Mesrine: Public Enemy Number 1

Excellent, excellent evening out.

Part two of the Mesrine films suffered slightly from not following directly on, for me, from the first. After all, there had been several weeks between watching this film, sadly, and watching the last. In both a nice and a bad way, there was no ‘review’ of the first film at the start of the second – bad for me, as I’ve slightly forgotten the first film (oops, should read my own blog). But the filmmakers clearly don’t patronise their audience to think that a recap might be in order. The narrative supports this – this is a different part of his life, based on what came before, but essentially a different evolution of his character. Mesrine in many ways becomes a much more difficult character to comprehend – even when he himself is speaking emphatically about communist or terrorist links, you never believe that’s the true core of the man. There’s a puffery about him, an inflation, which some other characters on screen seek to puncture. Most convincing is his insistence on correct pronunciation of his name – quite a nice detail which sadly is jetissoned half way through the movie.

Cassel is utterly hypnotic again – whether as the charming, gentleman thief persona, or sudden shifts into dangerous, unleashed feral beast casually but unrestainedly beating the living crap out of someone.

Catch Mesrine while you can – sadly, it’s fading from screens across the Uk already.

The Hurt Locker – or the perils of watching a great film in a dark air conditioned cinema when you have a summer cold

Hmm. Long blog titles. Maybe the pretentiousness I have long feared while sending my thoughts on film into cyberspace is beginning to take hold.

So – August Bank Holiday presented, as my last post described, a plethora of cinematic joy just waiting to be hoovered up by my willing eyeballs. (Now, there’s an image to play with….best not to linger on that one). I was all psyched to head to the local cinematic establishment and watch Mesrine: Public Enemy Number One as well as the long awaited (on my part) The Hurt Locker and even indulge my mild Seth Rogan ‘thing’ with Funny People. And then, around 3pm on Thursday afternoon, the summer cold began to properly take hold.

When I have a cold, the last, the very LAST thing I want to do with/to myself, my aching sinuses and streaming-or-alternately-very-dry eyes is sit in an air conditioned room for several hours in total darkness surrounded by strangers – if mostly because I get so annoyed by people coughing around me when I’m sickness-free, the noises which eminate when one has a cold, aside from coughing, are far less pleasant. To admit that the summer cold hit my cinematic plans rather hard then would be something of an understatement.

I did, however, battle to make it out of the house, dosed with enough anti-congestion pills to kill an elephant and smelling slightly-more-than faintly of cherry Halls and Olbas oil, to see the Hurt Locker on Saturday night. I had been looking forward to this film ever since seeing the trailers first in the cinema. The trailers themselves promised something deeper than your average (Iraq) war film – gritty, acid-ochre toned cityscapes-as-desert settings, large cast of talented unknowns (for the most part), little American gung-ho war porn, and if a trailer can produce nerve-twanging tension simply from a shot, from above, of a man slowly, carefully, pulling on a wire to reveal he is surrounded by a star-shape of several submerged homemade bombs, just think what a whole 2-plus hours could provide?

Sadly, inexorably, the cold came into play. I have a theory about film – particularly with great films – that the viewing experience is incredibly subjective to circumstance and personal mood on watching. Take, for example, the Lion King. The first time I saw it, I hated it. It didn’t work for me, didn’t gel; it was too cutesy versus too immediately harsh…Cue a few months later, giving the film another shot, where the Disney magic began to make sense in my mind.

Sadly, The Hurt Locker was the second victim of my cold. Considering some scenes – not to mention the opening salvo – contain such nerve-shredding tension that it promoted actual gasps from a (notably reserved)  British audience, for me it was the character-driven scenes in between these moments of seat-gripping visual tension (you try finding an adequate synonym – I dare you) that the scenes in between felt, to me, like those polystyrene packing worms which get in the way while you’re searching frantically through the box for your long-awaited shopping purchase. Necessary – absolutely, and without them the whole point of the film is lost, but padding.  

Had I been able to breathe properly, had I not had a lingering sick feeling, had I been in full control of my health – I have no doubt the experience would have been much, MUCH better, overall. It’s a brilliantly put together movie, incredibly realistic and crafted with such care and attention to detail by Kathryn Bigelow that I believe this film now holds the record for amount of footage shot versus what actually ended up on screen. Trying to think as objectively as I can, and setting my physical status aside: the core performances are filled by unknowns, but they hold your attention completely, steeped in the characters portrayed on screen rather than bringing baggage of previous big-screen roles played. I firmly believe that should I watch this film again, I would enjoy it more. In fact, I know it to be true. And I would highly, highly recommend it to anyone. It’s a film to be savoured, considered, ruminated upon, and enjoyed on a level far exceeding your usual bang-and-bust blockbuster. It’s not a film to be endured or simply ‘gotten through’.I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is a better film experience than my condition at the time allowed for. And this a great pity – as you never get a second chance to make a first impression. Sadly, on my first impression – I slumped inbetween the key bomb-detonating set pieces, my attention wandered.

The learning from all this? Unsurprisingly – when you’re not feeling well, stay home in bed with DVDs of Bones, or similar proceedurals. The multiplex is to stay off-limits, particularly for a film you need to pay attention to.

Bank holiday and a whole host of films….

…not one, but three films I want to see this weekend – part 2 of Mesrine, long-anticipated The Hurt Locker and possibly alsio Funny People (NOT, let me assure you, because of Adam Sandler, but because of Seth Rogan and Eric Bana. Um, I’ll stop there…). Reviews sure to follow, if only because, in true British Bank Holiday tradition, I suddenly am streaming with cold and all the Day Nurse in the world won’t make enough of a dent for me to make it to the coast for a paddle. Cinema is clearly the next best way for me to spend a whole extra day off…

Inglourious Basterds

Hello again…

Saturday saw a trip to see Tarantino’s latest, the fantasy-war movie-WW2-X-rated ‘fairytale’ (why is it none of Tarantino’s films can be easily explained in a single genre?) – the fabulously and incomprehensibly mis-spelt Inglourious Basterds. As you might have guessed from my last I’m not the greatest fan of his work, although I’ll watch as there’s a certain joy to be had from watching a fellow film enthusiast indulging himself. Which, as any filmgoer will know, Tarantino is wont to do, to some length.

Positives first – while essentially another broken narritave, told over a number of ‘chapters’ which break the film into shorter, bitesize pieces, for me this film hangs together a lot more easily than the tonally VERY different Kill Bill. As per my initial concern – the cast including Pitt are clearly having a ball, Pitt even getting to indulge a little-used comedic talent. And everything you might have read about the brilliance of Christoph Waltz’ performance is all true. Nuanced, amusing yet threatening, likable and uliable in one package, and all of it coming across flawlessly not just in one language, but in four. All accolades richly deserved.

Also – for me, with some background in studying German cinema, it was actually welcome to encounter one of the year’s bigger releases devoting about 5 minutes to discussing the development of German cinema under the Naxis. I would imagine that the rest of the cinema audience responded somewhat less well however.

On to the lesser parts then – my viewing companion struggled for  mainstream film to have such vast chunks of a 2 1/2 hr film in French and German. With a foothold in both I actually found it quite pleasurable, but I can see how the massive amounts of foreign speech, while subtitled (once incorrectly) could be offputting to people expecting Tarantino’s typical rapid-fire dialogue in English. And the film IS undeniably patchy, with no real clear flow, nor really the kind of stand out wordy passages whcih mark TArantino’s earlier films. At worst, it’s downright self indulgent, as with Mike Myers’ scene, which ripped me right out of any immersion in the movie just as if one of his own creations like Fat Bastard or the father from So I Married an Axe Murderer has been drafted in. Humour is all well and good, but the plummy-English military verged on inapproporate English-bashing for my liking. Equally Eli Roth’s big entrance, with a baseball bat, emerging from a tunnel out of the darkness to wreak venegeance on a Nazi officer, was just a tad too drawn out. Unfortunately for me, Tarantino in recent times has been less effective at editing himself down, and the slightest more touch of restraint would have been appreciated. Maybe going into a Tarantino film I should have known better?

I won’t discuss the ending (spoiler-free?, surely not) but again this proved a sticking point for me with the film. More on that  perhaps at a later date.

On balance, not Tarantino’s worst film for me, and certainly not bad. Perhaps 3 1/2 out of five?

More interesting, to me at least, was that when I went to see the film, at peak vviewing (8.30pm on a Saturday eveing, central London), but after general release, they were hadning out questionnaires at my screening. Not short ones, either, but asking for pretty long, detailled, handwritten feedback. I’m all for providing this when it’s a preview, or when as an audience you’re getting something back – but when you’ve paid £15 or nearabout to see a film, it struck me as a little presumptive to expect people to hang around for fifteen minutes and fill in a form on their laps with a pencil, especially after a 2 1/2 hour film. More intersting, however, was the thrust of the questioning on the form – essentially enquiring as to if watching the movie had made me change my opinion of Tarantino as a director. Relevant perhaps for test audiences, but after  the official launch of the film? If research is not going to change anything, surely it begs the question - why bother?

Scott free?

Afternoon.

It’s been a while. I’m off to the flicks in a sec to watch Tarantino’s latest. Despite having heard some good reviews I’ve never been entirely drawn in by Tarantino’s hype, and am still worried it it going to be another Jackie Brown – people in the film to work with Tarantino, director somewhat riffing off his own hype, and actors (including Brad Pitt) having FAR too much fun with the story and character for me to be able to really engage. I’ve expressed this to people this week in another fashion – is this to be Tarantino’s Ocean’s Twelve? Well, it remains to be seen, and while I have some reservations, I promise I’ll try to be open minded.

On issues of quality – I had a discussion last night on to the relative merits of Ridley and Tony Scott – largely spurred on by Kingdom of Heaven being on TV (excellent Edward Norton performance in that film, and hidden behind a mask too). The discussion largely turned on which director’s movies your would rather see?
After all, Tony Scott is largely dismissed as an action movie director. Ridley has amassed a reputation for solid, worthy film. And yet – looking through their IMDB details, on issues of consistency Tony is a director, we decided, we would much rather pay money to see in the cinema. You know what you’ll be getting – fast paced, some quick-slow camera movies, probably some funky washed-out or grainy textures. The question of quality came down to a simple tally in the end – we listed the movies we had seen from each directors’ CV, and made a simple good/ bad judgement. Ridley, arguably, has made better good films – Blade Runner, Alien, Gladiator, Black Hawk Down all very good films, and some of my favourites. However, when his films are bad, they tend to be VERY bad – yes, GI Jane and Hannibal, I’m talking about you. Whereas Tony has contributed Top Gun, Enemy of the State, Man on Fire, True Romance, Crimson Tide and Spy Game – which more than make up (in my mind) for Domino (“I am a bauntee hunter”) and the (truly abysmal) Taking of Pelham 123 (which – as a sidebar – has just made me realise something about my life – of all the films I’ve been to see on my birthday, they’ve all been awful – The Mummy Returns, The Incredible Hulk and Pelham 123 just some of the examples…Is June a good month to hide bad movies?).

I also discovered that both Scotts are involved in producing the incoming A-Team movie. A shame that Tony isn’t also directing – his style would work well.
So – just some general cinema musings today. Another review to come shortly, to make up for complete lack of any postings over the past few weeks.

John Hughes

I realise I’m a few days late with this, and ever-so-slightly too young for his work to have had the real impact it did for – say – my sister (oh, what bliss to still claim to be too young for something!), but the untimely death of John Hughes this week really did upset me.

Yes, I’m not quite the generation his movies were aimed at – although I will admit to having had an unsightly obsession with Home Alone when I was about eleven years old  – an affliction which I am thankfully now cured of. I was, after all, four or five when Sixteen Candles came out, and not much older when the Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller hit the screens. However, particularly these latter two films have actually made an impact on my cinematic habits, so even though Mr Hughes may not have *officially* written or directed anything in some time, I really think his death is a loss for Hollywood.

Many could – and have – aim criticism at the Breakfast Club – that it’s a trite, oversimplified, somewhat optimistic view of high school. You could even find Ferris Bueller to be a – well – jumped up little shit, essentially, who spends his life getting away with everything. However both of these films were portrayed with such wit, style, and genuine verve for the time that I still feel fully justified in recommending them to people on a regular basis, and even to undertaking something of a ‘Ferris tour of Chicago’ (sadly, not in a Ferrari)  on one of my visits overseas. I think the Breakfast Club in particular left an indelible mark on me who, at the time, felt the perceived internal divisions of secondary/sixth form school life quite keenly and was pleased to see that, for once, the loner/ nerd/ outsiders weren’t necessarily the uncool ones. However narked I was – and still remain – by the fact that (perhaps most realistically) the brain is the one character who leaves the film without getting any action, and more annoyingly, that all it takes for Ally Sheedy’s ‘basketcase’ character to achieve happiness is the desertion of her parka and a swift godawful 80′s makeup lesson for the sporty one to realise in a “Why, Miss Jones, you’re BEAUTIFUL!” moment that he’s willing to have a quick snog. I, and many of my friends still agree, she was much better off in the parka eating pixie sticks sandwiches and making drawings snow with her dandruff.

Still, I may have made it to these films nearly 10 years late, but they still spoke to me and – yes – offer a little hope that my school experience wouldn’t necessarily end in a hellish manner. I may have kidded myself I could make my own clothes Pretty In Pink style (still a classic John Hughes-penned if not directed film, which introduced me to the charms and greatest smile EVER of Andrew McCarthy – I defy anyone to argue with that beam, truly it lights up the screen – even if he may have been grinning at the truly hideous dress Molly Ringwald has to wear at the end). And now when I watch them, they still have that effect of reducing me to teenage levels of emotion while also coming with a healthy dollop of nostaliga, shall we say some fifteen years on. He may have gone on to lesser things, but I do believe that John Hughes gave teenagers in cinema a voice, and something with which to connect, and I hope these films continue to do so for many years to come. I firmly believe that, as genre-defining teen movies there is little to beat them (oh, possibly Heathers, something else I watched alot around that awkward school time, but really – the dark humour and let’s off the popular bitches aspect truly appealed to me at that moment).

So John Hughes – between me and my friends, I can honestly say you will be sorely missed, and your work much fondly remembered, oft quoted, and much recommended. Really, aside from this wonderful rememberance in the link below which – I’ll admit – made me more than a little teary, I doubt anyone could say fairer than that.

http://wellknowwhenwegetthere.blogspot.com/2009/08/sincerely-john-hughes.html

Mesrine: Killer Instinct

Rather to my delighted surprise, went to see the French gangster/ crime flick Mesrine: Killer Instinct last night. I say delighted surprise as my regular viewing partner typically refuses to watch subtitled films on the pretext he “doesn’t want to read a movie” – which means I avoid suggesting going to see foreign films in the cinema as I tend to think he won’t agree (see Pan’s Labyrinth – a film I have now seen, indeed own, on DVD, and am pretty disgusted I never got to see in the cinema. See also: Downfall and The Lives of Others – both of which I own but will have to wait – realistically – for sick days off work to get a chance to see). I have now been reassured that the subtitles issue only extends to DVD – I guess that’s alright then.
I have a couple of issues with Mesrine as a film – first I should get the many positives it has out of the way. It’s an interesting real-life story, well told, with a hypnotic (no, I don’t mean it will send you to sleep) central performance from Greatest French Actor (?) Vincent Cassel, in a shifting central role which requires rapid changes from shocking brutality, to engaging and magnetic romantic lead, to media anti-hero, to revolutionary, to….too many to count. There’s a competent supporting role from Gerard Depardieu as a scummier, 70′s, lower-down-the-food-chain French gangster kingpin Corleone-alike, although really he’s not given much to do than be commanding and occasionally oversee or actively participate in killing people. The film has an unusual device in keeping this first part of the story quite fragmentary. Women, jobs, even countries shift in and out of Mesrine’s life and the result is somewhat kaleidoscopic, something which is trailed by the film’s opening split-screen heavy sequence which, at one point, features seven or eight differently angled shots of Cassel, theoretically taken all at the same time, but moving seemingly independently.
It’s this shifting nature of the story and the central character which takes the overall quality of the film down a notch or two for me – not in the performance per se, but the storytelling and characterisation which jumped quite alarmingly from scene to scene. For example – in one scene Mesrine meets with Depardieu’s kingpin in a bar, somewhat antagonicstically, the next time you see the two together they have clearly bonded and formed some level of trust – personally, I would have like to see that relationship develop a little. after all, they have two films – not really a lack of time to do so. It’s really quite jarring how the film jumps from scene to scene without any real linking, to the point that my viewing partner turned to me at one point and asked me not only what year the film was supposed to be in at that particular time, but which country he was supposed to be in and which woman he was with (these questions hopefully relate to the central character, hopefully – not my viewing partner himself). For a central character, which audiences are typically called upon to sympathise with (the film being, after all, their story) to be one moment a relatively devoted family man, the next casually shivving a pimp in the middle of nowhere before burying him in a shallow grave, to knocking his wife around the house in front of his son leaves you, as an audience, a little uncertain who to root for. This may indeed be the point, given Mesrine’s status in France as a Kray brothers/ Ronnie Biggs-level media-savvy criminal – but you’re also not, in the first of a two part film – given anything concrete or ‘good’ to root for – prison guards and treatment within are incredibly brutal, for example.
While the film opens at – essentially – the character’s denouement, it does hold the attention as you’re never quite sure where the story – or the main character – is going to go next, including geographically. I do, personally, really enjoy films that keep you guessing rather than following typical Hollywood ‘follow the well-trodden path’ storytelling where you cans ee the ending coming a mile away, so this helped Mesrine to hold the attention. Equally, I may be being a little harsh on the ‘nothing good to root for’ storyline – told as it is based on Mesrine’s own memoirs, the film diverts away from blandly following what must have been his own tainted perspective on his life, his actions and his crimes.
Very interested to see part two – Mesrine: Public Enemy No.1 – which, to our delight, we received a 2-4-1 voucher to see when buying the first ticket – a nice marketing ploy perhaps Tarantino or Soderburgh could consider when next releasing two part, massively-long movies.
Equally, while we did have a whole row of definate film students sitting behind us, spouting inane movie trivia throughout the adverts (there, but for the grace of God?), the (not insubstantial) audience all clearly had made an effort to come and see the film – an intangible aspect to the whole cinematic night out, but one which makes a massive difference to the evening. No talking, little coughing, few late arrivals or awkward I-can’t-see-you’re-standing-in-front-of-the-screen toilet trips midway.
Probably, on balance, four out of five for the film – judgement part suspended until the second half of the film is viewed.

Me, Ann Widdecombe, and Antichrist

Right – since I’ve now passed the three-post blog survival benchmark, I’ll indulge myself in my first rant. A lot of this is borrowed from an email I sent someone earlier on – I hope he’ll forgive me, but I worked up a good head of steam and it’s clearly something I feel passionately about.

As part of my job, I am occasionally called upon to read the day’s papers, which means sometimes I slog my way through the Daily Express. Don’t get me wrong – the Daily Express knows it’s audience well, and gives it what it wants. I doubt the editor is particularly troubled by what I have to say or what I think – I am after all a wishy-washy liberal in favour of supporting the less-well off with other people’s well earned taxes (my own included).

This week I encountered a piece by Ann Widdecombe talking about Lars Von Trier’s latest magnum opus, Antichrist – a film above any likely to divide the cinemagoing public. What I objected to quite strongly is what I will term the ‘Dogma’ effect – a media spokesperson, railing against a movie she is not the target audience for, is unlikely to have watched, but has set her mind against simply due to the subject matter at hand.

Widdecombe suggested all cinemas showing this film should be added to a ‘list of shame’. She railed against the BBFC passing the film as an 18-certificate, suggesting it should have been banned in its entireity. In effect, therefore, it was another example of the righter-wing British press syndrome of  ‘ban this terrible movie’ which rears its ugly head every few years – for films like Crash, Dogma and other (yes) controversial movies.

I’m not likely to go and see Antichrist. Not because the subject matter offends me on a deep personal level, or because I think such appalling cinema should not be seen my anyone – but because I’m not, right now, in the mood to be challenged by a film like this. I’m sure at some point I will watch it, and it won’t be quite as difficult a watch as I had initially thought (this is typically my view on these types of film). I will, however, probably defend the movie to the hilt, sight unseen, against people who take against the movie without knowing much about it, simply because the subject matter does not agree with their world view. I do realise this probably makes me as much of a hypocrite as the ‘other side’ – however, I am at least advocating making one’s own judgement on the film before deriding it as something which should be banned outright.

I believe a director like Von Trier will be attempting – possibly not successfully, but attempting, through using difficult subject matter and – yes – violence,  to meditate on the concept of grief in his film. He is not the kind of director who makes movies designed to titilate, entertain or even incite the kind of violence on screen. He is exactly the kind of director who plays with the medium, as evidenced by the Dogme school, deviates from established storytelling and challenges his audiences to think, rather than taking film at face value.

This issue goes wider than Ann, myself, and Antichrist however. Occasionally the media take it upon themselves to set against a specific movie they deem to be too outré.

Movies can challenge, particularly when they stick their heads above the parapet and deviate from traditional storytelling, or take issues to extremes – as Antichrist no doubt does. To suggest that such films should never be seen, by anyone – is the worst form of knee-jerk reactionary response. If cinema were all insipid romcoms or bland blockbusters, the medium would never progress – and arguably thereby, a form of art would be dramatically weakened. Cinema can be justifiably employed as self-expression writ large – even if occasionally it is a bloody and unsettling as Damien Hurst’s pickled livestock. Grief can be devestating. It can physically wound. Antichrist is taking this metaphor and running with it. Suggesting films which challenge the human condition (ok, maybe I’m going a little far with this now) should be locked away and never seen by anyone – let alone the person calling for its ban – is denying people the choice to be challenged and essentially – to make them think.

It’s enough to make you write a strongly worded letter….

Next time I promise to at least try to write about a film I’ve seen.

Brüno

I got taken to the cinema on Saturday to see Brüno – somewhat against my will. I’m not a film snob (honest), and I’m certainly not against comedy, but I typically find comedies like this that play on embarassment or attempt to play on rascism/ homophobia come over to be a little cheap. I was fairly certain that I wasn’t going to like it, even wihtout having seen Borat. Brüno did at least sometimes go for the cheap gags, but there are quite a few moments of genius, some of which you wonder how Baron Cohen ever had the guts to do (slagging off Bin Laden to a terrorist leader in the Middle East, for example, which has – I gather – already got him into significant trouble).

However, the experience made two main thoughts occur to me:

1. While not laugh-out-loud (for me, at least), Brüno has some moments of genius, one of which occurs at the end (I won’t spoil this, cause as far as I know no reviews have already drawn attention to it).
It’s films like this however which cause the post-film discussion I enjoy so much – this one went along the lines of: surely such a committed (and say what you want about Baron Cohen, but each of his performances has come over as being totally and utterly committed) performance is worthy of serious awards? What other actor would put himself in the firing line of flying chairs in the middle of a UFC ring – homeland of US middle American straight-down-the-line values – for undertaking an all-out one-on-one male love scene? Surely such a performance – which of course it is – should be taken seriously enough to gain respect? Even if the scenes are set-ups, which I have to admit I was querying mentally all the way through, Baron Cohen has serious guts to try, on screen, some of the stunts he has.

2 – Following on from the above, probably a moot point, but I doubt even an outstanding comic performance in a a film like Brüno is ever going to get the attention of – shall we say – the Academy. Which I gather is something of a perennial problem. Downey Jr, for example, in last year’s Tropic Thunder, was incredibly committed to his role – edgy, and possibly likely to kick off a serious rascism debate (although surely, from watching the film, that’s kind of the point…actors committing to their roles and their craft and setting common sense aside…) if awarded, but committed.

Wikipedia tells me that last pure-play comedy to win an Oscar is Annie Hall ( which to my shame, I’ve never seen). Personally, I love how movies can amuse. I love how they can rip a laugh right from the core of you unexpectedly, and sometimes against your better judgement or will. And at the moment, as the papers would have it – everyone needs a laugh more than ever. Is it just that comedies are less sophisticated than before? I doubt it somehow, and I would like to veer away from making such sweeping generalisations in an incredibly varied cinematic world. Are they seen themselves by actors as being less worthy? Again – comedians *appear* to have the hardest job of any actor. Making people laugh, as they tell us, is one of the hardest job in the world. Shouldn’t this dedication be rewarded? Somehow? Away from the bums-on-seats, cash-in-the-till criteria most of Hollywood often revolves around?

Many thanks to Postsecret for this

So I often find some of my own ‘secrets’ posted every Sunday on www.postsecret.com – but this is particularly apt.

Sad, but true