Swings and roundabouts gentle reader, swings and roundabouts. Shortly after getting back from delivering a combined best man speech at one of my oldest friends weddings, a fantastic event which will go down in the annals of Minty history, my parents ring to inform me that a close family friend who used to babysit me back in Peterborough has died. I was watching this masterpiece at the time;
Laugh or cry – you decide – but some of those movie titles have cheered me up.
What’s all this about then?
Colour me throughly intrigued. Quite a cast he’s acrued for this one including Tom Berenger?? Someone’s agent will be getting an extra large muffin basket this Christmas. Looks like Nolan has kept the same tech crew as well behind the camera. What with everything shifting back to 2010 – ‘Shutter Island‘, ‘Tree Of Life’, looks like I’m going to have to learn to be patient.
Man, this whole taking time off is getting tough. Arising from my crypt at noon, watching five films in a day, researching stuff on the web (just putting the finishing touches to a couple of monthly film masterclass things), taking a stroll down the East London watersides in the occasional sunshine – hard work my friends, hard work. I have been catching up (more harrowing than ‘Audition’ or ‘Ichi’, strong stuff but great) with some of my DVD backlog, some stuff on my web memberships, some arty stuff and some movies on the TV as the choice on the big screen has been patchy at best over the past couple of weeks, more on this below.
I’m not sure quite why I’m collating clips of Chevy Chase but life is full of mysteries. I watched ‘Fletch Lives’ over the weekend which was predictably awful but there’s just something about the man that cracks me up in certain sequences of generally bad films. All the clips I’ve seen of him and Bill Murray on the old Saturday Night Live show have generally left me cold but when he’s portraying that WASPish, cheeky rogue he can conjure up some fantastically hilarious and unique moments. One of the few vaguely watchable John Carpenter films since the late 1980’s is this which has its moments, thinking about both their careers I guess you really have to make the most of it when your star is in the ascendent.
I’ve also been catching up with the many podcasts I subscribe to, given that it took me a bloody month to get hooked up after I moved I have over 100 broadcasts to wade through. Strongly recommended is the Creative Screenwriters podcast which features excellent one hour plus interviews with the writers behind many of the better recent US mainstream films including the guys behind ‘Cloverfield‘, ‘Children of Men‘ and well, just look at the list. I also like this for a different perspective, a Melbourne based public service show that has turned me on to a few Australian pictures and filmmakers over the past couple of years. Ripper. I’m a bit jealous as my friend in Melbourne has just e-mailed me this years film festival programme which includes a retrospective of George Romero including screenings of all the Zombie movies on the big screen. Cool.
As I said there’s not much out at the moment so I’ve reverted to tracking down some old classics, this week I caught the terrific ‘Double Indemnity‘ at the Stratford Picturehouse, it’s Billy Wilder’s landmark film noir with perhaps the screen’s most iconic femme fatale. Family man Walter Neff (Fred McMurray, a wholesome Disney actor wonderfully cast against type) falls for the icy Barbara Stanwyck who convinces him to murder her husband so they can make off with the insurance money – you can guess the rest. I’m not inclined to bother with a full Minty review so I’ll just leave you with these great reviews.
Film clip time. I’ve finally joined the 21st century and got my first two Blu-Ray disks last week including this and a Special Edition Super Elite copy of ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’. Manipulative? Sure. Dated effects? Obviously. However, there is just something about this film and of course E.T that will always occupy a fondness with me, given that they were amongst the first films I recall ever seeing and actually making me think about who makes these films, how did they do it and why did they do it the way they did? The boxed set contains all three cuts of the film along with an old (made for the 20th anniversary) two hour documentary on the making of the picture along with a short updated interview with Spielberg for the 30th Anniversary. I must concur that they should have never gone into the Mothership for the Special Edition and left that experience to the audiences imagination which would have been more spectacular and satisfying than what they finally threw up on screen. Spielberg has always maintained that the final 25 minutes of the film has always been the most difficult editing job of his entire career and he only concurred to the re-release so he could shoot and insert some of the earlier sequences he had to drop due to budgetary constraints – he was under enormous pressure as the studio was effectively bankrupt and the whole company was riding on the success of the movie. Paramount agreed only if he would include material inside the Mothership as this would give them a very strong hook on which to re-sell the picture. Stick to the original cut I reckon. At the risk of being annoying, Blu-Ray on my big TV is quite special and it is a genuine treat to re-visit some of these films I know backwards again – coming soon……
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.
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.
I have to say its been an increasingly difficult task to actually identify any movies which seem to be worth a couple of hours and ten quid of my time. We’re on the cusp of summer what with ‘Iron Man‘ being released on Friday and ‘Indiana Jones‘ is now just round the corner but I felt I had to make an effort last weekend and give some films I’m not terribly interested in a whirl if only to maintain the cinema visit quota.
I quite like Mike Leigh so it’s a shame to report that his latest film ‘Happy-Go-Lucky‘ is a disappointment. The film is the story of Poppy, a 30 year old London based primary school teacher who seems cursed with a cheerful disposition and cheery outlook on life. When her bike is stolen she shrugs it off as ‘that’s life’, she talks to anyone and everyone who crosses her path to encourage a smile and a joke, she’s one of those people who would verbally chastise you that ‘It takes more energy to frown than to smile’ on the crowded 7:48 to Paddington.
Sounds hideous doesn’t she? I was wary of making the effort of seeing this at the cinema as the central character sounded so staggeringly annoying that I wondered if I could manage two hours in her company. She is of course irritating but to be honest I must have been in a rare conciliatory mood as I could stomach her relentless optimism. The film meanders – Poppy begins some flamenco classes and discovers that one of her pupils is being physically abused by his stepfather. This leads her to develop a relationship with the social worker assigned to the case whilst throughout the film she is taking driving lessons with the surly Scott, a serious minded driving instructor.
The main flaw is the usual climax that a Leigh film reaches – after the slightly hyper and mannered approach of Poppy and company in the previous two hours the film suddenly switches to absolute realism as she finally understands the attitude and actions of Scott in a shocking penultimate scene. Scott is a diluted version of violent conspiracy theorist Jonny in Leigh’s best film ‘Naked’ (which criminally is still not available on DVD) and his final revelation and outburst is quite unaffecting after his previous ramblings on how the ‘world actually works’, its ‘pyramids and elites’ and his thinly concealed racism and seething anger. At two hours it’s also much to long to arrive at its shrug inducing finale, although it does have a couple of good gags.
‘In Bruges‘ however was a much more rewarding experience. The film is a bit of a sleeper critical hit, some reviews have been very positive but the marketing for the film seems to have been very low key and I think I can see why – although exceptionally funny it is also a very dark story on the nature of guilt and retribution framed on the fate of two bumbling Irish assassins (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleason) who flee Dublin to Bruges after a hit goes spectacularly wrong. As they await instructions from their criminal masters both slowly warm to the medieval city, meeting members of a local film crew including a drug dealing production assistant and prostitute addicted dwarf – conventional this is not. Ralph Fiennes makes quite an impression toward the end of the film as the psychotic east end crime boss Harry which he plays in a manner more akin to Kingsley in ‘Sexy Beast’ than Hoskins in ‘The Long Good Friday’. There is some spectacular swearing and very funny gags all complemented by a particularly oirish sensibility which a half-mick like me appreciated. Worth a spin.
Finally some terrific news – Del Toro has been officially announced as the director of the Hobbit movies, I can’t think of a more able and appropriate director. From the sounds of things he is anxious to retain as much of the original creative crew as possible which is very encouraging and I like some of the other intimations he makes in that interview. Given that McKellen and Serkis are back as Gandalf and Gollum respectively I think the only other concern is who will play Bilbo? Roll on 2010…
In my eight years in London I’ve been to the theatre three times. Yes, that’s three times. Horrific isn’t it? You’d think that given my love of cinema that I would also gravitate to the theatre given the obvious similarities and I usually enjoy the rare visits I do make, it’s just that I have absolutely zero interest in seeing a bloody musical about Abba or Queen and ‘The Lion King’ can fuck right off. It’s also difficult to get someone to go with you, I am more than comfortable in seeing a film on my own but going to a play alone just doesn’t feel right. Shame really, given that we have the best theatre facilities on the planet (with the possible exception of New York of course) I should really make more of an effort. Anyway, enough of this rambling nonsense, last night I had the pleasure of seeing Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Spacy at the Old Vic theatre in ‘Speed The Plow‘, a play by the great David Mamet.
It’s a three hander revolving around two Hollywood executives Bobby Gould (Goldblum), Charlie Fox (Spacey) and Bobby’s secretary Karen (Laura Michelle Kelly). As the play opens Fox has just secured a massive new project, a guaranteed box office smash that is destined to make him and his friend fantastically wealthy. Karen intercedes and seduces Bobby, persuading him to make a different, more ‘worthy’ art film with her as executive producer and to dismiss the shallow, vapid projects that tinseltown churn out. The next day when Bobby confesses his U-turn to Fox a verbal battle ensues, exposing the vipers nest of Hollywood and lengths that everyone will go to in order to achieve money, prestige, fame and power.
Well, lets face it – this would have to a fuck up of spectacular proportions for me not to like this what with two exceptional actors, David Mamet’s machine-gun dialogue and a Hollywood setting – it’s practically designed for Minty. I know absolutely nothing about theatre so I won’t brave any sort of analysis other than to say it is a quite effective critique of Hollywood and the prevailing impulse of commerce triumphing over art. The dialogue is first class clever, brutal Mamet (We’re gonna be so rich, we’re going to have to hire someone just to figure out the things we want to buy’, ’Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it’s full of surprises, and you’re constantly getting fucked’ and ‘everything’s temporary….until it isn’t') which was delivered with consummate skill by Goldblum and Spacey. Overall it was just so laugh out loud funny which I hadn’t expected, it was more like a straight out comedy than some sort of searing examination of masculinity and the male psyche that you’d expect from Mamet.
I’ve been a fan of David Mamet’s movies and screenplays for years. ‘House of Games‘ is a seminal 80’s film, ‘Glengarry Glen Ross‘ a terrific drama and one of the best play to film adaptations I’ve ever seen, ’Spartan‘ is a much underrated low-key action movie from a few years ago and ‘The Spanish Prisoner‘ is a great con artist movie. Mamet’s trademark dialogue and his labyrinthian plots with their many twists and deceptions really appeal to me, as does the frequent examination of business and commerce and the games and competition they engender in the human animal.
Finally, no – before you ask I haven’t the fainest idea what the title means either.
The BFI are hosting a European Film Noir season at the moment, the centrepiece of which is an extended run and new print of ‘The Conformist‘, Bernardo Bertolucci’s influential 1970’s Italian thriller. I’ve heard the film referred to as ‘The Velvet Underground of film’ in that whilst it was not a big hit at the box office or with audiences, it influenced dozens of aspiring film-makers to take the plunge with their own movies in much the same way that the Velvets kick-started and influenced many great bands. The film went down a storm with the 70’s Hollywood Brats, Coppola even hired Vittorio Storaro as his camera man on ‘Apocalypse Now’ on the strength of ‘The Conformist’. So, what’s it like on the big screen?
In a murky late 1930’s Italy we are introduced to Clerici, an aspiring fascist who has a desperate need to be accepted, to conform. He marries not for love or lust, but merely because it is the ‘done’ thing and lets him blend into veneer of respectable society. As the film begins he is despatched to Paris to assassinate his former teacher, a communist whose academic damnation of the fascist movement is becoming problematic. Using his honeymoon to cloak his murderous intent, we soon learn that Clerici’s troubles stem from an unfortunate sexual incident in his youth, an experience that still haunts the adult Clerici and dictates his psychological failings and political corruption.
I have seen the film a couple of times on video and admired the look and style of the film, if not the plot and story. Seeing it on the big screen has not changed my views, I can see why it was so influential but it just doesn’t grab me in any emotional way. It’s like ‘Citizen Kane‘ a film whose technical achievements are immense, a true turning point in the development of film, but you don’t in any way feel anything for Kane, you don’t have any emotional investment that you have in the protagonists and heroes in films like ‘Vertigo’, ‘The 400 Blows’, ‘Bicycle Thieves’, ‘A Matter of Life and Death’, well, I could go on. Nevertheless, the design and photography is stunning and it is quite a bleak character portrait with no comfort, no consolation.
It does have one of those almost cliched 60/70’s art house cinema moments – Clerici is confronted by a female character who has guessed at the true nature of his mission and she yells at him, calling him ‘A worm, a traitor, a Judas’. She then turns quiet, strips naked to the waist, walks toward him and whispers ‘Kiss me’. I mean, what the fuck? What’s all that about? I mean, unless Bertolucci’s trying to say something about women being mental or he’s….ah…actually I think we’ve just cracked that one.
For my final film at the festival I took in something of an oddity – a mainstream Hollywood film directed by a real eccentric German auteur – Werner Herzog. You may recall dear reader that I mentioned this film way back in January as one of the films to look forward to this year so it’s a shame to report that this film is a somewhat flawed curiosity. If you want to see the film then avoid the wikipedia entries as there be spoilers…..
1966, Indo-China, shortly before the skirmishes in Vietnam ignited into a full blown war. Our hero Dieter Dengler, heroically portrayed by Christian Bale is a slightly naïve young air force pilot who is about to embark on his first clandestine mission – an illegal bombing raid deep in Laos. Shot down inside hostile territory, Dieter is captured and transferred to a hellish prison camp where a number of other American servicemen and native dissidents are struggling for survival. The choice is clear – survive and hope a political solution is achieved and all POW’s returned to home soil or brave the guards and the lethal jungle itself on an impossible trek to Thailand.
I can see what attracted Herzog to the material; a single minded, obsessive protagonist, the clash of civilisation against savage, the curious symbiotic relationship between ‘man’ and the natural environment – all themes Herzog has explored before (and indeed he has already made a documentary on this very same story) but this does not reach the same lofty heights of ‘Fitzcarraldo’ or ‘Cobra Verde’. There is one moment toward the end which left me speechless – really didn’t see that coming – but overall this is something of a clichéd survival movie with a disgraceful jingoistic finale that honestly leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I don’t know if Herzog had this imposed by the studio (given that the film has no less than eight executive producers and three ‘normal’ producers) but I wouldn’t be surprised as it certainly has no parallel in any sequence in any of other films he’s made over the past thirty years. A shame….
I’m off to see Wes Anderson in conversation tonight at the BFI to round off this year’s festival, quite an apt finish as his film ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ is the closing night gala picture. I think I’ll catch ’30 Days of Night’ beforehand, a vampire movie for Halloween – perfect….<cue ominous, booming supernatural laugh>….
