Cannes Canned….
After a spectacularly entertaining weekend down on the South Coast I’ve been catching up with our gallic cousins and their cinema adoring ways, as the 66th incarnation of the worlds most famous film festival closed yesterday. Never a stranger to controversy the filthy minded French decided to award the prestigious Palme d’Or to a lesbian love story which apparently features long sequences of unsimulated sex, thus to maintain my journalistic integrity I will of course (coughs) be seeking this out as soon as it opens in London. I might even go and see it a few times, just, well, ’cause I’m sure it will reward repeat viewings, right? I will obviously have to penetrate its numerous thematic and social layers, so maybe three or four visits should suffice? Jury president Mr. Steven Spielberg esq. explained the rationale behind the decision, stating ”The film is a great love story … We were absolutely spellbound by the two brilliant young actresses, and the way the director observed his young players”;
Interesting choice of phrase Steve. Just to be serious for a moment this does sound great, and very timely given the presence of the gay marriage debates and legislation being enacted in certain states of the US and across swathes of Europe. A three-hour long lesbian coming-of-age drama kinda makes a change from Iron Man 3 I guess….
Looking to the land of the rising sun Takashi Mikke’s new one was savaged across the board, I’ll still go and see it and give him a chance, given his proclivity I guess he’s due a dud given the great height’s he’s been hitting over the past few years. Of more interest is countryman’s Hirokazu Koreeda drama Soshite Chichi ni Naru which gentley wooed many of the crowd, and picked up a festival prize as well. Less impressive was Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring which vanished without a trace, although it apparently features a pole dancing scene which auterist spotters have linked back through three of her films, the overall opinion seems to be that the film is as vacuous as its privilged and pilfering characters.
Back in America and Alexander Payne’s Nebraska got a lot of love, and Bruce Dern moseyed off to the sunset with a best actor gong, so I’m really looking forward to this one. It has kind of a The Last Picture Show vibe to it, and those landscapes can look phenomenal when properly photographed in black and white. The Coens also took home the Grand Prix, although I have zero interest in 1960′s folk music, well, it’s still the Coens, and thus is essential viewing. Speaking of zero interest, there’s a biopic of Liberace you say?;
I know that trailer’s been out for a while but I’ve only just sat down and watched it, I predict a Oscar nomination for Mr. Douglas come next February, he’s kinda at the right age to get given a best actor gong isn’t he? Like I said Liberace holds zero interest for me but it’s Soderbergh so like Magic Mike I’ll overcome my antipathy to the source material and give it a chance, as usual it’s got that Soderberghesque lenses, gels and filtered ‘look’, and Matt Damon looks like he’s trying something different as they say. Speaking of elderly sex-pests (Douglas that is, not Damon) Polanski made a complete twat of himself with his dinosaur opinions, given his rather sordid history you’d think he’d be primed to keep his stupid mouth shut? His comments have kinda soured me on seeing his new film Venus In Furs but we’ll see if that opinion changes.
One of the ‘emerging’ films which seems to have leapt out from the Croisette is J.C. Chandor’s follow-up to Margin Call (I watched that again earlier in the year and it actually gets better the second time around) which sees Robert Redford surviving a sinking, storm-swept ship. There’s no-one else in it, he speaks maybe a dozen words in the 90 minutes picture, so this sounds like one of those cinematic experiments which when successfully executed can be truly sublime.
Finally, looking over to the genre side of things then Jim Jarmusch’s vampire drama has had a mixed response, with phrases like ‘energetic’ and ‘studenty’ spurting around. Jarmusch has been a like lukewarm over the past years I find, but that’s quite a cast and I’ll give anything a chance which aims to pump some new blood into the post Twilight vampire genre. But you know me gentle reader, even before the festival started I was anxiously looking forward to Refn & Gosling’s second collaboration, and the reports of mass walkouts and boo’s hurled at the screen due to some insanely gratuitous violence have got me all a flutter, what can I say except I guess I’m a sick fuck? Kristen Scott Thomas is apparently phenomenal;
That’s Kubrick’s last cinematographer Larry Smith who crafted those neon glowing visuals, here’s a painful clip – you have been warned.
Cereal Killer….
Hmmm. I was born in Woolwich y’know, although my family moved to East Anglia when I was a few months old, so I don’t really have any emotional connection to the place. Nevertheless yesterday’s events are quite odd to behold as a Londoner, and the inevitable groups across the political spectrum exploiting the murder is truly nauseating, so I could do with a bit of laugh this morning – this did the rounds a couple of weeks ago but it still makes me chuckle, eat your fucking cereal Ryan;
I wonder if Rodriguez is holding emergency marketing talks ahead of the release of his sequel?
RIP Ray Manzarek
Yeah I know, blatantly obvious, but this is one of my all time favourite tracks so that’s my excuse;
BFI John Boorman Season – Beyond Rangoon (1995)
Can a movie change the world? Over their long and illustrious history they have certainly provoked non-fictional responses, shamefully screenings of DW Griffiths still controversial The Birth Of A Nation aligned with an upsurge in lynchings in the deep South, and Spike Lee’s incendary Do The Right Thing is claimed to have sparked a plague of public clashes in New York. Ronald Regan reputedly begin to chill to the prospects of discussions with the Soviets after being moved and stunned by seeing the TV movie The Day After*, but then again he also asked to see the War Room that was depicted in Dr. Strangelove, once he was inaugurated, a tale that one assumes was apocryphal as the alternative is too terrifying to entertain. Closer to home and sticking with TV movies Ken Loach’s brutal Cathy Come Home led to questions in the House Of Commons and new legislation to modernise social service provision, I’m sure there are many other examples where the fictional has influenced the real, where an issue or subject, an event or is brought to the radiating and excoriating sunlight. This brings us to Beyond Rangoon, John Boorman’s scathing portrayal of the military junta in Burma, as seen through the eyes of a naive American traveller played with a sweltering charm of Patricia Arquette. Released in 1995 this was one of the first films to spotlight the regime’s appaling behaviour – atrocities which still occurs daily by the way – and is partially credited with accelerating the release of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, an event which raised the previous invisible issue to the world media and all the attention that has subsequently been directed to that beautiful corner of the planet.
I wanted to revisit this film for a couple of reasons, first of all I remember seeing this on VHS back in the late nineties and being floored by an unexpected slap of a film, a powerful yell for justice and hu, excoriating a litany of violations and suppression which had previously been unknown to me. Secondly I wanted to select something a little of the beaten track for my Boorman season, it would have been too easy to cover the usual suspects of his career – Deliverance, Point Blank, Excalibur – plus if the film was as good as I remembered then maybe a humble review might just prompt some readers to hunt it down and widen its exposure, however infinitesimal. Set in 1988 the film charts the brutal suppression of that years pro-democracy uprising, transmitted through the eyes of audience surrogate Laura Bowman (Arquette) who travels to Burma with her sister Andy (Frances McDormand who is always great) to repair her soul after the murder of her husband and son by burglars. After losing her passport she stumbles into one of the 8888 protests and is tarred with guilt by association, the junta accusing of her of aiding and abetting the insurgents for foreign exploitation, and she is soon on a desperate mission to flee to the safety of Thailand with her new friend U Aung Ko, a persecuted professor whom was one of the central revolutionaries protesting the scripture of Democracy .
Any film that achieves an ‘awestruck’ achievement from the notoriously grumpy Andrew Sarris has to be doing something right (it even got into his top dozen for 1995) but memory is a funny old thing, and I found this film to be a rather turgid affair, with only a few scattered high points of sweltering interest. Maybe it’s the cynic that has festered in me in the past twenty years since the film was released, the idealistic scales falling from ones eyes after two decades of real world events and political experience, or that this movie’s style of storytelling seems clumsy in comparison to today’s hyperkinetic norms, but Beyond Rangoon suffers from a rather patronising tone which takes the time to show just how IMPORTANT it is as if speaking to an impatient child, rather than letting the story unfold organically through Laura’s eyes as witness to the horrific events and struggle for liberty. I’ve always liked Patricia Arquette although she seems to have dropped off the radar in recent years, for some reason the screenwriter has encumbered her with a redundant voiceover which tells us exactly what she is thinking, when this should really be expressed through her performance as she comes to terms with her bereavement through supporting and assisting others. Similarly the Burmese protesters and activists are little more than ideological ciphers, spouting their concerns through political speeches rather than human beings covertly discussing their experiences with a sympathetic alien , overall it’s all quite forced even as you admire the ambition to weld together an important ‘issue’ film with a convincing character study, to make the tonic more palatable for an unsuspecting audience.
As I mentioned before Boorman likes to use a journey as a narrative structure, with his protagonists subtly changing and morphing as their sojourn unfurls, the experiences of life and the people they meet altering their world view and ideology over the course of their odyssey. This is the trajectory of Beyond Rangoon and the film gains a new momentum as it hurtles into its second hour, when John Seale’s expressive photography expands the vista of the film and it actually starts to arrest the attention with drama and peril, the expedition generating some missed heat and drive as Laura frantically navigates the wilderness with her wounded compatriot in tow. Unfortunately an early Hans Zimmer score hobbles some of this liberty with the obvious employment of Far Eastern chimes and wistful panpipe warbling, as one of my favourite contemporary composers (alongside Howard Shore and Clint Mansell since you ask) he falls seriously into cliché mode here, as it is the most obvious choice to employ the native instruments of the culture you are unearthing, especially in such a doe-eyed, sentimental fashion. To be fair though the film’s heart is in the right place and its position as possibly the first serious work to shine a light on the horrendous abuses in Burma shouldn’t be faulted, even if the delivery method of the movie doesn’t match the historical bravery that the movement should be assigned. It seems as if Boorman was the go to guy in filming movies with a mixture of action and issues, usually in difficult foreign climates (see also The Emerald Forest as well as Deliverance), smuggling a little political persuasion amongst the characterisation, which charitably speaking yield mixed results. Whilst we’re on the subject can I also recommend the surprisingly moving Luc Besson biopic The Lady which centres on Aung San Suu Kyi’s extraordinarily brave fight for justice, it’s a much more nuanced presentation of the political intertwining with the personal with a terrific central performance from Michelle Yeoh an achievement which really deserved some award kudos but was sadly overlooked. So that’s my knuckles rapped for being a bit creative isn’t it? Next time I’ll stick to the formula and focus on the agreed ‘classics’ I guess, thinking logically there is a reason why the likes of Hope & Glory and Point Blank are remembered and Beyond Rangoon is relegated to the back benches of cinephile scrutiny….
*One speculates what he would have made of Threads, the UK equivalent which remains one of the most harrowing and terrifying pieces ever submitted to film in my opinion. My entire school generation still shudder at the mention of it…..
Cannes 2013 Film Schedule
What a week eh? I think we can all agree that this is a period we’d all like to get behind us, whether it’s the nauseating hagiography of the worst and most destructive entity to assault my country since the Führer’s Luftwaffe or carnage inducing explosions over in North America, not to mention the mind-boggling decision not to acquiesce to the vast majority of the public’s demand that something needs to be done to control the horrific proliferation of massacre and murder implements – exactly how the fuck can those Senators ever look their constituents in the eye again? Simply unbelievable. Still, we’re here to talk about the movies of course and today saw the unveiling of this years programme for the worlds most prestigious film festival, and whilst I can’t say I’m jumping up and down with excitement there are some appearances which deserve mention. Looking at the list of films in competition I am struck by the same response I experience whenever I receive a new edition of Sight & Sound, namely that I rather arrogantly assume I know a lot about cinema until confronted with a dozen directors and filmmakers that I simply have never heard of – like clockwork this occurs pretty much every month. There is still so much to learn and see, and of course this is a good thing. So forgive me for a rather Westencentric and English language orientated look at what’s on offer, here’s the latest sight of the opening gala selection;
Just posting this makes my skin crawl but one strives to be neutral, as you have gathered I loathe Baz Luhrmann and all the atrocities he has visited upon the cinema, especially Australia and Moulin Rogue which are worthy of particularly venomous scorn. It’s nothing personal, I’m sure he’s lovely chap whom is kind to pets and children but I simply can’t stand his films, and even the threat of repeated molestations by a horde of famished rapedogs couldn’t drag me to the cinema to see this. It wasn’t always this way, I was entertained by Strictly Ballroom for example when that came out back in nineteen ninety whatever, although upon reflection I was smoking a lot of weed then and my critical facilities may have been somewhat warped. Gatsby is a big, prestige product however and some quarters are really looking forward to it, so I’ll pinch my nose and let you make your own mind up.
I think we’re all looking forward to this, it looks ravishing and Refn seems to be powering from strength to strength as his career accelerates, one wonders if he can take the material to the next level or if this will just be a pleasantly violent and stylish thriller yarn. Now, is he still on board for the long languishing Logan’s Run remake or not? I heard that Gosling had bailed but maybe he’s looking at replacements….
This looks like a slightly different tack for the Coens, it’s difficult to articulate but this looks a lot more ‘realistic’ and less mannered than most of their recent output, I can’t say I’m chomping at the proverbial bit to see this but one has to see everything new of theirs at the flicks doesn’t one?
I quite like Sophia Coppola’s movies but this looks a little samey, but then again if it ain’t broke don’t fix it I guess? The woeful travails of the incredibly wealthy, those poor souls navigating their empty lives as they are ferried from fashion show to red carpet premieres, the poor little darlings, it must be so horrid…
And finally as I don’t have the time to delve further at the moment, I don’t want to be a complete philistine and will actually post some foreign language competition, so let’s go with the always reliable Mikke Takashi – looking amusing as always. I didn’t even know Alexander Payne had another film in the can so that’s a nice surprise, a new Polanski is always worth a look and if like me you’re a little lukewarm on this schedule as there isn’t anything which really leaps out as a must see – other than Only God Forgives maybe - there may be some hidden gems tucked away under those directors we’ve never heard of. Now, if you’ll excuse me in keeping with the spirit of the week I’m off to laugh uproariously at some innocent youngsters get torn to pieces by a pack or slavering hell beasts, it’s the only way to keep sane….
Sundance London 2013 – Prologue
What a relief. Yes, the good news that after last years unforseen setback we’ve corrected the course of the good ship Menagerie, and we will be covering this years Sundance Film Festival at the O2 in sunny Greenwich. I’ve been waiting with bated breath to hear about this, whilst I was quietly confident you really never know, but the schedule has just come through so now we have to decide which films to cover. Looking at the programme over the four days and weighing up screening times my current plans revolve around The Look Of Love, Touchy Feely, Sleepwalk With Me, Blackfish, Mud, and In A World, and a certain other picture that we’ll come to shortly. It looks similar to the LFF in that there’s a twin track of Press Screenings which start on the Monday, or you can apply for tickets for the public screenings – tricky. I’m actually working up until Wednesday next week which somewhat throws a spanner in the works in terms of the press screenings, which I assume will be early in the morning or at lunchtime – we shall see. Then again every single one of the 22 films I saw at the LFF in 2012 were at press showings which really isn’t ideal, it’s much more fun seeing movies with a paying audience, there’s certainly more chance of a tangible atmosphere which very rarely materializes when a bunch of jaded old hacks get together for a group grumble. Then again with the great unwashed you’re taking your chances with some Doritos munching, phone fiddling cretin whom might sit next to you and destroy the ambiance through their selfish behaviour, it’s a tough life sometimes. Anyway, there’s still not a great deal around in terms of video trailers for the festival, although I have sourced this which may get the celluloid blood pumping;
Not wishing to leave anything to chance I have separately purchased tickets to a certain Upstream Colour, as there is simply no fucking way on god’s green earth I am missing this film, especially since all of the numerous podcasts I listen to have essentially claimed it as the greatest American film of the past five years which in its own quiet way ‘revolutionizes cinema’. Now, granted, these chaps like myself can veer into the dense waters of hyperbole from time to time but it really does sound extraordinary, and one hopes that the hype can meet the movie. The good news is the Sunday screening is at the O2 Super Screen which to put it bluntly is fucking massive, so I’ll try for press tickets first and we’ll have this screening as our fallback – deal?
I’ll probably wanna see it twice anyway, does this give me an excuse to post the trailer again? I mean, it’s not like I watched it half a dozen times over the weekend or anything. I wonder if Shane Carruth is actually gonna be around for promotional purposes, if so then I might bravely broach my first interview opportunity ever…
Elysium (2013) Trailer
Crikey, it’s all going a bit SF at the moment isn’t it? Everyone seems jolly excited about Matt Damon;
There’s been plenty of speculation that with Oblivion, Elysium and Gravity that this could be a flagship year for original SF material, given that these projects are not derived from pre-existing material such as comic books, TV series, toy lines, board games or other vapid sources. I prefer to remain cautious and will wait to see the quality of the individual missions, the former has received a somewhat tepid response, this I thought has a compelling visual sheen but is keeping its cards close to its chest (which is a complementary observation), and the continued sensor silence on Gravity makes me suspect that there is a serious malfunction that is still being rectified. Still, I’ll catch the Cruiser over the next few days and report back on the first wave’s success or failures…..but for now run from those thetans Tom, run!!;
BFI John Boorman Season – Fellowship Speech
Whilst I turn my attention to the first of my reviews here’s a little more context setting to the programme, a video of the speech that Boorman gave when accepting the highest accolade of the UK industry a couple of weeks ago;
Watch this space for the first review, probably mid-week. In other news my interest grows in The Evil Dead remake which hit over the weekend, I’m hearing reports of it being the most gory, ferociously fun horror film in five or six years, I’m still a little hesitant but the Red Letter Media gang grudgingly gave it a pass and I’m usually in tandem with those sick fucks……
The Witch is Dead….
Y’know, I’ve been thinking through the various ways we could mark todays events, maybe a look at some of the core political films of the era (lots of Alan Clarke, Mike Leigh and Ken Loach in other words), or something along the line of a general movie politics post, but I think I can keep this short and sweet, with an obvious but apt clip;
I don’t wish ill of many people, I really don’t, there’s more than enough hate and divisions in the world, but I think you can make a special case for poisonous political fanatics whose disgusting ideologies and policies are still harming people today – thus I hope she is consigned to the dustbin of history. Good fucking riddance….
Roger Ebert (1942 – 2013)
‘Pearl Harbor” is a two-hour movie squeezed into three hours, about how on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on an American love triangle’ – now that’s how you open a movie review. So farewell Roger Ebert, perhaps the last ‘famous’ film critic, an inspiration to many whose movie lore expanded past the mainstream to the arthouse, a tireless campaigner for cinema appreciation and education. It was only when I got onto the web back in those twilight years of the 20th century that I fully appreciated his enormous position in North America as simply ‘the’ face of modern mainstream film criticism, growing up in England my movie eduction revolved around Empire Magazine, the film section of my local library, Barry Norman and the now sadly defunct phenomenon of BBC and yes even ITV film seasons, an educational resource which peaked with those precious few years of Moviedrome. As such I can’t say that I’m enormously moved by his passing on an emotional level as many of my North American colleagues seem to be, I didn’t grow up watching him on the box as my formative cinema tastes were maturing, but I can appreciate the unparalleled impact and influence he had on the movies, and some of the recollections and tributes that I’m seeing are really quite moving. As the plaudits quite rightly stroll in – this Herzog response is probably the best I’ve seen so far – I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t offer something a little more substantial than a couple of sentences and a montage tribute, so lets start with this infamous exchange of fire over what else – a Kubrick movie;
I’m at the age when I prefer to have my preconceptions challenged, not to get angry like a petulant child if someone slates a movie I love or admires a movie I hate, but to make me pause in my opinions and perhaps take a look at something from a different angle, and many of Ebert’s reviews manage that difficult feat. This may sound like damning with faint praise but when I’m throwing together one of my inferior efforts that Chicago Sun Times library is my immediate fall-back position for any links, as I can rest safely in the knowledge that even if his review isn’t positive it will at least be interesting, well written and illuminating, and hopefully make me look as if I know what the hell I’m talking about through sheer osmosis. When scathing, he could also be very funny.
By all accounts he was an upbeat and optimistic guy, even when ravaged by the cruel cancer that took him, unpretentious and modest he walked into the cinema with an optimistic mood, with no hidden agenda to settle scores or stir controversy purely as a profile raising exercise. Enormously prolific he churned out a staggering 300 reviews last year alone, even on the day of his passing no less than seven reviews sprang up on his blog, and he was renown for supporting and encouraging younger writers, taking the time to foster colleagues when he could quite easily remained aloft his perch as the worlds most famous film critic. His politics were also sound, he was a great advocate for Universal healthcare and his writing was excellent beyond the world of cinema, I was directed to this article about a London hotel a few years ago which I thought was fantastic. Unlike many critics he actually had some direct experience of writing for and the production of the movies, working with Russ Meyer no less he was the wordsmith behind the cult classic Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls;
Like any critic he had some personal favourites, he was an early champion of dismissed fare such as Grave OF The Fireflies when Japanese anime was usually dismissed as juvenile (incidentally prefiguring that sudden tsunami of affection for the likes of Studio Ghibli) as he came to every piece with no preconceptions, whether is was animated or documentary he invested the same critical facilities, neither high or low brow, taking each movie on its own, individual terms. Did he always get it right? Well no, quite famously among cinephile circles he hated Blue Velvet in 1986 but was modest enough to revisit the movie some years later and accept that he was wrong (how rare is that in a critic of any field?) and he had a strange affection for the work of Alex Proyas, particularly his choppy Dark City, I love that when someone for whatever reason has an almost unexplained connection with someones work which they can’t quite explain or vocalise, it’s one of those difficult to articulate mysteries of the relations between movie and spectator sometimes, and anyone who also defends Joe Versus The Volcano is OK in my book – here’s his top ten list, and this is oddly sweet.
So his passing marks the passing of an era, there is no-one remotely qualified to step into his shadow in terms of populist, widespread appeal, which is just another symptom of film criticism in the era of the internet I guess – I wonder if 90% of your friends and family could even name another film critic other than Barry Norman or Jonathan Ross, at least if you’re in the UK. Here’s a fine quote summarising his world view which I think is apt, this ideology ain’t a bad way to be remembered ““Kindness” covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.” – Amen to that, finally this was one of his favourite films of the past decade, so this seems apt to wrap things up;
Roger Ebert RIP
Fuck. Damn. I thought it didn’t sound good when just a few days ago he mentioned he was withdrawing for another round of treatment but this is sudden. I’ll put something more substantive together at the weekend but for now given his American heritage;
One of the all time legends of film criticism and appreciation. FUCK cancer…..
Citizen Lame……
Let’s take a quick break between the reviews as the next assault is going to be quite a lengthy effort, suffice to say Spring Breakers is one of the films of the year, an instant cult classic in the vein of Drive or Monsters that I’ve also attempted to devote an appropriate level of detail, for prosperity’s sake of course. Whilst I get myself all worked up over that lets take a quick look at other developments, first of all this has been doing the rounds and is quite an amusing read, I’m all for the spearing of sacred cows and welcome any alternative to the tedious retreading of hagiographic wisdom, but it does help if you get your damn facts straight. Not wishing to sound patronising or anything (which always makes me think of people who start sentences with ‘I’m not racist or anything but….’) but you can almost picture these twentysomething young whippersnappers, fresh faced out of film / journalism school, their tongues lodged firmly in their cheeks as they enthusiastically sharpen their critical pencils and muse over making a name for themselves via whipping up some controversy by claiming that ‘Citizen Kane? Citizen Lame more like’, or ‘The Godfather?’ that’s like a really rubbish soap opera, yeah? And it’s all in the dark, you can’t even see what’s happening’… I mean c’mon, how you can possibly electronically show your face after claiming that The Third Man is a ‘far superior Welles film’, when of course it wasn’t a bloody Welles film, he’s in three scenes, one of which with dialogue which admittedly is a stone cold classic sequence, yet the controversy rages still on whether he ever wrote or ad-libbed his speech. OK, OK, I’m deliberately being combative, I have no idea about most of these people’s ages or credentials other than recognising some of the sites they contribute to, and seriously I’d quite like to read more expansive reasons for their dislikes (some of which I fully agree with, Jules Et Jim? Most of Fellini? I also fucking loathe Moulin Rogue! with the intensity of a trillion suns so I’m an instant supporter of Jonathan Lack) but this Drew Hunt chap? Sterilisation* springs to mind, to protect the future gene pool. Now, here are some lesbians;
So then rest in peace Jess Franco, one of the worst directors ever to pollute the movie screens. Now I don’t necessarily mean that in a derogatory way, like Ed Wood the man has many devoted supporters as of course sometimes things that are very bad can be thoroughly entertaining, then again having sat through both Oasis Of The Zombies and more recently his bloody awful Dracula picture I’m afraid I’m not one of ‘em. But he is quite a titanic figure on the exploitation fan front, as Kim Newman quite succinctly put it ‘RIP Jess Franco, maker of 200 movies, some of which he hadn’t even seen’. Next, NSFW beware, here is the legendary John Holmes documentary which inspired P.T. Anderson to make Boogie Nights, including his commentary – I haven’t watched it yet but I’m told the similarities are quite revealing, if you’ll excuse the pun;
Sometimes I think I think about movies too much, just this morning during the commute I was idly flirting with the notion of a film festival curated by title alone, showing Trance, Vertigo, Sleeper, Dazed & Confused etc. if you catch my drift – can anyone think of any others? Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m off to the BFI for part three of my recent cinematic odyssey, before a brief respite of a few days when I see by the marketing blitzkrieg swamping London that Oblivion has crept up for next weekend, then the Evil Dead remake should hit and then there’s Iron Man 3 and then we’re into May and my BFI tickets have just been confirmed for that month and oh god will this ever end…..
*This is a joke of course. A simple hanging would be cheaper……
Sometimes Films Are Like Buses….
Typical isn’t it, after a quiet, huddled weekend hibernating from the world due to a distinct lack of multiplex opportunities and in order to shelter from this depressing weather – although I did manage to power through screenings of Blackula, Killing Them Softly, The Prehistoric Women, The Boys In Company C and The Limey as well as all of Season 1 of HBO’s Girls and polishing off Season One of Buffy which I am revisiting for my sins - well, after that I am faced with not one, not two but three potential cinema scores tonight. First of all a special preview of Trance at my local cinema which I’m kinda looking forward to seeing after absorbing some interview blurb with Mr. Boyle over the weekend, however this gets its full release on Wednesday so I think I can wait. Secondly an ultra rare, 35mm projection of this is taking place at the Prince Charles Cinema tonight;
Oh well, I’d love to see that on the big screen, particularly in light of an article I have been approached to write for April’s Sound On Sight’s monthly theme. Anyway, instead of these two opportunities I’m off to the BFI for a slightly different event, more on that soon. I guess I should also post the latest World War Z trailer which looks a little more animated than previous offerings, I wonder it that appended Zombie plane attack was one of the reshoots this cursed project undertook in a vain attempt to revitalise this project?;
Louis CK, o2 Greenwich
Given this perpetual winter weather, a persistent mild cold which refuses to be cured and continual economic trembling I reckon I’m due for a laugh, and numerous laughs I got from Louis CK who made his first UK stage appearance in six years at the o2 venue last night. Outside of hardcore comedy aficionado circles he’s perhaps not as well-known here as he is in the States, across the pond he’s something of firmament of the comedy culture and his recent series Louis – now onto its third season – has been securing howling praise across the board, a series which has proved impossible to legally source in the UK until Season 1 began broadcasting on some satellite channel earlier in the year. Other than a few scattered random clips I haven’t watch a single stand alone episode yet, I much prefer waiting for boxed sets to become available and then voraciously devour them in a weekend or staggered over the course of a week (Just mainlined Season 2 of Game Of Thrones, better than the first I thought and great fun) here’s a good example which like the rest of his material is very NSFW;
I’m not sure the gargantuan venue of the o2 was best suited to his brand of slightly confessional, vaguely dirty, mirthfully risqué material, but once he got into his stride he won the 12,000 of us over with particular highlights being the exquisite, ‘c’est magnifique’ status of freshly born ‘straight out of the pussy’ tuna for sharks spinning out from how lucky we are as a species to have evolved beyond the food chain, the usual subjects of sex and dating during middle age, how terrific post divorce life can be, and he even managed to be genuinely insightful and hilarious about one of the most tediously obvious subjects of current debate – social media, the technology and communications revolution and how that is fucking transforming our behaviour and relationships. Now I’m betting my chin-stroking analysis is just lubing up your funny bones isn’t it?;
I like him ‘cause he isn’t just occasionally ‘offensive’ by common cultural standards for the sake of being controversial, it’s clearly in service of making you look at the world and certain issues and aspects of life from a different perspective , the fact that he’s a well honed stage presence, has terrific timing and is a calm improviser doesn’t exactly hurt either. Like any good comedian he left the strongest material for last, fans will be aware of his excellent ‘of course…but maybe’ set closer, if you’re easily offended then it’s probably best to give this strand of his material a miss;
This was the first stand-up show I’ve seen since Doug Stanhope about three years ago, given that I’m remotely fascinated with the stand-up comedy world and the types of people it attracts – I’m a voracious listener to the WTF podcast after Reginald D. Hunter mentioned it in some interview – I really should try harder on the comedy front, I mean jeez, I’ve never even set foot inside the famous Comedy Store after twelve years of London living. Finally, just a very quick RIP to British horror maestro James Herbert. Like any spooky kid the ancient triumvirate of Herbert, Stephen King and Dean Koontz pretty much encapsulated my first graduation to ‘adult’ literature at the age when any young weirdo was graduating from YA material, inquisitively encountering an exciting secret world of gruesome violence and eye-opening sex scenes, particularly in the case of Herbert with some scenes from The Fog warping my adolescent brain. It’s been amusing reading similar reminiscences of my peers across the internet, I’m glad I’m not the only one who has scenes indelibly etched in my mind, and yes one can only hope that the residents of Bournemouth don’t decide en masse to walk into the sea nor the priest administrating his funeral decide to amusingly re-enact that scene from the book. In terms of the movies yes he was adapted a few times but without anything of real merit being summoned, although I was surprised to see that an adaptation of perhaps his best known book The Rats finally got made, or more specifically not that a film had been made but that I’ve never seen or heard of it before this week’s sad news – I don’t think I’ve missed much;
Oscars 2013 Results
Headline News – 12/24, as usual a pathetic 50%. Stupid Oscars are rubbish anyway, who cares about ‘em, not me that’s for sure (grumbles…..pouts). I’ve been reading this* fascinating book on early Hollywood during my morning commute which has more relevance to todays industry definitions and practices than you’d expect, with all the accusations of dirty fighting being levelled at numerous producers and production companies in their quest for that coveted golden statuette, slandering and smearing the front-runners Lincoln, Argo and Zero Dark Thirty with various barbed broadsides to annihilate their claims for quality and cultural authenticity due to their lack of historical accuracy – well here’s a newsflash, this is not an arena that Hollywood has ever had any legitimacy in. These fun little games were invented by the old studio moguls so nothing has changed over the past eighty years, although the financial stakes have enhanced as winning a major gong can add something like 20% to international and domestic rentals, when the film(s) inevitably get a marketing led re-release in key territories. My favourite publicity gimmick from the aforementioned book is Sam Goldwyn issuing a statement in the Thirties that his studio had ’13 or the world’s greatest stars’ on his roster, yet only issuing 12 names in any press releases, causing a frenzy of activity of other talent to sign with him and become the final occupant on the list – thus depriving his studio opponents of much-needed talent.
Skim reading the results on the train this morning I appear to have dropped the ball on the screenwriting section, mixed up my best score and song nominations, and achieved a measly one of three from the crap shoot which is the short animated, documentary and fiction areas. More frustrating are the failures in the major categories, I was going to stick to my guns with Jennifer Lawrence for actress but changed my mind after Riva’s Bafta win, Waltz’s success is frankly undeserved but at least I managed the others, including a long-shot for Ang Lee for directorial duties for Life of Pi - that award could have gone in any direction. In other news whom exactly does Roger Deakins have to blow to finally get his richly deserved win? and anyone looking for controversy should turn to social media rather than Seth Macfarlane’s diluted schtick, with The Onion’s Quvenzhane’s Wallis wince inducing tweet being widely condemned in a rather OTT manner, as it’s NSFW you’ll just to have to find it yourself.
Best Picture
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Amour
Django Unchained
Argo – WINNER
Did I get it right? – YES. People seem to be surprised by the win of this Hollywood back-slapping film about how great Hollywood is at saving people abroad with its cultural reach, and with its Hollywood in-jokes and Hollywoodised ending, plus it’s handsome Hollywood star this never seemed to have a chance at winning Hollywood’s premiere award now did it? OK, toning the sarcasm down I’m nonplussed at this, I liked the film a lot so am happy to see it win considering the opposition, the superior films are clearly Amour and Zero Dark Thirty but they really never stood a chance. It should be interesting to see how this levers Affleck’s clout into his next project as I understand all his director led films were quite difficult to finance, and as one twitter wag put it ‘It’s inspiring the way Ben Affleck recovered from being rich, handsome and winning an Academy award for his first film to make this comeback’…..
Director
David O Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
Ang Lee (Life of Pi) – WINNER
Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)
Michael Haneke (Amour)
Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Did I get it right? – YES. I would normally have much to say about this category but I’m finding myself curiously mute for a change, Ang Lee did what a director should and marshalled all his teams skills and capacity to create a successful and well-loved film, although I didn’t think much of the performances but this isn’t that kind of film I suppose.
Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) – WINNER
Denzel Washington (Flight)
Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables)
Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
Did I get it right? – YES. The safest prediction of the evening, lets face it. A deserved win if Phoenix was slightly more compelling for me, I’m a little bit confused at all these ‘historical’ win reports as I assumed that someone like Henry Fonda, Jimmy Cagney or Spencer Tracey has won three Oscars for leading male back in the olden days. Obviously not.
Actress
Naomi Watts (The Impossible)
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) – WINNER
Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Did I get it right? – NO. Apparently Lawrence has tirelessly campaigning for this like a stalwart Hollywood trooper and her perseverance has paid off, she was pretty good but a pox on the Academy for making a 86-year-old lady cry on her birthday no less.
Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) – WINNER
Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
Alan Arkin (Argo)
Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
Did I get it right? – NO. Now, I like Christoph Waltz even if he can’t spell his christian name properly, I thought it was pretty good in Django Unchained, but reprising the same role you played in your last nominated movie but switching to the good guys seems like a bit of a cheat.
Supporting Actress
Sally Field (Lincoln)
Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables) WINNER
Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)
Amy Adams (The Master)
Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
Did I get it right? – YES. A slam-dunk, I like Hathaway but to my mind even a supporting win requires more than say two scenes which is roughly how many I recall seeing her in during the arduous run-time of Les Misérables. Jacqui Weaver shouldn’t even be in this category as she was barely seen in Silver Linings Playbook, like most people I loathe Sally Fields, Helen Hunt only got nominated for being ‘brave’ and going naked for a couple of glimpses in The Sessions (not a bad film as it stands if you’ll excuse the expression) which leaves us with Amy Adams who actually did what a supporting role should do – craft a powerful, memorable and illuminating performance which supports the main players machinations…….
Adapted Screenplay
Life of Pi
Silver Linings Playbook
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Argo – WINNER
Lincoln
Did I get it right? – NO. That’s the last time I try to be clever, thinking that the writers who make up this category would appreciate the challenge of adapting an apparently ‘difficult’ novel to translate to the screen, fair play instead to Argo which at least had a terrific mob scene – and no I’m not talking about The Godfather (distant cymbal crash)….
Original Screenplay
Flight
Zero Dark Thirty
Django Unchained -WINNER
Amour
Moonrise Kingdom
Did I get it right? – NO. I can#t agree with this, QT is terrific on crafting memorable, ‘movieworld’ dialogue but structurally his movies are all over the place, and the final act of Django is a mess regardless of what his admirers claim as him perverting Hollywood norms and ideologies of the three act structure. Either something is anticlimactic or it isn’t, and falling back on his textbook ‘tension building showdown cathartically soothed by a bloody shoot out’ is also a bit of a cop-out in my book.
Animated Feature
Wreck-It Ralph
The Pirates
Paranorman
Brave – WINNER
Frankenweenie
Did I get it right? – NO. Proof, if proof were needed of Disney’s marketing and promotional clout, by almost every standard Brave was a decline in quality from Pixar, maybe not to the depths of the Cars movies but still a disappointing effort, yet they still steal the gong from their contemporaries. Heck, I didn’t particularly care for Frankenweenie’s tired re-tread of unhallowed ground but it was more entertaining that Brave….
Best Foreign Language Feature
Amour - WINNER
War Witch
A Royal Affair
Kon Tiki
No
Did I get it right? – YES. No surprise, I haven’t checked out Haneke’s twitter feed but I’m sure he has been goading ‘Terruns Malick’ with the new addition to his stable of awards, a worthy companion to his two beloved ‘parms dorz’. I’ll bet that the Amour after-party was a blast, with Emmanuel Riva depressed at losing Best Actress and the legendarily humourous Haneke on chief mirthmaker duties….
Production Design
Anna Karenina
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln - WINNER
Did I get it right? – NO. Hmph, well I suppose Lincoln had to win something other than best actor….
Cinematography
Anna Karenina
Django Unchained
Life of Pi – WINNER
Lincoln
Skyfall
Did I get it right? – NO. This is a sign of the times, with an effective blend of CGI, 3D and location shooting wins out over traditional location sourced painting with light onto the emulsion of film. Deakins seems cursed to never win despite consistently producing incredible, envelope pushing work, and the fact that Emanuelle Lubinski wasn’t even nominated for To The Wonder which I saw last Friday is a sacrilege.
Costume Design
Anna Karenina – WINNER
Les Misérables
Lincoln
Mirror Mirror
Snow White and the Huntsman
Did I get it right? – YES. A period detail rich set before the 19th century? Lots of frilly dresses, ballroom gowns and immaculate uniforms? A prestige literary project based on a world literature classic? Well then, you’d have to seriously fuck this up to not get an Oscar….
Documentary Feature
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugar Man – WINNER
Did I get it right? – YES. An irritating, if predictable win. I dunno, I guess The Invisible War was immensely depressing and criticising the armed services is still very sensitive territory in the states, but that was a deeply moving and distressing documentary which address a horrifying subject. Sugarman on the other hand is one of those slick, well-financed ’super’ documentaries that emerged in the wake of Michael Moore’s $100 million+ non fiction grossing pieces, with lavish cinematography and musical montages which plays much more for a general crowd. Personally I found the whole thing a chore, I don’t care for folk music, the alleged ‘twist’ which everyone knows about now wasn’t particularly shocking and I found the whole enterprise rather shrug-inducing, but I guess the ‘feel-food’ factor won through again this time…..
Documentary Short
Inocente – WINNER
Kings Point
Mondays at Racine
Open Heart
Redemption
Did I get it right? – NO. Nothing to add, not much more to say when you haven’t seen the films in question…
Editing
Argo – WINNER
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Did I get it right? – NO. Hmph, I think Zero Dark Thirty was much more of a challenge, by diluting ten years or material, collapsing and warping characters into coherent symbols and harnessing numerous investigative strands into one whole with a terrifically gripping conclusion, but then again the opening and closing sequences of Argo are also superb, so I’ve no real axe to grind here.
Makeup
Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Misérables – WINNER
Did I get it right? – YES. Again nothing to add, I guess the difference between aging people convincingly as opposed to building fantastical creatures require different skill sets…
Original Score
Anna Karenina
Argo
Life of Pi – WINNER
Lincoln
Skyfall
Did I get it right? – NO. I can’t remember a single thing about this score so this is rather irritating, then again that’s kinda the point of an effective score so maybe I’m in the wrong eh? Thank god it didn’t go to Williams for Lincoln, that would have been a travesty….
Original Song
‘Before My Time’ – Chasing Ice
‘Pi’s Lullaby’ – Life of Pi
‘Suddenly’ – Les Misérables
‘Everybody Needs A Friend’ – Ted
‘Skyfall’ – Skyfall – WINNER
Did I get it right? – NO. Goddamn it, another last-minute change given the popularity of that horrible Les Miserables song, I thought Skyfall might take it but stupidly had my head turned by Hathaway’s doe eyed warbling.
Sound Editing
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty - WINNER
Did I get it right? – YES. Like the other editing nominations this should have been a clean sweep, but one for Sound Editing isn’t too shabby.
Sound Mixing
Argo
Les Misérables - WINNER
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
Did I get it right? – YES. Well, when they announced all the songs were going to be recorded live on set the die was cast for this to win, purely by conducting such a ‘ambitious’ technical feat rather than fixing everything back at the studio which I’m sure didn’t happen at all. Spare a thought for poor Greg P. Russell who has had his 16th nominations in this field, but with Skyfall still didn’t make the cut….
Visual Effects
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi - WINNER
Marvel’s “The Avengers”
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman
Did I get it right? – YES. Fair play for the tiger, which was slightly more advanced than a Frosties advert. It’s kinda refreshing to see CGI used to such effect to incorporate one core element rather than any of those great widescreen vistas with thousands of digital minions scurrying around, although then again there is some of that toward the end of the film. Judged against its peers this was the most skillful and blended deployment of digital deception, and richly deserved.
Animated Short
Adam and Dog
Fresh Guacamole
Head over Heels
Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare“
Paperman - WINNER
Did I get it right? – YES. I have to agree with this having seen all five, the Guacamole submission was clever but short, Adam & Dog old-fashioned, Head Over Heels a slightly tired concept and the Simpsons thing is a Simpsons thing – interminably funny, but largely forgettable. Paperman on the other hand was beautifully old-school and actually stirred some emotions, and that’s quite an achievement for a short film.
Live Action Short
Asad
Buzkashi Boys
Curfew – WINNER
Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw)
Henry
Did I get it right? – NO. Goddamn, these are always one in five guesses anyway if you haven’t seen the shorts which always seem quite difficult to track down, unless you live in hollywood when they tend to trail other feature-length nominees.
*I’m still in the Sam Goldwyn section, funniest line so far – when told by the Hays Office that he can’t make an adaption of the 1935 stage play The Children’s Hour which was a love story set in all girls school the following exchange took place – Nervous Studio Aide – ‘Sorry sir, the censorship body has told us we can’t make this film as it’s about lesbians’, – Goldwyn - ’OK, fine, we’ll make them Ukrainians instead…’
Oscars (2013) Prologue
Whilst I mentally wrestle with my review of To The Wonder I think it’s prudent to finalize this Menagerie tradition during this quiet moment of the weekend, I have guests to entertain over the weekend and of course that is the immediate priority. As expected Malick’s latest was wonderful in many ways and also invokes all sorts of pretentious musings (you have been warned), I’ve been attacking it from numerous positions over the past couple of hours and it’s proving to be a difficult beast to master, a second screening is essential and you must make every effort to see it on the big screen – it’s visually magnificent if nothing else. Now let’s move on, whilst I have abandoned my habit of watching the Oscars live due to stupid work commitments the ceremony and inevitable commentary and analysis requires some management, I’ve updated my early list accordingly after seeing much more of the material on offer, although the live action and documentary shorts have proved particularly elusive this year I did manage to track down all the animation shorts for your swift consumption. In appreciation of 85 years of material here is an affectionate little montage, one part reminder of the breadth of the art form and one part incubator of raging horror for some of the travesties that did manage to secure one of those elusive and rewarding little buggers;
Excellent work, I’ll be conducting my usual analysis of my predictions at some point next week, hopefully I’ll finally break that 50% predictive glass ceiling eh? In other news my ‘Kubrick’s Favourite Films Post’ has exploded considering my exceptionally modest median hit rate, I wonder what faintly viral intervention happened there…..
Fringe (2008-2013)
Yesterday’s papers for most of you genre fans I’d wager, but for me this years early small screen discovery has been Fringe, the J.J. Abrams produced post 9/11 version of the X Files, with a dash of Lost and a sprinkling of CSI: Harvard scattered into the mix for good, paranoid measure. If I had a main criticism it would be that the two leads Anna Torv and that dude from Dawsons Creek are pretty bland, but they are overshadowed by Denethor from LOTR as quite literally a mad scientist, he can be quite an amusing character from time to time. It very much takes the monster / strange phenomenon / fucking mentalist weirdness of the week template and drives this into the ground, but as the show evolves it delves and develops its background mythology with alternate dimensions and multi-planar warfare being secretly waged on our poor beleaguered reality, and that’s when things start to get interesting;
The show employs the same tech crew as J.J. Abrams earlier hit Alias - including lensflaretastic lighting techniques which I assume he was testing before the Star Trek reboot and Super 8 - that earlier espionage show was good fun until it went stupid in the final seasons, I just hope the same fate doesn’t afflict this franchise which recently wrapped up its 5th and final season in the states to mostly critical acclaim. If you need a hint of its geek credentials then I’ll just quietly point out a modest detail in one episode where our heroes are rushing around a parallel dimension New York, and the camera lingers on a framed, 1st print mint condition issue of Frank Millers seminal 1986 graphic novel series, Dark Superman Rises. Everything’s, like, just a little bit different y’see…..
I’ve just started on Season 3 which is starting to get into Philip K Dick territory, or at least a reasonably decent diluted mainstream translation of such material that you’d expect of a modestly budgeted SF / Mystery series, not too taxing or ‘weird’ but inventive enough to hold the attention. It’s nonsense but good-natured and entertaining nonsense, perfect boxed-set fare which can be easily digested in four or five episodes a night chunks after a gruelling day at work – recommended.
MBV (2013)
I was never a massive fan back in the day but understood the incendiary importance, I have seen them live during that strange reunion which was quite the sonic experience, so I’ll join the electronic choir and admit this is an amusing meander down memory lane;
Nevertheless this whole enterprise strikes me as nostalgia porn which my generation is as afflicted with as much as the last two or three cultural displacements, please enjoy this distraction as our glorious leader launches a new generation of combat in North Africa. Fuck it, I might have been reading too many political sites this week, this track is immortal though;
Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
When I first heard of the assassination of Osama Bin Laden back in early May 2011 I had a conflicting response. On the one hand as a Guardian reading lefty I was disgusted at America’s arrogance and utter disregard for legal covenants by deploying a kill team in a sovereign state to execute a foreign national, not even pretending to pay lip service to international law, trampling on the enshrined rights of less powerful countries as they stride the global stage with a disgusting, impervious and arrogant glee. On the other hand I do operate in the real world despite the volume of movies I watch, and I didn’t weep a solitary tear at the removal of one of the most loathsome mass murdering fuckers to blight humanity in a generation, spewing his poisonous misogynist, medieval and incomprehensible bile, and was fully contingent of the potential propaganda coup that an international trial could have provided to his deluded and perverted cause. A similar dysfunction seems to have afflicted the cultural and critical community when it comes to Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow’s re-team with her Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker screenwriter Mark Boal, deftly assaulting the story of the largest manhunt in modern history which culminates with the final maneuvers on the Abbotadad compound, an operation which some hoped could apply a soothing vengeance laced balm to the atrocity of 9/11 a decade since the twin towers fell and the Pentagon smouldered.
The film opens with a throttling grip – a blank screen, gradually filling the auditorium with a cacophony of distressing voicemails from the poor doomed souls trapped in the burning towers – before parachuting us into to a secretive rendition site where a dazzled and discombobulated intelligence asset is being beaten and waterboarded by a senior CIA operative (Jason Clark) as recent recruit Maya (Jessica Chastain, porcelain and brittle) looks on in queasy horror. The bruised asset has links to the most wanted man on the planet, the terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden whose evasion of justice is a weeping sore in the American body politic, Maya obsessively spearheading the furtive quest to uncover his clandestine nest over years of false starts and covert cul-de sacs, as further atrocities are visited upon London, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Madrid. As successive administrations are established in Washington Maya’s executive masters displace her resources as the priorities morph into homeland reared threats, but her contumacious passion remains undiminished, and an overlooked figure might just prove to be the breakthrough she has been praying for to finally avenge that epoch inducing September morning….
It has taken a dozen years but we finally have the crucial dossier on the defining international event of the past decade, thankfully this provocative and gaunt film is several leagues removed from the jingoistic nausea that the material could have enlisted in less professional hands. Zero Dark Thirty is a cold and dispassionate look at a decade of vengeance seeking diminution of the moral high-ground, forged in a reportage flavoured, hand-held dissection of the very dirty, loquaciously lethal business of surreptitious modern warfare. Maya’s alteration over this lengthy globe-trotting quest is anchored with a brilliant performance from Chastain, driven by an unexplained fury at the jihad, quite refreshingly there is no Hollywood back story of a slain lover or family member to ignite her unswerving devotion to the cause, she only letting a sliver of her psychological passion become illuminated in one electrifying exchange. The supporting players are uniformly excellent as a squadron of intelligence operatives and their auxiliaries, with particularly memorable turns from a scene stealing Mark Strong in a powerful sequence that recalls Alec Baldwin’s brutal pitch in Glengarry Glen Ross, and Jason Clark’s resigned confederate to the cause, musing over the neccesity to distance himself from his activites lest he loses his own disintegrating humanity. Like Bigelow’s best work the film has a pummeling momentum which careens through a decade of atrocities and covert failures, it’s a very bleak and unrelenting tour of our subversive recent history which entreats a funeral march rather than an inspiring militaristic trumpet blare, with few concessions to an audiences potential bewilderment at the rapid fire parade of names and leads, the film’s title referring to an establishment argot that simultaneously references the period of the final assault and the wider nebulous world of insidious espionage.
After two hours of procedural excellence the final assault on the compound unwinds in a tension shredding, heart in mouth bravura final thirty minute sequence which operates without the assistance of Alexandre Desplat’s brooding score, where most American fodder would shift to rapidly edited heroics the film’s climax is presented in a real-time allotted adamant and surgical fashion, there is nothing heroic in pouring high velocity silenced rounds into bewildered enemies or screaming women, it’s a tough watch and the filmmakers should be applauded for retaining their integrity to the non-fictional horrific facts of the operation. Bigelow exchanges a cool contact with her usual fascinations, embedding a female protagonist in an overwhelming male environment, but as you’d expect from a filmmaker of her calibre these elements are not overtly expressed but more obliquely suggested in Maya’s obliteration of obstacles throughout her professional prowess. She is quite obviously a cipher for the American experience in the months and years following 9/11, initially disgusted and visibly distressed at the moral quagmire circulating the use of torture and so-called enhanced interrogation techniques in order to realise a greater good, her innocence and virtuous standing crushed by the moral cost of a dispassionate and relentless pursuit of retribution.
The controversy around the films supposed promotion of torture is an absolute joke, with commentators and pundits using the film to further their careers and media visibility in a quite disgusting fashion, not to mention how utterly inaccurate these accusations are in the context of the films narrative as the intelligence yielded under such circumstances is false and redundant in the wider goal of defeating the serpentine al-Qaeda opponent. It is as Bigelow and Boal assert a journalistic account of the hunt with first hand confessions of the principals in the conflict, and there seems to be some strange myth out there that a filmmaker or indeed any creator of stories is complicit in any odious behaviour merely by presenting it as fact. Judged on those unstable grounds are we demanding that Spielberg be arrested for his anti-Semitism in Schindler’s List? I’ve even read accounts of Bigelow accused as a 21st century Riefenstahl - for the uninitiated she was the female filmmaker who served as the Third Reich’s principal propaganda agent – and this is some of the worst submerged misogyny I’ve heard for quite some time, isn’t it strange how the producers behind the torture vindicating 24 or deeply racist Homeland don’t seem to have attracted the same flack, but then again they’re not women are they? The film isn’t remotely jingoistic or flag waving even during its final hollow triumph, the film culminating in an extraordinary crowning image, a remorse streaked Pyrrhic victory which heals no wounds, a staggering finale which evokes Dreyer’s Joan Of Arc by circling the film in a loop which connects to the opening mausoleum prayers. Impeccably researched and brilliantly executed, Zero Dark Thirty is the definitive 9/11 movie thus far, a Orwellian census on the Dantesque cost of perpetual warfare;
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
This looks a change of pace for the Coens, normally any new film from them would have been on my ‘Films To See’ annual wrap up but I admit this slipped under the radar, I’m surprised to see a trailer for this appearing so early – nice cast as usual;
In other news the annual Kubrick story seems to be doing the rounds again, and let me perfectly clear in as possibly as tedious a fashion as possible – this is a non-story, even passing film fans are aware of the alternate ending, thus this ain’t no ‘exclusive’ that should be breathlessly clogging up your social media feeds until the real holy grail is uncovered and an actual god-damn intact print is discovered and exhibited – now that would be an event worthy of religious idolatry. Speaking of the ancient Eighties this should warp your tiny minds;
I’ve always thought Max Headroom, that initial foray into neon-shielded cyberspace could do with an internet era re-boot…..
Django Unchained (2013)
Like the film let’s start with a little controversy to get the blood circulating shall we, here’s film critic Ray Carney on the cult of Tarantino, circa 1999 ’It’s only that in three films running something like seven hours in all-he has managed not to express one interesting insight into human emotion or behaviour. If it weren’t for daytime television, it might constitute some sort of record. All there is in his work is the Grand Guignol campiness, the chiller-diller suspensefulness, the kicky twists and turns of plot, and reversals of expectation. It’s not much to go on, if you are beyond the age of 18 (which, admittedly, most of his audience is not at least not emotionally).’ Well, apart from the inherent snobbishness in that last sentence this is a frequent jibe levelled at the films of Quentin Tarantino, and his efforts since that critique was published have not exactly challenged such handwaved dismissals of his work, with the double blow of the bloated Kill Bill indulgences and re-writing of history of Inglorious Basterds in 2009 not exactly signalling a new maturity or shift away from the genre sandpits, and the less said about the car-crash of Death Proof the better. But some commentators reject these knee jerk rejections of Tarantino’s post-modern pilfering, seeing in his inversion of genre tropes deeper levels that those normally associated with such ostentatious kitsch, and he has certainly gone for the pulsing jugular with Django Unchained, one part spaghetti western to two parts evisceration of America’s shameful slaving history, in perhaps his most broadly enjoyable film since the halcyon days of Pulp Fiction.
1858, two years before the explosive Civil War engulfed America and two slavers are leading a miserable chain gang of negro slaves through the frigid Texas wilderness. A spritely figure approaches, a dentist turned Bounty Hunter Dr. King Schultz (a magnetically loquacious Christophe Waltz) who swiftly secures the release of the prized specimen Django (a sibilantly seething Jamie Fox) in order that he may visually identify his previous masters, the notorious Brittle brothers, a triplicate quarry of Schultz’s avaricious eye. Nervously teaming up with the erudite foreigner the pair come to a mutually beneficial agreement, Django gains his freedom and secures a third of the dollar value of the bounties that the partnership macabre accrue, bloodily tearing through the winter months by gruesomely amassing a litany of murderous contracts, until the spring arrives and Django reveals his ultimate quest to his intrigued colleague. In a righteous act of vengeance Django needs to travel to the most dangerous part of the country for a man with his biological history, the famous Mississippi plantation where his wife Broomhilda von Shaft (a barely vocal Kerry Washington and no, I’m not making her name up) is now the property of the charismatic Calvin Candie (a slitheringly superb DiCaprio), she being imprisoned in his sprawling family grounds since she and her husband were separately sold to new masters, her new prison ironically known as ‘Candyland’. Hatching a devious plot to masquerade as slave traders themselves Django and Schultz ingratiate themselves with Candie and his brutal troupe, nervously entering the nest of serpents to attempt a daring and hopefully blood-free rescue mission….
This terrifically entertaining, occasionally hilarious and superbly performed film with terrific turns from Foxx, Waltz and even Dicaprio is tremendous fun, but it just seems to lack that one ingredient which can pitch a film over from the ‘good’ to ‘great’ stratification. The formula that was deftly employed in Inglorious Basterds - take a horrific injustices in history and transform it into a vengeance fuelled mission driven narrative in order to provoke some cathartic release when the dominating evildoers are exterminated with an incendiary fury drives the DNA of the film, but it has some severe problems with its pace and spiky tempo, particularly in its overweight final act. I have had a problem with the recent pacing and structure that Tarantino has chosen to emulsify his films so I was pleased to see that this piece felt like a coherent whole 9(at least until the botched finale) rather than some terrifically written sequences locked together like immobile blocks, there is a definite sense of an arching quest that pistons throughout the film with a relentless cantor, the sad passing of his longtime editor Sally Menke in 2009 seems if anything seems to have solidified some of his more flagrant structural decisions, although this thoroughbred falls at the final hurdle as after one expanded show-down (which as usual Quentin excels at it) is further bookended with a final twenty or so minutes which is drearily anticlimactic, and made me exit the theatre with a resigned acceptance when I should have been bellowing Django’s name in glee.
The film doesn’t so much as untangle the knotty and difficult history of racial politics in America as much as it shotgun blasts it in the face, the genteel civility and politeness of the South’s famed hospitality squatting in uneasy symbiosis with some absolutely horrific images of stark brutality, but they are earned and appropriate to the tale, I always groan when QT gets the inevitable ‘violent filmaker’ sobrquiet hurled at him as in Django there are two specific instances of horrific violence that are conceptually chilling, but unlike Refn or Noe who show their grotesque fantasies details in unvarnished full frame CinemaScope, Tarantino keeps them off-screen through framing and composition, just as he did with the infamous ear slicing in Reservoir Dogs you don’t see anything, but he still gets the achy accusations of being irresponsible and immature – frankly its nonsense. The shootouts when they come are frankly hilariously entertaining, urging us to uncomfortable celebrate in casual brutality where human bodies detonate like crimson hued water balloons, whilst the casual cruelty inflicted on the people of colour is extremely uncomfortable and nausea inducing, as is the frequent deployment of the word ‘nigger’ (someone has counted 110 instances) which is culturally appropriate given the period, and curiously through repetition seems to dull the disgusting words wider semiotic emanations, in much the same way that the gay community co-opted the phrase ‘queer’ as part of their struggle for equal status.
But the films more convincing pleasures rest more on the cast from an exhilarating character perspective, in particular Waltz is utterly charming even if is reprising his Hans Landa persona from the good guy benches, and Di Caprio must be applauded for accepting the role of an utterly disgusting specimen who orchestrates gladiatorial fights to the death amongst his enslaved stock, he is utterly, completely repellent beneath his cultivated veneer and there isn’t many stars of his wattage who would subvert their persona so poisonously - remember that this film had Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell and Will Smith all signed on then rejected once they got a look at the script. The unquestionable glaring omission of the Academy was its failure to heap praise on Samuel L. Jackson whose utterly electrifying performance as a chilling coadjuvant ’Uncle Tom’ is absolutely outstanding as one of the best supporting actor turns of recent years, he is easily the single best element in the entire film, his doddering, fragile, facile persona cloaking a truly Machiavellian intelligence churning under his menacing obsidian exterior. But there are flaws which one assumes are intentional, for someone whom is known for writing intriguing, independent and provocative women in his films Kerry Washington does nothing more than look forlorn or screams, she’s a damsel in distress cipher and I think QT deliberately choose this path for her to generate some emotional ammunition in the final stretch, although this strategy simply didn’t work for me. It’s also curious that I don’t think there is a single Native American in the film, perhaps not even as an extra in the city scenes, there is certainly no speaking roles but this is very much a ‘movie world’ movie if you catch my drift, hyper-realised and stylishly accelerated, with everyone communicating in quips and rehearsed lines utterly divorced from any semblance of reality. Considering the pedigree Django is also fairly light on the references and homages that QT’s indulges in although Franco Nero makes a clumsily handled appearance, with supporting turns from an unexpected Bruce Dern and a curious use of James Remar (probably best known as Dexter’s Dad) in two gunman roles which is perhaps a sly nod to the same faces cropping up in the original cycle of Spaghetti Westerns, Finally QT’s really needs to stop casting himself in his movies, his terribly accented cameo as an Australian trader toward the end of the film might in some senses be explosive, but it stops the film stone dead when it should galloping onward to victory.
Speaking of collaborators special mention should be made of Robert Richardson’s splendid photography which provides the mission with a seductive semblance, using his usual halo lights to parse away specific elements of the frame, and I really would like to know if the masked figure in Candyland (played by Quentin’s frequent actress Zoe Bell) was meant to have more of play in proceedings, as he kinda sets up this mysterious figure which subsequently gets no play off at all and appears to have been relegated to the cutting room floor. Oscar nominated films usually get dismissed as facile, populist fare without the gravity and integrity of the Sight & Sound best of the year lists but consider this, we have two movies explicitly concerned with the racial history of the country and its relationship with violence and firearms coincidently unleashed within a month of the re-election of the most polarizing President in American history, as the film rather uneasily cowers in the shadow of the America’s most horrific and numbing modern era massacre – that is curious in its timing and relevance of so-called ‘mainstream’ cinema. I do think that Tarantino is smarter than people give him credit for and like the grindhouse and drive-in movies he so adores there is a subversive purpose and message fermenting away under the surface of his apparent juvenile, gleeful torrents of viscous violence and grevious dialogue, even objectively taking a magnifying lens to the film it riffs on themes of performance, theatricality and crucially a black / white duality, with a white European and black native in combat with a white slaver and black collaborator. Like the debris of a dynamited saloon bar Django throws up all sorts of spiked and controversial elements – audience complacency in violence, cheering on shady characters who kill for money yet are somehow the moral champions, historical accuracy in the stories we tell each other about challenging epochs of human history – all these themes are not hectored or sermonised to the audience as you’d expect in say a Haneke movie, but they burst along the screen with his unique blend of exuberant kinetic and chaotic controversy.
As is my idiom I have amassed a wealth of supporting material which should provide you with a wider context to the movie, beware though they are insufferably heavy spoilers buried in that treasure, so enter at your own risk. Tarantino’s embarrassing claim that his film has sparked a debate on slavery may just be a little overheated but like Von Trier he’s also a showman and he knows how to generate the requisite controversy driving column inches, while I find him an immensely irritating and self-centred jerk in numerous interviews he frequently makes terrifically exciting movies steeped in cinema history, whilst I loathe the Kill Bill films Dogs remains one of the most assured American film debuts of the past thirty years, although wildly overrated Pulp Fiction has its iconic moments and Jackie Brown is an almost unheard of rarity in modern cinema – now only is it a film with a central female protagonist which isn’t some tediously insulting Rom-Com the woman also happens to be African-American and also (gasp, shock) – she’s middle-aged!! That’s quite the rare achievement. Now, can I share with you for me the worst story about him which think was printed in GQ when he was being interviewed in a Hollywood diner around the time of Kill Bill. He instructed his waitress to inform him when it was 4.00pm as he had to leave for another appointment as the journalist sat down, then of course went ballistic when the rushed off her feet waitress who dared to presumptuously prioritize her job by serving other customers failed to tell him the time an hour later as the interview ran over – I mean can’t you tell the time Quentin? Why should some random service staff suddenly become your de facto personal assistant? What a cock. Nevertheless you can admire the message even as you detest the messenger, Django Unchained is sensational in both senses of the word, conjured by a flawed and complicated consciousness he is inarguably an important and occasionally infuriating filmmaker, and this is the first essential film of the year;
Nagisa Oshima RIP & Upstream Color (2013) Full Trailer
Ah, another sensei ascends to the great screening room in the sky. As an enormous fan of Japanese cinema I am ashamed to admit I’m certainly no expert on the so-called ‘asian Godard‘, but having perused that list I am surprised to see I’ve seen more of his films than I realised, including his swan-song Taboo, his most notorious film of all, and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence;
Seems a shame that his long and complex career should be primarily remembered for one picture which had a lot of fucking in it, but here we are. In other news with Sundance on the horizon another trailer has surfaced of one of the most eagerly anticipated films of the year, at least I think it’s a film;
I’m particularly impressed that a full two-minute trailer doesn’t feel the need to explain or signal much in the way of anything, and maintains a real sense of mystery – if this doesn’t come to London in April as part of Sundance I won’t be responsible for my actions – can’t wait….
Where’s your fackin Cabinet Strategy Report to the Regeneration, Environmental and Economic Development Panel you kant?
Well, considering that was my first return to an office environment in almost a year that was relatively painless, I barely had time to take my coat off this morning before I was ushered into a strategy and planning meeting which was an amusing baptism of fire. My new employees passed the Minty Efficiency Test®, as despite my accepting their offer late last Wednesday they had managed to a) secure a desk, computer and phone, b) acquired all the network logins and IT paraphernalia and security pass and c) complied a research dossier of all the myriad strategy reports, PID’s, Council Ten-Year plans and fascinating policy briefings that give us consultants a ’lazy woody’. I impressed myself, I think I’ve got my head around the entire programme, all we have to do now is plan, cajole, persuade and execute all the numerous projects – and that’s the fun part. Finally, no offence to my Essex colleagues but it’s a relief to be working back in London where I’m much more au-fait with all the third-sector organisations, sub-regional development agencies, strategy panels and funding agencies, despite the alleged ‘Bonfire of the Quangos‘ in 2010 there is still a fair amount of activity going on, it’s just a little more streamlined. I don’t think I made any glaring faux-pas, I mean I got into two fights but for the uninitiated Local Government’s a bit like prison, from day one you have to establish clear and unambiguous boundaries;
In other news, and just to keep my offensiveness train going the embargo on my review of Chained has lifted today, alas I’m having some hugely frustrating problems with one of my sister sites photo requirements – I’ll link when they have been resolved. In the meantime here’s the trailer;
Oscar Nominations 2013
I always vaguely dread this time of the year, as my personal mission statement to see as many of the Oscar nominations as possible before the February ceremony usually leads to a few tedious hours in front of the TV, cinema or laptop, alas it now appears that I will have to see Les Misérables and that makes me, well, miserable. On first impressions I’m surprised to see Beasts Of The Southern Wild get so much acclaim, I liked it a lot and am happy to see the nominations, but the serious snubbing of The Master for anything but the two elementary acting awards is mystifying – just what has PT Anderson done to cause so much resentment? I guess the other headlines are the Silver Linings Playbook affection – I reckon this could be the dark horse to steal many of its nominations – and the poor performance of Skyfall in the year of Bond’s 50th anniversary, although I am pleased to see Roger Deakins stealthily covet yet another cinematography award, he never seems to win but one hopes he will finally gets the credit he is due. So as usual here are my predictions, as always the films in bold are those I’ve seen, the ones underlined are those which I think will win and those in italics are those which should win, for a change I’m actually fairly caught up once I see Zero Dark Thirty and Lincoln which open here in a fortnight;
Best Picture
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Amour
Django Unchained
Argo
Director
David O Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)
Ang Lee (Life of Pi)
Steven Spielberg (Lincoln)
Michael Haneke (Amour)
Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Denzel Washington (Flight)
Hugh Jackman (Les Misérables)
Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook)
Joaquin Phoenix (The Master)
Actress
Naomi Watts (The Impossible)
Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty)
Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Emmanuelle Riva (Amour)
Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild)
Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master)
Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook)
Alan Arkin (Argo)
Tommy Lee Jones (Lincoln)
Supporting Actress
Sally Field (Lincoln)
Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables)
Jacki Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)
Amy Adams (The Master)
Helen Hunt (The Sessions)
Adapted Screenplay
Life of Pi
Silver Linings Playbook
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Argo
Lincoln
Original Screenplay
Flight
Zero Dark Thirty
Django Unchained
Amour
Moonrise Kingdom
Animated Feature
Wreck-It Ralph
The Pirates
Paranorman
Brave
Frankenweenie
Best Foreign Language Feature
Amour
War Witch
A Royal Affair
Kon Tiki
No
Production Design
Anna Karenina
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Cinematography
Anna Karenina
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
Costume Design
Anna Karenina
Les Misérables
Lincoln
Mirror Mirror
Snow White and the Huntsman
Documentary Feature
5 Broken Cameras
The Gatekeepers
How to Survive a Plague
The Invisible War
Searching for Sugar Man
Documentary Short
Inocente
Kings Point
Mondays at Racine
Open Heart
Redemption
Editing
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty
Makeup
Hitchcock
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Les Misérables
Original Score
Anna Karenina
Argo
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
Original Song
‘Before My Time’ – Chasing Ice
‘Pi’s Lullaby’ – Life of Pi
‘Suddenly’ – Les Misérables
‘Everybody Needs A Friend’ – Ted
‘Skyfall’ – Skyfall
Sound Editing
Argo
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Skyfall
Zero Dark Thirty
Sound Mixing
Argo
Les Misérables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Skyfall
Visual Effects
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Life of Pi
Marvel’s “The Avengers”
Prometheus
Snow White and the Huntsman
Animated Short
Adam and Dog
Fresh Guacamole
Head over Heels
Maggie Simpson in “The Longest Daycare“
Paperman
Live Action Short
Asad
Buzkashi Boys
Curfew
Death of a Shadow (Dood van een Schaduw)
Henry
It’s just occurred to me that there isn’t a single nomination for Nolan, not even in the technical categories despite the financial performance of his behemoth trilogy, that’s quite a snub – I wonder if he and P.T. Anderson will go out and knock back a few beers to commiserate together? Then again, his new project sounds pretty darn exciting. Be sure to check back as I update this over the next few weeks, I will probably update my predictions accordingly…..
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