tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-205381422024-03-14T01:07:17.286-07:00CinecismUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger234125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-2113330151970534292011-05-11T08:19:00.001-07:002011-05-11T09:07:51.748-07:00Welcome, Foolish Mortals!...on the other hand, I thought <span style="font-style: italic;">The Haunted Mansion</span> was AMAZING.<br /><br />Which just goes to show how far expectations and the reasons why you see a film influence your feelings.<br /><br />Full disclaimer - oh boy, do I love that ride! I dream about it. All the time. Last month, I almost signed up to go work at Disney just to be closer. Instead, I chose to buy this film - this awful, awful film - to sate the addiction for just a little longer.<br /><br />It cost me 0.01p. One careful previous owner (who hadn't thrown it across the room in disgust)<br /><br />So. The script is very disappointing - much in need of some proper jokes. The two funny house-servants weren't funny. The kids were totally undercharacterised. But apart from that, it wasn't so bad.<br /><br />I guess its failure comes from the ride itself. The concept behind the Pirates of the Carribbean<span style="font-style: italic;"></span> is "THERE ARE PIRATES!". Within that framework, Elliot and Rossio wove a wide (and witty) story, taking the odd stopoff for Tortuga or a dog with a key, but mostly using the ride simply for tone. I don't know it so well, but I warrant there weren't nearly as many references. Jack, Elizabeth and the Other One are characters invented; so is Barbossa, the monkey, and the haunted gold. They've taken the concept of "piraty things" and expanded it into a story.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Mansion</span> movie is too much like the ride - the house remains the main character, and the film merely serves to give you the guided tour. No wonder Murphy plays a real estate agent. Like Pirates, it has no clear canon or tale - simply a jumble of creepies. Unlike Pirates, though, fanboys have assembled it into stories - it is the fanboys, for example, who took the name Master Gracey off a headstone, made him the portrait in the foyer, and then the master of the house. And unlike Pirates, the writers have taken those stories and tried to make them into plot.<br /><br />I'm kinda surprised the Mansion-fans hated it. Oh look, the brides chamber! The coffin conservatory! The breathing doors! The Doombuggy approach makes it a very bad film indeed, as the characters shuffle through to show off the next archetectural wonder. But if you're watching cus you can't afford a Magic Kingdom season pass? Next best thing. It's even better if you play it with <span style="font-style: italic;">other </span>Mansion nerds (if you can get them out of their basements) and keep score of trivia. Did <span style="font-weight: bold;">you</span> know that the red couch was originally in Disney's 54' <span style="font-style: italic;">20000 Leagues Under the Sea</span>?<br /><br />In fact, imdb has a whole list:<br /><ul><li>the singing busts</li><li>the breathing door (even the doorknob is the same) <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">(wow! fancy that!)</span><br /></li><li>Madame Leota (and the spectral instruments)</li><li>the busts that follow Jim</li><li>the ghostly carriage (a prop outside the ride)</li><li>the old man and the dog in the cemetery</li><li>Master Gracy's hanging<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> (oh, but I thought that was the narrator and not Gracey! Oh woes!)</span><br /></li><li>the ghostly ballroom dancers</li><li>the Raven seen throughout the movie<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> (which - bonus points! - was part of the original concept for the Mansion...)</span><br /></li><li>the hitchhiking ghosts</li><li>the hangman</li><li>the eyes in some of the walls</li><li>morphing pictures in the hallway</li><li>several lines throughout the movie that are also used in the ride's narration, such as: "Welcome, foolish mortals", "Final arrangements have been made", "There's always my way"</li><li>the floating candelabra in the credits</li><li>the bride's dress in the attic</li><li>the screeching cat sound effect in graveyard scene <span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">(Whoah, I just lost nerd points! I didn't notice this at all! Also, what bloody screeching cat? Who rides the Mansion so seriously that they can identify a screeching cat? I never heard it!)</span><br /></li><li>the skeleton's hands that start to open coffin in the mausoleum</li><li>the knights in the hallway attacking Jim</li><li>the door knockers heard rapping in the bedroom hallway</li><li>the pipe-organ in the ballroom</li><li>the clock strikes 13 during the prologue</li></ul>They forgot to mention the help's costume design. And so on...<br /><br />What it might hold for someone unable to squeal "oooh, the original Mark Davis concept art!", I don't know. 'Cus honestly, the hitchhiking ghosts aren't very funny if you don't go "the hitchiking ghosts!" Madame Leota is simultaneously under-exposed herself and over-provides exposition for others in what looks like a <span style="font-style: italic;">big</span> narrative misstep - if you're not going "Madame Leota!" And WTF are there dancing instruments in her room?<br /><br />On the other hand, if you're a Mansion fan there are only three serious complaints to make:<br /><ul><li>no stretching gallery?</li><li>no decent image of the iconic eye wallpaper?<br /> </li><li>not coherent with my personal mythology!</li></ul>and if you really want to earn a slap from your fellow mortals (of the non-foolish variety):<br /><ul><li>no Hatbox Ghost!</li></ul>There's more than enough eye-candy to keep ones critical faculties dimmed, and I passed a gleeful hour and a half watching it.<br /><br />What did I want? That atmosphere. That moment when you step from Florida heat into a chill-cold parlour, and the sticky children and Mickey-tat are entirely left behind. Time spent absorbing the atmosphere. Watching out for new gags, new surprises. This? The film delivers in spades. I wanted my ride. I got it.<br /><br />And if you're not a fan but you do like pretty, then oh! Costumes! Sets! Particularly sets! Some poor makeup though. And there is a good story in there, somewhere, even if you do need to work hard to find it. I'm a sucker for the central romance - I thought Mrs Evers one of the better characters. Loved Gracey and Ramsley. Why couldn't we have had more of those three, instead of kidnapping one for ages and mostly ignoring the other too. Although I'll be buried if that ending made any sense...are we meant to believe that, during eternity, Gracey never came across the letter? I know the building is big but still! True, he's depressed. Still! There are nine hundred and ninety seven <span style="font-style: italic;">other</span> grim, grinning ghouls in there which might concieveably have ended up there too. Here's a better idea. Cus Ramsely is a poorass murderer if he's going to keep evidence <span style="font-style: italic;">in the victim's own house</span>. Frankly he deserves to get caught.<br /><br />I wonder whether Evers put "Deus Ex Fireplace" on the property listing?<br /><br />Did love Ramsley, though, creepy old Terence Stamp! Fantastic character - the traditional Brit butler <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> a little dead, if only on the inside. And Master Gracey too, all emotion and Englishness and looking <span style="font-style: italic;">damn fine</span> in a suit. "Was my crime to fall in love?" Aaaaaaaw.<br /><br />Oh, I would have rewritten it in so many ways! What if Sara decided she loved Gracey, or had remembered being Elizabeth? That would have been good. I had so much more invested in that romance than the other. I wanted more of why the Graceys were in America. More of the interrelations between the ghosts - they've all been trapped their since the 18somethings, just because the Master couldn't get his act together. What intrigues and politics that would produce! More ghosts in general: the house seemed so empty in those huge rooms, and not in an "isolated!" way. In an "we could only afford eight actors" way. 999 ghosts, remember? That's lots.<br /><br />And Eddie Murphey was - not-terrible. Had expected the worst. In fact, he just did the best with the material and, given that we've seen the Workaholic Father a billion times before, produced a rounded and solid performance. Not special, but I put that down to the script. No one had <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span> to work with.<br /><br />But what I really want to know is....was Elizabeth's music box, with the mirror and spinning maquettes, a tribute to the Pepper's Ghost ballroom? I'll get my coat. Oh Lord, I want to watch it again. Bring on the del Toro reboot, and quick!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-88655158932972153272011-05-11T06:30:00.000-07:002011-05-11T08:18:29.200-07:00Do The Right ThingCinecism is having one of those wonderful mornings when you're having a good sort out, and you suddenly finda copy of Do the Right Thing that you'd entirely forgotten purchasing. For a mere £3 at that!<br /><br />'Twas curious. Clearly a debut, I loved the rule-breaking style - the totally unexpected dance-credit sequence, the colours, the close-up racist tirades. But I obviously missed <span style="font-style: italic;">something</span> - perhaps I'm just 22 years too late. I felt like it used to be ground-breaking<br /><br />It felt like a movie with a message, but it's not entirely clear what that message was. The ambivalence was underlined by first the photos, then the quotes of Martin Luther King and Malcom X. Two figures I do not know in detail, but I know that broadly MLK represented peaceful resistance, and MX advocated violence.<br /><br />We're not meant to sympathise with John Tuturro or the cops, I guess. But what are we to make of Mookie? He's our touchstone character, and one that seemingly gets on with everyone in the neighbourhood, and yet I didn't see the character progression which lead to chucking bins through windows? I guess ground down by Pino's racism, perhaps? But still. What's the motivation? Being a big ole pacifist I loved the Mayor, and grew to love Sal. But why did the riot happen? Just the heat? After an hour of Sal saying how much he loved his neighbourhood, and Buggin' Out failing to garner support for a boycott, where did all those other people come from? Were we just meant to think "it's very hot + this resentment was there underneath"?<br /><br />At the same time, I feel there were some characters who had a good point to make about race relations, but they were painted as idiots. Buggin' Out has a perspective worth exploring - while it's petty in part to protest about someone else's hall of fame, and his mode of dealing with it unproductive; nevertheless, the lack* of a black-owned, black-run space was also acknowledged within the film (by the three men sitting by the road among others), and I agree that there is something unecessarily antagonistic about a single-race hall of fame in a multi-racial neighbourhood. It's counterbalanced by Love Radio's "WE LOVE ROLL CALL" of great black musicians. One of the smartest scenes in the film depicts Pino struggling with the blackness of his heroes - they're not <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> black, he argues weakly. When Buggin' Out declares "man, fuck gentrification" - it's a hostile scene, which shows him in a poor light, but that's not to say there are genuine problems with gentrification.<br /><br />Even before Radio Raheem's martyrdom, I felt he was a sympathetic character. At the same time, while I've a suspicion the radio was meant to represent black agency or something, and that Fight the Power was an expression of his hidden inner soul, in practice? Playing loud music in public is just rude and objectionable.<br /><br />Are we meant to be confused? Is that the message? "Race - oh darn, what a mess!" Are there just no easy answers?<br /><br />I wouldn't normally look so closely at the morals of a movie if I'd been enjoying it too. I enjoyed it in parts, and as is always the risk with a portmanteau, some stories interested more than others. Mayor's heroism warmed my little hippy soul, and his winter-non-romance with Mother Sister was dead cute. I couldn't believe that Sal's diner actually functioned as a real shop - I wouldn't eat at a place constantly underscored by shouty point-scoring and squabbling from the crew.<br /><br />The chief problem for me is the - what we'll call T-patter - gets old quickly. This is unjust in the extreme - for one thing, Spike Lee precedes and obviously inspires Tarantino; for another, academics have convincingly argued that Tarantino's white characters hide "black bodies", or however that article puts it. But I can't help how I feel - this script doesn't have QT's wit or charm, and I kept tuning out of the irritatingly circular dialogue. Perhaps my strong association of it with Tarantino triggers in me the expectation of something throwaway and fun, and I found its juxtaposition with a serious drama too disorienting. Pino reminds me of Nice Guy Eddy - but without the humour, he merely retains the irritance factor. And this very early scene was almost a film-breaker for me:<br /><blockquote><b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000732/">Sal</a></b>: Pino, get a broom and sweep out front. <br /> <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001806/">Pino</a></b>: Vito, get a broom and sweep out front. <br /> <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002057/">Vito</a></b>: Huh? <br /> <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001806/">Pino</a></b>: Get a broom and sweep out front. <br /> <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002057/">Vito</a></b>: What? <br /> <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001806/">Pino</a></b>: GET A BROOM AND SWEEP OUT FRONT. <br /> <b><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002057/">Vito</a></b>: See, Pop, it's just what I was telling ya, every time you tell Pino what to do, he tells me to do what you told him what to do.<br /></blockquote>It was this or <span style="font-style: italic;">Singing in the Rain</span>...<br /><br />Did like much of the music. At times, I felt the orchestral score was a bit slapped on, but the jazzier pieces (deriving from the song Summertime?) and pop tunes were great.<br /><br />Two other thoughts:<br /><ul><li>I have been musing recently about "becoming black" or "becoming white". Pino sees himself as white, or whit-er than those around him but admires black culture; the Koreans defend their store by claiming they are black. In the past, "black" was used as this catchall category which included both the Jews and the Irish. An example from the 1850s -the Irish were often referred to as "Negroes turned inside out" and Negroes as "smoked Irish." Over time, these groups have "become" white. I still can't decide whether this is a step forward - at least we're more inclusive now! - or a step back - judging on appearance is very childish. It's probably just a step...<br /></li><li>I expected death! In fact, this film is notable for having no guns, no knives, and only one murder.</li><li>Does <span style="font-style: italic;">Do The Right Thing</span> qualify as a hood movie? If it does, it must be a very early one. I wrote a study of them two years back, investigating the trend from social debate ("Oh no! Look at the problems!") to entertainment ("Gonna shoot some people up!"), characterised by <span style="font-style: italic;">Boyz in the Hood</span> (which I loved), <span style="font-style: italic;">Menace II Society</span> (which I didn't see, but condemned all the same) and <span style="font-style: italic;">City of God</span>, which struck me as the most offensive and objectionable film I'd ever seen. I chose to write the essay in part because I wanted to discuss depictions of violence, and partly because I was just so <span style="font-style: italic;">ANGRY</span> about it. </li><li>As an early, pre-<span style="font-style: italic;">Boyz</span> movie I'd warrant this was one of the more realistic. I was reminded of <span style="font-style: italic;">Bowling for Columbine</span>, and Michael Moore's non-scientific juxtaposition of gun ownership and white paranoia about black youths. Because don't <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> black americans carry guns?! Shock! The only killing that goes on here is a case of police brutality. Good choice.<br /></li></ul>In all? Rather nihilistic, rather confusing, rather forgetteable. Pity.<br /><br />*does Love Radio count, though?<br />becoming white quote: http://www.pitt.edu/~hirtle/uujec/white.html<br />Another perspective: https://usjamerica.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/becoming-white/Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-25444111727584218812011-04-21T15:50:00.000-07:002011-04-21T16:50:41.295-07:00Breakfast academiaAll wars, past and present, have a cinematic touchstone for how they are portrayed. The First World War is written by Wilfred Owen - the pathos of men dying in trenches, the movies like cattle. World War two has a better time - it is appropriate to make Kelly's Heroes, say, adventure, derring-do, and patriotism - after all, we won! An easily villainised bad guy, perhaps, makes WW2 far more straightforward. Vietnam is harder to pin down, I admit.<br /><br />My favourite war movie is the Dustwar - you know, almost contemporary, south of the Equator, realistic violence, vaguely factual? Stylistically, this is a war that happens on the television - lots of handheld, fuzzy footage. Dustwar movies are always, absolutely about "the other", and the keynote in these films is, I believe, "confusion". Some common themes:<br /><ul><li>How do we tell the bad guys from the good guys?<br /></li><li>What are they saying?<br /></li><li>Where are the weapons?<br /></li><li>Is that car safe, or is it a car bomb?<br /></li><li>Should we even be here?<br /></li></ul><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Black Hawk Down </span>- one of my favourites, and also one of the most shallow. American helicopter crashes in Mogadishu. Chaos reigns as the army decides to rescue their downed men. Then a second helicopter crashes. <br /><br />It's not a particularly intelligent film - unlike most of these, it doesn't confront the entire problem of conflict, and is in its own way to be criticised for turning the enemy army into a faceless mass of shuffling zombies. There also is its strength, because it conveys <span style="font-style: italic;"></span>the experience of being a soldier on the ground for a few hours - to whom I imagine the enemy are as impersonal as a telesales operator. It is powerful <span style="font-style: italic;">for </span>ignoring Why We Are In Mogadishu entirely, and focusing on what a soldier experiences to survive the next three minutes - a balanced view would have weakened, not strengthened, this film's uniqueness.<br /><br />This film elegantly illustrates my first point: <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">physical confusion</span>. They get lost, all the houses look the same, they get split up from one another. In fact, the first time I watched this with dad he drew me a map of Mogadishu so we could keep track. <span style="font-style: italic;">Black Hawk Down</span> is about the horror of being lost in a strange place and unable to get physical bearings.<br /><br />Is it just me, or are you really darn glad for the all-star cast? They're all scruffy men of the same age with identical clothes and hairstyles. Ridley Scott insisited they wear helmets with their character names on them, for the sake of the audience, even though this is inaccurate.<br /><br />Now watch what I am about to do:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Three Kings</span></span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">- </span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>After the first Gulf War, four soldiers go on a private mission to steal Saddam's hidden gold. Sorted! But <span style="font-style: italic;">Three Kings</span> is about <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">moral confusion</span></span>, as they gradually get drawn into the plight of the abandoned locals.<br /><br />I mean, it's not that confusing. After about 20 minutes, Clooney decides he's too beautiful to be brutal and starts saving women and children. So at it's core, there is a pretty comforting white narrative to enjoy. But the film points to its ambiguities - the American army are pulling out, with orders not to help the locals, even while our heroes can see that's wrong. Head torturer turns out to be a decent chap who was just following orders. And the moral journey of the heroes is headlined: it is Barlow who is keenest to abandon Amir who they have just rescued from electroshock torture in a bunker, because his survival is incidental. He gets his comeuppance: later the rebels sort-of attack the soldiers in his area, but only to steal a truck, and Barlow is left with the same torturer in a different bunker.<br /><br />It's not quite that obvious when you're watching. Honest. Other great confusions - the gas bomb which separates the group because they cannot see; Barlow attempting to shoot an Iraqi not realising he is an ally; the torturer has learnt his warfare (and English) in America; the journalist being sent on a wild goose chase to drive around in circles; our heroes finding the right village, but the wrong bunker, and having to return a second time. They even turn confusion against the Other, by mimicing the arrival of Saddam to clear the castle.<br /><br />This kind of moral confusion is the preserve of the Dustwar movie. I am fairly sure that <span style="font-style: italic;">Black Hawk</span> also contains a morality-charged torture scene - don't the opposition have any better information they want out of soldiers, that they have time to guilt trip them instead?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span> <span style="font-style: italic;">The Kingdom? </span>Moral confusion.<span style="font-style: italic;"> Syriana</span>? Moral confusion. Confusion full stop if you don't make notes.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Hurt Locker </span>- not a film I liked, though I cannot now remember why. The stereotypes seemed too broad, I think. What I did feel, though, is that it is primarily about <span style="font-style: italic;">linguistic confusion</span>. Yeah, that's the worst thing about those foreign people - they don't even speak American! It BAFFLES me that as a soldier, you would go into a war zone and not learn the basic lingo. You know. "Hello". "Where are the toilets please?" "Get on the motherfucking ground!" There are similar scenes in most of these films, but<span style="font-style: italic;"> Hurt Locker </span>in particular makes you think that if the two sides could simply communicate, so much time could have been saved. All these scenes of Americans shouting in English, and Iraqis shouting in Arabic, or Kurdish, and I just want to bash their heads together and say "people don't understand if you just talk louder!"<br /><br />Being part of the bomb disposal squad, there is also considerable uncertainty as to what can be trusted. Car or carbomb? Refugee, or prisoner-attached-to-a-bomb? Or corpse with a bomb surgically implanted?<br /><br />Thought for the day!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-54509438879451576502010-08-02T02:58:00.000-07:002010-08-02T03:02:24.938-07:00Alpha Mike FoxtrotI adore <span style="font-style: italic;">The A-Team</span> - was quite obsessed with it for a patch last year, but was ultimately frustrated by how repetitive and unimaginative the plotting was. Evil greedy capitalists screwing over decent folk and bribing the local sherrif? <span style="font-style: italic;">Again</span>?<br /><br />So the film was a must see, and ignoring a few misgivings, I cannot remember such a few hoursof unabashed happiness. Ever. I laughed all the way through: from the daft opening, with the characters getting Tarantinian freeze frames with their names, to B.A. having "PITY" and "FOOL" tattooed on his knuckles, to Face being the guy to understand their sleazy nemesis and explaining it all with a shell game.<br /><br />They made exactly the right choice on the tone - trimmed out some of the camp, made the violence feel less cartoonish, but still remained gleefully daft. The director was quoted in Empire with this fabulous soundbite:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Look, if you don't like the idea of a tank falling out of the sky and shooting at a plane, then this movie's not going to be for you. But I think if you don't like the idea of a tank falling out of the sky, then you fundamentally have a fucking problem with cinema."<br /></blockquote>Getting that tone right was the chief thing I had been previously concerned about, and I'm still impressed that they managed to keep it all raw and realistic. And to fly a tank at the same time. The actors were all perfect (I loved Lynch!), the script was very good - it just would have been nice if they had enunciated better. I missed quite a lot of the banter because the accents just would not stick in my head. And some of the action sequences needed to be a little clearer too - I couldn't always keep track of who was shooting at what. Everything you would want was there: drugging B.A. to get him on aircraft, rigging up weapons from stuff they have lying about.<br /><br />It was also a deeply problematic film. Looking back on what I've typed, I've dedicated more time to griping than squeeing: decidedly <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> how I feel. Damn the politics - it was awesome. Tank. Plane. But there's only so much you can say about having fun...the following section is basically deeply spoilerific, but surely this doesn't matter considering what we have under discussion.<br /><br />One of the more interesting twists was that B.A. got very zen in prison, and came out refusing to kill. Now I thought this was really cool - it neatly mirrored Mr T's conversion to religion and by giving him a proper character arc, transformed him into the most interesting of the bunch. It also tallied with my headcanon: despite the ludicrous amount of firearms, I think there are only six onscreen deaths in four seasons, suggesting that they were trying to avoid killing as far as possible. Whether this is legal or moral is never explained. He quotes Gandhi, and explains multiple times that he is not comfortable killing. Hannibal - who is <span style="font-style: italic;">cooler</span> than this - quotes some Gandhi back:<br /><blockquote>"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence." </blockquote>And tells him he needs to discover "something worth fighting for". When they later repeat this fuzzy terminology, and he says "Yes, I've found it" - it's never really defined what "it" is. "Peer pressure", as far as I can tell. Peer pressure and guilt tripping, and I was rather disappointed. Hannibal isn't really that manipulative; B.A. can still be a cool hero and not kill people - in fact, seeing how keen he is to protect kids in the original, I figure he'd be pretty disappointed.<br /><br />In truth, I probably shouldn't have been looking to the <span style="font-style: italic;">A-Team </span>for positive messages about violence. It has always been about heroic veteran vigilantes. But in my own head, I had partly reclaimed it as part of the "post-Nam counter cultural dropout thingie". In the show, we never see them as soldiers except in some misty past none of them talk about - their missions are always Robin Hood style mercy missions to ordinary folks. The show's stance on the army is therefore more ambiguous - they are obviously patriots, obviously proud of their fellow men. But the impression I had was like the Democracy Village banner: "We Support The Soliders; We Do Not Support The War". And to my mind, perhaps all the heroism was maybe a sort of atonement - their own mad manifestation of PTSD. Face in particular has never seemed like a violent man to me - someone who fights to get out of situations, and would really rather retire, but can't give up his friends or the jazz.<br /><br />This is my personal slant, and it's only just occured to me how personal. We all enjoy fiction on our own terms, but I thought I was giving the story some depth. Actually I was just making it palatable. Would I be able to enjoy<span style="font-style: italic;"> The A-Team</span> TV if the characters were portrayed as pro-war, pro-that war in particular? As it stands, the army theme is window dressing - the characters are apolitical, the messages neutral. Maybe not with the same vigour, or in the same way.<br /><br />The movie makes the right choice in its structure - it shows the team's first mission in a pre-title-sequence, then shows them blundering into the crime-they-did-not-commit and the film is concerned with them trying to discover who set them up. It was also correct to update the story to the modern day. But juxtaposing the nu-Team with a real war cannot be anything but a political statement, and implicit approval - one scene with Hannibal chatting enthusiastically with happy locals left a particularly sour taste. When they rescue a village under threat from greedy developers, it's an obvious case of good verses nasty. But given the information that they have completed "80 successful missions" in Iraq is...also not cool, because war isn't that clear cut but about following orders. Some were probably of a philanthropic nature, but they can't all have been unless you accept the Iraq war as a Good Thing.<br /><br />The film is very certain: these are army men. They want to clear their names <span style="font-weight: bold;">and</span> be restored to their ranks. They even wait for permission to break out of jail. Probably better characterisation than the show's, but still problematic. It left me with a far stronger impression of people I would not want to spend any time with. That's why I loved B.A. more than I ever have before (I'm normally a Hannibal girl), and was deeply disappointed with the resolution of that arc. It also undermines, say, Hannibal's decision not to shoot a villain in cold blood earlier on.<br /><br />Summer blockbuster - definitely asking too much. And I'm not going to think about whether the depiction of women was good, bad, questionable, or indifferent, because the answer cannot be good and for now I don't care. Most awesome afternoon ever!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-15017575153651077412010-06-14T02:49:00.000-07:002010-06-14T06:05:15.186-07:00A man chooses; a slave obeysI want to talk about violent video games. Today's issue comes with headers, to tidy up my circuitous prose.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Some History</span><br /><br /></span>An area which fascinates me, but only in a theoretical way as I have never lived in a house with them before. The arrival of a new housemate gave me the opportunity to properly play a console game for the first time in my life - to the general amusement of everyone else, who went through this phase age 5 or 6.<br /><br />My parents were rather old fashioned on that front, and on the whole I am greatful: games do feel like a terrible drain on life. Abstractly, I believe that if a video game gives you a compelling aesthetic and narrative experience, it's no better or worse than watching a film (and that, no more than reading a book). And the ability to beat difficult games is no better or worse than any other ability (arguably, better because their effects are confined to so small a world they can never be used for evil). But in practice, less games seem to come up to my high movie watching standards, and looking back on most of my gaming experiences they seem like wasted time<br /><br />A classic example would be <span style="font-style: italic;">Guitar Hero</span>, which I played for half an hour and switched off in disgust. It is a challenging game which requires dedicated practice, but if you're going to put in that much effort why not just learn the sodding guitar? Especially because the required skillset for hitting the keys in time is far closer to playing the piano.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Belief System</span></span>s<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock </span>is a staggering exception, but I'll discuss that later. I'd like to get onto violence, and I'll preface this by saying I no longer believe in an objective "self". We have different modes of behavior we shrug on and off like clothes: Sunday best for the vicar, formalwear for family occasions, something smartcasual for work and sloppy jeans for weekends alone. From person to person, we might have different morality sets - lying to a child or a door-to-door Evangelist in a way we wouldn't to an adult or a friend. We certainly behave differently (i.e. use of swearing) and have different interests depending on the company. With all that taken into account, it seems holding any belief and claiming it is indomitable is problematic, without boiling everything down to a pragmatic "it depends". There are always exceptions, and indeed there has to be.<br /><br />This might be obvious, but I'm fascinated by the sincerity behind all this. We know that habit can change people by sheer persistance. You can come to love dull activities, endlessly-repeated radio earworms and even people just because they are always there and you get used to it. With all this slipping we do to survive life, surely then we also change our own minds - our basic principles - many times a day.<br /><br />I now live in two different places, and what my two groups of friends can get away with is very different. Purely because I met one aged 11, and another aged 18, and what I needed at those two times was also different. I'd like to say my metronome behavior was caused by not wanting to freak the older set out by seeming to suddenly change, but in truth it is habit. I just snap back into old patterns.<br /><br />This isn't necessarily a problem, because both places make me feel at home and I'd even miss the elements of both which piss me off because hey! Friends are the people whose defects you can adore as madly as their qualities. Nevertheless, it is an interesting illustration of the point above. I now live two lives. One lot are amused by my love for violent films, the other is less about cinema and more about me being a secret serial killer. It's the same joke, but an interesting change of emphasis. There, I like gory cinema; here I have a blood fetish. I'm not sure either is correct, or quite that simple. Which of these two people am I? Am I huggy, or rather detatched? Am I an endlessly accomodating doormat, or do I stand up for myself, albeit in a roundabout fashion? What are the level of lies, conscious, unconscious, white and by omission, I am prepared to tell?<br /><br />The answer to that question relies on your postcode. And how do I answer a question like that, if accepting and enjoying myriad personalities is the strongest life stance I hold (except, naturally enough, when it isn't)? A pal recently used the rather lovely phrase "Schroedinger's Emily", and as if to prove my point, one close friend was really surprised I was enjoying the game - whereas another wasn't surprised at all.<br /><br />I went into that for two reasons: first, to warn you I'm perfectly capable of holding multiple, contradictory beliefs and I think that on some level you must be too. But chiefly, to illustrate that I am mentally flexible and aware of my flexibility, and thus incredibly susecptible to things I experience. On this basis, I believe if it's mad enough for one person to experience life like this, it stands to reason that many others must also.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">And finally, on violence</span></span><br /><br />The chief question involving violent entertainment is "Should we legislate against it?". I find this a hard question to answer:<blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Nothing should legislate against art</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">. </span>A solid hangover from my Oscar Wilde days.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Art impacts life</span>. Shakespeare knew as much:<br /><span id="ham-2-2-588">"That guilty creatures, sitting at a play / </span><span id="ham-2-2-589">Have by the very cunning of the scene / </span><span id="ham-2-2-590">Been struck so to the soul that presently /</span><span id="ham-2-2-591">They have proclaim'd their malefactions"</span><br /><br />This point is irrefutable. If what we see does not change us, then why would there be advertising? Why would pressure groups be so concerned about the depiction of their chosen minority on screen? Why do companies put product placement in movies, and pay celebrities to wear their clothes? How does tie-in merchandising work? Why are documentaries made, or movies with a social concience? Why do cosplayers expend time and effort creating replica costumes from their favourite heroes?<br /><br />If art did not impact life, then none of these strategies would work. The fact is they do, QED. Arguably, holy books are nothing but books containing stories so marvellous, so affecting that they move people to be better than they can be and dedicate themselves to a cause - and thus art impacts life quite profoundly.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">But when it impacts life should one man's right to "make art" be counted as more important than the rights of others to live safely?</span> My answer to that would depend on whether Oscar Wilde or <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who</span> is closer within my mental reach. I mean, art is immortal and makes humanity seem meaningless in comparison: a few lives in exchange for the Mona Lisa (or pick your favourite work of art, including great albums or movies) which will be adored by generations doesn't seem like a big sacrifice. But then on other days, it's life, life above all - one single human life is more important than anything else. It's humans who create art after all.<br /><br />I'm not sure I can ever work that out. Would it really matter to us, now, if ten more nameless Greeks had burnt at the Library of Alexandria - but the complete works of Socrates and Euripides had survived?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Art affects people in different ways. </span>Should we kill off whole genres of entertainment because it might just set off some lone nutter, already primed by life. I don't think there's ever been conclusive proof of killings <span style="font-style: italic;">purely</span> in the wake of vicious media. There have always been other factors - enviroment, upringing e.t.c. And they often inspire the means through which sprees take place, but as far as I'm aware, don't cause them. My evidence is that I've seen <span style="font-style: italic;">Clockwork Orange</span> and my dad's seen <span style="font-style: italic;">Natural Born Killers</span>, and we're both still sane and dandy. If any film was that dangerous, then how could the BBFC raters - who see all the most degrading cinema has to offer - not be locked away in maximum security?<br /><br />But see above. If <span style="font-style: italic;">Clockwork Orange</span> is even tangentally going to be implicated in the death of a real human being, would it not be better never to have been created? Regardless of the thousands it has inspired in its turn?<br /><br /></blockquote>How do you reconcile all of that? Even if I could untangle those three threads to my satisfaction, there are other things to take into consideration:<blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Is there a difference between commercial violence and artistic violence?</span> </span>i.e. Rambo vs <span style="font-style: italic;">Antichrist</span>, violent rape porn vs <span style="font-style: italic;">Irreversable</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">The A-Team</span> vs <span style="font-style: italic;">Saving Private Ryan</span>. Movies aim to make you feel by using images. Does it make a difference if violent images are designed for enjoyment? Or if you enjoy violent images regardless of their creators intent? If you're going to judge between art and "porn", how do you tell? And once you've said "you can watch these films because their intent is art", how do you force viewers not to enjoy them as porn?<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Saving Private Ryan</span> is an interesting one there, because the BBFC rated it a 15 - despite the loopy levels of violence. They judged that it had important historical merit, and as such teachers should be able to show it in class. Does its "artistic" intent automatically mean no kid has ever laughed "phwoar, look at that head go!" while viewing?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Why do we rate realistic violence as more dangerous than tame?</span> If protecting the young is our goal, then surely presenting painful death is more important than showing something gleefully consequence free?<br /></blockquote>It's clear then that there are two strands in the debate on legislating violence: preventing people from copying what they see AND protecting young minds from scary images. Sex is case in point. While I don't want my hypothetical kids seeing all that on screen till they're much older, nevertheless sex is basically a good act, while violence never is. Seeing a happy consensual couple get on with it at whatever age is not a damaging image - violence is always "wrong" and is always "disgusting".<br /><br />And this leads us onto one of the bigger ethical questions never asked in this debate:<br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">Should we be enjoying this?</span> We should respect the human right to choose - to an extent. We can all agree that extent is causing actual damage to actual people. It's written in the BBFC basic manifesto that adults should be able to choose their own viewing so long as it is not dangerous. But should we choose to watch pain for our entertainment? Is it good for - dare I say it? - our souls? Is someone who refuses violent imagery a "better" person?<br /></blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Violent video games</span></span><br /><br />I thought I knew where I stood on all of this. I love a bit of violence, me. My stance on film is, broadly, put the art first - even though I value life, and I admit influence exists. I do not want a world where we cannot make movies about war or crime. I have great faith in the idea of rating systems, and the BBFC in particular. We have to change the world before changing movies would have any noticeable effect on violence in society. I am suspicious of "entertainment violence", such as <span style="font-style: italic;">The A-Team</span>, particularly with reference to children - kids need more heroes like <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who</span>, saving the world through brains and not brawn. But that's the role of parents in judging what is wholesome for their kids to consume.<br /><br />The twin in the movie violence debate is the violent video game. As mentioned above, video games are as valid an artistic experience as a film - so should get the same rights. Having never played one, I've always assumed I stood in the same place.<br /><br />No. No I don't, emphatically not - coming into proper contact has raked this whole debate up again, even when I thought I'd done it to death and was bored.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span><br /><br /></span>The problem wasn't so much with <span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock. </span>The game is beautifully designed, giving you a strong experience aside from killing stuff. I experienced very vivid emotions while playing, but this was targeted on the characters: pity for the splicers, mad love for Andrew Ryan, and a strong sympathy with Jack, the character I was playing. His desire to get home, his total dislocation really affected me. When sneaking down corridors, my mind was ticking on the issues being raised by the story - in particular, something the game never explored. I couldn't help but be distracted by the tragedy of having to "splice" magic powers to survive attacks by "splicers" who had gone mad and become addicted because of the splicing process. The thought of becoming what I was fighting was my primary concern; and with it, that to escape I had to contribute to the destruction of a beautiful city which I really came to love. The enemies are obviously mad zombies, you primarily attack them with magic powers and the location is very far dislocated by anything you could experience in real life. It is also a very scary game - you get sufficienly involved by it that the survival instinct kicks in, and you kill things because you have to. Opportunities to hurt anything like a real human raised in me a huge level of antipathy, and I believe this is encouraged by the game.<br /><br />Perhaps apt to the questions I mentioned above, the game touches on the morality/life dichotomy. You crash land and discover an underwater city, built to escape the cold war and where "the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small". In other words, built on selfishness - built on people who would make violent cinema without considering the human consequences. But the city is in ruins, death by selfishness; and the game's narrative gives you regular opportunities to either act selfishly or for personal gain. All this puts morality at the forefront of the experience, and constantly forces you to think about what you are doing and why. Maybe this softens the effect of the violence?<br /><br />The chief emotion I experienced throughout- and this is absolutely exploited - is pathos: for the Little Sisters, for the Big Daddies, for the splicers, for Ryan and the rest, for the city itself, for the main character, and ultimately, it all rather upset me in a very enjoyable manner.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Grand Theft Auto<br /><br /></span></span>I had been thinking about the debate while playing it, because I did enjoy killing things very much. So my next choice was perhaps obvious: <span style="font-style: italic;">Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.</span><br /><br />Well, shit. I didn't actually try the whole game, just spent an afternoon on sandbox mode, but my response was very different. Unlike <span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span>, it is set in a very familiar location and is packed with real-world detail. The fact the graphics were unrealistic actually made it worse - I think I would have found it harder to hurt or threaten people if the visuals had been less bright and blocky. There are no long-term consequences to creating mayhem: escaping cops is easy, nothing goes on your permenant record and you merely lose your arsenal and get let out ten hours later if caught. And there are certainly no emotional consequences - unlike poor lost Jack onto whom I could project my isolation at being in a strange place, you are playing a criminal. And unlike brooding horror, <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA </span>is packed with exciting upbeat rock.<br /><br />All that is cold rationalisations why the violence in <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span> affected me in a different way to <span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span>. I don't know how far any of them are "true". All I know is that pointing and clicking at someone's head, then watching it explode in a shower of blood gave me a very visceral reaction. If I could avoid killing in <span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span>, then I did - and those times I had to assassinate something I recognised as human gave me a very vivid "do not want!" experience. Within five minutes on <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span>, we were attempting to replicate the Ripper killings by luring them around corners and dicing them with the katana for the LOLs. Holy smokes, I'm a pacifist. And a <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who</span> fan. And I think trivialising the Ripper killings is sick.<br /><br />I think the chief difference is, <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span> does not give you an emotional compass to work from. Life hasn't shown you how to respond to your myriad violent options, and the game doesn't help. And one of the ways humans react to such situations is with humour - think of a nervous laugh, awkward smiles or bad taste jokes. You can't comprehend the horror of a child's corpse - so here, have a dead baby joke. A lot of my generation feign racist/imperalist beliefs - even among my most liberal pals - that they absolutely do not hold, and to my mind it's because racism is so terrible you often can't respond to it sincerely without being totally swamped. Tarantino movies do something similar with their combo of violence and humour. Hence why replicating the Ripper killings suddenly seemed amusing and acceptable.<br /><br />I also experienced, even temporarily, a total desensitisation towards violence. As mentioned above, my mind is as malleable as pulped intestine - so being immersed in such a game did have an effect on me. I felt like yes, this could have a noticeable effect on my real life if played to excess. Humans respond very quickly to learned behavior - there are stories of <span style="font-style: italic;">WOW</span> players who escaped wild animals with their online skills, of <span style="font-style: italic;">ER</span> viewers who have saved lives. Scientists have proved that neurotics are better in survival situations - people on, say, a train who spend the journey panicing that it might crash respond quicker to their mental worst-case-scenarios instead of freezing. I was so pumped up after watching <span style="font-style: italic;">Run, Lola, Run </span>that when I was accidentally locked into the bathroom ten minutes later, I climbed out of the window and made my own escape. I do not think I would have done that in a calmer state of mind.<br /><br />On the Sims, when you click another character you get a dial of interaction options. If they are a stranger, you might be able to "Greet" or "Tell Joke". But if you put time into making them friends, the number of interaction options increases - and now you can do everything from "Attack" to "Romance", with numerous options within. I feel that if confronted with a real weapon, I feel my options have expanded from "Panic!" and "Put It Down" to, in the right situation, "Use". Bear in mind I only played for about four hours, so I am sure the number of positive messages I'm getting outweighs the negative ones.<br /><br />Nevertheless, I felt rather queer about the whole experience for a while afterwards. My chief question, as mentioned above, was "should we be enjoying this?" Which is NEVER a question I have asked about film before. You identify with film characters and you choose to watch, so you are thereby complicit in any bloodletting taking place. But having the power to point and shoot when you choose draws attention to the decision making process, and makes you directly involved, which is perhaps now it suddenly seems dirtier.<br /><br />A friend has suggested that, with my background in violent media scholarship, perhaps my reaction was a response to what I know of <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span>'s reputation. This may be correct (and so it might also be of <span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span>).<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dead Space</span></span><br /><br />Undeterred, I looked for another game to play properly, all the way through and chose <span style="font-style: italic;">Dead Space</span> - sci-fi horror. Now, this was another realistic one and very beautiful too. You are running up and down rusty, light-flickery corridors, very post-<span style="font-style: italic;">Alien</span>, and being attacked by fleshy spider creatures. One of the game's USPs is the combat. You can aim very accurately, and emphasis is on disabling Necromorphs instead of diminishing their damage points. Which is a pretty cool system, when you think about it, as it takes into account realistic injury. Once I got ahang of the controls, I adopted a definite tactic - one or two shots to the legs so they collapse to the floor, and while they flailing are struggling to move, one to the head. Followed by a good kicking to make sure they are definitely dead.<br /><br />Well. Quite.<br /><br />As such, it is a very sadistic game indeed. Even though the Necromorphs are the least human thing I've attacked in this experiment, the game system requires you to think carefully about how best to cause pain - with the obligatory satisfying splatter of blood. I was not comfortable with this, and switched off after about half an hour. It seemed like <span style="font-style: italic;">Deep Space</span> was trying to develop a plot, but it didn't sufficiently draw me in that time to give an emotional compass which made killing Necromorphs in that fashion acceptable to me.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A summing up<br /><br /></span>I had three different responses:<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span>: realistic style, unrealistic situation. Could play.<br /></li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span>: Non realistic style, realistic situation. Could play, but later felt sick at myself.</li><li><span style="font-style: italic;">DS</span>: realistic style, fairly unrealistic situation. Couldn't play.<br /></li></ul>Perhaps we are dealing with two different debates, and far from what I always assumed what is good for cinema is not good for videogames.<br /><br />Something <span style="font-style: italic;">Dead Space</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span> have in common is they are "third person". You play the game over the shoulder of your character; in <span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span>, your eyes are the whole screen. Of cinema, I would say that detatchment is the best response to violence - viewing the violent characters as alien to oneself, as something on show. If you feel close association with violent characters it is more likely for the film to break out into real life. Perhaps when I could see my avatars on screen in <span style="font-style: italic;">DS</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span> it enabled me to be more violent than when I was immersed in <span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span>. This is a strong reversal to what I would claim about cinema: I think immersive film violence is more dangerous than when you have a bit of perspective.<br /><br />I would also say that consequence-free movie violence is more troubling than high-rated sticky screaming, and this is backed up by my video game experiment. <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span> was sufficiently fake looking, and free from consequence that I created some quite enthusiastic mayhem even though the rendering of blood was quite dilligent. <span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span> felt like a real world, but my disgust was padded by an obvious fantasy setting and magical powers. I felt troubled at killing some characters - but not the hordes of default zombies. I completed the game. <span style="font-style: italic;">Deep Space</span> had realistic graphics, and was set in a world which, despite monsters and the futuristic tech, still felt sufficiently real that I could not continue. <span style="font-style: italic;"></span>I felt it was encouraging me to be cruel<br /><br />Strong narratives are better than weak ones. Like the best movies, <span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span> manipulated me throughout - but I felt like I chose how to feel in any given situation. Even though it was usually how it wanted me to feel. It both dictated my emotional response, and asked me to formulate my own. I brought my real-world morals to it - it did not give it's game-world morals to me. <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span> rewards villainy, <span style="font-style: italic;">Bioshock</span> rewards something but it doesn't immediately tell you what that is, and that sense of identification made me check my own actions on several occasions. So freedom is not a good thing: <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">DS</span> never really told me how I should be responding to the game experience, and I found it consequently more difficult to create a story. Whereas I would say deciding how you stand on a film, instead of having it obviously prescribed, was important.<br /><br />To sum up my response:<br /><ul><li>The more I recognise a creature as "real" - either due to the quality of graphics or their human appearance and personality - the harder I find killing.</li><li>Conversely, if characters have no personality, are fantasy/fictional or are presented with unrealistic graphics, I find it very easy.</li><li>The more immersed I am personally in a game, the more I feel as if my personal integrity is at stake - the better I will be have, the harder I find killing.</li><li>Conversely, the cartoonishness of <span style="font-style: italic;">GTA</span> and possibly the third person perspective of both allowed me greater freedom to do things I would not in life. <br /></li><li>The harder a game works to make a world emotionally satisfying, and ascribe ethical/emotional meaning to actions on screen, the more invested I feel in it, and the harder I find killing.<br /></li><li>Conversely - you get the drift.<br /></li></ul>Despite all this - and this is the important bit - I feel these unrealistic games did tug at my primal human bloodlust in the real world with more than the realistic. This may only be true for me, but yes I believe they have real life consequences and can be dangerous in eroding moral values. Do I think violent video games should recieve tighter legislation? Yes, definitely - different to how I feel about film, but perhaps that is because I don't have the same passion as for them.<br /><br />Probably. But then see every single argument I made on films above - they still apply. I'm flexible. I'm also a rather flawed test dummy as I've only ever played a few console games, and thus perhaps the novelty gave them greater effect over my emotions. If I had played hundreds, perhaps I would be desensitised and better recognise them as fiction, nothing more.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-5157817779491411412010-03-08T05:33:00.001-08:002010-03-08T07:50:08.215-08:00Cigarette?I've been thinking a lot recently about <span style="font-style: italic;">Guns of Navarone</span>, and in particular, the fact my gay-reading becomes increasingly more elaborate with every watch.<br /><br />But as a fan of buddy movies, I normally see gay readings as totally off limits. After all, films can be homosocial without having to be homosexual as well - and I think romance is over-valued as a cinematic fallback compared to a good friendship. So what is going on?<br /><br />Thinking about the topic, I've developed a general theory on why some films seem gayer than others, and the secret resides in the depiction of female characters. All buddy movies are homosocial, but is it just the absence of screwing that rescues them? I mean, on the face of it:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Buddy movie</span><br />Movie is chiefly about the relationship between two (or more) same-gender protagonists. The relationship is non-sexual, but undeniably romantic.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gay movie</span><br />Movie is chiefly about the relationship between two (or more) same-gender protagonists. The relationship is sexual, and probably (but not necessarily) romantic.<br /><br />On that reasoning, sex is the only difference. But for all we know, it could be going on off-screen - in <span style="font-style: italic;">Brideshead Revisited </span>it almost certainly is.<br /><br />Having explored my thoughts for a while, I think the key lies in the presentation of female characters. And now it's on paper, I am amazed by how comprehensive this theory is. Explicitly straight films and shows tend to show women as allies on an equal level, and when they aid the male protagonists, it is through "feminine" skills. In gay or unintentionally queer movies, women are the most dangerous antagonists, threatening the safety or happiness of male protagonists. They also often exhibit "male" qualities. Very very gay movies have two levels of threat - a narrative one and an emotional one. You can't split the two, of course (emotion comes from narrative; emotion can also be narrative), but less gay movies exhibit one of the two, or one less strongly.<br /><br />I don't think this is a universal theory, mostly because it supports things I've always thought about movies. If it <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> a universal theory, then I've just found a formula that proves me right: unlikely. But there are still some interesting things to explore here.<br /><br />So this is an examination of some of my favourite homosexual and homosocial movies, analysing what the female characters represent in each. There are spoilers ahoy.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gay movies</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Brokeback Mountain</span><br />Main antagonist: 1950s mores; wives<br />Female leads: wives<br />Threat: emotional, though as a real-lifey-drama arguably the emotion is the narrative.<br /><br />The tragic ending is the fault of men, but that's merely the last ten minutes in a very long film. The tragedy throughout is our heroes' inability to be together, and the chief reason why they cannot - 1950s morals - is embodied in the fact they both get married. Though prejudice is the real problem, the two female characters represent that problem. All other factors in their misery - the need to get jobs, to conform to social pressure - are linked straight back to their wives.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Victim</span><br />Main anagonist: a blackmailing ring; the law<br />Female leads: Melville Farr's wife, the blackmailer.<br />Threat: narrative and emotional<br /><br />As a film about prejudice, homophobia comes from left, right and centre and mostly from men. But characters who actively <span style="font-style: italic;">cause</span> negative events are exclusively female. The emotional challenge in the film is Mrs Farr trying to come to terms with her husband's "condition". Drama is caused by him a) hiding his feelings for her sake; b) fearing her reaction, or that she will be hurt, by his state and c) her walking out on him. When the blackmailers are exposed, the head of the ring is the only other female character of significance in the film. She is therefore responsible for the entire plot.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Beautiful Thing</span><br />Main antagonist: "Mama Cass" and mum<br />Female leads: "Mama Cass" and mum<br />Threat: narrative and emotional<br /><br />One of the things I love about <span style="font-style: italic;">Beautiful Thing</span> is how positive it is. Two boys fall in love on an 80s council estate, and no one really minds. It pretends to be social realism for about an hour - complete with an abusive older brother who you're <span style="font-style: italic;">sure</span> is going to be vital later - then chucks it in favour of life-affirming romantic fluff. Consequently, there are no serious antagonists. However, when they are trying to hide their affair, it is their female next door neighbour who frequently threatens to reveal them. And the character who they must win over is one of their mothers. No fathers, brothers or other male friends ever appear on screen - actually, an argument I develop below, as a single mother the mum is mascarading as a male. And mum's boyfriend is the most homo-friendly character in the film.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Movies that, by this reasoning, are coded gay</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Guns of Navarone</span><br />Main antagonist: time, Nazis - and a female traitor<br />Female lead: two resistance fighters, one being a traitoress.<br />Threat: narrative<br /><br />Our heroes are an all-male team, joined by two female resistance fighters on the island. The two women naturally exhibit masculine qualities - they are armed and tough. However, one turns out to be a traitoress, and the one factor which comes closest to jepordising the success of the mission. This is pretty impressive, when you consider a ship-sinking storm, a critically injured teammember and the entire German army couldn't do it.<br /><br />You could also argue that she is threatening <span style="font-style: italic;">because</span> she is mascarading as male. To neutralise the threat, they must expose her as a female - she is undressed, begins crying and we discover she is a traitor because she is afraid of pain. We see two other torture scenes in the film, one with the entire band and Franklin, one featuring only Franklin, and the boys manage to keep their fearless masculine composure thoughout. The second female character, is made safe because she also exhibits female qualities: she is in love with Andrea, and ultimately marries him.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Brideshead Revisited</span> - the first half<br />Main antagonist: alcoholism; lady Marchmain<br />Female lead: lady Marchmain (later Mrs Ryder and Julia)<br />Threat: emotional<br /><br />All that chumming around at Oxford is cut short by Sebastian's drinking. This depression is caused chiefly by his cloying family, and for the first half of the series/book they are represented by Lady Marchmain. She drives a splinter between the pair; she is also responsible for chasing her unhappy husband out of England. Lady Marchmain sends a chill down my spine. We can use the same argument as we did for <span style="font-style: italic;">Navarone</span>, because Lady Marchmain is mascarading as the male patriarch of the family.<br /><br />The second half, Sebastian drops out in favour of Julia, and thus the argument is no longer valid.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Movies that, by this reasoning, are not coded gay</span><br />Ones I've never thought gay, for no good reason, which is now explained by my theory. This theory might not be universal, but it certainly works for me. <span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid </span><br />Main antagonist: fate, law and the Bolivian army<br />Female lead: Etta Place, an ally<br /><br />The studio explicitly flags the pair up as non-gay by depicting them as mutually in love with Etta Place. She is the third member of the group, an equal and takes part in the shooting and robbing. But in her dialogue, she highlights the female-skills she brings to the team - "darning socks"; her main task in Bolivia is to teach them Spanish, and when taking part in heists it is foxing people dressed as a glamorous woman.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The A-Team</span><br />Main antagonist: the US military; Colonel Decker; local bad boys<br />Female lead: Amy Adams, an ally<br /><br />There is the odd girlfriend about to "prove" the A-Team are straight. But Amy Adams is used much like Etta. She is an equal member of the team, also taking part in shooting, and when her femininity is highlighted it is in a useful way. Her skills within the team are researching, investigative journalism, sympathy and occasionally feminine wiles.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Reservoir Dogs</span><br />Main antagonist: each other<br />Female lead: none<br /><br />Pretty clear case. If there aren't negative male-female relationships to contrast the positive male-female relationships to, then there can't be any gaying. Some people think White and Orange are gay. I think this takes a lot away from the film, but I admit there is an angle - and the angle is covered in my theory. While the principle threats are the police and one another, the drama is caused by Mr Orange's blood puddle -a puddle caused by an armed woman. But to my mind, that is pretty weak.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Lord of the Rings</span><br />Main antagonist: Sauron; Saruman; lots of orcs<br />Female lead: Arwen, Eowyn<br /><br />There's lots of slash on the web, and I've never bought it. I've never even bought Sam/Frodo - it's platonic love, which makes it no less valuable as love. No female antagonists - well, virtually no females, until the movie beefed them up.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead</span><br />Main antagonist: fate; Hamlet<br />Female lead: none<br /><br />Oh God, I'm <span style="font-style: italic;">so chuffed</span> with this theory. Another pair I've never thought remotely slashy dashed off the list.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Sherlock Holmes</span> (2009)<br />Main antagonist: Lord Blackwood<br />Female lead: Irene Adler, an ally; the future Mrs Watson<br /><br />This is a tougher one, and maybe that's because it's not clear cut. Even though Irene is allied with the villains, the men work with and not against her. Though she has masculine qualities, she also flaunts her feminine wiles. Similarly, Mrs Watson challenges the future of the central relationship; yet she also seems aware of that relationships importance and does not attack it. Both are threats, but they are pretty small ones - Irene is never directly responsible for foiling, injuring or seriously upsetting the leads. Holmes and Watson are too culturally embedded as a safe, unshatterable pair for Mrs Watson to ever be a serious challenge in our eyes.<br /><br />Lots of fangirls do read this as gay, and I agree it's a tough one. There is evidence beyond the fact that both are hot, chiefly the way they bicker like an old married couple. It's certainly gayer than <span style="font-style: italic;">Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</span>.<br /><br />It seems almost suitable that in a case where female representations are mixed up, so would be my conception of how gay it is. And this theory comes into its own when I started looking at shows which for me are a very murky area.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Arguably gay:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who</span><br />Main antagonist: long running TV show, too many to count<br /><br />My feelings are mixed, because the evidence points several ways and because I'm hesitant to apply human constructs to alien characters. In general I think this is non-canonical. But its interesting that in general, the female characters on screen function like Etta and Amy: they are friends who bring positive female skills to the Doctor's positive masculine skills.<br /><br />However:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who:Utopia-Sound of Drums-Last of the Timelords</span><br />Main antagonist, from the Master's perspective: Martha, Lucy Saxon<br />Female leads: Martha, Lucy Saxon; Martha's female relatives<br />Threat: narrative and emotional<br /><br /><br /><br />In the Russell T. Davis take, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Last of the Timelords</span>, where the slashiness goes off the scale, women are antagonistic. Martha is responsible for taking down the Master, and to do it she utilises masculine attributes (espionage, adventure, would involve shooting if it wasn't <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who</span>). Ultimately, the Doctor cannot take the Master prisoner because he is killed by Lucy Saxon - another woman. Moments before, it is Martha's mum (not her father) who threatens to kill him. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Sound of Drums</span>, the threat of Mr Saxon is headed up by a female agent. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Utopia</span>, a female Futurekind destroys the spaceship and Chan'tho attempts to kill the Master.<br /><br />It's interesting to see a text about which I have some confusion, itself exhibiting confusion about how it portrays its female characters. Another one causing me headaches is...<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Blake's 7</span><br />Main antagonist: The Federation, represented by Travis and Servalan<br />Female leads: allys Jenna and Callie; villainess Servalan<br />Threat: narrative<br /><br />At the moment, I'm categorising my leanings as bad writing. I didn't get slash vibes in season one, where every episode was written by a single author, because Blake, Avon and their relationship were consistant. Season two is hard for me to read in any other way, because six or seven authors are contributing and they have a different take on each of the three. Is that professional respect? Friendly irritation? Contempt? Loathing? Ideological issues? Are they a valid buddy pairing, or do they want to kill one another? This makes the relationship so frenetic it's hard to interpret it coherently without throwing love into the mix. As Avon himself would doubtless point out, love is a brilliant way of justifying illogical, irrational behavior.<br /><br />Lets put it through my theoriser, though. What are the women like? Like <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who</span>, only stronger, its a mix. It features ally-female characters, yet their skills are masculine ones - the same goes for Kasabi, Avalon, Ilsa and other spare females that show up along the way. There's a general absence of womanly-women, even if the female protagonists get shafted in favour of the men.<br /><br />And though the show exhibits a wide range of antagonists, the overarching villain is the Federation as represented by Servalan. Travis is a major antagonist, but he is very much under her thumb. I'm now going to rewatch the series and see if, on an episode by episode basis, things seem gayer in Servalan episodes.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ones Which Don't Work<br /></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek<br /></span>I don't know how I feel about the Fandom That Invented Slash. I haven't watched enough <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> to make a judgement. However, I'm pretty sure that women are in general not villainous, and would probably come into the Amy Adams feminine ally catagory, suggesting that <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> is not slashy. This is obviously a perspective which many people disagree on, however, perhaps pointing to how ideosyncratic this theory is.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Hamlet</span><br />I could argue that Gertrude's infidelity is far more of a plot mover than Claudius' murder, with some success - Freudians have been doing it for years - but it's clutching at straws. Claudius is overwhelmingly the chief antagonist, and he does the murder that causes Gertrude's infidelity. Again, by this reasoning, this would suggest that I should not find a gay reading in Hamlet. And it's true that I'm flexible: I can take or leave it, it's not a vital part of the story because Horatio is merely walking exposition.<br /><br />But I do often think that Hamlet/Horatio makes a lot of sense, given Hamlet's misogyny and the way his miserable confusion comes back to women so often, and there are plenty of lines that can be read in that manner. It certainly makes better sense than the generally accepted theory that Hamlet is in love with his mum.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Death Note</span><br />I'm only half way through, so perhaps things change, but I've never got strong slash vibes off this thing despite it being potentially the slashiest thing ever. Misa is a girly girl, and she only presents a threat unintentionally. Despite this, I'm not confident enough to argue that she is "not a threat", because by this point I worry I would be misjudging how threatening she is on the grounds of what I already believe.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>So my final theory stands thus:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Buddy movie</span><br /><ul><li> Movie is chiefly about the relationship between two (or more) same-gender protagonists.</li><li>The relationship is non-sexual, but undeniably romantic.</li><li>Female characters (if present) are allies</li><li>Their usefulness resides in demonstrating "feminine" skills</li><li>Subjectively: there is less evidence.<br /></li></ul> <span style="font-weight: bold;">Coded Gay movie</span><br /><ul><li> Movie is chiefly about the relationship between two (or more) same-gender protagonists.</li><li>The relationship is sexual, and probably (but not necessarily) romantic.</li><li>Female characters are present:</li><ul><li>as narrative villains, or</li><li>as emotional antagonists</li></ul><li>Female characters display "masculine" attributes (dress) or skills</li><li>Subjectively: there is more evidence.<br /></li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;">Possibly gay, possibly not</span><br /><ul><li> Movie is chiefly about something else entirely</li><li>An important aspect of the movie is the relationship between two (or more) same-gender protagonists.</li><li>The relationship is non-sexual, and not necessarily romantic<br /></li><li>Female characters are present both as narrative villains and emotional antagonists AND as allies.<br /></li><li>Female characters can display "masculine" or "female" attributes<br /></li><li>Subjectively: evidence inconclusive<br /></li></ul>I feel a book coming on, oh yes I do!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-47094081532168247132009-12-07T04:42:00.000-08:002009-12-09T03:07:07.246-08:00Victim (1961)All sorts of reasons, but chiefly due to my interest in censorship and classification: it was the first English language film to use the word "homosexual" and it was banned in America for a year. It's an exercise in soapbox noir - one of the many 1960s films taking advantage of greater social freedoms and less restrictive censorship. Our hero - think Atticus Finch as played by Gary Cooper - is attempting to bring down blackmailers who were responsible for the death of his sort-of-boyfriend. Along the way, he meets an ever growing number of other closeted fellows being blackmailed, while all the time the noose gets tighter around his own neck.<br /><br />Before the film could be made, the BBFC went through the script and removed four lines - including our hero's tame-but-still-shocking admission that he "wanted" a particular young man. Three of them later snuck back in. The internet claims the film is part of the reason public opinion changed, and parliament got moving on changing the laws which still threw people in jail - things finally got straightened out in 1967.<br /><br />It's sympathies are loudly announced very early on: "Victim", of all names. Normally, that's the type of thing I couldn't stomach - and there are one or two points where characters as good as turn to the camera and present a charity appeal - but it's redeemed by being brilliant, heartbreaking and featuring the ever yummy Dirk Bogarde as an Englishman in distress. The heroism on screen is matched by the heroism of the actors and production team, for creating a potentially career-ruining piece of cinema - the list of people who turned down roles is long and legendary.<br /><br />Despite its significance as a gay movie, it is perhaps most interesting for the ways it is, to modern audiences, repressed and representative of a different era. It's made very clear that Dirk Bogarde is "one of the good ones". He is linked with two men in the movie, but both are from the past: we never see him interact with them on screen. And lest our imaginations run away from us, we are also told he was as pure as ice and chaste as snow with both of them, breaking off both relationships to save himself from temptation. This would be regarded as rather a mixed message nowadays, but in context makes sense: why risk alienating your audience? Prof Dyer, who taught me last year, suggests "Victim" also refers to the gay underground as "victims" not only of blackmail, but also of their biology - and indeed, the film does reinforce the idea that the poor devils just can't help it. The idea of it being a valid lifestyle choice is a very long way off. Much of the action tellingly takes place in the West End, and I think the presentation of the Mrs deserves study. I also wonder what audience reactions at the time were like.<br /><br />Enough on the background, what of the film? Heartbreaking. Soul destroyingly, life crushingly heartbreaking. And an awful lot of fun. Comes recommended.<br /><br /><br />In other news: Why have I only just heard about "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sea_Wolves">The Sea Wolves</a>"? Surely, if someone was filming <span style="font-style: italic;">Guns of Navarone - Wild Geese</span> crossover flicks, I should have been informed?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-29326280439487481502009-11-04T02:26:00.000-08:002009-11-04T02:31:36.786-08:00I love it when a plan comes together!Then:<br /><br />http://www.grudge-match.com/Images/A-Team.jpg<br /><br />Now:<br /><br />http://media2.slashfilm.com/slashfilm/images/ATEAM_REV_01_10-10-09.jpg<br /><br />I love the new image - just close enough, yet at the same time updated. With the addition of Mr Copley to the cast, my hopes are now fairly high for this big screen remake. I know nothing of Mr Rampage, but 3/4 aren't bad.<br /><br />I am concerned they are going to make it more serious - I like the TV show silly. It's my break from serious and heartbreaking drama. But hell - I'm never gonna argue with a men on a mission movie, whatever the tone. Roll on!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-83137726655148830672009-10-19T05:17:00.000-07:002009-10-19T05:21:21.104-07:00Another bad memoryI treated a friend to <span style="font-style: italic;">High Plains Drifter</span> last night. She's a big fan of Nick Cave, and "Red Right Hand" has always reminded me of this film. It had occured to me that, as an activist, she would be a bit put out by the rape scene which casually shows up five minutes in, but it bothered her so much that it set me musing. I don't think she's going to get on with my arch-favourite genre in the long run.<br /><br />Because as I attempted to defend the film, it occured to me that I can't think of a single rape-free western. <span style="font-style: italic;">Once Upon a Time in the West, For a Few Dollars More, Ballad of Cable Hogue, Sholay - </span>even <span style="font-style: italic;">Paint your Wagon</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">Unforgiven</span> passes, but then it does cut a hooker to ribbons in scene one; <span style="font-style: italic;">Open Range</span> also passes, but it's interminable so you still wouldn't want to watch it. <span style="font-style: italic;">Rio Bravo</span>, I think, is OK. I don't recall anything in <span style="font-style: italic;">3:10 to Yuma</span> - but the threat is definitely there. Maybe <span style="font-style: italic;">Blazing Saddles</span>.<br /><br />But certainly violence against women is ever-pervasive in the genre. Why is it there? The Western works in tropes more than perhaps any other genre. All movies have their cliches - fat cops with donuts,the hardnosed detective with a drink addiction and rubber duck, the passionate journalist who just can't hold down a relationship. But these things are all modern - the writer can, if he likes, meet some journalists, detectives or cops and learn about the genuine professions. He can't meet a cowboy.<br /><br />And while he could do some research - well, it's not like writing about the Infanta, or the Wars of the Roses. It's the Tarantino school of movie writing - the Western exists mostly through fiction. Very much like the way Jack the Ripper has come to stand for whole styles and ideas, despite the fact he was once a rather desperate human being in need of serious help.<br /><br />The Wild West heroes are America's Arthurian knights - mythic and archetypal. Even revisionist westerns play against the idealised rendition. You know who they are: the lanky coffinmaker who can measure up a body as soon as it rides into town; the lone gunfighter; the profit-driven cowboss/ mining director/ railroad magnate; the honest homesteader; the whiskery beer-sot who periodically spits in the dust. Oh, and the sherrif. I'm sure essays have been written about how this represents aspects of the American psyche. And then for the girls, unsurprisingly enough, there are Madonnas and Whores: dumpy schoolmistresses or vicar's wives, and dancing girls, waitresses and hookers with a heart of gold.<br /><br />It is a harsh and horrible world, westerns want to tell us, populated by fallen people of both genders. Rape is a mode of interaction justified by the setting and the style - because without exception, the world of the western is a very violent one. Shootings, floggings, abandonment in the desert without water, being dragged behind horses, hung, beaten to death with bricks, blown up, dropped down mine shafts, being fed to ants and live burial happen all the time - so does theft, extortion and crimes of all colours. So should we really be surprised that violence gets directed at women as well? Calypso herself admitted that her distaste was hypocritical, considering Clint had gunned down a room of fellows minutes earlier. And part of me wanted to say, "this movie has someone stabbed through the neck with a sharp stick then left to suffocate as blood gurgles up through his throat", but at the same time I do understand exactly what she meant - one was worse than the other. Maybe it's like why "positive discrimination" against whites is justifiable (sort of) because they are not a marginalised group - in other words, violence against women does seem worse because it's still horribly pervasive in the modern world and needs to be treated as sensitively as any other form of movie-hate.<br /><br />Or maybe it doesn't bother me as much, becuase it's written into my book of wild west expectations? Because it's also a trope - like the Rush To The Airport or Climactic Gunfight.<br />Calypso expects westerns to feature fellows getting shot, but would be surprised if killer crabs demolished the one-horse-town in the second reel, or our hero suddenly developed superpowers. Because I have watched a lot of westerns, my definition of the genre is wider and more complex, so casual rape is something I do half expect of the genre.<br /><br />Sergio Leone said "The west was made by violent, uncomplicated men", and the western is a violent, uncomplicated genre. The location is out in the wild, and as such is liberated from the ethics, the hypocritical etiquette and mores of civilised Victorian life. There is a focus on the natural world - sweeping mountains, deserts - suggesting humans who have gone "back to nature" - and as such, all the characters are operating on primal urges. Thus the fellows are all manly macho men - hard drinkers who live to shag and shoot. I can only name you a single Western in which the hero chooses to drink milk.<br /><br />Maybe this is at the root of problem of depicting women. Something like the Ents and the Entwives. In <span style="font-style: italic;">The Two Towers, </span>Treebeard explains that the Ents liked to wander the wilds, while the Entwives liked to stay in one place, to garden and to tame the wilderness. They fell out because the Entwives wanted to civilise while the Ents wished to roam free. And thus: the message of western seems to be that actually, men fare better like this - whether it be the romanticism of Johns Wayne and Ford or the loners at one with the land who populate Sergio Leone's output. The minority of male characters in a western will be dressed in ties and starched colllars - most will be dressed down, whether honest farmers or good fer'nothings. Whereas women wear proper Victorian dresses - wondering where Wild West women get their immaculate hairdos is the oldest joke in the film studies department.<br /><br />So it's the same dichotomy of the Ents - while the Men are relishing this return to nature, Leone's "simplicity", Women want to civilise the West and make it more like home. Women are resisiting their location, while Men are fitting into it. Optimistic old-school Westerns paint a romantic image of a simpler, better age, when men were men, where you knew where you stood and so on. Pessimistic Westerns are more likely to tell you that this is the true face of humanity - but in both cases, Man is right in accepting this natural state. You don't get many westerns which end with the hero deciding it's not for him and that he'll return to the big city. Interesting dichotomy here too - many westerns are about progress, but the message seems to be one that simpler is best.<br /><br />There's an inherent criticism, then, in the behavior of women in Westerns - all of whom are in denial about embracing the natural world. I seem to have accidentally argued around the other thing Calypso really objected to, and I do not suggest for a moment that she's wrong in objecting. It was the way the women, after some token resistance, melted onto Clint Eastwood. Because they "secretly wanted it". At the time I said "well it's <span style="font-style: italic;">Clint Eastwood</span> for goodness sakes", but now I've had it out on paper I think I get it. Wild West Men are simple and honest, and as discussed above, have embraced their primal urges - want woman, have woman, have woman now. Wild West Women are rarely shown in this fashion. They are civilised, but the West is not. They are proud and cling onto their notions of dignity and society which Wild West Men know have no meaning "out here". So maybe the inference is that there is a primal Wild West Woman inside each of them, but one they are supressing under their manners and neat appearance. Or, indeed, in the context of his genre they do indeed secretly want it. Which yes, I would also find very objectionable - <span style="font-style: italic;">outside</span> of my beloved westerns. Which just goes to show that academia can justify anything.<br /><br />There's an essay in here somewhere. And I'm not sure it's as cleancut as all of this. The thing I hate most about academia is the way it has less and less relevance to the subject under discussion. Like the way, in spy movies, spies stop trying to beat the enemy and concentrate on beating the enemy spies instead. While this theory is a nice framework to watch and understand Westerns through, lets be clear about the intents of the filmmakers. Fairly sure, in many cases, the historical setting and genre precedents are justification to show something unpleasant - which we are secretly meant to enjoy watching.<br /><br />And I think I will enjoy westerns less for having it. I don't mind it at all on a film-by-film basis, because all I can think of have a good in-world justifications aside from my highfalutin' ideas about humanity and violence expressed above. So, <span style="font-style: italic;">Butch Cassidy</span> is parodying the trope. <span style="font-style: italic;">High Plains Drifter</span> is about a man who intends to let a small town destroy itself, and what he does in the first ten minutes sets up ripples that influence the course of the film. <span style="font-style: italic;">Once Upon a Time in the West</span> doesn't really have an excuse for everyone treating Jill like shit - but makes up for by making her a very strong woman, maybe one of my favourite film heroines. Incidentally, have you ever thought about the tagline to that film:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"There were three men in her life. One to take her, one to love her, and one to kill her."</span><br /><br />Quite aside from the essay inherent in a tag which defines the female protagonist through the actions of the male characters, have you ever worked out which character is which?<br /><br />Anyway. Tell me what you think.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-88523227904111302542009-10-02T05:56:00.000-07:002009-10-02T06:02:37.811-07:00World Cinema: week 1Welcome back! This semester I'm studying World Cinema and I'll be keeping you updated as I study - partly as revision, partly as rant-space, and partly as an excuse to blog.<br /><br />This week we watched <span style="font-style: italic;">Pather Panchali</span>, and discussed exactly what World Cinema was. Obviously it's a huge catagory, and one bound up with all sorts of politics. How useful is such a term, when it encompasses EVERYTHING ELSE outside of "normal" cinema - which is assumed to be from the West and in English. Does it include Europe? Britain? Or is it merely the "Third World" countries, places with crappy economies, in which case is there any way this is a topic you can discuss politely and without giving offence? It's precicely these touchy grounds regarding nationhood, race and all the rest which made me want to take this course.<br /><br />I'm reminded of a quote I heard pre-Live 8. There was controversy because of the lack of black prescence on stage - so they also held "Africa Calling" on the same day, featuring African artists at the Eden Project. A comedian commented:<br /><br /><blockquote>"We've organised a party for Africa but forgotten to invite any Africans. It's OK - they can come along, but can they stay in the greenhouse?"</blockquote><br />That's key to my understanding of World Cinema. Along with World Literature or World Music, it's a rather limiting pigeonhole seen from a Western perspective. For example, India has had the largest film industry since the 70s - producing 1,000 movies a year. The first Japanese film to escape from Japan was in 1934, despite having produced films for 20 years before that. True national cinema didn't start to emerge until after the war, with 1948 being the first year of the Best Foreign Language Oscar. All this remained rather eletist until the 70s and the rise of the Film Festival, when World Cinema became very prominant. In the 90s, a vote was taken for the most important directors of our time - the two winners were from Taiwan and Iran. In which may become a running theme, I couldn't get their names down fast enough. <a href="http://029atoz.blogspot.com/2009/09/and-then-there-was-world-cinema.html">A good, short history of trends in World Cinema</a> can be found here.<br /><br />So it's a ludicrous term when you think of it, and maybe that's why I'm gonna spend the next eight weeks attempting to define it.<br /><br /><br />My chief association for World Cinema <span style="font-weight: bold;">encompasses non-mainstream.</span> When Oceanic's German pen friends came over, I was looking forward to having a good natter about German cinema - and was disappointed to discover I'd seen more German films than they had. When I reflected on this, I considered that most Brits don't watch British cinema either - we are far more likely to be exposed to films from America, or made with an American co-production. British National Cinema - <span style="font-style: italic;">Billy Liar, Alfie, This is England</span> - is far more the preserve of the film literate than the general public. For this reason, I now think of indie British movies as World Cinema, exposing a view of what "normal cinema" is as not just Western-centric, but Hollywood-centric.<br /><br />This is especially interesting when compared to <span style="font-style: italic;">Pather Panchali</span> - one of the Great Masterpieces of Indian Cinema by Great Director Satyajit Ray. But the film is in Bengali, a language spoken by only 5% of the population, and had little relevance to regular Indian cinemagoers. The popular cinema of India is, as you know, "Bollywood", which is produced in Urdu, Tamil or Hindi. The film ran for seven weeks in India - in the US, it ran for eight months.<br /><br />One of the qualities of World Cinema picked out was how this seemed more "real" than <span style="font-style: italic;">Sholay</span> -<br />and indeed the film was criticised within India for it's depiction of poverty, but again this is something I associate far more with independant/arthouse cinema. Mainstream cinema self-censors - it's not reality, it's the common consensus sold back to us. Pick any marginalised group and you know their depiction will be lacking. Look at the lack of interesting female characters, <a href="http://alisonbechdel.blogspot.com/2005/08/rule.html">the Bechdel Wallace test</a>, all the roles as sex object or token girlfriend, the absence of protagonists who are just female and get on with it. We're a long way from screaming and falling over, but the principle remains the same: woman, as represented by film, bears little relation to woman in real life. There's another overlap with social realism - it has always had a mission to faithfully represent the under-represented.<br /><br />And <a href="http://unseenhook.blogspot.com/2009/05/in-which-i-wait-film-studies-2.html">one of the things I criticised the genre for last year</a> was the way it purports to be life, and yet is no less fake. The documentary style pre-conditions us to accept what we see as truth - people commented on the tottery "auntie", and how she seemed to be not acting but real. But it is a constructed a version of India - as I mentioned above, in a language only 5% of the population speak, depicting a single lifestyle. It isn't, and doesn't attempt to be, representative. Yet it's taken as realistic compared to, say, <span style="font-style: italic;">Sholay</span> - merely because the second seems fake.<br /><br />Does world cinema have <span style="font-weight: bold;">a duty to represent</span> itself? I'm reminded of the French brothers who made <span style="font-style: italic;">Le Fils</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">L'Enfant</span>, who always shoot with a sense of community - portraying a very specific group of people, despite the universality of their themes. Yet I'm not sure any film can escape representation. A spy thriller from Japan will share common themes with one from America, but even without trying, the Japanese will make a film about their conception of spying, and so will the Americans, and something gets represented all the same. Even <span style="font-style: italic;">High School Musical</span> successfuly depicts the experience of being in an American high school - contrast it with <span style="font-style: italic;">The History Boys, The Wave</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Battle Royale. </span>At the same time, <span style="font-weight: bold;">I don't think any film could be completely representative of a country</span> - I'll be interested to hear any suggestions you might have to the contrary. Of course, "all art is quite useless" - I would have high disdain for any film that set out to be didactic first and fiction, or at any rate cinema, second.<br /><br />Perhaps part of the appeal in World Cinema is this representation - appreciation of things strange and exotic. We can't help but view foreign cinema as foreigners. An obvious statement, but nevertheless a true one. We enjoy universal human emotions (love, hate and the rest), while also experiencing the strange - whether that be mannerisms, customs or merely costume and appearance. <span style="font-style: italic;">Pather Panchali</span>, for example, is a detailed depiction in the life of an ordinary family. In other words, it's social realism - everything from the style to the subject matter screams it. A genre I detest with a firey passion. I understand it is well made and Important - with my brain but not my heart. Where is the fun in watching real life? I get enough of that when not at the movies. Truffaut, rather spitefully, commented on <span style="font-style: italic;">Pather Panchali</span> that "I don’t want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands." And while that's a mean and small minded<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pather_Panchali#cite_note-filmifunda-38"><span></span></a> view to take towards anything, if he had applied it to British realism and said "I don't want to see a movie of Cockney housewives cooking chips" I might have more sympathy.<br /><br />So on some level I was appreciating it as a documentary, because as mentioned above, it seemed "real". And yet the exotic depiction of life also appealed to me - little things like keeping money wrapped in a sari, and <span style="font-style: italic;">yes</span> Truffaut, eating rice with their hands. Had it been made in Britain - and the tropes are the same, from the struggling housewife to the layabout father - I'd have found it interminable.<br /><br />There is maybe something a little patronising in this connection to European realism. From the 50s-70s, Ray <span style="font-style: italic;">was </span>Indian cinema for cine-snobs in the West. This was nothing unusual for that time - most countries outside Hollywood were filtered through one or two directors - and arguably it is still done today (China? <span style="font-style: italic;">Crouching Tiger</span>. Japan? Anime. Brazil? <span style="font-style: italic;">City of God</span> e.t.c...). Ray learnt filmmaking from Jean Renoir (France), he adored <span style="font-style: italic;">The Bicycle Thieves</span> (Italy), and his greatest influence was a year spent watching movies in London. Obviously globalisation means nothing grows in a vaccum, but what Europe praised coming out of India was a cinema that Europe had invented. It took far longer for the all-singing, all-dancing, and totally unique Indian cinema to be appreicated.<br /><br />(Or is this just my Western perspective? As someone used to British Social Realism, I am boxing it as such, but missing all sorts of layers and influences which an Indian audience would understand? Tricky tricky.)<br /><br />Again, this makes sense in context. 30 years ago, all academics wanted to talk about were auteurs - arty, irrelevant movies. Recently, there has been a rise in "genre studies" - in other words, studying films that normal people watch. So the move from Ray to accepting "Bollywood" matches a global trend.<br /><br />But there is a danger here with foreign cinema - because what is foreign anyway in this day and age? Tarantino can make <span style="font-style: italic;">Kill Bill</span>, and Edgar Wright <span style="font-style: italic;">Hot Fuzz</span>, even though the obvious properties would identify one as "Japanese" and the other "American". Do we enjoy the World Cinema we do precicely because appeals to the West? Either accidentally, or consciously made for export?<br /><br />So, back to my first definition - it's not a place but a state of mind. It's not necessarily about where the producers come from, but the underlying ideology and the snobs who consume it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-49112291120408706132009-09-24T06:32:00.000-07:002009-09-24T06:33:57.446-07:00Si-len-ci-o...!Until 9 o'clock last night, David Lynch was my Favourite Director Whose Films I<br />Haven't Actually Seen. He'd inherited the title from Werner Herzog, and Quentin Tarantino before him, and I'm curious to see who comes along next.<br /><br />Because last night, we watched <em>Mullholland Drive</em> - the closest thing there is to a dream on screen, and marvellous exercise in "<em>Ghost Light</em>" cinema. <em>Ghost Light</em> being an episode of Doctor Who, its incomprehensibility on par with it's beauty.<br /><br />I have the same feeling for it's mysteries as I do for <em>Blade Runner</em>. The director has made a film with an ambiguity, and thus you are meant to appreciate the ambiguity. If he had meant it to be solved, he would have solved it. As it stands, I think the director means to give us headaches, no more, and is having on with the promise that it "makes sense". He generously gives us ten "clues" in the DVD case, such as "Where is Aunt Ruth" and "notice appearances of the red lampshade", to muddy the issue further. I don't think there needs to be an explanation - to be beautiful and enigmatic is enough. It makes sense on a thematic, sensory level - if not on a logical one.<br /><br />If I had to pitch for a theory, I'd say parallel realities that are in a constant loop. The blue box represents shifting from one reality to another, and these events have been played out again and again. Turning the key resets the world, and shifts you to the other one. A bit <em>Sliding Doors</em>, and a bit <em>Run Lola Run</em>, and a bit like <em>Donnie Darko</em> in the way the two realities bleed into one another. It reminds me of a story, but I haven't put my finger on which yet. I'd also say the most important clue on the list is number five - "who gives a key, and why?" - but don't bother your head with the "can you hear the title of the film that Adam Kesher is auditioning actresses for? Is it mentioned again?" , because I knew from the start they wouldn't mention it once. I'm also intrigued by the Adam-Cowboy subplot, partly because it does seem to have something solvable about it. The Cowboy says, if he chooses Camilla, he will see him once more - if he doesn't, he will see him twice. Adam sees Betty across the room at casting and is obviously fascinated, and if Betty had auditioned then he would have picked her. Instead, she runs - he casts Camilla - and you do see the Cowboy once more, in the second reality, where he has physically picked Camilla over Betty.<br /><br />I was reminded of it when Calypso read me one of Freud's nuttier essays for a laugh. To him, the box represents the female, and also represents death, and in turn, leads to the two fundamental parts of life - the necessity of death and the choice of love. Which is all fruitcakes, especially in the context he was describing it, but it reminded me of the film in several ways. Cinematically, the portmanteau tale reminded me of the Coen brothers at times. It was also a clear precursor to <em>Donnie Darko</em> - not so much the weirdness as the similar soundscape. Oh, the sound! I've never seen a movie with such marvellous sound design before. Very beautiful and strange. As was the sense of dreamlike timelessness - somewhat like Tarantino: he makes modern movies, but with such a retro feel that I am always shocked when characters pull out a mobile or ipod a la <em>Death Proof</em>. Betty is going for a consciuous Grace Kelly thing, but Rita is almost vampiric - as if she had walked straight out of a black and white movie, and had yet to regain all her colour. Her look is just so classical, and creepy.<br /><br />I'm intrigued by the total control he has over his actors. Total. One of the reasons I'm not always enchanted with film is the concept of control. So, in a book you have total control over every aspect except your audience's imagination - in a comic, you can determine what things look like but have less control over, say, internal monologue or describing the way people speak. In films, you can't determine exactly the look of your actors, nor their performance - actually, they may take your meaning and twist it utterly. David Lynch has them like puppets on strings - a lot of the expressions and manners of speaking, to me at least, seem to come straight from his imagination. I can't define it. It's wonderful.<br /><br />I want to write an essay about how watching cinema changes you physically. The way people change when watching violence, sex or something scary or romantic. For example, I heat up when watching something scary, and when I am really, really enjoying a film, I discover my breathing rate tends to slow -which is something that did happen while watching. Calypso is a fine person to watch cinema with - she instinctively understands that a movie should be 90% total silence, and 10% movie trivia. Contrary to what you might expect, if nothing pressing is going on, I don't mind interruptions to point out that character X is being played by the director's estate agent, or shot Y is a tribute to an obscure film no one has actually seen. Of course, this percentage changes depending on the nature of the film, but I was intrigued to discover it started life as a TV show. Might explain where all the exposition went.<br /><br />As it was, it is brief and self contained. Mysterious. Beautiful. Silencio!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-1870400983453765412009-03-07T16:17:00.000-08:002009-03-07T16:19:59.950-08:00You keep calling me Walter. I don't like you.So, at seven in the evening a film studies friend, obviously having spotted the bloody-smiley I've been sporting all week, asked "Watchmen's been out all day, have you seen it yet?" No, but I was just on the way to the IMAX. He wasn't a big fan of 300 (Jesu, is it only me?), and commented "if it doesn't amount more to a pretty picture, then at least you want to see it on IMAX so it's a really pretty picture."<br /><br />Fair assessment, but I knew like I've never had faith in anything before, that it had to be good.<br /><strong>The following review contains spoilers, please don't read it. </strong><br /><br /><br />Quid dicam? This film could not have been better. That's not to say it's the best film I've ever seen, far from it. But as an adaptation of Watchmen, it is everything I hoped.Every character inhabits their part perfectly, except maybe Ozymandeus and we'll come to that in a minute. Dr Manhattan is brilliantly realised - the little twitches of emotion on an emotionless face is just brilliant. Comedian and Rorschach, who I can only define as my two favourite things in the comic, are spot-on perfect. I mean, there's nothing more to say than that - they could have walked off the page. Ach, hell - everyone's good.<br /><br />But Ozymandeus...Adrian Veidt of the books is such an all-American hero. He needs to be played by someone charasmatic, someone you know would jump out of a helicopter for you without even thinking. A young Robert Redford would be perfect. Now, Matthew Goode's intepretation was widely different to mine, incorrect if you ask me. Yet he did what he was trying to do very well, even if we disagree on characterisation, and I give him permission to play Dorian Gray whenever he likes.<br /><br />The pacing was what I really worried about, and it's fine. The narrative constructs itself as a series of flashbacks, which is initially a little jarring, until you realise that's what it's doing. There are probably about 8 or 9 flashback sequences in the film, and they're there to colour the main narrative. And do so wonderfully. It's so deliberately episodic that it might have benefited from Tarantino style headings: "Mr White" and all.<br /><br />As such, it's not so much a story constructed through plot but connections and symbols. Take the knowingly cliched soundtrack: Vietnam is scored to, what else, Ride of the Valykiries. President Nixon and his cabal plot nuclear war on the set of Dr Strangelove. We're operating in a parallel timeline, but the music instantly takes us back to our folk memory of our equivalent era - Sounds of Silence, Bob Dylan, 99 Luftballoons. And that's combined with things like Pat Buchanan and Andy Warhol, even more cultural icons, to let us know where we are. Just don't try and excuse the use of Hallejulah in a scene which was already pretty poor.<br /><br />You don't even miss the squid. The concept of alien invasion works in the comic, because it's a comic about comics, and comics were always keen into their outer-space stories. It would have felt odd in the film. As an adaptation, this is how it's done, because it's so detail-rich and you know there was more. They lose half Rorschach's origin story, cut my favourite line, snip all over the shop - but the film still feels like a complete entity. I can't wait for the director's cut - apparently, there's going to be three ultimately: the two hours and forty minutes theatrical cut, the three hours and twenty minutes director's cut, and the four hours and thirty minutes ultimate cut, which has pretty much everything in there, including Tales of the Black Freighter.<br /><br />But they did get some things wrong. I missed Hollis' death. I love both Nite Owls, and it's an important scene. The film could have easily been ten minutes longer to fit that in. With Hollis having been introduced, it's almost certainly been shot. They cut some of my favourite lines: I particularly missed Rorschach scolding Moloch for having a gun without a license. It cements the fact he sees all crime as equally wicked. Rorschach with the hacksaw? It was an awesome scene up until then, but it's not quite as twisted as what he does in the graphic novel (covers him in petrol, hands him a hacksaw, and advises him he probably shouldn't bother trying to cut through the handcuffs before pulling out a match). And the last fifteen minutes dropped the ball, horribly. They get to Karnak and...the ending has to be a kick in the gut. When I read Adrian use the phrase "half an hour ago" I dropped the book and burst into tears, justlikethat, in a way no comic has ever done, and very very few books. The film loses the impact, and I don't know why. And then you turn the page, and there's this full-page panel of a street filled with bodies and death. Then another, and another, and you just keep turning pages and there's nothing but death and silence. It's an awesomely powerful sequence, and an obvious candidate to keep - but they cut it. I don't understand why.<br /><br />And they managed to make that whole bit at the end into one of those superhero endings which just keep fizzling in little events. It almost worked - particularly a key character claiming not to be a villain from a superhero comic. You could feel an indrawn breath across the whole audience, and this was an audience of fans, most likely all of whom had read the comic at least twice. But then they let the tension go again. The final scene of Laurie and Dan even lacked impact, and they needed about an extra 30 seconds to allow the true horror, genius and even meaning of Ozy's actions. In addition, I think the film was a little too overt in its condemnation of said actions. He's not a bad guy. I think it's telling that the last fifteen minutes were also those containing the most changes. It just lacks meaning, and it didn't feel real. Too rushed, I think.<br /><br />A lot of people criticised it for a lack of depth. I understand them, to an extent - but it's only a film, and it did its best. And there were good changes too. It made sense for Ozymandeus to do the speaking at the meeting when Comedian burns the map. Although I missed Kitty's half of Rorschach's backstory, I appreciate it had to go - at that point in the film, the emphasis has to be on moving forward.<br /><br />I mean, I'm only nitpicking because on the whole it was wonderful. Jesu, people! It's <a href="http://io9.com/5165227/the-version-of-watchmen-the-studio-wanted">stayed true </a>to the book's filthy darkness. Stylistically it's deliberately taken beats from the comic. The score is excellent - on the way to the IMAX, I kept thinking "I'm looking forward to the music", because I knew it had to ditch broad orchestrals in favour of electronica and ambient moodiness. Which it did, most of the time, to great effect. I'm listening to "Edward Blake - Comedian" at present, and it's taken obvious inspiration from Blade Runner. It's detail rich - you need several watches to take in the visuals, never mind the plot. Rorschach's mask - it's just so watchable. I particularly love it when it goes nuts. The hacksaw scene, the shapes just fly all over it. And when he gets thrown across the room, the shapes fly into chaos until he rights himself. The highlight of the film? Rorschach's escape from the apartment block. You're just rooting for him so, so, so much. Even those of us who know he's not going to make it.<br /><br />Things to look out for? In the comic, Rorschach muses that Adrian is possibly homosexual (with a distinctly disapproving tone) - if you keep your eyes peeled when Dan checks the floppy disk, one of the folders on it is labelled "boys". That made me chuckle. IMDB claims the graphic novel suggests Rorschach is gay, but that strikes me as very unlikely considering the distaste he regards sex with full stop, and also a pointless line of investigation: can you imagine Rorschach with a date? No, thought not. Rorschach also uses a Vedit aerosol when breaking out of Moloch's house. In the prison break, someone uses a wilhelm scream when they are dropped off a balcony. Finally, when Laurie and Dan are at the Gunga Diner, you can see pink triangles on the wall - surely they're the Gay Women Against Rape posters from the comic?Interestingly, the<br /><br />Aint it Cool review has virtually identical things to say to<br />me:<a href="http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40339">http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40339</a>And it's helped me to understand what was missing at the end. I am looking forward to<br /><br />"Oh, and that when you go to see the movie this weekend, you won't be watching Jackie Earl Haley -- Jackie Earl Haley will be watching you."<br /><br />And I've settled down to what I believe is the most jarring aspect of the Watchmen movie, it's not in the spoilerific section because it's of general interest. Me back on my personal hobbyhorse: Too. Violent.<br /><br />There are three types of movie violence, broadly speaking.<br /><br />There's Type 1 "gore" - not very realistic, completely excessive, and designed to produce a football-supporter-style "phwoar!!" reaction. Planet Terror, 300 and Street Fighter are perfect examples. You are meant to visibly wince, and after the film it's appropriate to go "ah, you remember the bit where the guy's head went into the wood-cutter? That was gross, ma$n!"<br /><br />There's what we'll call Type 2 "kung-fu", although obviously it encompasses all sorts of fights - exciting, viceral, borderline video game, encompassing Star Wars, James Bond and The Matrix. This violence is meant to impress the skill of the fighters on you. Wounds tend to be shrugged off, as are natural reactions: you can be kicked six times in the gut and still be smiling in a Type 2 movie. And so can the audience.<br /><br />And there's Type 3, "realistic". It's debateable whether Type 3 movies are meant to entertain or not - I believe that the vicarious enjoyment of cinema can be extended to very, very unpleasant scenarios as much as happy ones. But this third type sets out to disturb, not in a childish way like Type 1, but in a very real and horrible way.<br /><br />And there are overlaps, of course - the jury is out on whether Reservoir Dogs is a type 3 "realistic" or a type 1 "gore". And I'll be interested if you can provide any films which don't fit into those three, random catagories I just plucked out of the blue, so I can refine my explanation.<br /><br />It's all a problem of semantics, because I'd only actually call Type 3 violent. The most violent scene I've ever seen is in a PG. Our heroes have been kidnapped and lined up against a wall by Character A - except Character B, who's broken his leg, who is lying on a table next along. Character A wants information, but our heroes are naturally too hardass to say anything. So he saunters over the Character B, and just waits. Then he gently rolls the barrel of his gun up the broken leg - obviously intensely painful - and that's it. But it is _violence_ in it's purest form. No excitement, no blood. It's just such a threatening gesture.<br /><br />Incidentally, The Departed is my favourite depiction of film violence of all time, because it is everything it can be, and I believe it expresses the experience better than any other film. It's thrilling, set to a pumping rock soundtrack - and I think there must be something of a thrill in real violence too, otherwise why would it happen, if it wasn't on some level fun? Yet it's also firmly type 3, because it's hard to watch. You want to join in, but you can't look. And every piece of violence in the film tumbles through this contradiction. It's very effective, and I like it a lot.<br /><br />The point of this digression is to bitch about the violence in Watchmen. It's a nasty little book, and the world it's set in is just horrible. True, you're seeing it through the eyes of Rorschach who is undeniably paranoid, and regards humanity as crooked and flawed. I was cheered, then, that it was going to be an 18 because this film needs to be nasty.Bit of a disappointment, because the violence was defiantly Type 1. Cartoonish, bloody and totally OTT. Every time soemthing nasty happened, there was an audible wince from the audience. It jolted you out of the film because type 1 gore is dehumanising. J. said to me afterwards, the worst part was the knife going through the woman's leg.I replied that it wasn't that at all - it was the knife going through a leg, not the woman's leg. The fact it was her as opposed to anyone else was irrelevant.<br /><br />Yes, it was unpleasant but Zack Snyder had never sat back and considered why he was using this violence, what was the purpose. Why, in a film otherwise so grounded in reality, was everything so luridly vicious? Why couldn't it have been a nasty 18, instead of just a splatterific one? From the bone-crunching way the fights were filmed, to the actual colour of the blood, there was something just wrong. Hyper-real, and wrong. It was this aspect, more than anything else (and the fact they cut out my favourite bit), which disappointed me.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-72714660950901631742009-02-23T09:48:00.000-08:002009-02-23T10:52:55.661-08:00Oscar rage!!!!!!!!!Anyone who’s been on my blog before, anyone who’s actually had to go through watching it with me before, will know loathe the Oscars. Yet being a fan of movies, I can’t get away from them – and so I’m not going to be a grown up about this thing I hate, and ignore it. I’m going to be childish and bitch, at some length, at why it is the most trivial, smug and meaningless night of the year.<br /><br /><br />Fans of the concept, with happy naïve ideas that the winner is always the most deserving, should look away now.<br /><br /><br />Firstly – I don’t believe in it in principle, that you can judge five different films and pick a winner. Between five horror films, you can at least pick the best horror film – but between a romance, historical, drama, comedy and horror, how can you even begin? <em>Out of Africa</em> is a better romance than <em>Saw</em> was. Is it a better film? Not remotely! In this contest, <em>Out of Africa</em> is the best film involving lions, Africa and Meryl Streep, and <em>Saw</em> is the best movie about a leg on the floor. Sure, you can prefer one over the other – but I thought the Oscars were about the “best” movie, not a mere popularity contest?<br /><br />Which it blatantly is – how can it not be? – yet it keeps up this façade of rewarding merit. Your vote is almost certainly going to go to the genre you prefer. I love buddy movies, and so I’d naturally enjoy a buddy movie more than a horror movie. Sit me down in front of <em>The Sting</em> and <em>the Exorcist</em>, and I’ll always pick the former, regardless of quality. Same goes for performances, same for music, for costumes.<br /><br /><br />An enterprise which involves this sort of arbritary voting is always going to be a bit crooked, but the Oscars almost turn it into a sport. Isn’t it funny how <strong><u>all five</u> </strong>Best Picture nominees are English or American? Now, of course, this might just be because us superior Westerners make better films than anywhere else in the world – but any sane human can tell you that’s balls. A serious line up for this years best movie might involve one or two English language movies, but would also encompass the variety world cinema has to offer.<br /><br />As soon as you notice there’s rarely a foreign film up for awards, except in a token way, you wonder who the show is for. It’s not like the Korean audience are going to go “ooooh, American films are better than Korean films because they win more Oscars”. No – the institution is designed by Hollywood as an exercise in back-patting and marketing, for the English-speaking audience. To the rest of the world, they’re meaningless. So why should it matter to us?<br /><br /><br />And the Oscar voters love sentiment. Real people. Real lives. Drama, angst – weighty topics. It’s favouritism, not merit. Is a story intrinsically better because it is deep and meaningful than fantastical and frothy? Not a jot! Yet as a body, their votes always reflect a love for Americana, social commentary and above all, a healthy dose of slush.<br /><br />An example. Did Al Pacino win an Oscar for <em>the Godfather</em>, for the widely acknowledged best performance of all time? No. Except if you count the Oscar they gave him for the <em>Godfather</em> in 1993. He received it, supposedly, for <em>Scent of a Woman</em> – but it was Michael Corleone who went on stage to pick it up. Same thing happened with Martin Scorcese and his Oscar for <em>Goodfellas</em>, which he won a few years ago for <em>Gangs of New York</em>. Of course, Al was good in <em>Scent</em>, and the direction was good in <em>Gangs</em>. But that's not what it was about. It was about the sentiment. A friend blog, <a href="http://sldawgs.blogspot.com/">Hilarity Ensues</a>, suggests Meryl Streep and Sean Penn get more nominations for being Streep and Penn than because they actually deserve it.<br /><br />I admit, there's a personal vendetta here too - <em>Titanic</em> won because of the noise it made. Everyone was mad for it! Screaming, crying, fangirls. Again, it won <u>because</u> it was <em>Titanic</em>, for being groundbreaking, for causing such hysteria. Not because it was the best film of that year. Even among epic-tragic-romances-in-pretty-dresses, it's not well regarded. The punchline is the moment it beats <em>L.A. Confidential</em>, one of the most stunningly impressive films I've ever seen, to the best Oscar gong.<br /><br />Now bear with me. One of these films had classy direction, four great central performances, a plot so gorgeously complex that even after five viewings I can't appreciate the detail, and a fantastic, subtle script, which only becomes more impressive when you see the laberynthine source material from which it was adapted. The other one...well, the other one's <em>Titanic</em>.<br /><br />Certainly <em>Titanic</em> is very enjoyable, and if you're a fan of period slush you'll obviously love it more than my precious crime epic. You can't deny it does what it does - ludicrously romantic melodrama - very well, and I'm pretty fond of it in my own way. But on any just system you've got to admit that <em>L.A.</em> C<em>onfidential</em> is a better crime epic than <em>Titanic </em>is a romance.<br /><br />And that was the moment I lost faith in the Oscars. 7/10 movie critics will tell you I'm right. Empire and Total Film both think I'm right. The Imdb list things I'm right.<br /><br />And Oscar history is packed with this - <em>A Beautiful Mind</em> beat <em>Fellowship of the Ring</em>, <em>Chicago</em> beat <em>Two Towers</em>. Look at the above lists. It's not just the Oscars, either - <em>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead</em> beat <em>Goodfellas</em> at Cannes, and see how many film buffs you can find who think that's fair! Here's a whole list: <a href="http://www.filmsite.org/worstoscars.html">http://www.filmsite.org/worstoscars.html</a><br /><br />The point of all this is, <u>people rarely if ever win Oscars because they deserve it</u>. If they do, well, that's nice as well. And if Greatest Director Of All Time Alfred Hitchcock lost all 5 of his nominations, then how can the list mean anything at all?<br /><br /><br />Which brings us around to Mr Ledger, the cause of the rant. You might recall me saying words to the effect of "the Joker was a fantastic role, certainly <u>deserving</u> an Oscar - but if he wins, he'll have won for being dead." And I stand by that.<br /><br />You can say there's never been a superhero film like <em>Dark Knight</em> before (there hasn't, but wait until next week...); you can even say there's never been a peformance like that in a fantasy movie before. But the rule still stands - you don't get actors in fantasy! Actors make films, not movies! It's why Johnny Depp didn't win an Oscar for <em>Pirates of the Carribean: World's End</em>, Ian McKellen didn't get one for <em>Fellowship of the Ring</em>, though both were nominated. "But Johnny Depp and Ian McKellen weren't very good...", to which I say come off it. They never had a chance. Neither were playing schitzophrenic black lesbian single mothers in wheelchairs.<br /><br />Fantasy movies - by which I mean dungeons, dragons, sci fi, superheroes et al - get Oscars for sound design and special effects. Period. Sometimes costume, music if they're lucky, maybe editing.<br /><br /><em>Return of the King</em>, of course, won everything (see: sentimental voting, Al Pacino winning an Oscar on behalf of earlier achievements - the <em>King</em> Oscars were actually for the whole trilogy). It's the only Fantasy film to ever win a best film Oscar, unless you extend the definition to include <em>Around the World in 80 Days</em> or <em>Wings</em>. Same goes for directors - <em>Return of the King</em> is the only one. What about <em>Blade Runner, </em>I ask? What about <em>2001: A Space Odyssey</em>?<br /><br />A 1931 Best Actor Oscar was won for <em>Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde</em>, although that technically comes under mental illness. Someone managed to get Best Supporting Actor and Actress for Cocoon and <em>Fisher King</em> respectively, though both do have strong elements of real life in them. And without meticulously researching the content of every film I've never heard of, that's it for Oscars. Heath Ledger's achievement is even more impressive than previously thought.<br /><br />I was surprised to find myself giving a spontaneous cry of joy at hearing he’d got it after all, instead of rolling my eyes as you might have expected from the rant above. Which just proves that we all get pretty sentimental at times, and I find myself wishing, if only for a moment, that the whole system was fair....Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-37763046366644355652008-12-23T09:34:00.000-08:002008-12-24T02:36:19.245-08:00Adaptation......is felgercarb. I think I've got a handle on what it should be now; all the same, it's an impossible subject, and one currently much on my mind. As indeed is "felgercarb", a nice piece of swearing from original <em>Battlestar Galactica</em>. Oh how times have changed.<br /><br />It is possible to make a perfectly true adaptation, but usually only of very slim books. <em>Age of Innocence</em> - still, believe it or not, my favourite Scorcese - is a word for word transfer. Even descriptive passages are lovingly transferred; even the scene where our hero imagines his love interest walking up behind him. Another one that comes to mind is <em>Brideshead Revisited</em>, the TV show. You'd be hard pressed to find a line missing from that adaptation (well, I can, but only because they had the misfortune to cut my favourite line...).<br /><br />It's also a good 17 hours long, and herein lies the rub. Cuts have to be made. Books are not films, films are not books - it's part of the excitement. If you don't, then you end up with something like Kenneth Branagh's <em>Hamlet</em>, nicknamed "the Eternity version" for good reason. And the film still managed to waltz off with a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, despite the fact he'd done nothing to the script but choose one Folio over another, and juggle the odd soliloquy.<br /><br /><br />I actually handle cuts with some equanimity. As a film student, I understand that a perfect copy of the book is rarely possible, nor even desirable - to an extent, if it's the same as the book, why not read the book? And as PJ justified, Frodo and Sam didn't <u>not</u> go to see Tom Bombadil, they just didn't show it on screen.<br /><br />Changes are worse - for one thing, the author knew what they were doing. By changing small details, other facets of the story fall out of kilter, important themes fall by the wayside - it's the literary equivalent of going back in time and stepping on a butterfly. A personal example is Denethor in <em>Return of the King</em>. This isn't a subject I can speak fairly on - you see, he has always been my favourite character in the books. He's human and flawed, makes some bad decisions, is worn out and weak. But he's not evil - as far as I know, Tolkien never wrote Bad Guys. Saruman is given sympathy; and there are quotes pointing out that even Sauron was not born evil. The film does make him a bad guy - and like that, a whole layer of complexity is gone from the plot. It would have only taken two lines to give him some much-needed motivation. Stories are always better when all the characters are sympathetic.<br /><br />Little things matter less. Does it matter that Gregory Peck plays New-Zealander Mallory as an American in <em>Guns of Navarone</em>? Or that David Niven plays American Dusty Miller as a Brit? Not really, because their characters are preserved. Apparently, the <em>Cirque du Freak</em> fandom is kicking up a fuss because a white girl has been cast as Debbie - again, this is far less henious a crime than, say, making her an ass-kicking Vampire babe, or giving her a terminal illness, or killing her off in a weird way.<br /><br />For me, it's TONE that is the great killer. The Denethor complaint is a tonal one more than anything else - it kills the atmosphere in Gondor. A good example of this is <em>L.A. Confidential</em>, a terrific movie which I respect twice as much through having read the book. Which is significantly different, and about 6 times as complex. Characters are killed in different times and places, names are swopped, subplots dropped and switched. But it still FEELS like the movie of the book, because the tone is so close. The nastiness (nastier in the book, I'll add - it made me feel sick in a way that nothing has since), the corruption, the interweaving plots. Unless you'd been paying great attention to the book, and making notes, your synopsis would be identical to one of the film - something about three policemen, a vice ring, the Victory Motel, the Nite Owl, Piers Patchett, Lynn Bracken. Who has about three pages in the book, but they're memorable ones. The shootout at the Victory happens at the end, instead of the start - but who's counting? Because it's there.<br /><br />Or maybe it's because all these are films I've loved first, which is why I take it well, as opposed to the Denethor case, which I take oh-so-personally.<br /><br /><p>Yet I have said, and with a single exception believe, that no story is unfilmable. There's always a way. I find it hard to imagine people thought <em>Lord of the Rings</em> was unfilmable - it's so cinematic! Look at <em>The Message</em> - a movie about the life of the prophet Mohammed...who isn't allowed to be depicted in art. What do they do? Never show him on screen, and when he and another character are speaking, the other character speaks to the Fourth Wall and falls silent "listening" to his reply. It's genius - crazy, but genius - and the film gets on with it so that you barely notice the daftness. </p><br /><p>If you can get over a main character who's not allowed on screen, you can get away with anything. A lot of people are calling <em>Watchmen</em> unfilmable. They're wrong, and I hope Mr Snyder is going to prove them wrong in the new year. It too is so terribly cinematic - the comic borrows liberally from film techniques, particularly intercutting, but also flashbacks and the use of sound. A lot of the depth will have to go - but like <em>Lord of the Rings</em>, it never hurts to have more material than you need. Because you can feel in the film that Middle Earth is massive and ancient, because of those tiny references. Thus with <em>Watchmen</em> - I think you'll believe the world because those things are cut, but under the surface.</p><p>The single exception is <em>Sandman</em>. Terrific TV show, perhaps, but it'd make a lousy movie, mostly because there's no plot. or rather, lots of plots - <em>Sandman</em> is a twelve volume omnibus of the best fantasy short stories you've ever read, linked by the central character of Morphius, who's basically the god of sleep. The only way to do it justice would be dump it on a freewheeling first time director, who'd be able to capture the ambling from one thread to another.</p><p>A typical issue of <em>Sandman</em> will start with a little story about a man; that man will go to sleep and dream a story, and inside that story there are three characters who sit down and each tell an anecdote about their lives. Maybe an anecdote about storytelling. That's six plots, all equally vital and equally superfluous to juggle. Which is why it can't, and shouldn't be made, except as a <em>Tales from the Crypt</em> style weekly show, filming the longer and better ones. And as soon as you give it to the telly, the budget is unachieveable. <em>Sandman</em> is currently the sole exception to my rule.</p><p>What's got me on this?</p>For one thing, I've been reading <em>Guns of Navarone</em>, and enjoying it immensly. It's one of my very favourite films, and the book doesn't disappoint. As for the film, some cuts - the German patrol thinking Stevens/Franklin is their own missing guard, the boat which gets blown up in the movie searching them twice instead of once - most of which I can justify. Changes, very interesting changes - because the film is actually more complex, where changes are mostly made to simplify the book. For example, film folks will remember Greek tough-guy Andrea had sworn he was going to murder Mallory once the war was over. This element isn't in the book - they're just good buddies. And while Miller puts himself in charge of their injured teammember, Stevens is just a random extra. In the movie, the injured Franklin is also his longterm buddy, adding a layer of complexity and emotion. It's this deep relationship which causes all sorts of tensions and arguments later on, and is directly responsible for the movie's best three scenes. It'll be interesting to see if they're there at all, and how they'll play out in the book. Anna, the girl - I think I already spotted her in the cast, but in the book She is a He. And Jensen's role is cut down almost completely.<br /><br /><br /><br /><div>And then there is the sheer irritation factor of Miller being American - he's my favourite character in the film, because of his crumbling British stoicism, his wry British sarcasm, and the fact he's played by David Niven, who's so British he couldn't locate America on a map. </div><br /><br /><br />What muddies the issue further is that after the success of the film, Alaister McLean wrote <em>Force 10 from Navarone </em>as <strong>its</strong> sequel - which means characters which die in the first book, but survive the first film, are there in the second book. I want to go back to <em>Force 10</em> now - which I read first - and see whether Miller is still an American...<br /><br /><p>I feel the film is a fair interpretation of the book so far. All the major events are there, and the tone is the same - exciting, tense, and heroic. And just bubbling underneath that, the insane mental and physical hardships of war. I'm just looking forward to seeing how they treat those three scenes...<br /><br /></p><br /><p>And also because last night, we went to see <em>Twilight</em>. Against the odds, it wasn't "<em>High School Musical</em> with emos", as I'd feared - it was actually a pretty darn good movie. Especially when you compare it with rival movies for teen girls. This is what set me off - because the vampire novels of my childhood, <em>Cirque du Freak</em> by Darren Shan and its 11 sequels are coming to a cinema near you sooner than I'd like.</p><p>They're very special books - if for no other reason that I reread them last month, and they are still incredible:</p><ul><li>Reinterpretation of vampire legend gets full points. Everyone has their own blend - I'm writing three vampire stories at any one time, and they all conform to <strong>my</strong> rules. If Darren Shan's is the most gritty, it's also the most realistic. Not necessarily a recommendation - after all, I love Anne Rice's gothic aristocracy of the night as much as the next gal. This is a world where the police notice the civil war going on among the undead; where sun exposure can kill you after a while, but gives you the worst suntan in the world first (instead of blowing you up on sight, which is lousy, or making you look like David Bowie, which is worse); and the gamut of vampire powers is restrained by common sense. It must be said that the vampire stories I'm writing only conform to one of these...</li><br /><li>The characters deserve special mention, because I'm not sure exactly what it is or how he does it, but by the time they started getting killed, I <em>really</em> minded. Gavner! Arra! Mr Crepsley! Mr Tall! Kurda! Annie! Debbie! Steve! Lefty! Evra! The book is written from Darren's point of view, so while he's a character you like, it's not the same deep fondness as you aquire for the people around him.</li><br /><li>I've neglected to mention Mr Tiny, mostly because he's just too scary. Great character, but not as adorable. Incidentally, why haven't they cast Sylvester McCoy yet...?</li><br /><li>Aimed squarely at young teenagers, they never patronise and never shy away from being dark, even though the writing style occasionally reminds you you're no longer 8. Yet there are scenes which still upset me, shock me, make me wince and think.</li></ul><p>I'm upset about the movie. Partly, it is true, because <strong><em>I</em></strong> wanted to make it. And it would be incredible. But as I said, it's all about TONE. This is a book for young adults, and they're going to pitch it at children. They'll *ahem* take out the fangs and the blood and grit, and neuter it completely. Which is a shame, because the world has no lack of sanitised kid-fare. To work, it needs to be the same level of intensity as the latest Harry Potter - but no studio is going to take a risk on making it a 12. </p><p>What's worse is that it will suck stylistically. My movie would look <a href="http://www.eugeniorecuenco.com/fichas/732.html">like the photos of my favourite artist</a>, <a href="http://www.eugeniorecuenco.com/fichas/695.html">Eugenio Recuenco</a>, filmed in the style of <em>Night Watch</em>, all deep contrast and dark, sticky blacks, with the occasional splash of intense colour. I adore the whole circus aesthetic, designing the Cirque would be terrific. As would Vampire Mountain. They've moved it from Europe to America - if anything, perhaps this is is better? Our heroes spend the time in anonymous towns and empty nowheres, and America still has a <u>lot</u> of those. </p><p>But they're just going to drown it in CGI, forgetting that Shan-pires aren't magical, romantic or supernatural - they're scarred, earthy, and basically just humans a tiny bit more dead. Not to mention that they'd never let me make their precious child-friendly movie with <a href="http://www.eugeniorecuenco.com/fichas/033.html">these images in mind</a>. My use of CGI would be as limited as possible - as Guillermo del Toro has proved, you can get away with a suprising amount without it. </p><p>It can't all be bad. I do like the fact that they're compressing books 1-3 into one film - even though you could do, say, <em>Tunnels of Blood</em> as a seperate film, setting them all at the same time is much better. In book 1, Darren goes to a circus and as a result becomes a vampire - you can cover that in the first twenty minutes. You could very effectively set book 2 (Sam, the Cirque, R.V. and the Wolfman) and book 3 (Evra, Murlough and Debbie) at the same time, by parking the Cirque near the town where Murlough is. </p><p>More importantly, it sets up a good precedent for the rest of the series, which occurs in natural slim trilogies. Next up come the three at Vampire Mountain - I don't recall the details so clearly, but they could easily make one good movie; what I remember of the hunt for the Vampanize Lord also could do with some heavy trimming.</p><p>I would cast a different boy as Darren in every movie. He's going to have to stay looking young, so instead of having Actor A for three films, and replace him with Actor B just when things get intense, it would be an accepted fact of the series that it will always be someone new. Perhaps it's the <strong>Doctor Who</strong> in my system making me think that this is a Good Thing. Still, it'd make for some interesting comparisons across the series as a whole.</p><p>Most importantly in attaining a unique tone, I'd find a good composer. I do not want someone to think "Children's film - lets have strings and magical flutes!". In the book, vampire music is heavy slow drums. That'd be an interesting sound; or <em>Dark Knight's</em> Joker theme, or anything electronic and offbeat. As little music as we can get away with, and with a composer willing to experiment with sounds.</p><p>Enough of the movie I'm never going to make, and you're never going to see. What about the one we've got. Time for some internet research...</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-79541493634190029852008-12-19T04:27:00.000-08:002008-12-19T06:50:40.918-08:00Just a conspiracy of cartographers...I'm a big fan of absurdist drama - <em>Waiting for Godot</em>, about two men trapped in an endless cycle of waiting under a tree; <em>Rosencrantz and Guldenstern are Dead</em>, about two minor characters trying to work out what's going on, trapped again in the endlessly cycling plot of Hamlet; <em>Six Characters in Search of an Author</em>, again about characters who were abandoned by their author and take on a life of their own.<br /><br />And hundreds more, Pinter and Satre and Camus - those just happen to be the three plays I'm fond of, mostly because they delve into meta-fiction - the idea that fiction isn't real. "No duh", you might be saying - but most films or books expect you to believe them for the duration of consuming them. Wheras characters in an absurdist drama can and do sit down and say "look, I'm not sure we're real..."<br /><br />I find this fascinating. My line between fiction and reality has always been somewhat dodgy - I do believe that as soon as a story has been committed to paper, why shouldn't it be real? It's no less real than reading a story in the newspaper. You can say "yes, but the ones in the newspaper actually happened" - but you have no more proof, except the words on the page. And what is "actually happened" anyway? Your experience of the events is exaclty the same, if not more vivid, in a book. If you were to imagine that your [insert close person] had been run down by a tram, does the fact that they haven't make your feelings of sorrow any less real? You have the emotional experience - you can't throw it away and say it was nothing.<br /><br />I'm going to borrow a line from someone else now, but it's a thought I had independantly too, he just puts it very well. If you ever cried at a film - <em>E.T.</em>, <em>Top Gun,</em> <em>Casablanca</em> - while a "real life" tragedy has left you unmoved, then what the hell is the difference? Sure - you feel <u>bad</u> about the war/famine/disease/disaster, but in a distant, "bad things happen", nothing I can do to help way. You can't do anything to help E.T. either, mate. Because he's not real. So why are you reaching for kleenex?<br /><br />With that in mind, and if you're not already calling men in nice shiny white suits to take me away, you can understand why I'd find metatheatre fascinating.<br /><br /><br />And so we come onto <em><u>Knife in the Water</u></em>, a film I positively loathed throughout for various reasons I'll discuss in a minute, until it got to the end and I realised what it was. Absurdist drama!<br /><br />Look at the hallmarks - mundane, repetitive dialogue. Pointless plot. A location without time, personality, or recognisable features. We're pretty sure it's Poland, and at one point we know it's 5AM. But apart from that, it could be anywhere. And the time/place is meaningless anyway, as the characters are archetypes, one without a name. The Hiker comes and goes out of nowhere, as if he has spent his entire existance waiting by that roadside, and ceases to exist as soon as he gets off the boat. Imagine he's a ghost if you like, only there to spark off the situation. He's a walking plot device. When Andrzej swims off, he seems to disappear. Because they're characters who have no life outside the immediate story.<br /><br />They do mention other people - the seamen, some parents, the man who could beat Andrzej at jacksticks. But the Hiker's backstory is conveyed only through Krystina's surmises, she has no backstory at all, and all we know about Andrzej is that he is successful, and there's an abstract "meeting" he needs to be at. We see no one else, and no proof of anyone else, in the film. Andrzej himself seems to be conscious of this - assuming the windscreen wipers won't be pinched. Who would steal them? Everyone in that world is on the boat. Which makes their later theft even more surreal.<br /><br />Even if you don't agree with me, see at least that they are sailing through an empty world. Someone on IMDb suggested that they already knew each other, and I can see where they're coming from: they do seem to be aware of something out of the ordinary. I found the characterisation very uneven and bizzare, as if Andrzej knows he has to invite the guy aboard, even though there's no good reason for him to do so.<br /><br />The film ends as it begins, preparing the boat, driving off, driving on the road, and you know nothing has changed. The Hiker will stay a daredevil showoff. The couple will stay married. It's my avowed opinion that the three of them are stuck together in this empty, foggy nowhere - emphasised most strongly by the final shot of the car paused at the crossroads. You just know they're going to be there forever. If they went looking for the police, can you imagine them actually finding them?<br /><br />Even if you don't go as far as me, you can't deny it does have overlaps with the absurdist/existentialist genre. Certainly, looking at the story that way gives an added layer of interest to a film which really, I did not think much of.<br /><br /><br />It's only 90 minutes - that's shorter than <em>Reservoir Dogs</em> - but boy does it drag. They eat. They posture. They squabble, in a masculine way, about pretty much everything. Sure, it's minimalist, and I appreciate the mounting tension is meant to be gradually conveyed in looks and mundane lines. But something gets lost in translation, and perhaps the fact I knew what they were trying to do dulled its impact on me. It doesn't build and simmer, just comes and goes. Every time the titular knife was produced, it should have produced absolute terror. Maybe it does on other people. When it comes to the climax, it should be at a point where violence is unavoidable and the only solution. Actually, it seems arbritary, like someone is telling the characters that it's time to wrap the story up.<br /><br /><br /><br />I can see it has merit, and I wish I could appreciate it - but it missed me on an emotional level entirely. Which is in itself a facet of absurdism, a deliberate distancing. I think it wants to be "psychologically taut" - for me, the technical term is actually "boring".<br /><br /><br />Krystina was by far the most interesting character, and that only when compared to the last fifteen minutes. Having been unimpressed with its attempts at raising tension, when things actually started happening it did get good. I loved the quiet way Krystina asserted her authority over both of them, after all the showing off; I loved Andrzej's guilt for something he hasn't done, and the fact his pride can't admit Krystina cheated. In my opinion, the film would have been better for getting here half an hour sooner.<br /><br /><br />It's very nice too look at, however. Polanski was trained as a photographer, and you can tell because the cinematography is just beautiful. You got a real sense of the heat, and the stillness, or the fog, or the rain. All was let down, however, by that godawful music. It must be said I'm not the words greatest fan of jazz, especially that noisy style, but every time it comes in it's loud and intrusive and makes me want to die. Again, I think the atonality is deliberate; it doesn't change the fact it doesn't work for me.<br /><br /><br /><br />The question is, was it <u>written</u> as absurdist drama? Probably not. Mind you, there are plenty of people who are hot on the religious symbolism - most tellingly, the Hiker's crucifixion pose, the walking on water and the boat's name framed often so it merely says "Christ". A flawed theory, I think - because it's meaningless symbolism. The Hiker is not a Jesus figure, in no way (he carries a knife, no discussion needed), and what then does the imagery add to the movie? Roman Polanski has completely rejected that angle; and anyway, isn't he Jewish...?<br /><br /><br />..while TIME magazine describes it as a trip in a Freudian sloop; and I think you could make a lot of the Oedipal angle - the Hiker's poem is about his mother, and Krystina making sure he eats, tucking him in, drying his hair, is motherly behavior.<br /><br /><br />So why, then, should I not cling to my theory? It's the only way I can find to appreciate this movie...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-20791675202099851762008-12-07T09:18:00.000-08:002008-12-07T09:41:15.917-08:00I have the greatest respect for Sofia Coppola.<br /><br />Ok, rephrase. As a gal who wants to break into direction, it's infuriating that the most successful femme director I can think of has a very famous daddy. Still, it's hard to deny that she's pretty great. I think the first half of <em>The Virgin Suicides</em> is one of the most terrific half-films I've seen since <em>JFK</em> (people keep interrupting me before I can get to the end).<br /><br />So onto <em>Marie Antoinette</em>, which I respected but did not love. And I'm not sure why.<br /><br />I don't mind the historical inaccuracies, for example. I liked the stunt casting, the mix of accents and use of modern music. I liked the portrayal of a historical figure as a modern party girl - it made for an interestingly incongruous contrast. It's always nice to see The Past presented as fun, instead of a dry and dusty period drama. I admired the way in which only tiny bits of life outside Versailles filtered through. Because when you study the period, you do get the impression that actually the King was given no idea how bad things really were in France. The plot was not even style over substance - style <u>was</u> the substance. Which I tend to admire in films. You can make trivial, substanceless films which nevertheless do seem to be packed with meaning and depth - <em>Velvet Goldmine</em> is one of them. Events of massive importance are completly downplayed; while time is lavished over balls or the sequence at her house. I like this too. And of course, it was delicious to look at and wonderfully directed.<br /><br />Yet with all possible criticisms rebutted, and being willing to defend all the dodgy choices she made, I was nevertheless left cold. It was like looking at someone else's Facebook photos - must have been fun; I still wasn't there at the time though...I felt there was something deliberately distancing in the casting of Kirsten Dunst, Rip Torn and Steve Coogan. I simply didn't care. <em>Lost in Translation</em> did this to me too - at the time, I assumed it was because I was feeling homesick, fed up and jetlagged (i was watching it on a plane) and didn't appreciate having those feelings duplicated. Having mentioned it above, I felt that this should have been <em>Velvet Goldmine</em> in wigs. It wasn't.<br /><br />But what the hell! Just stick it on and drown in the preeety dresses, and looovely buildings, and fantastic direction. No one can beat Sofia Coppola for the pastoral stuff - pay attention whenever the characters are allowed outside. I loved the scene with the sunrise. But maybe that's just because I like sunrises...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-61232289137196468572008-12-07T08:04:00.000-08:002008-12-07T08:17:21.208-08:00I hate misleading trails...It appears that honest trading standards do not apply to the movie business. Hey, let's put the words QUENTIN TARANTINO in big letters in both the <em>Hero</em> and <em>Hostel</em> trailers, even though he's just the producer! Let's cut together the <em>Spy Game</em> trailer from a single five minute sequence in the movie, to make it look like a slick action movie! Instead of a meditative talky thriller. Let's trail <em>Solaris</em> - as a love story! Instead of a slow paced I-don't-know-what.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lE8ckZANG7w/STv1tk-l_9I/AAAAAAAAAJA/XhDsKsb_dP8/s1600-h/Changeling_poster.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277081551763800018" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 135px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_lE8ckZANG7w/STv1tk-l_9I/AAAAAAAAAJA/XhDsKsb_dP8/s200/Changeling_poster.jpg" border="0" /></a>I'm sure you've all got your favourite example of misleading movie trails. Sometimes you've just got to be prepared for disappointment. And so we come on to the tantalisingly named movie <em>Changeling</em>, which has already got my fantasty-fan juices boiling. The tagline, too small to read on that poster, is "To find her son she did what no one else dared".<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />That had better be pass through the labirynth of eternal darkness, find the three Keys to the three Gates of Dawn and finally challenge the Knight Mare guarding the Tower of Silence with a sword of pure Ebonyte, or else I'm going to be pretty damned disappointed...Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-9554673875514323462008-12-04T02:36:00.000-08:002008-12-04T02:37:35.211-08:00Masala!Back from film studies screening, at a godawful hour of the evening, and with nobody but you lovely people to sqoon at!<br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5270132858175597730" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 205px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim0eXb6IPtQYwtgYftN9J7o6HtBYKUb8hTCkCux36d-dhGWR1bkHvDIh6zO8NoIsBUa0TPAnQksyKr8mwbGHjoU-tBM0JPuGgamTj3YpuOt3J9Yp63T_GpaG5FFsj4dHV3dzTO6Q/s320/Sholay-OldHindi.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div></div><div></div><div>Say you've just, I don't know, spent an hour arguing about what film to watch, and you've narrowed down to a choice of four:<br /><ul><li>a knockabout buddy comedy about two criminals on the run</li><li>An all-singing romantic musical </li><li>A serious drama about a great man restoring his dignity after terrible tragedy</li><li>An exciting action-adventure thriller, complete with explosions, chases and train heists</li></ul>Oh to live in India when the inevitable TV argument breaks out! Sholay does all four of these, and crucially, does them well. I did laugh. I did cry. I did feel stirred, and excited.<br /><br />According to our lecture, it's known as the "masala principle" - yes, like the meal, which refers to the mixture of spices. Apparently, it's a deliberate ideal of Indian cinema - and one I rather like - to put the audience through the whole gamut of emotion, instead of just focusing on one. We (or at any rate, I) tend to be suprised by cross-genre works - the romance in <em>Rear Window</em>; the thriller in <em>Casablanca</em>. Horror films should be scary, dramas serious. There are no such genres in Hindi cinema - because in general, films are nowhere near that limited.<br /><br />No wonder they're so popular - during the slapstick bits, I was thinking "Ooooh, Friend 5 will like this!"; and then later, during some of the actiony sequences, I wondered if I should get a copy of Friend 3 for Christmas. When we got into Wild West territory, I wondered whether dad had ever stuck this on while doing something else over a long afternoon. And, of course, if you asked me what the film was about, I'd say "buddy movie" straight off. It even has a coin that keeps coming down heads!<br /><br />To fit all that in, it's no wonder this epic ran to something like 3 hours - which most of the Film Studies seemed to resent, if the applause and hasty exodus at the end were anything to go by. Lucky for them, then, that the Indian Censor's board actually trimmed it by 16 minutes. I enjoyed every darn minute of it - I feel films should be long. Two years back, I tried being obsessed with <em>Reservoir Dogs</em>, and even though I made a pretty good try, there really wasn't enough there. It's only 96 minutes, and they're a pretty thin 96 at that, and it soon comes to a rather poor choice between writing fanfiction or just rewatching the movie again. Compare to, say, <em>Lord of the Rings</em> - three films, and if that's not enough, some 8 books, not to mention all the scholarship and nerdery those 8 can generate. But there is a point where that runs out too - maybe that's why I've got into <strong>Doctor Who</strong> in such a big way? Because there are hundreds of episodes - the total running time beats most director's whole careers. And even more books. And an ever expanding series of audio plays. And graphic novels. And then there's the spinoffs. At this point, it doesn't look like I'll reach the end of all that for quite a while.<br /><br />Which might explain why my regard for <em>Sholay</em> is so high - it's long enough that you can't take it in in one sitting, making it presumably rewatchable. And as it's so cross-generic (is that a real term?), it'll match any mood. You can just sit down and get lost in it. I remember at the time of my <em>Godfather</em> patch, complaining something of this sort: that seeing a film is OK, until it's over - at which point you want to know more, see more, experience more of the backstory and little details, know what's in the rooms the characters don't enter and generally immerse yourself in the world. Being a fan of a long running TV show with myriad cashins and spinoffs appears to come closer to this ideal than any film ever has.<br /><br /><div></div><br /><div>There is another reason I liked it. Perhaps it was deliberate, so as not to isolate us daft Westerners entirely, but I thought it was a bizzare pick to demonstrate Hindi cinema because it borrowed so liberally from American genres. At times it plays like a greatest hits of all the westerns you've ever seen, starting act one, scene one "pan down onto a train arriving at a dusty station". Once they get the "Butch Cassidy with subtitles" bit out of the way, they're straight onto <em>Seven Samuri,</em> protecting a small village from evil bandits, with a bit of <em>Dollars More</em>-style vengeance on the side, and thats even before you get to the 8 minute shot for shot tribute to <em>Once Upon a Time in the West</em>. The use of sound is completely Sergio Leone (the chilling sound of the swing), and there are certain bits of music you'd swore were ripped from Morricone too. Particularly, the whistling (Cheyenne's theme, anyone?), the harmonica (duh...) and that harsh, screaming atonal tune they whipped out for the confrontation at the end.</div><br /><div></div><div>Now there's nothing wrong, in principle at least, with ripping off other movies. I wrote a western script soon after I'd seen <em>Once Upon a Time in the West, </em>though it owed more to <em>L.A. Confidential</em> now I look at it again; I also wrote a script for a very Coens-y "crime out of control" caper in my <em>Reservoir Dogs</em> patch, and of course, remade <em>Fellowship of the Ring</em>. But none of these - no, not even the remake - were as blatant as a particular patch in the middle of a flashback.</div><br /><div></div><div>Other than that, I didn't particularly mind. Sergio Leone pinched as much as he was pinched from, and it was a very good "uber-western" if you can stop yourself labelling the influences. It's just...even though <em>Sholay's</em> take on that scene was easily as effective, as scary, as upsetting, it still struck me as something too brilliant and iconic to nab. Especially because the moment the family at the happy homestead showed up on screen, I thought "now I know what's on the way..." QT had the right idea. Pinch the plot of <em>City on Fire</em> - a movie no one's ever heard of - remake it better, and maybe you can get away with it. Although <em>Sholay</em>'s influences are very clear indeed, it's crucial to add they match the films they emulate. It's no better, or worse, or even different to any of the movies namechecked above. As such, it's a definite recommend for fans of the genre.</div><div><br />It's such a sixties film too - granted, it was made in the 70s. The Butch Cassidy nod wasn't just for a buddy movie with bicycles: the whole style and use of the camera at times reminded me too.<br /><br />It's got all the normal stuff too, like great performances (particularly liked Singh) and very exciting direction. Rajha was impossibly serene, but at least she was nice to look at. Which was pretty much her role in the plot, as far as I could tell. The train heist was great, as was the Basanti's dance at a pivotal moment. Now, <u>that</u> felt like proper Hindi cinema - a gorgeous blend of the Western setting and uniquely Eastern song'n'dance, wrapped up in a sort of concept which wouldn't be out of place in myth - the woman who dances to save her lover (Beren and Luthien before Morgoth, much?). According to our lecturer, most Bollywood movies can be derived from a mythic source - which was a strange thing to say, because I believe that is true of all fiction (i.e. whether you're a Christian or not, the idea of a hero who seems to die, then returns, or the concept of self sacrifice for the good of many are very strong in our culture, literature and movies. And I don't just mean <em>Narnia. </em><strong>Doctor Who</strong>, for one, and that's one of the most athiest shows going. Well, maybe humanist - you certainly can't accuse it of a religious agenda)<br /><br />The other thing I disagreed with our lecturer on was his dismissal of the term "Bollywood". He took it as a suggestion that Hindi cinema is a mere imitation of Hollywood, whereas I have always understood it to suggest an equal status. British, French, Russian, Chinese cinemas don't get their own -ollywood after all, and the Brits in particular are guilty of imitating American films. And especially before showing us a movie which, far from exemplefying the uniqueness of Indian culture, actually clings to an established American genre for its lifeblood. He also suggested there was some colonial sneering in the fact we still call "Bombay movies" B-ollywood, instead of using Mumbai, but personally that's just because I reckon Mollywood would sound daft.<br /><br />Anyway, I'm still in that "new favourite film" sort of glow, which usually washes off in a few hours. Hope it does, for your sakes, otherwise I'll be making you watch it at Christmas...<br /><br /><br /><br />There are a few other things worth saying about our Film Studies lectures in general. The first is the demonstration of the maxim "all power corrupts" - our lecturer must have been silently annoyed, like the dripping of a tap, by all those little cinema gripes. Now he's in charge of his own screening, he's elected himself king of his own little kingdom. Not that I mind - mobiles off, food away, all things I agree with. I am also endeared to him by the fact he insists on us sitting through the credits. I hate nothing more than people switching off the DVD halfway through the playout theme. Not counting, y'know, genocide and poverty. The mood just vanishes from the room instantly, but keeping the music keeps the atmosphere and gives you a chance to process your response. Two notable examples are <em>Blade Runner</em>, where I need that dark pulsing Vangelis to deal with the unicorn, and <em>Reservoir Dogs</em>, where the chuckling smirk of instantly "Lime and the Coconut" gives the audience a release for the tension, and provides a great contrast. As if to say to those of us, with tears standing in our eyes and stomachs crunched from sympathetic wincing, "Hey, folks? It's only a movie..."<br /><br />The other thing is his insistance on using genuine 35mm film instead of, say, projecting a DVD. I think it's just something that only a film buff could understand. DVDs are clean and clear quality - watching real film is akin to the Grindhouse experience. Scratches all over the place, the sound dipping in and out, or vanishing entirely; bits of the image getting lost, or going interesting colours; hearing the reel scratch and seeing the bright flash of colour when it's changed. In <em>Sholay</em>'s case, truly inadequate and hard to read subtitles. In terms of immersive hi-def experience, it's easy to count the disadvantages. But I think it's something we all instinctively understand, that watching it on "proper film" is part of the magic, which a DVD can never touch; like a proper music buff refuses abandon LPs.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-19913434017936532562008-11-17T05:13:00.000-08:002008-12-07T09:14:53.811-08:00Today we are going to talk about the <strong>Bechdel-Wallace Test</strong>, a cunning little observation which <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zizyphus/34585797/">originated in this comic strip</a>.<br /><br />Pay attention, because you're going to be really scratching your head in a few minutes time. For a film to pass, it only has to have three little critera:<br /><br />1) it must feature two named female characters...<br />2)...who have a conversation...<br />3)...on a subject other than a man...<br /><br />...<br /><br />thinking? Good, because I sat down with the only other film student in my kitchen, and it took us about 15 minutes to come up with anything. Apparenly only 5% of films pass, and it hardly suprises me.<br /><br />Without even thinking about it, I know none of my favourite movies do. <em>Reservoir Dogs</em> has no speaking female roles, <em>Zulu</em> shunts our only representative off in the first 20 minutes, and <em>Signs</em> doesn't have more than two in the same timeframe, let alone the same scene.<br /><br />The problem is, women just aren't interesting. Really. Lets consider this:<br /><br /><ul><li>Women are interested in men, the family and the home. And nothing else.</li><li>Men, the family and the home are not interesting, because that's where the audience is</li></ul><p>Unless you're into real life dramas, of course...In most films, the female role is to be the representative of this area. Connie and Mrs Micheal Corleone are both images of innocence and family stability in <em>The Godfather</em> while the men get all the fun. Sissy Spacek's role in <em>JFK</em> is to be more or less chief villain. I hate, hate, hate any actress who ever demeans herself to say "Oh honey, you work such long hours, why not stay at home with us and the kids?" - especially if the husband's character is working on something really interesting. You know he's going to ignore her, because no one wants to see Oliver Stone directing Kevin Costner in three hours of tree houses, piggy backs, and cookie baking - even if he does then produce a thoroughly annotated screenplay about it.</p><p>Even if you are a fan of real life drama, there has to be more than life than a career as a) girlfriends b) mothers c) wives d) whores e) prepubescant horror movie fodder. And f) glamorous newscasters, for disaster movies. Sometimes, you get male characters concerned with the home. And that's fine too - the Prez in <em>Air Force One</em>. But when you don't, and it's not seen as unusual. Perhaps because it isn't - maybe all there is for a girl to aspire to is one of the above roles. The number of female characters who don't conform is very small. Take <em>Kill Bill</em> - Uma Thurman plays an asskicking ninja assassin...taking vengeance for the attack on her wedding and death of her daughter. The ideal mothers day movie. Or <em>La Femme Nikita</em>- her transformation into a femme from a streetpunk is as important as her transformation into a contract killer. Or one of the strongest female characters I've ever seen, Jill in <em>Once Upon a Time in the West</em>, who nevertheless is only allowed to be items a-d on the list above.<br /></p><p>To on extent it's the modern equivalent of non-white characters in the 60s and 70s - they weren't there unless it was a role a white actor couldn't play. We've more or less got that one straightened out now. These days, it's very rare to have a character who "just happens to be gay", whose sexuality is not part of the plot (Captain Jack off Torchwood and Doctor Who was one of those, originally). So when will the reclamation of womankind come? </p><p>The one case I can think of is Ripley in the <em>Alien</em> movies - playing a role written for a man. The problem is, female roles are still written for "women", as opposed to just people. I don't see myself as "female" at all - I mean, I am, it's a simple fact of biology. But very little in my behavior is defined by the fact. It doesn't affect the movies I watch or the life decisions I make. I would eat no differently, my room would still be a tip, my interests would be unchanged were I male. Hath not a girl eyes, hath not a girl hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a bloke is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? </p><p>There are no characters which represent me in film - not androgynous, certainly not, just don't give a damn or see why it makes such a difference. Not obsessed with "being a woman", and occupying that narrow band of not-very-interesting-interests. Did you just say <em>Juno</em>? Yes, intelligent teenager, teenager into her movies, pregnant teenager. We need characters who just happen to be female, in the same way that a black and white actors can now (with obvious exceptions) play interchangeable roles. Why can't I play <em>Hamlet</em>?! Sarah Bernhardt did... </p><p>Does it matter? Well, it strikes me that no woman should ever say the phrase "female characters aren't interesting" as loudly as I just did, so there is a genuine problem somewhere. And the fact that I've never noticed this imbalance until now probably suggests a deeper problem - that through this imbalanced media, we're taught to accept these passive and pointless roles in both film and life. </p><p>Perhaps this is why I never cement anything when I write. Characters have no certain age - somewhere between 12 and 20 is pretty accurate in my book - and often remain nameless. I can't recall ever placing them geographically - the racial mix makes certain assumptions, but they could be anywhere in America, the UK, Europe, Denmark, et al - or anywhere certain it time. "About now" - but my stories develop over many years, rarely being written down, so "now" can again represent a period of about 10 years. Occasionally, class will come into it - I usually have a fair idea of their background - but this very rarely governs their behavior. I assume they're straight in the same way everyone assumes someone else is straight the first time you shake hands - until given proper evidence to the contrary. Like everything else, it's not something I decide, because I prefer to work with a person, not an "American", not a "90s kid", not a "lesbian", not a "teenager", and a lot of the time not "a woman". Because every now and then - two characters spring to mind - I don't give them gender either. They're "probably female", but I've never given the matter too much thought. All that matters is what they do, and what they say. </p><p>All this probably says more about me than about cinema - I'm not saying this is universally the right thing to do. For one thing, people are certainly defined by their backgrounds - a teen will talk differently to an old woman, an American from a Brit, a guy from a girl. In terms of plot too, working this way ignores the genuine rules of our society entirely. There are things which, as a [stereotype], you cannot do - you could recast any of the <em>Reservoir Dogs</em> female, but it wouldn't make any narrative sense, because those <u>characters</u> have social prejudices too. And if my system was adopted by everyone, we could never make films about people from X group trancending their traditional limitations, and lose the (percieved) shock contrast of, say, Jodie Foster's scarily masculine Madeline White in <em>Inside Man</em>, or Sidney Potier's fish-out-of-water Virgil Tibbs in <em>Heat of the Night</em>. I'm writing in a purely fantasy world - no dragons, no magic, but still as alien - because these things are impossible in anything resembling a reality.<br />But maybe, just maybe, it's something to think for Hollywood to think about. And please, never have the "stay at home, darling!" cliche ever again... </p><p>Probably says something about the industry too - male dominated, it's no wonder the movies they make are male dominated too. Before discovering this test, I used to ask people to name me five female directors. Which is actually easier - there's Sofia Coppola, Leni Riefenstahl, Mira Nair, Kathryn Bigelow...as a gal who wants to direct, and direct "guys with guns" movies at that, Kathryn Bigelow is something of a heroine: <em>Point Break</em>, a heist movie; <em>Near Dark</em> the vampire western and <em>K-19: The Widowmaker</em>, a war film. </p><p>I'm not normally an angry feminist, except on this topic - because I'm not given any interesting female rolemodels on film, and because I know that short of a sex change, my chance of a job in The Industry is even more infantessimal. There are some <a href="http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html">angry feminists who go way too far </a>in trying to right the wrongs of the world, and making sweeping assumptions on the slightest evidence. Yet there are problems, and without trying to be radical about it, they are probably rooted in the fact that films are made by and for the Middle Aged Affluent White Male. </p><p>I got quite angry at <em>The War of the Roses</em>, for example - a film my dad has always praised for the sacharrine-free depiction of a collapsing relationship. He's right, it is good - the dialogue between the Roses especially remind me of a thousand fractious arguments watched, avoided or taken part in. The problem is that it's Mrs Rose who mysteriously, abstractly decides she's unhappy and strikes the first blow while refusing to give a reason. And it's Mr Rose, poor Mr Rose, who has to cope with this impossible, motiveless female Other. It angered me for expecting the audience to accept that couples break up due to feminine whims - she hasn't got children to look after, she hasn't got a house to decorate, so she's going to take it out on him. Naturally. Very little suggestion, for example, that it's the fact he works too hard that she's decided to ditch him. </p><p>That's just one example that irritated me recently, but the problem is so endemic in Hollywood that once you open your eyes to it, it's hard to ignore. </p><p>So with no further ado, here are some movies which pass the Bechdel-Wallace test:</p><p><em>Heavenly Creatures, School of Rock, Ghost World, Kill Bill, Pan's Labyrinth, Tideland, Serenity...</em></p><p>Plus everything I've ever written. It might be interesting to note that all those films are either for children, or have a strong root in fantasy...</p><p>The challenge: how many can you think of? Leave it in the comments...</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-60191632382965954402008-10-22T07:19:00.000-07:002008-11-17T05:19:40.725-08:00Qui critices criticebant - who criticises the critics?Decisions, decisions. Do I start watching my haul from the Library - <em>la Jetee, M </em>and <em>Do the Right thing</em>?<br /><br />Or do I continue with my self appointed Batman marathon? Tomorrow, I'm watching the <em>Dark Knight Returns</em> on a midnight IMAX. Last weekend, I watched Tim Burton's <em>Batman</em> - more on that below. This weekend, I hope to watch the "best" of the set, <em>Batman Returns</em>. And then if I'm feeling brave, <em>Batma and Robin</em>, the film everybody's talking about. At least, the film everybody's talking about when I declare <em>Batman Forever</em> is the worst film ever made (quote: "So...you haven't seen <em>Batman and Robin</em> then?"). Jesu, films can be worse?! In any case, I intend to bravely find out.<br /><br /><br />Yes indeed, I'm having a great time taking advantage of my local movie resources now I am at la University. Item one is the Maughn Library - mostly yer Hitchcocks and Wellses, though I did find <em>Lost Boys</em> there this morning, so I'm happy. Only problem is most of the films are one day loan - and living 90 minutes away means there's no sensible way to take out a film, watch it and return it (yes, they can be watched in the library, but there's no atmosphere and the reflections are dire...). Many films are on short loan -you can borrow them for three hours maximum, which is hilarious as a few of them actually take longer than that to watch.<br /><br /><br />Item 2 is the video library back at our hall of residence, and boy is that funny - a dumping ground for all the subpar Hollywood tat of the last ten years; a cross section of Hell's video rental. <em>Striptease, Dungeons and Dragons, Drunken Master 4, Air Force One</em>, and as noted above, all four of the Burton(ish) Batmans. There's the odd gem, but to be honest I'm having more fun indulging my love for the high budget terrible.<br /><br /><br />Not that <em>Batman</em> was terrible, of course. It was really very effective in places - Bruce Wayne himself was adorable, though I hope he's not going to find true love in every movie, because that'll just get too tedious.<br /><br /><br /><br /><p><strong><em>Finally</em></strong>, in answer to the question on everyone's lips - "Is Watchmnen unfilmable?", I would like to add that nothing is unfilmable. They managed to condense <em>L.A. Confidential</em>, one of the most plot-rich books you'll ever read, without losing any of its charm and often, seemingly, without losing any of the subplots either (they cut hundreds, but on the whole all the details you'll remember will be there). </p><p>They also made <em>Lord of the Rings</em>. This is because someone sat down and realised no, you do not have to film every single appendix - we just let people know they're there.It made it a far richer film experience, because the audience could feel there was far more to the film than beyond the four walls.</p><p><em>Watchmen</em> is one of the most cinematic things I've ever read. You've got to do what they did to the two examples above, and try and make the best film possible. The basic plot - "Rorshach's quest for the mask-killer, and what he finds there" - is very simple indeed. Don't ignore the complexities, but you really can't include everything. Something that instantly springs to mind is the subplot with the newsseller/Tales from the Black Rock comic. Ultimately, this is very important in the shock factor of the ending, but it's secondary to the main plot. Things will have to go - this is what we call adaptation, if you're not <em>Age of Innocence</em> - but that's what turning it into a film is all about, and stick with the comic if you can't handle that. The Minutemen will be as the Silmarillion is to <em>Lord of the Rings</em> - every now and then someone will say "Luthien", or "Turin", but it doesn't matter if we don't exactly understand the detail - to hear it is to infer a world richer than the one we are seeing. I'm thinking the Comedian-Laurie story will go entirely, except for nods only the knowing will get.</p><p>Cutting was never the problem for me. There's no reason why movie-Frodo didn't go to see Tom Bombadil, we just didn't see it. It's changing the plot and changing the tone which galls with me, and Mr Snyder has already admirably proved he's not going to let this happen with <em>Watchmen</em>. He fought the studios, set it in the 80s and dear sweet Orson Welles, he didn't let them change the ending. Goodness knows who thought that was a good idea...</p><p>So, onto the article that's got me angry:<br /><a href="http://www.overthinkingit.com/2008/10/15/is-watchmen-unfilmable/">http://www.overthinkingit.com/2008/10/15/is-watchmen-unfilmable/</a><br /></p><br /><p>He makes a lot of claims for the comic medium over film, many of which are terribly false. Yes, comics have a way with the passage of time, but that doesn't mean film doesn't also. Yes, you can load comic panels with detail, but sometimes it's a) overdoing it, b) distracts from the flow and c) films also do this. <em>American Beauty</em> comes to mind as a film where someone has thought about the contents of every frame - or the circular pan to Fur Elise in <em>Elephant</em> around the boy's room, letting the audience infer detail for a good two minutes about the character. Comics are not necessarily better for being as long as the author wants them to be - <em>Watchmen </em>is perfect, but it's easy to cry indulgence on anyone writing spinoffs, preludes, et al. He lists all the things that comics can do - like having a completely simmetrical issue. But they can't, say, contrast the action onscreen with the choice of music - Don't Stop Me Now, Stuck in the Middle with You, Singing in the Rain. These are things that film can do, which you can't. Now which innovation is better? Answer: neither. They're just different. Is film worse for having music and other tricks at its disposal? Sure, artists have to work harder, but maybe this proves that film is a better medium? In answer to that, many filmmakers reject such flashy techniques anyway - we have a whole range from fullblown showy onslaughts to tiny handheld affairs which might as well be comic books. <em>La Jetee</em> is entirely pictures. And no character development in movies? Don't make me laugh. The faculties of voice mean that a character can be established with a single line - what about Mink in <em>Miller's Crossing</em>, who gets a single scene, yet already you know who he is? </p><p>Methinks the best way to defend your chosen medium is not by bashing another. Because films are equal to comics, and they're both equal to audio plays, or ballets, or live theatre - no medium superscedes, not when you're dealing with artists at the top of their game. As it turns out, I'm writing a comic at the moment, and I've been trying to do a "violent scene + chirpy music" scene in a medium which requires only images, and succeeding to boot, so it is possible. </p><p>And to return to <em>Watchmen</em>, I don't think the comic vs film analogy is fair, because it borrows so liberally from film. Many scenes are basically cross-cut with another. Or a sequence of panels is used to suggest a pan, or zoom out. One could basically use it as a storyboard. I'd also mention those five massive panels towards the end, which I will be <u>very</u> disappointed if they aren't accompanied by total silence - because the thing that really impressed me about that part of the comic was the fact that they'd managed to draw complete, dead silence.</p><p>The point is, if someone does it properly, <em>Watchmen </em>can be made - and like <em>LOTR</em> or <em>L.A. Confidential</em>, made in such a way that you don't entirely notice or miss what's gone. This comic actually made me cry with shock. Lets hoping the movie manages too...</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-72305673810167311072008-09-28T03:53:00.000-07:002010-03-10T03:59:50.438-08:00Presenting and dissecting: the Empire top 500Two events preceded my dismemberment of the Empire top 500. The first was my mum saying "you won't like what number 2 is" (Titanic? Godfather 2?). The second was the news about Paul Newman, which must have hit thousands of people harder than it did me (friends, family, costars, people who actually knew him), but has left me something of a blubbery mess. And unlike Heath Ledger, where my first guilty concern was "How will Terry Gilliam finish his movie?!", it's not even the fact I'll never get to see the much mooted reteam with Robert Redford. I just feel genuinely crushed, on a personal level, not a cinematic one.<br /><br />I'm upset, and I'm prepared for the worst - therefore, my criticism may be a bit more angry than usual. Let the dissection begin.<br /><br />Bets for winner - <em>Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, Empire Strikes Back, Kane. </em>Maybe <em>Shawshank</em>. Probably not <em>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead</em>, though we live in hope. <em>LOTR</em> will be in there, but lower down than in previous years.<br /><br />499 <em>Saw</em> - glad to see this in here. It means the original has risen above the crud that followed, and its survived the hype as a respected film. I still think it's a powerful piece of cinema with a lot of merit, even if it is responsible for starting a hatewave of similar gorenos. But <em>Saw</em> knows, the way only a trendsetter can, that it's a great film not for the amount of blood it sheds (its far more tame, visually, than you'd expect of a film with this reputation), but the <u>expectation</u> of bloodletting it toys with from the moment those hacksaws come out of the toilet.<br /><br />497 <em>Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon</em> - interesting to note this has been overtaken by the wushu craze it spawned. I assume <em>Hero</em> and <em>Flying Daggers</em> will be higher up the list.<br /><br />490 <em>Sweeny Todd</em>? Really? I have a Depp-loving music-fanatic friend who instantly replaced <em>American Beauty</em> with this as her favourite film.<br /><br />489 <em>Brick</em> - yay, my sister will be happy - this was her top vote.<br /><br />469 <em>Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</em> - first Gilliam movie. I'm happy to see this here, not because I particulalrly like it (though I do), but because it proves that <em>Brazil</em> and <em>Twelve Monkeys</em> have to be on the list in a higher position.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">465 <em>Twelve Monkeys</em>, as if on cue. And the first of the ones I've voted for.</span></strong><br /><br />458 <em>Batman</em> - after sitting through the cinematic heart attack that was <em>Batman Forever</em>, I'm even more keen to see any part of that franchise which can make it onto a top <u>anything</u> list in a non-ironic way.<br /><br />457 <em>Full Metal Jacket. </em>Kubrick is love!<br /><br />455 <em>Top Gun</em> - my mum is one of the many many people responsible for getting this on the list.<br /><br />453 - <em>Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull</em>. What is this doint here?! Who voted for it? Certainly no one I've ever met, all of which loudly criticise it at any oppertunity.<br /><br />452 <em>Unbreakable</em> - YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No I didn't vote for it, but hot damn I love this film. Top-whatever lists are always more fun, because I could recite the top 100 films on this list for you as we sit here. The top end of lists are always more offbeat.<br /><br />448 <em>History of Violence</em> - I'm happy that films this quiet can make it onto the list.<br /><br />444 <em>Hairspray</em>. I'm a massive fan of the new movie, and I'm suprised to see any version of it on this list. So now I'm even more keen to see this, the 88 Waters edition.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">438 <em>LOST BOYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! </em>I didn't vote for this, as I didn't expect it to make the list! Now I feel really bad - this film is brilliant!</span></strong><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">429 <em>Danger: Diabolik</em> - I've been meaning to see this since forever.</span><br /><br />405 <em>Dirty Dancing</em> - I'm very happy to see this on the list, because it really does have an indefinable something that puts it one above everything that's come since. Even I like it!<br /><br />401 <em>Batman Returns</em> - yet another of the Burton Batman franchise! These I have to see...<br /><br />388 <em>The English Patient </em>- this is the first film on the list I've seen and thought "what's this doing here?". It conforms exactly to the <a href="http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i116/Losseolisia/outofa.jpg"><em>Out of Africa</em> Oscar success equation</a> (spoilers for both), but that doesn't make it good. I thought the characters were unsympathetic, and a romance doesn't work if you're too busy thinking "you filthy adulterers!" and feeling sorry for the spurned husband.<br /><br />383 <em>Serenity</em> - yes it's a good film, but I'd sacrifice it without thinking for another series of <em>Firefly</em>.<br /><br />382 <em>Cache</em> - reviewd this for CineGuernsey, favourably. I could see what it was trying to do, but I didn't really get it until I saw the directors comments on it afterwards, at which point I appreciated it far more - but I still didn't like it.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">374 <em>Hot Fuzz</em> - I voted for this! I didn't take it with me to university! I really want to watch it now!</span></strong><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">355 <em>Sunshine</em> - aka the ultimate sci fi movie. Like your science fiction <em>2001</em> blend, with silent sequences and arty posturing? Or do you prefer final-frontier style exploration? Or are you more a fan of post-<em>Alien</em> "it's coming to get us" cinema? Watch <em>Sunshine</em> - you get it all. I wouldn't call it derivative, though, because it manages to blend all these things so you never feel bored. And I loved the ending.</span><br /><br />354 <em>Un Chien Andalou</em>. In case you haven't heard the story of the time I watched this at the Tate modern, in a room filled with unsuspecting members of the public on a day out with their children, in full knowledge of what was going to happen the moment that thin cloud streaks across the moon - now you do. Those kids will be scarred for life...it's good, but it's a funny thing for the list as it's not exactly favourite movie material.<br /><br />354 <em>Bugsy Malone</em> - this is a pleasant suprise to find on the list.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><strong>351 <em>Zulu</em> - frankly, I'm relieved to find my second-favourite-movie-of-all-time on this list at all, never mind so high up! It kinda confirms that <em>Navarone</em> won't be on here, however - I find it hard to believe that it would be better loved than <em>Zulu</em>. Who feels like a celebratory sing song?</strong></span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">343 <em>Monsters Inc</em> - is this the highest Pixar? No, <em>Toy Story</em> is still to come - but I'm happy to see it beating <em>The Incredibles</em> and especially the overrated <em>Finding Nemo.</em> True fact: this film makes me cry.</span><br /><br />339 <em>Spirited Away</em>. One of my favourite Studio Ghiblis, I'm happy to see it beating <em>Princess Mononoke.</em> Also, I think my sister voted for it.<br /><br />337 <em>300</em>. I'm glad to see this here - it seems in vogue to criticse it, which is a shame considering how much fun it is. Yes, it lacks historical accuracy; but if you've ever read fictional epics The Aeneid or the Iliad, you'll recognise the narrative tradition of heroes going on one-man killing sprees (particularly books 10-12 of the Aeneid - Aeneas <strong>is</strong> Leonedas) Think of it - if a few more had voted for it, it might have been in position 300...<br /><br />336 <em>Titanic</em>! How does it feel now, you barstool, to be be beaten by <em>LA Confidential</em>? Not nice, is it? <em>Confidential</em> is more of a film than you will ever be!! HA!<br /><br />333 <em>Sixth Sense</em> was always inevitably going to be the most popular M Night movie, so I'm not expecting <em>Signs</em> - the one I voted for - on the list now. I'm still happy to see it though, and I'm chuffed that <em>Unbreakable</em> got on too.<br /><br />329 <em>The Lives of Others</em>. I watched a lot of films when reviewing for CineGsy, and it was sometimes hard to find positive things to say. Often, I had to go to IMDb to see what people found so appealing about them. Not so this - a very, very awesome piece of cinema.<br /><br />325 <em>Kill Bill vol1</em> - I just want it logged that I thought part 2 was better.<br /><br />322 <em>Aladdin</em> - true story: I only saw this film earlier this year. I have seen barely any Disney. Parents, you have failed me!<br /><br />285 <em>Solaris</em> - the original, and a film I have to see, on account of having adored the remake<br /><br />282 <em>Godfather Part III</em> - returned to the fold at last! I am extremely happy to see this. Yes, it was a disappointment compared to parts I and II, but the number of films that <u>aren't</u> can be counted on the fingers of one hand. It's still a worthy piece of cinema, and seeing Michael come to terms with his crimes and losses makes it a fitting coda to the trilogy.<br /><br />276 <em>Layer Cake</em> - I know it's good, but I had no idea it was this popular.<br /><br />275 <em>My Neighbour Totoro</em> - beating out <em>Spirited Away </em>and <em>Princess Mononoke</em>, this is a film I must see.<br /><br />268 <em>The Lady Vanishes</em> - heaps of Hitchcock are inevitable on any such list, normally near the top. I thought this one was excellent.<br /><br />262 <em>The Virgin Suicides</em> won my <em>JFK</em> award for best film I've only seen half of last year. I've seen the first half again since then, I've seen it five or six times, and I'm always interrupted. Pity - the start really is bloomin ace.<br /><br />251 <em>Darling</em> - very very interesting. We studied this for Film Studies, so I'm aware of how technically impressive is, but I had no idea it was well enough liked to reach so high. Darling is such an unpleasant main character, it's hard to have any sympathy for the film as a whole.<br /><br />237 <em>Delicatessen</em> - I'm into my surreal stuff, but bizzare cinema still has to have something at its heart, and this bounced off me entirely. I felt nothing, even as I appreciated the interesting ideas and nice cinematography.<br /><br />235 <em>Battle Royale</em> - I am still dying to watch this film.<br /><br />230 <em>Howl's Moving Castle</em> - I'm even more suprised to see this beating the three previous Ghibli's on the list.<br /><br />215 <em>Jackie Brown</em> - I could have easily predicted that the QT movies would have lined up like this (<em>Res Dogs</em> - top thirty, <em>Pulp Fiction</em> - top ten, probably top five), but it's still nice to see <em>Jackie</em> get some love.<br /><br />197 <em>Point Break</em> - very suprising pick. I can't believe, for example, it's more popular than <em>Top Gun</em>. It was good, and the foot chase was one of the greatest I've ever seen, but when you look at the films its beating, I can't imagine any real people saying "This is a better film than <em>Mean Streets</em>, than <em>Fargo</em>, than <em>The Departed</em>" or whatever.<br /><br />193 <em>Ed Wood</em> - this is my favourite Tim Burton film, and I'm happy to see it so high up.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">188 <em>School of Rock.</em> Wow, who saw this coming? When narrowing down my list, I concentrated my votes on things I thought were in with a chance - like <em>Guns of Navarone</em> and <em>Signs</em> - and didn't vote for things like this and <em>Lost Boys</em> which I decided were unlikely to succeed. I can't believe it's here, and I can't believe its so high.</span></strong><br /><br />186 <em>United 93</em>. When ticking off films on a list, you always find yourself wishing you'd seen films you turned down the chance to see. It wasn't that I thought this was distasteful - cinema should be allowed to show anything - I just didn't want to watch it. I've no problem with other people doing so. It's an hour and a half of my life, and respect or no respect, I'd much rather spend it listening to music, watching <em>Doctor Who</em> or reading graphic novels than thinking about 9/11.<br /><br />185 <em>Paths of Glory</em> - it was good, but <em>Full Metal Jacket </em>(no. 457) was better.<br /><br />167 <em>Don't Look Now</em> - though it thoroughly deserves its spot, I'm suprised it is well enough loved to get so high.<br /><br />159 <em>The Royal Tenmbaums</em>, another nice suprise. We watched this in a double bill with <em>Von Ryan's Express</em>, then went to bed at 11:30. Genuinely probably my best New Year's Eve ever.<br /><br />158 <em>Unforgiven</em> - just a wonderful piece of cinema.<br /><br />157 <em>True Romance</em> - Oh I am happy to see this here! It's easily overlooked, but it's also one of QT's most charming scripts. Cameos by the ghost of Elvis? A cast of characters who drift in for one scene then vanish? That lovely theme tune, the scariest Christopher Walken scene ever, the theme from Lakme (and British Airways, you plebs), not to mention it's really really romantic.<br /><br />156 <em>Saving Private Ryan</em> -watch <em>Band of Brothers</em>, and then tell me this is a good film. Yes, Omaha is a raw piece of cinema, but the music is cheesy, and the movie can't decide which message its pushing. Is war a tragic waste? A violent mess? or something noble to be proud of. Between the graveside salutes, heroic rescues, flagwaving and stirring trumpet theme, I couldn't be sure whether this was anti-war at all. Not that pro-war films are bad, but it sat uncomfortably with the leftie-leanings also in the script.<br /><br />150 <em>The French Connection</em> - it was hot stuff at the time, but has been bettered by what has come since. Seeing this has reminded me that <em>Rififi</em> has not made the list; it's also temporarily made me question whether <em>LA Confidential</em> will be here after all.<br /><br />149 <em>The Red Shoes</em> - never seen it, but if the film is anything like the creepy-pantomime-surreal picture, then I really want to.<br /><br />138 <em>Cool Hand Luke</em>, Paul Newman. I'd forgotten in the middle there. Now I've remembered. I need to see this film, I hate the system as much as anyone.<br /><br />136 <em>Amadeus</em> - nice to see it here.<br /><br />135 <em>Duck Soup</em> - ditto. This is a deliciously silly film.<br /><br />130 <em>The Man who Would be King</em> - if I'd been in Guernsey one week longer, I'd have taken it out of the library, as I've had my eye on it for ages. Buddy war movie better than <em>Zulu,</em> than <em>Bridge over the River Kwai</em> they say? Must see!<br /><br />129 <em>Harvey</em> is one of the most wonderful films ever made. I particularly like the ambiguity - Harvey is cute, and also scary, and also the product of a deranged imagination, or too much alcohol, and at the same time terribly wonderfully real. It's all in the twitch in the corner of James Stewart's eye.<br /><br />127 <em>The Sting</em> - another wonderful movie. I've anticipated this morning's news for a while, and I'm about as upset as I expected to be, no more or less.<br /><br />118 <em>Withnail and I</em>. True fact: lead actors Paul McGann and Richard E. Grant have both played the Doctor. Really. McGann was in the 96 Fox TV movie, and Grant did the role for about a minute in the Comic Relief spoof episode.<br /><br />117 <em>Miller's Crossing</em>. Seeing this here confirms my other favourite Coen, <em>O Brother Where Art Thou</em>, will not make the list.<br /><br />101 <em>Raising Arizona</em> better than <em>Miller's Crossing</em>?! Never!<br /><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">97 <em>Reservoir Dogs</em> - told you it'd make top 100. Probably my vote that did it. It also gives me licence to hate everything that comes after it. Hereon in, we have all the predictable films to look at. And <em>Butch Cassidy</em> still hasn't hit the list; neither has <em>L.A. Confidential</em>, and I don't believe either are more popular than <em>Dogs</em>...</span></strong><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><strong>84 <em>L.A. Confidential</em> - but I was wrong, deliciously beautifully wrong. It is probably a better film too - TAKE THAT TITANIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</strong></span><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span></strong><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><strong>83 <em>Brazil</em> - oh joy, now I'm in a brilliant mood!</strong></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">76 <em>Manhattan</em> - expected this to be higher.</span><br /><br />75 <em>A Matter of Life and Death</em> - this has the potential to turn into a real favourite movie, give it a few more months. I've been itching to see it again. So glad to see it so high.<br /><br />69 <em>Three Colours Red</em> - my sister voted for this. Wonderful film, but I'm sure Blue must be on here and higher.<br /><br />54 <em>The Two Towers</em> - interesting. My favourite is <em>Fellowship</em>; the public's fave is normally <em>Return of the King</em>, but I've always thought this one was <u>best</u>. I'm getting sick of writing - I just want to find <em>Butch Cassidy</em> on the list, and see what's come top now.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">53 <em>Donnie Darko</em> - a favourite film I didn't bother to vote for, knowing it would be on the list.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span></strong><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">43 <em>The Big Lebowski</em> -I kinda knew this one would be on here. Great film.</span><br /><br />37 <em>Clockwork Orange</em> -oh horrorshow - not that I didn't know it wouldn't be on here, but I'm happy to see it.<br /><br />34 <em>Return of the King</em> - interesting, very interesting. Will this be the highest? my hunch says <em>Fellowship</em> will still be higher.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">32 <em>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</em> - when I had all but given up on it. I am absolutely delighted to see it so high up! My favourite movie of all time, making the top 40. Grin like an idiot, remember and feel a bit downcast again. </span></strong><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"></span></strong><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">30 <em>Aliens</em> beats <em>Alien</em>, which is what I always thought anyway. I can see what <em>Alien</em> is trying to do with the "quiet menace" thing, but it's been done since and better; or at least, done since that the original is no longer original at all. But <em>Aliens</em> is scary.</span><br /><br />28 <em>Citizen Kane</em> - just because I can, look here it is! Not at the top - what a relief. Not that it ain't good, i still ain't seen it. It's just so tedious when it does.<br /><br />24 <em>Fellowship of the Ring</em> does get a look in after all - I've always thought it was the best. Its just so pretty!<br /><br />21 <em>The Third Man</em> I probably love enough to add to my fave movies list sometime soon. Greene, what a genius!<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><strong>20 <em>Blade Runner!</em> Which I am going to see on a massive frack-off screen tomorrow!</strong></span><br /><br />19 <em>Godfather Part II</em>, where it belongs, lower than <em>Part I</em>. Guernsey has just opened up the coolest <em>Godfather</em> pizzaria - showing the film throughout the meal, and serving things like Connie meatballs, or Five Families pasta.<br /><br /><br />15 <em>The Dark Knight</em> - I genuinely expected this to make top 5, but 15 is impressive for a film this recent. But not this overhyped. Not saying it's not brilliant, I just mean the hype is astronomical.<br /><br />14 <em>Once upon a Time in the West</em> - happy to see it beating tG,tB, tU - what a piece of cinema.<br /><br />13 <em>Chinatown</em> - can't believe I still haven't seen this.<br /><br /><strong>And here we go for the top 10.</strong> We're still sans <em>Pulp, Fight Club, Goodfellas</em> and two <em>Starwarses</em>.<br /><br />10 <em>Fight Club</em> - lower than usual.<br /><br />9 <em>Pulp Fiction</em> - again, suprisingly low. <em>Star Wars</em> has to win now. Still haven't seen <em>Shawshank</em> either. I'm not sure we're missing any significant Hitchcocks.<br /><br />8 <em>Singing in the Rain</em> - proving the top ten hasn't been exclusively voted for by angry young men, this is a terrific film - far less cloyingly sappy than you've been lead to believe. It's actually very witty.<br /><br />7 <em>Apocalypse Now</em> - probably the highest of my favourites to hit the list.<br /><br />6 <em>Goodfellas</em> - sorry, Rob; I can see what this film was trying to do, but it didn't work for me. I need to see it again, in a different mood. Guess this means <em>Age of Innocence</em> is off the list.<br /><br />5 <em>Jaws</em> - yes, this is better than you think it is - it's a buddy movie, not a monster movie - and thoroughly deserves its spot.<br /><br />4 <em>Shawshank Redemption</em> - here it is. What's the other film then? <em>Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back </em>and...the one my mum said would make me angry.<br /><br />3 <em>Empire Strikes Back</em> - ooh, I expected <em>Star Wars</em> to be here and <em>Empire</em> to win. I still prefer <em>Star Wars</em>, though, darker be damned.<br /><br />2 <em>Raiders of the Lost Ark </em>-aha, I kinda lost count of my Indies - there's been a lot on here, so I forgot about this one. When we watched this in class, Friend 2 was amazed by the amount of action - it really is non-stop. You couldn't get away with it in a modern film, but this does it with a lot of wit and charm, and it's bouyed up by memories of that childhood summer when you went to see it with your dad. So. It is <em>Star Wars</em>, right?<br /><br /><strong><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">1 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Must have missed the '<em>Wars</em> further up the list; how could I forget this was here? It had to be <em>THE GODFATHER</em>, didn't it. Vastly superior to <em>Part II</em> in so many ways, I voted for it, wonderful piece of cinema that it is.</span></strong><br /><br />It also means that the total number of films off this list I've seen is 187/500. Less than I expected - most lists nowadays I've seen just under half. Now there's a challenge.<br /><br />So there you go. I'm happy. I wish <em>Run Lola Run</em> had been there; I bet wrongly when I voted for <em>Guns of Navarone</em>, and am still suprised by <em>School of Rock</em>'s high placing. I suppose <em>Signs</em> was always a long shot, but I loved it too much to skip it entirely. And especially in light of this morning's bad news, I couldn't be happier by how high <em>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</em> has come.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-63420603576718503592008-09-26T12:08:00.000-07:002008-09-26T12:53:58.245-07:00And now I have the jitters. When AMC have a production blog written from Africa as we speak, it's hard to dismiss "They're remaking the Prisoner" as mere rumours. You may recall that I was (briefly) impressed by the idea of David+Janet Peoples teaming up with Christopher Nolan for a movie, but that was then and this is now. <strong>It is actually happening.</strong><br /><br />Alarm bells go off when the AMC website describes it as "reinterpretation". Its a little more free than "remake", it means they can do whatever the hell they like. I'm giving it cautious support - after all, there's no sense in remaking something identical, unless the original has perished in fire. And there are new things for the premise to say, new threats for No. 6 to kick against - who's betting the villains won't be pesky Ruskies this time?<br /><br /><em><strong>From AMC's Site: "</strong>A man, known as "Six," finds himself inexplicably trapped in "The Village" with no memory of how he arrived. As he explores his environment, he discovers that his fellow inhabitants are identified by number instead of name, have no memory of any prior existence, and are under constant surveillance. Not knowing whom to trust, Six is driven by the need to discover the truth behind The Village, the reason for his being there, and most importantly -- how he can escape. </em><a href="http://pv.ms.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner-show/cast/"><em>Jim Caviezel</em></a><em> (</em><a href="http://movies.amctv.com/amgmovie?amctvID=68707&pageNav=synopsis"><em>The Passion of the Christ</em></a><em> , </em><a href="http://movies.amctv.com/amgmovie?amctvID=57398&pageNav=synopsis"><em>The Thin Red Line</em></a><em>) will play the role of "Number Six" and two-time Oscar Winner, </em><a href="http://pv.ms.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner-show/cast/"><em>Ian McKellen (</em></a><a href="http://movies.amctv.com/amgmovie?amctvID=56632&pageNav=synopsis"><em>Lord of the Rings</em></a><a href="http://pv.ms.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner-show/cast/"><em>, </em></a><a href="http://movies.amctv.com/amgmovie?amctvID=65286&pageNav=synopsis"><em>The Da Vinci Code</em></a><a href="http://pv.ms.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner-show/cast/"><em>) will co-star as "Number Two." </em></a><br /><br />The lack of memories is an interesting edge - it means that fans of the original will be on a peculiar sort of tenterhook along with new viewers. Not "what's going on here?" but "is what's going on here the same as it was last time?". It delays the fan backlash until after the show, not before. In the old show, the characters all knew precicely what was going on - they just didn't bother to share it with the audience.<br /><br />So many questions - I am trying to be optimistic. How are they going to replace Rover? Is this Number 313 chick, who will inevitably play love interest, going to turn round and double cross him? Who is Number 1, this time round? Are they going to keep a tribute to the talk at the start of the episode? Will No. 6 be played as an American? WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN IN THE LAST EPISODE?!?!? (mind you, old-school fans will appreciate that that question is <u>still</u> being asked about the old series final episode Fall Out...)<br /><br />No, I'm not having angry heart attacks, not yet - because I believe it can be done. Because Number 6 standing up against conformity is timeless, and has its place in every generation. Because there are always new ways to go with an idea that ingenious. If anything, I'm encouraged that they're going their own way instead of slaving to what's past. It's not like with <em>Brideshead Revisited</em>, where the job of an adaptation is to be accurate. I could be annoyed if the characters are called Two and Six instead of Number 2 and Number 6, because it's a tiny thing that'll grate 24 times an episode.<br /><br />No, the worst thing will be dealing with my sister (no offense, Half Pint) who has such a think for American Series Television, the way I have a thing for Kitchy 60s TV, once it airs and she invariably likes it more. The house will be unbearable!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-78798460731240325482008-09-02T10:26:00.000-07:002008-09-02T11:25:02.454-07:00What is the worst film ever made? On my sidebar I list <em>Hannah</em>, a cheesy short I saw at a filmfest about a little orphan bonding with her grandmother - though my hatred was considerably heightened by Friend 1, whose name is Hannah, and as far away from that stilton as a person can be. It was the <em>Doctor Who</em> movie for a few hours until I calmed down. The <em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer</em> was limp, unconvincing and suffered badly in comparison to the TV show. an <em>Odyssey</em> movie which was longer than <em>Fellowship of the Ring</em> and had a fraction of its ingenuity, not to mention budget.<br /><br />This whole thing was sparked off by my friends - I wanted to get them over for a film, and decided <em>Dungeons and Dragons</em> would be good for a laugh (I've long given up dragging them through classics). But no one was around, so I, still indulging my craving for something bad, went over to see <em>Batman Forever</em> instead.<br /><br />Oh. Dear. Just awful - I wasn't aware they made films this bad. By the second half, I was keeled over in agony on the floor. The music was intrusive and awful. The script was bare minimum. The production design was unpleasant. The costumes were crass.<br /><br />The actors did their best. Nicole Kidman's role was the most interesting - finally, a spurious love interest who doesn't mince around like she's the love of the hero's life. She has an obvious and obsessive lust for Batman. He fancies her right back. They never even try the "love" word. I kinda like that - how often is pure carnal attraction at the root of blockbuster relationships? She also fits in great with Gotham's existing collection of psychos - her obsessive behavior fits in just great. Gotham's glitterati go to the circus for the social occasion of the season - says it all, really.<br /><br />Anyone else ever noticed that? The majority of <em>Batman</em> villains - at least, those iconic enough for me to have heard of them, have no super powers? Mostly they're twisted civillians - Two Face, Riddler and Joker to name three. Poison Ivy, I admit, is an exception. Lex Luthor doesn't either (he's <em>Superman</em>, but same universe).<br /><br />Tommy Lee Jones was great, absolutely great for the first half of this, in what can only be called LedgerJoker mode - a very similar performance, scarily so. It all went downhill when he was paired up with Jim Carrey - who individually, wasn't bad. Now one person on screen, mincing and monologing can just about get away with it. It's when you put these two over-the-top villains on screen together that it falls apart. Its almost convincing alone - but together, its too much, and you just want to scream.<br /><br />"Too much" could be the watchword of this whole debacle. The problem I had with <em>Dungeons and Dragons</em> is it tried to do something unfeasibly ambitious very limply. Opposite case with <em>Batman Forever</em> - it only tried to do the barest and most obvious plot available, yet with so much enthusiasm it goes too far. The music is REALLY LOUD to tell you something DRAMATIC is happening! The script lacks imagination. The direction and editing is bare minimum and confusing. Val Kilmer makes for a soulless center, and Robin is only ever the "young rookie" of cliche. "I want to help, I'll be your partner!" "No, you can't help I'm fine alone" *Robin saves Batman* "You can be my partner now". Alfred is classy as always. But it's the volume of the villains, combined with the OTT of the sets really caps it off. I watch <strong>Doctor Who</strong>, OK? I put up with tash-twirling meglomaniacs on a episodely basis, so I've got a pretty high tolerance for over-acted threats of DEATH. But even by my low standards, this was awful.<br /><br />These people aren't scary. They're not funny. And they're not charming. If a baddy is none of these things, then why does he even bother?<br /><br />It basically failed by treating it as a comic book movie, and treating the audience as braindead chumps. I can certainly see why <em>The Dark Knight</em> was treated as the second coming - its realistic approach is a breath of air after this day-glo disaster. An hour and a half I'll never get back. Now I'm going to watch <em>Batman Begins</em> to recover.<br /><br /><br /><br />In other news, they're making the Green Arrow movie!<br /><br />My contact with comic books is governed by what's in the local library graphic novel section. It's pretty small, so I've devoured the <em>Batman</em> pretty quick and moved onto the rest of the DC universe.<em> </em>I like Green Arrow best, she said, like the girl who joins the Beatles fanclub on the strength of a "best ofs" album. "The Archer's Quest" is the only one I've read, but it was instant fan conversion - its a brilliant comic. Plus, bows and arrows are cool.<br /><br />I was pretty sure, in this world of "darker" heroes that there wouldn't be room for a grown man dressed as Robin Hood - the costume, if nothing else, would be a bar to him ever getting a movie. Turns out I'm wrong, and if they do it well, then it could well be the most intriguing supermovie ever made.<br /><br /><em>Supermax</em> - its a prison break movie, with a wrongly incarcerated Oliver Queen trying to escape with the help of various villains he put behind bars. But because its a prison for super-powered people, there are all sorts of additional challenges.<br /><br />Ace idea - every super hero movie ever made goes down the same route of "12 hours to save the Earth" drama, when every fan of ANYthing knows the small-scale adventures are sometimes the most effective. This is different. It's about superheroes, but they're not saving the world. They're just doin regular stuff. It also scores points for using a tier-2 character like the Green Arrow, and while early reports say the Joker, Riddler and Lex Luthor are all in the script - there's also a whole host of people I haven't heard of, which is good for comic fans. It's nice to let the little people have a go: Blockbuster, Shock Trauma, Gemini, Cascade, Tattooed Man, Multiplex, Djinn, Merlyn, Pied Piper, Latarian Milton, Iron Cross & Heatmonger & Backlash (Aryan Nation), Calculator, Count Vertigo, Floronic Man, Split and Icicle. If that isn't enough, all will be imprisoned - going by their regular names, and without their costumes. Someone is actually trying to make a comic book movie for the people who made the graphic novel what it is - fanfriendly cameos that even I, with casual interest, hope to spot every reference.<br /><br />So far, so awesome. One question: why the Green Arrow? His power relies completely on gadgetry - he's an ace shot with a bow. Not only will the prison enviroment rob him of his skill, it's not the type of thing you can easily replicate either. If the script truly does put a powerless superhero in the middle of their movie, this could well be the next greatest supermovie ever made...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/04/08/david-goyers-unconventional-green-arrow-movie-super-max/">http://www.slashfilm.com/2007/04/08/david-goyers-unconventional-green-arrow-movie-super-max/</a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />SupermaxUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-11963586814661193072008-09-02T00:34:00.000-07:002008-09-02T00:44:12.859-07:00My <em>L.A.Confidential</em> has been voted the best movie made about L.A. Its an obvious choice given, er, the name. Still, after the Oscar snub it deserves everything it can get. Is <em>Titanic</em> on the list of best L.A. movies? No? Well there you go!<br /><br />The top 10 is:<br />1. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119488/">L.A. Confidential</a><br />2. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118749/">Boogie Nights</a><br />3. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1771882/">Jackie Brown</a><br />4. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101507/">Boyz N The Hood</a><br />5. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086960/">Beverly Hills Cop</a><br />6. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105151/">The Player</a><br />7. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112697/">Clueless</a><br />8. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087995/">Repo Man</a><br />9. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369339/">Collateral</a><br />10. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/">The Big Lebowski</a><br /><br />I've seen about half of these.<br /><br />The other big awesomey news is that my little island is opening up a <em>Godfather</em> themed restaurant! Well, pizza place strictly. According to the news article which I now can't find, they've got half a limo as decoration, and bits of memorabilia on the walls. We are so going, as soon as possible!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20538142.post-49205933900396052792008-08-26T08:52:00.000-07:002008-08-26T09:09:43.941-07:00Surf Nazis must die!<p>Looks like QT is taking the rap for his leaked Inglorious Bastards script for, I quote, being disrespectful to German soldiers. </p><p>Calm down, folks. The Nazis have been reliably eeeevil bad guys ever since the 40s, just like the Russians in 60s Bond. And even if we're all big boys and girls now, and we understand things are more complex, we're still talking Tarantino. </p><p>Remind me of the last time he's made a movie remotely resembling Real Life as we know it? The sticky irony of Mr Orange's situation is as realistic as its ever got, and even then his actions at the end of the movie are governed by a Samuri concept of honour or something. <em>Pulp Fiction</em> was one massive homage to a genre - none of those people were meant to be real. <em>Jackie Brown</em> moreso, but it was also busy being a blaxsploitation tribute at the same time. And <em>Kill Bill</em>! That's my entire argument boiled down into two 2-hour chunks!</p><p>If it was a serious director making a serious <em>Private Ryan</em>-esque movie about slapping the it to the hun, then we could be alarmed. But surely any Tarantino war movie would be a boy's-own men-on-a-mission tribute BEFORE it was an intelligent commentary on 1940s politics. I'm expecting comic-book level gung ho behavior, the requisite bloodbath, some truly unredeemably villanous Nazis, and I'm expecting to have fun watching it. </p><p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/aug/15/quentintarantino.secondworldwar">http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/aug/15/quentintarantino.secondworldwar</a></p><p>The guardian confirms this theory - that it's going to be pure unhistoric pulp. So what's the problem? I mean, I'm defending a script I haven't read, for a movie I haven't seen, so he could still prove me wrong. Who knows - maybe troops going on a Holocaust-vengeance mission might turn out to be tasteless? *sarcasm* But at this rate, no one's going to get to see it!</p><p>I'm a little disappointed that both Tim Roth and Simon Pegg are out of the picture - I was looking forward to the Roth vs. Madsen rematch rumoured, oh, two years back. Their replacements are interesting to say the least. But I'm willing to give it a chance. And if in a years time this post mysteriously vanishes, you'll know I bet on the wrong horse.</p><p>I've skim read this link, if anyone wants the spoilerific low-down on the leaked script - which I don't particularly, but you might:</p><p><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/07/weve_got_quentin_tarantinos_in.html">http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2008/07/weve_got_quentin_tarantinos_in.html</a></p><p>And here's the telegraph, with a much more general article along the same lines:<br /><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2562334/Quentin-Tarantino-angers-Germans-with-film-about-slaying-Nazis.html">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/2562334/Quentin-Tarantino-angers-Germans-with-film-about-slaying-Nazis.html</a></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0