Nobody Knows Anything

Two cinema visits this week, marked with a *.

The Golden Compass (2007) *

As I’m currently reading the His Dark Materials trilogy for the first time, it seemed like the right moment to nip to the cinema and catch New Line’s filmization of the first book in the sequence. I was deeply impressed. Who knew that Chris Weitz had a film like this in him after American Pie (1999) and About a Boy (2002)? Those two films were competent but only slightly surprising and certainly no standouts. No wonder Weitz walked off the project once, daunted by the technical challenges, but thank God (that’s a His Dark Materials in-joke by the way) he came back to finish what he started. The only blip in the continuation of the series is its dismal non-performance at the American box office. However, the film has done really well worldwide, and hopefully New Line will figure out some ingenious way to promote the film on DVD in the States and allow it to find its audience. Although it may look like a children’s film, it is so not, it’s about as deeply adult and disconcerting as fantasy films can get, and it knocks CS Lewis into a cocked hat, which is where he and the rest of his wretched Christian brethren belong.

Blade Runner (1982) *

For the record, this was the Final Cut version of the film, projected digitally. As magnificent as Blade Runner now looks on DVD (see previous post), this spanking new cleaned up digital version on a big screen with a decent sound system is simply overwhelming. Vangelis’ score has real presence, the special effects look better than CGI, and the subtlety of the performances and the great craft of the direction really come to the fore. The other thing, even though Golden Compass was coming to the end of its run, the cinema wasn’t crowded at all, but the Blade Runner screening was packed.

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

So it takes Richard Linklater and Bob Sabiston’s proprietary rotoscoping software to bring Philip K Dick to the cinema really for the first time, reasonably undiluted and very out there. Maybe what a Philip K Dick adaptation needed was an approach as extreme as Dick’s own approach to science fiction, and it certainly gets it in spades here. Filmed in Austin, Texas, in the summer of 2004, it took 18 months to essentially reanimate the film frame by frame to deliver the final product. The blur suit, especially, would be a challenge even in CGI, but the approach here, halfway towards a comic book, works better than CGI would. A Scanner Darkly is an edgy, paranoid, very political film about drugs and the people who consume them and are consumed by them and the people who let people consume them for twisted purposes of their own.

Total Recall (1990)

The other kind of Philip K Dick adaptation is this beauty with its slam bang direction and driving Jerry Goldsmith score, which uses one or two ideas from We Can Remember It For You Wholesale and then has Arnold Schwarzenegger beat people up Dutch judo style, when he’s not shooting them in the head and delivering pithy quips, or using dead bodies as shields. By the way, the scene in the hotel room where the head of Rekall arrives to tell Arnold he’s living out a fantasy while suffering from a schizoid embolism is real; Arnold plants the “giveaway” sweat on the Rekall director’s head because he doesn’t want the fantasy to end; and the final fade to white, after Arnold has got the girl, killed the bad guys, and saved the entire planet, is a symbol of his ultimate lobotomy. And then he became Governor of California. Sorry, but can someone pinch me every time I read this or see this? Because it can’t be real, can it?

No cinema visits this week. Instead, I made the most of my Blade Runner box set Christmas present and watched the same movie five times in a row.

The Workprint (1982)

Disc 5 contains a 70mm version of Blade Runner that was used for test screenings before all of Vangelis’ score had been completed and before the voiceover panic had begun (even though the Workprint ends with a small piece of voiceover that was provided by one of the film’s screenwriters as opposed to the dreadful stuff long time Blade Runner fans have had to suffer through, which would appear to have been written by someone the producers met at a party). I don’t believe test screenings run by studios have ever made a good film better; what they have done is turned films that might have had a shot at artistic greatness into films that made a lot of money and were forgotten within a couple of years. Test screenings run by the filmmakers themselves would appear to be more successful; the Pythons were pretty systematic in conducting their own private tests so as to judge more effectively what worked and what didn’t in the comedy of their films. The results of the Blade Runner tests are well known: the imposition of the voiceover since the claim was that people didn’t know what was going on. Except that the voiceover is so bad that it doesn’t solve the  problem that didn’t exist in the first place. The intent with Blade Runner’s release 5 weeks after E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) was to mop up a lot of money with a big summer opening as a consequence of the budget overruns inevitable in a project of such scope and vision. Had Blade Runner been released at Christmas 1982, everything might have been very different. Memories of the production differ on the details. The memories that provide an emotional foundation for the replicants turn out to be elusive in the humans who made the film in deciding who made what decision or wrote what piece of dialogue.

The US Version (1982)

Science fiction writer William Gibson had only had a few short stories published in 1982 when he saw Blade Runner for the first time, but it would probably be fair to say that his breakthrough first novel Neuromancer (1984) existed in some form at that time. Gibson was initially distraught at what Ridley Scott had achieved. Right there on the screen was a vision of the future which William Gibson shared and had been writing about for a number of years on his own. There was the grime, the smoke, the rain, the decay, the mix of cultures, the artificial life debate, it was all there. However, at the end of the screening, Gibson realised that he had a card up his sleeve which hadn’t turned up anywhere in Blade Runner, and that card was cyberspace. So Gibson was able to see Neuromancer to publication and change science fiction forever, much to the horror of a number of science fiction purists around the world. Joanne Cassidy has a tattoo of a snake on her neck, a detail I have never noticed before, and I’ve seen Blade Runner more than any other film. What other details remain locked away in Blade Runner, lurking at the corners of the screen, impatient to be let out and revealed?

The International Version (1982)

It’s just slightly more violent than the original US release. The voiceover is really horrible and really indefensible. What’s offensive about it is pretty clear: all it does is tell us something we already know and can already see on the screen contained in the settings and the performances of the actors. It is one of the great redundancies of modern cinema, and feeds into my pet theory (which I may have picked up from someone else but never mind I’m going to pretend it’s mine) about the absence of that Vangelis soundtrack on Polydor that was never released in 1982 even though it’s promised in the end credits. Vangelis’ wonderfully ambiguous statement about this, that he “found himself unable to release the soundtrack” at the time is, I think, connected with the way in which the voiceover is used to bury some of the most beautiful parts of his score. This, and the endless messing about that went on, did, I think, contribute to the soundtrack’s absence in 1982. The visual effects have a stateliness and beauty that CGI has not as yet been able to achieve. This may have something to do with the pace of the film, which is slower than the fast cut bullshit being churned out at the moment, which serves only to deceive the mind and conceal the inadequacies of the filmmakers.

The Director’s Cut (1992)

In the wake of the 70mm screenings of the Workprint, Warner Bros realised they might have a money maker on their hands again, and commissioned a creation of a director’s cut at a time when Ridley Scott was embroiled in production on 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) and unable to give it his full attention. Elements could not be traced, all of the unicorn footage could not be found, but the voiceover could be removed as could the ridiculous happy ending and something resembling a director’s cut could be assembled. It was close but no cigar. The omission of the voiceover gave the film more space, and the introduction of the unicorn produced what I think may be the great MacGuffin of Blade Runner, the question of whether or not Deckard is a replicant. Ridley Scott is convinced he is, Paul M Sammon, on set journalist and author of Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, maintains that in the director’s cut Deckard is a replicant, Harrison Ford never played Deckard as a replicant, and Frank Darabont turns up in one of the supplements to maintain that if Deckard is a replicant, the film doesn’t really make any sense, and has in effect ceased to be true to itself. Blade Runner may be a film about a human who has lost touch with humanity, and can only be reintroduced to it by artificial beings who are more alive than he is, and who both save his life and offer to love him, when his other humans only see him as a killing machine without a soul.

The Final Cut (2007)

When I first got into DVD in 1999, Blade Runner in its Director’s Cut form had already been released in the UK, but I had already encountered internet forums and discussions with the people at Warner Home Video in the States where it became pretty apparent that the 20th anniversary of Blade Runner was only three years away and they were already working on a Special Edition DVD. Which didn’t appear in 2002. The legal issues that prevented this appear to stem from the circumstances of the original production back in 1982, where the budget overran, and Jerry Perenchio and Bud Yorkin became contractually entitled to more rights over the project than they would have done if Blade Runner had come in under budget, and hadn’t been the film of ambition and scope which it is. In the meantime, I wasn’t going to waste my money on a Blade Runner DVD that would be superceded by the coming Special Edition. So it has been, I have to say, a long fucking wait to own what is my favourite film on DVD. The Final Cut fixes a lot of what could not be fixed back in 1982, the wires on the spinners, Joanna Cassidy’s obvious stunt double, the “lip flap” in the snake merchant scene and so on. The scale of the film remains surprisingly intimate, a callback perhaps to an earlier version of the script where everything took place only in interiors. Ridley Scott’s desire to look outside the window and render that world using special effects led to some of my favourite scenes on film: I could watch forever the initial approach to police headquarters, the camera rotating over the building one way while the spinner rotates another. And if I’m really lucky, I might be able to see the Final Cut in a cinema next week. So yes, a little more Blade Runner to come.

No cinema visits this week.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

One of the secrets of modern fiction is the 20 novel series about HMS Surprise written by Patrick O’Brian. This film encouraged me to pick up the first in the series, and it was, rather unfortunately, so good that I’ve resigned myself to reading the other 19. They’re on the list. This is the kind of movie that digital effects were intended for, a highly detailed recreation of a bygone era that, had it been made 30 years ago (and it could have been), would have had highly unsatisfactory models bouncing around in the tank at Pinewood. If you don’t believe me, check out the supertanker in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977); not for a moment is that believeable as a real ship, despite the best efforts of the Thunderbirds-trained effects technicians. There is something highly attractive about this kind of seafaring yarn, and, even better, due to the complex nature of the financing that required Universal, Miramax and 20th Century Fox to come together, there’s unlikely to be a sequel, even though the film’s ending begs for one.

Foxy Brown (1974)

To finally do away with the bad guys at the end of this film, Foxy Brown persuades the local gang of urban terrorists in a seedy basement filled with automatic weapons to help her out. It did strike me that, apart from all of the other stuff you couldn’t get away with nowadays, this is something you really couldn’t get away with nowadays. This is less fun than Coffy (1973), but still has Pam Grier with a shotgun blowing people away, and Antonio Fargas as 1974’s most badly dressed, most sleazy drug dealing relative (he’s Foxy’s brother).

Sin City (2005)

Still looks highly impressive. Although the movie is all on one note, it’s a helluva note, and if you get that note and enjoy listening to it, the movie does not stop delivering for you. This definitely seems to be one of those divisionary movies, so if there’s anything the slightest bit PC about you, the film’s guaranteed to offend. And there’s nothing wrong with that. We need more offensive art in our culture, not less.

Alien (1979)

Probably in preparation for The Week of Blade Runner (1982) (coming soon), I found myself drawn first to Charles De Lauzirika’s three hour making of documentary, then the film, and then the commentary track. The first time I saw Alien was the first time it was shown on ITV, in full screen, in mono, with adverts, back in the 1980s. My memory is that it was shown on a bank holiday and we had to rush back from a beach in Wales at my insistence to catch it. The first time I saw Alien in the cinema was I think at an all night screening in Brixton in the late 1980s. Since the film isn’t terribly great as a screen original (it’s a film as derivative of other media as The Matrix (1999)), most of the pleasure of watching Alien these days comes from admiring the sets and not necessarily the actors or the script. It’s a b-movie elevated through production design, and that’s not all that bad.

Seabiscuit (2003)

As befits a former scriptwriter for Bill Clinton, the films of Gary Ross, as both screenwriter and director, are straight down the middle Democrat fantasias of America, and Seabiscuit is utterly irresistible. Most of the unlikely plot twists of the film are true, and Jeff Bridges is handed the thankless task of providing a whole bunch of gooey exposition about Seabiscuit being the little man given a second chance in the wake of the Great Depression, and a whole bunch of dewey-eyed reporters are assembled around him eating this stuff up. The patriotic hokum at the press conference in The Right Stuff (1983) is subtly flagged by the sotto voce comments of the astronauts and the irony of Philip Kaufman’s script. There’s no irony in Seabiscuit, Gary Ross really believes this stuff, and I think as long as you don’t buy into it too wholeheartedly, so can you. Maybe. The liberal utopia of America will probably always remain a dream, mostly as long as the Democrats seem unable to come up with as convincing a Presidential candidate as Bill Clinton, and we all know what went wrong with that.

One cinema visit this week, marked with a *. Contains one use of strong language. Sorry.

Jackie Brown (1997)

Film soundtracks are only intended for the seriously geeky. I mean, why would anyone buy the 2 soundtracks to Gladiator (2000) when they can have the same music delivered to them in 5.1 DTS with extra hacking and slashing and dialogue every time they watch the DVD? It’s very difficult to come up with anything resembling an explanation, but I’ve been buying film soundtracks for a long time, and in the days before the internet and indeed VHS, a film soundtrack was the only place to find that particular piece that seemed so transcendent when seen in the context of the film. Unless it didn’t make it to the soundtrack album. The best piece of music in The Hit (1984) was produced by Eric Clapton, and it isn’t on Paco De Lucia’s soundtrack. Among the frustrations of Blade Runner (1982) (see more later when The Week of Blade Runner starts) was the non-appearance of Vangelis’ soundtrack and its replacement with Vangelis’ music played by something called “The New American Orchestra”, an Alan Smithee style atrocity to line up with the worst of them. Away from all the conspiracy theories, what seems to have put paid to the 1982 Vangelis soundtrack we all wanted was nothing more exciting than legal bullshit of the kind that has bedevilled Blade Runner ever since the film went overbudget during production in 1981.

Quentin Tarantino very clearly loves film soundtrack albums, and, like me, he probably owns soundtracks to films he’s never seen, the ultimate example of soundtrack geekery. Jackie Brown, like all Tarantino’s films, is stuffed with pieces from other movies; in the case of the music from Coffy (1973) (see below), Tarantino uses the music more effectively in his film than Jack Hill did 24 years earlier. And Jackie Brown begins with one of the best title sequences in recent memory, Pam Grier in character as an air stewardess striding through an airport like an avenging goddess to the tune of Bobby Womack’s Across 110th Street, from the 1972 film of the same name. This short three and a half minute sequence sets up so much of what happens later. We sense Pam Grier’s attitude, her strength, her dignity, but also her haste, and eventually the realisation that her job isn’t so hot, but just all she could get, and why she’s in the place she’s in, and why she’s couriering money into the country for Ordell.

American Gangster (2007) *

Across 110th Street turns up on the soundtrack to Ridley Scott’s latest movie as well, somewhat critically dismissed but popular with two key constituencies: moviegoers and Oscar-voting Academy members. If you’re being unnecessarily harsh (which I would suggest is a bad place to start when criticising anything), you could say that this film doesn’t contain anything that hasn’t been played out before time and again in any number of films: The Godfather (1972), Scarface (1983), Heat (1995); in short, the touchstone films of modern crime cinema. The important ace that American Gangster has to play is that it’s based on a true story, the vague details of which have surfaced above ground in my cultural memories, but never been connected together in quite this way before. I was aware of the police corruption endemic in New York City in the 1960s and 70s because I’d seen Serpico (1973), but not aware that the later cleanup and arrests of corrupt officers were in part informed by the testimony of Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), the drug kingpin at the centre of events here, a man prepared to deal to the end to stave off life imprisonment.

The Big Doll House (1971)

Not being overly familiar with the Filipino women in prison films that supposedly inspired this one, a typically opportunistic Roger Corman intervention into a potentially lucrative market, it’s hard for me to say just quite on what level of satire this film operates. Or whether it’s just the low budget and odd performances that account for the all round low rent atmosphere. Christiane Schmidtmer’s overwrought performance as a Nazi prison governor into snakes, whips and torture is just one of the film’s baroque pleasures. The Big Doll House is the Halloween (1978) of women in prison flicks, the new set of clichés that spawned a parade of imitators, including the following year’s…

The Big Bird Cage (1972)

Pam Grier appears in both these films, first as a bitchy lesbian opportunist in Doll House and then as a bitchy revolutionary in Bird Cage. One of the clichés of women in prison films is that all of the prisoners have butch personas, skimpy clothing, and surprising access to haircare and makeup, with the exception of the one femme inmate who can be heard weeping softly in the corner. This excess of female machismo naturally results in encounters in the showers (no WIP film is complete without gratuitous nudity) and wrestling in the mud and sex-starved women holding knives to men’s throats and bellowing ominously, “Get it up or I’ll cut it off,” and mowing down rows of Filipino prison guard extras with machine guns. All tied off with a soupçon of revolutionary politics to keep the student crowd happy.

Coffy (1973)

Jack Hill directed both of the previous films, and this 3rd collaboration with Pam Grier effectively moves her centre stage as a vengeful nurse intent on taking out the drugdealing motherfuckers who got her 11 year old niece addicted to heroin. She does this by wielding a shotgun, having an affair with a potential congressman, posing as a highclass Jamaican prostitute to penetrate the organisation (as you do when you’re a nurse) and finding herself in quite a few situations where her clothes seem to fall off, no more so than in a hilarious fistfight with a whole bunch of other bitter and resentful (and indeed bitchy) prostitutes, during which their clothes fall off as well. This is a solid entry in the blaxploitation genre, complete with wah-wah guitars, absurd cars and really bad clothes (and that’s not bad as in good).

Not only am I late after the Russ Meyer blowout, but I’ve only watched three films this week. I really needed the break. One cinema visit this week, marked with a *. Language may offend.
Death Proof (2007) *

I’m too tired to rehash the whys and wherefores of this film that crept into UK cinemas and out again after two weeks because American audiences are so stupid that they start walking out of Planet Terror (2007) when the credits roll and don’t stick around to see the second feature, which is probably the better film (Planet Terror verdict forthcoming). Duh. Thankfully, what Death Proof has going for it is that rather than being a totally out there breakthrough film, it’s just a cool place to hang out and watch two groups of girls talk and interact before they’re interrupted by some vehicular madness that is some of the best vehicular madness that has ever been filmed by anyone. However even as I’m typing this, I can imagine Tarantino giving an interview in which he talks about the films with far superior car chases he was aiming to emulate but did not succeed. Can you too? The only thing that’s a slight indicator of the beginning of the Tarantino decline (apart from the receding incline of his hairline) is the self-referential phrase that forms this week’s title. It’s really, really not a good idea to be so indulgently quoting yourself 13 years after you made Pulp Fiction (1994). Really, really.

A Good Year (2006)

Would this have been a better film if it had been a Working Title production with Hugh Grant, just like all the reviews said? NO, IT FUCKING WOULDN’T. Oh, I’m sorry, didn’t you hear me at the back? As a man of advancing years, Ridley Scott has been slipping micro productions inbetween his macro films for the last few years before time runs out on him, and this French sorbet, filmed, as Scott says on the audio commentary, all within eight minutes of his own home in Provence, must have come as a welcome change of pace after Kingdom of Heaven (2005). There is a slightness to the project that suits the subject matter perfectly, and people with too ingrained an image of Russell Crowe hacking people to death in the Colosseum only have themselves to blame. Crowe was an actor long before he inadvertently became a movie star, and there are plenty of scenes in this film in which Crowe’s character acts like a total shit that a lesser actor would have had removed from the script before he would even deign to read it. Hugh Grant and his schtick are not welcome here.

Deja Vu (2006)

Meanwhile, brother Tony was busy in New Orleans with this thriller that begins with an explosion (it is a Tony Scott movie, after all), edges into science fiction of the mindbending Twelve Monkeys (1995) kind, and ultimately becomes a unexpected love story. To say more would spoil a treat you know you owe yourself. Meanwhile, brother Tony was busy in New Orleans with this thriller that begins with an explosion (it is a Tony Scott movie, after all), edges into science fiction of the mindbending Twelve Monkeys (1995) kind, and ultimately becomes a unexpected love story. To say more would spoil a treat you know you owe yourself. Wait a minute…

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.

One cinema visit this week marked with a *.

Gladiator (2000)

The first time I saw Gladiator I knew how it would end as soon as I saw the scene at the beginning of the film where Commodus is fight training with his men in the woods. It would end in the arena with a fight between him and Maximus. It’s called foreshadowing, and once you become aware of it, you can never become unaware of it. You can only be fooled by it when it’s been done more carefully and concealed as a throwaway line of dialogue or a casually exposed and then dismissed prop. The annoying part is if you removed this short scene, which lasts half a minute at most, would the film be better for it or not? Because when you get to the scene at the end, you’ve spent a couple of hours watching Maximus hack people to death, and the result of the Maximus/Commodus fight should be a foregone conclusion. Do you need to know that Commodus is handy with a sword? Does it make any difference?

Donnie Darko (2001)

A word about film soundtracks. Which is better? Careful choice of exactly the right track, or turning the whole thing over to a music supervisor and saying I want something 80s? What struck me watching Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason was that because Universal could afford a giant music budget, the whole film had been bathed in a wash of slushy romantic hits because that would make for a better soundtrack album. In contrast, Donnie Darko has very deliberately chosen songs that are meant to relate to the whole and be part of the meaning of the film. Check out the lyrics to Mad World if you don’t believe me.

The Hunt for Red October (1990)

How underrated is John McTiernan? The first time I saw Die Hard I didn’t realise just how artfully it had been constructed, it was Bruce Willis in a vest, excitement on every level, all that. Yet as the vast wave of Die Hards on a Boat, Train, Plane, etc started filling up theatres in the early 90s, the directorial skill of Die Hard started to become more apparent. Think of this: at no time in the film are you in any doubt as to where in the building an event is taking place, and the reason you’re never in any doubt is because you have been carefully and deliberately shown around every location without even knowing that you’ve been taking in this information. This style continues in this film, although this time a lot of it’s been achieved with some unsubtle production design. I have a real weakness for submarine films, and sound designers do too; in 5.1, you’re on the sub.

Basic (2003)

Connie Nielsen is great in Gladiator. On their recommended commentary track on the Extended Edition, Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe spend some time contemplating whether or not Nielsen could be a bigger star than she is. What occurred to me is that she may not want to be. Connie Nielsen is not Reese Witherspoon, I don’t think Nielsen has the drive and ambition to push for superstardom. And on the evidence of Basic, why would she want to? Nielsen is from Denmark, she’s tall, she speaks seven languages, so you can imagine how well this goes over in casting sessions where she is automatically the smartest person in the room. There isn’t a moment in Basic where you don’t believe in her character, she has a Southern accent, and a proper military bearing (McTiernan forced her to wear proper army boots throughout the shoot).

Ali (2001)

Spike Lee would have made a different film, but I don’t know if he would have made a better one. This film is another in Michael Mann’s portraits of lone, driven individuals, which date back to The Jericho Mile and Thief and perhaps reach their apex in Heat. Or perhaps the apex is Ali. All I know is that Muhammad Ali’s decision not to accept the draft is one of the finest deeds a human being has ever done.

When We Were Kings (1996)

Compare and contrast. As good as Will Smith is in Ali, and he is very good indeed, it becomes more intimidating when you see for real the guy he had to play. The unique extras on the R2 release of this DVD are the original TV telecasts of both the Rumble in the Jungle and the Thrilla in Manila. Ali and Foreman were big guys, they don’t move with any particular grace, and the Zaire fight is exhausting to watch because you can see the stamina draining from their bodies with every round.

The Good Shepherd (2006) *

How restrained is Matt Damon’s performance? In an early scene, Angelina Jolie is licking his ear with her tongue, and he has to remain unaroused because that’s part of his character. Long but absorbing, maybe Robert De Niro should have directed more in the last 10 years instead of hiring himself out to Rocky & Bullwinkle and the like.

Something Wild (1986)

Who ever loved a yuppie? This was part of the yuppie nightmare series that also included After Hours and Fatal Attraction. Yet it hasn’t aged a bit. Exemplary screenwriting meant that all Jonathan Demme had to do was turn up on set and get things going. And assemble a soundtrack so lengthy it has its own credits sequence.

Donnie Darko (2001)

Oh, I appear to have watched this film twice. First time round was the theatrical release, this time it’s the director’s cut. It’s interesting that now we know what the film’s about, has it become less or more mysterious?

I don’t watch TV. I’ve almost completely abandoned it as an entertainment medium. Instead, I’m all about the DVD. And the cinema. And surround sound. There will be DTS references, oh yes, there will. The only thing I’m going to do here is basically list every film I watch this calendar year and offer something like a things I’ve learned from watching them, probably in brief. Or other comments, which may or may not relate. I’m also going to do my level best not to edit my comments excessively, so this is pretty much straight from my head to cyberspace. Since I’ve already been too lazy to start this in January, I’m going to start with everything I watched in January.

Since the cinema visits will be rarer than the DVDs, I’ll put a * next to the cinema visits.
The Incredibles (2004)
Because I was in need of cheering up.

Ran (1985)
And having been cheered up, I needed to feel a little more miserable again. This was the Criterion Collection’s release of Ran, which has pretty much rendered all other releases redundant. I first saw Ran 20 years ago in a cinema, in all probability at the Aston Triangle, and remembered two things: it took a fair old time to get going, and that the villainness met with a fairly spectacular end. These things remained true, but what’s even more true is that the film ends by dumping you in a big black hole and saying, well there we all are, what do you think about that? Another thing: Chris Marker’s excellent making of documentary, AK, included on disc 2, underlines something very important: it was all done for real. Kurosawa had a giant castle set built on Mount Fuji, which he then attacked with real extras on real soldiers, and then burnt to the ground in real time, placing his leading man in real danger (since the poor guy has to stagger out of a burning castle down very steep steps covered in vision obscuring makeup all the time pretending that he’s completely insane).

The Doors (1991)
I love this film. I think people who don’t are people who don’t love cinema. A slightly older academic friend of mine once told me that this is what the sixties were really like; even though the film is wildly inaccurate about a whole bunch of things, it gets the tone of the period absolutely spot on.

Hannibal (2001)
Possibly because I’d just read Hannibal Rising. I think people are right: it was a lot better when we didn’t know why Hannibal Lecter had become the way he was. Anthony Hopkins is still too camp for me, but I have a lot of time for Julianne Moore, and she is great in this.

Apocalypto (2006) *
Is it just me or should this have been a widescreen movie? I could’ve sworn the trailer was widescreen. Anyway, this was a big step up from The Passion of the Christ; at least Mel Gibson’s used all those pieces of silver to do something interesting. The reason this film was shot on digital cameras is that in a jungle there’s not enough light at ground level to register an image on film without bringing in an enormous array of lighting equipment, which would negate the reason for filming in the jungle in the first place. The film may have a whole bunch of problems (its purported historical and ethnological accuracy among them) but it worked for me.

Lady and the Tramp (1955)
I needed a break from human sacrifice and brutality and this was perfect. The 2.55:1 frame seems a strange choice for a film that largely takes place in houses and alleyways but it leads to some fantastic compositions. And the animation is gorgeous: people who think that 3D CGI is the future of animation really need to check out the sequence in this film where the owners try and lock Lady in the dining room on her first night in the house. And the raindrops in Bambi; Bambi has lots of great character animation in it, but the animation of nature is breathtaking.

Where the Truth Lies (2005)
I don’t know how convinced I was by this. I think the film needed a more intriguing premise than demonstrating just how cute Alison Lohman is.
Evil Aliens (2005)
This makes an interesting companion piece to The Descent (see below), which also directly references a whole bunch of scenes in other films, but is a far superior work because cast and crew take the central premise seriously, and they’re not afraid to scare. Unfortunately, Jake West takes nothing seriously, and his film and his cast suffer badly as a result. If you as a filmmaker don’t believe in your premise, neither will anyone else. This is just a diversion from real filmmaking. Fun but a shame. Just because you can rip people’s spines out doesn’t mean you should.

The Conformist (1970)
Wow. It’s been an awful long time since I watched this, and it’s only improved with time.

A Prairie Home Companion (2006)
And so this is Robert Altman’s last film. The imaginary death of an imaginary radio show with warm humour, country songs, and Lindsay Lohan. This film was shot digitally.

The Fifth Element (1997)
The best moment in this film: Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich have boarded a spaceship that will take them to a far off planet to retrieve magical stones they need to save the universe. But first, the spaceship must be refuelled. Cut to a location beneath the ship. Cue reggae music. Cue rastas and working stiffs who look like they’re smoking something. One guy bangs on a hatch, pulls out an empty fuel cell, picks up a full cell glowing bright green (it’s radioactive), and slams it home. They guys head off for lunch. End of scene. If this film had been made in Hollywood, this scene would never have made it past the first script development meeting because it does absolutely nothing to push the story forward, it doesn’t involve any of the leads, and it is in essence pointless. Except that the point is that it’s an integral part of the world of the film and the film would be poorer without it.

Novecento (1976)
I watched this five hour plus film in one day. Not something I would particularly recommend. I am now convinced that a communist revolution from the grass roots of peasant farmers is the only way to stop the ruling oligarchy of fascists and child murderers from destroying all that is great about our country. And that Dominique Sanda is one of the most beautiful women ever to have been photographed. See The Conformist above.
The Descent (2005)
See Evil Aliens above.

Babel (2006) *
I’m not sure how convinced I was by this movie. The connections between the four stories were, it has to be said, awfully slight and really more of a contrivance than such a film so convinced of its own importance really has any business getting involved in. The actors were all terrific though, as was the score. I just don’t know if the movie has anything to say. And it’s all rather put in perspective by Short Cuts (see below).

Contact (1997)
I love this film, and I’m not ashamed to admit it in a public forum. Hey, Contact haters, get with the programme.

Seven Samurai (1954)
The Criterion Collection hit another home run. The extras on this disc occupied me for another month. That Kurosawa, he was really good, you know.
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003)
I remember this as fairly uneven when I saw it in the cinema, but it seemed much better in a home environment, particularly when you can pause and go back and check out the sheer weight of injokes and action going on even in the deep background.

Tommy (1975)
I love Ken Russell, and Tommy is Ken at the height of his powers. The surround sound is overwhelming, and it’s quite a surprise to discover that this film is one of the innovators in the technology that led to the 5.1 home cinema systems of today. Critics at the time complained that the film was too loud; they were unaware that this was one of the first films where the sound was just right.
Ocean’s Eleven (2001)
Which has to be followed by:

Ocean’s Twelve (2004)
Roland Barthes wrote a book called Le plaisir du texte, and this is just an example of that.

The Usual Suspects (1995)
Still holds up. Still makes other crime thrillers look ordinary and underplotted by comparison.

The Color of Money (1986)
I think what I like more than the performances (and everyone here is at the top of their game) is Richard Price’s crackling dialogue which never fails to cut to the point of every single scene.

Mean Girls (2004)
I must be insane but this film gets better every time I see it. We pray for you, Lindsay, we pray for you.

Short Cuts (1993)
This film is embarrassingly good. Alejandro González Iñárritu should be locked in a room for a month with Robert Altman’s entire back catalogue, and not let out until he’s repented of his foolish ways and vowed to become a better filmmaker. The Criterion Collection really spoil us with this one: the film newly remixed in 5.1, Luck Trust & Ketchup a terrific 90 minute making of documentary, and all the Raymond Carver short stories and poems that inspired the film in a newly published version of an out of print book.

Gosford Park (2001)
A film that rewards you for paying attention. Dense and packed with backstory and incident, it’s a film that inherently criticises the society and world it’s depicting at the same time as it recreates it in all its forensic detail.

Zwartboek (2006) *
In an interesting development, this film was projected digitally, and looked absolutely fantastic. It retained the clarity, depth and grain of film projection, but will of course never be subject to scratches, flaws or fading.

Soldaat van Oranje (1977)
So I had to check out Paul Verhoeven’s earlier WWII epic again as well.

Starship Troopers (1997)
And I really love Starship Troopers: “Rico, you kill bugs good!”

Dreamgirls (2006) *
Every bit as good as promised. People who don’t like musicals are clinically dead. There’s just no hope for them.

Wild Things (1998)
Sex crimes. Oh yes.

De Vierde Man (1983)
Perhaps not the best film to watch in the afternoon.