Nobody Knows Anything

No cinema visits this week again, and I’ve been doing “other things”, so the post is a bit sparse this week.

King Kong (2005)

For the record, this was the extended version of a film that many thought was too long to begin with. Presumably, The Lovely Bones (2008) will be four hours long with an interval in the style of La Belle Noiseuse (1991). It’s taken some viewings for me to get to grips with this new version of Kong, but every time I watch it, I like it more than I did the previous time I watched it. The first time in the cinema I have to say it left me rather cold, but I’m warming to it. The extras on the extended DVD really serve to highlight the extent of the film as an achievement, since at any given time, about 90% of what’s on screen isn’t even real. There’s something mysterious and primal about the Kong story that’s entirely inexplicable.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Lots of people think that Barton Fink (1991) is the height of the Coen brothers’ work in cinema, but I’m inclined to go for this one, a film that has been perfectly realised on so many levels. It is impeccably cast, funny as hell (”based on The Odyssey by Homer” no less is just the first of the gags - it’s funny because it’s true), beautifully photographed by Roger Deakins and then regraded in its entirety in the telecine bay (the first film to do what has now become standard practice - even Clerks II (2006) had a digital intermediate), and has an outstanding score of traditional American folk music. It proved a tough act to follow.

DVD: My Life In Hell

Early on in the DVD purchasing game, I started to realise that the discs I was buying in Britain weren’t necessarily the best discs available. Reading reviews of Region 1 discs online started to alert me to the fact that large entertainment conglomerates were short changing us here in the UK to save a few bucks (as ever). Discs stacked to the gills with extras in America would be released in the UK as movie only discs with a trailer if you were lucky. This led me to my first region free player, successfully hacked with a specially purchased remote. This also led me to the realisation that, if I wanted to replace my VHS movie collection with shiny DVDs (and I did), I would have to consider each and every DVD purchase I made, and run something resembling the following criteria against all of them, one by one:

In what country has the film been released on DVD? Are all the extras from other Regions on the Region 2 disc? Has the DVD been enhanced for widescreen TVs? Does it contain the original audio? Has it been properly transferred? Does it have DTS? Has the film been cut by the BBFC? Have the extras been cut by the BBFC? If it has been cut, am I bothered by the cut or not? Has the film been cut by the MPAA? Has the film been cut in the country that’s releasing the best DVD? Is the film being presented in the original aspect ratio? Or is there an extremely good reason why it isn’t being presented in the original aspect ratio? If the film is being released at 1.33:1, is it a full frame transfer (which you can zoom into so that’s okay) or is it a pan and scan transfer (which is by comparison totally fucked)?

And that’s just the ones I can remember right now. I was concerned because this seemed like an unnecessary amount of time and effort to devote to such an apparently simple task as VHS replacement, but in the end I realised I had no choice. If you want to replace your old copy of Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989) on VHS in the UK, you need to know that the original DVD release from Arrow was an atrocity to be avoided, and that the Universal option was the one to go for. And that the new Special Edition from Metrodome is the best way to replace the Universal one. And unless the Criterion Collection release Last Exit to Brooklyn any time soon, it will remain so.

And so on. For every title. My life in DVD Hell.

No cinema visits this week.

Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

It’s Denzel. In a vest. In the 40s.

The Lord of the Rings (2001-2003)

So I finally did what I’ve been saying to myself for a few years I was going to do: I watched the extended versions of all three Rings films in one day. I almost made it too, I got to halfway through the 3rd film before I had to retire sleepy and watch the remainder the next day. Since the 21st Century began, I’ve only encountered three films that are unquestionable masterpieces that are going to be debated and discussed and watched for decades, and they are Mulholland Drive, Irreversible and The Lord of the Rings, which I most certainly count as one film. I didn’t see anything in my little marathon session to make me change my opinion. Hobbits aren’t for everyone, but those people who use them as an excuse not to imbibe really don’t know what they’re missing.

State and Main (2000)

It seems odd that Rebecca Pidgeon should have married David Mamet. She was in a group called Ruby Blue in the 1980s; I have one 12 inch single of theirs. It seems odder still that not only does Mamet cast his wife in his films, but that she should be so damned good. This is one of those Hollywood goes to town and makes a movie movies, so it’s full of jokes that are a little inside. And since it’s Mamet, it’s full of people being beastly to one another.

Heist (2001)

Rebecca Pidgeon turns up again here naturally enough, her hair cut short, her character a whole lot more mercenary. One of the pleasures of this film is seeing it as a kind of harder edged remix of Get Shorty, since it stars Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito and Delroy Lindo, and has a key early role for Sam Rockwell. There are few things better than watching great actors tearing strips off each other at a furious pace. And there are few writers better at delivering this than David Mamet.

The Big Lebowski (1998)

I’ve never liked Withnail and I. Never having been a great imbiber myself, nor having lived like a student in some horrendous bedsit slum, I’ve never seen the appeal of a celebration of losers who spend all their time drinking. Which perhaps makes me closer to the other Lebowski. I’ve never really liked The Big Lebowski though I’m starting to warm to it since I’m starting to appreciate it for what it is, rather than what it’s not. Sometimes films don’t reveal themselves to you properly first time around because you’re concentrating on the plot so hard, you don’t leave yourself open to whatever else the film may be offering you. It’s only on a 2nd or 3rd viewing when you know the plot that the incidentals of character or humour or insight start to break through.

Spartan (2003)

I appear to have had a mini David Mamet season this week. This film marks a major break in his filmography as it takes in bits and bobs from the action movie genre. It’s still full of guys saying things like, “The way it’s gonna be is the way it’s gonna be,” and breaking people’s arms. But it’s in widescreen, it’s unrelenting and it’s not polite. Although no one actually comes out and says it, this seems to be a film about the kidnapping of the daughter of the President of the United States. She might be a senator’s daughter, or even a congressman’s, but if I was paying enough attention, I don’t think anyone outright comes out and says it. The other thing is that Val Kilmer is back from the wilderness.