Nobody Knows Anything

Two cinema visits this week, marked with a *, and both of them were doozies. There may be some swearing at the expense of the noble film bookers of the cinema chains of the British Isles, who receive a firm telling-off for some There Will Be Blood related ineptitude.

Beowulf (2007) *

For the record, this was a screening of the film in 3D at the Imax in Birmingham. The majority of people reading this will never have read anything in Old English, never mind Beowulf, perhaps the most famous of ancient OE texts. Well, I have wrestled with Old English, but found the barrier of the language was getting in the way of any literary appreciation of the story, so I never took it any further than the first year of my three year English degree course. So that’s where Beowulf comes from, as filtered through the imaginations of writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, both perfect choices for the job as far as I’m concerned – I started reading The Sandman in single issues around the time of #15 and I have a lot of time for Avary, especially after The Rules of Attraction (2002). Made using the same elaborate motion capture process as The Polar Express (2004) and Monster House (2006), but now both more refined and more complicated (there are more dots on the actors in their blue suits, there are more mocap cameras, the space in which they can act is larger), the film looks incredible, more real than real, yet at the same time more fake than fake. The rationale for doing it this way is really quite simple: the story requires the characters to do things that real actors could not do, and to even attempt to get real actors close to what would be required in those scenes would be so expensive as to make the film unfilmable. Much better to fake it and know that you’re going to be not just fixing it but making the film in post production. There are also a ton of amusing 3D effects, more than a few of which are designed to dump a load of blood in your face, so thanks for that. And it has the best yet CGI dragon, better than the dragons in Reign of Fire (2002) – and they were pretty damn good dragons.

There Will Be Blood (2007) *

Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2nd and 3rd films announced themselves with such authority after the low key start of his 1st that great things came to be expected of him, a situation he dealt with amusingly by engaging Adam Sandler to be in his 4th film, just to piss off film critics I expect. However, PTA’s problem was this: though lauded by critics, his films (with the possible exception of Boogie Nights (1997)) have not set the box office alight, and this, the 5th film, was as difficult to finance as all of the others have been. Thankfully, it was more than worth the effort. It more than reconfirms that Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the best actors on the planet and that his Robert De Niro in the 1970s attitude of taking gaps in between parts and waiting for the juicy stuff is absolutely the right one. I don’t have the words to describe how extraordinary his performance is, but I’m convinced there are a lot of actors out there who’ve watched this film who are a) realising that someone has raised the game for everybody else and b) filling in his name on their Oscar ballots. These days, the quality of film reviewing has declined so far that the word masterpiece is strewn about like so much confetti and attached to movies written by people who couldn’t even spell masterpiece without a spell checker. But that’s what this film is. A masterpiece. Go see it.

If you can find it that is, since the cunts who run cinema bookings in this country appear not to have booked enough prints of it to go around, when they’re perfectly content to book multiple copies of fucking shit like Rambo (2008) because it’s got that punch drunk old has been attached to it. Fuck you, cinema bookers, and the fucking horse you fucking rode in on. Ahem.

The Black Dahlia (2006)

Second viewings of films are funny things. It took me at least three screenings of The Matrix Reloaded (2003) before I realised that it was a good film after all, when I was able to have absorbed the plot and enough of the Architect’s dialogue to work out just what the film’s intentions were, or at least the intentions as they appeared to me. And once you know a film is good, you tend not to revise that opinion unless you see the film 20 years later and realise you were mistaken. That may happen with the two Matrix sequels, but at the moment I’m confident enough in their brilliance to assert that they can’t be released on Blu-Ray soon enough.

Now the first cinema screening of The Black Dahlia was unsatisfactory, and not because I was sat next to someone crunching popcorn or slurping a giant Coke or using their mobile. I’m a big James Ellroy fan, and have even briefly met the man twice. But there was an awful lot of plot in James Ellroy’s original and brilliant novel, and although screenwriter Josh Friedman did a man’s job of reducing the amount of plot for the film, there was still an awful lot of plot in Brian De Palma’s finished film to get past before you can start seeing whether or not the film works as a whole. Things that pop out, like Hilary Swank’s curious English accent, or the ages of the protagonists (some people thought Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson too young for their parts) tend to magnify in that situation.

So it is with some relief that I can report that these first screening impressions were mistaken. Once the plot complications have been sorted out in your head, the strengths of the performances and the camerawork and the production design and the costumes and the music and the direction start to come to the fore. Brian De Palma has made a decidedly old school film with a lot of longish takes and sweeping camerawork and not that much editing, as well as a couple of Untouchables (1987) style set pieces and some disconcerting switches in tone. The second screening of The Black Dahlia reveals that the film hangs together a lot better than it did first time around.

And that’s not always the case. The second screening can end with you asking yourself: so why did I buy this on DVD? It doesn’t work. Oh dear.

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.