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)
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Friday, 18 June 2010
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.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
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.
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
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)
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)
Tuesday, 15 June 2010
The first of the "Pantheon series"...
A new Splendor Cinema podcast is up (episode 17), both at Picturehouse and on iTunes. This week Jon and I talk about the life and work of Akira Kurosawa (as mentioned in my previous Kurosawa post) to celebrate his centenary year, as inspired by this month's Sight and Sound magazine.
We give our individual "top 5" Kurosawa movies and discuss stuff from across the legendary director's career. It's an extra long one too (about 42 minutes) so be sure to listen if you're a fan of Japanese cinema or just Samurai.
This podcast is the first in our long planned "Pantheon series" in which we will do a number of one-off specials about "great" directors and ask the question "do they belong on the Pantheon?" We have plenty more planned so watch this space (or subscribe on iTunes).
We give our individual "top 5" Kurosawa movies and discuss stuff from across the legendary director's career. It's an extra long one too (about 42 minutes) so be sure to listen if you're a fan of Japanese cinema or just Samurai.
This podcast is the first in our long planned "Pantheon series" in which we will do a number of one-off specials about "great" directors and ask the question "do they belong on the Pantheon?" We have plenty more planned so watch this space (or subscribe on iTunes).
Monday, 14 June 2010
'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.
Saturday, 12 June 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, 10 June 2010
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:
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:
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
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.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
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.
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.
Monday, 7 June 2010
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.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, 5 June 2010
'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.
Friday, 4 June 2010
'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.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
TV... the new film?
OK, so "no". TV is not the new film and worries about that little box replacing the cinema have proved largely unfounded since they started in the 1950s. Although the availability of moving pictures in living rooms has had a massive impact on attendances and on the target demographic of the movies (with films becoming increasingly aimed at teenagers over the last half decade): the movies remain relevant as an art form and as part of the popular culture.
So why the title of this post? Just because television used to be rubbish. Even the good stuff was of obvious poor quality compared to a movie. But now there are (American) shows which have the production values of a big budget movie for an hour every week. It used to be the case that actors would have trouble breaking into movies from televsion, but now many movie actors readily and regularly accept roles on television (Kiefer Sutherland in '24' (video below), Tim Roth in 'Lie to Me', Glenn Close in 'Damages' and the late Patrick Swayze in 'The Beast', as examples of a growing trend).
What is especially great about these shows is that they are not trying to be movies at all, but that they use the form of television to do something films can not do. A show like 'The Wire' (which follows a Baltimore police teams attempts to bring down a drug king pin in the face of local politics and staggering bureaucracy - although that description doesn't come close to doing it justice) tells a richly detailed story over many hours, all of them essential. You couldn't do that with a film. Not to the same level of journalistic rigour that David Simon and Ed Burns do with that show. They were equally brilliant with the Iraq invasion series 'Generation Kill', really putting you in that place and making you feel (as they did with Baltimore) that you know every inch of that place and every nuance of that scenario.
David Simon and Ed Burns are an example of another encouraging trend in US TV: that of the auteur driven drama series. Aaron Sorkin ('The West Wing', 'Studio 60'), David Chase ('The Sopranos') and Matthew Weiner ('Mad Men') are all writers of intense, detailed and dialogue driven TV shows which are far above the vast majority of what the cinema has to offer in terms of their intelligence. The acting in these shows is often dazzling with 'The West Wing' a good example of the new cross-polination between film and TV in terms of actors, as it stars Hollywood names (Martin Sheen and Rob Lowe) and also created new ones (Allison Janney and Richard Schiff).
Complicating things further is the changing nature of how people view media. In a few years, when both the latest episode of a big budget TV thriller and the latest "blockbuster" Hollywood thriller are available to stream instantly on your laptop or phone whilst you ride the train to work: what will be the difference between the two? Is there a distinction anymore, other than the fact that the "TV" show will likely have between 10-25 sequels ready to download should you want to continue the story?
Anyway, film is not dead and TV will not kill it. But now, more than ever before, television is more than a substitute for the movies: when done properly it is better than film. Yet television is still not really taken seriously in the world of media criticism. It is analysed in terms of news reporting or in terms of its affect on society, but television shows are not afforded the same respect by academics and critics. Is this all about to change? Another decade of TV like the above and it just might.
So why the title of this post? Just because television used to be rubbish. Even the good stuff was of obvious poor quality compared to a movie. But now there are (American) shows which have the production values of a big budget movie for an hour every week. It used to be the case that actors would have trouble breaking into movies from televsion, but now many movie actors readily and regularly accept roles on television (Kiefer Sutherland in '24' (video below), Tim Roth in 'Lie to Me', Glenn Close in 'Damages' and the late Patrick Swayze in 'The Beast', as examples of a growing trend).
What is especially great about these shows is that they are not trying to be movies at all, but that they use the form of television to do something films can not do. A show like 'The Wire' (which follows a Baltimore police teams attempts to bring down a drug king pin in the face of local politics and staggering bureaucracy - although that description doesn't come close to doing it justice) tells a richly detailed story over many hours, all of them essential. You couldn't do that with a film. Not to the same level of journalistic rigour that David Simon and Ed Burns do with that show. They were equally brilliant with the Iraq invasion series 'Generation Kill', really putting you in that place and making you feel (as they did with Baltimore) that you know every inch of that place and every nuance of that scenario.
David Simon and Ed Burns are an example of another encouraging trend in US TV: that of the auteur driven drama series. Aaron Sorkin ('The West Wing', 'Studio 60'), David Chase ('The Sopranos') and Matthew Weiner ('Mad Men') are all writers of intense, detailed and dialogue driven TV shows which are far above the vast majority of what the cinema has to offer in terms of their intelligence. The acting in these shows is often dazzling with 'The West Wing' a good example of the new cross-polination between film and TV in terms of actors, as it stars Hollywood names (Martin Sheen and Rob Lowe) and also created new ones (Allison Janney and Richard Schiff).
Complicating things further is the changing nature of how people view media. In a few years, when both the latest episode of a big budget TV thriller and the latest "blockbuster" Hollywood thriller are available to stream instantly on your laptop or phone whilst you ride the train to work: what will be the difference between the two? Is there a distinction anymore, other than the fact that the "TV" show will likely have between 10-25 sequels ready to download should you want to continue the story?
Anyway, film is not dead and TV will not kill it. But now, more than ever before, television is more than a substitute for the movies: when done properly it is better than film. Yet television is still not really taken seriously in the world of media criticism. It is analysed in terms of news reporting or in terms of its affect on society, but television shows are not afforded the same respect by academics and critics. Is this all about to change? Another decade of TV like the above and it just might.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
"Sam Rockwell? What's he been in?"
For years I have been waxing lyrical about the acting talent of Mr. Sam Rockwell, the Californian actor who was most recently seen in 'Iron Man 2'. But often when I tell people about how good he is I am struck by the fact that they don't have a clue who I am talking about. He's been in plenty of films, but when I come to explaining where people may have seen him I end up drawing a blank as despite his long and varied filmography he has not really been in many things you can guarantee people will have seen.
So here are five clips which act as a celebration of his range and talent and represent your guide to the essential Sam Rockwell:
One of my favourite films of last year, 'Moon' (directed by Duncan Jones), stars Rockwell as a man who works (in complete isolation) on the earth's moon. In this interesting piece of low-budget, British science fiction Rockwell is called upon to completely carry the movie and hold the audiences attention. I have chosen a clip which gives nothing away, but in doing so I can't really show you any of the most poignant or humourous moments. Anyway, here is Rockwell in 'Moon':
In 2001, he appeared opposite Gene Hackman in David Mamet's superior thriller 'Heist'. He more than holds his own in this dialogue heavy Mamet film and would steal the show if it weren't for Hackman. Here is a short (but funny) clip:
Probably my favourite scene from the brilliant 2007 Western 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' (directed by Andrew Dominik) sees three really good actors sharing a tense scene. The main business here concerns Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, but Sam Rockwell is really good too, giving the scene a real nervous tension and an anxiety as he finds himself trapped between two increasingly insane characters. He brings so much to a role which may otherwise have blended into the background:
Probably the most overlooked Charlie Kaufman screenplay (and disowned by the writer himself who disliked director George Clooney's take on the material) 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' (2002) starred Sam Rockwell as Chuck Barris, a gameshow host (indeed the real life creator of 'Blind Date' and 'The Gong Show') turned covert CIA agent. Here he is given the opportunity to be funny, insane, charismatic and dangerous in equal measure:
Whilst he is often called upon to be comic (broadly so in the likes of 'Galaxy Quest', 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and 'Gentlemen Broncos'), he is sometimes given intense and purely dramatic roles, such as his turn in Ron Howard's 2008 film 'Frost/Nixon'. Here he is the morally indignant journalist who pressures David Frost into using his Nixon interview as a trial for the disgraced leader:
Of course, as I mentioned in the review, I really enjoyed him in 'Iron Man 2', which you can still see in cinemas. I highly recommend checking out any of the above also ('Frost/Nixon' is deeply floored, but still a decent film and the others are just great). His next "big" role is in another Jon Favreau directed comic book adaptation 'Cowboys & Aliens' - a film produced by Steven Speilberg and Ron Howard and co-starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. A more low-key role will see him opposite Hilary Swank and Minnie Driver in the upcoming drama 'Betty Anne Walters'. Rockwell will ensure I go to see both of them!
So here are five clips which act as a celebration of his range and talent and represent your guide to the essential Sam Rockwell:
One of my favourite films of last year, 'Moon' (directed by Duncan Jones), stars Rockwell as a man who works (in complete isolation) on the earth's moon. In this interesting piece of low-budget, British science fiction Rockwell is called upon to completely carry the movie and hold the audiences attention. I have chosen a clip which gives nothing away, but in doing so I can't really show you any of the most poignant or humourous moments. Anyway, here is Rockwell in 'Moon':
In 2001, he appeared opposite Gene Hackman in David Mamet's superior thriller 'Heist'. He more than holds his own in this dialogue heavy Mamet film and would steal the show if it weren't for Hackman. Here is a short (but funny) clip:
Probably my favourite scene from the brilliant 2007 Western 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford' (directed by Andrew Dominik) sees three really good actors sharing a tense scene. The main business here concerns Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck, but Sam Rockwell is really good too, giving the scene a real nervous tension and an anxiety as he finds himself trapped between two increasingly insane characters. He brings so much to a role which may otherwise have blended into the background:
Probably the most overlooked Charlie Kaufman screenplay (and disowned by the writer himself who disliked director George Clooney's take on the material) 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' (2002) starred Sam Rockwell as Chuck Barris, a gameshow host (indeed the real life creator of 'Blind Date' and 'The Gong Show') turned covert CIA agent. Here he is given the opportunity to be funny, insane, charismatic and dangerous in equal measure:
Whilst he is often called upon to be comic (broadly so in the likes of 'Galaxy Quest', 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and 'Gentlemen Broncos'), he is sometimes given intense and purely dramatic roles, such as his turn in Ron Howard's 2008 film 'Frost/Nixon'. Here he is the morally indignant journalist who pressures David Frost into using his Nixon interview as a trial for the disgraced leader:
Of course, as I mentioned in the review, I really enjoyed him in 'Iron Man 2', which you can still see in cinemas. I highly recommend checking out any of the above also ('Frost/Nixon' is deeply floored, but still a decent film and the others are just great). His next "big" role is in another Jon Favreau directed comic book adaptation 'Cowboys & Aliens' - a film produced by Steven Speilberg and Ron Howard and co-starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. A more low-key role will see him opposite Hilary Swank and Minnie Driver in the upcoming drama 'Betty Anne Walters'. Rockwell will ensure I go to see both of them!
Monday, 31 May 2010
June's 'Flick's Flicks', Dennis Hopper passes away and Del Torro quits 'The Hobbit'...
First things first, Guillermo Del Torro has quit as the director of the upcoming adaptation of 'The Hobbit'. Reaction to this has been split between people who feel glad that Del Torro can now pursue his own projects and those who were eagerly anticipating his take on Tolkien's "Middle Earth" (there is presumably a third group who don't care either way and a fourth group who haven't heard for Guillermo Del Torro in the first place).
I am undecided as to what to make of it: part of me thinks that even though I didn't like Peter Jackson's version of 'Lord of the Rings', I was excited to see what Del Torro would do with 'The Hobbit'. Although a bigger part of me would rather see the Mexican make one of his own, more personal films instead. It is yet unknown who is replacing him as the director for the two planned movies which will tell the story of how Bilbo Baggins meets Gandalf the wizard, comes into possession of "the one ring" and defeats an evil dragon.
Next up, I said a while back that I would soon be hosting some episodes of 'Flick's Flicks', Picturehouse's monthly film preview show usually hosted by Felicity "Flick" Beckett. However, Felicity's imminent maternity leave means that I am taking over hosting duties for the next three shows (July, August, September). To prepare you for those upcoming episodes, here is the most recent installment as Flick prepares us for June:
On a seperate note, I have been busy recently writing reviews for an upcoming volume from Intellect Books which looks at British cinema. So far I have submitted reviews for Mike Leigh's 'Happy-Go-Lucky' (which I love), Mike Newell's 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' (which I don't really care for) and the Ealing comedy 'Passport to Pimlico' (which is really brilliant). I am currently (as in as soon as I stop this blog entry) writing my review for 'Trainspotting', which will be submitted tonight!
I also recently become attached to another upcoming book from Intellect, this time on American Independant cinema. I have been given some really great titles to review and I am really enthusiastic to be a part of it.
Finally, I can't end this post without mentioning the sad passing of Dennis Hopper, who died on Saturday after a battle with cancer, a mere two months after recieving a star on the 'Walk of Fame' in LA. In a long and varied screen career Hopper was seen in such classics as 'Apocalypse Now', 'Rebel Without a Cause', 'Blue Velvet' and 'Hoosiers', working with many great directors along the way (among them Francis Ford Coppola, Nicholas Ray, George Stevens, Sam Peckinpah, George A. Romero and David Lynch). In the 90's, after some time in the wilderness, he became something of an iconic movie villain in the big budget actioners 'Speed' and 'Waterworld'.
But he will rightly be most fondly remembered as the co-writer, director and star of 'Easy Rider' in 1969, a film which helped to establish the so-called New Hollywood of the late-60's/early-70's (along with other films like 'Bonnie and Clyde' and 'The Graduate') and became a key and lasting document of the counterculture of that era. Whilst Hopper's own politics would change significantly in later life (he appeared in the "conservative comedy" 'An American Carol' in 2008), that film still partially defines an era of massive social change and keeps that spirit alive on celluloid fourty years on.
The film, which also starred Peter Fonda, helped to launch the acting career of Jack Nicholson and popularised the Steppenwolf track 'Born to Be Wild' (which would be used in adverts for years, always along with a visual referance to the opening shots of 'Easy Rider'). Not many filmmaker's can really claim to have changed cinema, nor can many films be considered truly "iconic": indelibly becoming part of the popular culture. With 'Easy Rider' Dennis Hopper achieved both and his memory will live on forever with that film.
Dennis Hopper (1936-1910) - a true Hollywood great.
I am undecided as to what to make of it: part of me thinks that even though I didn't like Peter Jackson's version of 'Lord of the Rings', I was excited to see what Del Torro would do with 'The Hobbit'. Although a bigger part of me would rather see the Mexican make one of his own, more personal films instead. It is yet unknown who is replacing him as the director for the two planned movies which will tell the story of how Bilbo Baggins meets Gandalf the wizard, comes into possession of "the one ring" and defeats an evil dragon.
Next up, I said a while back that I would soon be hosting some episodes of 'Flick's Flicks', Picturehouse's monthly film preview show usually hosted by Felicity "Flick" Beckett. However, Felicity's imminent maternity leave means that I am taking over hosting duties for the next three shows (July, August, September). To prepare you for those upcoming episodes, here is the most recent installment as Flick prepares us for June:
On a seperate note, I have been busy recently writing reviews for an upcoming volume from Intellect Books which looks at British cinema. So far I have submitted reviews for Mike Leigh's 'Happy-Go-Lucky' (which I love), Mike Newell's 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' (which I don't really care for) and the Ealing comedy 'Passport to Pimlico' (which is really brilliant). I am currently (as in as soon as I stop this blog entry) writing my review for 'Trainspotting', which will be submitted tonight!
I also recently become attached to another upcoming book from Intellect, this time on American Independant cinema. I have been given some really great titles to review and I am really enthusiastic to be a part of it.
Finally, I can't end this post without mentioning the sad passing of Dennis Hopper, who died on Saturday after a battle with cancer, a mere two months after recieving a star on the 'Walk of Fame' in LA. In a long and varied screen career Hopper was seen in such classics as 'Apocalypse Now', 'Rebel Without a Cause', 'Blue Velvet' and 'Hoosiers', working with many great directors along the way (among them Francis Ford Coppola, Nicholas Ray, George Stevens, Sam Peckinpah, George A. Romero and David Lynch). In the 90's, after some time in the wilderness, he became something of an iconic movie villain in the big budget actioners 'Speed' and 'Waterworld'.
But he will rightly be most fondly remembered as the co-writer, director and star of 'Easy Rider' in 1969, a film which helped to establish the so-called New Hollywood of the late-60's/early-70's (along with other films like 'Bonnie and Clyde' and 'The Graduate') and became a key and lasting document of the counterculture of that era. Whilst Hopper's own politics would change significantly in later life (he appeared in the "conservative comedy" 'An American Carol' in 2008), that film still partially defines an era of massive social change and keeps that spirit alive on celluloid fourty years on.
The film, which also starred Peter Fonda, helped to launch the acting career of Jack Nicholson and popularised the Steppenwolf track 'Born to Be Wild' (which would be used in adverts for years, always along with a visual referance to the opening shots of 'Easy Rider'). Not many filmmaker's can really claim to have changed cinema, nor can many films be considered truly "iconic": indelibly becoming part of the popular culture. With 'Easy Rider' Dennis Hopper achieved both and his memory will live on forever with that film.
Dennis Hopper (1936-1910) - a true Hollywood great.
Friday, 28 May 2010
'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!
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Retrospective Review: 'Punch-Drunk Love'
Here is the first in a planned series of retrospective reviews of some of favourite movies. I have chosen to start this series with a look at a movie which is depicted in this blog's heading and which I have frequently mentioned in my posts:
‘Punch-Drunk Love’ (2002) is the fourth feature film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and stars Adam Sandler, who became a major box-office draw in the latter half of the 1990’s with broad and brash man-child comedies like ‘The Waterboy’ (1998) and ‘Big Daddy’ (1999). But it should come as no surprise that ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ isn’t a slapstick comedy farce, however, as Anderson had come to prominence with such bold and unusual films as ‘Boogie Nights’ (1997) and ‘Magnolia’ (1999) and would go on to make the dark, satirical oil-epic ‘There Will Be Blood’ (2007), which was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar at the 80th Academy Awards and also earned Anderson a nomination for directing (although it was defeated in both categories by the Coen brothers’ ‘No Country For Old Men’).
‘Punch-Drunk Love’ is not an easy film to summarise, although the surface level “plot” is admittedly rather slender. Barry Egan (Sandler) is a nervous and isolated man who is unable to express himself emotionally, a fact which leads to sudden fits of violent rage (a typical Sandler archetype, though played much darker here). Barry soon meets Lena (Emily Watson) and they share a mutual attraction, but Barry feels uncomfortable talking to women and avoids the situation. To confront this issue Barry takes the step of calling a sex hotline, however this leads the hotline’s supervisor (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) to attempt to blackmail Barry, with violent repercussions for everyone involved. Against this fraught backdrop Barry and Lena begin a romance. Explaining the story like this will give you some idea of what happens, but very little idea what the film is about.
Whilst Todd McCarthy of Variety found the film to be “marked by audacious strokes of directorial bravado” and Roger Ebert found it “exhilarating”, some critics were less enthusiastic when the film was released, with Lawrence Toppman of the Charlotte Observer expressing the belief that “‘Punch-Drunk Love’ buries a terrific performance by Adam Sandler under a heap of faux cleverness, meaningless symbolism and irritating mannerisms.” The accusations of “meaningless symbolism” and “faux cleverness” are probably directed at the way Anderson’s film uses symbols and visual motifs to represent feelings and themes. For example, early on in the film Barry witnesses a massive, unexplained, unrealistic (and never again referenced) car crash, which is immediately followed by a taxi cab leaving a harmonium on the sidewalk. For me, the car crash represents Barry’s heightened anxiety at the outside world, which he is afraid of and unable to relate to, and the harmonium becomes a method of catharsis during the film's most stressful moments, representing beauty and a reason to keep on. These moments serve to make ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ a genuinely cinematic experience with Anderson painting on a large canvas, covering the emotional rather than the literal.
The real triumph of ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ is that the viewer is forced to experience Barry’s emotional state and to see situations through his eyes. For example, in an early scene Barry attends a gathering with his seven sisters in which he loses the plot and completely destroys a glass patio door. Nothing the sisters say during this sequence is malicious or intended to rile Barry at all, in fact his sisters can’t understand why he acts the way he does towards them. However, the scene is cleverly devised so that the viewer experiences what they are saying the way Barry does: the sisters are loud and their voices overlap as they tell stories about his childhood which they think are amusing and endearing but which he interprets as a personal attack. When he destroys the glass door it is without question a disturbing, seemingly unprovoked overreaction, but one which we are made to understand and empathise with due to the mounting anxiety and hysteria created by the mood to the sequence.
The experience of watching ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ is visceral, emotional and often horribly tense, thanks in no small part to (frequent Anderson collaborator) Jon Brion, whose excellent score plays a huge part in creating the film’s atmosphere which can change quickly from terrified anxiety to pure elation, often within moments. Likewise the cinematography of Robert Elswit (who has worked on every film of Anderson’s since 1996’s ‘Hard Eight’) is breathtaking. The film’s use of colour is stunning with a muted blue colour palette, which contrasts brilliantly with some of the later scenes which display a much more intense, bright and sharply defined use of colour. These elements compliment the stunning multi-coloured visual interludes designed by the late Jeremy Blake, which feel as though they are being painted by Jon Brion’s music. All these elements complement each other so wonderfully that ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ is perhaps the most perfect movie yet by a director who seems destined to be hailed as an American master.
‘Punch-Drunk Love’ (2002) is the fourth feature film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and stars Adam Sandler, who became a major box-office draw in the latter half of the 1990’s with broad and brash man-child comedies like ‘The Waterboy’ (1998) and ‘Big Daddy’ (1999). But it should come as no surprise that ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ isn’t a slapstick comedy farce, however, as Anderson had come to prominence with such bold and unusual films as ‘Boogie Nights’ (1997) and ‘Magnolia’ (1999) and would go on to make the dark, satirical oil-epic ‘There Will Be Blood’ (2007), which was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar at the 80th Academy Awards and also earned Anderson a nomination for directing (although it was defeated in both categories by the Coen brothers’ ‘No Country For Old Men’).
‘Punch-Drunk Love’ is not an easy film to summarise, although the surface level “plot” is admittedly rather slender. Barry Egan (Sandler) is a nervous and isolated man who is unable to express himself emotionally, a fact which leads to sudden fits of violent rage (a typical Sandler archetype, though played much darker here). Barry soon meets Lena (Emily Watson) and they share a mutual attraction, but Barry feels uncomfortable talking to women and avoids the situation. To confront this issue Barry takes the step of calling a sex hotline, however this leads the hotline’s supervisor (played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman) to attempt to blackmail Barry, with violent repercussions for everyone involved. Against this fraught backdrop Barry and Lena begin a romance. Explaining the story like this will give you some idea of what happens, but very little idea what the film is about.
Whilst Todd McCarthy of Variety found the film to be “marked by audacious strokes of directorial bravado” and Roger Ebert found it “exhilarating”, some critics were less enthusiastic when the film was released, with Lawrence Toppman of the Charlotte Observer expressing the belief that “‘Punch-Drunk Love’ buries a terrific performance by Adam Sandler under a heap of faux cleverness, meaningless symbolism and irritating mannerisms.” The accusations of “meaningless symbolism” and “faux cleverness” are probably directed at the way Anderson’s film uses symbols and visual motifs to represent feelings and themes. For example, early on in the film Barry witnesses a massive, unexplained, unrealistic (and never again referenced) car crash, which is immediately followed by a taxi cab leaving a harmonium on the sidewalk. For me, the car crash represents Barry’s heightened anxiety at the outside world, which he is afraid of and unable to relate to, and the harmonium becomes a method of catharsis during the film's most stressful moments, representing beauty and a reason to keep on. These moments serve to make ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ a genuinely cinematic experience with Anderson painting on a large canvas, covering the emotional rather than the literal.
The real triumph of ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ is that the viewer is forced to experience Barry’s emotional state and to see situations through his eyes. For example, in an early scene Barry attends a gathering with his seven sisters in which he loses the plot and completely destroys a glass patio door. Nothing the sisters say during this sequence is malicious or intended to rile Barry at all, in fact his sisters can’t understand why he acts the way he does towards them. However, the scene is cleverly devised so that the viewer experiences what they are saying the way Barry does: the sisters are loud and their voices overlap as they tell stories about his childhood which they think are amusing and endearing but which he interprets as a personal attack. When he destroys the glass door it is without question a disturbing, seemingly unprovoked overreaction, but one which we are made to understand and empathise with due to the mounting anxiety and hysteria created by the mood to the sequence.
The experience of watching ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ is visceral, emotional and often horribly tense, thanks in no small part to (frequent Anderson collaborator) Jon Brion, whose excellent score plays a huge part in creating the film’s atmosphere which can change quickly from terrified anxiety to pure elation, often within moments. Likewise the cinematography of Robert Elswit (who has worked on every film of Anderson’s since 1996’s ‘Hard Eight’) is breathtaking. The film’s use of colour is stunning with a muted blue colour palette, which contrasts brilliantly with some of the later scenes which display a much more intense, bright and sharply defined use of colour. These elements compliment the stunning multi-coloured visual interludes designed by the late Jeremy Blake, which feel as though they are being painted by Jon Brion’s music. All these elements complement each other so wonderfully that ‘Punch-Drunk Love’ is perhaps the most perfect movie yet by a director who seems destined to be hailed as an American master.
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