in years.
A group of five friends, aged around 14, are making a zombie film together for a super 8 competition. They are simple but well-drawn archetypes: the everyman kid, son of the sheriff, who recently suffered the loss of his mother. His bossy best friend, confident and hardworking but somewhat cajoling and insecure because of his weight. The quirky blond boy with braces and a fixation with explosives. The cowardly intellectual one. And the rather thick guy who nonetheless plays the leading man in the little films. Our everyman, Joe, is elated when he discovers his filmmaker friend has persuaded their pretty classmate Alice to be in the film. During shooting, though, they are witnesses to a terrible train crash, lucky to escape with their lives. When the army intervenes, they realise something very serious is going on, and over the days to follow, things only get stranger – dogs are running away, people are going missing, and electrical items are vanishing.
There are several clichés it’s easy to see coming from miles away: the moment the idea of minds being read by contact comes in, you know the pure innocence of a child is going to save lives. The army as always stands for misguided authoritative force, containing and experimenting upon something that ought to be helped. Even Spielberg might have paused before approving the orchestral swell that accompanied the final scenes. And it seems a pity that the sci-fi plot means that only the story of two fathers at war gets resolved: I wanted more of the kids.
Because the kids were the centrepiece of this film, and the reason it works so well. They are right out of Spielberg, and all the better for it, because kids aren’t written that way any more. At first I thought the 1979 setting was just so that things like mass media and mobile phone cameras wouldn’t get in the way of the small-town feel Abrams wanted – indeed, a cultural isthmus that bears some thinking about – but in fact it was about presenting the time period as a great time to be a kid. They managed to get a cast that with the right hair looked absolutely like 70s kids, especially the blonde one and Dakota Fanning’s pretty little sister. I read that the boy playing Joe will be Huck Finn in an upcoming film. He’ll be just right.
These 70s kids were so perfectly of their time, so limited in their horizons compared with today’s children, so devoted to their hobbies and activities, and so sweet in their relationships (not just romantic ones) that I smile to think of it, even now. That’s what makes the film work so well. And the final film they made is well worth the wait.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
It’s ten years now since the last attempt to revive Planet of the Apes, and Tim Burton’s reputation is still suffering from it. Very few people, I must say, showed much interest in this new blockbuster version, a prequel with a loose basis in one of the old films. The cast did nothing to excite me, the trailer looked mostly daft and after all, the original came from another time: the power of its final twist is long-gone and never to be repeated.
So I was surprised that the reviews of Rise were mostly positive, and didn’t mind going to see it. And then I was even more surprised to find I enjoyed it quite a lot. I went in expecting little, but came out satisfied and appreciative. And it’s quite an odd experience, to be in the cinema, rooting for the downfall of your own race in a piece of fiction.
The premise here is that the highly-evolved apes are the result of a virus developed to combat Alzheimer’s. Our scientist is not only a good-looking charmer but a passionate worker because his own father has degenerative Alzheimer’s and is suffering with it. After a breakthrough, the drug seems to be workable, but an ape used as a test subject goes berserk (because she has recently had a child and has become protective) and the project is aborted. Our intrepid doctor, Will, takes the baby ape home rather than letting it get destroyed, but the virus has been passed from parent to child…
Will is not a very interesting character, and though John Lithgow from Third Rock from the Sun does a good job being likeable and pitiable as his father, it is not the human element that makes the film work – it is the apes. The baby chimpanzee grows up into a powerful, highly intelligent primate who of course ends up wondering what he is and where he belongs. It is when he inevitably goes too far protecting his adoptive family that the story really gets interesting: he ends up in a facility for apes, and begins to realise how he can change the system – and (slightly contrived though the way it happens may be), make others like himself.
Andy Serkis is well-established now as the premier actor for not actually appearing onscreen, having computer-generated models overlaid on top of them. Not only Gollum has marked him out, but another primate: King Kong in the 2005 remake. And a combination of his performance and the way the story is told makes the audience care about Caesar the ape and what happens to him. Different species provide remarkable cultural shorthand for human characteristics: we know the gorilla is the muscular, bad-tempered brawler, and the flanged orangutan is wise and stoical, but also with great strength. What in the trailers looked like a daft swarm of animals becomes identifiable through a series of recognisable characters, which makes all the difference.
Surprisingly worthwhile and effective, I’d call it well worth seeing. Tom Felton’s dodgy American accent notwithstanding.
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Brokeback Mountain
Fairly good film. Nothing stunning, but well-crafted, well-written and well-acted. Honestly, nine of every ten films could have been from any lovers-kept-apart-by-fate story, but it’s the absolute taboo of homosexuality (though both main characters are really more bisexual) in such a stiflingly heterosexual culture that hooks. Jack and Ennis are fascinating characters, especially taciturn Ennis, and the late Heath Ledger really does do very well at saying a lot with very little. His scenes with his family are superb.
Despite the giggles the concept inspires, this was an impressive film that unfolded at just the right pace and hit the right, mostly subdued emotional notes. I was never bored – though won’t rewatch for a few years.
Despite the giggles the concept inspires, this was an impressive film that unfolded at just the right pace and hit the right, mostly subdued emotional notes. I was never bored – though won’t rewatch for a few years.
Cloverfield
A pretty simple idea, but CG has only come on enough for it to be possible fairly recently, and I enjoyed the film quite a lot. It’s a film that people have been very eager to watch without any spoilers whatsoever, so if you’ve not seen it and want to preserve that, skip the rest of this paragraph. Sure, there were obvious characters and some daft moments, like military guys not confiscating a camera right away and monsters that only showed up at convenient times, as well as a plot driven by a pretty unlikely rescue mission that was just a bit too cheesy for the medium, but there was a lot of very natural acting, extremely clever effects work and some great comic moments. Well worth seeing.
Rain Man
slept quite late because last night’s viewing while ironing was Rain Man, which featured some excellent performances (Cruise plays a stonehearted yuppie who gradually thaws well…) but felt like only half a movie, like significantly more of Raymond’s potential and the direction the two brothers’ relationship would develop was still to come, but then it just ended. Still enjoyable, though, leading me to looking into various people with savantism. Some incredible abilities there; amazing what the brain is capable of. I feel quite sure a lot of that potential can be harnessed in anybody, only that we at present don’t strive for it.
The Seven Samurai
Kurosawa really was so ahead of his time, but despite his obvious love for and influence from Shakespeare, it’s hard not to look at his wipes and his short scenes and his detailed faces and think of Star Wars and modern Hollywood storytelling, the pioneer getting tarred with the brush of all who ended up deriving much of their style from him…although despite his arthouse reputation (subtitles are all that’s needed), he was still a populist and an entertainer, and drew from Westerns significantly. His pedestal should only be high enough to keep him where he deserved and most likely wished to be, at a very accessible level.
Shichinin no Samurai is simple, entertaining and character-based. While I would have liked to have seen the seven better-developed over the three-hour runtime, the film manages to be compelling, human and moving, especially at the end, when the samurai turn out to be the most wretched of all.
Shichinin no Samurai is simple, entertaining and character-based. While I would have liked to have seen the seven better-developed over the three-hour runtime, the film manages to be compelling, human and moving, especially at the end, when the samurai turn out to be the most wretched of all.
Metropolis
Hmm…it’s very easy for us to be overly charitable to old films, to say, ‘Remember, things weren’t as sophisticated back then, you have to make allowances.’ Visually, yes, and in terms of how much dialogue can be included, certainly. But compared to the other silent classics I’ve watched in the last few months, it didn’t compare favourably. It didn’t have the immediacy or tight plotting of the contemporary Caligari and while it was strikingly innovative (and hugely expensive) in terms of visuals, with amazing costumes, camera tricks and sets for the time, it lacked the playfulness and real sense of breaking boundaries found in the much earlier Trip to the Moon. And, honestly, it was dull. The exposition dragged on and on, there were far too many cuts of Maria gurning (her interpretation of how a robot would move is very different from ours today, more like a pantomime witch, all stares and twitching, which is appropriate given the second Maria’s fate). The plot is sloppy and dreamlike sequences really bizarre and disjointed, and the fact that H.G.Wells gave an unfavourable review drives home the fact that in the twenties, it was just as possible to write good solid plots as it is today, even without established Hollywood formulae. The only surprise was how risqué the exotic dance sequences were, when we’re forever being told how prudish pre-60s, never mind pre-WWII entertainment was.
I’m glad to have watched it, but I’ll likely never do so again. Interesting visuals, but a dreadful script.
I’m glad to have watched it, but I’ll likely never do so again. Interesting visuals, but a dreadful script.
Rashomon
despite being considerably earlier than The Seven Samurai, Rashomon seemed more mature to me, less slapdash and instead, subtle and deft. There was too much of what felt like padding, with scenes of characters running or fighting that seemed cleverly-done at first, but then just went on for too long. That said, there were some striking characters and setpieces and the central idea was an intelligent and influential one and once again it’s remarkable how modern the direction seems thanks to Kurosawa’s massive influence on the mainstream, and yet how edgily performance-based the film has to be, how keenly it evokes the stage.
Molière
This evening, we went to the eccentric little Electric Palace Cinema on Hastings’ picturesque Old Town High Street to watch Molière, last year’s French-produced film about the great comedic playwright. In the same vein as Shakespeare in Love, it fills in the lost details of a great writer’s biography with scenes and characters derived from their plays, suggesting they inspired later works, and allowing for a warm-hearted romantic comedy with well-known scenes and little references.
I found it very enjoyable. I’m only familiar with Tartuffe, but didn’t mind missing the other references, to which I was ignorant. It was a very French filme, giving itself space and time to breathe, crediting its audience with the intelligence to work various things out rather than heavily explicating every detail and being full of gentle, silly humour rather like Molière himself’s, centred on foolish people doing foolish things, painfully obvious lies and a dash of slapstick. It was also a deft and beautiful film, with an accomplished cast and exquisite sets and costumes that really evoked 17th-Century France in all its pomp and excess. The foolish aristocrat and his lessons in high art were superb farcical setpieces, and the man playing Molière was endlessly fascinating to watch – it was so easy to believe he was a natural clown who longed to be a writer of great tragedies, and could only succumb to delusions of grandeur. ‘On ne dit pas, parlez-moi en Français, mais parlez-moi dans le langue de Molière!’
I didn’t recognise any of the cast, except the girl who was Tinkerbell in the recent live-action Peter Pan who gave a really striking performance as a beautiful woman with a reputation for great wit, but who really had no great debating ability, only a sharp tongue and a willingness to insult, which as I know only too well often passes for intelligence! Nonetheless, the actors were all excellent, and it was wonderful to see that mix of comedy and tragedy, our main character often going too far and embarrassing himself, the buffoon gaining real dignity while dressed in woman’s clothing and subject to ridicule, and the climax of the action, before Molière leaves the stately home, was so sweet and elegantly done that all its saccharine was easily swallowed. It’s such a shame subtitled films like this get ignored by the mainstream, because it really was special. On the other hand, Molière really isn’t very well-known in the UK outside academic circles. Then again, nor are Marlowe, Webster, Jonson et al…
Anyway, a very enjoyable film.
I found it very enjoyable. I’m only familiar with Tartuffe, but didn’t mind missing the other references, to which I was ignorant. It was a very French filme, giving itself space and time to breathe, crediting its audience with the intelligence to work various things out rather than heavily explicating every detail and being full of gentle, silly humour rather like Molière himself’s, centred on foolish people doing foolish things, painfully obvious lies and a dash of slapstick. It was also a deft and beautiful film, with an accomplished cast and exquisite sets and costumes that really evoked 17th-Century France in all its pomp and excess. The foolish aristocrat and his lessons in high art were superb farcical setpieces, and the man playing Molière was endlessly fascinating to watch – it was so easy to believe he was a natural clown who longed to be a writer of great tragedies, and could only succumb to delusions of grandeur. ‘On ne dit pas, parlez-moi en Français, mais parlez-moi dans le langue de Molière!’
I didn’t recognise any of the cast, except the girl who was Tinkerbell in the recent live-action Peter Pan who gave a really striking performance as a beautiful woman with a reputation for great wit, but who really had no great debating ability, only a sharp tongue and a willingness to insult, which as I know only too well often passes for intelligence! Nonetheless, the actors were all excellent, and it was wonderful to see that mix of comedy and tragedy, our main character often going too far and embarrassing himself, the buffoon gaining real dignity while dressed in woman’s clothing and subject to ridicule, and the climax of the action, before Molière leaves the stately home, was so sweet and elegantly done that all its saccharine was easily swallowed. It’s such a shame subtitled films like this get ignored by the mainstream, because it really was special. On the other hand, Molière really isn’t very well-known in the UK outside academic circles. Then again, nor are Marlowe, Webster, Jonson et al…
Anyway, a very enjoyable film.
The Spiderwick Chronicles
The Spiderwick Chronicles was a disappointment. Not that it looked wonderful, but I’d hoped it would be at least okay. It was pretty dreadful. Based on a series of books that made a bit of a splash in the US book market, it was Bridge to Terabithia without the charm and emotional manipulation; it was every bit as cynical, exploitative and unoriginal, but with even flatter characters, even less individual thought and magical creatures that really made you groan with their obvious goofiness. There was no intelligence, cleverness or warmth here. It was actually quite embarrassing to be watching such a poor film.
Three kids and their mother, from a Speilberg-derived broken home, move into a creepy old house. Bumps in the night lead the most outgoing kid to find a book and undo its magical binding. Turns out a big ogre wants that book, and the knowledge of the weaknesses of all magical creatures within, and now the kids have to fend off goblins and trolls with tomato ketchup, all the while trying to get Mum to believe them.
The plotting is sloppy – why take the book with them? To convince someone they speak the truth…which they could have done very easily without it (and, indeed, do). They go to see Spiderwick himself, and when they finally see him face-to-face, what does he tell them? ‘Oh, you can deal with it.’ It all just seems like delaying the climax, which comes with turgid inevitability and the film ends. The magical life is all unsightly and derivative, the consistency of the nasty creatures’ attacks changing power dependant on plot, and the overall story just totally bland. The only good thing I can say about it is that it makes me want to write!
And then there’s Freddie Highmore. A gifted young actor with an interesting look about him, unfortunately here cast as two identical twins. This was just a very bad idea: Highmore, already struggling somewhat to show emotion with an American accent, has to try and show a bond between two very different twins with them noticeably barely touching each other. He’s a good actor, and I’m still looking forward to hearing him in the new Astro Boy movie, but he doesn’t quite pull this off. Jared was believable, but trying to contrast Simon with his brother by making him timid and sensitive just looks contrived and, more because of writing than this uneven performance, Simon just seemed totally unnecessary to the film. At least the sister provided some muscle: otherwise, Jared just did everything.
This was nowhere near a good film, and I imagine the book is similarly dull and unimaginative. It seems such a shame that this is the kind of thing publishers and film studios seem to think will sell.
At least there’s Prince Caspian to look forward to…
Three kids and their mother, from a Speilberg-derived broken home, move into a creepy old house. Bumps in the night lead the most outgoing kid to find a book and undo its magical binding. Turns out a big ogre wants that book, and the knowledge of the weaknesses of all magical creatures within, and now the kids have to fend off goblins and trolls with tomato ketchup, all the while trying to get Mum to believe them.
The plotting is sloppy – why take the book with them? To convince someone they speak the truth…which they could have done very easily without it (and, indeed, do). They go to see Spiderwick himself, and when they finally see him face-to-face, what does he tell them? ‘Oh, you can deal with it.’ It all just seems like delaying the climax, which comes with turgid inevitability and the film ends. The magical life is all unsightly and derivative, the consistency of the nasty creatures’ attacks changing power dependant on plot, and the overall story just totally bland. The only good thing I can say about it is that it makes me want to write!
And then there’s Freddie Highmore. A gifted young actor with an interesting look about him, unfortunately here cast as two identical twins. This was just a very bad idea: Highmore, already struggling somewhat to show emotion with an American accent, has to try and show a bond between two very different twins with them noticeably barely touching each other. He’s a good actor, and I’m still looking forward to hearing him in the new Astro Boy movie, but he doesn’t quite pull this off. Jared was believable, but trying to contrast Simon with his brother by making him timid and sensitive just looks contrived and, more because of writing than this uneven performance, Simon just seemed totally unnecessary to the film. At least the sister provided some muscle: otherwise, Jared just did everything.
This was nowhere near a good film, and I imagine the book is similarly dull and unimaginative. It seems such a shame that this is the kind of thing publishers and film studios seem to think will sell.
At least there’s Prince Caspian to look forward to…
Love in the Time of Cholera
have to say, I thought the book was much older than it is: 50s or 60s instead of 80s. I’ve never read it, only excerpts, and I was surprised that it was a very straightforward, down-to-earth story, a subversion of typical love stories, but realistic nonetheless. Given his reputation for magical realism, I had expected outlandishness, but it seems that must be only within his prose style. The story of unrequited love enduring, yet twisting in an unsightly way, over decades, it was very cleverly done, treading a fine line between giving a fairy tale depiction of love and equating it with the darkness of obsession and showing the unfulfilled and callous existence it can create.
I’m a little surprised the film has such poor reviews – The Sunday Times even rated this ** and the dreadful Spiderwick Chronicles ****! Yes, it was a little turgid and overlong, a little too self-assured and certain that its audience will be rapt by such a worthy subject no matter what, but it was still an excellent film. It felt odd, being in English, but retained a lot of Latin spirit, its setting certainly believable and evocative. Having actors speak in heavy accents may mean we accept their acting more readily than if searching for the nuances of natural speech, but there were some excellent performances regardless of language, from the mother’s encroaching madness to excellent depictions of various ages from the principles. Part of the story’s appeal is its broad simplicity, the huge exaggeration of the gestures that define its characters, but there was subtlety here, and overall it was well-made, well-acted and rich, as well as that little bit more realistic than expected, given its story, which was a point in its favour.
I’m a little surprised the film has such poor reviews – The Sunday Times even rated this ** and the dreadful Spiderwick Chronicles ****! Yes, it was a little turgid and overlong, a little too self-assured and certain that its audience will be rapt by such a worthy subject no matter what, but it was still an excellent film. It felt odd, being in English, but retained a lot of Latin spirit, its setting certainly believable and evocative. Having actors speak in heavy accents may mean we accept their acting more readily than if searching for the nuances of natural speech, but there were some excellent performances regardless of language, from the mother’s encroaching madness to excellent depictions of various ages from the principles. Part of the story’s appeal is its broad simplicity, the huge exaggeration of the gestures that define its characters, but there was subtlety here, and overall it was well-made, well-acted and rich, as well as that little bit more realistic than expected, given its story, which was a point in its favour.
Y Tu Mamá También
watched Y Tu Mamá También, and failed entirely to see why it garnered such critical acclaim. It’s just a very flat and uninteresting movie about two teenaged boys, one affluent and one not, who go on a road trip with an older woman and end up having sex. It’s supposed to be gritty arthouse, but it’s totally unrealistic; if you can accept the sex and the homoerotic undertones as laudable, what about the plot’s huge coincidences or the totally contrived fate of the woman? The boys talk about farting and get naked a lot, and Mexico looks dirty, so we’re supposed to accept that this is extremely realistic? The boys converse like the lazy middle-aged intelligentsia would like to think adolescents converse, and act in kind. The woman would have been called a demeaning Latino caricature in an American film. The truth is that I cannot conceive of any reason to like this film unless the sex-appeal of teenaged boys are what titillates you (though it’s surprisingly lacking here) and you wish to imagine yourself in the woman’s place. I would find it hard to explicate what this film says that pornography does not, and yet because it has subtitles and a throwaway line or two about politics, it’s heralded as ‘for the intelligent’. Fuck off. Times have changed; this is where the new bourgeois hides, in lazy, self-congratulatory, soulless, irresponsible and insipid filmmaking. So sad that I’ll be called a prude just for not liking this.
Thursday, 11 August 2011
The Devil’s Double
If Dominic Cooper could still be called forgettable after his Captain America turn, this will bring him up to the A-list, if there’s any justice. A somewhat ponderous and repetitive film, it was bourn aloft by his superb performance(s) as both Uday and Latif – the son of Saddam Hussein and the man chosen to act as his double.
The story rattles along, loosely bolted to reality – army man Latif is coerced into becoming Uday’s double by the threat of his family being killed. Uday, it soon becomes apparent, is power-drunk and utterly psychotic, perfectly happy to rape schoolgirls he picked up from the streets and kill anyone he takes a dislike to. Latif, despite the close resemblance to Uday enhanced by plastic surgery and false teeth, remains aloof of the decadent party lifestyle, and begins to find he can defy Uday more than most, as Uday seems quite infatuated with this second form of himself. Eventually things come to a head with Latif unable to continue, and in a rather bewildering sequence of events, he attempts suicide, is returned to his family, summoned back, has a shoot-out with his insane doppelganger, then manages to flee the country – before returning for an assassination attempt as a climax to the film.
Overlaid on this is a rather contrived love story, in which Latif secretly begins a relationship with one of Uday’s favoured women, who knows that he will one day tire of her and leave her dead. It’s all rather unlikely and artificial, and I spent most of the film wondering where I’d seen her before (it was as Tinkerbell in Peter Pan), but I suppose it gave a bit of respite from the violence and paranoia.
With graphic violence and gratuitous drug use, it is at heart a gangster film, and the absurd nudity towards the end takes it too close to a cheap exploitation flick, but the basis in a real story and the dilemma Latif must face make for compelling viewing. Uday is interesting at a distance, because while his character does not progress, that’s rather the point: he is forever a child, self-centred and unhinged, dangerous and unpredictable. It is his relationship with Latif that becomes so interesting, as well as the brooding, powerful figure of his father.
Not the best-written film of all time, but very interesting, timely and with a superb central performance. |
The story rattles along, loosely bolted to reality – army man Latif is coerced into becoming Uday’s double by the threat of his family being killed. Uday, it soon becomes apparent, is power-drunk and utterly psychotic, perfectly happy to rape schoolgirls he picked up from the streets and kill anyone he takes a dislike to. Latif, despite the close resemblance to Uday enhanced by plastic surgery and false teeth, remains aloof of the decadent party lifestyle, and begins to find he can defy Uday more than most, as Uday seems quite infatuated with this second form of himself. Eventually things come to a head with Latif unable to continue, and in a rather bewildering sequence of events, he attempts suicide, is returned to his family, summoned back, has a shoot-out with his insane doppelganger, then manages to flee the country – before returning for an assassination attempt as a climax to the film.
Overlaid on this is a rather contrived love story, in which Latif secretly begins a relationship with one of Uday’s favoured women, who knows that he will one day tire of her and leave her dead. It’s all rather unlikely and artificial, and I spent most of the film wondering where I’d seen her before (it was as Tinkerbell in Peter Pan), but I suppose it gave a bit of respite from the violence and paranoia.
With graphic violence and gratuitous drug use, it is at heart a gangster film, and the absurd nudity towards the end takes it too close to a cheap exploitation flick, but the basis in a real story and the dilemma Latif must face make for compelling viewing. Uday is interesting at a distance, because while his character does not progress, that’s rather the point: he is forever a child, self-centred and unhinged, dangerous and unpredictable. It is his relationship with Latif that becomes so interesting, as well as the brooding, powerful figure of his father.
Not the best-written film of all time, but very interesting, timely and with a superb central performance. |
The Oxford Murders
The Oxford Murders was quite disappointing. It really felt like it was directed by someone whose native tongue is not English – the dialogue was horribly stilted, every single performance except John Hurt’s remarkably wooden and the pacing lurched and shuddered about.
There was some weird overdubbing for the Russian guy, meaning his lips weren’t quite matching his voice, and possibly the most unconvincing sex scenes I’ve ever witnessed. And the story wasn’t much good either, reminding me of The Rule of Four, only less clever. For all the talk of Wittgenstein and allusions to Fermat’s Last Theorum, the script totally failed to seem intelligent, the philosophical aspect totally lacking (the Cogito, Laplace’s Demon and the designer universe argument all really ought to have at least been raised in the context of Wittgenstein’s attempts to ascertain what can be known with certainty) and the crime thriller really sloppy, with a huge reliance on coincidence and a final conclusion that seems less like a reflection on chaos theory than a weak writer’s expedience.
Everything felt extremely juvenile, like a GCSE drama production – our avatar gets to show his brain-power, get a LOT of easy (bad) sex and the loose ends get tied up anywhere they’ll fit. This stinker was as bad as The Da Vinci Code.
There was some weird overdubbing for the Russian guy, meaning his lips weren’t quite matching his voice, and possibly the most unconvincing sex scenes I’ve ever witnessed. And the story wasn’t much good either, reminding me of The Rule of Four, only less clever. For all the talk of Wittgenstein and allusions to Fermat’s Last Theorum, the script totally failed to seem intelligent, the philosophical aspect totally lacking (the Cogito, Laplace’s Demon and the designer universe argument all really ought to have at least been raised in the context of Wittgenstein’s attempts to ascertain what can be known with certainty) and the crime thriller really sloppy, with a huge reliance on coincidence and a final conclusion that seems less like a reflection on chaos theory than a weak writer’s expedience.
Everything felt extremely juvenile, like a GCSE drama production – our avatar gets to show his brain-power, get a LOT of easy (bad) sex and the loose ends get tied up anywhere they’ll fit. This stinker was as bad as The Da Vinci Code.
Monday, 1 August 2011
Iron Man
Well well, Iron Man actually turned out to be probably the most satisfying superhero movie in recent memory. Perhaps it’s partly because Iron Man has always been one of my least favourite Marvel leading characters (though his part in the Civil War storyline was quite impressive), and so I wasn’t expecting all that much, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The story of an arms dealer having a crisis of conscience after seeing first-hand what his weapons are responsible for has never been more relevant, and generally it was just a well-paced, well-crafted, neatly-constructed and well-acted piece. It was safe, and in many ways obvious, and there was nothing startlingly original to be found, but it was satisfying and ticked a nice range of emotional boxes. The improvisational dialogue felt nice and natural, there were funny moments with machines, Robert Downey Jr made Stark believably arrogant and also likeable and humble in his reformation, Jeff Bridges pitches his comic book baddie well, just silly enough without being unpalatable, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Moneypenny knock-off Pepper Potts was ingenuous enough for the whole thing not to seem horribly patronising, and the fact that we had hints at not only War Machine, but a rather famous actor coming in after the credits as a certain head-of-operations with an eyepatch, bodes well for the sequels, and an Avengers project (if Captain America and Thor can get good adaptations…).
Great classic hard rock from the likes of AC/DC and of course Black Sabbath, some truly outstanding shots and great CG, a grittier feel to the first half that just managed to work, good performances and a general feeling of exuberance and good intentions, this was a movie without much depth, but certainly enjoyable. Roll on Batman, as well as a fair few other middle-to-lowbrow but enjoyable movies to come, especially Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones.
(written May 4, 2008)
Great classic hard rock from the likes of AC/DC and of course Black Sabbath, some truly outstanding shots and great CG, a grittier feel to the first half that just managed to work, good performances and a general feeling of exuberance and good intentions, this was a movie without much depth, but certainly enjoyable. Roll on Batman, as well as a fair few other middle-to-lowbrow but enjoyable movies to come, especially Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones.
(written May 4, 2008)
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