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.

Lots of little things

Well, wasn't yesterday's post a pleasant and not at all unwelcome surprise! I have for the last two days been smiling constantly, skipping around and generally behaving like I really far am too young to keep it. Which I am, in actual fact. Well I can't comment on whether it's all vastly unsuitable seeing as I haven't seen it yet, but the British government seems to think so and they probably know best.

Unfortunately, this means todays post is going to come out a bit like my thoughts - a jumbled messy ranty set of curious but unconnected nonsense.

Anyway, this afternoon I was overcome with a sudden mad wish to rewatch The Sting. Well, not mad as such - 'tis a perfectly sane idea, as it's great. So I trotted across to youtube in hope of finding something. Unfortunately, this video is all it came up with. Not that I have any serious problems with that of course, it just wasn't entirely what I had in mind...I did watch it, but I had to mute the music because it was awful and totally out of place. And I must say, as goes the slash, it was very badly done. If ever I had the inclination (which I wouldn't generally, but after watching this travesty I'm tempted...) I'm sure I could do it much better. There's some awful awful editing work here and I'm pretty unconvinced, especially by the first half. Now if they styled it as a trailer a la Brokeback to the Future, it would give it a better structure and possibly it would have been more effective. On the other hand, if you think I'm being waaay too pretentious and/or defensive and you really enjoyed it, you may as well give this a go. The editing here is slightly better quality - though that's not to say I'm very happy about it. I'm starting to get a tad sick of the Brokeback music y'know, and that film is far far a too easy target. Besides...being deeply in love with Sundance myself...well I'm not sure I'd be able to cope... Speaking of Mr Redford, I found a neat little fan site here. I'm particularly fond of the startup spiel:

Hollywood has a lot of male actors, but how many of them are REAL MEN?

you know, the sort of guy who could rescue you from a wild horse,

build a house, teach you about conservation

and then gaze at you with those beautiful blue eyes?

Who do I speak of?

Who else, but Robert Redford!!!

I have been a dedicated, loyal fan of Mr. Redford since I first saw him in Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid in the early 70's. This page is my tribute to you, Mr. Redford and to say thank you for making movies that that inspire and give reflection to life!

Said like a pro, and may I add I agree entirely. I was also rather excited by the ecards, and my friends all promptly recieved several of each. And this link lead to this terrific site - merci de ma prof de Francais!

While on the subject of random links, the http://www.celebmatch.com/ site says that Robert Redford and I are 72% compatable - 57% physical, 58% intellectual but 99% emotionally perfect for each other!

And now for something completely different. A reward, if you like, for succesfully sitting through all that gooing - Robert deNiro's most enthralling performance yet...as a cabbage on Sesamie Street. I kid you not. It's utterly convincing. My favourite part's when he explains to Elmo that he can pretend to be a New York taxi driver...unfortunately, he doesn't enlighten the fluffy creature by going into any more detail than that.

As for film watching, I've seen Being John Malkovitch and Behind Enemy Lines in the last few days. I'm trying to come up with some intellectual comments to make on the former but so far I can't summon my critical powers to say anything profound. It makes Ed Wood look mainstream. I'd certainly recommend it for anyone who liked Eternal Sunshine - wacky trips through the subconscious, bittersweet romances. In fact, the final chase in Being John Malkovitch is almost a two minute trial run for ESOTSM. One day I will do a list of the top ten most dysfunctional romances - Brazil will be in the top five or so, this will be right at the top just above Vertigo - a love triangle with one hell of an added complication...I was positively spitting in disbelief when it came into the open!

Craig, our hero guy, is really really sweet. I have a soft spot for the actor, but even without that the devoted puppeteer remains sympathetic. Lottie is played by CAMERON DIAZ. I need to shout that, because otherwise you may not notice and get distracted by the fact she can act. Pretty darn well at that.

I like the faux documentary, but there are lots of other excellent moments worth a mention, like the job interview. Overall, the keyword here is wacky. Just to summarise the first few minutes - weedy puppeteer is married to sweet woman who keeps animal sanctuary in her house - is to invite blinking looks of disbelief.

And Behind Enemy Lines? Well Gene Hackman played the same role as usual, and Owen Wilson was better than expected in a non-comedy. However, there is something undeniably rubbish about this film, I just couldn't quite put my finger on what. It's pretty entertaining, but three things let it down badly. The first thing was the music, which had "God bless America" written all over it - stirring in the most taccy way imaginable.

The second thing was the lucasitis, the worst case I've ever seen. For those of you just joining me, lucasitis is the result of the filmmakers sitting down in front of the editing suite and going "Oooooh! I can do slo-mo, and change the colours, and make it swoop, and zoom!" It's named for Star Wars' unusually enthusiastic use of fancy transitions, and I normally interpret it as a substitute for real tension. It's distracting and unecessary. I took particular exception to the slo-mo run between exploding mines and the snazzy circling shots of him on the top of a mountain (which begs the question, if he's trying to stay hidden in an area full of enemies, why is he sitting in the most prominent location imaginable?)

And the final thing? Well, boys and girls, it was cliche kingdom most of the way through. The one that ticked me off most was undeniably the fact HE WAS GOING TO RESIGN! How many times do i have to say it: never resign, it always leads to calamity, whether that be abduction by a mysterious village or, as in this film, being dumped on the wrong side of the border.

And now, for a bit of spoilervision: Case point 2: his buddy was a gonner from the start. Case point 3: no one in their right mind who'd been exposed to such ineptitude by the armed forces would ever consider going back. Case point 4: the last five minutes. Now up until then I was willing to forgive the odd bit of stupidity - cinema is fiction after all, even when based on fact - but this is just a little over the top. He hits the sniper four times, and the sniper falls over, but then he's back on his feet and it's all so dramatic! And then the Serbian army show up! And then the Americans show up, in the nick of time! (PS - what's the last film you've seen where the Americans send helicopters to rescue one downed man? Eh?) But as he runs to the helicopters (in slow motion, obviously) he has a change of heart and runs back to get the photographs! Oh the angst! So the helicopters cover him - 70 infantry can't hit one very obvious green shape in the snow, several half-truck-half-tank-things can't down one of the helicopters - as he runs, again in slo mo, there and back again. It's a total massacre. Obviously, as the Serbians are the bad guys, they can't hit anything. But my father, who's a stickler for all things military is a tad sceptical and informs me that as the trucks were in fact BMP-1 mechanised infantry fighting vehicles, their 73mm cannons should have knocked the Admiral's Hughes 214ST straight out of the sky. While the precice make of armament may a tad irrelevant, my point is that even an amateur can tell the odds are ridiculous. All in all, my mother managed to stay awake so it's pretty entertaining, if you're willing not so much to suspend but entirely dispatch of your disbelief for an hour and a half.


And now for a minirant. I realise I haven't informed you of my irrational irritation with the newer Scarface. It is simply this - there is at least twice as much merchandise as there are fans. My tiny village home has a poster rack in one of the little local stores - all motivational rubbish and pictures of kittens, and nothing movie related whatsoever, except one of Al Pacino threatening people. I went on holiday, I found a movieposter store - one or two posters for everything else, but no, Scarface has to have six. Two days later, I see Scarface t-shirts for sale. Come on! Who buys these things?! We go searching for cupboards, the furniture store has the occasional watercolour of a fruitbowl for sale, oh and a 17cm square art block with you guessed it printed in blue. And to add insult to injury, last week I saw a cute little electronic device - which plays randomly selected quotes when you flick a switch. OK, so were any of these the case with a film which I loved I'd be overjoyed. It's just how in every quarter this film outnumbers the rest (except perhaps, the first Harry Potter) - surely there cannot be that much call for it?!


Finally (took a long time to get here, didn't it?) Collective Apathy has two brilliant movie stick man quizzes, both of which I scored 14 on. To add insult to injury, it doesn't even give you the answers once you've got them wrong. But the actual pictures are pretty cute and worth a look.

Gotta go now - I've a 6 disc set (in particular, the trailers) waiting 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...

Rififi

Rififi was one of the answers in last months Empire crossword. It stuck in my mind because I had to use imdb.com to work it out, and picked it up on a whim from the library.

So, for the review. Note - spoilervision will be used sparingly for the whole article, so whenever it goes black highlight only if you've seen it. Though the first massive block of black is mostly about me - it simply gives away which of the two sorts of heist films this is.

Rififi

A crook released from prison plans a brilliant diamond theft to get his girl back.

There are two sorts of heist films - those which make you cheer at the end, and those which make you cheer in the middle just before it all goes horribly wrong. I'd give you examples, but spoilers...

Anyway, Rififi is distinctly in the latter catagory - I don't scream at the screen very often, normally I just go dead quiet, but this was one of the rare occasions where I scream and then go quiet - usually for half an hour or so. This has never happened with a film before. Books, several times - noticably during Gormenghast and The Count of Monte Cristo -but never a film. Another usual symptom of finishing a dreadful ending or reading a particularly devastating chapter is visiting a restaurant directly after, specifically a pizza place. I kid you not - I have a history of such experiences. So it should come as no surprise thatI'm drafting the first copy of this review/rant at the local pub, over a glass of J2O and half a Marguerita.

Enough about me, what about the film? It had the odd really really good scene, noticably the zoom out from the humming Viviane and the bit where the flummoxed crooks try to beat the flawless security system in a basement over a copy of the instructions. The image of little Tonio threatening both goodie and baddie crooks with his toy cowboy gun was especially striking and ironic.

This film, being an oldie (I forgot to mention it was both in French and black&white, didn't I? Ooops, mybad. Please don't let it put you off...), is almost entirely blood free - when nasty things do happen, it's just implied. This is not half as effective as I've been lead to believe. Though it's occasionally effective, mostly it's just confusing.

The long music and speech-free heist (32 minutes, according to imdb.com) is entirely gripping. And the use of the unbrella was especially ingenious. Just don't try taking your eyes from the screen when the police start investigating the car.

Of course, heist films of the second catagory are not about the heist at all, and things really hot up once they've escaped. To be frank, I was interested but not entirely engaged until they escape with the "ice" and...

The music is tragically always intrusive, especially in the last scene; and the song which explains the title...doesn't really explain it at all. imdb tells me it's French underworld slang for machismo, but it still doesn't make sense. After all, there really isn't very much of that in the film - it's far more quiet than that.

Almost forgot the acting! Dear uncle Tony was great, one of a long line of hard-eyed heroes with a whole lot more bubbling under the surface - just my kinda guy. He was entirely excellent- he never says anything to explain away or even admit the prescence of emotions, you just know he feels it all very deeply. And he pinches the good lines too - from the restrained and calm comment "you did it" (that really knocked me off guard, it was so unexpected...to me at any rate) to the delivery of "Il juibiles" when asked how Jo is (pardon my badly spelt French, it translates as "laughing"). Speaking of Jo, he's initially sweet (despite disobeying my suggestion never to have a happy family) and gets gradually twitchier. Oh, and Mario? Well...not much to say there...not to mention Cesar, played by the director himself.

The only negative comment I could make is that Mado is almost incedental to the plot. She drifts in and out, motivation here, plot point there. She impacts the story but doesn't seem a part of it. Just a thought...

All in all, a very good film. It didn't feel "great" the way some films do, but it was certainly very good - technically perfect, as genuinely gripping as B&W films ever are (Dudes, don't crucify me! I simply mean compared to the manufactured effects-laden whizzyness of today's films, even if they can compete it's certainly different) and emotionally tiring. Not to mention unforgettable. Enjoy the pizza.

I watched this film on my own, and my first stop was to imdb.com to air my opinions. So I ram the title (at least, the UK version) into the search box and guess what comes up? The 2007 version. This makes me very upset. Now needless to say, if Al Pacino stays attached to the project and it actually comes to our local cinema, I may go and see it. After all, the plot will probably be nothing like the original. Though it does beg the question WHY?!?!??! It can't match the original, and if it changes the story to get away from it then why name it after it anyway? People have been plagerising it for years anyway...and even if it is as good, I'm betting on whizzyness over class.

On a happier note, http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14931-2286576,00.html!

The title cheers me up no end, and it's all entirely EXCELLENT AND WONDERFUL and the quote below is being duly treasured:

“There are certain friendships that are sometimes too good and too strong to talk about.”

Damn right, dude.

Je suis revenu!

Yay! Hello world, I'm back! My ten-day soujourn in France was spent mostly quoting things my family hadn't seen, more's the pity.

Spy Game - 3.5 stars

Spy Game was entirely excellent. It felt like it was based on a book, with a talky sensible plot - our hero attempts a rescue on the other side of the world without even leaving his office. A lot of films would have flown Nathan out to China and let him spend an hour-or-so fighting off goons, being threatened by masterminds, and this isn't a dig at James Bond no really it isn't honest would I lie to you?

The plot is gently thrilling, and kinda misleading as well. Spies, explosions - whatever, this film's more about nostalga, guilt and thinking about things rationally. A lot of people will see this thinking it's going to be something else. It felt more like a political thriller really, all the desk stuff, with a bit of excitement thrown in for good measure.

Nathan is a great character - in the present, he's a retiring old man who reminisces about his uncle's farm; at the same time he's still the professional agent with his mind as sharp as ever, and in the past he's an uber-efficient chap with no qualms about doing nasty nasty things. Indeed, he has a Godfather complex - because when you think about it, he is a pretty bad guy even though he in no way seems it. And by nasty, I don't just mean the obvious incidents - how about his great isolation technique? Interestingly, they actually removed a plot strand to make his character a little less morally pitch black.

Now I'm not going to criticise RR's acting - in fact, yes I am. He is to be fair a little...one note...wry and charming heroes, right? True, he's not always a goodie but he's never entirely a baddie either. Perhaps it's all stunning play acting on his character's part, but I never got the feeling he really could do all those dreadful things. In the present sections, dashing around head office and causing trouble, he really convinces; in the flashbacks less so. Perhaps it's just my rather hard set perceptions of the actor?

Brad Pitt is, to be entirely honest, one of the few people I would endorse for the role of Dorian if the Picture of Dorian Gray was ever adapted. He's blonde, he can act (see Twelve Monkeys!) and he has this wonderfully edgy beauty. His acting was nothing really special in this, but he was very nice to look at.

This film had a touch of Lucasitis - the feeling that the editor sat down at is desk and went "WOW! Look at all these cool things I can do! I can turn the image into a 3D bell and make it swing around the scene, and cover it with a stained glass effect and zoom in and out! Lets put them ALL in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" OK, so the Starwarses aren't exactly like that, they just have fun with the fades. Now I didn't really mind it, but my mother would have found it annoying and claimed it was making her unwell. It actually shows a lack of confidence in the actors. The scene behind the Fujifilm advert on the roof should have been a really strong one, if the camera had just held still enough to watch them actually act. There are some films which deserve, or need whizzy cinematography - this was not one of them, and it gave the feeling the plot was trying to be something it wasn't.

As always, I took especial notice of the colours, which were lovely - someone had spent time touching up the Vietnam sequences to give them a certain feel, and ditto with Berlin, and Beruit and everywhere.

Favourite scenes? Well the training montage was great - learning the significance of the stick of gum, "I want to see you one one of those balconeys in five minutes", seeing the pair of them on screen together mmmmmm - sorry about that, what I meant was it created an intellectually dynamic polarity between the two idealistically-opposed characters which challenged the pseudo-liberal preconceptions of our post-modernist world. Oh and Bishop didn't need to tell Muir he was hideous, even in jest. That kinda thing hurts...and "age before beauty" was another unecessary comment. But surely my fave bit was *spoilervison*===>the veeery end - Nathan leaving the complex in a kinda echo of the ambulance leaving the prison at the start, but this time everything turning out shiny and the last lines: "There seems to have been an...incident in China...", and the reaction of the board when they realise they were being played all along. Oh I just love sucess! <=====*spoilervision*

Heavens! I almost forgot the music! It seemed reeeally familiar, perhaps it's been in an advert or documentary. It's really nice though, really really nice.

I was watching the special features and I really recognised the voice of the director. At that moment, I remembered the name and immediately got hit with a thunderbolt of no-duhness. It's Tony Scott! Ridley Scott's younger brother, who's not quite as famous but probably just as talented. It must suck. I've got a younger sister, and she's always beating me at everything. But at least it's just things like year 6 IQ tests and design-an-ad competitions, not being the Eighth Best Director In The World EVER. I hope he doesn't hold a grudge...

Finally, I found this site. It's a common...commen...ah, hell I can't spell it. It's all about That Mind Bending Genre, using that mental tag for it which I thought I'd invented. Only being a nice, polite person with irritable parents I'm hardly going to use it in public. Anyway, it's entirely fascinating but TOTALLY SPOILER RIDDEN! So flick through to the ones you've seen, or indeed don't risk it. But there is an interesting Donnie Darko theory:

http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc46.2003/eig.mindfilms/index.html