The Men Who Stare At Goats

If there can be said to be anything approaching a cult journalist in the UK – and we’re not exactly talking Hunter S. Thompson here – then I guess Jon Ronson would have to be it. His recent exploration of the murky world of conspiracy theories and more importantly conspiracy theorists was a underground hit and boasted a well constructed documentary that aired on UK TV in 2001 and 2004 . Ronson was also the first and (to the best of my knowledge) only journalist granted access to the Kubrick estate in the early noughties to delve amongst the scintillating paraphernalia of Kubrick’s career up at Childwick Bury, obligatory Guardian article here – Like my good self I think Ronson finds the characters and motivations, deluded or otherwise, fascinating in a sort of sociological and psychological fashion, how these lunatics can justify the most outrageous claims (David Icke’s lectures for example are comedy gold) and crucially how sometimes their research and conclusions sometimes, however hesitantlybut sometimes actually docross over into the timidrealms of truth. As such any film burrowing into the tales of MKULTRA experiments (which have been certified as true, yes the CIA did experiment with LSD on unsuspecting US citizens) psy-ops research and the more fantastically exotic realms of cold war intelligence research was always going to be on my radar, unfortunately The Men Who Stare At Goats like the mainstreaming of The Road takes a fascinating premise and smoothes out all the interesting delineations, boiling down the story into a unpalatably conventional and insipid mush. But then I would say that wouldn’t I, the world can’t handle the truth….

 

Formed around a buddy / road movie template The Men Who Stare At Goats concerns the bizarre adventures of journalist Bob Wilton (a horribly accented Ewan McGregor) who seeks a new direction in his life after his fiancée breaks off their engagement to reveal an affair with his newsroom superior. Ensconced in a Kuwaiti hotel on the eve of the invasion of Iraq of 2003 Wilton eavesdrops the name Lyn Cassidy being uttered and recalling an interview he performed earlier in the year with a former intelligence officer who now claimed supernatural powers amongst a elite cadre of retired agents Wilton hesitantly makes contact with the suspicious Cassidy (an enthusiastic George Clooney) who eventually takes him under his wing and into Iraqon a secret, perilousmission. As the sortieprogresses Cassidy recants the tale of his military career within the experimental First Earth Battalionto Wilton, his remarkable story of a secret elite unit formed by the messianic Bill Django (Jeff Bridges in Lebowski mode) to combat communist aggression with the promotion of secret powers, telepathy, ESP and various other impossible paranormal techniques. As the mission becomes more hostile and dangerous Wilton begins to wonder if Cassidy is a super soldier or super deluded, fearing for his life and sanity in the hostile Iraq desert…

  

The problems with this film revolve around itstone and structure. One can understand the decision to frame the film around aroad movie template with Wilton serving as our screen avatar, the centralcharacter who like the audience is absorbing the tale from Cassidy’s enigmatic lips, their current assignment twinned with Cassidy’s recollections of his unusual career. When the purpose of the desertmission is revealed the logical conclusions of the narrative are squandered, the film doesn’t have the conviction to expose how these outlandishresearch programmes came to be twisted to suchhorrifying consequences during the War On Terror at the likes of Guantanamo, torture techniques culled from a corruption of First Earth’s fifty year empirical pedigree being inflicted on suspected insurgents and Al-Queda combatants. I can’t help feeling that the film would have been far more effective if the whole journalistic approach was dropped and instead they concentrated on the biography of Cassidy, a significant portion of the film is his story anyway and all the films best moments are culled from his recollections and tales.

The late introduction of Kevin Spacey as Django’s nemesis in the form of spiritualist turned solder Larry Hooper feels clumsily manufactured to provide a traditional villainous conflict, he is barely introduced until at least half way though the movie in an effort to up the ante on the awkward culmination of the plot, a denouement which with its broadly comedic flavour feels uncertain in both pitch and flavour.  Still,  the ever reliable Jeff Bridges playing Dude-lite was fun, in this case a counter culture shaman and there are some genuinely amusing interludes with the juxtapositions of his sixties ethosof the First Earth battalion versus the expected cold war military belligerence. The final scene is lazily predictable, echoing the opening routine of a general ‘willing’ himself to pass through a wall with the power of his mind that proves that screenwriter Peter Straughan must have graduated with first class honors from cliche school. The Men Who Stare At Goats wants to be Dr. Strangelove but ends up more Sgt. Bilko, Clooney’s buffonish performance and Bridges piquancy aside there are no secrets to unearth here.

3rd Birthday – Halloween Horror Marathon

Three years old. That’s one home, four assignments, one computer and almost 1,500 films ago, how time flies eh? I was aware of my birthday which occurred amidst the LFF shenanigans but quite frankly I didn’t have the time to incorporate another mammoth blog post until the dust had settled and I had sorted out some work nonsense. The good news is I have completely smashed my cinema visit target for the year – it’s currently running in the mid 60’s – and I have around half a dozen more visits planned although pickings are now slim as we move toward the end of the year, don’t get me started on how barren 2010 looks, I’ll save my vitriol on that until the 2009 round up next month. So my secret project can finally be revealed – I’ve been writing reviews, mostly covering the LFF for these guys, a Canadian outfit that I approached a few months back. I’ve been thinking about expanding my horizons all year, to see if I could get my ill-informed scribblings published in another format so I was quite pleased to see the Sound On Sight editors jump at the chance after I got in touch following an episode of their podcast which asked for potential submissions. It’s not paid or anything but they will be arranging press credentials for future events – if I’m still with them that would mean a pass to all of next year’s LFF press screenings for example – and I’ve got some free DVD / Blu-ray screeners to review on the way so I can’t complain. Given that all I really have to do is amend the stuff I put together for the blog to remove all the first person references it’s a no brainer really, I’d be writing my reviews for personal satisfaction anyway so why not see what freebies I can spin out of it? I’ll admit it was also something of an ego-boost to see my words hosted elsewhere, if you’d told me that was feasible back in my tender teenage years of rushing down to the corner shop to pick up the latest copy of Empire then I probably would have passed out. If you’re so inclined then do visit the site and subscribe / rate the podcast on iTunes as all the traffic helps of course.

 

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, the horror . I’ll not waste time on any detailed plot synopsis for the most part, if you’re so inclined they’ll be buried in the links. I was planning to go and see the first film – Werewolf - at the cinema but the re-release was really quite limited to only one 10.00pm screening at a handful of cinemas on the 31st and quite frankly I was feeling a bit under the weather so I compromised by blowing £50 in HMV on Saturday to complement some existing films I had hanging around on the shelves, I really wanted the Blu-ray of Werewolf due to the great reviews of the two hour making of documentary Beware The Moon that is on the disk, I haven’t enjoyed a well researched, comprehensive account of a cult classics construction in a long time. In another moment of serendipity lets kick things off with this link, a list of Scorsese’s favourite horror movies, a link that leads nicely to my smugly acquiring a ticket to see Marty in person at an NFT event next month, an evening that will crown ten years of my living in London and attending this sort of event. That’s like, so totally awesome – see, already I have my North American vernacular down ya’ dig?

An American Werewolf In London - Talk about starting at the top eh? People claim that Shaun of the Dead gives Werewolf a run for its money as the greatest horror comedy ever made, these people are horrendous idiots who must be ignored at all costs. Sure Shaun is funny and entertaining, a good film which merits semi-regular repeat viewings, no problem – but it isn’t even in a fraction of a molecule of the remotest sense scary or horrifying. In Werewolf the initial attack on those desolate moors remains brutally shocking, almost unwatchable and the thoroughly unnerving fever dreams that David suffers instil an unsettling atmosphere, all of which is counterpoised by the grim humour of the slowly disintegrating corpse of best friend Jack, probably the films despicable masterstroke which provides most of the nervous laughter whilst tying the tale to the monster movie lore of history – the cursed lunar cycle which can only be cured by suicide or death. The transformation sequence, intentionally rendered in full daylight, remains unmatched:

….as does Jenny Agutter whose presence made quite an impact on everyone in my generation who furtively hired this from their local VHS emporium. The 1981 London locations – the tube, Piccadilly Circus, what looks to me like Belgravia and Mayfair – are interesting to see, not sure how a nurse could afford a telephone box let alone a flat in that area of the Capital even back in them olden times though. Stan was supposedly a big fan and when you consider the ironic use of the music against the horror, the pitch black comedy it isn’t difficult to see why. A seminal monster movie, I’ll See You Next Wedneday.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari – I’ve had this sitting on my shelf for about three years and although I have seen it before, when studying German Expressionism as one of the modules on my A Level course many years ago, I’ll admit is has been one of those ‘oh I must watch that one day’ choices that is ignored whilst reaching past it for something else which looks more fun. Something like The Hottie & The Nottie for example. OK, I jest, its only 52 minutes long first of all and although its 90 year pedigree can test the patience it is a remarkable looking film for its period and is one of the core texts of supernatural genre cinema. The somnambulist prowling the distorted mise-en-scene is a snapshot of almost every horror film made ever since with that use of make-up, lighting and set design setting the standard for a whole slew of immensely influential films that emerged out of UFA and then Universal studios after the hemorrhaging of talent across the Atlantic in the thirties. It’s an academic exercise to be sure with a clunky ‘it was all a dream’ style conclusion but I enjoyed it, you have to pay your respects to your elders now and again…..

Trick ‘r Treat – no, not that one, this one. I picked this up on a chance, it has been getting some terrific reviews amongst the genre community as a real return to the 1980’s heyday of horror cinema, specifically the anthology films such as Creepshow, Cats Eye, Tales From The Crypt series and erm….Creepshow 2. Taking place over a bloody Halloween the film interweaves a host of gruesome tales including a chaste Anna Paquin travelling to a costume party with her promiscuous sisters (she is dressed as little red riding hood if you want a clue where that one’s going), an abandoned mine where a school bus mysteriously crashed 30 years ago to the day, supposedly killing all the mentally challenged kids on board and Dylan Baker playing against type as a school principal candy poisoning child killer, all the strands being stitched together by the eerie Sam, the pint sized mute spirit of All Hallows’ Eve who also seeks some terrible vengeance on the elderly Mr. Kreeg for some unspecified discourtesy. This was probably the best fun I had all night (child murder, ravenous kid zombies, slutty lycanthropes, I’m a man who is easily pleased) with a firm hand on the tiller that steers between the key points of knowing winks to the audience and quick scares, the way that the divergent tales intersect and morph with each other with certain key events in one strand playing out on the background of developments of another strand is quite skilfully presented. It’s good, nasty, gory fun with some neats twists on the tropes of the genre, highly recommended.

Drag Me To Hell - Unmistakably diminished on the smaller screen this is still terrific fun, if you overlook the somewhat suspect gypsy bashing. I don’t really have much to add to my previous review so I’ll just link to some scenes from The Incredibly Strange Film Show with Raimi that I unearthed recently, I have fond memories of staying up late to watch that back when it aired in 1988.

Halloween II - A shame to end on such a travesty but there we are, I am referring to the 1981 sequel to the original slasher classic, not this years supposedly execrable sequel to the remake, a film which is running high as the worst film of the year which considering its opponents sounds like quite an achievement. Picking up from exactly where the original finished  What is most disappointing about this isn’t the lacklustre and frankly boring parade of kills, it’s the presence of both John Carpenter and Debra Hill as the writers in the credits, they must really have worked fast to get this roughly hewn piece of nonsense together. Donald Pleasance should win an award for his cringeworthy OTT performance which makes it worth watching. Almost.

Paranormal Activity will be the last horror review of the year, I’m already amused at the ‘most scary film ever’ and ‘most profitable movie ever’ marketing angles which have been trumpeted for some movie or other since the 1950’s with the inception of the B-Movie, William Castle would be proud. Still, I am intrigued about it, it looks like fun and it’s a shame it wasn’t out over here for Halloween, here’s one of the trailers:

london film festival 2009 – capitalism: a love story

Well, for free I guess I really can’t complain, especially since it is a film concerning the evils of commerce and greed. When Capitalism: A Love Story was revealed as this years London Film Festival mystery film there were some grumbles of discontent flying around, mostly I suspect to do with it not being Where The Wild Things Are and the enormous praise that Spike Jonze’s return to the screen has been garnering across the pond. I admit I was a little disappointed at first, I quite like Michael Moore’s documentaries although like any intelligent adult I do take some of his conclusions and suppositions with a herculean pinch of salt, nevertheless once I’d settled in to the comfy environs of the NFT1 and as the film got going I was fully absorbed in Moore’s latest scabrous assault on the perceived forces of darkness, although their are some issues with the piece Capitalism: ALS is another effective slice of entertaining propaganda from the left hand side of the political spectrum. Following the same structure and technique of his previous critical and commercial smashes Bowling For Columbine and the lacerating Fahrenheit 9/11 Moore excels in constructing an anger inducing, scathing attack on his chosen subject, in this case a target no more intimidating and vast than the entire western capitalist system, a target perhaps too vast, too much of a behemoth in scope and scale to fully assault but I’ll concede he’s produced something of a noble effort, mostly due to the slightly uncharacteristic closing movement of the documentary - but we’ll come back to that.

Full disclosure – I am one of those lefty, commie loving crypto-Stalinist Guardinistas that this film is designed for and as such it does strike me as a little redundant, I can’t see it playing in the lobby of the Manhattan Mandarin Oriental or exotic dancing cocktail bars of the square mile but what Moore manages to achieve in his work and especially in Capitalism: ALS is to crystallize some of the cumulative ripples of recent events, taking a diverse selection of stories you may have heard about in the print and visual media, cherry picking examples to support his central conceit and ideological stance. The documentary utilizes his familiar style of counterpoising archive footage, humorous or ironic soundtracks, Moore’s own commentary and protest themed stunts with Regan’s 1981 inauguration as a rough start point for the inception of the hyper accelerated embrace of the free market, of the selfish society, of acquiescence to big business and the corporate mandate at the degradation of all other societal concerns. There is a breathtaking clip of the then treasury secretary Don Regan (no relation) ordering Ronald Regan, you know, a man who happened to be the President of the United States and therefore the leader of the free world at the time, to rush his speech along at a Wall Street press conference.

Through a montage of financial charts and graphs Moore quite deftly illustrates the enormous chasm that has developed in the past thirty years between the elite ruling 1% class and the rest of us peasants, touching on how the media and culture industries have hoodwinked, cajoled, entranced and hypnotised the vast majority into the Weltanschauung of conspicuous consumption, how capitalism is supposedly the only fair and balanced model of government and democratic delivery model when the levels of debt, depression, inequality and political apathy have steadily spiralled throughout the last thirty years. Some of the disparate examples are a little unsure, in particular a sequence taking the viewer through the current airline industry is a little undisciplined although the revelation that some pilots are on on $20K a year and having to take second jobs to make ends meet is particularly when you consider that these professionals are responsible for the lives of hundreds of people on a daily basis. The most incredible citation however is a strand covering the particularly repugnant practice of corporations taking out abstruse insurance policies on their employees and collecting large windfalls on the event of their death, crucially these being enacted without the knowledge of the employees and the bereaved are not entitled to a single penny of the dividends, a practice akin to taking out an insurance policy on an acquaintances house burning down which is illegal outside of the corporate arena as it gives the policy holder a vested interest in possible arson. I wasn’t surprised to see some of the usual offenders – the Wal-Marts, Citibank’s and Procter & Gamble’s conducting this practice, however the inclusion of a certain international credit card company that I used to work for was personally shocking- take a look.

The film them moves into the details of the global financial Armageddon of 2008 and the the $700 billion bailout in the States alone which is were the documentary could be accused of verging into conspiracy theory territory with the elected political class powerless to stop the executives demands of funding despite their opaque remit to represent the people and national fiscal stability. Now, I know what people might think about this – you’re just a tin-foil beanie sporting lunatic for siding with Moore on this one. Well, no I’m not, I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, that 9/11 was solely conducted by two dozen Saudi extremists without any controlled demolitions and the Illuminati do not meet once a year at Bohemian Grove to decide next years interest rates, president of the IMF, World Bank and next POTUS whilst drinking the blood of albino virgins acquired for them by catamite Goldman Sachs executives. It’s ludicrous. However there is something to be said for undue influence by the wealthy class on the main organs of the state, of the modes of communication and ‘entertainment’ with the political class usually adopting a position straddling both spheres - it’s a practice that you can chart in human civilisation back to the Greeks and Romans. The films thesis reaches a conclusion that despite an initial rejection of the bailout the motion was eventually carried – and let us not forget that these bailouts are our tax funds to build more schools, more hospitals and to deliver the essential public sector services that are critical to a healthy functioning society – for the funds to be given carte blanche, with no oversight, no legally binding contracts, to the banks with no rigidly structured repayment model. That’s the same money we have seen funnelled into the same lucrative bonuses in the City and Wall Street, into enormous corporate spending sprees and holidays, private jets and expense accounts. It is sickening to behold but thin on evidence for these handshake agreements which left me unsure of their veracity, nonetheless it is a compelling viewing.

But it appears all is not lost. The final twenty or so minutes of Capitalism: ALS does differ from Moore’s previous work in that he wraps things up in a optimistic way (perhaps a little too optimistically but that’s another story) with some heart-warming exposes of direct action, of workers occupying the modes of production and refusing to be made redundant and winning, of families violating property expulsion orders and securing a room over their and their children’s heads including the remarkable example of a Miami Sheriff who declined to conduct any more evictions on behalf as in his estimation the bailout, the peoples tax money had been spent keeping these organisations afloat only for them to then jettison any sense of moral responsibility and continue to put young families back on the street. It’s stirring, inspiring stuff which takes the political momentum behind Obama and the grass roots campaign that led to us historical victory as a model for a potential more equitable future society. One is left with the impression that Moore’s undisputed talents would have been better served by reigning in his parameters to maybe one family that has endured the ordeal of eviction or selected one particular element of the system – Lehman Brothers, AIG, Goldman Sachs – to laser in on to explore and map his evisceration, a more personal and disciplined approach that worked so effectively in the likes of Roger & Me. In Capitalism: ALS there are no dissenting voices, no counterpoint to Moore’s proclamations and in one sense it’s simply just too broad without any real convergence to completely work, not to mention the unpleasant partial irony of the most commercially successful documentary film-maker in screen history whose films are distributed by major studios railing against ’the man‘ Still, for all these faults it is quite exhilarating to watch with some undeniably powerful moments and revelations.  

So there we are, another film festival over. Given the paucity of last years offerings I am far more satisfied with this years activities, it was all on something of a curving slide from the stunning heights of Enter The Void which is unquestionably one of the most remarkable things I’ve seen at the movies this year but at least things swung back with The Informant and A Serious Man. There were a few things I missed that I would have liked to see – The Men Who Stare At Goats, Up In The Air, American: The Bill Hicks Story and Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans but they all either clashed with other things or were matinee screenings, besides which they should all get full releases next year. I was annoyed at missing The Limits Of Control which had only one daytime screening but the NFT schedule for December has come through with a NFT1 preview screening which I should get a ticket for, similarly I already have tickets to see The White Ribbon in three weeks with a Hanake Q&A to follow – now there’s a Sunday that should be a barrel of laughs. Next up, a belated 3rd birthday celebration which I’ll combine with the mammoth Halloween horror marathon I conducted last weekend, and I’ll finally reveal the mysterious details of my super secret special side project….

london film festival 2009 – a serious man

The Coens are getting positively prolific these days, treating their hardcore fans like yours truly with a movie a year and with their latest release A Serious Man they have taken the comedic strand of their work into unchartered waters. For this potential highlight of the Film Festival I thought I’d conduct an experiment, film fanatic that I am I visit a few news and rumour sites on an almost daily basis and eagerly get my hands on any trailer of potentially interesting projects as soon as they become available. Rather more warily, depending on the film I will read non-spoiler reviews and listen to podcasts discussing the relative merits of certain movies, it all depends on the podcast pedigree and potential quality of the film, who’s in it and made it, what’s their pedigree, all sorts of factors. This approach of course is fraught with peril, I’ve stumbled across submerged spoilers in the past and had films almost ruined so with A Serious Man I embarked on a total media boycott, I didn’t read a single word intentionally about the film, I didn’t watch the trailer, I didn’t visit the IMDB page, I stuck my fingers in my ears, closed my eyes and started yelling to drown out the ambient media, even then I still managed to ascertain that the film centred on the life of Jewish intellectual, was set in the 1950’s or 1960’s and was supposedly the Coens exploring their Jewish identity for the first time on screen. It was still a real joy to walk into a movie knowing relatively nothing about the plot, its setting or indeed who was in it (interestingly no-one particularly famous as it happens, a few recognisable faces from US TV and certainly none of their usual acting roster – Buscemi, Goodman, Clooney, Hunter, McDormand etc.), a joy compounded by the appearance of the brothers themselves to give a characteristically succinct introduction before the applause faded, the lights dimmed and we were sucked once again into the Coenverse.

  

Minnesota, the late 1960’s. Jewish professor – and I only stress the Jewish status as it is instrumental to the films chutzpah – Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is not having a good month. After taking tests for a mystery medical ailment Gopnik is accosted by a disgruntled South Korean student who subsequently attempts to discredit his reputation with anonymous letters to the tenure committee after Gopnik failed him in a critical test. His bickering children ignore him, his red-neck neighbour is encroaching on his property with his home expansion designs, his medically afflicted brother is staying with him to the exasperation of his distant wife who most distressingly reveals early in the film that she is going to leave him for the affections of scene stealing widower Sy Albeman (Fred Melamed). Seeking the wisdom of his community leaders, a trio of Rabbi’s unconsciously echoing the early middle and late stages of life, Gopnik embarks on mid-life odyssey to remain a virtuous man, a serious man, as events conspire to wreck his intrinsically good if somewhat ineffectual nature.

 

As skilful as ever the Coens incrementally pile on the frustrations of Gopnik’s disintegrating life whilst drawing forth laughter at his hapless situation, a spoonful of sugar to swallow the bitter pill,  this is certainly their most idiosyncratically funny work since Lebowski. But there are darker forces at work here buried beneath the suburban angst – this is no mere Sam Mendes film – underneath the carapace of the film there is a notion that life is suffering, that destiny is an indifferent, unassailable force, for Gopnik even a mind expanding and potentially physical sojourn with a sexy neighbour is interrupted by the intrusion of the foibles and weaknesses of our fellow players in the charade of life. As with the ominous coin tosses of No Country For Old Men and the phlegmatic consequences of fate the film delves into the parameters of cause and effect, the bell curve chart of fortune and adversity that populate both films. At first glance A Serious Man could be the Coens most systemically structured film, Schrödinger’s cat allusions nestling next to a fascinating delineation of the Jewish experience, the film is littered with the religious trappings and cultural mores of the Hebrew faith, most memorably with Gopnik’s sons Bar Mitzvah and his allegorical discussions with the second Rabbi serving as the films two most hilarious sequences.

Regular cinematographer Roger Deakins provides the unobtrusive visuals, this is a movie with the details stitched into the plot and dialogue rather than any visual symphony, stalwart Coen composer Carter Burwell also providing another of his habitually lyrical scores. If it’s possible to chart two alternate strand to the Coens career, the crime films moving from the lo-fi noir of Blood Simple to the homage of Millers Crossing, the bleakly humanist Fargo to masterpiece No Country For Old Men and the comedies from broad Raising Arizona to cultic Lebowski, from curio The Hudsucker Proxy to reverential O Brother, Where Art Thou then both strands have bivouacked at the same nucleus, perhaps an absurdity of life, with the final scene of A Serious Man mirroring the seemingly abrupt finale that graced <SPOILERS> No Country For Old Men. I mentioned in my twitter feed that the film was pretty good but after a night of reflection and thought this could be one of their very best, up there for me with Lebowski, Millers Crossing, No Country and The Man Who Wasn’t There in the brothers career and certainly a film that merits future viewings and contemplation. Oh, its also got one of the greatest dream feints of recent cinema, an observation which leads me nicely to this years planned Halloween movie and its terrifying, pig masked hooligans – a new glorious digital print of An American Werewolf In London.

london film festival 2009 – the informant! and Julianne Moore Screen Talk

Halfway through the festival and I’m pleased to report that after a couple of mediocre experiences this weekend’s activities have swung the pendulum back into the world of fun. On Friday night I attended the best BFI screen talk of recent memory with the prodigiously talented Julianne Moore, one of the top half dozen actresses working today and a personnel favourite of mine for her remarkable performances in those early Todd Haynes and Paul Thomas Anderson movies, there was a real sense of anticipation in the NFT1 and the crowd went rock-star wild as she took to the stage. But we’ll come back to that, lets deal with the latest Stephen Soderbergh movie first, the corporate comedy The Informant! which screened on a wet and windy Saturday afternoon in Leicester Square.

  

You can’t keep a good executive down. After ENRON, after Lehman Brothers and the continuing fury at executive bonuses  it was quite a change to see the corporate executive class as brimming with ineffective buffoons rather than coldly calculated capitalist psychopaths, in The Informant! Matt Damon stars as the amiable Mark Whitacre, an up and coming  heavyweight at global food derivative company ADM in the early nineties. In a stream of consciousness voiceover which is probably the films finest stroke (unlike The Road where this potentially fatal technique can ostracize the viewer) Mark takes us through his corporate experience, as the film opens advising superiors that he’s in touch with a Japanese whistle-blower who can expose an industrial saboteur in their midst and fix a production issue that’s costing them $7 million a month. Much to Mark’s consternation the company brings in the FBI to investigate the sabotage, Whitacre distracting them with the revelation of a massive conspiracy to price-fix goods in the global marketplace. Two earnest FBI agents (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) enrol Whitacre into service as a double-agent, an informer in a comedic bumbling and disorganized fashion, leaving his exasperated handlers uncertain whether he’s cooperating or not. Mark’s web of deceit begins to disentangle as the film progresses, his numerous subterfuges slowly unraveling as the scale of the real corruption is incrementally revealed.

  

Soderbergh is one of the masters of the new digital cameras and under his usual pseudonym Peter George he shoots all his current projects with the industry leading Red Camera. I don’t know how he does it but this film doesn’t look digital unlike say the recent work of Michael Mann, the surface sheen and glows from his subdued and effective lighting schemes looks to me like they are printed on the most expensive, luscious film stock on the market.  The Informant! has a very jovial, frothy atmosphere which is reinforced with a slightly intrusive score of Marvin Hamlisch that brings to mind the caper movies of the 1960’s, it’s a far more breezy affair than Soderbergh’s impenetrable existential corporate yarn Schizopolis.   Damon convinces as the amiable Whitacre, even generating a certain level of sympathy toward the finale despite the depths of his corporate malfeasance, one serious scene toward the end revealing a psychological spike to the characters congenial veneer. The film almost metaphorically seems to grab the audience in a headlock, ruffle their hair and convince them that they’re having a good time, it’s an amiable romp that will evaporate from the memory a couple of hours after the credits dim.

 

So now to Julianne Moore who was in town to promote her new films Chloe which has been directed by Canadian art house favourite Atom Egoyan and A Single Man by US newcomer Tom Ford. She came across as very down to earth, pretty funny and very, very smart. No Q&A from the audience unfortunately but questioner Briony Hanson handled proceedings with a solid dexterity, covering all the essential bases of Moore’s career including her variation of the big budget projects with the independent arena and her frequent support of first time, seemingly inexperienced directors being a testament to her generosity and desire to take risks. The script is always the only consideration she weighs in deciding to commit to a project, the directors oeuvre or lack thereof not being a contributory factor. Moore expressed a real disappointment that Blindness got such a raw deal from the press and despairing that so many critics overlooked some of the subtle touches in its visual and sound design to replicate the tone and strengths of the source novel.

  

She explained how it was fun to gravitate between the small independent projects and the big league likes of Hannibal and The Lost World as ‘it’s like only eating tomatoes for the rest of your life. Sometimes you want to try something else’. Most illuminatingly she explained how she didn’t subscribe to the notion that a director sculpts a performance, the actor brings the role to the table, that is their job and with the director they photograph the performance, together. Some of the production tales from Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Hours and Far From Heaven were all explored, overall a very entertaining evening with a great talent. Next up, the Film Festival Super Secret Special free members screening which unfortunately isn’t Where The Wild Things Are but another recent US premiere for Europe, stay tuned….

london film festival 2009 – Cold Souls

 

One of the fun elements of a film festival is take a punt on something you’ve not heard a great deal about, to take a chance on something you’d not necessarily go out of your way to see on the big screen. After a particularly challenging double bill it was sweet relief to take in a comedy of sorts, something a little more frothy than the end of the world or a drug fuelled mediation on the nature of death, that said Sundance financed Cold Souls did have a few things to say about the nature of life although it was presented in a slightly more palatable and amusing way. This cinema visit started off quite unusually as I had to march up the red carpet to get into the Leicester Square Vue on Sunday evening which was also hosting the premiere of the recession inspired Up In The Air, halfway down the carpet the cameras all started blazing and cries of ’Emily’ burst out which was all quite bewildering, it was only when I got inside and Emily Watson appeared to introduce Cold Souls that I put two and two together. New running total – Directors 2, Actors 1….

  

Paul Giamatti is Paul Giamatti – yes it’s one of those films – an actor who is in the clutches of an existential ennui, a crisis accelerated by rehearsals of a stage production of Chekov’s Uncle Vanya which has resulted in Giamatti finding it impossible to access the core of his character, to satisfy his muse, to reach a sense of artistic and spiritual fulfilment. In secret from his wife (Emily Watson) Giamatti responds to a New Yorker article and visits a specialist clinic where the energetic Dr. Flintstein (David Strathairn) explains the soul transplant process, a procedure that should assist in the achievement of a equilibrist nirvana, simultaneously not being tormented and afflicted by any personal demons and conversely remaining unmoved and unaffected by beauty, humour and inspiration. A hesitant Giamatti agrees to the procedure which appears to solve his problems, his initial satisfaction soon dovetailing into nervous panic which results in his receiving a soul transplant from another patient, conveniently enough a Russian poet whose insights should assist in his difficult theatre rehearsals. An initially confusing side plot involving Soviet women travelling to New York, trafficking souls sold by destitute Eastern bloc denizens to affluent middle class east coast Americans melds into the Giamatti narrative as he desperately seeks to restore his quintessence after suffering distressing flashbacks and memories from his Soviet soul, discovering that his psyche has unfortunately been sold to an aspiring Russian actress who wanted the artistic illumination of a Robert De Niro or Al Pacino.

 

Cold Souls certainly has that faint air of whimsical magical realism that abounds in films such as Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich but doesn’t quite hold the same level of charm and innovative immolation. After a promising and entertaining half hour the premise runs out of steam along with the gags. There are some funny moments and lines – ‘What do you mean my soul will be stored in New Jersey? I can’t send my soul to New Jersey’ and some playful musing on the repercussions of being a ’soul mule’, of being left with the trace remnants of the numerous spirits that have been ferried over the years but overall the core of the film feels sleighed and it doesn’t quite have the conviction or inspiration to fully excavate its central idea. Paul Giamatti is solid as usual with a deft touch of subtle neurosis, the weight of the film hangs on his performance and he acquits himself admirably amongst a parade of barely focused supporting characters. It feels as if Barthes having constructed these allusions to a chemically drugged, paralysed middle class who are seeking miracle cures for the spiritually devoid lives in the latest medical fad didn’t quite know how to conquer the all important third act, to take her characters to a logical and satisfying conclusion. Nevertheless there are some laughs to be had and at worst the film could at least ignite some spiritual thoughts and discussions on your journey home.

london film festival 2009 – the road

I can’t believe I’m going to admit this on a public website but here goes – Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer prize winning novel ‘The Road‘ is the first book I’ve read that made me cry. We’re talking actual, physical tears streaming down my face. I don’t recall ever having such a physical reaction to a book, not even reading legendary tear-jerkers such as ‘Charlotte’s Web’ or ‘Watership Down’ as a kid provoked such a reaction, since then I’ve been avidly devouring McCarthy’s other books and for me he’s the greatest writer I’ve discovered in the past ten or so years. Given the books critical kudos, its adoring fan base and cinematic breadth it was no surprise to learn that it had been optioned for a film treatment, when it was announced that Australian director John Hillcoat had been selected for the job I knew we would be in safe hands given the quality of his earlier work, the scathing outback western  ’The Propisition’ in particular demonstrating Hillcoat’s aptitude for the material. Oft-delayed and finally hitting cinema’s next month, a mere year after its initially planned release date ”The Road’ was one of the most anticipated films of the London Film Festival for me, can it possibly live up to the impeccable standards of its source material?

I’m becoming a little irritated with myself for constantly using the phrase ‘post-apocalyptic’ to describe a film but there really is no other phrase that best encapsulates this movie, maybe that’s more to do with the kind of films I go and see rather than any recent movement.  ’The Road’ takes place in a near future America that has been decimated by an unspecified cataclysmic event, some unholy conflagration of nuclear war and environmental holocaust that has caused society to retreat to a primitivism reminiscent of the dark ages where  murder, rape and cannibalism run rampant throughout the dust shrouded world. In this realm a man and a boy (Viggo Mortensen and relative newcomer  Kodi Smit-McPhee) traverse the infernal, frigid landscape, hopelessly heading for the coast in the forlorn hope that shelter, safety and food will be more plentiful by the sea.  The journey is interspersed with the man’s  flashbacks detailing a pre and immediately post ‘event’ world with his initially pregnant wife (Charlize Theron) becoming increasingly more frantic and hopeless once the boy has been born, self-destructively hating herself for bringing life into such a poisoned, cruel world. The emphasis is on the man’s unyielding love for his son, a pale torch amidst the gloom, his remorseless drive to ensure his boy is protected and stays alive, remains untainted and somehow pure at all costs, even to the point of insisting on explaining the swiftest method of suicide should he face the prospect of capture by the terrifying cannibals that roam the desolate forests and cities.

 

It pains me to say this, it really does, but overall this film was a real disappointment for me. It’s not a bad film, in fact it’s a competent, faithful adaptation but being merely adequate does not do the novel justice. On the plus side it captures the tone of the novel, the desiccated, sterile, blasted landscapes are grimly portrayed from location shooting around a post Katrina New Orleans and various industrial and abandoned sites in Oregon and Pennsylvania. All the main beats of the book are intact, the horrifying basement larder, meeting the old man (portrayed by an almost unrecognisable Robert Duvall in the films best scene), the respite of rest in the shelter and the final conclusion all do the source material proud. Viggo is his usual adept, earthy, slightly sensitive persona and the expansion of his wife’s back story which gets a page at best in the novel is handled appropriately and effectively,  it is  telescoped enough to strengthen the tale for a cinematic translation. Any UK viewers of a certain age who remember the post attack phase of the seminal nuclear war drama ‘Threads‘ will recognise a very similar and chilling presentation of mankind in the midst of annihilation, choking out a few final pathetic gasps of life being expiring, alone, all the achievements of civilisation over the past thousands of years turned to dust. 

 

The problems in ‘The Road‘ I can summate in one word – interference. There’s not been much in the press about this but putting two and two together - the financial woes of Miramax and their desperate need for commercial hits, that terrible action orientated trailer and the enormous gap between production wrap-up and final release all exude the stench of executive meddling. Scenes are truncated, seemingly cut short before they have a chance to breathe and disseminate what has occurred and their corollaries. Consequently there is no real sense of a journey, of time passing, in a puzzling fashion certain emotional beats of the film are front loaded and occur before your understanding of their significance has gained any traction. The boy isn’t bad per se but he seems far too well adjusted, too normal for someone who was born into this hellish world, who sees the dead and dying every day, whose only experience and education has been in suffering, terror and pain. This all culminates in a finale that should be emotionally shattering like the novel but hangs on the screen like a damp squib, the threads of the supposedly epic journey unfocused and the fathomless love between father and son unconvincing. Overall, a competent and passable movie in which a truly great and memorable film is trying to get out.

Unexpectedly director John Hillcoat got up as the credits dissolved away for a brief Q&A with festival director Sandra Hebron which provided some background to the productions gruelling shoot, he explained the terror he experienced when flying the print down to New Mexico to show it to McCarthy and gauge his opinion, a terror exasperated when as the credits rolled McCarthy wordlessly got up and walked out, disappearing for some twenty minutes – turns out he loved and it just had to rush to the bathroom. Most interesting was the revelation that the Production Designer, fellow Australian Chris Kennedy scouted most of the film’s locations over two months just by using Google Earth, despatching scouts with digital cameras for closer inspections when really interesting looking places were identified. After Gasper Noe’s similarly unexpected appearance at the ‘Enter The Void’ screening I’m doing quite well on the director spotting front, that’s two out of three so far with my review of ‘Cold Souls’ coming up soon…

London Film Festival 2009 – Enter The Void

 

I cannot imagine a more arresting beginning to this years festivities. The London Film Festival kicked off for me last night in spectacular form with one of the most challenging and engrossing films I’ve ever seen at the cinema. OK, OK, yes, I know I can be a bit hyperbolic on here but what I experienced last night was less a film, more an immersion into a deranged mind, a delirious hallucination of a film that is operating on the very cusp of the medium. As something of a connoisseur of extreme and outré cinema I rather arrogantly adopt a posture of being unshockable, of having seen it all before. Once again gallic lunatic Gasper Noé has assaulted that presumption and whilst there are no specific instances in his new film Enter The Void that (thankfully) are equivalent to the horrific fire extinguisher/face interface scene or prolonged and torturous rape sequence that featured in his previous movie Irrerversible this film is nonetheless an almost distressing viewing experience, both in terms of its grievous subject matter and nausea inducing visual construction. Make no mistake, this film is harder than a diamond dildo.

  

The experience is embroidered within a reasonably conventional plot – in contemporary Tokyo, specifically the hyper-real, neon cloaked playground of Shinjuku – a young drug dealer named Oscar is living with his sister Linda, a stripper, both of them Americans abroad in a sleazy megalopolis of hazy narcotics, tawdry sex and degenerate urbanity. After an ecstasy deal in a sordid Gaijin bar is exposed as a sting by the police Oscar is shot dead, his drug distressed mind not entirely sure if the terrifying experience is real or imagined. Through first person POV, a style which is employed from the opening to final frame of the film, Oscars disembodied avatar careers through the aftermath of his killing, viewing his sister’s life and subsequent hardships as a benign, incorporeal spirit whose flashbacks to both his and Linda’s earlier life slowly weave together a narrative that illustrates the painful nature of their lives that led to this traumatic present.   

    

From the strobed opening titles that inexorably grow to dominate the screen the viewer is submerged into an alternate reality Gehenna, a woozy, drifting, narcoleptic texture that takes the gimmicky premise of the 1947 noir The Lady In The Lake where the entire film was also mediated through the first person view of the central protagonist, Noé wielding this technique to phantasmal effect. The camera tracks, rolls and arcs from scene to scene, delving into various mise-en-scene paraphernalia to camouflage edits that evoke the stylization of Hitchcock’s Rope.  As usual the visuals are only half the story, Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk reprises his musical duties from Irreversible to provide a complementary aural displacement with his seething, eerie soundscapes  reverberating throughout the three hour experience.

 

The closest approximation I can make to other work is a fusion of the experimental formalism of Stan Brakhage and his fascination with movement, that exploration of space within the frame, a concern with the formalist structure of cinema to develop an abstract cadence with the Stargate sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the fractal geometries of Oscar’s serene and prismatic visions echoing the forty year pedigree of Kubrick’s journey beyond the infinite. High praise indeed since Noé’s most revered film-maker is Kubrick and 2001 his favourite film. Toward the end the visual pyrotechnics are augmented with some graphic sexual material to close the buddhist cycle of sex and death that recoils throughout the film, one image in particular seeming to unconsciously challenge Von Triers graphic penetration shot in the opening scene of Antichrist with a retort that provoked gasps, scattered nervous applause and slack-jawed amazement with a visual that personifies the phrase ’extreme close-up’. Enter The Void explores the contours of reality and screen representation, seemingly probing the very nature of existence. It’s final transcendant moments summate a unique experience and achievement, albeit one not for the faint hearted or easily offended.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

 

I like how the posters for the film are in no way appealing to the Harry Potter crowd eh? Heath Ledgers final film got a preview at the wonderful Curzon Mayfair last week, as you’d expect with these things London based Terry Gilliam was on hand to provide a typically ebullient and enthusiastic Q&A after the screening, a session that was immensely more entertaining than this sorry mis-fire of a movie. Yes, it pains me to say it but this is one of those Gilliam projects where his fevered imagination has been permitted to spin out of control, there are moments and sequences to admire in ‘Parnassus’ but ultimately it’s an unwiedly, amorphous blob of a film. When a film featuring Tom Waits as the devil fails to arrest your attention, to project any sense of presence beyond its wild imagery then you’re in trouble.

  

The plot is perhaps one of Gilliams most fantastical and that’s saying something. Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is a mysterious magi who sold his soul some 1,000 years ago to the devil in return for immortal life and his magical mirror – the Imaginarium - which leads patrons into an alternate dimensional representation of their dreams and desires, a hallucinatory experience that transforms their lives forever. Parnassus travels the world with his fanciful band of outcasts including his 16-year-old daughter Valentina (model Lily Coles screen debut), clown Anton (Andrew Garfield) and vertically challenged Percy (Verne Troyer). The rogues stumble across a body hanging from London Bridge, the white suited and mysterious Tony (Heath Ledger) who soon falls under the spell of the travelling lifestyle whilst secretly harbouring a dark past. Parnassus is in trouble as his contract with Satan is due to expire in three days, the price of which will be the immortal soul of his daughter unless he can best the devil in a competition to save five mortal souls in his Imaginarium, subjects that old nick will be tempting to the dark side with promises of their darkest desires against Parnassus celebrations of human life and hope.
 
 

First things first – I was in a foul mood when I saw the film, a mood not exactly assisted by the horrendous downpour that I endured to get over to Mayfair and this of course has coloured my opinion of the movie. If you’re in the mood to wallow in a visual spectacle, something like a recent Tim Burton movie say, at the expense of all other considerations then this is worth a cinema visit. If you’re looking for anything approaching a coherent story and plot, a satisfactory conclusion to a tale well told then you’d best look elsewhere.  It’s another paean to Gilliam’s beloved notion of the transformative power of the imagination to bring light and joy to the world, a noble sentiment to be sure but all  Gilliam has constructed is a big, empty soufflé of a movie which while visually sumptuous is hollow and un-nourishing. When asked what mythological and legendary ideas Gilliam bought to the film during the Q&A his answer was quite revealing – all of them. He has thrown in unused and half-baked ideas from his previous realised and unrealised movies and the subsequent effect is alienating. There’s a shard of Faust in there of course with the contract, a sprinkling of Biblical elements and as pointed out by another questioner the finale is reminiscent of the climax of ‘Les Miserables’ -it’s a blend which is more confusing than compulsive.

 

The trailer has done a great job of selling the movie as a sprawling, visual epic when in fact the project is much more restricted and modest on screen, Imaginarium sequences excepted. I was pleased to see various London locations (including a fairground scene that was shot directly opposite my current office location on the Southbank between City Hall and Tower Bridge) emerge as I wasn’t aware the film was set here, as well as the convenience of his home town Gilliam chose London due to its immense sense of history and antiquity, as explained during the Q&A ‘you can turn a street on Soho or the outskirts of the City and be transported back to the 16th century, it’s so textured and steeped in layers of time..’ which nailed one of the reasons why I love living here.  During the fantasy sequences Gilliam’s enormous imagination is allowed to run riot which naturally leads to the best and most memorable scenes in the movie, there is a very pythonesque tone to the proceedings with enormous stone effigies of talking policeman erupting from the ground, psychedelic landscapes of diamond encrusted shoes, elongated and ludicrously proportioned landscapes all assaulting your cerebellum.

 

And so finally to the substitution of Jude Law, Colin Farrell and Johnny Depp for the deceased Heath Ledger whose untimely death almost sabotaged the entire project. They all serve their purpose, given the confusion that runs rampant throughout proceedings by this point in the film it’s not too hard to accept such a potentially fatal  leap of imagination. Fortunately most of the material shot of Heath in the ‘real’ world was completed prior to his death which almost conveniently left his friends to step in for the fantasy sequences alone where the surrogancy is digestible, the performers only mildy winking to the audience with a few well timed lines that reference the films wider production difficulties.  Gilliam revealed how Tom Cruise no less had been in touch to express an interest in stepping in as well, an offer Gilliam immediately rejected as he wanted performers who knew and were friendly with Heath as they would simultaneously be able to mirror some of his mannerisms and body language as well as providing an appropriate tribute to their sorely missed friend. Thus Gilliam becomes one of the only film-makers on the planet who has turned Tom Cruise down for a part. Despite my reservations I do hope the film is succesful and pillages the pocket money of the Potter brigade so Gilliam can support his next project, it certainly  has the best commercial possibilities of anything he’s made for years. A hesitant good luck to him.

Zombieland

Vampires, pixies and now zombies - what is the world coming to? Well, in ‘Zombieland‘ the world is shuddering toward an apocalyptic end as you guessed it, the zombie holocaust has struck North America and the continent is infected with the ravenous, flesh crazed fast moving undead – this is a runner not a  shambler zombie movie. Lead Jesse Eisenberg, the Michael Cera clone who like his counterpart seems almost unnaturally uncomfortable in his own skin is Columbus, an introverted, phobia-ridden and friendless student whose isolation proves fortunate when the uprising begins, his lonely lifestyle protecting him from the murderous intentions of undead turned family members and friends.

  

In a manner not entirely dissimilar to the great ’Zombie Survival Guide‘ the opening scenes outline Columbus personnel mantras for survival in the zombieland world, verging from always checking the back seats of stolen cars, always wearing seatbelts, remaining healthy to out-run the ghouls and insisting on the double tap – ensuring that every zombie takes a round to the brain. Smart boy. After an arresting opening sequence in which this ideology is hilariously communicated and the zombie infected world is briskly outlined Columbus teams up with the Twinkie seeking redneck hard-case Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson playing Woody Harrelson in a good way) and a couple of young grifter sisters who are traveling to California to visit an LA based theme park which represents an earlier and more innocent time now that their childhood and adolescence have been brutally crushed. Perhaps the geeks shall inherit the earth?

  

Rifle through the drawers for that pizza menu, chuck a six-pack in the fridge, put your feet up and lie back to enjoy one of this years most sweetly entertaining movies. There is absolutely nothing else going on here, no subtexts or camouflaged commentary and that’s actually something of a blessed relief, the film which is a bastardized offspring of an abandoned TV series is designed and succeeds as a punchy 80 minute rollercoaster ride and that’s what it delivers. There is a slight whiff of an adolescent fantasy about the whole enterprise – the geek lead, the guns, the collapse of rules and law, the conveniently available hot chick but I’ll let that slide due to the fine mix of genuine humor and wretched horror, achieving that fine balancing act between the two is difficult enough and an already infamous, absolutely superb cameo from a certain comedy legend make this unmissible for genre or comedy fans. Of course the whole enterprise brings to mind ‘Shaun Of The Dead‘ but it does bring a few new ideas to the table and would serve as an ideal double bill with our domestic tale. It doesn’t quite eclipse ‘Drag Me To Hell‘ for this years best horror/comedy hybrid but it’s certainly worth an hour and a half of your time.

  

Things should be getting more hectic and dare I say it darker round here as the London Film Festival kicks off this week beginning with a frankly gruelling sounding double whammy of ‘Enter The Void‘ and ‘The Road‘ over the next few days. This could be tricky as I’ve heard some pretty intimidating things about ‘Void’ including mass walk-outs and projectile vomiting from the other Film Festivals it has screened at, ‘The Road’ is also not exactly a joyous, uplifting celebration of the human experience. Wish me luck and, erm, stamina. I’m combining my efforts this year with a side project that I’m going to mysteriously not elucidate upon, all shall become clear if my efforts are successful. The NFT are back in my good books after I managed to get tickets for all the screenings I wanted as well as free tickets to both this intriguing little number and to the secret BFI Members surprise film on the 26th, I just hope it’s a comedy….