Nobody Knows Anything

No cinema visits this week.

The Man with Two Brains (1983)

If I have a soft spot for Woody Allen’s earlier, funnier work (and I do, hell, I think we all do), then I REALLY have a soft spot for Steve Martin’s earlier, funnier work. Steve Martin’s career started going downhill for me when he started taking not especially comedic parts in more mainstream movies than the low budget masterpieces he made alongside Carl Reiner. Parenthood (1989) pretty much marks the beginning of the end and Martin has only every now and then been willing to demonstrate the comedy chops that brought him respect in the first place. For every Bowfinger (1999), there’s been five pieces of execrable garbage like Sgt. Bilko (1996), the kind of unforgiveable mistake that makes one hope Martin isn’t a Buddhist since he’s going to be paying for that one on the old karmic wheel for all eternity if he is. Brains comes from the earlier, funnier period of Martin’s film career, and is, if anything, even funnier today than it was in 1983.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

As is this, which is a screening inspired by my current reading of Michael Palin’s Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years. One of the reasons the film works is the authenticity of the medieval background, although even here there are differences of opinion. For instance, every cast member and extra has had their teeth blackened and yellowed in tribute to the years before dentistry, but they were also the years before sugar, and there is evidence that a lot of people in this period had perfectly good teeth. Whatever, the medieval background feels right and is taken seriously by the filmmakers, and this allows them to take nothing else seriously at all. It’s interesting to note that John Cleese, despite his great comedy brain, felt that all this emphasis on shit and discomfort and knitted chainmail was getting in the way of the comedy, when in fact these were precisely the details that made the comedy work.

Titanic (1997)

So here we are ten years later and despite all the absolute works of genius that have been released in the interim, this wretched and despised hulk of schmaltz and bad screenwriting sits irritatingly atop the all time box office charts in the majority of countries around the world, sneering at all the Lord of the Ringses and Star Warses that have followed in its wake and been unable to top it for all around audience appeal. Has any recent film been so despised by men of a certain age, and male media people, and male posters on the internet? Here is a film that is sneered at, regarded with contempt and dismissed as an aberration, as if making a film that appealed to me and men like me not afraid to let the film in, young women, women in general and people over fifty all around the world were some kind of gross sin. As someone who saw Titanic FOUR TIMES in the cinema when it was released in the UK in 1998 and has loved it ever since, I am annoyed by this male hate. Titanic is not a film without flaws, nor is it a work of great art, but it spoke to people worldwide, and in the kind of cinema attendance numbers not seen since Gone with the Wind (1939). David M Lubin has written a rather excellent BFI Modern Classic on the film that does a much better job of defending the film than I have here, and he’s as aware of the film’s shortcomings as anyone is. For me, the film only really ups gears when the iceberg hits around 90 minutes in, and becomes the No.1 blockbuster in its second half that it certainly didn’t promise to be in the first, which is still mired in hokey irony, the Picasso incident, and too many references to the unsinkable ship that rather inevitably attracted the satirists of The Onion: World’s Largest Metaphor Hits Iceberg, Titanic Representation Of Man’s Hubris Sinks In North Atlantic and 1,500 Dead In Symbolic Tragedy. And yet as I cringe through Titanic’s opening, I’m reminded that Aliens (1986) works in exactly the same way, where, for almost an hour, an unbearably tense atmosphere of fear and suspense is worked up. Titanic takes the time it needs to establish the world it’s going to tear apart later.

No cinema visits again this week. I’m gonna miss ‘em. It’s not good. At least nobody famous in the film world died this week so I don’t have to pay tribute to them.

The Abyss (1989)

For the record, this was the Special Edition of the film with almost half an hour of mostly character related footage edited back in. I’ve always liked The Abyss, even though 20th Century Fox probably shouldn’t have given James Cameron quite as much freedom to realise a longheld childhood ambition to rip off both E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) – but underwater – as they did. However Cameron was the golden boy after the success of Aliens (1986), and Fox execs suffered a similar rush of blood to the head as that experienced by the execs at United Artists who greenlit Heaven’s Gate (1980) in the wake of The Deer Hunter (1978).

Match Point (2005)

Finally got around to seeing whether or not Woody Allen’s return to form was real or not. Answer: yes. And then no British release for Scoop (2006), which he made a year later. One of the things that I remember the film being criticised for was its lack of, for want of a better phrase, working class people. As if Woody Allen was going to relocate to London to make a film about market traders or bus drivers. Instead he sticks to the world he knows best, that of the moneyed elite. And does Woody Allen have interesting things to say about the hypocrisy, laissez faire attitudes and moral corruption of the moneyed elite? Oh yes he does. So it seems rather stupid to criticise the film for what it’s not, doesn’t it? But then I find this is a common form of criticism from people who don’t understand art and how it functions. Shoot ‘em in the brain, that’s what I say, it’s the only way to be sure.

Ghost World (2001)

Intrigued by the Scarlett Johansson-ness of the previous film, I felt in need of more Scarlett, with added Thora Birch. I like Ghost World so much I own both R1 and R2 DVDs, since both have different and intriguing extras. There’s so much that’s great about Daniel Clowes’ original comic book that it would seem a highly unlikely subject for translation to the big screen. Terry Zwigoff didn’t have a problem though. The film is rammed with great, smart dialogue and nicely acerbic characterful performances.

Galaxy Quest (1999)

Perhaps a bit too inside for some, but since I’m reasonably familiar with the history of Star Trek and the world of sci-fi conventions, an awful lot of this film hits close to home. Only if you don’t know anything about this world would the film fall flat. This was also the first film where Missi Pyle drew my attention with the first of her many highly game out there comedic performances. She’s the younger generation’s Jennifer Coolidge and a face to watch out for.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

After the spoof, the real thing. There are few moments in cinema better than the revelation about halfway through that for Kirk there are indeed possibilities, and James Horner hits the highpoint of his score in the moments that follow. Although I pride myself on defying received wisdom, I do fall into line on the Star Trek movies: the even numbered ones are the best ones. This should be of some concern to JJ Abrams, who is currently signed to direct Star Trek Eleven. Uh oh.

Solaris (2002)

After the real thing, a real movie. Solaris’ modest box office performance seems particularly puzzling until you see the theatrical trailer, which basically promises Aliens 2, a slam bang, slam dunk summer action movie, and Solaris is anything but that. Because it’s science fiction though, fandom will give the film an afterlife in the after market (if indeed that hasn’t already started to happen). In a world of ersatz blockbusters, this is once again the genuine article, a harsh film about tough issues with a career-best performance from George Clooney.