So the football has started...

The 2010 Word Cup started yesterday. Yesterday also marked my first "Flick's Flicks" recording, which (I think) went well. I probably won't be seeing as many films over the next month as a result of the football (and soon the Tennis), but have no fear: I will still attempt to maintain this blog as best I can. Next week I will be watching and reviewing Noah Baumbach's 'Greenberg' and Michael Winterbottom's controversial 'The Killer Inside Me', as well as the upcoming Spannish horror film 'Hierro'.

The World Cup has reminded me of a nice football related film I saw last summer. 'Rudo Y Cursi' was directed by Carlos Cuarón, brother of Alfonso and co-writer of the amazing 'Y tu mamá también', and stars that film's lead duo: Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna. They play two Mexican brothers who attract the attention of a scout at a local amateur football match and go on to differing sucess in the top Mexican league.

The film is not as good as 'Y tu mamá también' and as such critics greeted it with lukewarm reviews last year. However, I enjoyed the film quite a bit. It is really fun and high-spirited and the football is some of the best ever seen in a fiction film, really capturing the energy and excitement of the game. Also, Bernal attempts to use his football stardom to become a pop star... which is pretty funny.

Here is a trailer for the film which only very narrowly missed out on my top ten last year:



It's pretty cheap on DVD, so check it out! Anyway, enjoy the World Cup.

World Cup starts tomorrow! Token football special...

On Monday I mentioned that the Mexican director Iñárritu ('Amores Perros', '21 Grams' and 'Babel') had lent his talent to a amazing Nike soccer ad entitled 'Write the Future'. As the 2010 World Cup is upon us (starting tomorrow afternoon) I thought I'd put some more football related clips up here.

During a period of huge artistic frustration Terry Gilliam (who had not been able to complete a film since 1998's 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas') agreed to direct a series of 2002 football trailers for Nike. 'The Secret Tournament' is the result. The ad is typically bizarre and imaginative, as the world's best players gather on a boat in the middle of nowhere (and under cover of darkness) to play some sort of cage football tournament, under the watchful gaze of Eric Cantona. This ad campaign also popularised a remixed version of Elvis Pressley's 'A Little Less Conversation', sending the track to number one in the UK charts.


In 2008, Guy "Lock, Stock" Ritchie made a typically geezery football ad, again for Nike. 'Take it to the Next Level' shows a first person view of one man's journey from Sunday league football to the big time. It's really very good, getting across the excitement of Premier League football from an angle unfamiliar to most of us as the protagonist plays side-by-side with the likes of Fabregas and Gallas for Arsenal against Manchester United.


I have no idea who directed this one from 2006, but as an Arsenal fan I am putting it up anyway. It shows Thierry Henry running around his house avoiding Manchester United players and even playing a one-two with then-teammate Fredrik Ljungberg. It's nowhere near as visually accomplished as the other three examples, but it's quite fun.


Anyhow, hope that burst of football-related advertising has left you even more excited by the prospect of tomorrow's football (hopefully it hasn't left you feeling depressed or mournful). Just to round things off: here is that 'Write the Future' ad again:

Is 'Star Wars' Sci-fi?

I assure you I'm not just arguing semantics when I ask: "is 'Star Wars' a science fiction film?" For years I have argued that it isn't (and I know I'm not alone here, just check on google) and that it is instead primarily a fantasy film.

Science fiction is usually allegorical and always involves some sort of genuine theory on where science may take us. 'Star Wars' does neither thing at all (unless you see it as a bland allegory for "good versus evil"). It doesn't try to make any points, instead it is about some heroic knights rescuing a princess from an evil (dare I say Hidden) fortress. Yes, there are laser guns and spaceships and robots, but I would argue this setting is not necessarily sci-fi. On the other hand, 'Star Trek' is sci-fi. Gene Roddenberry used his 60's TV series to make points about issues of the day, such as racism, as well as taking a look at where humanity may go ('Star Wars' with it's "Galaxy far, far away" disclaimer isn't even proposing that). In 'Star Trek' gadgets are always explained using pseudo-scientific terms, often at great length. 'Star Wars' doesn't care about this kind of thing at all. Sure, since 1977 books have been written that tell you how the Millennium Falcon works etc etc. But the films themselves never concerned themselves with science. In 'Star Wars' it is all about escapism and suspension of disbelief (and for my money this makes 'Star Wars' far better than 'Star Trek' too).



But the reason I get into this discussion is because the genre term of "sci-fi" has become more readily associated with a spacey, futuristic setting than with genuine science fiction. So a film like 'Jurassic Park' (featuring "Mr. DNA", above), which is both about the future of science and a morality tale about the potential perils of man playing god, gets labelled up as something else instead. Maybe that's fine. Maybe this just an acceptable evolution of language and something for etymologists to discuss rather than film critics. But I can't help but feel that the genre is being diluted with the meaning it has appropriated, as sci-fi used to be more complicated then that. Most 1950's science fiction used tales of aliens and spacecraft to talk about the cold war and the spectre of communism, for example.

Anyway, that's my two cents on the matter.

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.

Stuart Hazeldine 'Exam' interview at OWF, plus top Mexican director in amazing Nike ad shock...

A quick post today to alert your attention to my interview with the BAFTA-nominated director Stuart Hazeldine, whose film 'Exam' has been released on DVD/Blu-ray this week. I am not a fan of these kind of thriller films, but 'Exam' is much better than last year's 'Fermat's Room' (the worst film I have ever seen at the Duke of York's - worse than 'Sex & the City 2' because it wasn't half as fun to talk about afterwards) with which it shares a few similarities in concept and setting.

The film takes place in one room where eight candidates are gathered to sit an exam in the final stage of applying for a job at a mysterious corporation. However, upon starting the test they find that their papers are blank. Before they can give the answer they are forced to work together to discuss: what is the question? Quickly they begin to argue and even resort to violence as they shift between competition and co-operation.

I personally found the film's resolution unsatisfying and the acting (by such actors as Colin Salmon and Jimi Mistry) over the top. The film is also rather too fond of itself and buys into the idea that it's very clever indeed, with many moments of terrible cod philosophy as themes and ideas are superficially explored. But the set design is good and the direction is accomplished for such a low-budget, British thriller.

Anyway, Hazeldine seemed like a jolly nice chap when we spoke on the phone (even if he co-wrote perhaps the worst film I have ever seen ever, 2008's 'Knowing'), so you should read that interview over at OWF.

On an unrelated note, the Mexican New Wave filmmaker, Alejandro González Iñárritu (last seen promoting his latest film 'Biutiful' at Cannes), has done a Terry Gilliam (or a Guy Ritchie even) and pimped out his considerable talent in the name of promoting Nike and football ahead of this summer's World Cup. The result is quite something. Seriously, this is the best advert I have ever seen. It plays on Iñárritu's gift for telling multiple stories (and also features a cameo from Gael Garcia Bernal). You should watch it whether you like football or not:



Finally, my good friend Dave Bierton at IQGamer (who reviewed 'Clash of the Titans' on this blog in April) turned his attention to 'Prince of Persia' the other day. Check it out on his blog.

Many new Splendor Cinema podcasts...

It's been a rollercoaster ride for fans of the Splendor Cinema podcast in recent months. The names has been changed more than once and it has moved home a fair few times to boot. Now things have (hopefully) settled down and we (Jon Barrenechea and I) are back in the very capable (and reliable) hands of Eurogamer's Mr. Craig Munroe. We are back up on iTunes and also available on the Picturehouse website.

A lot of new shows have been uploaded lately, covering a range of topics. We have discussed 'Sex & the City 2' and 'Date Night', the 'Cini Estelli' fundraising project and Alex Cox's 'Walker', upcoming movies and much, much more!

I'll have direct links to all those podcasts on this blog when I have them, as usual.

Also, everyone owes it to themselves to read Jon's really great piece on piracy and the future of cinema distribution.

'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.