Nobody Knows Anything

Yes, a slight pause caused by my inability to get to a cinema to see Quantum of Solace and thus round off the Bondathon neatly rather than have it stagger unnecessarily into another week. Unfortunately this meant that it staggered unnecessarily into a few more weeks than it should have done. Alas. It does mean, however, that there have been three cinema visits in November, marked below with an *. There may also be strong language. And that I can start to watch some films again that don’t have the phrase “shaken not stirred” anywhere in the dialogue. When we left the Bondathon, I’d just been showing some love to Timothy Dalton, who wins whenever anyone asks me who my favourite Bond is. And they’re expecting me to say Sean Connery because everybody else does. Anyway: the Brosnan years.

Goldeneye (1995)

Martin Campbell set a template for the Brosnan period that, sadly, subsequent directors felt bound to follow rather than bringing too much of themselves to the project. In many ways, directing Bond can be a pretty thankless task, since it’s common knowledge that some action sequences have been dreamt up years in advance and then glued into the films as and when necessary. Pierce Brosnan, originally considered as a replacement for Roger Moore in 1987, is in 1995 a better age to play Bond and at first it seemed he would be in the role for years. What GoldenEye does is “plus” the action so Bond no longer uses a Walther PPK (or whatever handgun was popular at the time) but instead fires a machine gun, and drives a tank in a chase scene rather than a car. This lack of finesse may have dismayed some but James Bond in a tank demolishing what seems like most of St Petersburg was definitely one of those scenes we didn’t know we wanted to see, but are damn glad we have.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

The plussing continues in the next film with a lot of absurdist fun with jets and Michelle Yeoh brings a whole bunch of Hong Kong kickass to her customised action scene (finally released uncut in the UK). Elsewhere, Jonathan Pryce brings a fair slice of ham to his Rupert Murdoch/William Randolph Hearst style media mogul intent on starting a war rather than merely reporting on it.

The World is Not Enough (1999)

Yes, I know they cast Denise Richards as filmdom’s least convincing nuclear physicist, but what came to my notice here was how much travelling Bond does and has done. In a fairly typical example of the series, Bond travels by land, sea, air and ski through many countries. Almost like Alan Whicker back in the days when commercial travel wasn’t as wide spread as it is today, James Bond travelled the world in a kind of extended travelogue for the tourism industry. Spying in Bond movies has always been about neverending motion, whether Bond is on the trail of the bad guys, or the bad guys are after him. Bond movies have always prioritised exotic locations over, say, the day to day dreariness of Harry Palmer or John Le Carre’s creations. This may be one of the keys to Bond’s international appeal: if he hasn’t been somewhere close to where you live, he may swing around next time.

Die Another Day (2002)

The invisible car! That sunk Brosnan as Bond! Even though Die Another Day was more successful financially than the three Bonds that preceded it, the press reviews were much harsher and whereas you would think this wouldn’t affect the producers or the decisions they make, that’s where you’d be wrong. Which is odd because if there’s one thing we know about the Bond movies, it’s that they are critic proof. Although Roger Moore’s period as Bond was marked by less bums on seats than Connery’s reign, the films continued to make enough money to finance the next one. No, what really sank this film was an over-reliance on CGI. Bond films have been about both doing it for real, and then cutting to Bond in front of a blue screen to make it clear that it isn’t real. Even in the digital era, Die Another Day is marked by any number of shots of Brosnan close up in a scene at which the actor wasn’t present when everything else was filmed. But Die Another Day went too far, the action had become too silly, Madonna played a lesbian(?) fencing coach, and The Bourne Identity (2002) was released and looked more like a proper Bond movie than this did.

Casino Royale (2006)

Which meant, somewhat inevitably, that Bond had to go through one of its periodic reboots. Brosnan was out, a younger Bond in the Batman Begins (2005) style form of Daniel Craig was in (how did Bond become Bond?), Bond could now become more like Bourne and in turn become more like Bond used to be, especially since the film rights to Fleming’s first Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953), had now, after a lot of lawyers had got rich, reverted to the Bond producers, CGI was to be put on the backfoot and used mainly as a rig removal tool to emphasise reality rather than fantasy, and in a shocking move, the screenwriters would actually adapt Ian Fleming’s novel rather than borrowing a couple of names and a situation or two and making everything else up. When Craig delivered the line, “The bitch is dead,” at the end of the film, I experienced a warm glow at the inclusion of one of the key sentiments of Fleming’s original text, which I had read just before I saw the film for the first time. The fresh approach to Bond is definitively demonstrated by the outstanding free running foot chase that opens the film, minimal CGI, lots of it done for real, and Bond shooting someone dead in cold blood. It was like the Brosnan years had never happened, and Bond, instead of being like Bourne, was back to being Bond again. Daniel Craig, the joker in the pack of the Bond reboot, turns out to be its smartest card. Now, could they manage not to fuck up the second film?

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) *

Maybe in future years, the French will discover Kevin Smith as the great underrated comic genius of American cinema that he is and all the internet saddoes, hugely jealous that Smith is living the life they all wish they could live if only they weren’t such a sad bunch of do nothing motherfuckers sat like losers in their parents’ basements, will have long since passed from this world into virtual second lives where they will no longer be able to bother anyone with their unwelcome brand of sarcasm and frustration and resentment. In the meantime, Smith will continue to make smart, obscene, joyous, straightforward, somewhat bizarre male wish fulfillment films like this. I was a bit put off by the whole let’s do the whole porno film in the coffee shop where Seth Rogen works thing because that really did seem like one too many trips to the small water fountain of inspiration that marked Smith’s debut Clerks back in 1994. This was more than made up for by the relentless vulgarity of the dialogue and the onscreen fun the cast was having. And Traci Lords turns up in another one of those sending herself up roles that may one day see her welcomed into the Hollywood bosom (so to speak), instead of suffering permanent ostracism in the land of B-movies and straight to DVD. If the film wasn’t as tasteless as it is, then it couldn’t also be as life-affirming as it ends up being. And if very little of this has anything to do with the harsh reality of real hardcore porn production, well, it’s not meant to; that’s another movie, and not the one Kevin Smith has made.

Michael Clayton (2007)

In which the main screenwriter of Bournes 1, 2 & 3 gets to earn his directing chops with a film that may appear to be a searing indictment of legal firms and the corporate paymasters they’re all too ready to jump into bed with, but which unfolds as more of an Elmore Leonard style dissection of the film’s characters and the actions and motivations that occupy them, from Tilda Swinton’s sweaty armpits betraying the truth behind her glacial, apparent business competence to George Clooney’s ultimate decision to sway the outcome of the million dollar lawsuit one way or the other as a result of what has been done to him and his friends by the other characters in the film. Subtlety reigns, it’s like the 1970s all over again.

In Bruges (2007)

Is it still good? Yes. Is it still funny? Yes. Is it an Irish fable? Well now, that’s an interesting idea, isn’t it?

Quantum of Solace (2008) *

To the vexed issue of continuity. In an ongoing series, especially one that has stretched over 46 years, earned billions and may have been one of the principal motivations that drove Sony to its purchase of MGM in 2004, it is inevitable that things will change (actors will want to stop playing Bond, or have to be forcibly uncast when they want to continue playing Bond), but the Bond formula will demand that things must also stay the same. So balancing the desire to change with the times and yet maintain the key contents of the Bond recipe that draw an audience back again and again is the difficult task of the custodians of the Bond enterprise. In terms of continuity, it is ridiculous to make Casino Royale in 2006 the story of how Bond first became 007 while retaining Judi Dench as M from the “later” Brosnan years. Continuity, and fanboy obsession with it, has plagued the Bond series and many other cultural icons (such as Batman or Spider-Man or The Simpsons) for decades, but in a world of corporate-owned properties where there are vested interests in maintaining their presence in the marketplace, continuity has to be grappled with though can and has been ignored whenever it’s convenient to do so. The Judi Dench as M issue doesn’t make sense, but it does work, and if it works, don’t try to fix it. Oh yes, and they didn’t fuck the second film up, though someone should really sit Mark Forster down and get him to watch Bullitt (1968) because that is how you film a car chase, rather than the hideously incoherent way he chose to open the movie. Though it did work. But it could have been better with a few more wide shots.

Body of Lies (2008) *

So does the tentative romance between Leonardo DiCaprio and Golshifteh Farahani that threatens to derail the film deep in its second act have any wider purpose, or has it been placed there as a plot function to drive the third act? Alas, the latter seems more true. What’s particularly attractive about the film is that even though the title warns you upfront that this is a movie about deception, you don’t cotton on to the depth of the deceit until it’s too late, and it’s forehead-slapping time as you realise how effectively you have been lied to by the filmmakers. Good movie.

Casino Royale (2006)

Which I watched again to bookend the Bondathon, and also to check out how carefully the plot threads intended to establish the new shadowy organisation Bond must face have been delicately woven into the fabric of the action. And, you know, “I’m the money.” “Every penny of it.” And so forth.

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.

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.