Gone Baby Gone & Casey Affleck Q&A

 

I undertook my first visit to the BFI since I moved last night and it was a little odd to be heading away from home rather than stopping off en-route back to Richmond – I’m sure I’ll adapt. I think one of the most interesting American actors around at the moment is Casey Affleck so it was a pleasure to catch his new film ‘Gone Baby Gone‘ last night followed by the usual interview and Q&A, this time conducted by BFI Festival Director Sandra Hebron. The film is the directing debut of his superstar brother Ben Affleck who is a figure who would normally require some lethal combination of automatic weapons, innocent young puppies, weeping orphans and dum-dum rounds to get me to the cinema regardless of whether or not he was in front of or behind the camera. However dear reader yours truly has just choked down a generous portion of humble pie as this was a promising debut with another outstanding performance from Affleck Jr.

  

The film revolves around a child kidnapping case in working class Boston which caused its release to be delayed in the UK due to the alleged similarities to the McCann case. It’s a grim and grueling trawl through the contemporary underbelly of the sixth generation Irish city as local private investigator Patrick Kenzie attempts to track down and retrieve the missing daughter of Beatrice McReady, a crime which receives the usual hysterical levels of media scrutiny. The extended family of the child feel that Patrick has a better chance to retrieve their daughter due to his local connections and ability to reach and speak to residents who are unwilling to co-operate with the police. It emerges that Beatrice is involved in some low level drug dealing, is an abusive mother and has fallen in with some truly nasty criminals which raises the question whether the child would want to be rescued…

 

The film had generated some positive reviews but such are my prejudices I was still sceptical but the opportunity to see Casey Affleck in person was too enticing – given his performance in ‘The Assassination Of Jess James By The Coward Robert Ford’ I think we have something of a new Montgomery Clift on our hands, a sensitive yet slightly unhinged actor with a quiet intensity to rival Daniel Day Lewis. ‘Gone Baby Gone‘ was OK, some nice moments with a generally low key directorial style which suited the subject matter. Affleck had attracted a pretty heavyweight cast (Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, Amy Madigan) and the film has a nice conclusion which poses a serious moral conundrum about what you’d do in the same situation. Casey and Ben where both raised in working class Boston so the argot and detail of the city, its inhabitants and environment is well realised and feels very authentic. As a whole while a bit cliched in places its worth a couple of hours of your time. It reminded me a lot of this which is a film I loved when I first saw it, I should try to track down a copy on DVD.

 

The big surprise of the interview and Q&A was that Ben Affleck turned up as well. I actually warmed to him a little as he spoke quite lucidly about the film, how nervous and unsure of himself he was and how relived he felt once the ‘ordeal’ of making it was over. Typical of brothers they also frequently insulted each other which was funny, particularly when Casey was asked if big brother Ben ever shouted at him on set. ‘No, not really’ he replied, ‘If he wanted to punish me he’d make me watch ‘Armageddon‘ or something’ – cue big laugh. Someone in the audience also brazenly stated how nice it was to see Casey in a film where he could understand what he was saying <he has a reputation for mumbling> which he took with good humour. Oh, and if you’re wondering what I’ve got against Ben Affleck then I have just one word for you – ‘Gigli‘. I’ve seen some terrible movies in my time but that’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

 

After much speculation, after much anticipation, after much conjecture and some early negative reviews, ‘Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull‘ (after typing that out twice its only just occurred to me what a unwieldy title that is) is here. As it coincided with a best friends birthday, I booked us tickets front and centre at Odeon Leicester Square for this one, quite apt since I’d seen ‘Crusade’ with the same friends wwwaaayyyyy back in 1989 in the slightly less ostentatious Odeon Peterborough. How times change eh?

 

So, does it live up to the hype and fan-boy anticipation? Well, let’s give you a spoiler free brief synopsis first. As the film opens Indiana Jones and his pal ‘Mac’ McCale (Ray Winstone) find themselves in the clutches of the evil communists led by Irina Spalko (a hammy but amusing Cate Blanchett) as they infiltrate Area 51, the American government’s repository of its most dangerous secrets and devices. The dirty commies are on the hunt for a mysterious otherworldly artefact, a device of incalculable power that will enable the Soviets to win the cold war and overwhelm the forces of justice and freedom. Escaping their clutches (c’mon, its Indiana Jones so I’m not giving much away) in a truly spectacular fashion Indy finds himself expelled from his teaching job back in the states (some sly 50’s McCarthy criticism here) and is compromised by friendship and duty into hunting down the titular crystal skulls before they fall into the hands of the red conspiracy. Along the way he is joined by the rebellious whippersnapper Mutt Williams (a tolerable Shia La Beouf) and some blasts from the past as he races to an ancient temple in deepest South America to complete his quest….

 

For the most part I thought this was absolutely terrific. All I wanted from this was, well, an Indiana Jones movie – some quips, some pulse racing action sequences, a bit of Republic Serial derring-do and a little bit of self referential fan-boy gestures all of which the film delivered in spades. With one exception the first thirty to forty five minutes were quite disappointing to me and you could clearly see Lucas’s fingerprints all over them – the unfunny meekrats, the focus on 1950’s Americana, the bloody obvious referencing to this all triggered warning signals that the negative reviews may well have been accurate. Once the action shifted to South America however the action was fully unleashed and the next two acts were overwhelming, fantastic adrenaline fueled fun. Ancient ruins concealed by waterfalls, creepy crawlies, cartoon bad guys, swordfights, air travel montages of our heroes traveling to foreign climes, booby traps and blowdart wielding savages - it’s all here. Considering the schwaltzfest this could have degenerated into I was hugely relived to see some of the atypical Spielberg family structure background material being pretty much sidelined - no vomit inducing tearful reunions or life lessons here which can wreck his films (SPOLIER ALERT as it’s the final scene but A.I anyone?)….

  

People have complained that the film feels like a computer game level, comments similar to my observations on ‘Apocalypto‘ a while ago but I think they’ve really got this the wrong way round. Indiana Jones was obviously a huge influence on the likes of ‘Tomb Raider‘, ‘Prince of Persia’ or ‘Pitfall‘ and naturally Spielberg has reverted to the same structure that the Indy films helped template back in the 1980’s – lets face it, it’s not really in anyone’s interest to experiment with some daring narrative structure or tamper with the formula when all you need is a macguffin, some quips, some superbly designed and executed action sequences coupled with a palpable sense of wonder and adventure which the film generates and certainly climaxs with. It’s also interesting to see the Soviets as the bad guys again which seems apt considering the sabre rattling that has been occurring over the past couple of years – I’m not in any way suggesting that this was deliberate on the part of Lucas or Spielberg as I’m sure as soon as they decided years ago to shift the story from the 1940’s to the 1950’s they really only had one tyrannical empire around who was bent on world domination – it’s just another intersection of film and the ‘real’ world in my book.

 

The BBC have shown the original trilogy of films over the last three successive Sundays and I caught ‘Raiders’ and ‘Last Crusade’ to whet the appetite as it were. Although ‘Raiders‘ is of course a classic and the opening of ‘Doom‘ is terrific my favourite remains ‘Crusade‘ which I thought stood up pretty damn well for its twenty year vintage. Yes, some of the interactions between Indiana and his old man are tiresome especially as I have personally always held a mild dislike of Sean Connery but the action scenes are far more exciting and well choreographed for me and the gags are better. More films are apparently in the frame although Spielberg quite effectively answers some of the speculation and rumour that Shia Lebouf is being groomed to replace Ford in the franchise in ’Skulls’ final shot – nice touch.

Roger Waters – The Dark Side Of The Moon

    

Well, I am now officially middle-aged. Quite out of the blue, my brother called and let me know he had managed to get tickets to see Roger Waters, estranged founder member of the great ‘Pink Floyd‘ at the O2 arena. This is allegedly the last time he is touring (at least until the tax man comes calling again, he said cynically) and with a cheap 2 for 1 deal in place we managed to persuade the old man and my brothers girlfriend to come along – quite the family outing. ’The Dark Side Of The Moon‘ originally came out a couple of months before I was born and this has long been this apocryphal story circulating in the family that I was plonked in between the two speakers and probably cried all the way through my Dad’s original release copy way back in 1973. Since then me and my brother have worn down my Dad’s vinyl copies of this and other great ‘Pink Floyd’ albums although once Waters left in the early eighties the quality and vision of the group evaporated, only the live shows retaining my interest. 

 

For me, the one and only redeeming feature of the Live8 fiasco <Random talentless hack – ‘I’m so glad to be here and help the poor people, now here’s my new single out on April 5th, be sure to buy it!!’> was the brief ’Pink Floyd’ reunion set. I’m not one of those musos who consider Syd Barrett the great lost talent of British rock music but it was a genuine moment I think to see Waters and Gilmour bury the hatchet, dissipate twenty five years of enmity and make a moving tribute to their old friend at the same time.

  

As I mentioned earlier, Pink Floyd and Roger Waters of course are legendary for their live shows, the state of the art lighting, projections, screens and visuals they employ to complement the music. I have seen some big gigs in my time, U2 during the Zoo TV tour, David Bowie on his Sound & Vision tour, some awesome Depeche Mode concerts – this was absolutely staggering and one of the most jaw dropping concert experiences I’ve witnessed.

   

The first set consisted of a selection of material from ‘Pink Floyd’s career, mercifully omitting (with one exception) Waters solo work which I always found mediocre. Opening with the ideal ‘In The Flesh‘ from ‘The Wall‘ got the crowds attention which was promptly followed by the darkly cheerful ‘Mother’. Unfortunately, ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun‘ was curiously flat, a real shame as this is one of my favourite tracks and the only pre-1970’s number that he played. However, things improved dramatically as we got three back to back tracks from ‘Wish You Were Here‘ including the haunting title song and a stripped down yet magical version of ‘Shine On You Crazy Diamond‘, then two tracks from the final Floyd album that Waters worked on ‘The Final Cut‘ followed by an unfortunate rendition of a recent solo effort, ‘Leaving Beirut’. This recent single was….um….OK….Actually no, that’s not going to fly – it was fucking terrible but he recovered from this by playing a rocking version of ‘Sheep‘, the best song off ‘Animals‘ and another of my all time favourite ‘Floyd’ tracks. At this climax to the first set we also had the legendary inflatable pig unleashed on us, it was actually quite unnerving to see this enormous beast drifting around the venue, made me think of the eyes and piggy creature in the first ‘Amityville Horror’ movie for some reason.

   

Then the band returned and played ‘Dark Side Of The Moon‘ in sequential order in its entirety, ideal as the album itself blends from one track to another and this was when the quadraphonic sound really kicked into high gear – you had sounds coming at you from above, below and both sides – amazing. An assaulting rendition of ‘On The Run‘ left me felling a bit startled and this was swiftly followed with a fantastic rendition of ‘Time‘. Toward the end of this section they unveiled what I can only describe as ‘THE BIGGEST LASER IN THE WORLD‘ as the album neared it’s finale, a glittering suspended rotating pyramid scouring the entire 23,000 seater venue with lasers, echoing the album’s iconic record cover. Absolutely stunning.

   

Following a short break we got an encore, a sequence of tracks from ‘The Wall’ ending with one of my all time favourite tracks of all time (mate), ‘Comfortably Numb‘. I remember being woken up by my brother at an early age to come watch ‘The Wall‘ with him late at night (of course it now clicks that he was hammered!!) and the sequence in the film when ‘Comfortably Numb‘ plays details a sickly young chap holed up in bed, crippled by asthma- something I strongly identified with. It’s just a great song and a perfect finish to what is allegedly Waters last tour ever so I’m elated that I got round to seeing him when I had the chance. It was also cool to see the ‘Another Brick In The Wall‘ live which is one of the first songs I ever remember liking as a kid along with these two, the last one the undisputed greatest No.1 UK single ever. Ah, memories eh?  Alas, no versions of ‘Interstellar Overdrive‘ or ‘Bike‘ but hey, you can’t have everything…

Mintys New Yard

  
Success!! After four weeks of negotiation, subterfuge and machiavellian plotting I have finally received the keys to my new place and moved in last week. Having taken a couple of walks around the area over the weekend it’s really only just sinking in just how lucky I have been with this, the location is incredible with everything I need within a very short walk. When I first moved to London back in 2000 I was working for this crew and my old office is now just round the corner so I know the area well, but it’s amazing just how much (2002) its changed in the mere five years since I moved on (2007) the obvious one being of course the skyline. If I step outside my front door then I’m on the Thames Waterside which of course means I’m fucked when this happens, but until then I’ll soldier on. I have a pretty good cinema on my doorstep and easy transport links into the West End too.

  

It’s funny, I was born a little further down in South East London almost 35 years ago and here I am back with the first place of my own. Life eh? It is expensive but not a huge amount more than places I’ve looked at over the past few weeks and the proximity to work and location more than make up for the cost. Heck, even if worse comes to worse and the contract work dries up – something significantly more likely with the recent Tory gains in the local elections – then I can always land a job back in the private sector in Canary Wharf or I might try for the City itself. OK, tricky.

So then, lets have a party shall we? OK, perhaps not.

Iron Man

Well, the first summer blockbuster is here. I’m still not entirely sure why I went to see this, I love my superheroes as much as the next geek (excited yet?) but ‘Iron Man‘ didn’t really appeal to me, he’s not a character I particularly care for and Downey struck me as seriously miscast as, well, he ain’t exactly heroic is he? Still, I’ve been indulging in some serious and quite ponderous films recently so a couple of hours of fast paced American nonsense with fighting and explosions seemed apt to celebtrate some particularly good news – more on that later in the week.

   

Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark, genius inventor and playboy billionaire CEO of Stark Industries, the most advanced and profitable weapons company in the world. Following a presentation to the military in Afghanistan, jihadists ambush Starks convoy and he is critically wounded with a blizzard of shrapnel to the chest. After being saved by a medical inventor also in the clutches of the terrorists Stark awakes to find his heart is powered by a unique electromagnetic power source – should it ever run out of power he will die. Forced at gunpoint to build his weapons for the terrorists nefarious ends, Stark instead turns his intellect to the creation of a new model of battle armour, a design that should expedite his escape whilst incorporating his new cyborg organ and ensure his weapons are never used against his countrymen again…

 

It’s popcorn fluff and if that’s all you want then it delivers. Contrary to my expectations Downey actually pulls off the superhero persona and throws in a few laughs for good measure. Gwyneth Paltrow has always elicited a dismissive shrug from me but for the very first time in my experience she actually looks pretty damn hot but the real stand out co-star is good old Jeff Bridges as the unusually monikered Obiadiah Stane (spoilers if you haven’t read the comic), with his amusing beard/baldy interface. Director Jon Favreau was being a bit optimistic when he stated that he was aiming for a similar origin story to ‘Batman Begins’ as it is not in the same league, the whole ‘reap what you sow’ US foreign policy subtext is paper thin and the usual evil Islamic terrorist bad guys are tiresome, even if they are ultimately at the behest of another puppet master closer to Starks’ home. Still, it has a couple of nice set-pieces and impressive effects which keeps you reasonably entertained for a couple of hours if you let it wash over you. Look our for a post credit coda with an unexpected cameo from a certain eyepatch sporting super-agent – it looks like we may have another Marvel Comics team superhero franchise on our hands…

Just a quickie – Remember when I mentioned the ‘Withnail & I’ screening at the South Bank and Radio documentary interviews that were recorded after? Well, its finally been broadcast and you can catch it again here.