Nobody Knows Anything

Two cinema visits this week, marked with a *. There’s a particularly irritating trade ad in the cinemas at the moment promising that 2007 will be THE ULTIMATE SUMMER OF CINEMA. I’ve had a dislike of the use of the word ULTIMATE in marketing hype ever since, I think, Empire film magazine started using it to describe a coming attractions article as THE ULTIMATE GUIDE to some films coming out soon. If you actually look ULTIMATE up in a dictionary, you’ll find that describing the summer of 2007 as THE ULTIMATE SUMMER OF CINEMA means there ain’t gonna be any more summers of cinema because this is the last one and the best one. Which is not true. Describing something that is not ULTIMATE as if it were ULTIMATE is actually something else: BULLSHIT.

The Rapture (1991)

With that said, let us cast our minds back 16 years to a film very few people have ever seen, but which has nonetheless been issued on DVD with a DTS soundtrack. The premise of the film is very simple. What if all that mindless guff about the Rapture that fundamentalist American Christians claim to believe in were actually true? What if they’ve got it right, and their nonsensical beliefs are the one true religion, and they’ll all be saved, transformed into light and transported to heaven? And all the rest of us, the, if you like, infidels, well, we’ll all be consigned to the fiery pit of Hell. And what would you do if you believed all this stuff and there was a voice in your head telling you to commit an atrocity if you wanted to be saved? What would you do? That’s what this film’s about.

Dogma (1999)

Spookily, Kevin Smith takes a slightly similar line 8 years later in this notorious religious comedy. The notion is that the Catholic doctrine of plenary indulgence (you can look it up) provides a loophole that could bring about the end of the world (though I guess you have to believe in this stuff first for it to work) (and even then…). I find it amusing that American Christians responded to The Passion of the Christ (2004), even though the endless spilling of blood would have looked more at home in a low budget horror movie gorefest, and came across as profoundly unrealistic (although I guess that was Mel Gibson’s point about the suffering of His Lord). But those same American Christians (though to be fair the protest was centred around a fairly small, fringe group), took umbrage at a film with a shit monster and lots of dick jokes.

Safe (1995)

Ooh, global warming, that’s pretty scary, right? Well, here’s a film that’s a lot more uncomfortable than Al Gore’s Keynote presentation. There really is something out there called environmental illness, and people really do have their immune systems rebel against them. And the spooky, insidious way that Todd Haynes has directed his film starts to make everything a suspect: the gasoline from passing cars, household cleaning products, and the new black couch. Julianne Moore’s descent into ill health is genuinely disturbing in a way that many horror films aren’t; Wes Craven called this the best horror film of the year.

Prince of Darkness (1987)

As a premise, the first part of John Carpenter’s two picture deal with Alive Films is pretty silly. There’s this low budget, green swirly effect in a big jar that’s going to bring about the day of judgment, and a team of university research assistants have 24 hours to stop it. But, and this is a big but, this film is all about how the silly premise has been executed, and it’s been executed very well. Composing the musical score for his films has always been very important for Carpenter, and here he produces one of his best: dark, intense and atmospheric. The music raises the game for the whole film and makes it work. Without it, it’d would just be another forgotten low budget programmer.

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

For the record, this was the theatrical version of the film. Despite all the heavy detailing and grungy aspect to it, there is something of the Boys’ Own guide to the Crusades about this film. And Orlando Bloom has not just one but two occasions when he has to deliver a big speech to a huge crowd, and all I could think of was the Sermon on the Mount in Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979). You know, blessed are the cheesemakers. Still, as a Ridley Scott film, it remains a great watch, and I’m looking forward to the director’s cut.

Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)

Which is why I’m not an entrepreneur or a salesman, since I don’t have a desperate, hollow emptiness at the heart of my soul, and a compulsion to lie to perfect strangers in order to sell them things they don’t want, don’t need, can’t afford, and which may not even exist in the first place. It’s fascinating that David Mamet can make poetry out of a small group of guys all telling each other to go fuck themselves, but that’s what he does, and that’s what this is. A valediction to the American salesman in the tradition of Arthur Miller.

Ocean’s Thirteen (2007) *

Reviewers everywhere have declared this to be a return to form after the supposed debacle of Ocean’s Twelve (2004). Well, I liked Ocean’s Twelve, perhaps because I’m more aware of the kind of European filmmaking styles Soderbergh was experimenting with, and I liked this third installment just fine as well. There is, as William Goldman has noted, something just marvellous about these movies that assemble a team to do an unlikely task against impossible odds with numerous obstacles along the way. Reason and logic fly out the window, and you just sit in your seat and marvel. Three’s probably enough though.

Lucky You (2007) *

Curtis Hanson’s follow up to In Her Shoes (2005) is a slightly bloated father-son story with a romantic comedy lightly glued on top, set against the start of the World Series of Poker phenomenon that drives so many internet search engine pop-up ads these days. It’s a good 20 minutes too long, and telegraphs its plot points in advance, but it does have a lot of cool poker stuff and a decent cameo from Robert Downey Jr (and has everyone noted how better an actor Robert Downey Jr is now he’s off the drugs?).

Mission Impossible (1996)

This along with Die Hard (1988) is my action movie of choice when I want a no-think evening in front of the telly instead of a dark and brooding movie about the Apocalypse. Essentially three long action set pieces strung together into one movie, nevertheless when done with this level of brio and confidence by master craftsman (and my favourite director) Brian De Palma, it’s never dull. Funny, isn’t it, that even though you know a movie like this by heart, it remains a fascinating watch as you try to work out just how he does it.

No cinema visits this week.

Miami Vice (2006)

People seem quite shocked that this is a real movie instead of a campy recreation of bad 80s fashion. But it’s exactly typical of Michael Mann to try for something new instead of rehashing the past, even though elements of the plot have been taken from certain episodes of the original TV series. The film is also audience unfriendly in that it starts in media res (like a number of other Mann films) and leaves it up to the audience to work out what’s going on. Plot points aren’t telegraphed with giant billboards. This was a summer movie for adults, and the little kids’ll just have to play catch up.

Hot Fuzz (2007)

Shamefacedly, I missed this at the cinema, but I did catch it on the day of release on DVD. If this film were any funnier, you could bottle it and inject it into comedy writers around the country and they’d be able to start writing proper sitcoms again instead of the garbage they currently think will do. This, Ben Elton, is how you write a funny comedy about the police. Packed with gags and laugh out loud moments in the first half, it gets even better in the last half hour when it turns into a pisstake of every action movie ever made. Love the Tony Scott tributes.

Thief (1981)

What Michael Mann is really up to is revealed by a viewing of his first proper cinema film, the unloved Thief from 1981. Mann has decided to focus on one subject, the relationship between the cop and the criminal, and all other subjects are regarded as unnecessary. They are to be discarded as callously as James Caan discards Tuesday Weld and his child when his relationship with the local mob boss goes downhill, just like he feared it would. Tuesday Weld plays the first of Mann’s damaged, underwritten female heroines, but because Mann’s focus is the cop and the criminal, that’s just the way it’s going to be. Colin Farrell may regret leaving Gong Li riding off on a boat at the end of Miami Vice, but a man’s gotta do what a Mann’s gotta do.

Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Trainspotting (1995) looks like a kids movie next to this film. It is a descent into hell with no escape for either the characters or the audience. People don’t mind being told that drugs are bad as long as there are a few laughs along the way, but they get really uptight if you attempt to tell them unrelentingly and with no attempts at humour that all forms of addiction are bad, show them the consequences of addiction unflinchingly and more graphically than you think they will, and include things like diet pills, television and caffeine in the mix. Cause they’re all right, aren’t they? What could be wrong with an addiction to QVC, or ITV Play? It’s not going to cause you any harm, is it?

Hey, let’s be careful out there.

In a first for the blog, I had a very “busy” Sunday and didn’t post. Oh no, it’s all going horribly wrong. No cinema visits this week.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

One of the most frustrating things about growing up in the UK as a film buff in the last thirty years was the gradual discovery that I was unable to watch A Clockwork Orange because Stanley Kubrick didn’t want me to. I have to say that now something resembling the reasons for his withdrawal of the film have come to light (Kubrick feared for the safety of himself and his family), I still believe Kubrick let it go on too long. The perfect time to re-release Clockwork would have been around the time of the release of Full Metal Jacket in 1987, but this didn’t happen. The BBFC as represented by James Ferman made some noises along the lines of Clockwork would have to be cut before it could be reissued. So, thanks for that. I didn’t see Clockwork for the first time until the mid 1990s, when I saw the same bootleg of the Dutch release that everybody else in Britain had been passing around for some years. And then Kubrick died, Clockwork was re-released with a certain amount of haste, and I actually got to see it in a cinema before buying it on DVD twice. But Kubrick had to die first. Bum deal.

Firewall (2006)

Harrison Ford in another thriller for which the word “workmanlike” could have been coined. Unusually for me, I actually watched this movie on Sky and it reminded me why I have such a large DVD collection (see link at right). [In terms of size, my DVD collection is relatively modest, I’ve come across people who own 3,000 DVDs and up so I don’t feel so bad about my 1,375.] Sky apply so much compression to their picture that it feels like watching a movie on VHS, the action’s blurry and all the fine detail has gone. All very unsatisfactory.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)

Irritatingly for filmmakers, releasing a film is all a matter of timing. When Mallrats (1995) came out in 1995, America wasn’t ready for a R-rated comedy, but that audience was there just a few years later for American Pie (1999) and There’s Something About Mary (1998). The film was released just a little early. Similarly, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within came out and tanked in 2001, but if you re-released it now, it would be like Al Gore’s best friend. The zeitgeist is now ready for an all-CGI movie with an eco-friendly message and sensational eye candy, and instead we get Shrek the Third (2007). Go figure. If you haven’t seen this film, and you’re into computer animation and out there movies, check this one out. It’s like a hippy classic from the 70s made with a big chunk of change.

Batman Begins (2005)

All you have to do to make a successful comic book movie is to take the original subject matter seriously. This is why Tim Burton’s Batman movies are better than the two Joel Schumacher debacles. And why employing directors like Sam Raimi and Christopher Nolan is going to pay off for you in the end. Even if Nolan was only directing this film to raise his profile in Hollywood to put him on the A-list and give him access to the big money, it still wouldn’t have worked if he hadn’t turned out a decent product. And Batman Begins is a very decent product. If only all comic book movies could be as good as this. Alas.

Down with Love (2003)

Peyton Reed cut his filmmaking teeth as a behind the scenes video documentarian on the Back to the Future movies, and Bring It On (2000) is one of the great guilty pleasures of our time: a cheerleader movie starring Kirsten Dunst that manages to be not cheesy and really rather cool. Down with Love underperformed at the box office on its original release, which is odd because it’s one of the most fully achieved films of recent times. Stuffed to the gills with snappy dialogue, absurd situations and classy performances, it’s an ironic recreation of the Rock Hudson/Doris Day sex comedies of the 1960s, a recreation of a dozen of them, all in this one movie. The entire cast, as they say, explodes.

Clerks II (2006)

Kevin Smith fans in the UK have been ill-served by film and DVD companies over the years; most of his films that I own have come from Region 1 because the Region 2 offerings, if they even existed, tended to be bare bones releases, and Smith loves his DVD extras, oh yes. I really think Kevin Smith should stop with the self-deprecating bit, making excuses for his own failings as a director (lack of visual style, etc). It’s actually been a pleasure over the last dozen years to see him grow in stature. Kevin Smith is a good filmmaker, he might become a great filmmaker, and I think the best is yet to come from him. The bar has been raised again by this film, funny as hell and full of heart. And it has the donkey scene, which is going to be appalling people for decades. But in a good way.

No cinema visits this week.

Avalon (2000)

This film may be too much of a secret. A lot of barriers have been placed in front of it to stop it appearing too commercial or mainstream. All of the dialogue is in Polish, all of the post-production was completed in Japan. It’s a beguiling mystery, a mannered reflection on the nature of games and reality, life as a game, the kind of film Andrei Tarkovsky might have made if he’d lived longer, lightened up a little, and bought a PlayStation. The director Mamoru Oshii is probably an unfamiliar name, but he’s the guy Jim Cameron and the Wachowski brothers look to for inspiration because they treasure his point of view.

Corpse Bride (2005)

The stop motion is almost too exquisite. The whole thing is a visual fest of design and innovation. Filmed alongside Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), this is as pure as Tim Burton gets, a dark sensibility smuggled into a children’s film.

Tarzan (1999)

Disney seemed to have got the whole animation thing completely worked out here. The heavy duty implementation of the Deep Canvas software had allowed their 2D painters to paint backgrounds in 3D, and animators have always been able to move their characters through 3D space. It has catchy songs from Phil Collins in Peter Gabriel mode, a fantastic vocal performance from Minnie Driver that alone is worth the price of admission, and a Tarzan who actually seems to have been raised by apes, rather than selected to play the role because he won a muscle building contest. Yet, in a few short years, Disney would be firing animators and switching to CGI, having dropped the ball completely and seen Pixar pick it up and run with it, scoring touchdown after touchdown. You know, there is a reason they call these films animated classics, and it isn’t just empty marketing hyperbole.

The Apartment (1960)

When was the last time a Hollywood actor played as weak and passive as Jack Lemmon does in this Billy Wilder film? As the story proceeds, you find yourself willing him to finally take a stand, admit his love for Miss Kubelik, and tell his boss to take his job and shove it. Billy Wilder, knowing this is what we want, knowing this is what Lubitsch would do, denies us this for as long as he can.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

The majority of Americans who’ve seen this film have not of course seen exactly what Stanley Kubrick wanted them to see, which is pretty ironic given the film’s title. During the party scene at the mansion, a number of CGI figures were superimposed over some of the more, shall we say, athletic performances. This, as Roger Ebert and others have pointed out, is a desecration of Stanley Kubrick’s work, memory, and reputation. The film runs two and a half hours and could probably have benefited from the removal of a good twenty minutes or so. The pace would then be not quite as glacial as it is. But Kubrick died and it was not to be. A lot of people concentrate on how good Nicole Kidman is in this film (and it’s damned difficult to take your eyes off her; back to the title again) but I think Tom Cruise actually delivers as well, it’s some of his best work on film. Arthur Schnitzler’s original novel Traumnovelle appeared in the 1920s alongside the work of his Viennese compatriot, Sigmund Freud, though their views on sexuality are quite different. In fact, this film has more in common with Fight Club (1999) than might first appear. It too is playing with fantasy and reality. After all, how much of what happens to Bill Harford on his night on the town is a male fantasy? How much has he been pushed into imagining/living these situations by his reaction to his wife’s female fantasy? The female fantasy that could have so easily ruined all of their lives if enacted in reality, just as the male fantasy threatens to do.

The Proposition (2005)

It’s taken him twenty years but director John Hillcoat has finally made a good film, and it’s an Australian Western. Discovering a pretty much untapped resource is a film director’s dream, and here Hillcoat has brought to life a forgotten episode in Australia’s history. Of course, it had been deliberately forgotten. Although Nick Cave’s script is fiction, a lot of the darkest deeds contained in his screenplay are, as they say, based on true events. The Wild West in America was a fairly out there place, but the real Wild West in Australia was every bit as crazy as a Spaghetti Western like Django (1966) or the films of Sergio Corbucci.