mintys marathon movie medley viii

After attempting to apply for jobs all day whilst suffering ridiculous IT problems and hesitantly putting together another ‘list’ post (watch this space) this entry might be a bit lazy so forgive me. With Dennis Hopper and his fifty year career it’s not difficult to craft a link to another movie, he wasn’t particularly impressive as the scheming villan of Land Of The Dead but on occasion he has turned in a terrific performance, should I go with the obvious Frank? No. A predictable link to Rivers Edge? Nah. The Easy Rider insanity? Close. Apocalypse Now? Closer. I’m going to have to be outstandingly obvious with this:

I’d have preferred to link to this from Rumble Fish which I discussed with a friend over the weekend as a film which we both loved back in the day, one of those texts that we haven’t seen for many years (he’d recently picked up a copy) that may just be not as good as you remember (I haven’t seen it recently so I’m not sure how it’s held up) but I have to go with what’s embeddable from the YT. Like fine wines films can either sour or improve with age, I’m reasonably excited to take another look at Rumblefish which after all these years could go either way, having a cursory look at some of those links it looks pretty good, drawing on a European tradition that I’ve heard Coppola has fully embraced with Tetro which still hasn’t secured a UK release. Grrr….

Tony

Nothing to do with this British psychopath I’m happy to say- ooh the satire – the murderous villain of Gerard Johnson’s British urban horror debut Tony is a far more, dare I say it, sympathetic figure in that at least he’s honest about it. The review shorthand for this promising feature is to phrase Tony as Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer remade by Ken Loach and to be fair I can’t better the simile. On the first analysis what was most intriguing about the film which I hadn’t gleaned from the grim trailer was just how funny it is, an obsidian black comedy punctuated by some necessarily shocking murders, none of which are served up in any sort of leering or exploitative fashion. It’s quite a ride that never outstays its brisk 70 minute run time, whilst certainly not for everyone its sure to be a cult favourite for years to come.

Tony is an uncomfortable study of a psychotic and bumbling misfit whose inept activities, in an echo of the infamous Dennis Nilsen case, blocks the drains of his east London council flat with dismembered human remains, but also operates as something of a comedy of manners as we witness his dementedly desperate attempts to secure some sort of human connection in his life, a quest destined to failure due to his utter lack of any social skills. In an episodic structure Tony lures the dispossessed and desperate back to his flat in an misguided effort to make friends – some local drug addicts, a pick-up artist he meets at a local gay bar – and when his frustrated attempts at interaction are thwarted his murderous instincts arise, Tony reacting without any premeditated malevolence but more in a confused internal rage, a lack of empathy or understanding that has festered throughout his pathetic solitude due to a back story that is deeply camouflaged into the films unnerving ambience. When a young child goes missing the police and absent child’s father suspicions fall on our  protagonists shoulders, a mysterious disappearance that may or may not be related to Tony’s sinister activities….

  

We quite clearly have two terrific new talents on our hands, both Johnson’s mature and subtle direction – quite an achievement given the predilection for first time directors to be as flashy and exuberant as possible to attract attention to their work – providing a perfectly sombre backdrop to the films events. Although the approach is nothing new, a matter of fact, unobtrusive hand-held aesthetic, the attention to detail (having grown up on these mean streets of East London Johnson acted as his own location scout) brings to mind the aforementioned Loach and most impressively Alan Clarke, nothing is exaggerated and events unfold in a naturalistic fashion against the humdrum backdrop of dour council estates, poorly furnished flats, cornflakes for breakfast and fish & chips for tea. Peter Ferdinando’s terrific execution of the simultaneously terrifying and sympathetic Tony is astonishing, mark my words this guy is going to go far and although it’s a very different type of performance I was reminded of Robert Carlyle chilling portrayal of Begbie in Trainspotting and I predict a similarly stratospheric elevation in profile. I wouldn’t doing my job if I didn’t reference the soundtrack given that it was provided by Gerard’s brother Matt Johnson*, one of my all time musical idols. OK, naturally I am biased in that respect but it is pitch perfect, I was deliberately straining to hear it given that it’s the first work he’s produced in a decade but in the interests of being neutral it does blend into the films DNA, like his brothers direction it doesn’t scream attention to itself, instead providing an attentive soundscape to Tony’s psychosis.

Tony’s encyclopedic recall of  Van Damme’s oeuvre and his perfect quoting of lines from the likes of First Blood (and a hilarious reference to this) signal a damaging psychological reaction to trashy eighties action movies, Johnson however never posits this as some sort of accelerant to the killer’s sinister behaviour but serves them more as amusing reference points for genre fans which along with Tony’s ignorance of the notions of personal space or other conventions of social discourse are all played out for their intrinsic elements of uncomfortable, deadpan (heh) humor.  It depends on your sense of humor I guess but I found this film hilarious as did my mate and a couple of patrons a few rows behind me, it’s reassuring to know I was in good company.

The Q&A with both Ferdinando and Johnson (but alas no sign of the score composer) revealed an astute deployment of extremely limited resources, they managed to raise a mere £40K that was spent over a paltry 12 day shoot, considering the quality of the end result from at least a technical standpoint the film is quite an achievement as it looks as if ten times that was lavished on the production. Ferdinado explained that he lived in Tony’s real life East London Council flat for the duration of the shoot and channelled the depressing effects of his spartan surroundings into his performance, it certainly shows on screen. Two facets of the film that I loved which Johnson elaborated upon was the approach of delving into a week or so of this characters life before exiting without any obtuse commentary, without any lessons or ideological points being scored about the people who slip through the cracks of society (either Tony or his victims), merely presenting the events and letting the audience fill in the gaps. Secondly he echoed my mild frustration at the recent duplications of London on-screen, a proliferation of red buses, of chattering tourists, all those majestic tableaus of the Gherkin and the capitals skyline which seem trapped in some New Labour sponsored corporate video for the Olympics. Don’t get me wrong, I love my city in all its diversity and with all its inherent contradictions but there is more to it than some infuriating Match Point simulacra (I hated that film on a number of levels but the presentation of London was ludicrously infuriating), more than the Guy Ritchie mockney playgrounds or the Notting Hill airbrushing of reality that Tony eviscerates. Apart from Cronenburgs Eastern Promises I can’t recall a more pleasing entry into the London film genre on the historical artefact front than Tony, then again I might have been reading Sight & Sound a little too much recently….

* Look at that crowd go!! That is not the best example of his work believe me but was some new footage I’ve sourced tonight, mostly for my mates amusement – I can get a bit Q magazine completist sometimes. Here are some better examples of The The’s music, it might be dated in places (well, OK, it’s all dated but fuck it) however I still love it like a Carpenter movie…

Precious Greenwich…

The things I do for my blog. Hoping to get a jump start on Tuesdays Oscar nominations I scoured the current cinema listings this weekend and found it pretty damn hard to select something that genuinely tickled my fancy, as it seemed certain that either Gabourey Sidibe and Mo’Nique would be gathering best actress nods I finally settled on Precious as this weekends most promising  big-screen entertainment, a film if I’m honest whose premise did not appeal to me at all. It’s not that I have a problem with social realist, tough movies -Fish Tank for example narrowly missed being one of my top ten favourite films of last year – I just wasn’t in the mood for such gritty viewing. Nevertheless, after a fascinating wonder around the Greenwich Observatory (which we’ll come to later) I ambled along to the Picturehouse to give this movie a couple of hours of my life, thankfully the experience was not entirely without merit as Precious has some strong performances and an uplifting presence that made a big-screen viewing valuable.

Harlem, 1987. The titular obese Precious is a 16 year old African American girl whose life is almost unfathomably depressing and unbearable. Having been repeatedly raped by her stepfather she has already sired one mentally disabled infant and has another child on the way. Barely literate and with no sense of any self-worth or confidence - her welfare scrounging, abominable mother (in a spectacular performance by US comedienne Mo’Nique) consistently beats her both physically and emotionally – Precious frequently withdraws into a vivid fantasy life where she is a incandescently popular music star or actress, her only coping mechanism to endure her accursed adolescence. After being pushed into a social education program Precious begins to forge friendships with her supportive teacher and classmates, a chink of hope and support in her life, however fate has another litany of cruel events to further test and torture her indomitable will.

  

Precious is actually quite similar to Fish Tank in many ways, it’s set in a different era and locale of course but the central focus on an embittered female teenager makes for some interesting comparisons. It’s as tough as any sort of mainstream, Oscar baiting tale can get these days, the continual accumulation of misfortune almost tips the movie over into some bizarre black comedy if you’ll forgive the unintentional pun. It’s not all misery and despair though, director Lee Daniels appreciating the axoim that there needs to be some sense of relief by interjecting some well executed comedy to lighten the tone, mostly through some expletive fuelled comic relief emanating from Precious’s fellow classmates at the special school where she finds an uncertain sense of solace. It also avoids the traps of those cringeworthy ‘teacher inspires kids in an urban battlefield’ movies such as Dangerous Minds or One Eight Seven, an almost unrecognisable Mariah Carey is perfectly adequate as Precious’s social worker who actually performs quite well during a tense showdown scene toward the end of the movie. It reminded me of one of my favourite British films Billy Liar with both main characters escaping their woes in a rich and textured fantasy life, and as an old school B-Boy the late Eighties New York setting was entertaining, all the Rappers Delight bellowing from ghetto-blasters and streets choked with graffiti tags always go down well in my book.  

  

So, I’ve been steadily ploughing through the epic Neal Stephenson novel Quicksilver, background details here. Given its focus on areas like scientific discovery in the 17th and 18th century and featuring historical characters such as Newton and John Flamstead it seemed apt to take a look at the Greenwich Observatory which features in the book, it’s a place I’ve been intending to visit for a while anyway. The museum itself is divided into two sections – the Latitude area and the Astronomical exhibitions – I quite foolishly figured I’d have to time to get through both before popping off to the cinema, I was wrong as it is much bigger and engrossing than I anticipated. I got through most of the former area and will need to plan a future visit to the latter, still it was quite entertaining to stand on the spot of the Prime Meridian.

  

I learnt a fair bit which is always the sign of a good museum (obviously), the things have stuck with me are the facts that the most sophisticated clocks we as a species have forged involve trapping ion atoms and probing them with lasers (obviously) which seems like a waste of a perfectly good laser in my book, my knock-off Tag Heuer watch has been keeping reasonably accurate time for over a decade. Scientists eh? In the Observatory tower proper I also enjoyed the ambient noise which is apparently a transmission of this which is due to last for 1,000 years. Musicians eh? So, this all leads me to conclude on a collection of time travel themed movies, from the obvious to the esoteric, from the recent to the ancient, the foreign to domestic, the superb to the influential, the triumphant to the trivial.

mintys marathon movie medley – vii

A tenuous link but bear with me, there is a method to my madness. Sofia Coppola’s last film was Marie Antoinette (and I’ve just discovered she has a new film coming up this year) which had Asia Argento, daughter of the macabre maestro Dario amongst its eclectic cast, Asia also appeared in Romero’s patchy Land Of The Dead which is trailered here:

Yeah, tenuous I know but you see it’s George’s 70th birthday today and despite his recent performance he still deserves an accolade. There, didn’t take me long to turn this exercise to a horror film did it? Vaguely speaking of which, I’ve just got myself a ticket for a preview of the aforementioned Tony at the Curzon Soho tomorrow, along with a crew Q&A – I suspect (and fervently pray) that a certain musician will also be attendance given that he provided the score for the film and happens to be the directors brother. Colour me phosphorescently excited….a double whammy as Malick just announced his next project today.

Oscar Nominations 2010

It’s that time of year again. Harking back to the Oscars early days this year the Academy has expanded the best nominee field to ten pictures, a decision not in any way reached due to the fact that in economically distressing times an Oscar nomination traditionally gets a movie 10-15% more ticket and DVD sales, maybe even a re-release on the big screen . The battle between Avatar And The Hurt Locker are pretty much the demarcation lines to watch, I reckon Avatar will sweep most of the awards with Bigelow bagging the first director nod – Cameron already has one of those and the two most successful films in history (unadjusted for inflation that is) so I don’t think he can be too disappointed. Just to remind you of the exciting rules, I’ve bolded the films I’ve seen and italicised the films I think will win – where applicable I will mention what I would like to win rather than underlining it as that formating function seems to have vanished from WordPress – weird. I’m also glad to see Steve Martin presenting, at least it might be funny for a change – so let’s begin.

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Bridges the dude – in both senses of the word – deserves an award every year just for being Bridges, I suspect it will be his year. Quite irritatingly Crazy Heart doesn’t appear to have picked up a UK distributor so I won’t be able to see it before the ceremony, Invictus also holds no interest with me whatsoever leaving me with A Single Man to take a look at and strengthen my decision making prowess in this category. Surprised to see Renner in there, not that he doesn’t deserve it, just surprised…

• Jeff Bridges in “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)
• George Clooney in “Up in the Air” (Paramount)
• Colin Firth in “A Single Man” (The Weinstein Company)
• Morgan Freeman in “Invictus” (Warner Bros.)
• Jeremy Renner in “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

The Lovely Bones isn’t out in the UK and I’ve heard that Tucci is amazing in it, it has to be Christoph Waltz as he’s won everything else. Other than that I’m annoyed I haven’t seen anything else in this category, I saw 69 films at the cinema last year and I still come up short due to the vagaries of the distribution schedule. Oh well….

• Matt Damon in “Invictus” (Warner Bros.)
• Woody Harrelson in “The Messenger” (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
• Christopher Plummer in “The Last Station” (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Stanley Tucci in “The Lovely Bones” (DreamWorks, distributed by Paramount)
• Christoph Waltz in “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Jesus, I always fall down at this category with a lousy number of films I’ve seen, only one this year and that was kind of under duress – my Precious review is forthcoming. I hope it’s not Streep again, she’s a great actress and all but isn’t it getting a bit boring and that film Julie & Julia  looks like hard work from my perspective. I was disapointted not to see Mélanie Laurent crop up in there, I’m going to have to go with Gabourey Sidibe at a push….

• Sandra Bullock in “The Blind Side” (Warner Bros.)
• Helen Mirren in “The Last Station” (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Carey Mulligan in “An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Gabourey Sidibe in “Precious”  (Lionsgate)
• Meryl Streep in “Julie & Julia” (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Hattie McDaniels above, the first African American person to win an Oscar back in 1939 for Gone With The Wind of course. I think she will be joined by Mo’Nique for her terrifying performance in Precious, both Farmiga and Kendrick were good in Up In The Air but not quite as memorable.

• Penélope Cruz in “Nine” (The Weinstein Company)
• Vera Farmiga in “Up in the Air” (Paramount)
• Maggie Gyllenhaal in “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)
• Anna Kendrick in “Up in the Air” (Paramount)
• Mo’Nique in “Precious” (Lionsgate)

Best animated feature film of the year

Again, usually a strong category for me  but this year again I’ve only seen one lousy entry. Coraline has support, Disney’s back with the  hand drawn The Princess & The Frog but I think the Pixar boys will prevail again.

“Coraline” (Focus Features)

Henry Selick

“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (20th Century Fox)

Wes Anderson

“The Princess and the Frog” (Walt Disney)

John Musker and Ron Clements

“The Secret of Kells” (GKIDS)

Tomm Moore

“Up” (Walt Disney)

Pete Docter

Achievement in art direction

And so it begins, here’s where Cameron starts adding to his golden statute collection.

“Avatar” (20th Century Fox)

“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Sony Pictures Classics)

“Nine” (The Weinstein Company)

“Sherlock Holmes” (Warner Bros.)

“The Young Victoria” (Apparition)

Achievement in cinematography

I thought Richardson’s work in Basterds was the most subtle of this crop – his usual haloing and top-lighting effects were a joy to behold the second time around – but Avatar will pick this up and given its accomplishments I can’t say I’d be too disappointed.

“Avatar” (20th Century Fox)

Mauro Fiore

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Warner Bros.)

Bruno Delbonnel

“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

Barry Ackroyd

“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)

Robert Richardson

“The White Ribbon” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Christian Berger

Achievement in costume design

As much as the film didn’t connect with me it would be nice for it to pick up something.

“Bright Star” (Apparition)

Janet Patterson

“Coco before Chanel” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Catherine Leterrier

“The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Monique Prudhomme

“Nine” (The Weinstein Company)

Colleen Atwood

“The Young Victoria” (Apparition)

Sandy Powell

Achievement in directing

Well, at least I’ve seen them all. Being a crypto-commie left wing liberal I’d love to see a woman finally win this category and it would be richly deserved, so I’m opting for Kathryn. Plus of course she’s like, totally hot….

“Avatar” (20th Century Fox)

James Cameron

“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

Kathryn Bigelow

“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)

Quentin Tarantino

“Precious” (Lionsgate)

Lee Daniels

“Up in the Air” (Paramount)

Jason Reitman

Best documentary feature

I was going to opt for The Cove in this category if it got nominated as it is a very powerful piece of work that I caught before Christmas, weird to see Michael Moore’s Capitalism not cropping here. I’ve heard of both the Burma VJ and Food, Inc documentaries are strong but I’ll have to go with what I’ve seen.

EDIT – Ah, Burma VJ is on youtube. Nice.

“Burma VJ” (Oscilloscope Laboratories) A Magic Hour Films Production

“The Cove” (Roadside Attractions) An Oceanic Preservation Society Production

“Food, Inc.” (Magnolia Pictures) A Robert Kenner Films Production

“The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” A Kovno Communications Production

“Which Way Home” A Mr. Mudd Production

Best documentary short subject

As always, a guess.

“China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” A Downtown Community Television Center Production

“The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner” A Just Media Production

“The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” A Community Media Production

“Music by Prudence” An iThemba Production

“Rabbit à la Berlin” (Deckert Distribution) An MS Films Production

Achievement in film editing

It should be The Hurt Locker for the narrowing down of the immense amounts of footage that was shot and keeping the sense of space and danger present throughout the numerous set-pieces, although Avatar might take this.

“Avatar” (20th Century Fox)

Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua and James Cameron

“District 9″ (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Julian Clarke

“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

Bob Murawski and Chris Innis

“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)

Sally Menke

“Precious” (Lionsgate)

Joe Klotz

Best foreign language film of the year

  

You want cynical? I’ll give you cynical. Both Un Prophète and The White Ribbon are great pictures and worthy of the prize, however Haneke is a frequently critical of Hollywood and I can already imagine that Un Prophète is being considered for the remake treatment, having a project ‘based on the Oscar winning film’ is a good marketing hook. Then again, like last year and Okuribito one of the other nominees will probably come in and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

“Ajami”(Kino International)

“El Secreto de Sus Ojos” (Sony Pictures Classics)

“The Milk of Sorrow” (A Wanda Visión)

“Un Prophète” (Sony Pictures Classics)

“The White Ribbon” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Achievement in makeup

For a laugh I’ll go with Star Trek, it would be funny to see ridged foreheads and pointy ears destroy the period drama crowd.

“Il Divo” (MPI Media Group through Music Box)

Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano

“Star Trek” (Paramount)

Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow

“The Young Victoria” (Apparition)

Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

Although I was not a big fan of the pan-pipe derived score by Horner I think it will win.

“Avatar” (20th Century Fox)

James Horner

“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (20th Century Fox)

Alexandre Desplat

“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders

“Sherlock Holmes” (Warner Bros.)

Hans Zimmer

“Up” (Walt Disney)

Michael Giacchino

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

Not one, not a single example seen to throw a guess at. I guess some of the old fucks will take a punt with Disney and their return to ‘traditional’ animation which is good enough for me.

“Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog” (Walt Disney)

“Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog” (Walt Disney)

“Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36″ (Sony Pictures Classics)

“Take It All” from “Nine” (The Weinstein Company)

“The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)

Best motion picture of the year

I’ve seen the majority of these despite the expansion in number, good to see the Coens get another nod and quite a surprise to see District 9 in there which I watched again over the weekend. I think it has to be Avatar this year, as everyone has been saying the industry has too much invested in the 3D technology and its financial breakthroughs mean if it doesn’t succeed it will be the biggest Academy upset for quite some time. Does he deserve it? Yes, the films fault that I’ve covered here are overwhelmed by injecting that sense of wonder, of a cinema event that haven’t been seen since the LOTR movies and no, the  Harry Potter garbage doesn’t count.

“Avatar” (20th Century Fox) A Lightstorm Entertainment Production

“The Blind Side” (Warner Bros.) An Alcon Entertainment Production

“District 9″ (Sony Pictures Releasing) A Block/Hanson Production

“An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics) A Finola Dwyer/Wildgaze Films Production

“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) A Voltage Pictures Production

“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company) A Weinstein Company/Universal Pictures/A Band Apart/Zehnte Babelsberg Production

“Precious” (Lionsgate) A Lee Daniels Entertainment/Smokewood Entertainment Production

“A Serious Man” (Focus Features) A Working Title Films Production

“Up” (Walt Disney) A Pixar Production

“Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios) A Montecito Picture Company Production

Best animated short film

I’ll support the UK for a change. Plus it’s the only one I’ve seen.

“French Roast” A Pumpkin Factory/Bibo Films Production

“Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” (Brown Bag Films) A Brown Bag Films Production

“The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” A Kandor Graphics and Green Moon Production

“Logorama” (Autour de Minuit) An Autour de Minuit Production

“A Matter of Loaf and Death” (Aardman Animations) An Aardman Animations Production

Best live action short film

Guess, guess, guessity guess….

“The Door” (Network Ireland Television) An Octagon Films Production

“Instead of Abracadabra” (The Swedish Film Institute) A Directörn & Fabrikörn Production

“Kavi” A Gregg Helvey Production

“Miracle Fish” (Premium Films) A Druid Films Production

“The New Tenants” A Park Pictures and M & M Production

Achievement in sound editing

I’m going to go out on a limb with The Hurt Locker on this one, the technical awards normally cluster around one movie but I have a hunch that Kathryn’s crew will get some recognition here….

“Avatar” (20th Century Fox)

Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle

“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

Paul N.J. Ottosson

“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)

Wylie Stateman

“Star Trek” (Paramount)

Mark Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin

“Up” (Walt Disney)

Michael Silvers and Tom Myers

Achievement in sound mixing

As above, I just have a feeling…

“Avatar” (20th Century Fox)

Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson and Tony Johnson

“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett

“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)

Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti and Mark Ulano

“Star Trek” (Paramount)

Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” (Paramount)

Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers and Geoffrey Patterson

Achievement in visual effects

I think this one is pretty damn certain? Both the District 9 and Star Trek guys must be pissed as they both did good jobs…

“Avatar” (20th Century Fox)

“District 9″ (Sony Pictures Releasing)

“Star Trek” (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment)

Adapted screenplay

Wow – one of the major shocks was to see Iannucci and crew get a nod for In The Loop and for that I’ve got to support them.

“District 9″ (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell

“An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Screenplay by Nick Hornby

“In the Loop” (IFC Films)

Screenplay by Armando Iannucci

“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)

Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher

“Up in the Air” (Paramount)

Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner

Original screenplay

Gotta go with the Coens as they deserve at least one gong this year.

“The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

Written by Mark Boal

“Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)

Written by Quentin Tarantino

“The Messenger” (Oscilloscope Laboratories)

Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman

“A Serious Man” (Focus Features)

Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

“Up” (Walt Disney)

Screenplay by Pete Docter

mintys marathon movie medley – vi

Link? Bill Murray who had a small part in Ed Wood. Reason? I wanted to honor Kathryn Bigelow’s historic DGA win – I think she’ll go on to win the big one at the end of the month – with a female director link.

Plus, y’know, Scarlett Johansson….

Doug Stanhope

OK, severe warnings for immensely offensive comedy ahead - if you’re of a sensitive disposition then you may wish to go elsewhere. I’ve made my admiration of the comedian Bill Hicks clear in the past, in that context I’m mystified as to how I’ve missed the work of Doug Stanhope who is arguably his heir apparent up until now, I’d heard of the guy for sure and I vaguely recall him doing a set on some Friday night BBC show years ago but never gave his material proper consideration. It’s fantastic, but let’s start with some context setting material before I launch this blog into repugnant waters….

Not to everyone’s tastes but I like his persona and most crucially the message behind the material. I risk heading into Nathan Barley territory here – ‘hey, he’s so cool and funny ’cause he’s so edgy and nasty’ – but I know you’re smart enough to see beyond those knee jerk reactions, such as this. Here’s some more:

The above and below is material that made me embarrass myself as I laughed out loud in a Greenwich Starbucks, watching the video on my phone – yeah I know – when I killed an hour on Friday before meeting a friend for a few drinks:

and some more….

And perhaps his most jaw-dropping stuff I’ve seen thus far:

Look, I went to see Precious today, it was a fairly good movie but believe me I need to have a laugh after that experience – the darker the better – as I hope we can agree that comedy is a great exorcist. There are couple of full sets on google video – here and here – which might brighten up your Monday evening after another pointless, soul crushing waste of your irrelevant eight hours on this planet. What’s that? No, I can’t wait to get back into the work market, why do you ask???

london fields iv

 

Its been quite a while since I posted one of these accounts. As you English readers will be aware the early January weather of 2010  has not been particularly conducive to any investigations of our glorious capital but since the snow has evaporated, since the Hyperborean chill has dissipated I find myself with no excuse not to complete some activities I’ve had planned over the past few months and in some cases years. I’ve checked out an exhibition and visited the cavernous National Portrait Gallery again when I was in town for some shopping, I also plan to embark on a proper investigation of the cultural facilities of nearby Greenwich and finally fulfil a trip around the Tower Of London which is now unavoidable as I can get in for the princely sum of £1 – as opposed to the exorbitant £17 for tourists – as I have acquired a Council ‘idea’ card (which back in my youth was called a library card) that is available to all Tower Hamlets residents. There’s no excuse now really as the historic citadel is located a brief half hour walk from my yard, westward through the Thames Pathway which is always an exhilarating saunter. But I digress…

This may get a little lengthy so let’s begin with a soundtrack to my endeavour, a clip of the musician Zoe Keating whose work I recently discovered courtesy of the fantastic WNYC RadioLab podcast. The broadcast is a science, culture and technology themed show that eloquently compacts a series of aural chapters which circumnavigate one central unifying theme -  the episode on Keating’s work led me to download her albums which provided a suitably atmospheric soundtrack to my recent expedition, both her work and the podcast are awesome and come highly recommended. Zoe doesn’t know it yet but she will be hired to provide the soundtrack to the mournful, futuristic Gothic western that I haven’t written or imagined yet, Deadwood with wormholes or something. So yeah, now I’m getting into avant-garde cellists, still it was quite apt when you throw the likes of Wendy Carlos into the mix – all will become clear gentle reader…

  

For many years I’ve meant to perform something of a pilgrimage to a film location where certain portions of A Clockwork Orange was shot, having lived in a couple of places in West London until my relatively recent move this proved to be something of a difficult proposition as the Thamesmead estate is located way out in the wilds of Zone 4 South East London – quite an expedition. Since my bivouac to Limehouse however I’ve had no excuse other than the usual distractions of work and alternative weekend activities, I’m happy to report that this week I finally got this errand completed on a suitably grim January morning. As an aside you have to love the future, leaping from one various public transport method to another to complete this absurd task it was quite reassuring to monitor my progress on my phone, its GPS functions simultaneously charting my movements whilst I also browsed the web to certify the precise locations I needed to visit to comprehensively complete my mission and curiously certify the accuracy of my mission with youtube footage once completed – see below.

  

I’ve been to some grim places in London, I’ve worked in some of the most deprived, depressing areas of the metropolis but my god, this was something else. The estate is almost a physical manifestation of the word ‘bleak’, infected with litter and festooned with graffiti, almost a picture perfect representation of ‘Broken Britain’. Its a good job I completed this task early as quite frankly I would have concerns for my safety in this part of the world after nightfall, the volumes of discarded White Lightning Cider bottles and Tennant’s Super cans spoke volumes. Anyway, take a look at that second photo and then have a viddy at this, unfortunately embedding is prohibited but you can see the location in all its glory – real horrorshow. Just round the corner was the  location of the scene immediately preceding Alex’s reassertment of his superiority, in the entry basement of ‘Municipal Flat Block 18A, Linear North’, alas I can’t find a suitable clip to refresh your memories. I know, I know - with London being the host of one of the worlds most expansive and prestigious cultural treats on offer I opt to go and see a miserable council estate in Bexley, I evidently need to get my head examined. What I can say, it wasn’t quite a religious experience but it’s nice to have goals….

 

Time was on my side so I decided to slot in another visit that I’ve been meaning to complete, a rather more civilised pub visit in Rotherhithe. I jumped on the nearest train I could find (praise be to the GPS again) and zoomed up to London Bridge for the next stage of my expedition. After an animated walk through Southwark I eventually located the Mayflower pub,  a relatively famous location due to its astonishing historical pedigree – by the name you may have discerned that this was the spot, back in 1620, that the pilgrim fathers set forth to establish the great cultural experiment of America. Like the Thamesmead mission I’ve yearned to visit this location for many years, in some sense of cosmic irony when I arrived the fucking pub was shut. At 3.00pm on a Tuesday afternoon. Still, I roll with the punches as visiting the site was the chief ambition and I enjoyed the walk,  Rotherhithe was quite an interesting area to investigate which curiously reminded me of my old stomping ground of Peterborough, it very much looks and feels like a New Town in the model of a Milton Keynes with its building facades and transit designs (plenty of speed calming roundabouts), a  relatively modern urban conurbation that betrays its location as a central London territory.  I was mystifled by this aura until my historical synapses flared into life and I realised that this area must have been utterly decimated during the Blitz, resulting in a major programme of regeneration during the intervening decades. I walked to Canada Water and tubed it home.

Continuing the French theme of recent posts and the present Kubrick material here is a 1999 documentary I’ve sourced from Google Video, there’s some good material in there which might also provide an hour long French revision exercise. If, like me, you’re hopeless at French you may try to attune your ears to the lower mix audio where you can pick up more than the French voiceover elucidates, plus of course some of the subtitles help. There’s no new real revelations to the arm-chair Kubrick academic such as yours truly, all the material has been covered in books and articles that I’ve acquired over the years but it was interesting to see both the Sue Lyon and Diane Johnson footage. Raphael also comes through as the twat he is in both languages - a multi-lingual twat, if you will. Ploughing through this and taking in another viewing of Coppola’s debut Dementia 13 has had the unsettling Patrick Magee occupy far too much of my recent eyeball stimuli activities, it’s a conspiracy I tell you. Still, it’s not like Stan didn’t invent the hysterical  ipad (00:37 and more obviously at 04:08) over forty years ago eh? Thats a joke by the way. Obviously.

  

Finally, my blogging has finally yielded some tangible results. Courtesy of this crew, a cult film distributor based here in London I’ve been sent two movies to review and I get to keep the copies – nice. The first was Pontypool, an unusually claustrophobic Canadian cannibal themed horror flick where the deadly virus is communicated by language (recommended for its inventive design and premise) and Ai no mukidashi, a Japanese film from 2008 which looks absolutely fucking mental, not just for its partially sordid subject matter but also its four hour run-time. I haven’t watched it yet as it only arrived this morning, it’s quite a tantalising prospect to see as I hugely enjoyed director Sion Sono’s  gruesome Jisatsu Sākuru which was throughly refreshing in that particularly lunatic, Japanese way. So no Jennifer Aniston Rom-Com preview disks for me eh?

mintys marathon movie medley – v

I’m shattered. Braving the frigid January cold I’ve managed to fulfil two outstanding, (as in ‘overdue’ not necessarily ‘amazing’, although I quite enjoyed them with one small reservation) personal little missions that I intended to complete during my brief work break, one on the film location front and one on the London history front – a post is being prepared. In terms of my medley linkage here are some visuals that weave together some recent events in a most serendipitous way:

Bear with me with the clip, shortly all will become clear. The BFI Programme for March arrived this morning and a few events have cropped up that demand my attention, with the exception of the Tokyo Story screening and Kubrick Napoleon event that I missed (which might just be related to my film location activities this morning) not much has piqued my interest in the NFT’s 2010 schedule until now, lets hope I can get tickets to both a screening of this with a John Landis Q&A to follow along with a lecture by celebrated film scholar Laura Mulvey which in turn is followed by a screening of Hitchcock’s sepulchral Marnie - that should be interesting. Of course, Landis is famous for casting film directors in cameo roles in his movies….

In my previous post I linked to the film Guilty By Suspicion, a film in which Scorsese makes a cameo as a film director (alas no clip on youtube) – obviously that leads to the Hitchcock parade at the top and the Marnie screening. To further the idea of directors incorporating elements of other filmmakers in their work I’m then led to Ed Wood, as seen above, in my opinion one of the finest American films of the 1990’s, its such a shame that Burton got diverted into such tedious Hollywood nonsense in the intervening years. With the NFT there’s also a ballot to see Burton’s new Alice in IMAX 3D for free in the March programme, I’m not hugely excited about the project but the potential of a free ticket is not to be avoided. Finally, to return to the Hitchcock  meme,  when I got home I found out that I’m up for an intriguing new assignment on the climate change, local authority project management front at the London Borough Of Waltham Forest where of course Hitch was born*. I could probably have weaved these all together more coherently but, like I said, I’m shattered. And just to complicate things further….

* – This post may just be a little sarcastic….

Un Prophète

 

Bonjour madame et monsieur. The so called ‘first masterpiece of the decade’ escaped into London cinemas this weekend, I’ve been deliberately avoiding all the reviews, write-ups and thus managed to pull off a very successful embargo, even when it was unexpectedly previewed ahead of both The Book Of Eli and Up In The Air I averted my gaze and turned up the ipod - clearly this is a project whose distributors feel could warrant that elusive breakthrough status as that is quite an unusual strategy for a subtitled movie with no discernable stars, not even the likes of Depardieu or Cassel to pull in the more educated patrons. Being a man of leisure I rolled a new cinema visit into this viewing, quite aptly I went to see Un Prophète at the Instiut Francais down in deepest Kensington, quite the apropos choice considering its gallic pedigree. It was playing at my local cinema but I thought it would be more appropriate to see this at an art cinema with the diminished possibility of unruly patrons, my decision paid dividends as there was only about four other punters and the cinema itself was quite an efficient little space with a larger screen than was expected, also a bargain at a mere £7.  I may be being presumptuous, it being not yet a month into the year, but just to chime in with all the plaudits Un Prophète is destined to be one of the films of the year, it’s a magnificent piece of work that is utterly riveting from beginning to end.

Not exactly dispelling certain stereotypes I rang up to book a ticket before making the sojourn over to West London, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t going to sell out but I was recently burned with leaving tickets to this to the last minute which then sold out so I’ve learnt my lesson -  looking at that video is an annoying glimpse of what I missed. Anyway, once I’d got through and explained I wanted a ticket to the matinée the response was ‘oh no, monsieur, you don’t have to book tickets for that…’ – Hmm, then I’m curious why you’d have an box office phone line then eh? Don’t you think? Anyway, in terms of context some years ago, with time to kill before meeting friends I quite rarely went to see a film I knew absolutely nothing about, I was around Leicester Square and having checked out the competition I settled on the Prince Charles cinema and some weird sounding French drama they were playing – I picked well as the film was Read My Lips which I’m looking forward to seeing again as like the intervening The Beat That My Heart Skipped director Jacques Audiard is carving quite a career as one of the most amazingly talented French auteurs working today.

 

Our anti-hero is the teenage Malik, a young Arabian man who is sent to a ferociously grim burghaljail for an unspecified crime, snippets of dialogue subtley revealingthat he may have been involved in an affray with a police officer. Thrust into this modern-day Gehenna Malick is given a grim order, to murder a snitch whose activities threaten a Corsican gang faction led by the merciless César (Niels Arestrup) who ruthlessly explainthat he either kills or is killed, his forced acquiescence subsequently providing him with the protection of this powerful cabal whose tendrils control much of the minutia of prison life – the drugs, the food, the porn, the basic luxuries that alleviate the remorseless suffering. After one of the most shockingly brutal scenes of European cinema for quite some time Malik finds himself under the wing of his new found comrades, the film however does not deviate into the artificial esprit de corps that this type of tale can slip into, Malik (in a magnetic performance by Tahar Rahim) understanding that survival in an environment that is so deeply segregated along the ethnic lines of Corsican and Arabic factions can be manipulated to his advantage as his efforts at self improvement – learning new languages and keeping his mouth shut – mirror his progress through the criminal dominion.

What an experience. Audiard has a reputation for being a tough, no-frills macho director, a modern emulation of Sam Fuller or Robert Aldrich and make no mistake Un Prophète is a gruelling experience that will keep you utterly gripped throughout its epic 155 minute run time. The sense of incarceration is signalled by an urgent, hand held shooting style that is encapsulated in claustrophobic angles, framing through cell bars and tiny spaces, expanding the canvas when Malik is permitted day release expeditions due to his apparent good behaviour. The metaphors and allusions are there if you want them, there is a sense of possible redemption and the religious connotations are frequent but not bludgeoned into the narrative, instead they are intrinsically weaved into a very immediate vivacity, submerged in a very convincing tableau of violence as Malik’s ghosts return to haunt his achievements. There are frequent, muted references references to shoes (walking in my footsteps?) a 40 day penance sequence toward the end of the film and the masterstroke of exemplifying Malik’s formal education – he is illiterate upon induction to the prison but demonstrates his intelligence by learning not only French but also the Arabic and Corsican argot that essentially forms the spine of his criminal success.

In that sense the film is an excellent companion piece to the rags to riches trajectory of Scarface or the Machiavellian instincts of The Godfather with Michael Corleone’s intellect of forward planning, crucially you’re never particularly certain of Malik’s enigmatic ambitions, you become sympathetic with his achievements and as usual with these films you illicitly want him to succeed and prosper. Audiard makes certain to signal a vague moral compass to our confused and desperate protagonist early in the film as he attempts to avoid the murder he has been coerced into discharging by reporting his dilemma to the authorities, only to find that the level of corruption in the prison extends to the protectors and agents of the state leaving him with no option, no escape – an apt axiom to the films claustrophobic ambitions. The politics of an uncertain, uneasy multicultural France fester in the background, a grapnel of social reality that give the film a very prescient mood of its time, a reality cemented with the films reproduction of a functioning prison in a disused warehouse for the films production locale, all complemented with a sound design whose ambient effects were apparently culled from genuine recordings of authentic prison environments. Masterfully constructed, utterly ruthless, electrifying and absolutely essential viewing.

So then, prison movies. It’s quite a rich category, there are the more obvious candidates of course with some less observant examples that also mine the essential ingredients of the genre, all serving the same intrinsic drama to a myriad, diffused effect. Finally, here is one of the webs best film sites accumulation of some of the worlds best film writers favourites of last year - I love how on the one hand I’ve only heard of perhaps 65% of the movies and more entertainingly how some critics loathe the likes of Basterds and Antichrist whilst the next critic will qualify them as the best of the year – diversity is fun and they have a pedigree with this sort of activity…