Poster analysis

I'm at a loss for what to talk about today, so I thought I'd be cheap...I'm simply going to paste in my film studies prep...

Said prep was to find a movie poster, and analyse it in some detail - naturally I spent a loooong time looking before I settled on the one I'd started with. In all cases, I chose films I hadn't seen so my reaction would be that of someone just looking. As you can see, I started in the a section and went on down. Here's some of the ones I liked:

American Dreams - I love this poster. The colour scheme is red, white and blue recalling the American flag. The description of this "future" country invites the reaction "but doesn't that happen at the moment?!" The comment about pop idol is mirrored in the Statue of Liberty - a symbol of the country - which has gone rock and roll. The letter i has a bullet hole above it, subtly suggesting a bit of the plot. Note the director's name isn't as famous as the name of his films, listed at the bottom. The actor's names are blissfully tiny - I hate it when they try to use their star's fame to sell a film (see below) It's a pity the film was (apparently) no good, as the poster was so catchy.

Art School Confidential - What on earth is this one about? I don't know, but I can tell you an awful lot about the tone of the film. Quirky, right? Gotta be with a poster like that. Small-ish names, the biggest face on the poster is a pencil sketch. Again the director is less famous than his films - both odd but acclaimed. The bubble with the names is cunningly placed...

Brick - the fact this is currently holding a heroic fourth place on my "want to see" list may have been behind this decision...I also looked at this one because of the traditional placing - hero+heroine // baddie. But if you look at the heroine, she's formed from the smoke, almost like she's fading and about to fall away. They can't quite touch. It's a plot point - I'm guessing the film will use flashbacks to give the deceased something to do. There's the cigarette, which adds to the noiry-ness. And then there's the telephone box on the corner, isolated and surrounded by oppressive darkness - a single light about to be drowned.

The Bridge - Never heard of it. But the poster is very very striking. At first glanced I thought it'd be a disaster movie - but a check on IMDB proves me wrong. And now I know it's about the various people who jumped off it, I can see how it's just as suitable for that topic. It's a very cold poster, very sad in a way - now the bridge itself is like a metaphor for something none too pretty. The fog is obscuring half of the bridge itself like...I don't know...

Candy - the reason I didn't do this one is that I had very little to say about it; I just thought the colours were pretty.

Children of Men just liked the tagline...

Clerks II - ditto

The Contract - I considered this thriller because the poster is so typical. You know exactly what you're going to get. I can even envisage the trailer perfectly. It's a pretty image, but it's such an obvious choice for the film all subtlty is lost. This includes the tagline and the way the actors names are made BIG.

Conversations with God - I love films about faith, and this poster is lovely. The cloudy background is very natural, magical almost. Whenever I watch Donnie Darko, I doodle clouds for the next few days. There's the box in the head image, like metaphorically sitting down by a golden field is always within us, we just need to unlock it. It uses a lot of evocative words - "truth", "emotional journey", "inspired"...

Conversation(s) with Other Women - this was my second choice after the one I settled on. It won a lot of awards - not at the Oscars, but at film festivals which shows integrity and tempts a certain sort of crowd. I like the addition of the brackets around the S. The thing I liked best is how the poster is split. It took me a while to notice it, but the image is splintered in half creating an odd effect. I'd recommend this to the Eternal Sunshine fans, on the strength of this poster alone.

Eventually, as I said, I scurried back to Tideland which is the one I'd always intended to do. It's an utterly great poster. It's not simply flipped upside down - the girl in the tree is the right way up. It's very disorientating - especially because the brown makes the poster top heavy. If you look in the ground, there's a dagger and statue and possibly a skull - buried like secrets. they're the type of thing a young girl wishes was under her house. As goes that, it seems like it's about to fall straight off. She's wearing rather odd clothing, she's got a disembodied doll's head on her finger and the tree she's in is less than ordinary. Noticably, the biggest name on the poster is that of the director - though anyone who knows anything about him could have guessed without seeing it. The tagline (what the hell does that mean?! TG's taglines are usually great though:
The Fisher King -"A good, old-fashioned story of guilt, poverty, love, madness and free video club membership. " Brazil -"It's about flights of fantasy. And the nightmare of reality. Terrorist bombings. And late night shopping. True Love. And creative plumbing." Time Bandits - "Mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence.") just finishes off the quirky picture. Indeed, the one handy word you can use to describe it is Gilliamesque.

A bit of shameless plugging - http://www.impawards.com/ is simply the best place on the web to look at posters (i.e. you can't buy, which is a good thing cos I hate sites trying to sell things...

Now I said see below...well, I'm starting a film club at my school (Rule 1 - we do not talk about film club. Rule 2 - we do NOT talk about film club) to save the Adam Sandler generation from bad girly flicks. I'm doing quirky, classic and foreign films that my 12-14 yearolds won't have seen, and if you've got any suggestions please comment. Anyway, I'm showing Edward Scissorhands first and I made a poster to promote the club. Guess what were the largest words on the poster were. It's the name of the guy in the largest photo. I feel tainted! But hopefully the unsubtle "JOHNNY DEPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" will pursuade people to come once...

On Sunday mum+dad had guests so i sat on my own and watched Indecent Proposal. It was awful. It had its moments - the opening and closing shots were pretty, there was the odd nice touch - but it couldn't rid itself of the overall badness. Mr Redford was the only reason I was watching, and he did do a very nice job bringing a human side to a character who could have just been a lech. Still, this wasn't enough to stop myself being bored stiff. Finally, to add insult to injury, Robert Redford had a porn star body double. Was I watching an expurgiated version of the film?! because I don't recall a single shot when he'd have needed one. Verdict: to watch it again, you'd have to offer me a million dollars.

Films I'm looking forward to...

SALE AT WOOLWORTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Absolutely worth the exclamation marks; Dad came home with The Sting, Usual Suspects, Syriana, Spy Game and a Genesis dvd. That is one exciting pile!

Having gone slightly miserable after a week's deprivation of films, I finally decided to remedy it by setting my alarm clock for 6:30 and getting half of L.A. Confidential in before school. Which was great, up until the point I was too dozy to remember what day it was and got dropped off in the wrong place, resulting in a 10 minute walk. Not so good...

On the other hand, at the end of that walk was my film studies class which today revolved around staring at this for 15 minutes. We were doing posters, see? We had to read things into them - one of the guys in the class described it as "very rock and roll", which I thought was a fab description.

Unfortunately we then did a less-good poster. This is actually a vast improvement on the one we looked at - it doesn't have the lame taglines "The legend comes to life" and "The classic tale of conscience, conviction and something else beginning with c", and the colours don't clash as much. A totally horrible effort in every way.


And now for the main feature. For once, I'm looking forward to seeing films which haven't actually come out yet! To celebrate, I thought I'd list them here in case it doesn't happen again!

17 The Departed - looks kinda interesting...

16 American Gangster - its at the bottom because I've only just heard of it, and beyond the fact Ridley Scott is directing I don't really know much more.

15 Grindhouse - yay new Tarantino film for me to complain about not having seen!

14 The Prestige - starring Michael Caine, it's about a battle between two rival magicians in Victorian-ish London. The trailer is somewhat lousy, but I am curious. And it starrs Christian Bale, spouting a mean tash...and I've a friend who adores Hugh Jackman, so we'll probably go...

13 Pathfinder - OK, this is the plot as far as I can remember. There's a Viking who is rescued and brought up by Red Indians. When the Indians and Vikings start fighting, he's got to choose between his true family and the people he has grown to love. And the love interest is a girl called Starfire. High art it ain't, in fact it's bound to be awful...

12 Alatriste - I've a history of throwing wobblies when bumping into actors I've seen in something great in something else. In some cases, I flatly refuse to watch things. This may be one of them. Or it may be not - I don't know, wait till the time comes. Anyway, it seems ok.

11 The Fountain - Friend-who-likes-Hugh wants to see this too, and I'll admit I'm intrigued.

10 Southland Tales - I've heard this isn't very good. Does it matter? Of course not! Still wanna see it anyway...

9 DOA: Dead or Alive - secret tournament of expert fighters takes place on mysterious island? Count me in! This is the last "it's going to be awfuls", honest. And I am anticipating lots of scantily clad females kicking ass, but I kinda fell in love with the teaser...I think it was the chick in purple with purple hair which did it. Mary Sue alert! It's Charlie's Angels meets Hero...

8 Batman: the Dark Knight - more Gary Oldman please. If this is the same quality as the first one, then I'm all eyes...

7 The Assasination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - wow, uber-spoiler name of all time, and not one for the verbally challenged. a) it's a western. I thought they didn't make westerns any more?! Not complaining... b) it's got Brad Pitt in it.

6 Pan's Labyrinth. Thishas me written all over it. Hopefully it'll be like Brother's Grimm without the rubbish bits.

5 Black Dahlia - fell in love with the poster - I cut it out from the back page of the Culture and it's now on my bedroom wall. I calmed down after seeing the trailer, which was disappointing, but I'm still looking forward to it. I found a curious James Ellroy quote about L.A. Confidential - "[the actors]...they don't look like I imagined them, but they are now indelibly my people." While on the subject of James Ellroy, I took The Cold Six Thousand out of the library - and put it back three days later. I simply could not get to grips with his style resulting in serious confusion, stumbling over slang.

4 Lady in the Water - it's not reaally new, but it still hasn't come to our cinema and it is recent.

3 Tideland - Terry Gilliam makes new film!!!!!! It's so small and arty our cinema won't touch it!!!!!!!!!!! It'd better be out on DVD in time for my birthday!!!!!!

2 Hot Fuzz - Aside from nos 4 and 1, this is the only one I'll be seriously disappointed if it's rubbish. Possibly because a lot of the ones at the bottom I already know are going to be rubbish. But please, in the name of Orson Welles, let this be good! The title is the campest thing ever, and Simon Pegg's costume cracks me up. I can't wait!

...aaaand finally...drumroll...


1 The Hobbit! - yeh I know it's not certain news yet, don't you dare rain on my parade! The word on the street is MGM has the rights, New Line are going to distribute and PJ's up to direct! Though he claims he wants nothing to do with it. Well, that shaky and not too reliable titbit is way enough for me...

Final word: done a bit of counting up. Do you know I've seen R+G 9 times at least this year? That's phenominal! I never watch films more than twice a year - I don't think I've even seen Zulu 9 times!

Cinematic rock-paper-scissors

I've had a bit of a bad morning really, and because I'm all on my own in the house and I won't have a chance to speak to anyone who understands for another day at least, and I probably won't say anything anyway, and because it's vaguely film related...well, skip the next paragraph if you don't care.

This morning I started a new script. That was just after getting miserable that, being female and bad at scrips, I'd never get anywhere in The Industry (bad scripts = can't get in the indie route; female = can't get in the studio route) I started trying to write something personal, and the bits I've done are very good. Like most authors/directors/whatever, there are story quirks I always return to - usually, the theme of paradise lost, a perfect time which fades away. It's totally subconscious, honestly, but normally it's just hinted at or skirted around. Anyway, the subject matter of this latest tale was precicely that, and hence the writing process was really moping by another name...and finally, if all that wasn't bad enough, though I knew the script was about totally fictional characters, I somehow think my friends would have read a whole lot more into it.

Now I've got that out of my system, I want to share some personal thoughts on the auteur theory below. Now I've heard two definitions of it, and in reality it's a bit of both. I agree on one half and not the other.

"The auteur theory holds that a film, or an entire body of work, by a director (or, less commonly, a producer) reflects the personal vision and preoccupations of that director, as if she or he were the work's primary "author" (auteur)."

From Wikipedia, pinched pas de permis.

Hmm, mostly agree. As I've already said, we all return to the same themes. But hang about, surely only the indiest of indie can possibly be truly like this - one of those films which you write, direct, shoot, act in and score yourself. Only in the imagination can any story truly be yours - in any other medium it's open to interpretation by either other people involved, or the people watching/reading.

"Truffaut's theory maintains that all good directors (and many bad ones) have such a distinctive style or consistent theme that their influence is unmistakable in the body of their work."

Well that seems to make a certain amount of sense. This is why people can have favourite directors.

Next half of the theory:

"In his 1954 essay Une certaine tendance du cinéma français ("a certain tendency in the French cinema"), François Truffaut coined the phrase "la politique des auteurs", and asserted that the worst of Jean Renoir's movies would always be more interesting than the best of Jean Delannoy's. "Politique" might very well be translated as "policy," "polemic" or "program"; it involves a conscious decision to look at movies and to value them in a certain way. Truffaut provocatively said, "There are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors."

Thanks once again Wikipedia, please don't sue

This is the part which makes me angry, and not just because the best of my films would always come second in an auteur-fight. I don't like fame, because it affects everyone including me, and I wish it didn't. I quite liked Intolerable Cruelty. I was great in places, but overall it didn't really hit for me. Until I found out who directed it. It went up a notch or two in my estimation at that point. Would I have liked Brother's Grimm half as much if I hadn't known Terry Gilliam was involved? How much would I have disliked Vertigo if the fact it involved Hitchcock had not made me attempt to find a few good things.

I'm well aware I do it, we probably all do but that's hardly an excuse to create a theory excusing it! In a perfect world, books and films would be shipped without titles, packaging or credits with merely a synopsis on the back. Then each film could be judged on its own merits. Unless you really can spot Hitchcock at 400 paces (and I bet a fair few of us could...)

Final question - who decides? If the entire movie-making world can be reduced to metaphorical rock-paper-scissors, when did someone develop a grudge against Delannoy that he gets shunted to second best?

So here's the question. Tim Burton, as far as I can see, must be an auteur. Pastel colours, oddball loners, gothic humour and darkly-light hearted movies. According to a list on Wikipedia, Terry Gilliam isn't. This means that Planet of the Apes crushes Monty Python and the Holy Grail every time. That's TB's worst and TG's best picked approximately from imdb ratings.

In fact, lets shout a bit louder in case you haven't got that. PLANET OF THE APES faaaaaaar better than MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL! (Apologies to those of you who actually do prefer the former) Under the auteur theory some directors are WITHOUT FAIL better than others, and if someone decided that TB was the metaphorical Mew over TG's Pikachu, well that's what you'd get...

...though to be honest, I think TG probably does count as an auteur- madly comic, bad taste, random, quirky, dark films. At a certain level he deals with the same subject matter as TB - childrens nightmares, in a creepy-clown, demon-musical-box way. They'd be equal contenders for remaking Alice in Wonderland, and I think Terry Gilliam's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would be ace...(PS, as an auteur TG is soley responsible for Holy Grail being fantastic. Of course...that was sarcasm, in case you missed it...)

Ridley Scott isn't an auteur, according to the list. Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise, Gladiator - all walloped by Jabberwocky. Neither is George Lucas, which leaves Star Wars to be beaten by A.I. and Hook.

Not that I have any particular love or grudge for any of the films cited here, but you can see why the theory gets me mad. I don't approve of any system which claims something is definitely good. At the end of the day, we're never going to agree on what makes a good film - and it's not helped by blatant cinematic snobbery such as this!

Mind you, it's inspired a pretty zatty idea. Top trumps cards - movie ones. I mean, hell yeah! I could start wth the imdb top 250 (or, the top 100 at least) and have things like oscars won etc. It'd be a cool thing to do...

Final word:
Great thanks C4 for letting Big Brother overrun the evening I was recording Harvey. This means I only saw the first half, which I had been enjoying exceedingly, before the video flickered and cut off, leaving me with some awful 1D TV trash about a doctor who may have murdered a Mafia don.

And even greater thanks to friend-with-Sky-TV who recorded this for me.

Another disappointing classic.

So I'm sitting in front of my monitor, looking at clips of our holiday and thinking - how on EARTH does one create art from that.

No, seriously. I've been landed with the job of editing it together, and the question is "Is it possible to make a well directed holiday video?" Surely the only person able to come close to the blinding insanity of holidaymaking is Terry Gilliam? I mean, troops of people spending hours on a beach at the other end of the world when there's a perfectly good beach down the road (I understand for many people this isn't the case, but I'm only five minutes away from stunning sands). It's like a people trade - for two weeks we send ours to America, America sends theirs here. Perhaps someone should remake Apocalypse Now about tourists...

...oh Hitchcock, I'm starting to sound like Art from the 8 1/2 episode of My Life in Film

By the by, today I watched Seven Samuri, but I don't really want to talk about it. Why? Oh, you know, after the whole Vertigo incident I'm having a distinct lack of faith in my critical powers. No amount of pleading that I loved The Seventh Seal is going to spare me from the wrath of the movie-snobs - I'll be cast out to a bleak, dark place where they all think The Da Vinci Code is the height of sophistication...

Surely deciding what you don't like is as important as what you do, right? I didn't dislike it, but I wasn't emotionally involved with the plot, there was no suspense whatsoever, and I didn't see a single memorable image or moment which would lead me to kneel at Akira Kurosawa's feet in awe. It was ok, but I'd definitely not say great. I obviously missed the point somewhere, because I don't think it deserves its place in howevermany best film lists at all Don't accuse me of being overly disappointed because I was looking forward to it, lest you forget the whole Godfather incident...Perhaps I'm just a Westernised bigot who is too shallow to understand the subtle poetry of Oriental cinema...

The thing is, at the end of the day film is an ART. It's a personal thing, and no two people are ever going to agree on it. Some people like violence in films, others don't. Some think a solid plot's far better than a decent character arc. Others think a great performance ranks higher over great music. Some people like to be thrilled, others to think. It all comes down to choice. Because we're all different people, and in any realm be it food, books, music, whatever nobody will ever agree. It'd be dull if we did, mind. I've never seen a single film I'd say everyone would like. I think you'd have to be a pretty mean cynic not to like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but there are going to be those who come and pick all kinds of holes in its (to me) perfect pacing and plot.

So if 9/10 of the Proper Film watching world think it's great, is it ok if I critically admit I didn't enjoy it? Probably not. Haven't dared to consult imdb.com yet, the message board is probably a cabal of fans sharpening their metaphorical katanas to whallop anyone who dares breathe a word of disrespect.



And now for a bit of chat. I'm sorry I haven't written for a while (in actual fact, it was only a few days but it feels like a while) - I've been indexing everything (so far, it looks like I talk about the Godfather more than anything else) and as I've been at work...yes, work. I do know the meaning of the word. It's quite fun. My duties include cleaning brass pots, unlocking and locking up (I'm in prime heist position, although obviously I'd be the first suspect and there's nothing worth stealing anyway), watering flowers (not as easy as it sounds. Between getting totally soaked, it's my daily box speech* practice), dusting barns (I took a photo of me doing this, have a look) and selling tickets. My co-workers aren't so bad. One of them has seen LA Confidential and liked it, and thought the first half of Kill Bill was great (she brought those films up, not I. Though I must say, only seeing half...I can only think of three films I haven't sat through. The first is Heat and Dust, a tale about an Englishwoman and an Indian prince. It was obvious where it was headed, but the worst of it was it just dragged oooon and oooon. The second wasn't actually a film - it was a TV mini-thingy called Merlin's Apprentice, the sequel to Merlin. Now the latter was great, but I got sick of the former when they totally mucked up what logic had been established in the first one. Had they even watched the original?! Oh and the third one? Picnic at Hanging Rock. I confess, I chickened out. I managed the credits and the first few lines then bolted.) The other likes Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, commented that Robert Redford was a bit of a looker (I stayed silent at this point) and has offered to lend me The Maltese Falcon. So all in all, it could be a lot worse.


Oooooh, and speaking of all that I found LA Confidential on video for a pound in a second hand shop! This is great because I wasn't allowed the DVD as I've seen it twice already, and I wouldn't have the guts to lie about my age anywhere they were likely to ask (like, a proper dvd shop). I've a lot of affection for this film, as I'm pretty sure it's the first 18 I ever saw. I only started keeping track of such landmarks once I was long past them.

Update: I've now finished the index, it's here - all ordered in lovely, vaguely alphabetical lists.

Now, just for the record, some statistics which aren't going to surprise anyone.

The Godfather gets mentioned more than anything else - 19 in total. Though it was close - Butch Cassidy almost caught it up with, er, 9...

I think about Reservoir Dogs more than I do Fight Club...
...Brazil more than Twelve Monkeys...*
...Robert Redford more than Michael Caine...
...Terry Gilliam more than M Night Shyamalan...

*the significance of this is that I prefer Twelve Monkeys.


Final word: I remember someone commenting that Emilio Estevez was Charlie Sheen's brother, which struck me as odd because, well, their names were different. However now I learn that Charlie Sheen's real name is Carlos Irwin Estevez, and Martin Sheen is actually Ramon Estevez. So two of the three have changed their names, but just to confuse people they've changed to the same surnames and ooooh it's confusing. Were they trying to cut poor Emilio out of the family or something?










I'm sorry, I lied about the "final word" thing. A bit like...how Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter is actually only the fourth in a series of 11. Once again I need a rant, and only you, my beloved readers, could possibly understand. The weird movie-dreams have started again. As in, the last four nights in a row. Which sucks. Especially when you dream that you finally get your hands on a video you want to see more than anything, and you put it on your bedside shelf so no one can possibly pinch your precious, and the first thing you see when you wake up (after gazing lovingly at the 90s poster) is an empty space where the non-existant film is no longer. I'm positive this is what going crazy feels like (actually, to paraphrase Simon from Firefly further, "No, this must be what going mad feels like". But don't try clicking on "this". I've just made it look like a link so you know what I was aiming at, it doesn't actually go anywhere. Because I might look back at these one day having forgotten the thing I was going to link to, click on it and remember. Real person crossover slash?! Believe me, it's possible and my head hurts...)




* The box speech, from R+G are D. I'll reproduce it here, but you cannot possibly understand the wuvness until you actually see him rattle it off.

ROS: Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid onit?
GUIL: No.
ROS: Nor do I, really.... It's silly to be depressed by it. I mean one thinks of it like being alive in a box, one keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead ... which should make a difference ...shouldn't it? I mean, you'd never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like being asleep in a box. Not that I'd like to sleep in a box, mind you, not without any air - you'd wake up dead, for a start and then where would you be? Apart from inside a box. That's the bit I don't like, frankly. That's why I don't think of it....
(pause...)
Because you'd be helpless, wouldn't you? Stuffed in a box like that, I mean you'd be in there for ever. Even taking into account the fact that you're dead, really ... ask yourself, if I asked you straight off - I'm going to stuff you in this box now, would you rather be alive or dead?Naturally, you'd prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all. I expect. You'd have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking -well, at least I'm not dead! In a minute someone's going to bang on the lidand tell me to come out. (Banging on the box with his fists.) "Hey you, whatsyername! Come out of there!"
(pause...)
GUIL: (calmly) I think I'm going to kill you. (he wanders off)
ROS: Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one, a moment, in childhood when it first occurred to you that you don't go on for ever. It must have been shattering - stamped into one's memory. And yet I can't remember it. It never occurred to me at all. We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the words for it - before we know that there are words. Out we come, bloodied and squalling with the knowledge that for all the compasses in the world, there's only one direction, and time is its only measure... (he sighs, and makes a paper aeroplane.)

I know - I can remember ALL of it. I'm so proud...

Cult Movie Rant 2: the Superflous and Badly Spelt Sequel

The debate continues. The current approach in the fight to prove Star Wars is not a cult film is a Venn diagram. For the uninformed, forgetful or just plain dim, a Venn diagram contains three overlapping circles, each with a bit of criteria. So films in the middle will agree with all three. You'll get the hang of it, my description is lame.

Here are the three circles:

Twelve Monkeys factor - odd, dark, mind bending, confusing, disturbing or plain bad taste. If it feels like a cult film. Also known as the films my mum didn't like.

Blade Runner factor - died at the box office, resurrected through video or midnight showings. Also applies to taccyness, floppyness, so bad-it's-good-ness, cheapness, ever-so-slightly-rubbishness,badly over budget-ness, smallness or indieness. Also known as no-blockbusters.

Star Trek factor - If it's quotable, causes dressing up or drinking games, inspires devotion and leads people to claim "Jedi" as a religion on public census records.

Yup, you spotted it. Star Wars does fit into one of the catagories. Whatever. The point of the venn diagram is this - everyone's definition of cult is different (it's just mine happens to be right...) but on the diagram all factors are equalled out, and thus the more culty the film, the more circles it'll be in. Savvy? For example, Once Upon a Time in the West died at the cinema and was resurrected on video, but nobody's claiming that as cult (see below)

So the question you are doubtless all asking - What DOES fit into the circles. Well, let's have a look....



Little red spots indicate films I haven't actually seen, so may be wrong about. RHPS stands for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, BR is Blade Runner, R+G is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, DD's Donnie Darko and W+I is Withnail & I. It's all objective anyway. Or subjective. One or the other - I know what I mean. If I gave this challenge to somebody else, they could get completely different results.

(You'll notice SoaP is not a cult movie. Because it's not. Hype does not equal cult, it's a virtual nemesis. Web hype created the Arctic Monkeys, and they're hardly an underground phenomenon. Yeh, it's called SoaP and guess what it's about! Ha ha! How clever! How funny! They're making a self-consciously awful movie! How post-ironic! It's not even very good at being bad, it's not half awful enough - just tediously subpar. See my review, which is a tad less harsh.)

While on that note, let me introduce you to my new best friend - The A-Z of Cult films and filmmakers, a far better book than the rough guide to cult films I reviewed last month, for several reasons. Lets start with the fact it only contained cult movies. No Godfather. No Pirates of the Carribbean. No Zulu. No Star Wars. Take that!!!!!!! Although there are one or one I disagree with - Once Upon a Time in the West...a nice touch though is it justifies its controversial decisions, such as The Matrix and Alien, which are defended pretty well.

The book is larger, but with far less entries so the films get a lot more space. Each has an entire page with a box of basic details and an extra colomn for MEMORABLE DIALOGE!!!!!!!!! Yes, an area celebrating cult quotability. OK, many of the quotes will mean very little unless you've seen the film ( I've seen Brazil several times recently, and I don't recognise all of them...), but it shows willing. Plus it adds yet more varaity to the ever-growing list of things I know about films I haven't seen.

The rest of the page is text- part synopsis, part discussion, and it's interesting even to those who haven't seen the film and mostly blissfully spoiler free! OK, not entirely. Quadrophenia, Brazil, the RHPS and a few more I've forgotten - but crucially it didn't give anything away about anything I wanted to see.

It also contains minibiographies of culty directors. I knew this to be accurate because I'd only heard of five of them. But the bit on Terry Gilliam was interesting, if erronious (the Good Omens project vanished). There's the occasional photo too, mostly black and white copies of the film poster.

And plus, another five-or-so films have piled onto my must-see list. So all in all, a good read - a book filled with films I'd never heard of, surely the final indicator that these films are truly culty.



This week has been the dolly zoom week. For those of you uninformed, thats a fun camera effect caused by walking backwards while zooming in or vice versa. It's famously used in Vertigo, and you'll also spot it in the "get off the road" scene in Fellowship of the Ring. I always keep a look out for them, cos they're cool - this week, an all time record of four. Two in Twelve Monkeys, one on Robert Redford's head in Spy Game and one during a cut scene for the Lara Croft computer game...

Finally, we need to congratulate the bright spark showing The Descent on a large screen underground. It could start a spate of location-inspired cinema. Titanic on a boat. Jaws on a beach (they actually did this last year; I didn't go). The Blair Witch Project in a dark forest. Airplane! on an, er, airplane...ok, a practical question now which possibly skirts tastelessness - do you think they'll show United 93, cos you know Hollywood never misses a trick...

Reviews! English Patient, Alfie, Brother's Grimm and Batman Begins

So let's actually have some movie reviews, shall we? Because it's just been rants of various varitys for ages and it's been quite a while. This week's been a good, two-Michael-Caine-films sorta week.

Alfie -3.5

At a loss for what to say here, as it's not really my sort of thing and the only reason I watched it was because it starred Michael Caine. So let's talk about him. He plays this pretty unpleasant man who cheerfully dispenses his life wisdom to whoever will listen, the movie equivalent of mambo no. 5, who drifts his way in and out of several pretty distasteful situations virtually without taint. Herein lies the joy - Alfie chats knowingly to the camera, and before you know it you're absolutely on his side. This isn't just me falling for the bad guy again, cos he's not bad. Just unpleasant to some of those people on screen. Single mothers, married women, backstreet abortionists, and whatever happened to poor Annie - bad things happen to other people, Alfie slips away clean. Which is why when he breaks down half way through the movie it is so powerful. While the whole kitchen-sink aspect of it didn't appeal to me, I did feel like I was watching something important. The best scene? The nurse giving him a, er, check up while two horrified decent people watch the hospital screen. Hilarious...

English Patient - 3/5
Don't you hate moviespoilers? Well me too. Big kudos to whomever spoilt the ending of this one for me.

Last time I was on holiday I tried reading a book which the Daily Mail quote described as a "sweeping romantic triumph!" My friends ridiculed it to the extent that I couldn't pass 12 pages, but that phrase has stuck with me and I'm about to use it to describe this film. And what a sweeping romantic triumph it is - pure Oscarbait. Cast of thousands, based on a book, set in Africa, second world war nurses...need I go on?

The direction was nice, and the acting nice also. Easy to sweep away 9/10ths of a film like that, isn't it?

One criticism. I really liked William Dafoe's character, thought he was really sweet et al BUT from a purely cinematic point of view, I think he was entirely unecessary. The story would have been just as good had he been cut entirely. The flashbacks could still have been had. Though that would be a pity seeing as he was quite a nice character.

At times it reminded me very much of Out of Africa - a married woman, a passionate romance, an aeroplane...I made an equation linking them both, it's here but it's kinda spoilerish so unless you've seen both...but unlike Out of Africa, the romance got lost somewhere. I'm sorry I'm sorry I've gotta say it, and I'm gonna say it about Brokeback Mountain too. There's more to romance than a quick snog. You never get the sense that any of it means more to them, not until the veeeeery end. It's not even an intellectual friendship - at least that's not how it comes across. How could they do that to her husband, seriously how? They're friends for goodness sake! The most romantic scene in the film is by far when Kip leads Hanna from the house with a trail of lit snail shells, and that pweety bit in the church.

One note - this film is not for the sqeamish. I know, because I'm not one of them and even I winced once or twice in this. And watch it on the biggest screen you have because our pretty large TV didn't do it justice at all...

And for those who've already seen it, yes of course I sobbed. You telling me you didn't? It's when she tells him she loves him at the end which got me...

Brothers Grimm - 3/5

This is a tale of two movies, or rather a tale of two perceptions.

The first is a fantasy-comedy caper starring Heath Ledger, Matt Damon and some CGI. The second is a dark fantasy-comedy fairytale directed by Terry Gilliam. You see what I mean by perceptions? If I'd only known one of the two my opinion may have been quite different.

There are some undoubtably Gilliam touches in here, witty as only he knows how. The minute the string quartet in the torture chamber takes up its instruments I knew we were in familiar territory, and it made me grin. Love Terry Gilliam. Absolute manic genius. Shots like the witch smashing at the end have his signature all over them. The horse and the spiders, the girl in the pool, the creepy mud effect and that dinner party for the French noble elite. And perhaps this was part of the script, but I sensed the same manic giggle in the titlecard reading "French occupied Germany". And what about the violent cute kitten death?

The special effects were so-so, by which I mean half were pretty dire, and the other half not bad. The forest shots were beautiful, the tower and the mud splat disappointing. The walking trees were quite fun though.

While the plot was ok, I'm really starting to get sick of the "eclipse/planetary alignment only happens once a millenia, but there conveniently happens to be one next week" twist. The happenings that later inspired the tales themselves are clever too - the children are Hanz and Greta, for example - just different enough for memory to later turn them into the familiar Hansel and Gretl.

Really good things about this film? Well it starred Monica Belluci (one of the four most beautiful women in the world, in my not so humble opinion - just below Kate Bush, just above me and Sophie Loren) and for what little she was given she was good. Though to be fair her role was "be beautiful", so it was hardly challenging material. As goes the rest of the cast, Matt Damon was very smooth indeed as the quicktalking (was he Jake or Will?), and Heath Ledger...well I can't remember actually. Heroine Woman(TM) was, of course, irritatingly macho and sensitive by turns. Both men insist arguing in her house, presumably to rack up tension or increase sympathy - whatever, I thought it was dumb. And Cavaldi isn't funny, just predictable.

So all in all, there's a good film in here struggling to get out. A lot of clever and intriguing touches spoilt by an uninventive plot and unsympathetic characters. Terry Gilliam fans: you'll understand it better than most, you'll be able to see the occasional genuis deep buried, but don't read the imdb trivia for this. It'll just depress you. One not of caution - this is not one for the sensitive kiddies. There are some pretty disturbing images in here. I watched this with friends, and one was seriously freaked out . Like Twelve Monkeys and and Brazil, there's something in there which you can't put your finger on, something very disturbing and horrible.

Batman Begins - 3.5/5

Pretty terrific! I mean, wowie. I'd better start by informing you that I am not a batfan, so there's no comments about truth to the source material here. Sacrelidge, sorry.

This film really is pretty dark - there's a wonderful sense of corruption everywhere. Batman himself is under attack from every side - I counted 4 small bad guys at least with their own tiny agendas, varying from the nefarious to the downright insane. This is the only superhero film I've ever seen which treats the audience with intelligence. This means I lost track of the plot at several points - but unlike Constantine (a film I love, by the by) this wasn't because they overloaded us with meaningless exposition, but because it was genuinely complex.

I personally thought Bruce himself wasn't terrific, but taking a peep at the imdb user comments I think that's just me. And while the script was mostly ok, some of the lines needed a tweek to make them less sappy. It's a problem I have with films - no doubt "your father would be ashamed" is quite a stinging comment, but it's not that harsh. There's a lot of quotes in here which did make me wince, especially near the beginning.

The supporting cast were fantastic though. Michael Caine was given mostly lame bits of script but amazingly pulled it off, producing a really really sweet Alfred, and the bond between him and Bruce is lovely to watch. The recipient of the rest of the lines was The Token Heroine Girl, and she faired less well. Morgan Freeman's virtual cameo-character was fun (he got most of the nice lines) and Liam Neeson made the best of not much screen time too. My favourite character was undoubtedly Gary Oldman's delightfully nervy police chief - he is wonderful, refreshingly normal, constantly reacting to everything around him. I've come to the realisation that he is a very good actor. And that's not a conclusion I reach every week...oh, and I forgot the doc! That chap is really creepy, even before he gets his sackcloth thing out. And dyaknowwhat? I actually thought, "I wonder whether he would make a passable Dorian Grey", which is also something I don't think often...but back to the film.

The special effects are good, and the hallucenogenic stuff superb. And I have an awful lot of respect for Christopher Nolan after having read the imdb trivia - his attempts to use as little CG as possible. The production design was, as always in superhero flicks, brilliant - but for once it did not overshadow the plot in greatness. And the action? Well the downfall of many of these films is that the action sequences are too long. The blessed thing about Constantine is that they never introduce a fight or chase at the expense of intelligence. Now, Batman Begins was mostly tedium free - I thought the car chase could have been a tad smaller, but the ending was just about the right length and kept thinking. Unlike, for example, Spiderman or LXG (not to disparage LXG, mind you, I adored that film when it first came out... :p) which decended into a big fight, while there's fighting in Batman it's all plot motivated and is logical.

The Wild Bunch

Long story. A very long story. My father and I counted on my sister not wanting to watch a film last night so we decided to watch this. Foiled! Anyway, we sat to watch Batman Begins instead and then she went off so we tried the Wild Bunch video. But for some mean and obscure reason it had been rescheduled and no one had told us, and the film we actually had was Parenthood instead. Parenthood?! Know nothing at all about it, sure I'd hate it though. So we ended up watching Batman Begins after all. Damn!

PPS, very excellent rumour can be found here and most other sites on the web. Please, oh Hitchcock, let it be more than a rumour! In the name of Orson Welles, I pray thee, please!