Prometheus

Prometheus - 2012, Ridley Scott

Prometheus is bad. What a shame.

According to Wikipedia, about three years ago Ridley Scott decided he wanted to make a prequel to Alien. He hired a screenwriter called Jon Spaihts who at that point hadn’t had anything he’d written made into a film but was apparently a ‘“go-to-guy for space thrillers" … his science fiction romance Passengers was included on the 2007 Black List of unproduced high-value screenplays’.

Ridley later brought a guy called Damon Lindelof on board who wrote a few episodes of Lost and has produced a few films. The three of them proceeded to talk themselves out of the idea of making a prequel to Alien and instead making something that could be considered a parallel film, or some such lunacy. So what they ended up with is a film that isn’t explicitly part of the Alien story, and yet, it’s full of stuff from the first Alien film. This means that anyone who is familiar with Alien (I am very familiar with all four Alien films which is why I have such problems with Prometheus, more on that later) will recognise all the  H.G. Giger  inspired designs. Gigers ‘look’ was and is unique in cinema and is intrinsically linked to Alien. Prometheus is full of Giger inspired stuff, a lot of it lifted directly from Alien. If Ridley Scott wasn’t involved people watching this film would say “hang on, they’re completely ripping off Alien”. But Ridley and 20^th Century Fox are involved, so it seems as though Spaihts and Lindelof have used the desire to make an official prequel as an opportunity to try to create their own saga: 

‘Lindelof suggested that the other parts of the script were strong enough to survive without the Alien hallmarks, such as the Alien creature which he believed had been "diluted" by the exposure it had received since, and the burden of "all the tropes of that franchise with Facehuggers and Chestbursters". He offered that the film could instead run parallel to those films, such that a sequel would be Prometheus 2 and not Alien, and submitted an idea for how such a sequel could work.’

So Prometheus was doomed to fail when it was hijacked by a couple of self serving writers who had their own agenda, but an equally big problem is with the direction and production design.

Like I said, I really like the Alien films.  They form part of ‘The List’. You’ll recognise them:

Alien

Aliens

Termanator

Termanator 2

Blade Runner

John Carpenter’s The Thing

And whichever others a film fan born in the 80s may wish to include, personally I rate Scanners, Predator  1 and 2 and Alien 3 just as highly.

It’s boring to listen to people go on and on about these films but they all share a special place in the hearts of at least three generations.  For a period of ten years or so a collection of Sci Fi films were made that took themselves seriously (admittedly Predator isn’t exactly Hamlet) and so everyone who acted in them portrayed their characters as believably as possible.

What makes the first three Alien films (and to a lesser extent Alien: Resurrection, but that one’s a bit of a turd and I don’t like to talk about it) so good is that the performances by each actor are completely believable. One of the many revolutionary aspects of Alien was the way the characters were portrayed as ‘truckers in space’. Sure they were travelling beyond the stars in a space ship, but to them it was work and they weren’t happy about it. They weren’t the doe eyed, awe struck, adventure-scientist-astronauts  of Star Trek or the Space Opera Heroes of Star Wars, they were regular people being bored at work. The best horror films are the ones where the characters react realistically to unrealistic situations. The characters in Alien reacted to their mission with contempt and to the creature by shitting themselves, until then end when Ripley was steeled by the fact that the she was the last one left.  Aliens and Alien 3 were the same.

Prometheus is full of good actors acting badly. Stringer Bell from The Wire is in it, The Original Swedish Version Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is in it, Guy Pierce is miscast as an old man in it (just cast an old man for crying out loud), Charlize ‘won that Oscar remember’ Theron is in it, Sean ‘you’ll recognise me from other films where I’m really good’ Harris is in it and they all do very badly. Only Man of The Hour Michael Fassbender comes out smelling of roses bit that’s only because he gets to play an android (clearly Lindelof didn’t feel the artificial humans of the Alien franchise were ‘a burden’) but Fassbenders camp turn still isn’t a patch on Ian Holm’s Ash or Lance Henriksen’s Bishop.

All of these A-Listers are acting like they’re in a summer popcorn blockbuster rather than a film that is unselfconscious enough to be earnest. Its soap opera stuff.  The script is partially to blame; while the events may not be contrived , each character’s motivation for their actions is very hard to swallow.

The hammy performances betray the big secret behind Prometheus; it is a sequel after all. Forget any attempts by Ridley et al to convince you that this isn’t. Of course it’s an Alien sequel, it’s a $130 million summer blockbuster that has to live up to contemporary franchise behemoths like Spiderman and Batman and Star Trek and The Latest Marvel Whoever.

Consider this: in 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture was released, as was Alien. Both films were produced as a direct result of the success of Star Wars.  Star Trek was already a franchise (although back then ‘franchise’ meant something different to what it means today) so they spent $46 million on the film version. Alien was the only Sci Fi script that was ready to go into production at Fox so it was hastily given a green light. Like so many films, Alien is good because of the lack of expectation, Ridley’s artistic vision was unclouded by the pressure of financial success. Prometheus however is bad due to excessive expectations.  I don’t just mean the expectations of po-faced  Alien fans like myself, I mean the expectations of a Studio demanding  the film be a guaranteed blockbuster and the resulting motivation for the writers to do something unexpected for the sake of it.

I won’t provide details as I’d like to avoid spoiling it for you if you have not seen it yet , but for every good bit there are two bad bits. I’d also like to think I’m wrong, so if you’re planning on watching it, try to keep an open mind. I’ll definitely rent it and watch it again in 3 months time and see if I change my opinion.

February 2012

Drive – 2011, Nicolas Winding Refn
Obviously I’ve not seen every film that was released in 2011 but I’d have to say this is by far the best. Well worth all the hype. A lot of this film is just a guy with an awful jacket driving around LA in the dark but the reason it’s so good, the reason we care we much about this guy, is because the opening sequence established him as being cool as fuck. He’s a badass and after five minutes in his company we want him to succeed, whatever it is he winds up doing. It looks good and sounds good and the dialogue is very sparse which is also good. The less everybody says the less chance any of the characters have to say something annoying or unbelievable and thus turn the audience against the characters they are supposed to be routing for. I wish I’d seen it at the cinema.

Last of The Mohicans – 1992, Michael Mann
It’s strange to see Daniel Day-Lewis being all heroic and dashing but it’s hard to think of another actor of that period (20 years ago) who could have done better. Mel Gibson? Michael Douglas? Kevin Coster? Pierce Brosnan? I read the James Fenimore Cooper novel over Christmas, I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s nowhere near as bad or unreadable as its harshest critics say it but plot doesn’t really live up to the premise, hence the liberal rearranging of things in this movie and adaptation (preceded by four others, the first in 1912). I suppose this film will go in and out of fashion, just like the novel, but I enjoyed it. Worth watching just for Mugua.

Hunger – 2008, Steve McQueen
I watched this late last year and at the time it was the best film I had seen in ages, but then I do watch a lot of pretty bad films. It’s nice to see a film throw conventional structure out of the window and yet still maintain the viewer’s interest. Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham share most of the dialogue but the events bookending their big scene are equally compelling. I like the prison drama genre, but it always leaves me wondering just how accurate such films are and Hunger had me questioning the most. There’s some pretty nasty stuff going on in this film, almost unbelievable in fact. Does doubting make me naive?

Mulholland Drive – 2001, David Lynch
I went into this one completely cold. I knew to expect a the unordinary from Mr Lynch but I was still a bit thrown and slightly annoyed by the u-turn it takes after the first 90 minutes or so. I watched the special features on the disc afterwards and discovered that it was originally a pilot for a TV series that was never commissioned so they decided to film a bit more and release it theatrically. So the first part is the first episode and the second part is the final episode. It’s good and weird and funny, but by the end it seems that it’s just crazy for the sake of crazy. Worth watching I suppose. Incidentally, this film made me feel like a teenager aging; I can’t remember the last time I watched a film where I hoped that a bird would get her tits out as much as Laura Harring in this one. Sweet Jesus what a pay-off.

The Hangover Part II – 2011, Todd Phillips
So The Hangover made over $450 million on a budget of $35 million, all because it was better than everyone expected, so those who had seen it probably recommended it to their friends more highly than they intended. At least that was my experience after seeing it in the cinema one Sunday after a wedding the day before. As you’ve probably heard, part II is the same as the first (if it ain’t broke don’t fix it), only in Bangkok. Any ‘charm’ that the first one had is lost. Apparently the third one won’t follow the same formula.

Warrior – 2011, Gavin O’Conner
Like Rocky but with MMA, or so the producers would have you believe (the plot about a couple of nobodies getting a chance to be contenders is just as far fetched). It was conceived and produced by a bunch of guys who actually look like clowns who are somehow involved with MMA without actually being fighters or trainers. The story is a bit overwritten; it takes itself very seriously in order to arrive at an very contrived climax, but the cast and the direction make up for it. I can’t decide if Tom Hardy is a good actor. He’s very good in Bronson and he’s not bad in this (although his Pittsburgh accent slips a little sometimes). Nick Nolte does well in the role of recovering alcoholic estranged father, well worth an Oscar nod I suppose. Is that Kurt Angle?

Horrible Bosses – 2011, Seth Gordon
Shit, all the more so because of what I read about it in the Variety website:
New Line has decided to go to work with "Horrible Bosses," snapping up Michael Markowitz's spec comedy script for mid-six figures and setting it up with Brett Ratner and Jay Stern to produce through their New Line-based Rat Entertainment shingle.

The Brothers Solomon – 2007, Bob Odenkirk
Not as shit, but far from great. I watched it because of this article.

Senna – 2010, Asif Kapadia
I probably made a mistake in watched the 162 minute extended Blu-ray version. It’s still very interesting but I’m reliably informed that the theatrical version was very well paced. The extended cut was never boring, but some of the taking heads got a lot of screen time, and some of the sound editing was very heavy handed (I imagine it was much better in the shorter version). I’m supprised they didn’t interview more former F1 drivers.

Gran Torino – 2008, Clint Eastwood
Just as good third time round. Maybe my fave Clint, but one day I’ll buy that 35 DVD box set and pick one for sure. Made my girlfriend cry.

Troll Hunter – 2010, Andre Orvedal
Norwegian ‘found footage’ romp about a bunch of students following a grizzled Troll Hunter around picturesque Scandinavian type places. The beginning and the ending aren’t great but the hour in the middle is very good. It’s like Monster and Stakeland in that it’s clearly been made on a shoestring but the digital effects stand up very well.

The Devil’s Double – 2011, Lee Tamahori
The true story about the guy who was forced into being the body double for Saddam Hussein’s son Uday. You’d think that such a premise would attract the interest of a big studio and a big name actor to play the duel roles of psycho Uday and his far abused look-alike (especially since the true story Machine Gun Preacher was made recently). But interesting as it sounds it has a clearly limited budget and the main guy Dominic Cooper doesn’t really pull it off. Shame.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – 2011, Tomas Alfredson
Because I had heard it was very hard to follow I listened very closely and didn’t have any trouble. It’s good, but too evenly paced; there are no real dramatic highs or lows, just steady investigation leading to a slightly unsatisfying climax.

January 2012

Back on the old Blogger blog with what I hope will be monthly posts. In January 2012 I watched…

Collateral Damage – 2002, Andrew Davis
I consider myself a bit of a Schwarzenegger aficionado yet Collateral Damage always felt like the long lost Arnie film. I’d only seen it once before, it was the first time I’d ever seen one of his films in a cinema. I remember being quite exited by that at the time and perhaps that clouded my judgement as I had fond memories of this one. It was released the year before Arnold became Governor and stopped making movies (beyond the odd cameo appearance) and came after The 6th Day, which is very poor, and End of Days, which isn’t particularly good either but I kind of like it.
Collateral Damage is slightly better than End of Days but it still disappoints. The story tries too hard to be clever and twisty and is more than a Schwarzenegger film requires. There are some quite good moments that stem from the fact that Arnold’s character isn’t a special forces guy or a secret agent or even a cop, he’s just a regular guy (albeit a heroic fire-fighter) so when he does bad-ass things, it’s in a refreshingly humble way. This time Schwarzenegger isn’t playing it to-cool-for-school and it works well. The early digital special effects look quite ropey now but I think they’re charming.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - 2011, Guy Ritchie
No better or worse than the first one. The slow-motion-pre-imagined fight scenes start to drag a little by the end and it maybe suffers from having such a large budget as it all gets a bit like the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie by the end. I’ve never found Robert Downey Jr to be all that funny.

Rare Exports – 2011, Jalmari Helander
A scary Finnish film about a demonic Santa Clause. I really liked it. I think it has a 15 rating but it’s a Christmas film and the main character is a little boy, so while it’s violent and scary, it reminded me of films like The Goonies. The best kids films are the ones that aren’t really meant for kids but that don’t have anything beyond a little bad language and a couple of spooky bits or monsters or whatever. I’d make an awful parent.

Captain America: The First Avenger – 2011, Joe Jonston
Not as good as Thor, better than The Green Lantern. I always think that the bad guy’s creation stories are better than the good guy’s so it’s unfortunate that the origins of The Red Skull are glossed over while the we spend the whole first act waiting to see super buff Chris Evans. I hope Thor gets plenty to do in The Avengers.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol – 2011, Brad Bird
As much fun as you’d expect but I think the third one is better. It’s similar to MI3 in that it’s clear we’re not supposed to worry too much about what’s going on. It’s funny how such a big deal was made of the sequence in Dubai and the whole ‘international production’ when there’s not a single Emirati or otherwise Arabic character in the whole film, then when we end up in India for the climax and the one Indian character is just comic relief.

Source Code – 2011, Duncan Jones
Some people were under whelmed but I liked it, although I’m predisposed to enjoy high concept, low budget sci-fi in all its forms. The ending was a bit happy for me though. If you like this I’d recommend Surrogates. What next from Mr Jones?

The Duellists – 1977, Ridley Scott
I like Ridley Scott’s debut film. Harvey Keitel was very well cast as the villain who is a bit one dimensional; he just a complete prick who wants to kill the good guy in a duel. Harvey’s got the chops to make his character interesting even though he isn’t at all fleshed out. The two lead characters duel a lot throughout Napoleonic France while the hero (played by Kieth Carridine, who disappeared into obscurity) tries to get on with his life but can’t escape his nemesis. Harvey really pulls off the bad guy role leaving the good guy to provide the emotional weight. It’s very simple but it works well and looks lovely.

Summer Wars – 2009, Mamoru Hosoda
Not as disappointing as the tedious The Girl Who Leapt Through Time but still quite boring in parts. A lot more Animes receive high profile release outside Japan due to the success of Miyazaki, but films like Summer Wars just don’t ‘play’ in the west because (or not with me at least) because we don’t care about the love stories between high-schoolers that form most of the plot. We’re far more interested in the crazy, imaginative stuff that is, in the case of Summer Wars, frustratingly relegated to the background while mundane family drama/teenage relationships develop in the foreground. Boring

Stakeland – 2011, Jim Mickle
No cinematic release to speak of but it recently had a prominent Blu-ray release (by which I mean it was on the ‘New Releases’ shelf at the Prestwich Blockbuster). Post-apocalyptic road movie type stuff, it’s shot like a small indie film. More The Road than Zombieland, but with more scary bits and not so harrowingly bleak. And lots of Vampires in case that wasn’t obvious from the title. Shot on a low budget but with a high end digital camera (a Red One if that means anything to you) it looks very good it’s lovingly made, clearly inspired by Monsters. It’s let down slightly by some corny dialogue and would have been greatly improved if the plot and characters were just a bit better. It’s a good take on a rather tired premise but falls just shy of being excellent.

Mr Nobody – 2009, Jaco Van Dormael
138 minutes of pretentious guff that I couldn’t be bothered to finish.

I have moved on...

Hello. After some frequent updating my blogging slowed to a standstill over the summer. Rather than keep up this blog at a slower pace, I moved to another site that isn't effected by that google bug thing that makes viewing blogger difficult if not impossible for some folks

The new blog 'Last 5 Films' is here

http://last5films.weebly.com/index.html

and the format is self explanitary. No need to sign up to anything to comment either, so swing by and tell me what you think.

Thanks for reading,

Turner

Inglorious Basterds

Inglorious Basterds – 2009, Quentin Tarantino

I remember begrudgingly accepting that Inglorious Basterds was a good film upon its release a couple of years ago. I went into the cinema with an open mind after all the hype that comes with ‘The New Tarantino’ but there were a few things that put me off at the very start, Firstly there’s the three opening titles fonts. I had forgotten all about them, and watching it again in DVD, they weren’t quite so annoying but they’re still unnecessary and out of place (I wonder if Quentin regrets it now).

You remember, it starts out like this



then changes to this



then through out the film it's like this



apart from this bit



It’s a minor thing to moan about, and they only detract from all the good bits a little. Bastards is a self conscious ‘genre’ film like every film Quentin has made since Jackie Brown (I’d say the Jackie Brown and everything before are unselfconscious genre films, not to suggest that Quentin didn’t make genre films on purpose, he just never used to wear it like a badge of honour) And such films are idiosyncratic enough through the use of unorthodox sound and fast-cut flashbacks and such things, without resorting to crazy ‘look at me’ on screen text, which should really be far less obtrusive (in my old fashioned opinion).

The other thing that grated the first time I watched Inglorious Basterds was harder to put my finger on. I think I had begun to tire of what I perceived as smugness. Basically, Quentin’s dialogue isn’t as good as he thinks it is, and in Kill Bill and Death Proof, there are long talky bits that everyone gets bored of. The problem with Kill Bill and Death Proof is that the long sections of dialogue are an indulgence, serving no dramatic purpose, whereas in Inglorious Bastards, the conversations create the tension. Each of these films is full of peril, but because of the setting in occupied France, the peril the Basterds are put in is far more affecting.

Inglorious Basterds captures the politeness of 40’s Europe and contrasts it with the barbarism of the Nazis in a way that almost no other WWII film does (and I’ve seen a few). The characters are experts in polite conversation. They are very pleasant company, yet war and ideology force them to do despicable things. The long, occasionally one-sided conversations that take place emphasise this contradiction and create a very real sense of unease.

I suppose the reason I may have missed this first time round is because Inglorious Basterds slightly uneven. Half the scenes are tense, the other half are funny (the great Christoph Waltz is present in both varieties). Any cinemagoer will more likely remember the funny bits of a film rather that the perilous bits. Watching it again I think that the balance between drama and comedy, tragedy and farce, is pretty much perfect, further emphasising the contradiction of wartime Europe.

So belated congratulations are in order Mr Tarantino. I think the only bad thing about Inglorious Basterds is Brad Pitt. I hope that Michael K Williams gets the part in Django Unchained rather than Will Smith.

And what did you learn today?

Way back in early 2010 I started to write a review of Schindler’s List but ended up with a brief stream-of-consciousness blog about WWII films in general. I think I was trying to make the same observations about the atrocities of that period that Richey Edwards made far more eloquently in the song The Intense Humming of Evil.

Richey’s notes from the Holy Bible Tour Book read:

The Intense Humming Of Evil"/"Mausoleum:
"Brother/sister songs. Visited Dachau and Hiroshima. What reflections should be for everyone. Otherwise we're all Edward Scissorhands Avon Lady. Winners dictate history. Holocaust one of the few examples where even truth is being questioned. Revisionist historians. Danger of Schindler's List - Portrayal of merely flawed man. Never question our own past - myth of Churchill. "An individual death means little - millions must mean something?"

Schindler’s List is the obvious example of a big Hollywood Movie dramatising the holocaust, but since then (and since Richey’s disappearance) there have been others. I always felt a little uncomfortable watching the WWII veterans speak at the beginning of Band of Brothers, and I always wondered how they reacted to watching their experiences recreated on screen. Was it really like that? I’d believe them if they said it was.

So anyway, here is a clip-heavy and probably too long animated short about films about the Second World War.

Ten Short Film Reviews Eleven

Glen-Gary Glen Ross – 1992, James Foley
aka ‘Death of a Fucking Salesman’ aka ‘Famous Actors Swearing At Each Other’.
Based on a play and packed with an all male cast of stellar actors giving incredible performances. You may have stumbled upon the famous scene where Alec Baldwin rips into Jack Lemon, Ed Harris and Alan Akrin on Youtube but if you haven’t, rather than watch it in isolation I’d recommend watching the whole thing. Put it on your lists.

Marathon Man – 1976, John Schlesinger
I was expecting to be underwhelmed but this one is actually quite good. I was disappointed by The French Connection and The Conversation and even slightly let down by Mean Streets, so I though this 70s thriller would turn out to fail to live up to the hype. Dustin Hoffman delivers his typical style of character; all sincere vulnerability that comes across as charming (clearly a great inspiration for Jason Schwartzman, I’ve been watching Bored To Death recently, it’s the best thing on telly I reckon). The tense drama of the story combined with Hoffman’s youthful whimsy is what makes this one well worth a watch.

Undisputed – 2002, Walter Hill
I wasn’t expecting greatness but I was still disappointed by Undisputed. I’m a big fan of Walter Hill, not just his films but his attitude to film making. ‘Every film I’ve done has been a Western’ he famously said, and he’s right: The Driver, The Warriors, 48 Hours, Red Heat, and Last Man Standing are my faves. Walter also made more than his share of absolute duds, and though Undisputed isn’t a complete train wreck, it’s not so good. It’s a boxing drama set in a prison with Ving Rhames playing a Mike Tyson inspired character sent down for a sexual assault he vehemently denies. Once he’s banged-up the film becomes a predictable prison yard yarn with bent screws and screwy cons. If only Undisputed had been made in the 70s it might have had the same charm as many of Walter’s other films. As it is the story and characters are as stale as the ubiquitous and poorly compiled hip hop soundtrack. Sadly, Ving proves himself to be no more than a competent supporting actor unable to carry a lead, even when sharing the screen with a more wooden than usual Wesley Snipes.

Hard Eight – 1996, Paul Thomas Anderson
An unknown Gem.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s feature debut is excellently written with an excellent cast. John C. Reilly does very well in a non comedic role which makes it seem even stranger that he’s appeared in so many sub-par comedies. I suppose he was just best buds with Will Ferrell when he was at his peak of popularity. Quite similar to The Cooler, maybe slightly better? It’s a tightly made film, there’s nothing that might be unnecessary, dramatic but never excessive.

American Splendour – 2003, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
I had this DVD on my shelf for a year before I finally got round to watching it. I saw it at the cinema way back and remembered it was good, but I’d forgotten how good.
Paul Giamatti is amazing, and although he makes it seem like no other actor could have played Harvey Pekar, Harvey’s life and personality would make any film about him compelling. Pekar was the original loveable loser. Years ago I saw the documentary about Robert Crumb, who is equally interesting but far less endearing (coz he’s a massive perv). The directors of Splendour have worked together on a few films since that are all probably worth checking out.

Porco Rosso – 1992, Hayao Miyazaki
Far from the best of Miyazaki’s films but still excellent. It’s about an Italian fighter pilot at the turn of the (last) century who has been turned into a pig. Typically imaginative with familiar character design. No real environmentalist undertone this time, but a smattering of anti-fascist sentiment. Of all the Miyazaki films it’s the least ambitious in terms of scale and animation, it was followed by the almost epic Princess Mononoke which is every bit as good as Spirited Away in my opinion.

Happy Together – 1997, Wong Kar-Wai
Another dreamy tale from Wong Kar-Wai. I just read my previous post on a couple of films of his and on his style in general. I think I was a little harsh, especially now that I’ve watched a few Andrei Tarkovsky films. There’s a big difference between the free flowing, illusory beauty of Wong’s films and the bare tedium of Andrei’s. Happy together a very simple story about two lovers who try to escape to a better place, and end up realising that they really need to escape from each other. Visually, it’s probably a huge influence on scores of young cinematographers, and like most of Wong’s film it stars The World’s Finest Actor Tony Leung.

Coraline – 2009, Henry Selick
Stunning stop-motion animation from the guy who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas. I’m a big fan of stop motion and animation in general and this film is a real marvel. The story and the characters are slightly lacking, but then again it is a film for kids. Any thinness to the plot is more than made up for by the quality of the animation, and the more I find out about how it was made, the more in awe I am of the talented people who made it. It actually looks too good to be true in parts, and though there are clearly some digital effects, the character and the sets all exist in real life.



Planet Terror - 2007, Robert Rodriguez
Grind House marks the beginning of a kind of low in the history of cinema that hasn’t quite passed, but the disappointment of Machete could bring the ‘self conscious exploitation genre’ to an end. Neither Planet Terror nor Death Proof are completely awful, but both of them appear to have skipped a very important stage of pre-production; the script review. Normally (as is my understanding of the Hollywood Studio film making process) a script will be assessed and rewritten, maybe even eventually being written by committee, until the shooting script is ‘locked’. Often the good films closely resemble the original draft (Predator, Lethal Weapon) and the not so good ones end up as something completely different (Alien 3, Last Action Hero, although I like both). The Weinstein Company was so smitten with Tarantino and his mate Richard Rodriquez that they let them go off and do whatever they wanted to do, when really there should have been more input from other writers and producers. All style and little substance with some ideas that weren’t as good as they seemed when they thought of them. It lacks the soul of the films that inspired it.

Gangster No1 – 2000 – Paul McGuigan
Crappy British Gangster Film No 72.
Paul Bettany is in danger of becoming the new Clive Owen. He’s not quite so uncharismatic and boring, but he does the same ‘see how refreshingly understated I am’ thing. Luckily he seems to have found a niche that suits his talents; action-horrors steeped with Christian mysticism. I though Legion was OK and the new one about the futuristic vampire hunting monks or whatever looks fun.
Gangster No1 is just more over indulged cockney turd. Malcolm McDowell plays Bettany’s character as an old man, and delivers completely the opposite type of performance, chewing the scenery like crazy. It’s almost embarrassing to watch. Are there any British actors who aren’t overrated?

Splice

Splice – 2009, Vincenzo Natali

Genetic engineering goes horribly wrong in tense sci-fi horror. Sounds unoriginal and uninteresting, so it’s no surprise that even with a promising international trailer (‘Embed disabled by request’. Lame) Splice went by quite unnoticed.

The premise of Splice isn’t anything new; ambitious scientist take an experiment in ‘gene splicing’ too far and it’s all aboard to The Island of Dr Moreau, but this time it’s well written enough to rise above the usual B-Movie status.

The protagonists are scientists and lovers Adrian ‘Oscar Curse’ Brody and Sarah ‘been in loads of films but you still won’t recognise her’ Polley. At first they come across as un-likable, annoyingly cool, hip young scientist prodigy ‘nerds’. They live in a cool apartment surrounded by cool Japanese art and stuff and even in the lab they wear expensive and stylish clobber. As with all modern day would-be Frankensteins, their geeky ambition in the face of corporate pressure leads then to stay up late and, via Science Montage, isolate that elusive genome or whatever. And so what if we use human DNA, we’ll just destroy the embryo after a few cell divisions right?

Wrong. A monster is created. It starts out as the freaky rabbit thing from the clip and quickly grows into a super fast, super strong, almost human being. Things progress slightly predictably, but the lead characters are given enough subtly revealed background history to flesh them out and make their rash behaviour believable. Adrian and Sarah aren’t just crazy scientists, they progress from enthusiastic creators to unwilling custodians to loving parents to jealous lovers, all within a well paced 100 minutes.

The creature effects are well designed and executed and the director achieves just the right mix of suspense, gore, shocks and sexual tension that are vital to any horror (although it’s not a Horror horror if you know what I mean). About half way through the action relocates from the laboratory setting to the familiar creepy barn near the creepy woods, which seems a little lazy and clichéd but it makes sense to the plot and probably helped keep the budget modest. It’s cheaper to film things happening in the dark after all.

Good stuff all round, as good as my other favourite under the radar sci-fi film from 2009, Surrogates.

I was pleased to hear that Mr Natali is going to take the reigns of the long awaited Neuromancer adaptation.

European Crime Drama

Baise-Moi - 2000, Virginie Despartes & Coralie Trinh Thi

More should be done to warn the public about overrated films in order to save them the time and embarrassment of watching them. If I’d known before hand that ‘Baise-Moi’ is French for ‘Fuck Me’ I’d have known to avoid it. Baise-Moi became famous, or ‘notorious’, when the French censors tried to ban it and prevent its release unless heavily edited. This caused a certain amount of uproar amongst a few Frenchies who must have been fans of the book that the film was based on. ‘How can it be that in modern France, a film is banned just because it shows graphic sex and violence?’ was the argument the protestors put forward, disgusted at the idea of ‘the establishment’ censoring a film that didn’t feature anything that hadn’t been done before. An independent film representing the cutting edge of French cinema, self consciously continuing the spirit of Reservoir Dogs (according to what the author/director said in the special feature I watched on the DVD), and fighting against the American Hollywood Bullshit.

Of course the reason the French censors wanted to ban Baise-Moi is because , as Eric Daniel Pierre Cantona might put it, c’est un sac de merde. I doubt a French cinema censor is going to be bothered about watching hardcore porn in a film, or badly executed bloody violence (due to bad direction rather than the low budget). But if a film consists primarily of sex, violence and sexual violence, and there is no artistic merit to any of it, a censor might understandably feel that it is in no-ones interest to watch it.

It seems to me that everyone involved in the banning of Baise-Moi got it wrong. In trying to best fulfil their role of serving the public interest, the censors brought fame and notoriety to a film that no one should watch (as always happens when a film is banned. When will those censors learn?). Those who spoke out in favour of the film misinterpreted the reason for Baise-Moi’s initial censorship. It wasn’t prudish Puritanism that caused the French film authorities to ban Baise-Moi, it was defence of French cinema as a whole. There are a thousand incredible French films out there which are increasingly finding the international audience they deserve, and Baise-Moi lets the side down. By banning it the censors were doing the world a favour.

Inevitably the censors backed down, and even more inevitably the uncut DVD release appeared with enough quotes on the back from journalists who should know better to dupe the public into making Baise-Moi a home video hit.

The first twenty minutes or so aren’t actually that bad. The film has clearly been made on a shoe string with one camera and some amateur actors (and an amateur director?), but there is a grittiness to the opening scenes that is very promising. The two protagonists are introduced as women permanently down on their luck, victims of the small world they live in. Crime, drugs, rape and prostitution are part of their lives and for a long time they’ve accepted it. But things come to a head for the women individually, and when by chance they meet, it’s time for the main body of the story to begin, dragging the film down with it.

The two initially sympathetic French sluts embark on a road trip that becomes an orgy of sex and violence, more boring the more it tries to shock us. The rest of the film involves the women encountering a series of one dimensional male characters who will either get their cock out or suffer a gory death. That’s no exaggeration; almost every man in the film is either fucked or murdered. Maybe I missed some subtle commentary in this reversal of typical genre roles in such films, but I was too bored to pay close enough attention.

One of the things that I found so off-putting about Baise-Moi was the hardcore porn scenes. Of course I’ve seen loads of porn, but at the risk of revealing too much about myself, I find porn very boring when I’m not watching it ‘in anger’. The first close-up shot of a blow job occurring is a bit unexpected, but from then on it just gets tedious. The difference between sex and porn is that sex is between Person A and Person B, porn takes place between Person A, Person B and Camera Operator C. It’s carried out as a performance, not an act of pleasure. Un-simulated sex is always more shocking (and arousing perhaps) in mainstream cinema than ‘look what we’re doing’ porn. The directors and cast of Baise-Moi were too either too dumb or too keen to shock to notice this. Being unsophisticated is not a cinematic crime, and it can even be an asset to a film, but Baise-Moi takes itself far too seriously to get away with such poor film making decisions. Basically, it’s a bag of shit.




Pusher – 1996, Nicholas Winding Refn

The poster (or at least the UK DVD cover) of Danish crime thriller Pusher is very misleading. At no point does the main character Frank played by Kim Bodnia ‘dual-wield’. In fact there are very few shots fired in the film which is still refreshing a whole fifteen years later. At the time Pusher must have been a revelation; America had Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, the UK had Lock Stock and France had La Haine, then up pops Pusher, grittier and more realistic than them all. One hand held camera used throughout, filmed on location in Copenhagen, no sets from what I could tell, and with an excellent cast throughout, not a single dud between them. It also stars the sexiest Dane going, Mads Mikkleson.





There’s nothing cool about the main guy in Pusher. He’s a slightly inept drug dealer and he’s in a lot of trouble. From the picture on the DVD case and the description on the back; ‘Frank has two days to get loads of money before gangsters come to get him etc’ I was expecting to get something more like a violent version of Run Lola Run. Like Run Lola Run, the events in Pusher are propelled by the activities of an inept drug dealer in debt to some bad men. Unlike Run Lola Run, out main character is still a sympathetic guy despite his obvious failings and all the silly mistakes he makes.

Though the direction and the lead performance Pusher achieves a very believable characterisation; we can believe that this guy would fuck up the way he does. This is a very important part of what makes a film ‘very good’ and it’s often overlooked. Consider John Travolta’s character from Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega. Half way through the film (I think, it's been a while since I watched it, too long in fact) he goes to take a dump while waiting for Bruce Willis to get home, and leaves his Uzi on the kitchen counter. Bruce comes home while Vic is in the can, picks up the piece and kills the hit man with his own gun when he opens the bathroom door. Ridiculous as the whole situation is, Travolta’s character is well enough defined by this point in the film for this scenario to be acceptable. We can believe that Vic would screw up like this so we’re not annoyed by his death, in fact it seems fitting.

Pusher is the same in this respect, and this is why Pusher is not a bag of shit.

Sucker Punch

MINOR SPOILER ALERT – I’m not going to ruin it for you, but if you really don’t want to know what happens to the doe-eyed sex dolls of Sucker Punch, watch it before you read.

Sucker Punch – 2011, Zack Snyder

So what’s the deal with Sucker Punch? The title and the premise and the trailers don’t really explain much, which is no bad thing, it’s nice to go into a film without knowing what to expect (beyond hot babes shooting big guns).

The deal is thus -
Snyder and his old lady have though up a collection of ambitious action set-pieces based upon pop culture violence. The list reads like a clichéd internet comic:

1. Giant Samurai Monsters With Miniguns
2. Nazi Robot Zombies
3. World War Two meets Lord Of The Rings with Dragons
4. erm...not sure what to do now...Pirate Monkey Ninjas would be silly...lets just do a disappointing rehash of the climax of Batman Begins (you know, with the train) and mix in a little I, Robot action.

The premise which serves to set up all the mayhem is explained in what is basically a series of music videos. The opening sequence is actually very good. Without any dialogue it is established that the main character’s mother has died, leaving her and her little sister all the money. (Step?) Daddy isn’t happy, so he kills the younger girl and frames the older blonder girl for the murder. Poor little blond girl is then sent off to a creepy asylum for insane (insanely sexy?) young ladies. Evil Daddy makes a deal with Evil Chief Orderly to have the girl lobotomised in order to prevent her ever talking about what really happened to her sister. They have this conversation within earshot of the blonde girl, setting up her descent into fantasy and her attempt to escape.

Then there’s another music video sequence (Bjork this time) as we take a tour of the asylum and meet the staff who will later be recast as the bad guys in the upcoming fantasy. In her mind the pretty blond girl replaces the harrowing asylum with an illusion; her own little world where she can carry out her escape. Naturally, she replaces the asylum with a burlesque house. She and the other girls are no longer inmates but captive exotic dancers, with an ever present air of forced prostitution loitering off screen. The pretty blond is henceforth known as Babydoll, forever scantily clad and lusty eyed, fighting for freedom with her fit mates: Sweet Pea, Rocket, Blondie and Amber.




Blondie, Amber, Babydoll, Sweet Pea then Rocket...I think.
Hmm... the one on the right in the picture below is not one of the characters in the picture above(?). But you get the idea.



To escape they need to nick a load of symbolic items, and the only way they can do that is if Babydoll creates a distraction by doing a sexy dance. The sexy dances are represented by crazy, violent action fantasies. Got that? OK.

Never have huge, carefully constructed action sequences been so boring. There are a couple of reasons why Sucker Punch fails to deliver the promised knockout blow. Firstly, all peril is removed from the action sequences for the sake of a cheap gag; during the stand off between the tiny blond Babydoll and the first Giant Samurai the tension is broken when the Samurai kicks her square in the face and sends her flying through the air and through a wall (ha, didn’t see that coming). But then the delicate little thing stands up without a scratch on her! So it is established that in these fantasy fight scenes, the main characters are invulnerable, and any peril goes out the window before the action really starts.

Secondly, Sucker Punch draws us down into two layers of fantasy, neither of which clearly relate to what is happening in the real world. We jump into the burlesque house dream world from which we drop down into the action sequence fantasy layer (difficult not to make it sound like Inception but it isn’t) and don’t refer back to reality again until the very end, so most of film is spent in a kind of peril-less limbo where the audience is left wondering if it’s all just a dream. Are the girls ever in any danger at all? Nothing compromises emotional involvement better that confusion.

Sucker Punch aught to be mindless fun, and on the surface it is, but somewhat annoyingly it’s clear that Snyder is trying to do something clever. The best thing to do is take Sucker Punch at face value.

Who’s the real sucker? I am, for paying £12.40 to watch it in the IMAX. But I was drunk.

Stay Hungry

Stay Hungry – 1976, Bob Rafelson

Did you know Schwarzenegger won a Golden Globe?
Hard to believe, but having seen his uniquely humble performance in Stay Hungry, I can dig it. By this point in his career Arnold had been in a couple of films where he either said nothing or was entirely dubbed, but in this forgotten gem he holds his own along side a young Jeff Bridges.

I stuck this on my LoveFilm list for the sake of Schwarzenegger completionism but I was pleasantly surprised. Jeff plays a young blue blooded Alabamian who’s got time and money to spare, Arnold plays...a bodybuilder. Not exactly a stretch, but watching him in this film it’s amazing to see him play an intelligent and sensitive young hulk, revelling in the hospitality of the Deep South, opposite Bridges’ equally young yet jaded local.

Jeff and Arnold were only born a couple of years apart and from this scene it’s like they could have been brothers (if one of the brothers had become Mr Universe).



‘You can’t grow without burning’. Truer words never spoken. Sally Field is also in this as the love interest that the two studs are kind of fighting over.

The guys who make Family Guy clearly don’t think much of her, but she never looked better than here. Little know actor R G Armstrong gives an excellent performance as the strange gym owner ‘Thor’. You’ll recognise Armstrong as General Phillips from Predator:



The film ends in drama and farce as Thor’s self destructive tendencies come to a head amid a comedy shambles typical of films of this period. This is a serious film, but it has the same joyful vibe as films like Smokey and The Bandit and Every Which Way But Loose, the poster for which I feature purely for it’s awesomeness:

Ten Short Film Reviews Ten

Dogville – 2003, Lars von Trier
It’s not perfect but it’s very good. I would even go so far as to say it’s ‘important’. I’ve not seen any of Lars’ other work but his challenging, unconventional films (often made in trilogies) put him in the same bracket as Andrei Tarkovsky, Wong Kar-Wai, Ingmar Bergman and any other ‘Greats’ you care to mention.
Dogville is famously filmed on a bare stage with the walls of the houses marked out on the floor. Nicole Kidman turns up one day, on the run from the mob, cautiously accepting the shelter the townsfolk cautiously offer. The morality tale that plays out is one of the most compelling stories I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a radical idea and it works very well, so well that the minor flaws are emphasised: the cast is full of exceptional talent but they all underplay their characters too much, the digital effects are simple but still obtrusive, it’s too long, and I don’t like the narration. The end credits are inspired.

Legion – 2010, Scott Stewart
I’m a bit fan of all the ‘War between Heaven and Hell’ stuff, in particular the Prophecy films and the comic Preacher. Legion is a nice edition to the genre which plays out the Final Battle on a very small scale, but it’s entertaining enough with some nice creature effects. Not quite as good as Constantine, which is a film with few fans, but I like it.

Spawn – 1997, Mark A. Z. Dippe
Who? Spawn? Oh yeah, the comic. Todd McFarlane’s forgotten work. I’ve not read the comic (who has?) but the story of the Spawn franchise is quite interesting. McFarlane was (and maybe still is) a very talented and driven writer and artist who wanted to create an iconic superhero to rival Batman and Superman. The result was Spawn, which can perhaps be interpreted as a pop culture metaphor for the 90’s, but I’ll leave that to someone else.
The film adaptation of Spawn was incredibly ambitious. Made a couple of years before The Matrix/Spiderman/The Fellowship of The Ring, it is probably quite an important film in the evolution of digital effects. The GCI in Spawn is very uneven, a result of two different companies creating different sequences. Some bits are very disappointing even for 1997, while others CGI shots still look passable today. The make up is very good too, John Leguizamo is unrecognisable and brilliant as the fat clown and without him Spawn wouldn’t be worth watching. Michael Jai White plays Spawn and does as good a job as necessary from behind his make up. Martin Sheen makes a fool of himself as the villain in what I can only assume to be a deliberate attempt to make the rest of the cast look good.

Battlefield Earth – 2000, Roger Christian
Oh my! It really is the worst film ever made. The third line of Battlefield Earth is ‘Nooooooooo!’ and it’s down hill from there. The direction and editing is very heavy handed, the director worked on the Star Wars films, and he’s clearly trying to do his own version (some of the music sounds like it may actually be from Star Wars). The alien bad guys are like a hybrid of Klingons and Ferengi in platform boots, and Travolta’s performance as the big bad guy is bizarre in its awfulness, although he was clearly having a lot of fun doing it. I suppose that it is quite fun to watch though, as every two minutes there’s another ‘What were they thinking?’ moment.

Soylent Green – 1973, Richard Fleischer
One of those films that’s quite famous, but nobody knows why, everyone’s heard the phrase ‘Soylent Green is people!’. It was made five years after the original Planet of The Apes and a couple of years after The Omega Man (based on I Am Legend), so Heston was getting a bit typecast in Sci Fi films. But it’s to his credit that he took these roles so seriously. Soylent Green isn’t particularly amazing but it was a mainstream 70s Hollywood film that had a definite social message about the disparity and injustices between the very rich and the very poor. In the 80’s Heston went on to become a bit of a paranoid nut-job and figure head for bigotry, but in the 60’s he campaigned for civil rights. It’s seems strange that he became so caught up in all the ‘white majority oppression’ bullshit, but for a time at least his heart was in the right place, and his decision to make Soylent Green is evidence.

Starman – 1984, John Carpenter
One of John Carpenters lesser known films, it’s a very pleasant tale about an alien being who comes to earth from the stars to learn about the human race, specifically 80’s sweetheart Karen Allen. Geoff Bridges performance as the child like alien gets a bit annoying sometimes but it’s not a bad film.

Dreamscape – 1984, Joseph Ruben
Somewhere between The Dead Zone and In The Mouth of Madness, and nothing like Indiana Jones despite what the poster suggests.



Poor mans Harrison Ford, Dennis Quiad plays a young man who squanders his physic talents down at the racetrack and in the singles bars until Mac von Sydow recruits his and teaches him to invade people s dreams. Some nice stop motion in the dream sequences and a suitably creepy turn by the always reliable David Patrick Kelly, and even Norm from Cheers pops up.

Croupier – 1997, Mike Hodges
Clive Owen is absolutely without charisma. Croupier has some value as historical documentation of life in England in the 90’s. It looks shitter than I remember.

Renaissance – 2006, Christian Volckman
French animated sci-fi noir.



Nice that they tried something so original, but it doesn’t quite work. Clearly made with a limited budget; it looks like they used off-the-shelf character software rather than creating there own, which is a good way to save money, but it takes away any emotional weight from the characters if they all look like mannequins.

Unknown – 2011, Jaume Collet-Serra
SPOILER ALERT (but you weren’t going to watch it anyway were you?)
I feel a little bit guilty about having watched this at the cinema recently. There are lots of films out there worth watching right now but I ended up going to watch this with some of the guys from work. I should put my foot down. Anyway...
Unknown is a bit boring, It follows in the footsteps of many other ‘European Action Thrillers’ from the last ten years: Set in a famous European city, lots of local colour and culture to try and make the film rise above the mediocrity of the plot, exciting but incredibly long car chase etc.
This one’s set in Berlin and covers the familiar ground of ‘Secret Agent loses his memory and mistakes his cover story for his real life’ a la Total Recall. The plot is stretched out over 90 minutes, then the big mystery is revealed, but there are still 20 minutes left at this point, so we descend into one of the most compulsorily climaxes to a film I’ve seen in a long time. “What’s that? You want a big action sequence at the end? Oh, all right then” Cue exploding hotel. Unbelievably and annoyingly Liam Neeson’s character loses his memory after banging his head, them at the end he gets another bump on the noggin, and all his secret-agent-close-quarters-combat-training suddenly comes back to him. Surly no one would consider employing the ‘two bump amnesia rule’ in this day and age?
This film is basically a result of the success of Taken, but it was the simplicity of Taken that made it work so well. Unknown trys too hard to be clever, and ends up compromising its own integrity.

The Social Network

The Social Network - 2010, David Fincher

Sky Atlantic

I’ve not been watching many movies recently because I’ve been Sky+ing so much on Sky Atlantic, here’s what I’ve been watching.

Broadwalk Empire
I feel as though I have reached a kind of TV series watching state of nirvana. After having seen all of The Sopranos and The Wire and The Shield, I know how to watch a series from the beginning; how to be patient, how to recognise when I should remember something. I think the writers may have had the previous viewing experiences of the audience in mind as some characters are killed of far more abruptly that I expected, so it’s not as though we can predict everything.

Five episodes in, Broadwalk Empire is picking up the pace. I actually think that the pilot directed by Martin Scorsese isn’t as good as the rest of the series so far. I’ve watched episode 1 twice now and it seems a bit too whimsical. It features a very Scorsese-esque ‘murder and body discovery montage to period music’ which I think was unnecessary.

Excellent as the series is, I think it’s slightly uneven. All the external shots on the titular boardwalk are created with CGI to recreate 1920s Atlantic City, these sequences all have a kind of dream like quality which doesn’t sit well with the internal shots which are filmed in incredibly detailed studios. I’m often reminded of the dream sequences from the Sopranos, like the one where Tony is talking to the fish which has Pussy’s voice.

I’m nitpicking though, coz it’s ace.

Treme
From the braniacs behind The Wire, and how. Only two episodes in it’s still not clear where this is going, but as a Wire vet I know that when all the story lines come together it’s going to be awesome.

I’m glad I went to the effort of watching Spike Lee’s When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts (two would have done) also on Sky Atlantic which documents Hurricane Katrina and the resulting floods. Now that I’m an expert on Katrina and New Orleans, I smugly know the background of the characters and their circumstances better than the average Treme viewer (and isn’t that the point of HBO drama; to feel clever for watching it?)

There is one very annoying character – the DJ guy who keeps fucking up- but otherwise they’re all good, and many are based on real people. One of the characters is played by a Katrina Survivor who appears in When The Levees Broke, as does Wendell Pierce, who’s family lived in New Orleans. Walter is in it too.

Blue Bloods
Hmm...difficult to recommend this one. Blue Bloods sits somewhere between The Shield and all that CSI style bullshit. The episodes are very formulaic: Nasty crime (but not too nasty) takes place, Donnie Wahlberg’s detective character is assigned to investigate, he calls on the help of his district attorney sister and Police Commissioner father to help, in a moment of desperation he gets all Vick Mackey on some guy who he knows did it, but can’t prove it. Then at the end of the episode the whole family of cops gets together over Sunday dinner and debates the morality and legality of how they solved this week’s case. Somewhere in there is an ongoing plot about police corruption. Tom Selleck looks like a walking advertisement for Just for Men.

The Sopranos
It gets better every time.

Battle Star Galactica
I quite like it. I never watched any episodes when it was new but I can understand the appeal. Family friendly Sci Fi drama, some poorly conceived characters but the way the Cylons have been re-imagined is good, and every other episode has a good plot. Future Star Trek series (please) would learn a lot from this. Sky Atlantic is also showing Voyager from the start. I remember liking it first time round but I’ve caught a couple of the early ones and it’s not as good as I remember.

Six Feet Under
I watched the first three series or so when they were on Channel 4 ten years ago(!), much better than I remember. I remember being quite disturbed by the idea of Charlotte Light and Dark back when I was 18.

So,

After years of snobbishly claiming to not really watch TV, I have found myself watching at least 6 programs religiously. But it’s OK, because there are loads of other TV-addicts who consider themselves quasi-intellectuals watching exactly the same stuff. But for how long? It’s only free for six months y’all.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2011/jan/05/sky-atlantic-mad-men-treme

By the way, is anyone watching Outcasts? It seems like something I might dig, but it’s on the BBC, so I dismiss it as being a nice idea but poorly made, mainly due to a lack of script editing by completely un-savvy producers, who stay in their jobs because they’re mates with the right people, and having only produced state funded television for their whole careers are incapable of creating a contemporary drama that is anywhere near as good as foreign commercial offerings.
Rant Rant Rant, But seriously, even when the great Charlie Brooker was given free reign to write a zombie series for Channel 4/E4 it still went a bit wrong. Why can’t we get it right over here? Maybe because UK TV producers/directors/writes don’t work well with each other?

Dead Set had one writer and one director for all five episodes. Over at HBO teams of many writers and directors and script editors and producers ensure that the best ideas/characters/plotlines are kept and the rest voted out.

There’s nothing new about this. Everyone cottoned on years ago when Friends was the most popular show on telly and no one in the UK could write a sitcom anywhere near as popular or consistent.

Shieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

True Grit

True Grit – 2010, Joel and Ethen Coen

If you’re into the whole brevity thing, True Grit can be summed up thus; Another great Coen Brothers Film.

Maybe we’re being spoilt by Joel and Ethan. Twenty years of excellent films, some may argue without exception. Who else can boast that kind of record? Wes Anderson had better pick up the pace if he is to be as prolific and successful.

Initial reports that the Coens were making a Western were met with slight surprise in some quarters. ‘A Western? Who makes Westerns nowadays?’ Not many people, and when they do it often result in embarrassing box office failure for the big names involved, eh Mr Costner. But it should be no surprise that the Coens are branching out into genres. What else are they going to do? Make the same darkly comic noir with a convoluted plot involving blackmail and murder? They must be bored of that by now.

And of course the modern Western isn’t the same as the classic Western. Somewhere between Dances With Wolves and Unforgiven, Westerns became costume dramas; all historically accurate and filthy looking. The period western allows the Coens to take their penchant for wordy, articulate, unselfconscious dialogue and apply it to a setting where it might not seem so out of place. Although for the first time ever when watching a Ceon film, I felt that the dialogue got a bit tiresome by the end, especially when Josh Brolin’s moronic character also started employing far too many words in his few lines.

True Grit is very good, just like all the other Coen films, and because they are all so good, any bits that aren’t so good tend to stick out. The weak link in this one is Josh Brolin (who doesn’t deserve equal billing to Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon). His role is just about big enough to support those who argue that he’s one of the most overrated actors out there. Fortunately the role played by Robert Duval in the 1969 version is played here by the vastly underrated Barry Pepper (excellent in 25th Hour and The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, worthy of forgiveness for Battlefield Earth). All the supporting characters are as well cast as ever, and Hailee Stenfeld is good, but maybe not deserving of every best actress nomination going.

As for Bridges, I love the guy, though I suppose it’s all because of The Dude. As I peruse his Wikipedia entry I’m reminded of how few of his films I’ve seen. Other than ‘Labowski’ I’m only familiar with Starman, K-Pax, Tron, Iron Man the King Kong remake he was in...time for a dedicated Bridges-athon.

What next for the Coen Brothers?
Space Opera starring Liam Neeson?
Period Spy Drama starring Ralph Fiennes?
Renaissance era Farce starring Ben Kingsly?
(yes I have been watching Schindler’s List)

The Mechanic

The Mechanic – 2011, Simon West

Normally I can watch any film without feeling the need to justify the reason for watching it, but The Mechanic is currently in cinemas, I didn't just Sky+ it like all the other mediocre action films I watch. So I'll just explain how come I ended up watching The Mechanic at the Odeon when there are loads of other films on release right now, in particular all the Oscar contenders; The King's Speech, 127 Hours, The Fighter et all.

My Tuesday evening was planned thus:
4.15pm - meeting with mortgage advisor (65% Loan-To-Value! Gee, no thanks.)
7.00pm - play dodgeball (sport of Kings)

So I had two hours to kill from 5 till 7 and after carefully examining the show times of all the cinemas in Manchester city centre, only The Mechanic was on during the time available to me. It’s a remake of a 1972 Michael Winner film starring Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent, the lead roles now played by Jason Statham and Ben Foster.





The plot may have been original in ’72, but now it’s just an expectable pastiche of action movie standards; Statham is a clinical assassin who works for some shadowy organisation, his contact in the company is an old friend played by an established actor (in this case Donald Sutherland) whose ten minutes of time on screen is an attempt to add credibility to a lacklustre screenplay. As soon as Sutherland appears on screen it’s obvious he’s going to die, and that Statham will probably kill him, and that he’ll find out the truth later and regret killing his friend and mentor and head off to extract bloody revenge. I predicted a John Woo style ending with the good guy sailing away on the yacht he has always dreamed of owning but it didn’t quite finish like that. Also, unusually for a Statham film, there was no car chase.

Englishman Simon West (director of Con Air) seems more concerned with creating something technically polished and at the very least credible than he does with shooting exiting action. I’ve seen a lot of action films me, and in my opinion the good ones fall into one of two categories, which for the sake of this post I will call ‘Die Hards’ and ‘Hard Boileds’

‘Die Hards’ are good films that just happen to be action films, Die Hard being the most prominent example. I include such greats as Predator 1 and 2, Terminator 1 and 2, Aliens and Under Siege (among many others).

‘Hard Boileds’ are films that are kind of ridiculous and technically not that good, but the spectacle makes them rise above all the other crap action films. I don’t mean these films are ‘so bad they’re good’, I mean they are entertaining enough to be considered good. Hard Boiled, Commando, all the Rambo films and almost every Jackie Chan film made between 1978 and 1995 are good examples.

The Mechanic is not a good action film by either definition, but it had a reported budget of $40 million and stars one of the few ‘bankable’ action stars going. I for one am proud of our Jason, he’s out there kicking ass in big American movies, but the question The Mechanic prompts me to ask is ‘How long before Jason Statham goes straight-to-DVD?’ To try and predict let us examine the careers of Seagal and Van Damme.

Steven Seagal
Born – 1952
First Lead role in a cinematic release – 1988 (age 36), Above The Law
Highest grossing film to date – 1992 (age 40), Under Siege ($156 million including international gross)
First successive Straight-to-DVD – 2003(age 51), Out For A Kill

Jean-Claude Van Damme
Born – 1960
First Lead role in a cinematic release – 1988 (age 28), Bloodsport
Highest grossing film to date – 1994 (age 34), Timecop (over $100 million including international gross)
First successive Straight-to-DVD - 2001 (age 41), The Order

Jason Statham
Born – 1967
First major lead role in a cinematic release – 2002 (age 35), The Transporter
Highest grossing film to date – 2008 (age 41), The Transporter 3 (over $100 million including international gross and DVD sales)
First successive Straight-to-DVD – 2017 (age 50), The Transporter 5

Looks like Statham’s career is most like big Steve’s, which means Jason has another six years or so of action in him. Realistically though, Jason will probably stay in cinemas for years to come playing non-bad-ass characters in romantic comedies and heist/caper movies.

Nice one Jase.