Ray Harryhausen is 90 today!

Today marks the 90th birthday of Mr. Ray Harryhausen, the legendary stop-motion animator beloved for his groundbreaking effects work in a number of Hollywood movies from the 1940s up until the 1981 film 'Clash of the Titans' (arguably his most famous work). To celebrate this almighty birthday, here are clips of some of his most admired work:

Willis O'Brien won an Academy Award for Best Special Effects in 1949, thanks in no small part to Harryhausen's work as the animator of the titular ape in 'Mighty Joe Young' (appropriate as Harryhausen fell in love with cinema and animation watching another ape, King Kong, in 1933).



'The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms' (1954) was a real landmark movie, directly inspiring Eiji Tsuburaya's work on the first Japanese 'Godzilla' movie later that same year (and by virtue of that, all of the big monster movies of the 50s and 60s).



Harryhausen provided effects for many more monster movies (such as 'It Came from Beneath the Sea' in 1955) but in the 1956 film 'Earth Versus the Flying Saucers' Harryhausen turned to animating alien invaders. As you can see from watching this clip, the animation in this film was a big influence on Tim Burton's 1996 'Mars Attacks!'.



His first work on colour, 'The 7th Voyage of Sinbad' (1958) started perhaps Harryhausen's most famous work on swashbuckling sword and sandal adventure stories which really allowed him the scope to develop lots of different creatures and action sequences. Harryhausen would work on two further Sinbad films in the 1970s: 'The Golden Voyage of Sinbad' in 1974 and 'Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger' in 1977.







The 1963 'Jason and the Argonauts' contains probably the most haunting and famous Harryhausen sequence of all: the battle with the skeleton warriors. The jerky nature of the animation gives it a visceral quality unmatched in the cleanness of modern CGI. Watch it in full below:



One that always stuck in my mind (probably because of my dinosaur fixation) was the 1966 film 'One Million Years B.C'. I have always remembered the bit where a lava flow falls on top of a woman who is running away. The film is pretty dire, but there are some great effects to be seen, including the historically impossible sight of cave men fighting an Allosaurus with their spears. But you don't go to see a Harryhausen movie for a history lesson!



As mentioned above, the most well-loved of them all is probably the original 1981 movie, 'Clash of the Titans' (like 'Mighty Joe Young', the victim of a shoddy remake). Watch the trailer below, if only to laugh when a man shouts "destroy Argos!".



Anyway, happy birthday Ray and may we be wishing you a happy century in ten years time! Thanks goes to Sam Clements of the Ritzy Picturehouse in Brixton for tweeting Ray the first birthday message and starting this whole thing off. If you're on twitter, follow Simon Pegg's example and join Sam in wishing: #HappyBirthdayRay

If you want to watch some Harryhausen films in full, the BFI Southbank had some signed DVD boxsets for sale last time I was there (last week). So snap one of those up if you are a fan of the great man!

'Welcome to Collinwood': Devon times (continued)...

Although most of my time in Devon has been spent being driven down identical narrow roads or sitting on beaches (or waiting for my nan outside the Newquay branch of Peacocks), I have managed to see two films on DVD. The first was 'The Men Who Stare at Goats' on Friday night, which I judged to be passable if ultimately disposable fare. However, less amusing (and also featuring George Clooney) was last nights viewing: 'Welcome to Collinwood'. A film not even saved by the presence of Sam Rockwell.

In many ways 'Collinwood' is almost a remake of Woody Allen's 'Small Time Crooks' from two years prior (apparently itself a loose remake of the 1958 film 'Big Deal on Madonna Street'). As in 'Small Time Crooks' a group of ineffectual would-be criminals gather for one big heist that involves using one vacant property to break into another. They share gags too: in both films breaking through the wall leads to accidentally hitting a water pipe. As if to acknowledge these apparent similarities the film's end credits are in the Allen style (you'd know it if you saw it) and the incidental music (by Mark Mothersbaugh) is also a familiar easy going jazz.



This is all well and good. After all, if you're going to steal etc. The problem is not that it's shamelessly derivative, but that most of the humour involves pratfalls and physical business. The thing with that sort of humour is that no everyone can pull it off. You have to a skilled physical comedian to really make falling over funny. Tragically none of the actors here (in an ensemble cast that also includes William H. Macy, Luis Guzman and Michael Jeter) have it in them and the various scenes of peoples pants falling down do not register as much as a smile. I speak, of course, for myself. My nan was in fits of laughter every time somebody fell off a ladder or fell into some water, so what do I know?

Often the film changes gear and strains for poignancy which it characteristically fails at badly. It also tries to develop its own lingo ('mullinsky' and 'bellini' for example) which never takes off and halfway through the film seems to have been abandoned altogether. Writer/directors the Russo brothers (who also directed the 2006 comedy 'You, Me and Dupree') try for something timeless and distinctive here and have good intentions. The film is never nasty, always good-natured and events take place in a spirit of fun. However, no amount of wanting to enjoy this film is enough to actually make you actually enjoy it. Alongside this 'The Men Who Stare at Goats' looks less average (at least there you have the cinematography of Robert Elswit to keep you watching that film). Anyway, there is my two cents. Back into the sun.

Devon times...

Yesterday I mentioned I was off to Devon and posed the question "which film should I see down here?" Well, in a bit of an anti-climax I didn't go to the cinema, instead spending time on a beach (I know... what a let down). I did watch a film yesterday however, as my nan put on a DVD copy of 'The Men Who Stare at Goats'. It was a passable movie. Some funny moments and it's always nice seeing Jeff Bridges. It was bewildering casting to have Ewan McGregor playing an American (aside from the constant in-jokes about him playing a jedi in Star Wars, it was pointless) as there are plenty of good, young American actors.

Anyway, it's a self-described "quirky" comedy and is inoffensive with some good moments. There is the mild hint of some political commentary as the opening credits contains real news footage of the current Iraq war and the story (supposedly based on true events) is about military stupidity. But ultimately this amounts to nothing of substance. So, if it's on and you've got nothing better to do, then you could do worse than watch 'The Men Who Stare at Goats' (that recommendation wasn't even HALF-hearted).



Other than that I have been reading that book on the cinema Ishiro Honda in my down time. It's been really facinating, but I'll save my thoughts on it for the upcoming review. I'll just say that I have read that he directed two of the best segments of the 1990 Kurosawa movie, 'Dreams'. 'The Tunnel' and 'Mount Fuji in Red' were written and directed by Honda and they are perhaps two of the visually stand-out sequences. Good on you Honda-san!

Going to sunny Devon for the weekend...

Just writing to say I'm on a bit of a last minute trip to Devon this weekend and have just noticed that Picturehouse have a cinema down there in Exeter. I am thinking I may pay them a visit on Saturday but if I do, what should I see? I can choose from the following options:

'Please Give', (which I have already seen and revieved here). Woody Allen's Larry David comedy 'Whatever Works' (which also starts its run in Brighton tomorrow and which I promised I'd see with my girlfriend). Or 'Shrek Forever After 3D' (which I never planned on seeing ever in my life). What will it be? Alternatively, I may see Martin Freeman in 'Wild Target', a remake of a French film from 1993. But that is playing in Barnstaple at the Central Cinema (at some sort of local upstart chain).







What on earth should I do?! Cast your vote. You may just sway me.

Remember when I told you I would shut up about Kurosawa? I lied!

On Monday I said that my recent flurry of celebratory posts about the films of Akira Kurosawa would com to an end with that review of the incredible reissued print of 'Rashonmon'. Well, predictably I am banging on about Kurosawa again. This time to say that I am going back to the BFI Southbank tomorrow to see a rare wartime film of his which I know precious little about: 'They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail'. The earliest of Kurosawa's films I have seen to date is 1948's 'Drunken Angel' (his first film starring Toshiro Mifune and the film on which he felt he'd discovered himself as a filmmaker). Most of the films which came out after 'Drunken Angel' are readily available to buy on DVD in the UK and so out of his 30 films I have been lucky enough to see 20 to date. However 'They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail' will be the first of his 6 "early period" films which I will have seen. I'm really excited by this rare chance to see a film which is completely unavailable to buy in this country.

Amazingly, although the film was shot in 1945, it wasn't released until 1952 as it was banned by the American occupation (a fact Kurosawa attributed to a "mean-spirited" censor rather than the content of his film). I can't wait to see what all the fuss was about.

On a separate note (but still on the subject of Japanese cinema) I received a book in the post today by an American writer called Peter H. Brothers. He has written a comprehensive book in celebration of the overlooked godfather of the monster movie, Ishiro Honda (best known for the original 1954 'Godzilla'). The book is called 'Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda' and I can't wait to read it and review it here. Incidently, Honda was a good friend (and one-time assistant director) of a certain Kurosawa. In fact he is known to have directed huge parts of Kurosawa's 1990 film 'Dreams' and was ever-present on the set during his final films.

Here is the trailer to the fantastic 'Godzilla' which stars the great Takashi Shimura and is a much better film than the campy series that followed would lead you to think:

'Please Give' review: Intelligently written drama with moments of black comedy...

There is a new Splendor Podcast up now (on iTunes and the Picturehouse website). Episode 18 sees Jon and I discussing the Spanish thriller ‘Hierro’, before taking a look at two quirky American indie films: ‘Greenberg’ and ‘Please Give’. At the time of recording I hadn’t seen ‘Please Give’, but after Jon’s recommendation (given as far back as February after a screening at Berlinale) I had to go and see the film for myself.

Watching the trailer for Nicole Holofcener's 'Please Give' I got the impression I would be going to see a comedy about the affectations of upper-middle class New Yorkers in the vein of Woody Allen. In fact Catherine Keener's Kate, full of well-meaning liberal guilt, recalls Goldie Hawn's Steffi in Allen's 1996's musical comedy 'Everyone Says I Love You'. Add to that the presence of Rebecca Hall whose most famous role up to now was in another Woody Allen film: ‘Vicky Christina Barcelona’. However, upon seeing the film I found something far less comic and far less full of snappy one-liners than the trailer seemed to suggest.

Aside from the lack of jokes, ‘Please Give’ is also markedly different from most Allen films in that the characters are not judged. Usually the Woody Allen character (often, in recent times, played by a surrogate Woody) critiques the other characters, informing the audience what to make of their pretensions and affectations. In ‘Please Give’ people are hyper-critical of themselves, but infidelity and callousness are not punished in Holofcener’s script. Instead they are presented with touching humanity.



‘Please Give’ is occasionally amusing (as when Kate mistakes a restaurant patron for a homeless man and offers him leftovers), but it is often more sad then it is funny. There is a lot of weeping and many pained expressions here. What humour there is is subtle and occasionally quite dark. Happily, the likes of Keener and Hall are joined by Oliver Platt and Amanda Peet in a cast that really understand this material. Keener is perhaps best known for her bitchy, alpha-female Maxine in Spike Jonze’s ‘Being John Malkovich’, but her character here is much gentler but no less convincing. Keener really is a fantastic actress. An assessment obviously shared by Holofcener as this is her fourth film working with Keener. It is also nice to see the likes of Platt and Peet given good roles here as both are often seen in rubbish or playing bit parts.

For me, the real star of the show is Rebecca Hall. Her character (also called Rebecca) is, in many ways, the emotional centre of the film and easily provides the most poignant moments. Hall plays an American here and does so effortlessly. In fact, I completely forgot she was English until after the movie. The film is also really accurate in its portrayal of the elderly. Ann Guilbert plays a brilliantly direct (“you’ve put on weight”) and stubborn 91 year-old lady who rings very true.

The film works best as an allegory for the role of charity in capitalist society. Keener’s Kate makes her money from buying furniture from the bereaved at a low price and selling it on for thousands of dollars. Out of guilt for her lifestyle, Kate gives to every homeless person she sees, neglecting her own family’s needs: especially those of her insecure daughter (played by Sarah Steele, a more convincing teenager than most in the movies). Kate’s guilt leads her volunteer helping the elderly and children with Down syndrome. However, she is quickly dismissed in both instances, as she is incapable of actually helping these people as she bursts into tears at their (imagined) plight. Like most affluent, middle-class people, Kate feels guilt for her lifestyle which she tries to address with the quick and easy giving of money, but not with actually addressing the root cause of problems. Kate will not give up her lifestyle because somebody else would just take her place ripping people off.



There is a lot going on in ‘Please Give’, which is easily one of this year’s most intelligent screenplays. Each character is multi-layered and has an interesting story. I won’t go into each one here. Overall, I found the film could have done with a little more humour. Personally, I always find that the films of people Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach are more emotionally affecting because there is light and shade at all times. Moments of sadness often sit alongside moments of humour. In ‘Please Give’ there is a film which (despite nice moments of comedy) is predominantly focussed on being sad and dramatic. This is fine and the film is very good (well deserving of a second viewing), however it did not hit me on a really emotional level or have me laughing out loud.

'Please Give' is out now on a shockingly wide release for a film without big-name stars. It is rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Rashomon' re-issue review: A much needed big screen outing for a true classic...

I have recently written a fair bit on this blog about the work of Akira Kurosawa. Jon and I recently recorded a special Kurosawa-themed Splendor Cinema podcast, whilst I have also written here about my favourite of his films and about some of the re-makes he inspired. On Friday I visited the BFI Southbank in London where I took advantage of their awesome world cinema shop to purchase a copy of his splendid autobiography and also fill some the gaps in my DVD collection: I found copies of ‘The Idiot’, ‘The Bad Sleep Well’, ‘Drunken Angel’ and ‘High and Low’. Most importantly, I took the opportunity to watch his international breakthrough, the Golden Lion winning 1950 film ‘Rashomon’, now in a glorious restored print which has been re-issued at selected cinemas nationwide.



‘Rashomon’ had previously been a film I admired more than enjoyed. I appreciated how significant it was in opening the eyes of western critics to Japanese cinema and I also understood its influence, the narrative structure (focussing on four subjective accounts of a rape and murder) has been copied by a countless number of films and has also been adapted by science and philosophy – the so-called “Rashomon effect”. But when I saw it on Friday it marked the first time I had seen the film on the big screen and its impact on me was much greater.

Partly this was down to paying the film greater attention than I had possibly done in the past. In a cinema it is just you and the film. You can’t pause it. You can’t look at your phone. You can’t go and get a drink and you hesitate to leave for the toilet. It holds your complete, undivided attention.

This time I noticed the virtuosity of Kurosawa’s camera work, often panning and swooping in elaborate long takes. Just as often it is still and patient with the director allowing the action to move in and out of the frame. It is in many ways a masterclass in how to shoot a film, especially action sequences. Like his hero John Ford, Kurosawa is able to make everything look deceptively simple and made his films with great economy. The film feels tight, disciplined and is basically as close to perfect as any movie could hope to be.



The performances are also fantastic. Toshiro Mifune is at his most cat-like as a snarling bandit accused of murder, whilst Takashi Shimura gives a great turn as a woodcutter who reports the crime, with some scenes of emotional poignancy to rival his more celebrated role in ‘Ikiru’. There are also roles for lesser known Kurosawa regulars such as Minoru Chiaki (who plays a troubled priest) and Masayuki Mori (above) as the murdered samurai. There is also Machiko Kyō, who almost steals the show as the samurai’s wife. Kyō cries and screams with an intensity which renders her performance unforgettable. Like almost every female in a Kurosawa movie, she is also called upon to be somewhat conniving and manipulative which she does with some gusto (representations of women are not Kurosawa’s strongest suit, for that see Mizoguchi, Ozu or Naruse) .

But more impressive than its stars and the great craft of its master director is its typically humanist portrayal of the characters. During the varying accounts of the central murder, what struck me was that the emphasis is not on the practical differences between the accounts, but on something subtler. It is the difference in tone, the different emotional reactions to the event and the changes in meaning which shape this tale and give ‘Rashomon’ its depth. During the trial scenes, in which the characters gather to give their testimonies, the judges are unseen. We are only shown the storytellers themselves talking to camera. Therefore when they lie the implication is that they are only lying to themselves (and perhaps to us).

The bandit wants us to believe he is a hard man, a skilful swashbuckler and a user of women. Watching him speak you feel he has succeeded in convincing himself. The samurai (whose testimony comes via a medium) gives an account in which he dies an honourable death by suicide to compensate for the shame he feels at seeing his wife raped. However the woodcutter’s story (in all details but one final twist taken to be the “true” account) reveals that both men were cowardly: that they fought but that it involved a lot of falling over and scrambling in the dirt. During the encounter Mifune pants loudly: out of breath and full of fear.



They never really cross swords (as in the bandit's version above); instead they swing wildly and run away from each other. The samurai’s final words are “I don’t want to die”. The truth is pathetic, not heroic or romantic. The truth is human. Kurosawa’s point is not that all people are bad or that all people are cowards, but that people are flawed. That we should be suspicious of those who portray themselves as honourable, just as we should of those who promote the idea that they are the opposite. That people are not caricatures: they are complicated.

Happily, for Kurosawa and ‘Rashomon’, there is just as much good as bad in the world. The priest’s faith in humanity is restored by the woodcutter’s decision to adopt an abandoned baby and defend it against a man who seeks to rob it of its few possessions. The woodcutter is told by the man that all people are selfish and that being selfish is necessary to survive (a popular view among capitalists). But the woodcutter rejects this assessment of humanity and, although he already has six children, he takes on the responsibility of another. This final moment sees Kurosawa at his most sentimental, but it is the necessary conclusion to the story and one which gives us hope.



It is hope which is an important final message for Kurosawa and Japan in ‘Rashomon’. Made in the aftermath of the Second World War in a battered and defeated nation, the film is in part allegorical. It opens on a broken gate, a relic from a period of prosperity and cultural richness. The woodcutter and the priest find shelter under this ruin as a heavy rainfall lashes down throughout the film. When the woodcutter adopts the infant the rainfall stops and the duo are able to leave the broken past behind and walk into a more hopeful future, for Japan and for the world. Fitting for a film which heralded a similarly bright future for Japanese cinema.

I, obviously, highly recommend seeking out ‘Rashomon’ in a cinema near you. It is playing at the BFI Southbank until the 8th of July on an extended run and is rated ‘12A’ by the BBFC.

The worst films of the 2000s...

Soon after compiling a list of my favourite films of the last ten years I was asked what my least favourite films might be from the same period. As you might suspect it has been fairly easy to bring together a “bottom 10” list for the last decade. Within minutes of setting myself the task I had produced a list of some 30 films which stuck in my mind as being terrible.

Like most people, I tend to avoid seeing critically savaged films as a rule. So the universally slated likes of ‘Norbit’, ‘Epic Movie’ and ‘Catwoman’ have escaped being named here. It is definitely the case that there will be many worse films than I have selected here, certainly on a technical level, but these are the ones I hated most. None of the following (with the possible exception of one film) are even “funny bad”. Instead they are irredeemably empty, soulless, waste-of-time experiences.

On the list are a few films that maybe I am disproportionately bitter against because they let me down so badly, with two Disney animations, a Studio Ghibli film and a Coen Brother’s movie included here:

10) Jurassic Park III
Joe Johnston/USA/2001
I was such a huge fan of the first two ‘Jurassic Park’ films (especially as a dinosaur obsessed kid) that the inevitable poor quality of this non-Spielberg directed instalment was a crushing blow (I vividly remember how excited I was when the teaser poster was released). I occasionally watch this film back and for the first quarter of an hour I think “it’s not as bad as I remember.” ‘Sideways’ scribe Alexander Payne wrote a treatment of the screenplay and William H. Macy seemed a sound addition to the cast. However this optimism and goodwill all but evaporates when they set foot back on the island. Soon the Spinosaurus turns up and everyone starts talking to Raptors using bits of pipe. The effects are worse than those in the original, made almost a decade prior, and mumbo-jumbo, pseudoscience is far less convincing than the likes of “T-rex can’t see you if you don’t move!” I, foolishly, still long for a fourth film. But I just can’t take another one like this…



9) A Walk to Remember
Adam Shankman/USA/2002
Ok. This one is at least “funny bad”. A “bad boy” is sentenced to join a drama class to make amends for his bad behaviour. Whilst there he is tutored by a reverend’s daughter. “Promise me you won’t fall in love with me!” she says. One thing leads to another, blah blah blah, and the mismatched pair fall in love. However all is not well as the film reveals in a hilarious twist near the end. This one is not unpleasant to watch, I’ll give it that. On a serious note though, the most contrived, cliché rubbish you’ve ever seen.



8) Home on the Range
Will Finn & John Sanford/USA/2004
The film that finally sunk Disney’s hand-drawn animation department (after years of diminishing success), ‘Home on the Range’ is just so unappealing. Roseanne Barr voiced an anthropomorphic cow in the Wild West, who tries to save a little old ladies farm from being purchased by the local business tycoon. Thankfully Disney are now back on track with ‘The Princess and the Frog’, but thanks to this film we had to endure years of uninspired, sub-Pixar in-house CG films like ‘Chicken Little’, ‘Meet the Robinsons’ and ‘The Wild’ (see below).



7) Tales of Earthsea
Goro Miyazaki/Japan/2006
Between the films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata Studio Ghibli never put a foot wrong . ‘The Cat Returns’ wasn’t great, but that was a made-for-TV feature Ghibli used to give experience to the next generation of animation talent. However, in 2006 Hayao Miyazaki’s son, Goro, adapted Ursula K. Le Guin’s fantasy Earthsea novels as ‘Tales of Earthsea’. The result caused a very public father and son rift, with Miyazaki senior very unhappy with his son’s efforts. The film was still a huge box-office hit in Japan, but the animation is notably limited (in the sense of re-used cells and scenes of little movement from characters) compared to every other film from the studio. It is also pretty dull and lacks (at the risk of seeming cheesy) the magic or the heart usually associated with the previous output.




6) Intolerable Cruelty
Joel Coen/USA/2003
As a fan, it pains me greatly to put a Coen Brother’s film on this list, but here it is. Made as a favour to the star and producer, George Clooney, the Coen’s did a re-write on a troubled screenplay, attempting to infuse it with their trademark style and humour. Some scenes feel like authentic Coen Brother’s moments, but these are still depressing as they remind you how good the Coen’s can be and make you ponder why you are watching such a broad, vacuous and dumbed-down romantic comedy.



5) Fermat’s Room
Luis Piedrahita & Rodrigo Sopeña/Spain/2007
The worst film I have ever seen at the Duke of York’s, ‘Fermat’s Room’ has a promising enough premise: a group of mathematicians have to work together to solves puzzles or else they will be crushed to death by the walls of the room. However, you quickly discover that there won’t be any clever problem solving here with characters instead falling upon the correct answers with all the sophistication of the ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Worst of all I couldn’t escape the feeling that the production values made it look like an ITV3 drama rather than a movie. ‘Fermat’s Room’ was only shown outside of Spain because of its high-concept. Other than that it is of no merit.



4) Tropic Thunder
Ben Stiller/USA/2008
Not one solitary laugh in this really long, high-concept comedy which rips off the 1986 gem ‘Three Amigos!’ without even having the common courtesy to cry “remake”. The targets are broad and still all the gags misfire. The thing that really makes this film criminally bad is that the people involved and the concept could and should have been funny. For example, the faux-action movie sequences could have been funny but instead of playing it straight the film goes for all-out comedy and ends up having no atmosphere. Also, any filmmaker that thinks a man in a fat suit singing and dancing badly constitutes comedy gold should have their human rights indefinitely suspended.



3) Knowing
Alex Proyas/USA/2009
The worst in a long line of appalling Nicolas Cage vehicles in that last ten years, ‘Knowing’ is shameful in its use of real life disasters (such as 9/11) for a high-concept, thriller plotline that involves the discovery that these events were pre-determined. The film then lurches from plane crash, to subway derailment in a horrible medley of voyeuristic disaster-pornography. A big fake snuff film with delusions of grandeur, as the cod existential themes discussed fail to lend the film any weight whatsoever. It is also horrifically cringe-inducing as it involves Cage (a scientist) regaining his lost faith in god, whilst the climax (SPOILER) sees his child rescued by aliens (that look like angels) and taken to a garden of Eden to restart the Earth which is destroyed by a bastard god.



2) The Wild
Steve "Spaz" Williams/Canada-USA/2006
The second Disney film on this list (in a decade that started so well with ‘Lilo & Stitch’), ‘The Wild’ is the only film in history that I have wanted to walk out of at the cinema. This film came out the same year as Dreamworks ‘Madagascar’ and boasts basically an identical plot (a mad-cap gang of animals break out of a New York zoo and end up in Africa). But unlike previous similar Disney vs Dreamworks pairings like ‘A Bug’s Life’/‘Antz’ and ‘Finding Nemo’/‘Shark Tale’, this one is actually far worse than its doppelganger. Dull-looking, unfunny and slowly-paced, ‘The Wild’ is the worst Disney animation ever made (a fact reflected in its lacklustre box-office).



1) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Michael Bay/USA/2009
Aside from the fact that I found the film to be more than a little racist (have you seen the Autobot Twins?!) and sexist there is also the fact that this movie is just very poorly made on a basic fundamental level. The narrative is incoherent. The fast-cutting nature of Bay’s music video-style direction is disorientating and the film is also overlong, running at 150 minutes! The lead actors have zero charisma and the spectacle of seeing huge CGI robots punching each other quickly wears off. Add to that all the misplaced sex humour in this ‘12A’ certificate movie and a dizzying number of “comedy” sub-plots. I hated the first one, but this easily managed to top it. Forget worst film of the decade, ‘Transformers 2’ is easily my least favourite film ever made.




As with the “best films” list, here are 15 more bad films from the last decade that didn't quite make the cut:
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Hancock (2008)
Kill Bill: Part Two (2004)
Inland Empire (2006)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2007)
King Kong (2005)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Gangs of New York (2000)
Planet of the Apes (2001)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)
Superman Returns (2006)
Men in Black (2002)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
The Ladykillers (2004)

Review 'Hierro': An unoriginal Spanish thriller with some nice moments...

Here is a quick update to say that my review of the new Spanish thriller 'Hierro' (from the producers behind 'The Orphanage') is released today and my full review is up on Obsessed with Film.

I haven't been posting much at OWF for a few weeks (since a site re-design). But my review of 'Greenberg' was recently re-located to there and so I figure, why not? Many thousands more people read OWF than read this blog! So it would be a little silly not to post up there when I can. Anyway, go there and read my review after watching the trailer above.

Expect a Splendor podcast for 'Hierro' and 'Please Give' (which I plan on seeing later next week) in the next week. Jon is currently in Holland looking at how cinema exhibition is run over there, so expect a few words on that too...

'Hierro' is released today (18th June 2010) and can be seen at Brighton's Duke of York's cinema.

Review 'The Killer Inside Me': Slow moving, occasionally ultra violent new Winterbottom film...

It was impossible to discuss this film without some spoilers!

Within his latest film, the controversial and ultra-violent thriller ‘The Killer Inside Me’, there are signs that Michael Winterbottom was aiming for something of a black comedy. The quirky, ultra-colourful opening credits and the playful music underpinning a homicidal chase near the film’s conclusion, are placed alongside scenes of visceral and jarring brutality as Casey Affleck’s Texan sheriff, Lou Ford, becomes a psychopathic serial killer.

In an otherwise slow-paced and sedate film, of beautiful period detail, two key scenes of violence against female characters have sparked some outrage from a number of reviewers who found them to be in bad taste. Certainly, they make for uncomfortable viewing but sometimes that is the point. Arguably the hyper-violence of a Tarantino film (or an Eli Roth torture-porn flick) is more troubling as it is sold as entertainment. The violence in this picture is not enjoyable and nor should it be.



It is clear to often chilling (sometimes comic) effect that we are listening to an unreliable narrator in Lou Ford. He gives us a version of events which we know to be incorrect, convincing himself with his own deceit. Of a victim’s father he says “He couldn’t live down that his son was murdered by the hooker he fell in love with” although we know that Lou has killed them both. When he kills off a witness to his crimes by staging a suicide, he later refers to the event in his monologue as though the suicide was for real. “There’s a plot against me”, he tells us in earnest, “I did one thing wrong when I was a kid” he says, downplaying his rape of a young girl during his teenage years. Later, as he is about to frame a poor drunk for the murder of his fiancé he screams “I was going to marry that poor girl!” again seeming to buy into his own twisted lies. This delusional narration puts the comedy and the violence in context, confirming (if it were needed) that Winterbottom’s film is an attempt to really put the audience in the mind of this killer, with flashbacks to his past serving to help explain his route into a world of (often sexual) violence.

Making the tale richer is what for me seemed like a critique of a traditional filmic shorthand: that the rural, southern gentleman is a better sort than the slick city-boy. Last year Michael Haneke’s ‘The White Ribbon’ similarly flipped this convention, turning a seemingly pleasant, pastoral community into something dark and sinister. In this film we are shown a seeming pleasant yet utterly corrupt town where bribery and blackmail are commonplace and where a local tycoon excises total control over the local political machine. Lou Ford is a self-described “gentleman” and talks to everyone pleasantly with all the expected airs and graces associated with being “decent”. When an investigator from out of town finally links him to all the murders calling him a “son of a bitch”, a local law enforcement officer reacts more in horror to the language of this outsider than to Ford’s transgressions: "Don't say a thing about a man's mother!"



It is also a running theme in the film that almost everybody who learns of Lou’s violence and barbarity is willing to overlook it for their own gain, from the drunk to the union official. Even his fiancé, Amy (Kate Hudson), is ultimately willing to forgive Lou, such is his appeal as a gentleman. As Lou says “nobody ever has it coming. That’s why nobody ever sees it coming” and nobody ever sees him coming, even when they are aware of his crimes. In this way the film seems to be a satire of our preoccupation with image over substance.

Perhaps the best argument in support of claims that the film is misogynistic is that Jessica Alba (as the prostitute and first victim Joyce) and Kate Hudson play thinly developed characters and have little meaningful screen time which doesn't see them being punched repeatedly. However, this claim could be countered by the view that we only see them as Lou sees them and not as people separate from his interpretation. Casey Affleck is almost too good at this sort of quietly psychotic role. Anyone who saw him in ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’ back in 2007 will remember how much of an uneasy presence he is without the need to really do or say very much. There is also a welcome cameo role for Bill Pullman, an actor not seen on screen enough in recent years.



Overall I would hesitate to say that I enjoyed ‘The Killer Inside Me’ or even that I liked it. What I am sure of, however, is that the film is not deserving of some of the critical bile that has been spilled in its direction. The violence is graphic and horrifying – as it should be in this story. Yes, the violence towards men is usually off-camera or relatively quick, but from Lou Ford’s perspective those murders are almost circumstantial. His murder of the two female leads and his behaviour around them is what this film is about. What I have tried to establish in this review is that there is merit to this film and more going on then you would find in a movie which was simply aiming for shock value. I probably won’t be watching it again recreationally, but ultimately it is a solidly made, decently acted film with some interesting ideas, which has the strength of its convictions even when that takes it to uncomfortable, unpalatable places.

'The Killer Inside Me' is rated '18' by the BBFC and can still be seen in cinema's across the UK. Today is its last day at Brighton's Duke of York's Picturehouse.

My top 10 films of the 2000s...

It struck me the other day that I haven't picked my list of the top 10 films of the last decade (2000-2009). Therefore, here is a list of my favourite films of the last ten years. Note that these are the ones I enjoy the most rather than the "most significant". These films have affected me the most emotionally and given me the most pleasure over repeat viewings. There is certainly a Hollywood dominance over this list with all but two of the films being from the US. There are two Charlie Kaufman screenplays in there and two films at least co-written by Noah Baumbach.

However, the main thing I've noticed from this list is that (with the possible exception of one or two films) all these movies have protagonists many have described as unlikeable. I suppose I like flawed characters, often socially awkward, damaged people. There are plenty of them in this list from Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes to Adam Sandler as Barry Egan.

Anyway, here they are:

10) The Aviator
Martin Scorsese/USA/2004
Controversially, this is my favourite Scorsese film. DiCaprio is great as Hughes in this humanistic, non-judgemental portrait of a flawed genius now best known as a reclusive freak. There is more subtlety here than I usually associate with Scorsese (or Michael Mann who produced the film and started the project) with a detailed and slow development of Hughes' ticks and eccentricities. Also, the film is replete with immaculate period detail.


9) A Serious Man
Joel and Ethan Coen/USA/2009
A slow burner this one. I was unsure after my first viewing of this Coen Brothers' film. However, after seeing it a second time it went straight to the top of last years "best of" poll. Stage actor Michael Stuhlbarg is great in the central role as Larry Gopnik in this rich and funny film which is probably the duo's most cerebral since 'Barton Fink'.


8) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Michel Gondry/USA/2004
A brilliant screenplay which has a lot to say (as you'd expect from Charlie Kaufman) about memory, regret and human relationships. As with all Kaufman films, there is much to be sad about and plenty of bleak, somewhat depressing ideas, but the conclusion is hopeful and beautiful. The second Kaufman screenplay directed by Michel Gondry, this film is certainly an improvement on the 2001 film 'Human Nature' (which is very good, but not great).


7) Spirited Away
Hayao Miyazaki/Japan/2001
The only animation on this list, this Japanese film from Hayao Miyazaki proved that Studio Ghibli are at least as good as Pixar in terms of being the best animators in the world today. Joe Hisaishi's score is genius and compliments a really heart-warming human story in an imaginative fantasy context.


6) The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan/USA/2008
Easily the most exciting blockbuster of the last decade, Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel is an intelligent summer movie with a top ensemble cast and jaw-dropping stunts. If Nolan makes another Batman it will easily be the film I am most excited about seeing. I'm even excited about the Superman film he is producing!


5) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Wes Anderson/USA/2004
All of Wes Anderson's 00's output could be on this list (but I thought that's be boring) so I struggled and chose this one because I probably find myself quoting it the most. Plus, it's really emotional at times and Murray is great as Zissou.


4) Happy-Go-Lucky
Mike Leigh/UK/2008
Mike Leigh really did something special with this one (which I wrote about recently on this blog). A terrific character study from Sally Hawkins as Poppy in a film which is as much an allegory for differing philosophies on education as anything else.


3) The Squid and the Whale
Noah Baumbach/USA/2005
I recently reviewed Noah Baumbach's latest film 'Greenberg', but before I loved that film I loved 'The Squid and the Whale'. Baumbach co-wrote 'The Life Aquatic' with Wes Anderson and Anderson returned the favour by producing this film which is note perfect in its depiction of the relationship between Jeff Daniels and Jesse Eisenberg as a pretentious father and his admiring son.


2) Adaptation
Spike Jonze/USA/2002
Before the recent films 'Kick-Ass' and Herzog's 'Bad Lieutenant' Nicolas Cage's last film to be proud of was this Spike Jonze/Charlie Kaufman (again) film in which he plays the author and his fictitious twin brother "Donald". Brian Cox is just as great in an almost film-stealing role as a screenplay writer giving a seminar on the craft. His character perfectly sums up artistic pretension (something done less well in the Kaufman directed 'Synechdoche, New York' in 2008). Also, Donald's monlogue near the end moves me to tears every time.


1) Punch-Drunk Love
Paul Thomas Anderson/USA/2002
I won't write anymore about this film as I am always going on about it. Here is my detailed retrospective look from a few weeks back.


Honourable mentions got to the following films which almost made the list. In no particular order here are 15 other great films from the last decade:
Grizzly Man (2005)
Lilo & Stitch (2002)
Up (2009)
There Will be Blood (2007)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Y tu mamá también (2001)
Humpday (2009)
Amelie (2001)
City of God (2002)
Team America: World Police (2004)
Runnin' Down a Dream (2007)
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
This is England (2006)
In Bruges (2008)

'Greenberg' review: Moving, well observed and funny too...

My review of Noah Baumbach's 'Greenberg' has been removed from this blog as it is now up on Obsessed with Film here instead. Go and take a look. More importantly, go and see this excellent film whilst you still can, as it's on fairly limited release in the UK. Anyone who like Baumbach's 'The Squid and the Whale' stands a good chance of thoroughly enjoying his latest film too.

'Greenberg' stars Ben Stiller and the marvelous Queen of the "mumblecore" movement Greta Gerwig. It's funny, but also truthful about life and relationships with really rich characters (including a great showing from Rhys Ifans in the supporting cast).

'Greenberg' is rated '15' by the BBFC and can be seen at the Duke of York's Picturehouse in Brighton until the 24th of June.

My top five Kurosawa films (you may not have seen)...

This year is Kurosawa's centenary (he posthumously turned 100 back in March). Sight and Sound magazine have celebrated with a really great series of Kurosawa features in their July issue. Really great is the fact that they have re-printed interviews with the man himself, which are amazing to read (at least if your a bit obsessive about his life and work as I am).

I have decided to follow their lead and post clips for a "Top Five Kurosawa Films You Haven't Seen". I was tempted just to do my own "top five" list, but that would be a bit boring as it would include films everyone knows about. The likes of 'Yojimbo', 'Seven Samurai', 'The Hidden Fortress', 'Rashomon', 'Ran' and 'Ikiru' have been excluded from my thinking for this list. Instead, here are five of his films that everyone should seek out if they have the time and the interest:

'High & Low' (1963)
Based on an Ed McBain crime novel, 'High & Low' stars Toshiro Mifune in one of his greatest performances. Here is a really crazy American trailer which tries to sell this slow and talky movie as if it's a piece of Hitchcock:

'Drunken Angel' (1948)
A really overlooked gem. Two years before 'Rashomon' made everyone take notice in Europe, Kurosawa made this amazing film which also marked Kurosawa's first collaboration with Mifune (who steals the show from the equally brilliant Takashi Shimura). A really good, grimy look at post-war Japan and as political as Kurosawa ever got. The final scenes are among the most intense I have ever seen.

'Red Beard' (1965)
This slow, three hour 19th century medical epic was Kurosawa's final film with Mifune. Never a more humanistic movie did Kurosawa make.

'I Live in Fear' (1955)
Again, stars Toshiro Mifune. This time playing a man twice his actual age. The story is great: it concerns a man who dreams of moving his family to Brazil to escape the impending atomic holocaust he fears is coming to Japan. The paranoia and the exasperation of Mifune's old man are priceless. The film also marks the last score by Fumio Hayasaka, as he died of tuberculosis shortly after completing the score. It also has some great alternative titles in the west: 'Record of a Living Being' and 'What the Birds Knew'. Kurosawa would return to this atom bomb paranoia with a short section in 1990's 'Dreams'. I can't find a video clip so here is that mournful score, stained with tragedy:


'Dreams' (1990)
Curiously the only Kurosawa film to be available to stream from X-Box Live, 'Dreams' was part produced by Steven Speilberg (in a similar manner to how Coppola and Lucas helped finance 'Kagemusha' in 1980) and has visual effects from ILM. The film is a series of shorts which represent Kurosawa's own dreams. I'm not going to lie: some of them are a bit rubbish and much of the dialogue is terrible. But the whole film is visually splendid. Below is the entire "Crows" chapter, which stars Martin Scorcese as Vincent Van Gogh. The way Kurosawa turns Van Gogh's paintings into live action is breathtaking.


Also, if you want to get into Kurosawa (or if you are a bit of a fan already) you could do worse than to read his own book Something Like an Autobiography (which tells Kurosawa's life story up to the making of 'Rashomon' in 1950) or Donald Richie's brilliant The Films of Akira Kurosawa. The Richie book is an essential: detailed academic essays on every single one of his films. What a great book!

Finally, if you're hungry for even more Kurosawa then check out a short post I did, back in May, on his films being remade. Also, look out (or listen out) for the next Splendor podcast, which will take the form of a Kurosawa love-in.

'The Girl on the Train' review: Téchiné's latest fails to satisfy...

‘The Girl on the Train’, a new film directed and co-written by the multi-award-winning André Téchiné, is very much a film of two halves. Apparently loosely based on a real-life event infamous in its native France and set within the context of a wave of anti-Semitic hate crimes, the film follows a young girl named Jeanne who one day tears her clothes, cuts herself and draws swastikas on her body, before claiming to the authorities that some youths attacked her whilst she rode a train. She adds to the recent concern about racist attacks by claiming that she was singled out because she was carrying the business card of a Jewish lawyer, also suggesting that crowds of people on the train saw the incident and did nothing to intervene. The media quickly buy into this lie and run with the story sparking popular outrage across France. Soon Jeanne’s mother is taking calls from the nation’s President expressing his sympathies for the attack. The second half of the film deals with Jeanne telling the lie and its aftermath (much of which is based on reality), whilst the first half is Téchiné’s attempt to understand why she told this lie and deals with the (highly fictionalized) events leading up to it.

If Téchiné is considered one of France’s most significant post-New Wave filmmakers, then it is only fitting that the film does not come without names of top acting pedigree also. The Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne (who won the ‘Best Actress’ prize at Cannes in 1999) heads up a well-respected cast as she plays the titular girl, Jeanne. Her troubled and well-meaning mother, Louise, is played by the Academy Award nominated Catherine Deneuve (a frequent Téchiné collaborator), whilst the Jewish lawyer and hate crime activist, Samuel Bleistein, is played by Michel Blanc (a star of Téchiné’s last film, ‘The Witnesses’). Finally, a rising star, Nicolas Duvauchelle (who was also in last year’s Claire Denis film, ‘White Material’), plays Jeanne’s streetwise boyfriend Franck. It is their love affair which dominates the film’s first half and attempts to go some way to explaining Jeanne’s later actions.



The cast do an able job with the material they are given, however the film feels strangely like a low-budget television drama. There are some nice shots and many scenes (notably those in the sunshine) are pleasantly lit, but it is paced far too slowly and outstays its welcome fairly quickly. There are whole scenes which seem to serve no obvious purpose in advancing Jeanne’s story. For instance, there is a sub-plot (involving a bickering divorced couple who later sleep together and then finally reconcile) which could easily have been excised from the film entirely. When I first saw the film I was unaware of the “true story” element and (not having read a synopsis) did not know that Jeanne was going to stage a racially motivated hate crime by beating herself up. The fact that when she did it came as a huge surprise to me (and seemed to alter the tone of the film so completely) I think counts against the film, as the first half which leads up to the event and is supposed to provide some sort of character motivation and simply fails to do so. I am still none the wiser about Jeanne's motivations.

We are left asking questions, such as: did she do it for attention? But we could have asked those questions had the film only depicted the “true story” events. Téchiné sheds no light on this extraordinary lie and its consequences. He depicts Jeanne watching a holocaust documentary and weeping. He also shows that she has seen the news reports of the previous (genuine) hate crimes against Jewish people. But neither of these moments really add up to pretending you've been persecuted. Perhaps Téchiné is suggesting that she feels marginalised and suspects that the only way she can get her voice heard is by capitalising on this media event. We are left intrigued to find out more about the real-life case, but not especially thrilled by or satisfied with Téchiné’s film.

'The Girl on the Train' is out in the UK now on a limited release, including one showing at Brighton's Duke of York's Picturehouse on July 20th. The film is rated '15' by the BBFC. Jon and I covered it in the latest Splendor Podcast also.

'Sex & the City 2' review: Shameless, tacky and unstoppable...

“Look! Arabic Pringles” says Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) as the camera goes into a shameless extreme close-up on the branded potato snacks. They have been provided by a Middle Eastern airline bringing her, along with her equally vacuous and materialistic friends, to a luxury holiday in Abu Dhabi. “We need to go somewhere rich” says Samantha (Kim Cattrall), when encouraging the “girls” to join her on this all expenses paid trip (their New York penthouses are not considered “rich” enough it would seem). Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) foolishly decides to bring a cultural guide book along and she is rightly derided for this with Carrie derisively asking “Are you moving there?” Indeed. Why would one want to know anything about the country they are visiting? As Samantha so rightly says on the eve of their trip east, “I can hear the decadence calling!” Welcome to the world of ‘Sex & the City 2’.

‘Sex & the City 2’, directed and written by Michael Patrick King (providing once and for all the infallibility of auteur theory), is an odd and strangely hypnotic film. I should have hated it to the core. However, not far in to its 146 minute running time I resolved that the film was a satire of its brazenly selfish, hedonistic and superficial protagonists and everything about their there way of life (so obviously hideous is everything they say and do and physically embody). Viewed in this way the film is sort of amusing. For instance, the horrifying cadaver that is Kim Cattrall (who I’m sure the writer thinks is a modern day Mae West) looks and acts exactly like Sam Lowry’s excessively vain mother in Terry Gilliam’s 1985 dystopian sci-fi movie ‘Brazil’, always boasting about how many treatments and injections she has endured all with the noble aim of fighting the aging process. “I am fifty-fucking-two and I will rock this dress!” she shouts at a hapless clothes store clerk in the manner of a demented and embarrassing old spinster aunt in a way which the film supposes is some sort of milestone for female empowerment.



Then we have Carrie whose ‘Wonder Years’ style disembodied narration serves as the film’s dubious moral centre. Carrie is a relationship columnist of international renown and acts as a sort of female version of the James Bond wish fulfilment fantasy. At one point she walks into a “wardrobe” bigger than most people’s bedrooms (and full of expensive designer clothes) and I distinctly heard two disparate ladies in the audience say “cool!” ‘Sex & the City’ is to women what ‘XXX’, ‘Fast and Furious’ and Danny Dyer movies are to men, in that they are not really for women at all: just for stupid people. If Samantha is deluded and slightly nauseating, then Carrie is just downright hateful. She makes her husband go out with her to a party, ditches him for her friends and then drags him home when she sees that he is starting to have fun (talking to Penelope “why am I here?” Cruz). For their anniversary her husband buys them both a flat screen television for the bedroom (getting a derisive chuckle from the ladies in the audience) but his intentions are decent and even romantic: he wants to lie with her and watch “old black and white films” in bed. She is indignant and, in the manner of an ungrateful child, says “a piece of jewellery would have been nice”. What a horrible person (but then Bond isn’t much better as a role model for male behaviour). Carrie and her friends feel like the subjects of an MTV reality show.

A bit huffy from television-gate, Carrie decides to spend a few days back at her old apartment. “The last two years haven’t been the best time to sell an apartment” she explains. It makes economic sense for her to keep the place empty and sell it on later and this is all that matters in her universe. Don’t worry about the people who are being forced out of their homes in the wake of global recession: they probably deserved it and in any case they are far too poor for us to care. So Carrie has two places and when she returns to this one after two years away, she finds it as she left it: fully furnished, with a huge, walk-in wardrobe (still full of high fashion clothes). But in this world Carrie isn’t disgusting at all, apparently.



And apparently neither is Charlotte (Kristin Davis) who denies her Jewish surname (Goldenblatt) as soon as they arrive in the Middle East in fear that it might spoil her time drinking cocktails by the pool. These are clearly people of principle. My personal favourite bit saw Carrie talking to one of her butlers in Abu Dhabi about the difficulties of maintaining a marriage. He explains to her that he is Indian and comes to Abu Dhabi to work, only flying back to see his wife when “I have time off work and can afford the plane fare”. But instead of this being a wake-up call to make Carrie see just how easy she and her pals have it (and to how sickeningly bourgeois their existence on this Earth has become) this story is mined for romance, with the manservant explaining that his love for his wife increases in their time apart. The grim economic reality of the poor people who pander to their every whim on the dessert resort (in a modern form of indentured servitude) is mentioned but simultaneously completely ignored.



The film can’t make up its mind what it thinks of the Middle East either. On the one hand we have Samantha gallivanting around the market square thrusting her hips and shouting “I have sex” at the local outraged men, her hands full of condoms (I am not making this up). On the other hand we have Miranda constantly trying to cover Samantha up and apologise for her behaviour. Together the women laugh at a lady in a burqa as she lifts her veil to eat French fries at the next table in a restaurant, but then they also gasp in wonder at the cultural sites they encounter on their trip and befriend a kindly man in the market (“shoes for everyone!”). Overall the cultural and historical morsels Miranda derives from her guide book (in the form of strained exposition) seem to serve as more of a disclaimer than anything else: giving the “girls” the right to say and do whatever grossly insensitive things they want to in this horrible movie. Generally their intolerance of local custom is played for laughs. The film’s crowning insult to the Middle East is in one the final scenes in Abu Dhabi, in which a group of women remove their burqas to reveal that underneath they are wearing similarly “fabulous” clothes to their American counterparts. You go girls! Whether you see this film as an example of cultural imperialism or of female empowerment you surely can not deny that it is unfailingly tacky.



There is so much more to find horrifying in this film. For instance, Liza Minnelli shows up as a singer at a gay wedding doing a version of Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ which makes you want to erase her entire career (even the stuff with Bob Fosse). There is a really cringe-worthy sub-plot involving a bra-less, Irish nanny and Charlotte’s basic inability to parent her own children: “and I have full-time help!” she says, admitting her own basic inability to function as a competent member of the human race. There is Samantha saying “word” without any trace of irony as well as the concept of an “interfriendshon”. There is a horrid karaoke scene in which the “girls” sing “I Am Woman”, swaying in unison and holding hands, forever uniting in bonds of unquestioning sisterhood. But what would be the point of going on about this obviously critic-proof film for any longer? “That should take the edge off the reviews” says Carrie, referring to Samantha’s admission that she will likely bed the star of a bad film. In the case of ‘Sex & the City 2’ good box-office will not only take the edge off the bad reviews, but will shred them into total and utter irrelevance.

'Sex & the City 2' is out everywhere now (including Brighton's Duke of York's Picturehouse) and is rated '15' by the BBFC.

'The Happiest Girl in the World' review: Outstanding Romanian comedy...

Once in a while a film comes along that really surprises you. Completely knocks you back. Fifteen minutes into Radu Jude’s ‘The Happiest Girl in the World’ I came to the realisation I was watching such a film. Romanian cinema has been experiencing something of a critical golden age over the last decade, with the so-called New Wave climaxing in 2007 when Cristian Mungiu’s ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’ won the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Anyone who watches Jude’s film will find themselves assured that the good times are not yet over for the former Soviet state’s film industry.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am fond of tightly made little films which focus on a small number of characters and have almost no “plot” in the conventional sense. ‘The Happiest Girl in the World’ is another film in this fine tradition, with relatively little going on in the plot department. A young girl called Delia has won a competition by collecting the labels from a fruit drinks bottle and is entitled to a brand new car, as well as a starring role in an advertisement for the drink. To collect her prize and to film the commercial, Delia and her parents travel to Bucharest from the countryside. We witness the final leg of their car journey into the capital and then we stick with Delia as she gets her make-up done and films take after take of the inane advertisement. Arguing with her parents between takes about what to do with the car (they want to sell it in order to start a hotel business, whereas she wants to keep it do drive around with her friends) the girl is forced to repeat for the cameras (and with increasing irony) that she is the titular “luckiest, happiest girl in the world”.



What we see is a protracted (fantastically acted) family feud, as she argues with her mother, then her father, then the pair of them and so on, until the day is ending, the light is fading and the poor, exasperated commercial director is left trying desperately to coax an adequate performance out of her. Meanwhile, a representative of the drinks company takes exception to every detail of the ad, from the girls speaking, to the amount of juice she drinks in a single take, to the amount of water sprayed onto the bottle by the prop man in order to make it look refreshing (at one point he suggests adding cola to the bottle to make it look better on film). These two parts of the film combine to give us something which is equal parts a poignant (and often quietly funny) family drama about a grumpy modern teenager and her old fashioned parents and a detailed and fascinating insight into the world of making commercials (and by extension filmmaking in general), with every aspect of that world shown in great detail. Apparently Jude was himself a director of commercials and it is clear he knows that world inside and out.

There are so many interesting strands in this film that it is almost impossible to keep track of them all. It is an observational comedy about the gap between generations. It’s also a story about the clash between the new capitalist ideology which prizes personal possessions and consumption over the common good represented by the parents who remember the communist years more vividly and see a comfortable lifestyle as more appealing than a shiny car. You could read it as simply a story of country attitudes coming to the big city, or of the cruelty of the media industry using people and treating them badly (as the commercial makers constantly talk about Delia's physical imperfections whilst she is within earshot).



It is also a film which provoked an incredibly visceral response from me whilst I sat watching it. I felt like I wanted to shout at the girl for being so selfish and giving her folks such a hard time. I wanted her dad to be able to get her signature and sell the car before the day’s conclusion. At times I was gripped with suspense uncommon in this sort of quiet, low-key film as I genuinely worried about what decision the girl would make. But the biggest strength of all is that I wasn’t led to feel that way particularly (or at least I don’t feel as though I was, which is just as good). I can just as easily imagine people wanting the girl to keep her car and I can see people thinking badly of her parents for pushing her into selling it for them (and at one point threatening to disown her entirely and leave the city without her - which come to think of it does sound unreasonable).

Basically, ‘The Happiest Girl in the World’ is one of the most remarkable and surprising films of the last year and I will be very, very surprised if it isn’t in my top ten come January 2011. Go and see it if you can find it playing somewhere.

'The Happiest Girl in the World' is rated '15' by the BBFC and is out today (28th May 2010) in the UK in selected cinemas nationwide (or probably just in London). Jon and I talked about it in the last podcast too!