FilmQuest 2012: Glass more than half empty...

So... I failed that FilmQuest 2012 thing I started last January, seeing just 13 of the 30 movies I'd promised myself to check out (for those keeping score, I saw 'Blue Velvet' but never found time to write about it). And it all started so well, with over a third of the list seen by early April. So what happened? A lot of things: a long-term relationship ended, I moved house a couple of times, I started a new relationship, and - perhaps most impactful of all - I fell out of love with writing about film in the second half of last year. This was probably apparent to any regular readers, as posts became less frequent and reviews became shorter (though maybe that's a blessing?).

I might do another post talking about why I stopped wanting to be a film journalist - or any type of journalist - gathering my thoughts about the highs and lows of three years in which I considered that my "career". In fact I'm certain I'll do that as a warning to others if nothing else! But this is about my aborted "FilmQuest", so now isn't the time.

Basically the order of business here is to begin some new sort of quest and to try to stick to it. Whilst I didn't come close to finishing last year's quest in the end, I wouldn't personally write it off as a complete failure: it remains the case that I hadn't previously seen 'Chinatown', 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', 'Goodfellas', 'Unforgiven' or 'Vertigo'. So my life is certainly richer for that experience, I'd say. Yet I still haven't seen 'Rebel Without a Cause' or 'West Side Story' or 'The Sound of Music', to name but a few.

I haven't seen a lot of things, obviously (there are far too many films to see them all), but the point of this list was to address blindspots I felt were particularly uncomfortable: films it seemed everyone else had as cultural reference points but which had somehow never formed part of my upbringing or experience. With that goal in sight I think it's important to complete last year's list over the course of 2013. That means watching:

Blow Up
The Exorcist
Rebel Without a Cause
The Sound of Music
West Side Story
When Harry Met Sally...
Lethal Weapon
Beverly Hills Cop
Mary Poppins
Kes
The Passion of the Christ
Dirty Harry
An Officer and a Gentleman
Rain Man
Braveheart
Saturday Night Fever
Platoon

Those 17 "leftovers" still NEED to be seen, but I should probably add a few more. I won't be so arrogant as to add another 13, but it'd bug me if I didn't at least add three more - rounding this year's quest up to 20. And to get those films I'll simply select the first three I haven't seen off of this list - the all-time US box office 200, as adjusted for inflation (i.e. 'Gone With the Wind' is top and 'Avatar' is 14th). Not including 'The Exorcist', which is already on my list, those films are:

The Ten Commandments
Doctor Zhivago
Grease

So there you have it! Let FilmQuest 2013 fare better than its aborted 2012 antecedent!

And speaking of new year's resolutions, I'd also like to:

Write at least one full screenplay
Start a comic book blog/podcast
Update this blog at least 10 times each month

I've written it down now so I have to do it.

FilmQuest 2012 (12/30): 'Unforgiven'

A huge box office and Academy Awards success in 1992, Clint Eastwood's 'Unforgiven' proved to be one of many recent false dawns for the Western. Like the Coen Brothers 2010 'True Grit' and contemporary favourite 'Dances With Wolves', 'Unforgiven' not only managed to renew audience enthusiasm for tales of the Old West but also became an instant classic of the genre. Spectacular film though it is, this popularity was no doubt assisted by the presence of Eastwood, starring and directing, which gives the film extra weight and pop culture significance. It's, as things stand, the last Western from an actor more closely associated with the genre than any other (with the possible exception of John Wayne) and proves a fitting coda.

As cantankerous former gunslinger William Munny, Eastwood is effectively looking back on his own past as a screen icon with the same mixture of shame and pride as the anti-hero. Munny professes to have been cured of wickedness and sin by his late wife, yet you can immediately tell this is not so much a change of character as an act of repression. As he gets further and further into his last great adventure - tracking down two cowboys who deformed a prostitute, in the company of his best friend Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and near-sighted outlaw wannabe The Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett) - his pretense at a moral crusade gives way to a lust for violence, especially when in the service of vengeance.



Like all the great modern Westerns, the decline of the Old West (and of the genre itself) is built into the narrative. But in this morally grey film the transition period from frontier barbarism to gentrified modernity is fraught with contradictions. Gene Hackman, who won as Oscar for his trouble, plays lawman Bill Daggett, who forbids weapons in his town in order to maintain the fragile peace. His real passion is for building a house in which he hopes to retire finally free from conflict (giving rise to that great line "I don't deserve to die like this... I was building a house"). It is his willingness to forgive the cowboys, rather than beating or hanging the men as demanded by the other prostitutes, that serves as the catalyst - whilst his zero tolerance policy for those who cause trouble is the act which finally unleashes the demons that lurk within Munny's soul.

There is no right or wrong or morality in 'Unforgiven' and the town of Big Whiskey. Not in Hackman's attempts to keep the peace or in Eastwood's attempts to avenge a wronged woman. There is only ever an ill-defined moral high-ground masquerading as the pretext for violent acts - with revenge the perfect cover for cruelty. Perhaps Freeman is the only honest and decent man in the picture (abandoning the outlaw party as soon as it comes to killing) - and he pays the price for it. So is it a nihilistic film, suggesting that forgiveness and freedom from our most violent impulses are impossible? Perhaps, though I'm not sure. I think Munny's final alcohol and rage fueled rampage is as much a comment on audience expectations as anything else - with the viewer complicit in Eastwood's decline from faux nobility as we will him to go badass on the sheriff and his posse. We all want to hear Eastwood tell the crowded bar "Any man who doesn't wanna get killed better clear on out the back".

It's a mechanism the director subverted to dazzling effect at the climax of the more recent 'Gran Torino', with both films being as much about star semiotics as anything else as Eastwood comes to terms with his own screen image.

FilmQuest 2012 (11/30): 'Top Gun':

I'm aware this isn't a particularly original thing to say, but 'Top Gun' is very gay, isn't it? And I don't just mean the infamous beach volleyball scene or the fact that Tom Cruise has far more screen chemistry with his wingman (Anthony Edwards AKA "Goose") than with intended love interest Kelly McGillis. The steamy, overtly homoerotic exchanges between the film's team of elite Cold War fighter pilots include such aggressively macho lines as "your dick, my ass: we nailed that bitch!" and the memorable exchange: "This [briefing] gives me a hard on"/"Don't tease me!" Another pilot, during one of a thousand locker room scenes, candidly reveals that a list is as "long and distinguished" as his Johnson.

Later, a pilot compliments Cruises' "Maverick" on an especially risky flight maneuver, saying in a breathy voice "gutsiest move I ever saw, man" - a line that wouldn't be all that gay if it weren't backed up musically with the refrain from the film's love theme, "Take My Breath Away". More subtle, but no less gay, is a rack focus shot which sees "Maverick" in a flight classroom, looking over his shoulder at "Iceman": sizing up Val Kilmer in a way that is reminiscent of the way so many high school romance movies depict the top jock checking out the head cheerleader. Of course, there is nothing at all wrong with this homo-eroticism and nothing inherently hilarious about gayness, until you consider the film's intended devoutly heterosexual male audience.

Writing checks its body most certainly can't cash, 'Top Gun' is the latest entry in my "FilmQuest 2012" column and, produced by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, it very much establishes the archetype for subsequent action films like 'The Rock', as well as the military recruitment aesthetic of the entire Michael Bay oeuvre. It opens with by now familiar shots of US military personnel doing their duty, with the flight deck of an aircraft carrier shot in slow motion, backed up by triumphant and patriotic sounding music. A poster asking people to consider the "adventure" of joining the US Navy hangs on the locker room wall - and I doubt it's there for the characters (already serviceman). American military tech and jargon are endlessly fetishised, with Tom Cruise draped around fighter jets the way Hollywood stars usually advertise expensive wristwatches.

Feminists would quite rightly object to a film which suggested staying at home and obeying your man were essential to a happy, fulfilled life - and arguably 'Top Gun' is no less problematic. Here men are told: join the US military - it's damn sexy and super cool. It's a fantasy version of military service in which all the discipline is missing, even at an apparently "elite" fighter jet academy for the best of the best. Whenever Cruise breaks a rule he gets a stern talking to, but he's otherwise allowed to act as he pleases. Along with the volleyball, the karaoke, and the driving of high-end sports cars and motorcycles, "Maverick" seduces the driven career gal from the Pentagon (McGillis) and becomes a Cold War hero - whose face, we are told, will be on the front page of every newspaper in the English speaking (and therefore relevant) world.

The aerial photography is pretty outstanding however, with director Tony Scott serving up some really intense dogfight scenes. Even though I'm not usually one to get turned on by machines of war, I'd have to admit the fighter jets are pretty spectacular. The scenes in which they are piloted also seem (as far as I can tell, with no military or flying experience) pretty realistic: few planes, few explosions, and long moments of relative inaction. I mean, aside from the bit where he flies upside down against a Russian cockpit in order to give the guy the finger. "Maverick" and company don't take to the air guns blazing, but instead they get involved in quite drawn out and limited combat missions, usually without permission to fire live ammunition.

This being 1986, with the Cold War still raging, the enemy is vaguely defined. They are at least in league with the Soviet Union, flying MiG jets, but the enemy pilots we see are suited up like Darth Vader (complete with the heavy breathing) and never speak. The combat we see takes place over the Indian Ocean - which means the enemy could come from pretty much anywhere from East Africa to Southeast Asia. But who they are and what they are fighting for is not of any importance to this story. 'Top Gun' positions war as a glamourous, high-stakes backdrop to "Maverick's" personal story. All successes and failures are his own and ultimate victory is his. Even when a close friend dies it is he who is consoled by the widow and told to fly on.

Perhaps this is the crux of why so many American war movies get it wrong: war degradates the individual, taking away their rights and turning them into an expendable cog in a gigantic, terrifying machine. Yet war movies promote conflict as a an arena in which the individual can shine and grow.

FilmQuest 2012 (10/30): 'Dirty Dancing':

1987 sleeper hit 'Dirty Dancing' is actually a pretty sad film when you get down to it. It begins with "Baby" (Jennifer Gray, daughter of 'Cabaret' star Joel) narrating from a (presumably) discontented future, wistfully looking back at her more exciting youth, recalling a time when she didn't mind being called by her childish nickname. And it ends with a climactic dance number during which (most famously) the song "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" plays. HAD the time of her life, but it's all in the past now: a bittersweet memory. At least that's what I took away from this supposedly "feelgood" movie, where youth is king and anyone over 30 is an irrelevant dinosaur.

The latest entry in my "FilmQuest 2012" column, 'Dirty Dancing' is an odd one. Odd because though its blueprint to success has been emulated even recently, with choreographer Kenny Ortega going on to helm the 'High School Musical' trilogy and the posthumous Michael Jackson concert movie 'This Is It', unlike the recent wave of dance film descendants it concerns itself with social issues and a moment in history. The lack of unions for the film's nakedly exploited camp workers is bemoaned by our politicised heroine, whilst it's a rare mainstream American movie that admits the existence of social class, with the plot turning on Baby's upper-crust father's failure to accept Patrick Swayze's slick dance instructor - yesterday's leather-clad vision of cool.

With its 1960s setting, the film even charts the decline of Catskills-style holiday resorts, which offer little for the day's youth with their magic acts and talent competitions. There is even a subplot involving a backstreet abortion, which plays as a pro-choice argument from its makers. Which is not to say that it looks at any of these things with any degree of depth, but it's nonetheless interesting that the film is not anything like as vapid as its imitators. Indeed its core message of acceptance and the importance of "living your dream", whilst cliche, is eminently agreeable. Though, in conjunction with the aforementioned jaded future-narration, perhaps we can assume these dreams never truly panned out beyond teenage idealism.

But whatever. You've also got to admit that these guys can dance. That the late Mr. Swayze went on to star in such non-dance films as 'Ghost' and 'Point Break' speaks to the fact that he was a decent actor as well as a good mover, and Grey is also an appealing lead. Overall though 'Dirty Dancing' isn't really my particular cup of tea. I like dancing, but not really this kind of slow, supposedly erotically charged stuff (I guess I like what you might call "Jewish showbiz dancing"), whilst a lot of the training montage/sex scenes (such as the bit where Swayze is catching Grey in the lake) feel like the stuff of Mills & Boon fantasy. Perhaps, with its quotable lines ("nobody puts baby in the corner", "I carried a watermelon" etc) and the wish-fulfillment aspect for the largely female audience, it's the exact girly equivalent of something like 'Con Air'.

FilmQuest 2012 (9/30): 'Goodfellas':

Until this morning I hadn't seen Martin Scorsese's 'Goodfellas': a fact many of my friends regard as some kind of crime against cinema. But, happily, filling gaps like this is exactly the reason I began my "FilmQuest 2012" column last month. My first reaction to this seminal, oft-quoted gangster film is that I'm surprised how fresh it felt. I worried it could only be a disappointment considering its legacy and pervasiveness in popular culture (the mob oeuvre in particular). I worried that I wouldn't be able to see it as something original but as one of a million 'Goodfellas' tribute acts, a bit like when I saw 'Indiana Jones' for the first time a few years ago, having seen all the best bits parodied a thousand times on 'The Simpsons'.

Yet whilst a lot of movies have affected the accents, phraseology and look of the mobsters from 'Goodfellas' - with Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci and, to some extent, Robert De Niro living in the shadow of these roles - its imitators have consistently fallen short when it comes to matching the film's historical and sociological heft. 'Goodfellas' is many things: it's a true crime story (closely based on real events), a look at the immigrant experience (Scorsese's own Sicilian routes come through in the 50s section and in the casting of both his parents in minor roles), and a plotted history of the American gangster (from small-time protection rackets to heavy-duty drug dealing). But best of all it examines the appeal of becoming a mobster (the movie star aura, the mythos, the idea of being somebody) to Liotta's impressionable, true-believer Henry, whilst also critiquing the romanticised view of who these people are (as best embodied by Coppola's 'The Godfather') through showing their ruthless disregard for human life and frail sense of loyalty.

This dichotomy is best demonstrated by the ending: as Henry (now in witness protection) bemoans his safe, average, white picket fence existence ("I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.") Here Scorsese cuts briefly to an idealised shot of Pesci's fallen mob enforcer Tommy DeVito who looks smart, stylish and handsome standing against a redbrick wall and shooting his handgun at the camera. This is the character as Henry remembers him, as a perfect movie star, as James Cagney: a charismatic anti-hero who didn't take shit from nobody. It's an image that sits in stark opposition to the angry, sadistic murderer whose violent unpredictability hangs over much of the film.

It's a theme which is brought into focus right away by the seeming contradiction between the opening shots of barbaric murder (a dying man being stabbed to death with a kitchen knife in the boot of a car) and the cheerfully optimistic first line of Liotta's voiceover which follows: "As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster." Scorsese sets up the horror and the reality and then goes about explaining its appeal, but without ever confusing his message and making the violence itself appealing. Whereas 'The Godfather' is sometimes poetic in its depiction of death, 'Goodfellas' never shows murder as anything other than senseless and brutal.

One strange quirk did stand out for me though: why do we get small sections of voiceover from a second narrator, Henry's wife Karen (played by Lorraine Bracco, one of many cast members subsequently seen in 'The Sopranos')? These moments are great in that they provide a female point of view in a genre where women are traditionally marginalised (as demonstrated with singular beauty by the final shot of 'The Godfather'), but wouldn't the film be a little tighter without them? Without these moments the whole thing would be consistently presented from the point of view of Henry, which makes sense because he's in almost every scene and because he ultimately breaks the fourth wall in the court room, presenting the whole film as a story he's telling (raising questions as to its reliability). I just don't think Karen's voiceover is used enough to justify its use at all.

That's a minor grievance though - and I'm not even that sure I'm right about it because, as I say, I like that there's a female voice what would otherwise be another exclusively macho film about the fraternity of violent men. It certainly doesn't detract from the film's stunning period detail and some of the finest steadicam work you'll ever see. These single-take sequences, as we're taken through nightclubs and around restaurants, stand testament to Scorsese's virtuosity and imagination.

FilmQuest 2012 (8/30): 'Con Air':

"Beautiful? Sunsets are beautiful, newborn babies are beautiful. This... this is fucking spectacular!" If I hadn't seen Michael Bay's 'The Rock' the day before there's a good chance producer Jerry Bruckheimer's next film - 1997's Simon West directed 'Con Air' - would have seemed like the epitome of hi-octane. However, seen in the shadow of Bay's quote-a-second action flick it seemed comparatively sedate.

But this is odd because 'Con Air', the latest entry in my rapidly expanding "FilmQuest 2012" series, is arguably more extreme than Bay's film in terms of raw ingredients: this time Nicolas Cage has daft hair and a thick Cajun accent, he gets to run (and jump) away from explosions with far greater frequency, and the cartoonishly over the top villains are brilliantly cast (including Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo and Dave Chappelle) with the scenery-chewing John Malkovich in top form. It also has a suitably BIG premise: the world's most loathsome scumbags (notorious rapists, drug lords and mass murderers) hijack a prison transport plane, making it hell in the air. There is, of course, one good man aboard. Meanwhile the authorities on the ground (led by John Cusack) bicker over whether to shoot the plane out of the sky or trust the one good man to restore order.

These cops argue over whose jurisdiction the whole incident is whilst, over the next hour and a bit, pretty much everything explodes and people are battered, shot, stabbed, crushed, impaled and burned with regularity. There is a pitched gun battle between the cons and soldiers in a plane scrapyard, an attack helicopter chase through the Grand Canyon, a crash landing on the Las Vegas Strip (with landmarks destroyed), and a high-speed chase between police motorcycles (commandeered by the Cage and Cusack dream-team, no less) and a rampaging convict-carrying fire truck - complete with climactic good versus evil fistfight on the roof of the moving vehicle. This is a film where a plane tows a sports car into the air for chrissakes, prompting the line "on any other day that might seem strange". But the best line? "Sorry boss, but there's only two men I trust. One of them's me. The other's not you."

As with 'The Rock' every aspect of the story is heightened to its greatest, most ludicrous possible level to ratchet up the drama and punctuate the stakes for all involved. For instance, Nicolas Cage's Cameron Poe isn't just a mild-mannered convict due to leave prison after an 8 year stretch, on the wrong plane at the wrong time (on a story level this might have been enough). No, he's a decorated former soldier who returned home from serving his country to find his pregnant wife (Monica Potter) being pestered by a despicable drunk, who he accidentally kills after being attacked.

He's then assured by a lawyer that he'll only serve a year if he pleads guilty, but the judge gives Poe no less than 7 years because he's a soldier - engendering a sense that he's a victim of rough justice. Yet he's never the slightest bit angry or twisted: a benevolent convict who shares his sweeties with the kindly diabetic man in his bunk (Mykelti Williamson) and writes regular letters home to his young daughter. Oh, and the hijacking of his flight home doesn't merely jeopardise his freedom - it also means he might miss his daughter's birthday party.

The ingredients are there but I think it's held by the fact that West, unlike Bay, is not any sort of visual stylist. Whilst 'The Rock' is rendered even more lovably ridiculous by all the American flags and fast-cutting of its uber-trashy auteur, 'Con Air' just isn't quite as intense. And if 'The Rock' was an inspired once in a lifetime mess of various jobbing writers (including Tarantino and Sorkin) then 'Con Air' is a much more coherent but infinitely less romantic piece from a single screenwriter: Scott Rosenberg. There are some quotable lines ("Put... the bunny... back... in the box"), but nothing on the level of 'The Rock'. Though I accept that this is an unfair and arbitrary standard of measure. Like I said, I saw both more or less back-to-back.

One aspect of 'Con Air' that genuinely elevates it above most of the action competition (puns definitely intended) are the interactions between Cusack's US Marshal Vince Larkin and Colm Meaney's DEA Agent Duncan Malloy. Whereas most movies would be comfortable with the idea that these convicts are an evil blight on society, Larkin makes constant references to the idea that they've been, to some extent, institutionalised by the prison system. Malloy angrily disagrees and often calls the prisoners "animals", but he is consistently shown as pig-headed and governed by reactionary anger rather than thought (see the sequence in which Cusack tries and fails to convince him that he's chasing the wrong plane). Conversely Larkin is shown as intelligent and rational. Perhaps their relationship is best defined by the following exchange:

Vince Larkin: "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by observing its prisoners." Dostevsky said that... after doin' a little time.
Duncan Malloy: "Fuck you!" Cyrus Grissom said that after putting a bullet in my agent's head, okay?

Malloy is motivated by revenge which is opposite of justice. This philosophical feud is complicated by the scene in which Malloy wants to shoot the plane down over the desert, only for Larkin to ensure that he doesn't - directly leading to the crash landing in Las Vegas, potentially killing hundreds of people in a densely populated area. Is Malloy's pragmatism vindicated here? Maybe that's a valid way of seeing it, though it's probably not the view taken by the film: after all, we want Cage to survive to see his wife and daughter to the strains of "How Can I Live".

FilmQuest 2012 (7/30): 'The Rock':

"What is wrong with these people, huh? Mason? Don't you think there's a lot of, uh, a lot of anger flowing around this island? Kind of a pubescent volatility? Don't you think? A lotta angst, a lot of "I'm sixteen, I'm angry at my father" syndrome? I mean grow up! We're stuck on an island with a bunch of violence-for-pleasure-seeking psychopathic marines, SHAME-ON-THEM!"

I was surprised to hear the above rant voiced by the hero of a 1996 Michael Bay action movie. Welcome to 'The Rock' - the latest entry for "FilmQuest 2012" - where it is spoken (or shouted) by Nicolas Cage's FBI chemical weapons specialist Stanley Goodspeed. It seems to be criticising the violent machismo of every Bay movie (even the ones that hadn't been made yet). And it's not an isolated case: elsewhere Sean Connery's ace escape artist and former SAS operative Captain Mason cites Oscar Wilde in declaring patriotism "the virtue of the vicious".

Both quotes seemingly run in direct opposition to much of what we see throughout Bay's movie, which fetishises American military men, might is right pragmatism and the star spangled banner as much as ever. There are sombre speeches about the importance of respecting the armed forces and about the honour involved in "serving", just like all of Bay's other glossy feature length army recruitment videos (and with the same frenetic cutting). 'The Rock' is in many ways the definitive "get the President on the phone" movie: full of ultra-macho one-liners, strangely charming vulgarities and fist-pumping moments of explosive violence. It's a film in which, without irony, people say things like:

• "Your best? Losers always go on about doing their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."
• "This is the toughest call I've ever had to make... airstike approved!"
• "This man knows our most intimate secrets from the last half-century: the alien landing at Roswell, the truth about the JFK assassination. Mason's angry, he's lethal, he's a trained killer... and HE is the only hope that we have got!"
• "General, we've shed the same blood in the same mud - you know god damn well I can't give that order!"
• "Make no mistake, gentlemen. We are in the fight of our lives against maybe the greatest battalion commander of the Vietnam war, I shit you not!"
• "The whole world is being Fed-exed to hell in a handcart!"
• "You're between the rock and a hard case."

Anyone who's seen it will know there are a million more zingers like those, most punctuated by the cocking of a gun or the twang of an electric guitar. 'The Rock' invented hi-octane... then shot it into space on the back of a radioactive unicorn on crack where it exploded with the heat of a billion suns. You get the point: it's a film that waves its big dick in your face to the sound of the American national anthem. It's a film so over the top that it sometimes feels less like Bay's 'Armageddon' and more like Wes Anderson's MTV Awards parody of 'Armageddon'. Yet remember those two quotes from before? They feel like they're from a different movie universe.

Perhaps it's not surprising that 'The Rock' should exhibit signs of multiple personality disorder: it is the fruit of at least eight different writers - most of whom are uncredited for reasons only those within the nebulous and highly litigious world of Hollywood writing credits could explain. Among the uncredited are voices as disparate and distinctive as Aaron Sorkin and Quentin Tarantino (highly speculative, but perhaps some of that liberal-minded critique came from Sorkin).

But wherever the lines came from and however much they contradict each other (undermining whatever the point of 'The Rock' is in the process) there is little sense in denying that it's in the same bracket as 'Casablanca', 'Withnail & I' or 'The Big Lebowski' in terms of how endlessly quotable it is. Personally I love all the lines which lay out the stakes in really direct fashion, such as this doozy: "Look, I'm just a biochemist. Most of the time, I work in a little glass jar and lead a very uneventful life. I drive a Volvo, a beige one. But what I'm dealing with here is one of the most deadly substances the earth has ever known, so what say you cut me some FRIGGIN' SLACK?" What more do we need to know about the disparity between the life of Cage's character and the gravity of the situation he finds himself in? 'The Rock' is the sworn enemy of subtlety and I wouldn't have it any other way.

After foiling Ed Harris' apparently noble terrorist plot (it's easy to forget that pre-9/11 a lot of movie terrorism was domestic), Cage ends up in possession of the MacGuffin microfilm, holding information that got Connery's character locked up in Alcatraz for life without trial. Goodspeed's never previously expressed any interest in possessing this information, so why does his attainment of it count as a win? The answer: it just does. Especially because it facilitates one of the best (and most irreverent) final lines ever: "Honey, you wanna know who really killed JFK?"

FilmQuest 2012 (6/30): 'Chinatown':

Furthering my quixotic "FilmQuest 2012" - a mission to fill the vast, unforgivable gaps in my knowledge of film - is Roman Polanski's 1974 neo-noir classic 'Chinatown'. When I selected my arbitrary roster of 30 films I made it a rule to name no more than one by any given director, meaning that 'Repulsion', 'Cul-de-sac' and 'Rosemary's Baby' will have to wait for a future list. It's fair to say Polanski encapsulates one of those embarrassing cinema blind spots that prompted the list in the first place.

'Chinatown' is the first "classic" Polanski film I've had the pleasure of seeing and now I can see why he's considered one of the great masters of cinema - something that was not apparent upon watching his forgettable 'Oliver Twist' or rote thriller 'The Ghost Writer' (though that film is similar to 'Chinatown' in so far as its an investigation told from a subjective viewpoint). It's one of those rare films that is universally acclaimed for more or less every aspect of its production - and deserves it. What can you say about a film like that? I'm afraid I'll be reduced to simply repeating the obvious.

Robert Towne's Oscar-winning screenplay is intelligent and full of brilliant one-liners ("politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough"). I recently discussed the films of David Fincher with friends who defended the loathsomeness of 90s thriller 'Seven' as being a poem on the decline and immorality of the modern American city. 'Chinatown' is similarly cynical and critical: indeed its hero takes a similar arc to Brad Pitt's idealistic cop in that film, ultimately realising that his attempts to do something good are futile amongst the greed and corruption of 1930s Los Angeles. But the foregrounding of specific, historically-routed political critique stops 'Chinatown' from feeling like the nihilistic ambassador for hopelessness or a cheerleader for empty despair.

The actors are also on career-defining form. Jack Nicholson is at his inimitable best as private eye Jake Gittes (who surly ranks as one of the all-time greatest movie detectives), combining his explosive intensity - that ever-present feeling that he could do or say anything - with an understated, classic movie star elegance. The great director John Huston makes a lasting impression as wealthy patriarch Noah Cross, despite only appearing in two scenes (one of which is at the very end). His courtly and genteel portrayal ensures the character looms large over the whole film.

Faye Dunaway is also perfectly cast as the seemingly poised and in-control femme fatale Evelyn Mulwray, exhibiting an underlying damaged quality that prevents her ultimate reveal as the victim from being out of the blue without robbing it of its capacity to shock. Legendary screenwriter William Goldman has said that good movies feel both inevitable and surprising and 'Chinatown' certainly has this strange seemingly contradictory quality.

And then there's Polanski. The director ensures a dialogue heavy and complicated script holds together without an ounce of fat. He apparently eliminated a Gittes voiceover from the script and tightened up the famous ending: bringing everything to a head in one climactic confrontation instead of over several more complex scenes. He also placed the film's celebrated "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown" at the very end. The line had apparently already existed elsewhere in the script but Towne could never quite make it fit - in the end its placement is perfect, capturing the tragic futility Gittes struggle in a single phrase.

FilmQuest 2012 (5/30): 'The Full Monty':

It's been just over a week since I started the emphatically named "FilmQuest 2012" column and I've already seen five of the thirty arbitrarily selected major movies that I had been so woefully ignorant of. This time around it's the turn of 1997's 'The Full Monty' - that small ($3.5 million budget) British comedy that ended up an international box office sensation (earning just under $258 million) and became a surprise rival to 'Titanic' at that year's Academy Awards (nominated for Best Picture, Director and Original Screenplay, winning one for Anne Dudley's score).

In Peter Cattaneo's film six Sheffield lads decide to become male strippers in a society where that seems to be the most dignified remaining option. The disintegration of the city's once-booming steel industry casts a shadow over all the characters, from the suicidal Lomper (Steve Huison) - who lives with his elderly mother - to the mill's former manager Gerald (Tom Wilkinson), whose wife has been in the dark about his joblessness for the last six months. Gerald has bought into the middle class dream and stands to lose his ski holidays, tanning bed and various object d'art. Meanwhile loveable hustler Gaz (Robert Carlyle), the brains behind the stripping scheme, is in equally desperate need of income: in danger of losing access to his son (William Snape) if he can't start making child support payments to his ex-wife.

It's amazing to think 'The Full Monty' is now fifteen years old - because it seems like the relic of a bygone age. One that pre-dates the current vicious level of class hate in this country. I can't imagine one of today's films positioning its heroes in a dole queue as this one does for the instantly iconic "Hot Stuff" scene, let alone with such resignation and little sense of either judgement or condescension. Simon Beaufoy's screenplay reminds us of a Britain hadn't yet been weaned off compassion for the unemployed by a decade of Jeremy Kyle and the like.

In fact way back in 1997 Robert Carlyle and Mark Addy (who plays Gaz's portly mate Dave) were not only shown on the dole, but they could even be seen to shoplift VHS tapes (I told you it was old) from ASDA without fear of losing audience sympathies. We route for them and are never encouraged to doubt their good intentions and kindly character, even as they're also shown to turn down several offers of employment considered demeaning.

Gaz rejects his ex-wife's attempts to get him doing unskilled labour for a (pre-minimum wage) sum of £2.50 an hour, whilst Dave is mocked for taking up work as a security guard at the aforementioned supermarket: a job he eventually runs away from, shoplifting as he does so, with the moment depicted as liberating rather than debauched. And yet the film somehow never implies that they aren't serious about looking for work. More than anything all of the characters long for their old jobs back. So much so that a good portion of 'The Full Monty' sees its characters hanging out in the abandoned steel mill, with seemingly nowhere else to go. They are a displaced class of men who no longer feel of use or relevance.

Particularly effective (probably the best scene in whole movie) is the look on Gaz's face when he realises he's potentially sabotaged Gerald's efforts at securing a new job. Tom Wilkinson's public breakdown is one of many tender moments that prevents the film from taking unemployment and its pitfalls too lightly. It's overwhelmingly sensitive and kindly disposed towards its characters. A fact which ensures this comedy is never less than watchable even if (to me at least) the jokes aren't very funny.

FilmQuest 2012 (4/30): 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest':

SPOILERS ahead

The fourth in my series of retrospective reviews bearing the oft-derided (if only by me) name "FilmQuest 2012", this time I'm looking at 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest': the Michael Douglas produced, Milos Forman directed, Jack Nicholson starring 1975 drama set within a mental institution. Funny, sad, disturbing and life-affirming in equal measure, 'One Flew' is one of those rare Best Picture Oscar winners that people seem to unanimously agree is genuinely very good. I guess it would have to be: the other nominees that year were 'Barry Lyndon', 'Nashville', 'Dog Day Afternoon' and 'Jaws' (has there been a better year than that in terms of Oscar?).

Douglas, Forman and Nicholson all won golden statuettes in their respective categories (picture, director, actor), as well as the screenwriters (Laurence Hauben and Bo Goldman) and actress Louise Fletcher, for her legendary portrayal of the uncompromising Nurse Ratched. Yet what really caught my eye, as I sat down to watch the film for the first time, was the revelatory performance of one of its few Oscar losers: Brad Dourif as the stuttering, suicidal Billy Bibbet. Dourif's bright-eyed intensity and haunting vulnerability make the ending all the more tragic. If we hadn't just witnessed Dourif's dramatic fall from newly confident euphoria to pathetic, weepy pleading, Nicholson's subsequent attempt to murder Ratched would play as far less sympathetic. As it is, you are - for those few seconds at least - right there with him.

Dourif's impact on the whole film is made even more extraordinary by the fact that, aside from Nicholson and, at a push, Will Sampson (as the Chief), most of the inmates/patients don't have a great deal of individual screentime - restricted to the occasional (often wordless) close-up. But we feel like we've spent more time with them than we have in reality, no doubt thanks to the uniqueness of the actor inhabiting each small role. Alongside Dourif are the likes of Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, Vincent Schiavelli, Sydney Lassick, William Duell and William Redfield: all of whom look and sound distinctive enough as to form an immediate, unshakable impression.

Despite the ultimate, spirit-crushing lobotomy visited upon Nicholson's Randle McMurphy following his strangling of the nurse, one of the really exceptional elements of 'One Flew' is that the institution is not portrayed as malicious for its own sake. Ratched is stern and rigorously enforces her regime - to the detriment of the patients - yet, until the heartless humiliation of Bibbet, her good intentions are never really in question. You get the sense she genuinely believes her methods are the best way bring stability or order to disordered lives. Here (in a refreshing break from the norm) the system, though it medicates patients into docility and uses electro-shock therapy as a punishment, is not depicted as deliberately cruel.

Perhaps (the forced lobotomy of McMurphy aside) Ratched's greatest act of cruelty is subtle and indirect. Though most of her patients are in the hospital voluntarily - and therefore permitted to leave at any time - none of them express even the faintest desire to do so, thanks to her control over them and the relative security it brings. Through her regime Ratched merely seeks to pacify her wards, with little thought of preparing them to reintegrate with society. This horrifies McMurphy who thinks only of freedom. Though clearly a loose cannon, he's not himself mentally ill: he's a criminal who's had himself committed in order to avoid manual labour and serve the rest of his sentence in relative comfort.

This allows him to witness, and experience, the pitfalls of institutionalisation. It is ambiguous whether he fails to escape the night of the illicit party (falling asleep) or simply decides not to - preferring to stay within this new community in which he has become an important member. Either way McMurphy becomes the unwilling victim of a system that seems designed to make people easier to handle, rather than working to enrich their lives. In this respect the hospital is not too dissimilar from the prison Nicholson's character has left behind.

FilmQuest 2012 (3/30): 'Vertigo':

We're already at the third entry of my cringe-inducingly monikered "FilmQuest 2012" column, as I right the wrongs of my cinema viewing past by watching 30 big/popular/seminal/oft-quoted gaps in my knowledge-bank. This time it's Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 thriller 'Vertigo' - regularly cited as its director's finest masterpiece. A lofty accolade indeed. Though widely seen as a disappointment at the time of release, its critical stock has steadily risen in the years since, to the point where it's now regularly near the summit of most respectable "best film of all-time" polls.

This rise is evident in the vaunted decadely poll of critics undertaken by Sight and Sound magazine, where 'Vertigo' rated 4th in 1992 and 2nd in 2002. It remains to be seen whether it goes one better, reaching the apex of this year's list, finally toppling regular winner 'Citizen Kane'. In any case its critical stock shows no sign of falling.

SPOILERS ahead

It's not difficult to see why this is, with a dazzling use of colour, some distinctive (still imitated) optical effects and Bernard Herrmann's deceptively simple score (recently the subject of a bitter feud after its use in silent hit 'The Artist'). Particularly outstanding is the film's second half in which James Stewart's acrophobia suffering retired cop John Ferguson totally loses his mind, becoming obsessed with a woman who looks identical to his (apparently dead) lover. Kim Novak plays both the Grace Kelly like Madeleine and her more earthy doppelgänger Judy: two women who turn out to be the same person in one of the film's numerous shocking twists.

For the more sedate first half it seems to be a kind of ghost story, as Ferguson is hired by a wealthy, old school pal (Tom Helmore) to spy on Madeleine, the wife he claims has been possessed by the spirit of a long-dead ancestor. It carries on in this vein for an hour of steadily building detective work, as John stalks Madeleine - providing a stunning tour of 1950s San Francisco along the way. By the end of the first half you just about believe the husband's far-fetched account offers the only viable explanation for his wife's behaviour. Then, in an admittedly clumsy confessional letter writing sequence, Judy confides to the viewer that she was posing as Madeleine the whole time, in order to allow the husband to carry out her murder without suspicion (it seems to all the world as if she has obviously committed suicide as a result of mental illness).

One of the rare voices of dissent against the film from the critical community has come from Tom Shone, who wrote: "Hitchcock is a director who delights in getting his plot mechanisms buffed up to a nice humming shine, and so the Sight and Sound team praise the one film of his in which this is not the case – it's all loose ends and lopsided angles, its plumbing out on display for the critic to pick over at his leisure." (Thanks Wikipedia!). He has a point, in that "the plumbing" is indeed on-show for much of it, with a lot of the twists explained rather more than might usually be appreciated. Yet 'Vertigo' still deserves to ride this wave of ecstatic appreciation, namely for its tight command of theme: for instance that of duality and the tragic danger of obsession.

Not only is Judy masquerading as Madeleine, but John spends the majority of the third act being referred to by his nickname "Scotty", as if he too is now inhabiting another's skin. Visually Hitchcock suggests this with a number of mirror shots, as well as the recurring image of a painted portrait. And whilst the ghost possession story is revealed to be literally untrue, John does end up possessing Judy, and Madeleine - through his obsession with her - ends up possessing John. Meanwhile, John's dowdy (classic Hollywood dowdy, not real life dowdy) life-long friend Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) is almost equally obsessive over him, driving her to similarly deranged ends at one point; through painting she tries to become Madeleine in order to possess John. I think even Judy's complicity in the murder of the real Madeleine is driven by an obsessive love of the husband.

For entertainment value I'd be more likely to return to Hitchcock's next film, 'North by Northwest', or his earlier 'Stranger on a Train': both feel more tightly wound (even if the former is actually longer) and ultimately make for more satisfying viewing. I also think the ending is a bit of a cop-out, with Judy plunging to her death from a tower (the same one used to stage Madeleine's suicide) after being startled by a nun walking in on her confrontation with "Scotty" John. The half hour leading up to that moment suggested Judy would have to die as a direct result of John's obsession, perhaps pushed from the tower by him - though I guess that's not something audiences would want to see Jimmy Stewart do to a dame.

FilmQuest 2012 (2/30): 'Dances With Wolves':

The second film up on the excitedly named FilmQuest 2012 is Kevin Costner's six-Oscar-snaring 1990 Western 'Dances With Wolves'. When setting out my (arbitrary, hastily curated) list of never-before-seen films, I always knew 'Dances' had to be on there. It was a considerable blind-spot, not only because of its huge awards success and immense popularity. It is after all the film critics accuse James Cameron of ripping off wholesale for his world-conquering 'Avatar'. But, more interestingly, this was the movie that gave Costner permission to do whatever he wanted over the following Hollywood decade - facilitating two of the most notorious and oft-derided flops of all-time: 'Waterworld' and 'The Postman'.

The thing I love about Costner - and I do mean love - is that he doesn't seem to take himself too seriously. Yes, his films all carry extremely earnest sentiment, none more so than 'Dances': an unwavering elegy to the death of frontier life and Native American culture. But he doesn't take himself seriously in the way we usually associate with stars like (as one obvious example) Tom Cruise. In 'Waterworld' he plays what critic Nathan Rabin memorably describes as a "pee-drinking man-fish". Literally a man with gills who drinks his own urine. In 'The Postman' he begins the film as a bit of a cad and spends most of it trying to run away from responsibility. In that film the "refusal of the call" lasts about two hours. He begins 'The Postman' performing Shakespeare opposite a mule.*

In 'Dances' he's no different. Lt. John Dunbar is a soldier so indept he knocks himself out at one point, bumping his head on a door frame in the dark whilst some kids steal his horse. In another baffling scene, he tries to introduce himself to future wife Stands With A Fist (Mary McDonnell - the annoying President from the modern 'Battlestar Galactica') only for an American flag to blow in his face. He isn't one of these guys who has to be THE BEST marksman or THE BEST at riding a horse when in front of a movie camera. Even if he invariably ends up some near messianic figure by the end of his movies, he spends a lot of screentime as an unassuming and humble guy who tries his best to avoid violence and get along with folks.

It's difficult not to be impressed by the film's scope, especially in the big hunting sequence which sees hundreds of buffalo (brought in from across the US to re-create the Great Plains as was) running over vast, open landscapes, whilst men on horses ride dangerously close. It's also hard to fault its epic sense of patience. There is no (or at least very little) meaningful conflict for the first 2 1/2 hours of this 3 hour film. Instead, through scenes of gentle, piecemeal interaction with the Sioux nation, Costner's character spends his time learning and watching prior to his eventual assimilation into the group. His sensitive narration is relentlessly good-natured, with an infectious "can-do" attitude. Naive, perhaps, but disarmingly so.

There are some glaring problems with 'Dances'. For instance, why does it take this white man - a stranger to these lands - to find the buffalo for the Sioux? They've been looking for them for a while and their absence is a great source of concern - so why are they so incapable of tracking them? They don't even seem to be looking all that hard. There is a paternalistic aspect to the film which sits uncomfortably with me and it's generally a little patronising when "other" cultures are depicted as being so unambiguously wonderful. No community or society will be without its own social problems and inequalities.

Yet as two Native American tribes clash at the film's midway point, Costner opines that this is a noble kind of war: not governed by a "dark motive", but fought for control of resources (access to the food supply). Isn't that the case with every war? Isn't the war in Iraq about resources? And when he says taking part in this conflict has taught him who he is for the first time, isn't he romanticising an act of war? And shouldn't that be bad whatever adornments the two sides are wearing? With this considered 'Dances With Wolves' regrettably stoops to presenting an all too colonial view of the Indian as noble savage.

It's peddling the same sort of shallow, consumer-friendly brand of spiritual tourism that sees wealthy, white twenty-somethings visit the world's shanty towns and slums, wearing sarongs and waxing lyrical about how "real" all the people are down there - so free are they from our "westernised consumer bullshit" (along with plumbing, education, healthcare etc etc). Yay for them! No doubt Costner's on-screen epiphany didn't prevent him from going back to his mansion and having a nice hot bath. I very much doubt he now lives off the land, using every part of every animal he slays, gleefully drinking the blood from each still-beating cattle heart as a symbol of his one-ness with the universe and instinct-based macho pride. But I digress.

Overall I liked 'Dances With Wolves'. It's overlong without a doubt, whilst John Barry's repetitive and obvious score grates, but its heart seems to be in the right place even if it's history and morality are patronising. Costner is an interesting and righteous kind of American hero and his choices are sometimes laughed at with little consideration of their bravery. A common thread through all of his movies is that he plays true believers: men with hope in a hopeless world, who invariably come to carry the hope of others on their shoulders. Had I seen 'Dances' earlier it might have irritated me. But seeing it in an age of unprecedented cynicism verging on nihilism, it's refreshing to see Costner's irony-free brand of filmmaking with a conscience.

*Another odd parallel between 'The Postman' and 'Dances With Wolves' that I couldn't fit above: Costner seems to have a thing about widows. In both movies he beds a woman in mourning. God knows why, but there it is.

FilmQuest 2012 (1/30): 'Do The Right Thing':

The first entry in my (generically named) "Film Quest 2012" column is Spike Lee's 'Do the Right Thing' - one of those big, famous movies I've wanted to see for ages but just never caught up with. I came to it with sky-high expectations (having heard it classified a seminal movie) and it comfortably beat them. It's hilariously funny and, at once, genuinely thought-provoking.

With 'Do the Right Thing', Spike Lee made one of the most intelligent and rounded films about simmering racial tensions in the United States. Looking beyond the problem as black versus white, Lee highlights a complex myriad of tensions that also involve Italians, Latinos, Jews and Koreans. It's a fractured, racially segregated community but, interestingly, it is a community. This isn't African American life as commonly depicted - with gangs, drugs and guns - but an affable collection of oddball characters (in the best sense) without malice.

As if carefully weighted social critique weren't enough, it's also full of inspired dialogue, full of memorable one-liners ("I want some brothers on the wall"), and shot in a distinctive, eye-catching way (lots of bright, primary colours). It's artful and very composed, without seeming too contrived or stilted. A contemporary tale about life on a predominantly black street in the late-80s, mercifully free of "urban" clichés and depicting a wide range of black characters far more subtle than the caricatures and paper-thin archetypes that remain prevalent to this day.

What's really interesting about 'Do the Right Thing' is that Lee seems himself torn between the militancy of Malcolm X (Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" is prevalent on the soundtrack) and the tolerance of Dr. King - even ending the film with two powerful, contradictory quotes from the two civil rights leaders. Likewise it's a film comprised mostly of patient discussion (notably involving John Turturro's bigoted and self-contradictory Pino) and high-spirited discussions about ethics - but which culminates in violence, death and destruction.

But you've got to feel for Spike Lee. In their infinite wisdom, Academy Awards voters saw fit to award Best Picture to 'Driving Miss Daisy' in 1990. That less confrontational/critical film, about a kindly old white lady teaching her kindly black chauffeur how to read, garnered four awards from nine nominations. Lee's masterpiece drew no awards from two nominations. None of the terrific black ensemble cast was nominated either, despite brilliant performances from Ossie Davis, Giancarlo Esposito and Lee himself.

One down, twenty-nine to go.

FilmQuest 2012

I'm not generally one for New Year's resolutions: those (often diet-based) promises people typically make to themselves on January 1st and have given up by Mid-February. But it just occurred to me that it could be fun and worthwhile to set myself a target in terms of film viewing this year.

As someone who aspires to write about film full-time, I'm regularly embarrassed when somebody name checks a "classic" movie and I have to confess that I've never seen it. In the past I've even nodded and smiled when such a reference is made, pretending to get it. Sometimes I get away with it: "It's like that bit in 'Top Gun!" say they. "Ha ha ha! Yeah!" say I (I haven't seen 'Top Gun').

In order to address this social problem/cinema blind spot I've compiled a list (in no particular order) of 30 films I feel - for whatever reason - I should have seen by now. It'll be my solemn goal over 2012 to watch all these films (again, in no particular order). Many of these have come up in conversation with friends as described above.

In the interests of interest, I'm going to keep it relatively mainstream. Lord knows there's a lot of great "world cinema" I'm yet to see - and I'm working on that too.

Behold some awesome gaps in my knowledge. My completely arbitrary list is as follows:

Top Gun
The Full Monty
Blow Up
Chinatown
Do the Right Thing
The Exorcist
Blue Velvet
Vertigo
Rebel Without a Cause
The Sound of Music
West Side Story
When Harry Met Sally...
The Rock
Con Air
Lethal Weapon
Beverly Hills Cop
Mary Poppins
Kes
Dirty Dancing
The Passion of the Christ
Goodfellas
Dirty Harry
Dances With Wolves
An Officer and a Gentleman
Rain Man
Unforgiven
Braveheart
Saturday Night Fever
Platoon
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

My aim is to watch all of these over the year and, when I do, I'll cross them off the list and write a short review. I'm terrible at naming things so I've gone with the generic sounding moniker "FilmQuest 2012".

There are, of course, many more famous and iconic films I've never seen. If this goes to plan I might do 30 more in 2013.