Today we are going to talk about the Bechdel-Wallace Test, a cunning little observation which originated in this comic strip.

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:

1) it must feature two named female characters...
2)...who have a conversation...
3)...on a subject other than a man...

...

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.

Without even thinking about it, I know none of my favourite movies do. Reservoir Dogs has no speaking female roles, Zulu shunts our only representative off in the first 20 minutes, and Signs doesn't have more than two in the same timeframe, let alone the same scene.

The problem is, women just aren't interesting. Really. Lets consider this:

• Women are interested in men, the family and the home. And nothing else.
• Men, the family and the home are not interesting, because that's where the audience is

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 The Godfather while the men get all the fun. Sissy Spacek's role in JFK 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.

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 Air Force One. 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 Kill Bill - 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 La Femme Nikita- 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 Once Upon a Time in the West, who nevertheless is only allowed to be items a-d on the list above.

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?

The one case I can think of is Ripley in the Alien 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?

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 Juno? 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 Hamlet?! Sarah Bernhardt did...

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.

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.

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 Reservoir Dogs female, but it wouldn't make any narrative sense, because those characters 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 Inside Man, or Sidney Potier's fish-out-of-water Virgil Tibbs in Heat of the Night. 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.
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...

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: Point Break, a heist movie; Near Dark the vampire western and K-19: The Widowmaker, a war film.

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 angry feminists who go way too far 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.

I got quite angry at The War of the Roses, 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.

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.

So with no further ado, here are some movies which pass the Bechdel-Wallace test:

Heavenly Creatures, School of Rock, Ghost World, Kill Bill, Pan's Labyrinth, Tideland, Serenity...

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...

The challenge: how many can you think of? Leave it in the comments...

50 Greatest Tv Shows

http://www.empireonline.com/50greatesttv/default.asp?tv=50

Well, an interesting list. My first observation is the high level of "newer" shows to get in. Normally, these lists are skewed towards nostaligic faves, but most here are only a decade or so old. The only "classic stuff" to get in tended to be British comedy institutions - Monty Python, Blackadder, Faulty Towers. Aside from that and Quantum Leap, apparently there was no TV before 1980.

Despite my current love for Doctor Who, I never had a fear it wouldn't be on there, so wasn't particularly excited when it came up. The one I wanted to see - and by the time I got halfway down, I knew it wasn't there - was The Prisoner, a delightfully surreal 60s show about a man who resigns from his job, presumably as a spy. He is kidnapped and taken to The Village - think Disneyworld meets Big Brother, a paradise of happy people - from which he cannot escape, while the people in charge (his ex-bosses? The enemy? Someone else entirely? His own fractured psyche?) try to crack into his head. 17 episodes follow, stuffed with chess imagery, psychological bull and vagely philosophical delirium. Unlike Lost, whose rash authors promised that everything in the show would be explained, the Prisoner rarely falls into the trap of explaining anything. After its insanely brilliant final episode, creator-cum-lead Patrick McGoohan had to go into hiding for a few weeks, to escape fans who wanted answers.

There are always talks about it being remade by Hollywood - I believe it can be done, but I want somebody reliable to take care of it. Last I heard, David and Janet Peoples (Blade Runner, 12 Monkeys) were working on a script, and Christopher Nolan (master of the mindfrack, with Memento, Following and The Prestege under his belt) would direct. If the lineup stays like that, then they have my full consent. I'm less happy with reports that current remake plans involve an ITV six-part "a pacy, radical reinvention of the original show."

I was sad to see that given the snub. Empire's comments revealed the criteria on which they judged a good show (or was it public vote? in either case, that is what they praised...) was if it was edgy, ironic or down with the mood of the nation. What of Brideshead Revisited, a brilliant adaptation of the book, as well as a brilliant series in its own right. Slow paced, nostalgic, beautiful, multi-layered - it didn't stand a chance. Brideshead is just a good, timeless
period drama, told perfectly.

Enough on what didn't make it.

Battlestar Galactica should be lower. It's very good, at times completely brilliant, especially the
opening miniseries. But a lot of episodes are repetitive or filler, and there is no coherent sense that the plot is going anywhere. Surely place 14 should be reserved for something more consistant? On a personal note, one of my favourite characters, Gaius, is lumbered by having one of my least favourites following him around as a hallucination. It also suffers from being a remake of a camp 70s show, which sounds far more my style, than this gritty post-911 intensefest.

But kudos to them for casting Edward James Olsmos - most famous for robots-who-look-like-
humans classic Blade Runner - in the head role of Commander Adama, in what can only
be one of the greatest sci-fi in jokes ever. And with the start of the second series putting some of my other favourites in the front seat, I'm feeling a flush of love towards it.

In fact, my main problem is that it's one space above Firefly. As contrasts go, thats as direct as it gets, and Galactica just can't cut it. Firefly creates a world as vivid and human, without being so darn grim. There isn't a character, episode, script or scene that rings false in the whole thing.
Even the set design is gorgeous. It subverts genre cliches left right and center, and a more attractive bunch of characters you never will find. Most shows have at least one duff episode - Firefly was never allowed time for one.

I was also happy about Heroes. It didn't even need a second season - the first series was a perfect story arc, perfectly told. The style was gorgeous, the music attractive, and the plot moved at an ideal pace to fill the episodes - cutting the characters as they got dull, revealing
mysteries exactly when we needed to know them. Flashbacks, flashforwards, alternate universes - curse it, it was perfect.

I was very very suprised that Lost was there, and so high. I'm still watching - my sister has got Matthew Fox's signature, the Dharma bag, Dharma T-shirt, subscription to the magazine, going t the official convention this weekend - so I pretty much have to. That's not to say I'm not enjoying it - I almost died in series 2, series 3 was really entertaining, and now at the start of series 4, it's really picked up the pace. Things are happening every week - the introduction of flash forwards really gives it a sense of going somewhere. As I said above, one of the great strengths of The prisoner was it's stubbon refusal to even pretend it made total sense. Lost is at its best when intriguing, at its worse when it panders to fans and explaining the absurd.

The suprise comes not so much that it doesn't deserve to be there - it does, just lower than Heroes and Firefly - but that it's so high. I'm loving it, but I figured I was in a
minority. So how the hell did it get so high?

Band of Brothers should be far nearer the top - it beats virtually everything above it that I have seen.

Think of it as Saving Private Ryan in 13 hours, but based on real characters and real events. War films should always e based on reality. When you're watching it, you know that somewhere, someone went through that hell. It means the company can't demand suspension of disbelief as the same 13 misfits survive every scrape - life is ironic, good guys get killed, bad guys survive. When something unbelieveable, outrageous or heroic happens, you can't groan because it happened. Our central core of 25 characters or so drift in an out of view, as episodes focus on specific groups, as people are transferred or killed. By the last few episodes, you are about as desperate as they for them to survive. Practically perfect in every way, and probably wins my top spot for best TV show ever. Yes, take that Timelords, the very top.

But does the Simpsons deserve to be at the top? Maybe. It has universal appeal (it'd
be unfair to put a genre piece at the top, because it doesn't represent majority rules) and it is
something of an institution. But it'd be nice to have something suprising at the top, so you don't sit through 49 posts to get to one inevitable winner. My money was actually on the Sopranos - both my sister and I managed to whittle down to the top 3.

Being a fan of crime/gangster films, I note I haven't caught a single one of the equivalent TV shows - no Sopranos, The Wire, 24, the Shield e.t.c. Perhaps this should be my guide to the ones I should have seen? Other things I still want to see are Deadwood and Twin Peaks.

So, what do you think? Whats missing? What's OK?


In other news, I today ambled back to a favourite podcast of yore - Watching the Directors - to discover they have posted on Terry Gilliam. At last, hurrah!

Top 100 Ways to Spoil A Top 100 list...(part 1)

I dislike the AFI - or, properly, their top 100 lists. They're too...for them, something in black and white is always better than something in colour.

To start with, by their very nature they are voting for soley American films - and anyone who know anything about film can tell you you're ignoring 70% of good movies through doing that. For me, a good list must have variety (and, obviously, pick Godfather I above Part II.) While 100 American films is good in theory, it cuts down on that variety. Argue if you like that there's plenty of variation witin the US - all to naught faced with a crowd who will vote for anything with James Stewart or Henry Fonda in it.

I don't feel that I have seen the spread of America's filmmaking ability looking at that list. My goodness, there are three Charlie Chaplin films. Now I've never seen any Charlie Chaplin, so I'm in position to judge, but it strikes me that if you're narrowing every film ever down to a fixed number, you should be throwing the net as wide as possible. They obviously have their own merits, but surely you only need one to get the idea? And don't try arguing it shows development or his comic range - it may be good, but it certainly ain't that complex. As a percentage, it implies 3% of American films are slapstick silents. (In fact, make that 4% - The General is also on that list.)

It suggests the "AFI's blue-ribbon panel of more than 1,500 leaders of the American movie community" don't know horsedung about movies. Literally, they all won Oscars. There isn't a single one I've never heard of. It's just so desperately worthy - I can't get excited about this list, not that they're not good films, but...

What do you think won it? I'll give you some clues...it ALWAYS wins if snobs are voting, but it's not Hitchcock. It's black and white (oooh, there's a suprise...) It's about Power, Age, America and the Human Condition. There's a snowglobe. And a sleigh.

I'm not denying it's good - how can I, I haven't seen it - but that doesn't mean its not a dull end to a dull show. The last top 50 I watched was exciting and vibrant - even the fact they only listed 50 was a measure of quality. Taken from all ages and all over the globe, see all of these and you could call yourself well watched. The highest film I had never heard of was listed at number five. That's a measure of the invention. Lets compare us some top tens:

10 – Manhattan – a smart and slow paced romance

9 – Donnie Darko – an unusual modern classic

8 – A Bout de Souffle - some exciting French new wave

7 -North by Northwest. - yeh, Hitchcock, but an unusual one.

6 – 2001:A Space Odyssey - interminably brilliant

5 – Sexy Beast - nasty but good natured sub-Scorcese Brit gangster flick

4- Chinatown – modern noir

3 – City of God - something foreign and worthy, but still vibrant

2 – The Apartment – a classic romantic comedy

1 – Apocalypse Now - a rock-n-roll protest film come war epic come goodness knows.

It's not so much the varying subject matter as the varying tone. They're brilliant, and good fun at the same time; they don't carry the weight of ages conferred by Cinematic Classic status, but are no less good for it. Lets see what the AFI think are the ten best things to come out of the States...

1 CITIZEN KANE - classic lengthy and serious (fictional) bio-epic
2 GODFATHER, THE - classic slow paced and serious family epic

3 CASABLANCA - classic romance. Not too slow paced or serious, but getting there.
4 RAGING BULL - don't know enough to mock effectively. But it ain't a barrel of laughs.
5 SINGIN' IN THE RAIN - OK, I admit this is brilliant. It's fairly silly, it's pretty short in contrast too. But seriously...is this the fifth best film American ever came up with?
6 GONE WITH THE WIND - classic, studio-bound MAMMOTH of a historical epic.
7 LAWRENCE OF ARABIA - another classic historical epic, really serious, really long, and really BRITISH.
8 SCHINDLER'S LIST - very worthy film about - what else? - the Holocaust. In black and white. Serious is a given; jury's out on it's length
9 VERTIGO - Hitchcock. Serious, felt long, and has a total absence of joy.
10 WIZARD OF OZ, THE - technicolour musical, but still far too long and lacks spark.

Oh, yawn. Sorry, dozed off there. Even adding the runtimes together would prove something, or scoring the number of Oscars. At some point on all of those films, a comittee sat down. I can name directors for half of them, and actors for most. There's a lack of innovation. They may be good individually, but together they're virtuallly the same film eight times over. The US has animators, comedians, indie filmmakers, purveyors of enthusiasm and energy, and people who make films WITHOUT songs.

And let me reiterate - two musicals in the top ten? Are you serious? Using my illogical percentage trick again, this implies 20% of America's best films are musicals.

It's just so very old school. Perhaps it's the lack of foreign flavour - in that company, even Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid seems a bit dull (and that's my favourite film, folks)

Recently, they did a ten-year update of their 100 films list to celebrate what's changed in the past ten years. Bit of a shock for a crowd who are still suprised by the concept of colour television. As such, they made a few basic errors, like not voting Fight Club, The Matrix, American Beauty, Memento, Donnie Darko onto their list.

By the way, those aren't films I especially love - just highly acclaimed crackers from the top of the Imdb 250 which appear on a high percentage of other lists.

They're not remotely in contact with real people. Hate populist lists if you like (and I frequently do), voting Star Wars top and all that - but this is completely out of touch. I'd have a fight on my hands claiming Saving Private Ryan, the Sixth Sense and Fellowship of the Ring were the best three films of the last ten years.

They even voted for Intolerance over Birth of a Nation, which shows an awful tendency towards being PC. This is my problem with this list - there's no suprises, nothing likely to alarm. Just very middle of the road, and very well behaved. Sample dialogue:

"ooooh, what about Pulp Fiction?" Says one panel member, "it's very famous!"

"Put it on the list," says the other, "but not near the top where any human with eyes would - after all, it has revitalised cinema and suggested a new way of doing things, it's in colour, it's unhealthy fun and doesn't involve Orson Welles. No, we can't ignore it, but we'll leave it langishing at 94 to put it in its place...upstarts!"

It's not that I especially care about Pulp Fiction (don't smirk, I meant that!). Just look at that list and tell me it's not the odd one out. We shouldn't cater to da youf, but it's like a big shield for the AFI against the accusation they only vote for cosy 50's fare. Yeh. One. Now what about everything else? Wot, no Coen brothers?

They're not films which are going to get your pulse racing with excitement. Cold blooded admiration, perhaps, but not much spice, and absolutely no quirk.

Perhaps the criteria is at fault. Even though it professes to be America's 100 greatest, the official ballot points you towards films which have:

CRITICAL RECOGNITION
Formal commendation in print, television and digital media.
MAJOR AWARD WINNER
Recognition from competitive events including awards from peer groups, critics, guilds and major film festivals. (note that minor film festivals are excluded...)
POPULARITY OVER TIME
Including success at the box office, television and cable airings, and DVD/VHS sales and rentals.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
A film's mark on the history of the moving image through visionary narrative devices, technical innovation, or other groundbreaking achievements.
CULTURAL IMPACT
A film's mark on American society in matters of style and substance.

None of those make a great film. How many people like it. What the professionals think. What bull. Historical significance and cultural impact I have more sympathy for, but it doesn't matter whether it broke gay rights records if it's still a dull film. (incidentally, as far as I can see, In the Heat of the Night is the only one with any genuine "significance", and it looks brilliant).

Or perhaps its the voters, who ignored these shortlisted films:

Airplane!, Alien, American Beauty, Austen Powers (what was THAT doing there?!), Babe (ditto!), Back to the Future, Being John Malkovich, Brazil, The Breakfast Club, Die Hard, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fantasia, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Fight Club, Freaks, Ghostbusters, Grease, Harold and Maude, Jurassic Park, Lost in translation, The Matrix, Memento, Moulin Rouge!, Requiem for a Dream, The Rocky Horror damn Picture Show, Scarface, sex lies and videotape, Shrek, Sideways, Stand By Me, the Sting, this Is Spinal Tap, Three Kings, Traffic...

Are they good? Not necessarily. Are they bona fide classics with a meaty message about justice? NO. They're innovative, newfangled, exciting and films which real people watch. Put two of those films back on the AFI hundred, and all of a sudden you have some suprises.

PS - isn't funny how 4/5 of the modern films I said were missing were shortlisted?

At least The Jazz Singer wasn't there...

What makes an "American film" anyway? Splitting these things can be pretty tricky.

They might have The Third Man at no 57., because Orson Welles is God, but as far as I can see that's stealing - it's definitely a British film. And as if to prove my point, the BFI rank it at no. 1 on their top 100. Incidentally, the BFi also have two David Lean films in the top ten, which reinstates my faith - I could have been sure he was a Brit. So I was a little suprised to see Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia listed by the AFI. I was pretty sure Clockwork Orange counted as British as well...

See what I mean? It just does little things to wind me up...

This was all tied up in a big bow by Morgan Freeman - yet again cast as a kind of "voiceover man" - providing some syrupy interludes before and after the ad breaks. Now when the Brits do top 100s, they have John Cleese or some other comedian making lame jokes in between. Accompanied by these horrible strings, that even 50s filmmakers would have rejected as "too sappy and OTT", he gravely intoned about how films touch our lives and influence both our past and our present. Do I smell stilton?

Incidentally, even though this destroys my point, it also got my goat by reaffirming the Oscar's greatest mistake - and listed Titanic at 83, and forgot L.A. Confidential (which was on the shortlist). That's above 12 Angry Men, Goodfellas, Toy Story and Blade Runner folks...

Still, I enjoyed hearing what directors had to say. Spike Lee, famous for his gritty city movies, likes Midnight Cowboy. M. Night, Mr Big Cinematic Emotion, likes The Shawshank Redemption, Rocky and - who'da thought it? - E.T.



In fact, what makes me hate this list more than anything. Two little words:

1.CITIZEN KANE (1941)

I ain't saying it's bad, just do something ORIGINAL!


The AFI revised list is here: http://connect.afi.com/site/DocServer/100Movies.pdf?docID=301

And in case my day couldn't get any worse, they're making a sequel to painfully cliched comeing-of-age-thru-dance flick Step Up.

...but then again, who does?

Ah, Blade Runner! Was there anything wrong with this film? Even if formerly there were nitpicking oppertunities, the new special edition has ironed them out just dandy.


Blade Runner: Final Cut isn't strictly a new cut of the film. It's essentially the Director's Cut all over again, with a few scene changes so imperceptible I missed them. It's more a chance for Ridley Scott's to have a last tweak of all the things which have been annoying him for years - little continuity errors, effects which he couldn't quite cinch. Along with a visual polish and aural reboot, it's turned a great film into cinematic perfection.


I'm going to skip telling you how ace it was, because it'll just turn into one great incoherent list of everything which makes it good. No, instead I'm going to tackle the age-old question of IS HE or ISN'T HE?


If you havem't seen the film, then spoiler alert.


Deckard: replicant or human? For me, the importance lies in the uncertainty, because that's what Blade Runner is all about.

Think about it too hard, and a woefully obvious moral arises - in "retiring" the replicants to protect humanity, is Deckard more inhuman than they are? Ugh, it's subtext-by-numbers. Come down on the side of him being either man or bot, and you're drawing nasty neon arrows towards said subtext. Look at the TRAGEDY of a man reduced to the same inhumanity as his victims! Or, look at the IRONY of a robot killing robots! It's the ole cops and criminals are the same - "when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?", been dun in in Heat, French Connection, Dirty Harry and goodness knows in Infernal Affairs/The Departed. Sci-fi as social metaphor. Oh, wonderful. I hate them both equally. Cardboard cut outs, and both equally wrong.


Worrying ambiguity is the key to this film (just take another look at that disturbing love scene...) The replicants are as pitiable as they are dangerous - and, crucially, as dangerous as they are pitiable. One never overshadows the other.


As such, the importance of the end isn't a Sixth Sense style gasp and slap your head reveal. It doesn't change the significance or enjoyment of what has come before. It just wakes you up to an additional level of questions and uncertainties. With the replicants dead and Rachel safe, Deckard is dangerously close to a happy ending totally incongruous with everything he has done and been through.

What do I think personally? The more I see this film, the more clues I see to suggest he is. But I desperately don't want to come down on one side or the other. Partly because Deckard seems so human, and partly because I want the idea to trouble him the way it does me. I like endings which come with a gulp. The suggestion he is a replicant is far more powerful than a statement of fact. Gaff's unicorn prank is really going to spoil his 'perfect escape, because now he has this never ending suspicion ticking away, like an itch he can't scratch.

It's perfectly balanced, though, however you want to take it - even if Ridley Scott thinks you're a "moron" if you didn't spot it. Most actual, tangible clues suggest he is a replicant - the anti-replicant argument is more a tonal, thematic one, and there's no good evidence he isn't.


He is because...

• Ridley Scott says so!
• He has artificial memories, which has given him the same emotional cushion as Rachel, which is why they both react to killing with humanity unlike the others.
• He has photos all over his piano, photos which can't just be his - both Rachel and Leon show a connection to photographs (CA: coincidence!)
• In one shot, very briefly, his eyes glow the same way Rachel, Pris and the owl's do (CA: almost certainly unintentional)
• "Have you ever taken that test yourself?" accuses Rachel (CA: a perfectly reasonable question, especially when taken with the whole humanity theme.)
• Gaff makes a unicorn; he dreams about unicorns, implying that Gaff knows about the dreams, and that they are implants like Rachel's memories (CA: unicorns could mean anything, just like the human figure and chicken he makes early on, neither of which carry conspiracy. Frank "Shawshank" Darabont thinks the unicorn dream is something Rick found in Rachel's file, which explains why Gaff too has it on the brain, and the unicorn is a message about her.)
• "it's a pity she won't live, but then again who does?" implying he's got a short sell-by-date as well (CA: this too can be interpreted innocently, especially if the unicorn represents Rachel.)
• "You've done a man's job, sir!" (CA: but this is also an entirely common saying)
• What is Gaff's role, if not the real blade runner, keeping an eye on Deckard and ready to retire him at any moment things foul up?

He isn't because...

• Harrison Ford says he isn't! And so does Phillip K. Dick.
• He's physically so much weaker than the other replicants (CA: but so's Rachel...)
• He gets the shakes after killing - no one would invent a robot to do his job which is emotionally incapable of doing so (CA: but so's Rachel.)
• It makes no sense for a robot to be so jaded about what he's doing. The other replicants have no regret.
• Harrison Ford plays him with far too much humanity. The other replicants all have a certain wrong-ness about them. Even Rachel seems devoid of something. He feels old, while they are all fresh and perfect-sparkly; he's scruffy, they're not; he feels terror in a way they don't seem to.
• There has to be a human character in the film - if Deckard isn't, then you have no real point of comparison
• because I don't want him to be, because I read the film as about X, and it's more thematically rich if he isn't. You lose all sorts of meanings, i.e. the comparison between Batty as a replicant and Deckard as a human (no counter argument possible)

And besides, Gaff is my favourite character. Why? It's the way he appears to be pulling the strings. We know nothing about him, yet he seems to know a lot about us. Like R+GaD's Player. As such, I like the idea he'd either known all along, or played on Deckard's traumatised state to screw with his mind.


The ultimate answer seems to be: I don't know or care. I like the suggestion he isn't human far more than the actual idea - it seems like a short change as an actual concept.



PS - you know sometimes sci-fi geekery just takes over, and Kevin Smith gets cast in Die Hard 4 or something. Actory in-jokes.

Edward James Olmos, a.k.a. Gaff, is the coolest and most significant character in this "robots looking like humans" classic. Is it any suprise, then, that my inner fanboy positively somersaulted at his role in the reinvented TV show Battlestar Galactica - heroic commander of said ship, in it's war against the repli- sorry, Cylons, the robots which look like humans. Classic! Adorably, the Final Cut interviews feaure him slipping up and saying Cylon instead of Replicant...

Fade Out

OK, firsty thanks for encouraging comments and suggestions. I've made a list of them all, and as soon as Xmas is over I'll start keeping an eye out.


Last night, the parents went out, so in honest tradition I put an 18 on (it's a running joke between me and my sister now; it's happened three or four times at least. I know, I'm corrupting the young, so kill me...at least ONE of us is now 18...)

I decided three things. Firstly, you've got to watch a LOT of gangster movies to truly get them. I was pausing every few minutes to begin with to decode the lingo for my sis, who's not such a veteran. Something about the genre invites a barrage of street slang and racial abuse, most of which is vital to ones understanding of the film. Miss the meaning of the word "ice" or "snow", and you'll be in trouble when you have to work the plot out (by the by, "ice" generally means diamonds, and I've only ever heard "snow" as a drug reference. So now you know...)

Secondly, if I'd remembered The Departed had so much swearing and so much violence, I would have picked something more harmless. Like Clockwork Orange *sarcasm*. Honestly, though. I'm happy to stretch the rules to get my sister through a good film, but not traumatise her for life.

Thirdly, and most importantly. Doesn't it do its violence well. Film can do everything in any way its life. Violence runs the whole spectrum from The Matrix' victimless cool, via the sticky but good fun agony of Reservoir Dogs to the borderline-unwatcheable Irreversable.

All variations, but The Departed gets it right. It treads the perfect line between the entertainment value and the preaching of violent media. Let me explain.

Movie violence has to decide what it wants to do. Primarily, do you want to entertain, entertain and shock, or just shock. James Bond is a good example of the former - Irreversable the latter. Saw falls in the middle - it wants to disgust us, but wants us to enjoy being disgusted (think rollercoaster, and the fun of being scared witless) Pure shock runs the risk of people leaving the cinema and trying to get your movie banned; but there is a streak of irresponsibility in merely entertaining thrillers which present gunplay as exciting and without consequence.

The Departed strikes the perfect balance, and highlights the contradiction perfectly - because real violence is as entertaining as it is shocking. Contentious statement? People box, wrestle, street-scuffle, and take enjoyment in doing so. It sucks if you're being attacked (that's the shock yuck factor), but what does the attacker have to gain from it? OK, money you say, but don't deny that people enjoy hurting others. Especially in this context, among criminals and an assortment of scum.

As such, The Departed is exciting, very at times, just as it should be. The constant rock soundtrack helps not a little in getting you in the mood for some viceral bloodletting. At the same time, the speed with which an innocent scene turns around, the unflinching realism and unspairing detail rightly appal you. You do enjoy it - but not too much. I want to rewatch Goodfellas now and see whether it works as well there.

I suppose, to an extent, Mr Blonde has the same contradiction. But despite the number of people who switched it off, threw up, fainted, walked out or wrote letters to the paper, I still believe his moment of glory is glamorised more than demonised - at least within the film itself. I've a good essay about this waiting to come out...



And now, a special treat. I don't usually bother giving music away - it's not mine to give, and anyway, what I like others won't necessarily. It's also often hard to get excited about music from a film you haven't seen unless it's staggeringly beautiful.

Well, this is my definition of staggering, and this tune applies twice - to fans of both Michael Collins and Heat.

So here it is

This is Elliot Goldenthal's playout track for Michael Collins, a biopic of an Irish freedom fighter/terrorist and a film I thought I would loathe.

A little background - the English are ruling Ireland in 1916, as they have been since 1066 or so. Our heroes think Ireland should govern itself. They're not the first - various factions within Ireland have been attempting romantic but doomed open rebellions for years. But Michael Collins comes to promenance by kickstarting a insanely successful style of brutal guirella warfare instead, assasinating key figures collaborating with the British and keeping his own identity a secret.

I'm not sure why it moved me more than any other period drama of its ilk. Perhaps it's because they were shooting on genuine locations, and all ones I'd visited, that I felt an intensely personal connection to it (particularly the opening scenes of the Easter Rising; I've visited That post office, and That jail, and several of Those cells, not to mention Dublin Castle itself). Perhaps it was a cut above every other "freeeeeeeeedom!" movie ever made. And maybe it was just because the music was so darn good.

Good music lifts bad films, and can make anything enjoyable. The score is gorgeous most of the way, but then at the end, as the last shot fades, just lifts itself out of the sphere by playing something which perfectly accompanies that sense of numbed silence which certain films hit you with.

Films like Heat. Heat is supposed to be a masterpiece - perhaps it is, I need to see it again. But I felt I was missing something most of the way through. In fact, it was ten minutes from the end until I really got into it

And again, the music obliged by cradling my sense of shock in a lovely piece by Moby

What's the connection? Well, "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters" was not the first choice for the playout in Heat. This chap called Elliot Goldenthal wrote something for it as well, the same Elliot Goldenthal who later wrote for Michael Collins, with a track too good to waste up his sleeve. He removed the electrics and replaced them with a more Irish fiddle sound, and created (IMO) a masterpiece.

The thing I can't get over is how similar it is in feel to "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters", both in the way it is used and the sound of the music itself. Michael Mann certainly knew what he wanted with this one, rejecting one great piece for another very similar.

Anyway, here it is if you want a listen - for lovers of Heat, lovers of Michael Collins and lovers of great movie music. Perhaps you won't enjoy it so much out of context. I dunno. But this is my standard for a great movie tune.

PS - isn't Fadeout a great movie title waiting to happen? Perhaps it already has?

PPS - by now, I'm sure you know I'm an incurable Reservoir Junkie - my cold-turkey lent was a big struggle, and every now and then I just get the itch. The bug. Symptoms include spending long ours on Res Dogs fic Livejournals without reading any fic, or slash Livejournals while ignoring the slash, talking about nothing else, thinking about nothing else, blogging about nothing else and staying up far, far too late at night trying to find like-minded addicts on the web. Now you could say, "JUST WATCH THE DAMN MOVIE" or, if you're feeling really crafty, quote my beloved Oscar Wilde and tell me "the only way to rid oneself of a temptation is to yield to it". But there's a small problem...I love and listen to the soundtrack pretty frequently. When I get to
Stuck in the Middle with You, I normally smile. Sometimes I shiver, and today I had to skip it entirely. I've only ever watched the movie on "smile days"; I can't imagine getting to the end on a day when I can't even sit through the music. Such is life.

All you need is love...

Firstly, a guide to 80s action movies: http://www.ruthlessreviews.com/80actionguide.cfm

'tis good for a giggle.

In today's post: two reviews, a defence of so called "buddy-movie-love", an attack on what makes good so called "violence", a discussion of my so called "favourite movies list", a requiem for my so called "scary" film studies coursework and the usual so called "paragraphs" about QT. this, I realise, is a window into how I write, and an apology for the fact I haven't written for a week. Instead of 7 small posts, here's one big one. Because that's such a mess, I'm going to use a few headings to sort things out. Starting with...

A SO-CALLED REVIEW

I watched the Guns of Navarone this afternoon. And loved it. I know I have all these delicate film-buff notions about how old films are as good as new ones, but we all know that isn't true. Some old films are up to modern standards, but many, many others (while great for their time) now seem unforgivably tame and stagy compared.

Smell the roses. This film is brilliant. It delivers everything you could ask for from a rip-roaring old-school yarn, and more. Heroics, derring-do – and some things which I didn’t expect, which just carried it above my expectations. Things like a lot of moral muddiness – our heroes err on the side of anti for most of the film – and more nastiness than I’d expect in an old-style, “tame” film.

In this slightly morally-skewed state, it also comes up with a brilliant stance on War itself. As I’ve pointed out before, few war films are actually about character or plot. They like to pretend they are, but believe me, they all have an agenda. Usually, it’s a blend of: “war is hell”, “war is crazy” and “war is amazing”.

Here it’s pitched perfectly in the middle. On the one hand, the orchestra keeps playing Rule Britannia - this film is all about our daring lads risking all for King and Country. A crack commando team are sent behind enemy lines to disable some big guns so three evacution ships can pass through unhindered. Yay! At the same time, Gregory Peck comes out with a dour statement that:

"The only way to win a war is to be just as nasty as the enemy. The one thing that worries me is we're liable to wake up one morning, and find we're even nastier than they are."

And by the end of the film, you could make a fairly stinging assessment of whether our heroes managed anything like it…

I bet Hollywood must secretly be pleased for Hitler. After all, World War Two gave them a bunch of unredeemable villains for every occasion. Indiana Jones? James Bond? Of course, the Brits and Americans are fighting on the side of civilisation and goodness. They don't murder innocent civilians and torture captives! Franklin comments that Miller was able to blow up a building without damaging the orphanage next door. No one bats an eye if Nazis start being inhuman – not even the Political Correctness brigade can defend them.

And that’s what is so wonderful about this film. It addresses all of this without bashing you over the head with it. These Nazis are some of the most dislikeable I’ve seen for a while. The moment that ice-blonde one comes into the room, you know exactly what his hobbies are. But as the deathtoll of nameless security guards mounts, you have to start feeling sorry for them, especially after a German officer shows the same strength in resisting interrogation and death threats as our heroes have moments before.

And how much more heroic are our heroes? The Zulu-style stirring narration which opens the movie praises the concept of a few brave men who are willing to risk their lives to save the many. But at times it goes a step further. They are attempting what the Anglo Saxons would count as a “great deed”, but while they are willing to risk their own lives in the attempt, Gregory Peck’s character demonstrates he’s willing to risk other people’s lives as well. And herein lies the conflict, especially when David Niven comes out with a beautiful “why are we doing this?” when faced with losing something far more important than all those strangers they’re trying to rescue. He says it in a way I’ve never seen in a war film before. But why shouldn’t he say it? It’s true…

All this goes on in the background though – ignore it, if you like, and just focus on what’s going on. The message is there because it’s part of the plot, not to make you rethink your politics. Its effects on the characters and their relationships is the most important thing here. And there are some truly, truly great scenes

One moment which deserves a mention for being truly chilling is when the aforementioned blonde Nazi rolls his gun along the a man’s injured leg with captives standing by. Just that. It’s a silent threat, and a very nasty one. It lives perfectly in old-fashioned expectations of how much you can show, while allowing your imagination to run as far as you’ll let it. THIS IS THE DEFINITION OF "VIOLENT". It’s not necessarily about your inventiveness, or how much claret you’re willing to spill (Saw 2, take note) – it’s all about buildup and atmosphere. This has both.

But the success of any buddy movie (and that’s basically what this is) rests on the way characters interact. All present and correct here! They make an amazing team.

Gregory Peck is great in his role as pseudo-leader of the posse, who conveniently speaks both Greek and German. Sometimes, he does look pretty Greek. And he's scarily convincing as a German too. In fact, the only one he doesn't pull off is being English (his character was in the book, but he refused to even attempt it for the film.) As in Jaws, he was so good that I didn't notice that he was playing what (on reflection) is a very overdone, clichéd character – the leader under pressure. He brings something new to the cliché.

But the norm is being bucked at every corner. Take Stanley Baker’s knifer who’s lost his nerve. In any other film, he would have redeemed himself. Here, he just fades away. Brilliant!

Of course, my favourite character was David Niven’s Very English Captain Miller, the explosives expert who can’t function without his Very English cup of tea. I say “of course”, because it’s probably painfully obvious to a lot of people why this is so. It certainly would be to my sister, who cried “Oh, THAT’S why you like it!” as soon as Mr White asked “who’s a tough guy?”.*

Just to clear things up, I have never thought in any way to ever even assume, imply, hint, hope, believe or suggest Messrs White and Orange are in love with each other. Ever. Whatever my sister says. Or my livejournal communities list.

My sister does have this funny idea about me and what I like in films…can’t imagine where she got it from…

Mind you, as for Gregory Peck’s assertion that the real plot is:

"David Niven really loves Anthony Quayle and Gregory Peck loves Anthony Quinn. Tony Quayle breaks a leg and is sent off to hospital. Tony Quinn falls in love with Irene Papas, and Niven and Peck catch each other on the rebound and live happily ever after."

…I can only say yes, definitely. Can you even doubt it? As I must have already made abundantly clear, I LOVE BUDDY MOVIES. And according to Simon Pegg, the mark of a good buddy pairing is that they’re “secretly in love with one another.” My sister interprets this as me being a closet slash fan, but she’s wrong. For the uninitiated into the sticky world of fandom, this is the wikipedia definition of slash if you're easily disturbed, and this is the fanfic symposium definition in case you're feeling more open minded. I don’t really believe in it. I’m not for a moment claiming any of these people aren’t straight (not that I’d have a problem if they weren’t); I’m just a fan of that undying, platonic buddy-love which completely transcends sexuality. It has all the fun of true love, without the tedium of angsty “relationship problems” and most of the cloying dialogue. The “secretly” is the best part: we know, they know, and they don’t feel the need to be demonstrative about it: they just get on with it. Perhaps it’s just an extension of the sort of normal romances that interest me – I like them subtle and ultimately unrequited. If you’re still clueless as to what I’m going on about, see virtually any of my favourite films…especially BC+SK (when it was described by Paul Newman as “a love story”, he wasn’t talking about Etta…), Freebie and the Bean (tagline: “It’s also a love story”), Hot Fuzz (OK, they’re deliberately playing this up as part of their action-movie-mockery, but that doesn’t stop it being sweet) and this, blatantly the worst of the lot, which should be watched if merely for an easily misinterpreted use of the word “care”.

Did I just rank this as a “FAVOURITE FILM”?!

Erm…it usually takes a while for things to settle onto my increasingly illogical favourite films list. A list of “favourite films” is such an irrational thing that mine is governed by crazy rules to keep me sane. How can anyone claim to love Zulu more than Res Dogs? Or vice versa? Once you’ve established you like them both, putting them in an order is ridiculous. What do they have in common?! Which is why my list is covered in little anomalies, such as Twelve Monkey’s presence. Is it better than Tideland and Brazil? No. Do I like it more than Tideland and Brazil? No. Why is it on the list, and they aren’t? No idea. See how weirdly the list works? Keeping it subconsciously, deliberately wrong spares me from attempts to make it “right”, which I’m sure you’re already aware is pretty impossible.

Rififi, Run Lola Run, Brazil, Tideland, Unbreakable, Freebie and the Bean, Hot Fuzz (did I hear someone scream buddylove?), Dodgeball…why are these not on the list? I adore them, they’re amazing. L.A. Confidential spent near on four years in limbo before being promoted. The Godfather needed about 45 seconds, but then again I had already had a few years to get used to the idea I was going to like it. So how long will it take this one? Well, folks…it’s taken about three days.

When you watch a film, you get sucked in by the world. The colours and atmosphere and music pick you up, and spit you out the other side. Whenever I see something I adore, it’s like being brainwashed. I keep remembering a sensation in the back of my mind, feeling ripples but forgetting what made the splash. I’ll feel wonderful, then try to work out why, and in a few minutes remember…it was just because I saw {insert film here}. That’s always a bit of a let down. I got it for all the others, and I’m getting it for this. A buddy-movie about moral panic in the face of insurmountable odds? Add a sepia tone and you’ve got my perfect movie. As it stands, I loved this film more than any I have seen for a long time. And at the end of the day, love is what its all about…



…you know, it’s a pity Robin Hood’s got Maid Marian hanging about in the wings, because…y’know…Will Scarlet...



(*Yeh, I’m not feeling very good about that…My parents had already basically said it was ok for little-miss-aged-15 to see it, that’s not why I feel bad. It’s because she commented:

“This is only the 2nd 18 I’ve seen all the way through!”
“Oh, which was the other one?”
“Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.”

…

That was what we watched the last time we watched a film together…I’m corrupting the young! Of course I feel terrible, especially as she didn’t think it was very good at the end of it all. But it’s no fun to watch on your own, and nothing beats the experience of watching it with someone who’s never seen it before. My sister’s squeal of “ew, ear!” made the whole thing worthwhile. Is that cruel of me?

Now I know you must be heartily sick of MONSEUR QT. “But you don’t even like half his films!” I hear you cry. But I have this irrational affection for him personally. If he decided to make a sweeping romantic triumph about a WW2 nurse in Africa (just compounding all the worst elements into my nightmare film here…The English Patient was never going to succeed with me…), he’d make it in such a way I’d want to see it. His soundbites and quotes are often aligned with my personal beliefs, and I respect and understand what he’s trying to do cinematically even if I don’t always appreciate them as entertainment.

I’ve now seen Kill Bill vol. 2, but can’t be bothered to lavish a whole post on it, mostly because I have very little to say. Except it was miles better than Kill Bill vol. 1. And I feel gloriously vindicated.

Back when I was doing my FILM STUDIES COURSEWORK, I commented that the centre of my scene was a lengthy unbroken shot of a young girl trapped in a cupboard. I wanted to keep the camera on her as long as the audience could endure watching her panic, without moving or breaking away. And then we would cut to her friend taking an agonisingly long time to find her. Now as it happens it didn’t turn out that way – I couldn’t keep my friends’ attention for anywhere near long enough to shoot what I had in mind.

At the time I was quite hurt by this – the whole idea behind my short was this one moment. But now it doesn’t matter. Because QT’s done it, and he’s proved me right. I know now how amazing my sequence (which is already fairly good) would have been with it in. Without giving too much away, it’s in the Kill Bill graveyard scene. He uses exactly my shot, and leaves it for several minutes of black-and-white panic. Now as it happens, I was going to colour my shot black-and-red, and my heroine was facing the other direction (and the torch was a good idea, I hadn’t thought of that), but that’s not the point. The point is, I’m basking in reflected pride and the knowledge that with a scene like that, it would have lifted it from creepy into terrifying.

I’ll tell you candidly, I’ve been having trouble sleeping on account of that scene, and that shot particularly. Do I care? Hell no! Because if I’d got my shot as originally envisaged, I’d have been having the same trouble over my own film. Wouldn’t that have been great? Thank you, Quents, for proving me right…

And while we’re on the topic, I know the consensus is that directors acting is a bad thing (even though he’s one of my favourite things in PF), but he’s really good as McKenas Cole in Alias. Even if I did smirk when he got the grey masking tape out. He plays this bad guy, but basically plays him as himself (a bit on the dweeby side…), which is great.

And finally, to briefly return to the original points of the post…he could make me interested in watching his wall dry. Even were Michael Madsen and Tim Roth not already attached to his newest film (Res Dogs spoiler – who reckons there’s going to be some karmic revenge taken for the last time they were on screen together? Anyone? It’s just the type of thing he’d do…), I’m now as excited as they come for “Inglorious Bastards”. What’s it about? Well people keep mentioning the spaghetti westerns, and the Dirty Dozen – Sergio Leone in occupied France. Sounds like a sort of…World War Two buddy movie to me…)

ANOTHER SO CALLED REVIEW

PS - I was right about Saw II. It was almost good, at times. But it roundly ditched terror for yuck, and gave us a cast of characters nobody could care about. It would have been more interesting if Jigsaw's intent had been less...bloody. If the game hadn't been based around seeing to what extreme lengths people would go to survive, but forcing them to work together. That would have resulted in more character coordination, and a more interesting film. A bit more puzzle solving. The joy of Saw I was that it was basically all buildup, with a fantastic payoff. Like I said above, buildup not blood is how to create true horror or violence. But having traded a single room for a whole house, and two guys for eight, naturally they won't have as much time for terror.

Like the first one, I liked the aesthetics. And there were lots of little touches I liked - the cop's game was bewy clever indeed; I liked the fact that they didn't get anywhere near saved in the house itself, and left some things unanswered (like the meaning of "over the rainbow".I actually worked it out this morning - you'd have to use the numbers in the order the colours are in the rainbow. Ding!) and there was some interestingly fast paced zippy direction at the start (though it soon became annoying, and it distracted from the terror in the yucky bits. Which were very yucky, I looked away for most of them. But it just didn't get under my skin in the same way that even the bloodless Tideland did.)

But that didn't make up for the many, many things I disliked. I spotted the connection between the characters immediately. I knew what was going to happen to Obi. And I spotted the twist, which was illogical in the extreme and 50% lame.

It was a good sequel though. Here, we return to the bathroom, and see some more of Lawrence, Adam, Zip - even Amanda - from the first film. I loved this - it was something they easily could have forgotten, and didn't. Now if only the rest had been as compelling....and the girl who played Amanda looked just like the blonde from Dead Ringers (current events comedy show). It's hard to remain worried when you keep expecting her to purr "Hello, I'm Fiona Bruce..."

Final verdict: it wasn't scary. It wasn't clever. It didn't even leave as much room for great acting. But it did have some extreme scenes of people in variously nasty situations. Meh.

I did notice something interesting though. The Saw movies will not kill their children. Isn't that funny? If you kill a child, or a dog, or a helpless Drew Barrymore in the first ten minutes of your film, you cross the line. The moment you demonstrate you'll do it, the audience know that nobody is safe, putting them permenantly on edge. A plea when you make Saw 11: do it, then we'll know you're serious.

Oh, and that guy I spent the whole film thinking "Gee, he looks like Mark Wahlburg". That's Donnie Wahlburg, his older brother. My deepest sympathies.

Fear death by water

It's pronounced "SHAH-ma-lawn", but I won't hold it against you if you forget. In fact, I rarely even remember how to spell it, which is pretty shameful considering M. Night Shyamalan (had to check imdb for that) is possibly, nay, probably my favourite director of all time ever. Yes, I have occasional dalliances with Tarantino, Leone and Gilliam, but while they make damn fine movies...well, at the end of the day they're only movies.

According to an author whose name I've forgotten, a good book should "add something to the human condition". Whatever that means. It's an opinion I theoretically disagree with; theoretically, because today's post is a love letter to a canon of work which is all about making the mundane world wonderful.

Of course, wherever there be great love, others develop great and bitter hate if they don't understand what others see (you may at this point nudge my grumblings about Hitchcock...) Two minutes on imdb turns up "Worst Director........... .....Of ALL TIME?", "M Night sucks ass. The man has no talent, his movies are so predictable" AND "He has a gift. read between the lines and you will find the true beauty and passion in his films." and "i think he is awsome. I like how he tells a story." And a lot of people plain miss the point - too cynical to accept what he's trying say. Some of his films have mass appeal, but they’re not really aimed at the popcorn demographic. “Pearls before swine”, as Friend 2 says on a totally different topic. They get the plot, but not the point. Watch, enjoy, then look deeper.

For the purpose of this post, "all his films" means all the ones I've watched - Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village and Lady in the Water. I've seen Stuart Little too, but y'know, it doesn't quite fit into the canon so well. I want to see Praying with Anger and Wide Awake, so I can say I've seen them all, but unfortunately, my parents get suspicious of ordering stuff off the web. This post is spoiler-free, so don't comment and point out that I've got my facts wrong in places. And I apologise in advance if I tip over from critical analysis into gushing worship at times.

Firstly, what makes him great? His films manage to be stylish and original, while still being commercially succesful. He balances great characterisation with a great plot - in general, most films manage one or the other, but MNS combines them perfectly. And he makes actors act really well. Bruce Willis can act (Twelve Monkeys), but then you watch Unbreakable and 6th Sense and you realise he can act. His scripts are really emotional. Does anybody really talk like that? No…but it means the characters get a chance to articulate their beautiful truths about life. In fact, beauty is a world I use as sparingly as Ricky in American Beauty, but all his films are truly lovely - take a bow James Newton Howard, musical collaborater, who's ace. He makes tiny movies (though he began his career with Disney, his earlier films could easily have been shot independant, with few locations and characters) about big themes. The ole' guilt-hope-despair-redemption circle.

The auteur theory reminds us that directors have a certain, personal style - and this shines through his films, especially as he not only directs but writes, produces and acts as well. So what makes an MNS film and, more importantly, what's gone wrong recently? I love The Village, and Lady in the Water is better than most people give it credit for. Naturally I'm biased, but even I can see a definite shift in quality between those two and the other three.


One day we'll all be dead people, and if M Night is remembered at all, it'll be for The Sixth Sense. Admit it. You didn't see it coming. The twist or the success of this little film. The whole world suddenly sat up and took notice - as proved by the fact it was spoofed everywhere.

It's also a legacy he's been running to escape ever since. This film's terrifying reputation, and some ill-judged trailers, initially pidgonholed him as a horror director, provoking betrayed wails that The Village wasn't scary (which it isn't, although it does contain the biggest jump of his career). No wonder he insisted "director of the Sixth Sense" to be removed from advertising campaigns for Signs.

And then there's that twist, which completely overshadowed the rest of the film, and
enfuriated audiences, who expected something similarly mindblowing in his subsequent flicks. In truth, while they all have a reversal of sorts (set up well enough that you'll notice different things next time round, and heralded by a mini-montage of clips), Sixth Sense is the only one where it's big news.

The others aren't so much about changing the film you've just seen, but enhancing it. You can only see Sixth Sense for the first time once. Unbreakable is significant, haunting and scary, but not world shattering. Signs is perhaps the only one which wouldn't work without its punchline - but knowing the end doesn't significantly shift your perspective on what's gone before.


Unbreakable came next. Again, assuming he's remembered, I've got a sneaking feeling that while Sixth Sense was the noisy phenomenon, this is the one which will be regarded as the eventual classic. My personal favourite is Signs, but I'll admit that possibly this one's the best. Like Sixth Sense, it takes the ordinary world, adds something extraordinary, and then treats it like it's all real again. While all his films carry a deep undercurrent of sadness, this is possibly the most downbeat. It's reflected in the colour scheme - all cold blues, and subdued and muted browns. It’s a really chilly movie, suggesting the mindset of the protagonists. (spoiler for Unbreakable There is only one warm scene throughout. After David starts doing hero-stuff, and he carries his wife upstairs. Everything gets glowy and nice.)

M Night always pays attention to his colours - The Village is rustic and golden, Lady is very very blue, Sixth Sense too is dusty brown, with the odd flash of red to draw attention to things. Unbreakable takes this to the next level (perhaps reflecting its comic book origins, where characters always wear the same outfit) - David blends into the background in greeny blue; Elijah is purple (as is his mother, and more significantly, the wrapping of his first comic book) - and this time, it's the oranges who're up to no good. This film is by far his most adult - the more you think about it, the darker it gets.


Signs is my favorite of the canon. Taking his cue from The Birds, Night of the Living Dead and War of the Worlds (basement, anyone?), it's another beautifully constructed masterpiece about fractured families and dealing with grief. Though not as scary as Sixth Sense, it takes terror back to the home and showcases his skills at building atmosphere, and coaxing convincing performances from his child actors. The suspense and spine-tingling wonder, not to mention all the emotions dragged up in the final ten minutes, accompanied by James Newton Howard's final tune that ties together all the musical themes so far into one fantastic whole.

At the same time, I'd say this is probably the hardest to love. You've got to buy into the central concept behind the whole plot. I did 100%, which is why I lavished another three pages on it last time I discussed it:
http://cinecism.blogspot.com/2006/11/in-defence-of-my-top-12-parts-3-and-4.html

It definitely contains some of the best set pieces in his career - though it's hard to pick one segment from a script that flows so seamlessly, the whole sequence in the basement is fantastic.



M Night himself said after making Signs that he felt like it was the end of that sequence of films, and he didn't know where he was going next. What we got was The Village, and it's a radical departure. Out with moody colours and a world where people are searching for beauty and meaning - in with sunshine, and a pre-packaged paradise. I'm very fond of it - the soundtrack is stunning, and there are some lovely moments. But compared to the previous three, perfectly constructed films, something just doesn't gel...

Though the plot is most reminicent of Signs (invasion of the home by outsiders), it's a period drama, while the others take place in modern Philadelphia. The significance in the city is that's where M. Night lives. For him, Philadelphia is "the normal world", it's neutral and typical. So when ghosts and aliens move in, the idea of the extraordinary invading the real world, is reenforced because it's personal. This may be just me, but sometimes I even forget the films aren't set in England (which is "normal" for me). Not so The Village - set in the past, and menaced by creatures who we have know knowledge of. The action is removed from us by a degree.

Where did the normality go? Even Signs (which I adore, so knock-ye-not) is in a different zone of reality from the first two, which are pretty grounded. Praps this is where it went wrong? It's not set in our real world. It's harder to sympathise with a distant utopia than the cities of the present, however many monsters he fills it with.

And then it jumps protagonist, which distances the audience even further- primarily, you think it's Kitty, then Lucius, then it turns out to be Ivy, and finally you realise you should have been paying more attention to some of the supporting cast. And it jumps plot - when Ivy has to leave to find medicines, it feels too late. The structure feels end heavy.

Or the twist(s)? There are queues to pour scorn on each of his twists, mostly because people have a hard time accepting the logic of his films and agreeing to follow wherever he may lead. But with the Village, perhaps they have a point.

My definition of a good twist is one you should have seen coming. You should watch it a second time and groan, not scream "where the hell did that come from?" at the screen.

But if the filmmakers have cheated - if they've lied, or deliberately decieved the audience, or (worse) thrown in a twist-for-twist's-sake, it feels tacked on, instead of a natural part of the movie. A massive sinner is the classic The Usual Suspects. It's a fairly good crime film, but that's not why it's remembered. Without going into details, I felt cheated at the end, because it was a twist that could be tacked onto any film.

The Village commits this sin - there's absolutely no clues - and worse, the twist's trivial. It doesn't add anything to the film's message, and it feels insignificant while being presented as a massive lifechanging event. (you can argue the same for Unbreakable *spoilers for it*- no warning, and incidental to the film - but I disagree. The knowledge is the final link that makes the story whole. It gives it another layer of meaning and significance. Throughout, the tale has been shown as equally Elijah's and David's.)

It's not that The Village is a bad film. I love it. It's just nowhere near as great as his other three, all of which I'd give 5/5 without flinching. It's the same formula, but somehow it doesn't work. Little problems, like William Hurt's presence (can't stand him), or being annoyed by all those tiny plot kinks in the middle which make Sixth Sense look like a Roman road.

It's built with the usual precision and care, with tidy clue-scattering and a gift for character introduction - but it misses many of his usual themes, which makes it feel souless.

There's more to movies than "deep meaning" (Pulp Fiction, anyone?), but there should be something to make up for a lack of meaning (i.e. a scene with a guy delivering a monologue to screen about hiding a watch up his behind. Surely that makes up for any lack of Freudian subtext? But seriously...perhaps Pulp Fiction's meaninglessness is its meaning, about the randomness and banality of life?)

There is nothing wrong with Ivy and Lucius' lives - they're perfectly happy. There's no conflict, in a Todorov sense. They don't learn anything, or change as people. There's not that search for purpose which drives his other films - it's entirely missing disatisfaction with the world (although SPOILER for Village - the idea's there in the way the Village elders move away from the town to establish a paradise, as you only learn this at the end it doesn't influence the whole film) It almost feels like there's a good M Night movie struggling to get out, but one centering around the elders and their horror of the world which has lead them to hide away.

One theme it does address is people's reactions to the supernatural. Naturally, I don't ask for him to hang around the same themes forever, but if that's what inspires him then...without this, it's just a good story - it misses the depth his other films. Donnie Darko is told everything comes down to two basic human emotions - love, and fear. And those two little words sum the Village right up. And that's tragic...

...especially as there is a good film in there - the people's fear needed to be made our fear, and that twist is horrifying if you think about it. The film just had to hammer the point harder, and make the betrayal deeper. That would have justified the entire lack of conflict.

Incidentally, I heartily recommend The Village. Friend 5 thinks it's the best film ever (*smugs* I knew she'd like it when I leant it to her...), and the soundtrack is wonderful.


After that, we had Lady in the Water. Now I think of it, the critical backlash after The Village sent him scurrying back into his comfort zone. He returns to water, to Philadelphia, to moody blue colour schemes and a depressed male protagonist. He puts a crucial child back on the cast list. He even returns to the good ole themes - "What is my place in life?" and "I need to believe".
Lady in the Water is Unbreakable without the moral ambiguity. So what the hell went wrong?!

Because even though I cried in the usual way, and left the theatre (well, switched the airplane seatback TV off. Left the theatre metaphorically...) with a warm, gooey feeling about how wonderful the world is, again something crucial was missing.

Because it visually resembles his more successful films, it's harder to spot the difference. But I think it's probably because it didn't actually make sense.

Or rather, it plays by their own rules. In The First Three, we understand the conventions of ghosts, aliens and comic books. But those-we-don't-speak-of? Narfs? Scrunts? Hang a moment. WTH?! Take Unbreakable - the rules of David's world are explained to him gradually, but it's ok because subconsciously, we already knew them. The rules unfold in exactly the same way in Lady - but here we feel cheated, because it's coming from nowhere. He throws a fantasy at us which seems like it merely exists to serve a good plot. Which, of course, it does.



So what have we learnt? Nothing, really. The Village is a worse film than I thought when starting the post. Writing about Lady didn't make me love it any more. I need to get Unbreakable on DVD, preferably the two-disc edition. Abd when discussing the films of MNS, you can never use the words "significant", "significance" or "significantly" enough.

And the title? From TS Eliot's "The Wasteland". We're studying it, so it's on my mind.


I'll end with a quote from the man himself, evidently spouted when promoting The Village. But if you think about it, it says a fair amount about his other films too:

"When you say fear of the unknown, that is the definition of fear; fear is the unknown, fear is what you do not know, and it's genetically within us so that we feel safe. We feel scared of the woods because we're not familiar with it, and that keeps you safe."

Censorship and classification: a selective rant

Question: do the people who work for the British Board of Film Classification actually retire, or are they replaced and quickly spirited away and locked up in an asylum somewhere after turning into depraved maniacs?

Film classification and censorship is an issue that really interests me. I don't really have much of an agenda on it, it's plain curiosity.

Politically, I think we need some censorship. The press is literally ready to pounce on anything whatsoever - they're moral vultures, hanging around to pick people and things to bits. The BBFC try to create a fair system - but cinematically, media uproar always interferes. Natural Born Killers and Reservoir Dogs both had trouble when being released on video because the cases came up during media feeding frenzies in the aftermath of tragic real life events. Throughout classification history, certificates often appear to be responses to a wave of public opinion.

Personally, I like the system. I'd describe myself as fairly sensitive, and I like the security of watching 15s and knowing there won't be anything truly objectionable. I don't mind on behalf of other people, but I do know there are things I'd rather not see. All the 18s I see are gently vetted by my parents first, so no danger there either. I'm happy sheltered...even if it means I can't see Grindhouse at the cinema. Would I happily watch it if handed a copy now without my parents having OKed it first? Sad as it seems, probably not.

In general, I think the BBFC have got the balance right about what’s OK for who – with one memorable exception. Casino Royale should not have been a 12A.

A comment made on the Reservoir Dogs video release (1995, after a 3 year wait) was that even if the material was a bit strong, the general public would by then be well aware of what to expect in a Tarantino movie. Similarly, Salo: 120 Days of Sodom was passed on the assumption any viewers would know what they were letting themselves in for. A kind of inverse brand recognition. This is why I objected so strongly to Casino Royale being given a 12A (this means that they recommend it for 12 year olds, but parents are allowed to judge the maturity of younger children. Theoretically, you could get 3-yr-olds in.) Casino Royale was a radical departure from ye-oldie-Bond films. I'd imagine lots of parents equate Bond with some Roger Moore silliness they watched when they were young, and thus happily let their children see it. I'd be ok for my hypothetical 8-yr-old to see Tomorrow Never Dies, or Moonraker. I'd say definite no to Casino Royale. Even if the material alone didn't quite justify a 15 rating (which I think it did - it was pretty brutal and intense in places), then the expectation this would be a child-friendly bit of fun should have popped it up a certificate.

Each individual cinema can, under authority from the local whatever, change the rating of movies if they disagree, or ban certain films - usually as a result of a media uproar. I recently discovered Natural Born Killers had been prevented from being shown, because the council for the parish our single cinema resides in decided it was probably unsuitable (I say probably as they hadn't actually seen it) Life of Brian was still officially banned in a nearby island until very recently.

It does make you wonder though. The Victorians used to cover piano legs with material, because they thought the idea of legs being shown in public was rude. Early films would be rejected for “indecorous dancing” or “holding the King’s uniform up to ridicule”. I had a fantastic list in film studies of all the amusing things banned 100 years ago – I then managed to find a more modern film for every rule…except the King’s uniform. I’ve never seen it mocked…a less extreme example - Lady in a Cage was banned in 1964 because of "sadistic brutality", but was passed uncut at 18 in 2002, and then 15 in 2005. Standards slip. One day, we'll be gathering the children together on Christmas eve to watch that cosy, tame and oh-so-suitable Driller Killer movie.

To a certain extent, it's all about context. My parents always comment that in some films, all that language is justified (Goodfellas, is one example they mention), but in others it's unnecessary and monotonous. Though personally, I think the odd f-word would have really spruced Snow White up XD.

Context is something the BBFC too take into account - Saving Private Ryan is a tad unpleasant (or so I've heard), yet only a 15. I saw a BBFC talk, and a reviewer explained that because it was historical, and thus an important work with educational properties, it was important younger people could see it to gain an insight into the horrors of war. Similarly, the violence in Munich is stark and brutal - but acceptable at 15 because it was based on real events, and wasn't portrayed in a "exploitative" way. At the other end of the spectrum, they're not so concerned about violence in comedies or fantasy movies. Swearing is treated in a similar way - high ratings for nasty words being used in a nasty way, lower ratings if it's more casual or for comedy value.

I was initially quite keen to see Passion of the Christ, on account of the language thing - all the characters speak in Aramaic, Latin or whatever-else-they-spoke-back-then. I love ancient languages, especially Latin. But when information hit about the content, I went right off it. Two hour torture flick? Perhaps that's a harsh generalisation, but it just wasn't something I wanted to see. Ditto Saw, ditto Hostel. Not ditto Res Dogs, not Man on Fire, not Syriana, because that was all justified by the rest of the film.

One argument in favour of cuts is that movies influence people's behaviour, and thus we shouldn't see things likely to cause bad behaviour. I agree with the principle - advertising works, doesn't it? Hard hitting, pleady documentaries hope to change us for the better. I'd be lying if I claimed movies never affected me. I occasionally need to watch my tongue after seeing things with lots of swearing - yet I don't believe rating movies 18 merely on account of the language is right (Deadwood the TV series was passed at 18 instead of 15 for aggressive uses of the c-word. A little harsh...I personally don't swear because I never sound convincing, but I don't have any great objections to other people. Sticks and stones, eh?) And I've always thought drug use was treated far too harshly. I've never heard of a film that glamorises drugs totally at the expense of the consequences. Often, a bit of hard drugs use slides the film straight into an 18.

Of course, the problem always arises that what's disturbing or suitable for one person is not for another. A guy in a clown suit will freak a lot of people, even in a non-creepy context. I'm still comparatively young, but I'd find it hard to judge what might scare impressionable 12 year olds. The thoughts in the paragraph above are a 17 year old perspective. Not to dwell, but reactions to “that bit” from Res Dogs have spanned from leaving the room (Wes Craven famously walked out of a showing) to vomiting, and writing to the papers. I was fine with it. But that same crowd could be equally ok with things I couldn’t handle and cringed out of. And I wasn’t fine with a much shorter, less intense scene in Firefly, with far less blood and build up, involving a much loved character and a similar injury – I just couldn’t watch. It’s all about your experiences, and what affects you personally.

Terror in particular is a hard one to judge. Obviously, they don't cut films for being scary (else the horror movie market would be a tad lame...), and theoretically they're not there to classify things by this either. But if I see a PG, I don't want to suffer any sleepless nights. This causes problems - it's generally acknowledged that "not seeing the monster" is worse - the scariest films are sometimes the most subtle. My mum maintains The Others is terrifying, but with no swearing, sex or gore it can only be a 12. I had to leave the room during Picnic at Hanging Rock - the PG I had in mind. There is absolutely nothing objectionable in it, except a very creepy atmosphere.

Which finally brings me back to the original point. The BBFC reviewers watch all the movies that come into the country. They pass most of them, but ask sometimes ask for cuts. Generally because it's unsuitable for the general public, and likely to cause trouble in the intended audience. They chop bits out demonstrating nifty suicide techniques, explaining how to grow-yer-own drugs or going into too much detail about criminal procedures. They remove anything that "promote or glamorises" unpleasant stuff or might "deprave and corrupt" the viewer.

For example, an amazing thing about big modern films is the lack of smoking. Unless you're dealing with a serious historicals (i.e. Good Night, and Good Luck. There's very little in clean period dramas - if I recall correctly, and I may not, you never see anyone smoke in Importance of Being Earnest, even though the plot hinges on a cigarette case), crime movies or hard hitting real lifey stuff, cigarettes are out. Not even bad guys are allowed to smoke - I was amazed when no one lit up in Casino Royale. You'll be hard pressed to find any recent non-indie 12 with any in at all. I confess that people like Tyler Durden and Marla Singer in Fight Club makes smoking look extremely cool and attractive indeed; and the board are concerned that impressionable teens might pick up on this. Not that I ever would. Of course.

Thought for the day: surely if they rule that a sequence is likely to have a negative effect on the watchers, then the reviewers themselves are eventually going to turn into the foulest of most foul after having watched the combined weight of all these snippets?

Trivia gleaned from own massive memory and the interesting www.sbbfc.co.uk site.
There’s a whole whack of interesting information on there, particularly the case studies and this intriguing article.

In defence of my top 12 - part 5

5 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Two minor characters from Hamlet wander around offstage trying to work out what exactly is going on...only if that doesn't sound too appealing, you should still watch it anyway.

One of the first things I recall of Friend 5 is her asking me is whether I’d seen this film. A few years later, she got round to lending me the tape. Her family had recorded it off the tv when she was very small, and had redited it to remove all the slightly objectionable bits (of which there are very, very, very few) including the last, ooh, 20 minutes? You thought it was confusing as it was – well imagine seeing it with chunks randomly removed. Nevertheless, I was hooked, enchanted from the first conversation.

In fact, I still remember the three particular lines that got me hooked. Not that I’m going to repeat them, as you probably don’t care, but I was pretty quickly charmed. My advice for anyone watching it, is not to go in with any expectations, and don’t be too picky. OK, so it makes very little sense in places – one coin coming down heads 90 or so times?! – but the audience's consolation is that our heroes are just as confused. To quote the best review of the movie ever:

"Don’t understand the Shakespearian dialogue that breaks out every time Ros
& Guil appear ‘onstage’ in the play going on around them? Never fear,
they really don’t understand it either, and for the most part will spend the
next 5 minutes trying to figure out what everyone was just talking about..."

Kudos to the cast as well. They single-handedly keep afloat a film based entirely on its script – there is basically not a single bit of action for the entire thing. And it’s not Dr Seuss either – but they rattle off the confusing tounge twisters with such panache that they sound like they make sense. Even when they really don’t:

G -“and receive such thanks as fits a king’s remembrance.”

R - “Oooh, I like the sound of that. What do you think she meant?”

G -“He doesn’t forget his friends.”

R -“Would you care to estimate?”

G -“Some kings tend to be amnesiac; others…the opposite, I suppose. Whatever
that is.”

R -“How much?!”

G -“Retentive. He’s a very retentive king. A royal retainer!”

R -“What are you playing at?”

Very good question - I STILL have no idea what that particular exchange means, and I’ve seen it nigh on 12 times now. It’s like real Shakespeare – you look at it on the page and think “whaaa?”; it needs an actor’s inflection to give the words meaning. The true charm of this film is watching how the pair of them interact - Rosencrantz is unconcerned that the laws of probibility are up the spout, easily distracted by little things such as discovering gravity and appreciative of small beauties (i.e. a paper boat in a bathtub...). Guildenstern is, to virtually quote the character note in the play, perfectly aware that something very wrong is going on somewhere - aware but forcibly determined not to panic about it. G refuses to lighten up, R refuses to concentrate...they're both very sweet, in their own way, and as there's only ever two brief instances when they're in seperate rooms, that all adds up to an awful lot of combined sweetness. They're like children, in a way. And I want to give them both a very big hug...

And it’s a play about acting. That’s the wonder of it. On the surface, it’s a string of very funny lines. Alternately, you can go deep into the layers of meaning and metaphor, a la GSCE English analysis.

Finally, the directing is lovely. Elsinore castle has never looked more paranoid, with all the characters peering in on one another through innumerable barred windows and down secret trapdoors. This allows for some wonderful lighting too (when I get around to it, I'll add a screenshot...despite my unreasonably large collection, somehow I managed not to get a shot of the scene I'm thinking of)

Did I mention it was brown? This is a very, very brown film. One of Guildenstern's most beautiful speeches cut, but in the play, describes autumn as "a certain brownness creeping in at the edge of the day". Well they didn't need it in the movie, did they. The mis-en-scene does it all for them.

I always get suspicious of people who claim they’re the greatest fan ever, and I’ve never done it myself. But here I could almost make an exception – I am pretty damn obsessed, really. I shelled out about £30 for a second hand Dutch copy. And picking that particular screenshot from a collection of 414 took a long time. Don't get me started on my collection of 600+ icons...love it forever…

If my random babbling hasn't produced much of an impression (yes, the above paragraphs really were as badly written as you thought they were...) I direct you here. They're all good, but the review at the top in particular I always quote liberally when trying to pursuade people to see it.

Sum up the film in a moment: In R+GaD, a play based on the play Hamlet, the characters sit down to watch the play “The Murder of Gonzago”, in which the King and Queen sit down to watch a play performed by puppets re-enacting the murder of Gonzago, which in itself is a reenactment of Hamlet’s dad’s own death. A play, within a play, within a play, within a play. Although arguably, the other scene on stage (the Tragedians perform Hamlet as a comedy) – climaxing with the Player’s comment “eight!” – is just as important.
Best scene: Well it's not my favourite, but the best scene must surely be questions. Even people who hate this film (and believe me, I can name a fair few) perk up for this bit because it's just so damn amusing.
Best line: Are you kidding me?! I'm meant to pick a best line from all of that?! For now: "You would think that this would fall faster than this, wouldn't you?...and you'd be absolutely right."
Favourite character: As if you could choose between them…Guildenstern. See; BCSk
Nerdy observation: the first time they meet, the Player is wearing something similar to G’s costume. In the castle he’s dressed as Hamlet. But most disturbingly, at the end he is wearing precicely R’s outfit. Don’t ask me why…and in the actual play of Hamlet, R has significantly more lines than G - which is strange, as you'd kinda expect the opposite.
Special mention: the costumes!!! I love them so much I’ve made Ken-sized replicas.
Best watched: when you're starting to get pretty worried about a friend.

I'm feeling rubbish right now. I just got my film studies coursework back and I've got to watch the same five minutes of Alien over and over again bit.

The good news is that I've now seen Duck Soup (v. strongly recommended by a friend). The bad news is that in the last three days, at least four separate people have gasped "you've never seen the Wizard of Oz", and I've had to explain that I got too scared of the witch to see the end. So I'll have to see it...

And finally...team Herzog lost Screen Play again this week, despite cheating (I sign-languaged one of the answers over to my sister...) No time for more detail now...got to go sleep...I'm going to be old (well, 17...) tomorrow. Fingers crossed I'm gonna get my cadillac. Or spaghetti westerns boxed set.