The Hobo Reviews

Oh dear!

2006-11-13T19:24:00.000Z

Apparently Quentin Tarantino is planning to make a sort of sequel to Pulp Fiction involving the twin brothers of both Vega brothers. Oh dear!

I'm hoping this is some sort of nonsense story, the kind that often emanates from the Hollywood Hills when there are no other stories of note to report. What the world doesn't need is a sequel to Pulp Fiction. Occasionally, films really don't need sequels. Pulp Fiction was - and still is - brilliant. It helped re-energise cinema for the next decade, paving the way for indie movie makers the world over. It stands on its own, and any attempt to make something else from it will only create another unneccessary sequel and take some of the lustre off the original.

Let's hope it is just one of those projects that QT starts but never finishes (Inglorious Bastards etc. etc.).

Eeets verrrrry niiiieeece - Borat

2006-11-13T18:41:00.000Z

Borat is the second cinematic outing for one of Sacha Baron Cohen's comic creations. The first Ali G In Da House was a cinematic abomination that was about as funny as tertiary syphillis. It was amateurish, badly paced, lacking insight and without humour of any kind - in other words it was everything that Ali G's TV interviews were not - a shame because in bite-sized interview doses Ali G was hilarious. When I first heard that Borat was being turned into a film I held out very little hope. In fact, I expected a bag of wank as the result.

I am glad to say that I was very wrong. Borat is hilarious. Or, at the very least, the interview sections are, and occasionally the linking material rises to similar moments of comic inspiration. And the reason it works is because the film looks amateurish and unsophisticated but is in fact the product of a very intelligent and funny man.

The plot - which is barely a plot at all - concerns Borat (Cohen) a repulsive, bigoted, clumsy Kazhakstani reporter travelling to America with his producer Azamat (Ken Davitian) to interview Americans for the benefit of his nation of Kazhakstan. However, along the way he falls in love with Pamela Anderson and takes off across America to find her and win her heart. And that is it. That's all the story there is.

The beauty of Borat is that the story is secondary to the jokes. And the jokes and pranks are - for the most part - brilliant. Whether it is feeding Bill Barr cheese upon their first meeting (an invented Kazhakstani custom) only to tell the man as he is about to swallow that the cheese has been made from breast milk of Borat's wife, or asking a gun store owner what the best weapon is for defending himself from Jews, the jokes always show Borat as dumb but his victims as dumber. Some of the things he gets people to say on camera beggars belief. Of course, some of this material is totally set-up. The final meeting between Borat and Pamela Anderson is a false note, and the dinner party stretches credibility once the prostitute arrives, and the scenes involving Borat, his producer, and the kindly Jewish B&B owners are bum notes. However, this is nitpicking, particularly as there are more laughs in this film than there has been from the entirety of Hollywood's comic output for about the last five years. The driving lesson, Bill Barr, the scenes at the rodeo, the naked wrestling and the first part of the dinner party are so funny I practically split my sides.

Borat is currently smashing up the box office on both sides of the Atlantic and if you book early you might just be able to get a seat!

Welcome back Mr Scorsese - The Departed

2006-10-12T01:53:00.000+01:00

Martin Scorsese is one of a number of great directors from the Seventies who has chosen 2006 to make a comeback of sorts (the others being Woody Allen and Brian De Palma). However, the big difference between Scorsese and his New York compatriots is that he has actually produced an excellent film to go with the 'comeback'. Woody Allen directed the hideous Matchpoint, one of the biggest pieces of shit produced by anybody this year, with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers giving the worst lead performance of the year, and De Palma has made a weak version of James Ellroy's excellent novel The Black Dahlia. Make no mistake, this is Scorsese's finest since the vastly underrated Casino, a film that I consider to be a stone-cold classic.

The Departed is a remake of the superb Infernal Affairs, a Hong Kong set cat-and-mouse tale (starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung) of snitches on both sides of the law hunting each other down. The original spawned two increasingly weak sequels that cashed in on the originals huge box office returns. Scorsese has changed enough to ensure that the same fate will not befall this film. What hasn't changed is the major portion of the plot. Snitches are still hunting each other down, but this time they are doing it in Boston rather than Hong Kong, and it is Irish immigrants rather than the Triads. Matt Damon takes on the Andy Lau role as Colin Sullivan, a mob informant for vicious gangster Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) who has used his considerable charm to work his way up the Massachussetts State Police. Leonardo DiCaprio takes on the Tony Leung role as William Costigan, a deep undercover officer who has infiltrated Costello's crew and who fears for his life at every turn. Eventually the police realise that they are harbouring an informant for Costello and Costello realises that he too has a rat in his organisation. As the heat rises, and the body count increases, the two snitches start hunting each other. There are several changes from the original - the main one being that DiCaprio's psychiatrist and Damon's lover are the same woman, in the original they were two different women. There are some other changes too, but I won't mention them as they will spoil things for you.

The Departed is excellent. I wanted to hate it because I loved Infernal Affairs, a film which proved to the public at large that Hong Kong's film industry produces more than martial arts and action films. However, it is far too good a film to hold the fact that it is a remake against it. Scorsese directs the film with real passion, something that was noticeably absent from Gangs of New York and The Aviator (his other DiCaprio collaborations), and the film has a pace that belies its near two and a half hour running time. He handles the dialogue and the action with the sure touch of a master and also draws fantastic performances from the entire cast. Damon and DiCaprio do the best work of their careers, Damon makes Sullivan wonderfully uptight and furtive and DiCaprio's Costigan is fantastically harried and twitchy. Nicholson plays Frank Costello with a combination of charm and psychosis and is funny and frightening in equal measure, hardly a stretch for the old guy but it is still a nicely played turn. The supporting cast are also excellent: Vera Farmiga as the love interest plays her role with gusto, Alec Baldwin is good value, Martin Sheen, as DiCaprio's decent controller, is superb and (most surprisingly) Mark Wahlberg is brilliant as Dignam, the foul-mouthed 'bad cop' to Sheen's 'good cop'.

The technical credits are equally as good. William Monahan's script is profane and urbane in equal measure, surprising because he wrote the excremental Kingdom of Heaven, and gives the entire cast some juicy dialogue to speak. Michael Ballhaus' cinematography is less flashy than his work in Goodfellas, but it is nicely composed and lit nonetheless. Scorsese regular Thelma Schoonmaker shows us why she is considered to be one of the best editors in the business, the early cross-cutting between Damon and DiCaprio as cadets is fantastic stuff. Be assured, this is commercial American film-making at its finest and everybody is at the top of their game.

I can't recommend The Departed highly enough. It has Scorsese returning to something approaching top form; an a-list cast giving (in some cases) the finest performances of their careers and it keeps the excellent premise and plotting of the original without adding extra layers of Hollywood schmaltz. It might not earn Scorsese the Oscar he desperately wants but what does the Academy know anyway? They're idiots. Scorsese will have his place in the cinematic pantheon long after most Oscar winners have disappeared from the hearts and minds of most movie-goers. That knowledge and his biggest ever opening weekend should comfort him on Oscar night.

The Hobo Returns

2006-09-26T12:35:00.000+01:00

The Hobo has a problem: it is one that I feel many of you will know. I like my drink too much.

Occasionally, it helps dull the pain of day-to-day living, regardless of whether it be foraging through bins for a meal, sneaking my dishevelled carcass in and out of press screenings or sleeping amongst the wooded areas of Burgess Park (and trying to avoid the attentions of homosexuals looking for a clandestine tryst).

However, every so often, I drink far too much.

About a year ago I began imbibing life-threatening quantities of wood alcohol. Despite my reservations I could not stop myself, the fresh woody aromas and sharp, crisp flavours were just too tempting. And then the decay began.

I began to laugh during a screening of Martin Lawrence's latest comedy. Despite my best intentions, and my furious hatred, I began to see complexities in his frantic mugging, each expression lay bare the tears of a clown. What once appeared as a cacophony of shouting was filtered through alcohol earplugs as beautiful, subtle and rich as a poet's whisper. Where once stood an imbecilic homunculus now stood a comedic colossus. From here I began to appreciate Jimmy Fallon's work in Taxi, seeing a truthful insight into the frailties of the human condition where I had once found only raw sewage. From here I descended into a hell of self-loathing driven by the raw power of illicit alcohol and a new-found appreciation of the method stylings of Freddy Prinze jr. In addition to begging for coins for the bitter nectar of wood alcohol, I began to crave rom-coms and PG-13 horror, I found a deep, zen-like respect for the works of Uwe Boll (a vastly under-rated director and not a complete cunt, after all). And then, when I felt that I could sink no lower, the walls of sanity truly caved: I was caught shoplifting a box-set of Working Title DVDs. Oh, the filthy, delicious shame of it! Love, Actually; Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason; Wimbledon and other assorted shit.

It was then that I checked myself into rehab. I was attached to the eyeball contraption from A Clockwork Orange and fed a diet of teen romances, Freddy Prinze jr comedies, Jimmy Fallon abominations and Martin Lawrence crap-fests until, eventually, I began to see the error of my ways. Slowly, but surely, my feelings for cinema returned and I felt the power of celluloid within me. And then, one bright September morning, I was released onto London's grimy, tourist sodden streets to strike out against cinematic hate crimes waiting to happen.

That's right, the Hobo is back.

Comments

2005-11-15T19:39:00.000Z

I have now gotten rid of my comments section because of spam happy scumbags leaving bullshit comments against my posts. Characters such as, The Editor, have spoilt it for everyone. Editor, you sir, are a malevolent prick. Fuck off and spoil somebody else's blog.

Scum

2005-11-05T14:37:00.000Z

Apparently, Hollywood execs are planning to remake 'The Wild Bunch'. Do these wretched cocksuckers have any shame at all? Why fuck with perfection? It is being made as a modern day western/action film. Here's a potted review. It is shit. I don't even have to see it to know that it will be lowest common denominator garbage for a demographic with little taste and even less film history appreciation. Sometimes I truly despair!

Posting

2005-11-05T14:27:00.000Z

To people who are using my comments section to promote their own blogs. Kindly, fuck off! Unless you have something interesting to say then don't post a comment on my blog. I don't want to know about "your great dane site" or whether you fuck each other gently in the dark after the lights go out. I'm really not interested. The only thing I'm interested in is reviewing films and ensuring that the comments I get are film related or related to sites I'm interested in. Which reminds me, where are you, Grace? Your blog has been replaced by a Poker site. If you still check out my blog then let me know where your new blog is?

Revulva - Revolver

2005-10-26T18:58:00.000+01:00

People told me to avoid this one, to accept that Guy Ritchie had turned to the dark side for good, nonetheless I chose to ignore them. Surely, Revolver couldn't be that bad? After all, Lock, Stock and Snatch were both pretty entertaining films and were damned by association with all the shitty British gangster films that followed in their wake (Rancid Aluminium; Essex Boys; You're Dead; To Love, Honour and Obey and other assorted dreck). I didn't see Swept Away, because anything with Madonna in automatically qualifies as the worst in film in that year, but I thought that maybe Revolver might see Ritchie do what he does best: enjoyably flashy and entertaining trash.

However, I was very wrong! Revolver is the cinematic equivalent of a skunkweed induced whitey.

Revolver is awful, and Madonna's fingerprints are all over it in the form of the nonsensical Kaballah mysticism which permeates the soul of this nonsensical film. And Guy can't deflect criticism away from himself with this film because he wrote every wretched word. Ostensibly, the film is about a hotshot gambler and con-man, Jake (Jason Statham), who, fresh out prison for a crime he didn't commit, upsets a crimelord called Dorothy (Ray Liotta) by winning lots of money at his casino, in addition to insulting the guy. Dorothy responds by putting a hit out on him, which he needn't have bothered with because Jake has a rare disease which will kill him within three days. And he is then accompanied around the screen by two loan-sharks (one of whom is Outkast's Andre 3000, who - like Madonna - should stick to the music) who teach him about the self and other such philosophical issues of note. Oh, and Liotta rants 'Fear me' at Statham whilst in his underpants. It is as hideous and eye-scarring a sight as it sounds.

The Hobo prides himself on being able to follow even the most complex of plots but this one lost me completely. It seems to make no sense at all. Normally a film that loses me is smarter than I, but in this case it seems like the work of a preening undergraduate with delusions of intellectual grandeur. Revolver is not smart, it is thoroughly idiotic. Philosophy does not belong in action films, even ones with arthouse pretensions. It is also dogged by uninspired turns by the cast, probably due in part that nobody understands what the film is about either. Statham's stoic, expressionless face is not cool but the face of a man struggling to understand what the fuck he is meant to be talking about. However, the film is also very beautiful to look at. The technical credits are all top-notch and the production design by Eve Stewart is superb, deserving of a better film than this.

Avoid this film unless you want to know the befuddled feeling that comes of toking on a bong for a few seconds too long. And, Guy, stick to making films and leave the philosophy to Kierkegaard, Foucault and others with a more defined grasp of what the human condition is all about. Sorry, kid, but you just aren't smart enough!

The Worst Fucking Thing in the World...EVER!

2005-10-10T20:56:00.000+01:00

I mean David La Chapelle's "Romeo and Juliet".

Actually, I mean H&M's presentation of the above.

Actually, I mean it is one of those annoying clusterfucks that purport to be adverts, but are in fact five-minute (but feel like five-hour) adverts that are filled with pretty people selling us shit that we neither need or, hopefully, want.

And this is the worst one ever: meaning it is worse than the most hideous abomination your mind could ever dredge up. It really is that bad.

It follows the adventures of two idiots, who wear masks, H&M denims, and dance around like retards...oh, and in one unforgettable scene Juliet floats down from a fire escape. The male idiot is shot and, thankfully, killed for what appears to be no reason - although I chuckled to myself and imagined them to be in the Hobo's employ! Then the female idiot drools over his corpse and begins singing like Mary J Blige and is then shot by the Police for holding up the male idiot's mobile phone for them to see; presumably the photo on his phone was something they found offensive. Or maybe they were London's finest who had mistaken her for a Brazilian and killed her just to make sure. And then comes the coda of the happy lovers on a bed - half naked in H&M denims! Which is - of course - what really happens to you after you die.

At the end - on both occasions - the cinema was filled with hoots of mortified derision. And on both occasion the Hobo led the outcry.

And I've seen it twice! But I would have preferred never to have seen it at all. After watching it I felt faintly filthy. I felt like only a shower of scorching acid could clean the stench of it from my skin. Fortunately, both times, I followed this abomination with David Cronenberg's quite brilliant 'A History of Violence', a film which I enjoyed all the more because I was able to imagine every one of Viggo Mortensen's crippling assaults were being inflicted upon the broken cadaver of David La Chapelle.

How H&M - who always seemed like a fairly savvy company - could possibly imagine that this wretched abomination would make pepole want to buy jeans is beyond me. It doesn't make me want to buy jeans. It makes me want to burn them! And then maybe throw La Chapelle into the pyre for good measure. And then maybe myself, so that the pain will finally all be over!

This monstrosity is being threatened in cinemas everywhere all through October. If you see the titlecard then do something useful: leave the auditorium immediately and buy confectionary and fizzy drinks for the next five minutes.

Or you could always hunt down and destroy David La Chapelle. But, beware, the Hobo will leading the way!

Oh, and for anyone interested, the short film is taking longer than expected, so I will be resuming normal service until I can get get the funds and the actors needed to pursue my dream!

The Hobo is taking some time off

2005-08-17T12:25:00.000+01:00

I am taking some time off to make a short film. I may be gone for a while! So, to my three readers, I bid you farewell for now but I will be coming back...eventually!

I want to see if, in addition to being a critic, I can hack it amongst the boys and girls who do this shit for a living. We'll soon see if this works out as well as I hope it does.

I will be making a diary of the process but I won't actually be publishing it here. I will set up either a website or another blog and publish it all after the film has been made. I will provide a link on this site to the new blog / website. And once the film has been edited and finished I will start entering it for competitions etc. Who knows, maybe it will be the start of something new!

Adieu

To qpdk1gorz82dmxo or whoever you are

2005-08-14T15:31:00.000+01:00

If you want to sell Viagra then become a pharmacist, but don't use my comments section to peddle your wares you mentally deficient fuck! Keep your fucking sales tactics for the multitude of Viagra spam emails that proliferate the world's inboxes and leave me alone.

I have removed your comment (advert) and would ask you not to put another one in again.

If you do then don't be surprised to wake up to find a hobo standing over before dousing you in meths-tinged piss.

Now, please fuck off and, as they say, die!

Best Horror Film of the Year - The Descent

2005-08-13T16:21:00.000+01:00

In this day and age of post-Scream, post-modern ironic horror films, where teenage meat puppets pontificate knowingly upon their fate before a feeble psycho cuts off their arm / leg / head etc., it gets hard to muster up much enthusiasm for the next horror offering. So it is nice when a horror film comes along that attempts to scare the audience without winking at them first and telling them it is a joke. It is also nice when a horror film doesn't try to be all PG-13, and suggestive, but instead gets down to the nitty gritty of actually scaring the Bejesus out of us. So thank the heavens for Geordie scare-meister Neil Marshall.

Marshall made a nifty debut with his feature film debut, Dog Soldiers, a werewolf horror, which despite being jokey and low-budget was still quite scary at times. It made the most of what little budget it had by keeping the locations to a minimum and the cheap looking werewolves in shadow for the most part. It did very well in Britain, particularly on DVD, and probably made the funding of, the grimmer and darker, The Descent a lot easier.

The Descent begins with a Sarah (Shauna MacDonald), Beth (Alex Reid) and Juno (Natalie Jackson Mendoza) all coming off a whitewater rafting trip to be greeted by Sarah's husband, with whom it is immediately obvious that Juno is having an affair, along with her daughter. During Sarah's car journey home her husband is about to reveal all before an accident kills him and their daughter. The thing then jumps forward a year and Beth and Sarah go off into the Appalachians (this stuff was filmed in Scotland and sadly you can tell) to meet Juno and three other women, the headstrong Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), along with Sam (MyAnna Buring) and Rebecca (Saskia Mulder). The plan for them is to go caving in the Boreham caves and have a leisurely time but Juno decides to surprise them by taking them to a cave that nobody has explored before. The women quickly find this out when one of the routes they are taking collapses on them, nearly killing Sarah, and Holly has an unfortunate fall which horrifically breaks her leg. And then they start to get picked off by pale, blind humanoids (crawlers) that have made the caves their home. And a pleasant weekend was had by all!

The Descent is easily the best British horror film in years but it is also the best English language horror film to have come out in several years. It builds upon the promise of Dog Soldiers and delivers with frightening regularity. In fact one wonders how much better a film it would have been without the crawlers. The first 25 minutes in the caves is about as claustrophobic and tense as it gets, and all without a bogeyman in sight. The scene where Sarah is trapped and the narrow crawlspace begins to collapse around her is very tense stuff, and the scene where the girls splint Holly's broken leg is as nasty as anything the crawlers do. But once the crawlers do appear they are scary and do the women a lot of damage and things are still very tense, but this hobo wonders just how good the film could have been if it had just been about a caving holiday that goes wrong for entirely human reasons. But, no matter. As I have said the crawlers are scary and the jumps and scares in the film are first-rate. It is also interesting seeing how many of Marshall's influences are seen in a short space of time: once in the cave the music takes its cues from The Thing (along with the use of flares); Don't Look Now is the influence that builds to a bleak pay-off; there's a touch of Carrie in there; and Marshall just had to be thinking about Deliverance with the broken leg scene!

The technical credits are mostly very good. One bad element is that Marshall fools nobody in trying to make the Scottish highlands pass for the Appalachians, the forest that surrounds the women is most definitely Scottish! Also, some of the CGI looks a little fake but fortunately there isn't enough of it to really hurt the film. However, Marshall's script is tight, non-jokey and grim and the whole thing never outstays its welcome as it comes in under 100 minutes. Marshall's direction is equally tight and pacey, scary and bloodthirsty (all of which are good things in a horror film). But what the film does best, aided by excellent cinematography Sam McCurdy (who also worked on Dog Soldiers), is really give people a sense of the claustrophobic narrowness of these caves. You would never think that this is mostly shot at Pinewood (thanks to superb production design by Simon Bowles) rather than real caves. The acting is also quite strong. The gorgeous Natalie Mendoza (as Juno) and Shauna MacDonald (as Sarah) are destined for bigger films than this one if they play their cards right and they are by far the best performers in the film, Alex Reid is good as Sarah's friend Beth and the other three actresses give serviceable performances. This film is going to be in direct competition with an American cave film called (rather originally as The Cave) and I am going to make a prediction: The Descent is the only cave film you need to see this summer - fuck The Cave (which already has a black mark against it by being a PG-13 horror experience).

The Descent, for its flaws, is an excellent horror film and well worth your time. It is already in release in Britain and should be winging its way to the States and beyond very soon!

10 Films you must see

2005-08-01T10:35:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd change tack slightly and recommend 10 films from the many thousands that I have seen over my many years on this planet. I'll try to recommend stuff that is slightly esoteric and different, though not all of them are, rather than the usual suspects that everybody has seen before. Hopefully this will gently prod you into seeing these yourselves; with the hope that you will enjoy these films as much as I do!

1) Out of the Past (1947) - One of the coolest film noirs ever made with some of the best hardboiled dialogue ever written. However, it has slipped off the critical radar recently and the public, by and large, seem to have forgotten its existence. This is a pity because Out of the Past was Jacques Tourneur's finest moment as a director and one that cemented Robert Mitchum's reputation as film noir's finest anti-hero. It also proved that Kirk Douglas, on the few occasions that he chose to be was one of the best bad guys around. Added to which Jane Greer made a great femme fatale, in addition to being one of the sexiest women ever to grace the silver screen. The amount of great dialogue in this film is awesome, today's Hollywood screenwriters would kill their own mothers to write stuff like this: "You're like a leaf that blows from one gutter to another"; "My feelings? About ten years ago, I hid them somewhere and haven't been able to find them since."; "Build my gallows high, baby." Absolute fucking quality. This one is on DVD so there's no excuse not to see it.

2) Sweet Smell of Success (1957) - Never has a film title been so right and yet so ironic! There is nothing sweet about this dark, bitter and twisted amorality tale. The tale of slimy press agent Sidney Falco (a brilliant Tony Curtis) working to prevent the sister of JJ Hunsaker (a never better Burt Lancaster) from marrying a jazz musician. Alexander Mackendrick, who had already come off the back of the awesome original Ladykillers, made his masterpiece with this film. And James Wong Howe's cinematography caught the immediacy of New York like few have before or since. And when you marry this with a screenplay (by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets) that crackles with awesome dialogue then you have one of the best films ever made. Again, Hollywood screenwriters would kill for some of these gems: "The cat's in the bag...and the bag's in the river."; "I'd hate to take a bite outta you. You're a cookie full of arsenic."; "Maybe I left my sense of humor in my other suit." Again, this is on DVD. And again, there's no excuse not to see it.

3) Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) - Marry the best performances ever by Taylor and Burton with some of the finest dialogue ever committed to the page (from the play by Edward Albee and adapted by Ernest Lehman) and searing direction from Mike Nicholls and you have a film that will leave an imprint in your brain long after the final credits. It is ostensibly one long argument between a failed college professor, George (Burton), and his wife, Martha (Taylor), into which is dragged a rookie college professor, Nick (George Segal) and his mousey wife, Honey (Sandy Dennis), who make the mistake of joining this viperish couple for dinner. This film reveals little bits here and there about the relationship in between the astonishing sparring and verbal gymnastics. The dialogue is astonishing: "I hope that was an empty bottle, George! You can't afford to waste good liquor, not on your salary!"; "Martha, in my mind you're buried in cement right up to the neck. No, up to the nose, it's much quieter."; "Martha is 108... years old. She weighs somewhat more than that."

4) Seconds (1966) - After these four films I am going to recommend a couple of comedies so you don't all kill yourselves from depression. This is another dark, dark tale with an ending that will again linger in your memory long after the film has ended. This film was Rock Hudson's finest hour as an actor because he wasn't being Rock Hudson; he was playing a man pretending to be Rock Hudson (which in the light of Hudson's outing was a brilliant choice of role from the man and a canny casting coup for director John Frankenheimer). Ostensibly the film is about a middle-aged man who, bored with his life, goes to see a secret corporation who use the latest plastic surgery technology to turn him into a handsome, younger artist (played by Hudson). The problem is that once he becomes the new man he begins to pine for the wife and life he left behind. The corporation, however, decide that he can't be allowed to spoil things for everybody and take action. The film is laden with doom and a pervasive sense of dread. Despite ageing in some ways this is still a powerful film and one of Frankenheimer's finest which, considering he directed The Manchurian Candidate, The Birdman of Alcatraz and Seven Days in May, is some achievement.

5) Some Like it Hot (1959) - This is one of a number of masterpieces from Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment are amongst the others) but it is the most famous because of the Marilyn Monroe connection. It is sharply scripted (by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond), has a pace that seems fast even in this stroboscopically edited era, and features the finest comic work by Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis, who does the finest Cary Grant impression ever. No matter whether you watch it on TV, DVD or the big screen it will always get a laugh, because it is a film that is crafted to make the audience laugh: not thrown together, or lumped together in the hope that a few laughs might be generated. This film has been written, crafted and edited in the hope of creating the best possible comedy. Those responsible for the shit that passes for modern comedy should be forced to watch this until they create something even slightly worth basking in this great film's shadow!

6) Love and Death (1975) - This isn't the best Woody Allen film (for that see Annie Hall or Manhattan) but it is the funniest one and the bridge between Bananas and Sleeper and the more sophisticated - but sometimes less likeable - fayre that followed on from Annie Hall. When this was made Woody's 'nebbish' persona hadn't yet become a cliche and he was well into his screen partnership with Diane Keaton. Love and Death is an affectionate parody of Woody's beloved Ingmar Bergman with numerous nods to great Russian writers Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Chekov along the way. The plethora of jokes are fantastic, from the duel where Woody fires into the air only for it to come down and hit him in the arm through to Woody and Keaton living on a diet of snow recipes in the Russian backwoods during the winter. Plus the film has really nice production values and the fight scenes between the Russian's and Napolean's troops are very well handled.

7) The Outfit (1973) - This is an outstanding B-movie from a decade that was full of them. It doesn't pretend to be deep, it doesn't pretend to be sophisticated, it merely attempts to be entertaining. And it succeeds admirably in doing so! The Outfit is based on one of the 'Parker' novels by Richard Stark (AKA Donald Westlake), the better known Point Blank is another of the Parker novels (Point Blank was later remade as a fucking piece of Mel Gibson shit called Payback). In this film the details of the novel are changed slightly: Parker becomes Macklin (played by Robert Duvall) and his reason for taking on the Outfit (known as the Organization in the books) is because of the death of his brother (in the Parker novel it is because the organization wants to kill him). John Flynn's film is brutally efficient and nicely played by the cast (which includes such quality character actors as Robert Ryan and Joe Don Baker). This one is harder to find than the others in this list. It isn't on DVD as of writing and doesn't get shown on TV all that often. But if you can find it then see it. You won't regret it!

8) A Boy and his Dog (1975) - I told you I would give you some films that were slightly off the radar of critical opinion and, like the film above, this is one of them. Directed by character actor L.Q. Jones (whose face has appeared in numerous movies including Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch and Martin Scorsese's Casino) and starring a young Don Johnson along with Jason Robards (as a very creepy town leader). The year is 2024 and is based in a world post-nuclear holocaust. Most of mankind has been wiped out and most of the survivors live in crappy settlements that can vaguely be described as towns. Anybody who doesn't live in a town lives as a "solo". Such a "solo" is Vic (Don Johnson), a libidinous, hot-headed idiot, who survives in the harsh outside world only thanks to his companion, a dog called Blood - an intelligent, telepathic canine genetically engineered for warfare - who helps him find food, women and sniffs out enemies in addition to gently (and often hilariously) mocking his human companion. It has dated, due to budget deficiencies more than anything, and it isn't without its flaws as a film, but the ending is a doozy and the repartee between Johnson and his world-weary canine companion is often hilarious. It is well worth seeking out on DVD and is, in my opinion, due a critical reappraisal!

9) Django (1966) - I love Westerns. I also love Sergio Leone, but it is too obvious to put any of his films in this list, particularly as I want to have a few more off-the-wall selections in this collection of films, so I thought that I would put in Sergio Corbucci's Django instead. If you can get hold of the original Italian soundtrack version of the film rather than the English dubbed version do so, as the original Italian language acting is far superior. But the film works regardless of which version you see. And in Europe was an even bigger hot than any of 'The Man with No Name' films. For its time, and even today, it can be considered violent. In one scene a man gets his ear cut off (and you absolutely know that a film geek like Tarantino had this in mind when he made Reservoir Dogs) and the titular hero gets his hands mangled by horse's hooves at the end of the film. Outside of Leone's spaghetti westerns this brutal film is the spaghetti western of choice! It stars Franco Nero and nobody else you've ever heard of! However, it still holds up today. And as a very muddy alternative to Leone's dustbowl vision of the West it presents the viewer with some of the most loathsome characters you are likely to see in any mainstream film. It is available in a number of DVDs, but my advice is to go for the original Italian subtitled version.

10) The Last Hurrah for Chivalry (1978) - This was an early film in John Woo's directorial canon but it remains one of the finest martial arts swordplay films ever made. Even today, in this increasingly wire-fu era, the sword fighting scenes astonish. It is occasionally a little corny dramatically and the plot twists can be seen a mile off but technically the film works. The cinematography is superb (which is to be expected in a John Woo film) and the fight scenes are beautifully choregraphed and get you balancing on the edge of your seat. It was a toss up between this film and the brilliant Kung fu / comedy / horror Mr Vampire. This won out because it has significance as an early John Woo film and because more people have seen Mr Vampire (although get that film as well...you'll love it). Apparently Chivalry was a huge influence on John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China (although I'm inclined to believe that Zu: Warriors from Magic Mountain, Tsui Hark's response to the Star Wars films, is more of an influence than this film).

I will include more lists as soon as I can be bothered. Probably when I know that you've seen all these films first! Although I think I will get on with some more reviewing for new releases over the next week or so.

Chow mein - Kung Fu Hustle

2005-07-29T11:41:00.000+01:00

I'll be honest, in the past I've never really got Stephen Chow. The Hobo's brother loves Chow but, until now, the Hobo hasn't shared that feeling. I've seen God of Cookery, King of Comedy and Shaolin Soccer; and although all have had their moments there has been something about Chow's humour that hasn't quite translated. His is a mixture of extreme brutality, slapstick, Kung Fu and sentiment, and until Kung Fu Hustle - in my opinion at least - he's never got the mix quite right.

Kung Fu Hustle is fantastic bit of entertainment which, nine times out of ten, gets the mix of Chow ingredients just right. Ignore the plot which is really a load of nonsense designed to propel the film from one awesome setpiece to the next. It involves a case of two con-men Sing (played by Chow) and his fat, dimwitted partner (played by Chi Chung Lam) who inadvertently start a war between the notorious Axe Gang and the residents of slum Pig-Sty Alley, several of whom seem to be hiding the fact that they are in fact Kung-fu masters. But, again, this plot is really little more than an excuse to string together a marvellous collection of fight scenes, brutal slapstick humour, amusing movie-buff references (including the best The Shining sight gag ever) and CGI. Added to this the entire cast are game and ready to take the piss out of themselves or their characters in order to wring as much humour from the situation as possible. And what makes the kung-fu comedy work is that Chow not only knows, but loves, his shit. And it suffuses every frame of this film.

What also helps Kung Fu Hustle is that Chow's eye for camerawork has, over the last few films that he has made, really started to mature. When you marry this with the cinematography of Hang-Sang Poon (ace director Tsui Hark's regular Director of Photography) you get a film that looks absolutely gorgeous. It is an awesome combination of complex tracking shots, low angles, CGI wonderousness and brilliant lighting. When you combine this with superb production design from Oliver Wong, and these sets really do look fantastic, and capture the 40s period look superbly well, you get a film that looks as good, if not better, than a Hollywood film costing ten times the price. Yuen Woo Ping's martial arts choreography also does wonders for wire-fu, which is becoming far too commonplace these days, but then again who better than the man who did The Matrix, Kill Bill and Crouching Tiger to spice up a style that he helped create. But, really, the star of the show is Chow who directed, starred-in, co-wrote and co-produced. If anyone can truly claim to be the real author of a film then this guy deserves all the plaudits. He has had a lot of help from a top-notch technical team and actors who know how to play for laughs, but he is the guy controlling their strings. And a damn fine job he has done too.

Well done Stephen Chow, you have now taken Jackie Chan's crown!

Take my Eyes, Please! - 9 Songs

2005-07-22T18:46:00.000+01:00

Michael Winterbottom's latest film comes hot on the heels of the interminably dull, but visually sumptuous Code 46. 9 Songs is about two annoying individuals, played with all the dramatic conviction of glove puppets by the meat puppet actors Kieran O'Brien and Margo Stilley, who fuck each other in between attending concerts (hence the 9 Songs of the title).

The film begins with a wanker (played by Kieran O'Brien) wandering around Antartica pontificating like a cunt, which is what he is, about his relationship with a scrawny idiot (played by Margo Stilley) who is even more of mongoloid imbecile than he is. He comes up with such treasures as, "Claustrophobia and agoraphobia in the same place - like two people in a bed," in reference to his failed relationship and the icy wastes around him. So deep!

I sat aghast as I watched the worst sex scenes ever filmed with some of the ugliest camera-work that I have ever seen. I watched even more aghast as two abysmal actors attempted to improvise dialogue so stilted that there were times that I wondered if English was their first language. For whatever reason this rectal prolapse of a film caused a sensation on its release in British cinemas because it featured "real sex". So. Fucking. What!

If I want to watch people going at it I'd rather just watch hardcore pornography. It's better lit, better photographed, more entertaining, and the acting is better, and it is more honest about what it is. Porn is porn. It doesn't pretend to be art. Give me a Ben Dover DVD any day of the week.

After this and Code 46, I'm fast losing respect for Michael Winterbottom. In fact, to redeem himself he is going to have to shit out the best film since Citizen Kane for this critic to watch another one of his films.

This film is out this week in the US. To any American cousins reading this...

Avoid like the fucking plague. Or better still, scoop out your eyes with a wooden spoon, it will be a more pleasurable experience than watching this abomination.

How Holly gets her grrooove back!

2005-07-16T13:42:00.000+01:00

Hollywood has a problem. A big problem. Admission figures are declining and have been for the last three summers, in fact the worst ticket sales since the early '90s, and nobody seems to have an answer for it.

In fact, the answer is quite easy. The studios are no longer giving audiences what they want. And they need look no further than their own doorstep for the reasons behind that answer.

Hollywood has been offering a yearly glut of films aimed at the lowest common denominator. Stupid films that pound audiences into submission with state-of-the-art sound and visuals. Sadly, they lack state-of-the-art screenplays, ideas or creativity. And, frankly, as a regular audience member myself, the audience is starting to turn away. What is the point of going to see a remake or a franchise film at the cinema when it will be just as easy to wait a few months to see a film that is likely to disappoint?

The roll-call of film and TV show remakes over this summer and last makes for alarming reading: The Longest Yard, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Bewitched, Before Sunset, Dawn of the Dead, The Grudge, Assault on Precinct 13, Criminal (AKA Nine Queens), Fever Pitch, The Amityville Horror, House of Wax, Ladykillers, Taxi, Flight of the Phoenix, Shall We Dance, The Manchurian Candidate, Wicker Park (AKA L'Appartement), The Stepford Wives, Thunderbirds, Around the World in 80 Days, 13 Going on 30 (AKA Big for girls), Starsky and Hutch, Scooby Doo 2, Alfie, The Singing Detective. The roll-call of sequels is even more alarming: Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins, Herbie: Fully Loaded, The Ring 2, The Whole Ten Yards, Scooby Doo 2, Barbershop 2, Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, Agent Cody Banks 2, The Chronicles of Riddick, Shrek 2, The Bourne Supremacy, The Anaconda sequel, Spiderman 2, The Princess Diaries 2, Alien Versus Predator, Cube Zero, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Exorcist: The Beginning, Meet the Fockers, Son of the Mask, Ocean's Twelve, Blade: Trinity, Be Cool (sequel to Get Shorty), Miss Congeniality 2. Only about a third of the combined lists made any real money. And only a select few - Revenge of the Sith, Batman Begins, Spiderman 2, Shrek 2, Meet the Fockers, The Longest Yard, The Bourne Supremacy - did really barnstorming business.

The two lists above are huge, and there is more to come. Hollywood seems content to pay top dollar to regurgitate old ideas. Occasionally, the remake / sequel comes close to or surpasses the original (Batman Begins, Spiderman 2, The Bourne Supremacy) and several have been passable entertainment (Dawn of the Dead, Revenge of the Sith, Ladykillers, The Manchurian Candidate). Most, however, are mediocre at best, and some (Riddick, Be Cool, The Whole Ten Yards, Taxi and The Stepford Wives to name the worst) are so execrable as to defy logic.

Do audiences really crave mediocrity? Do people really want to pay good money for forgettable, trite, unoriginal films which leave the barest of impressions upon them? As an audience member myself I can't think of anything worse than watching a steady stream of mediocrity. What I crave most of all is originality, and artists willing to take genuine creative risks. I have more respect for a filmmaker who takes a risk and fails than one who makes unoriginal mediocrity that attempts nothing more than a decent first weekend. As audience admission figures fall it seems that I'm not the only person feeling this way. Only one of the above list made it onto my top-ten of last year: Before Sunset, but that was a fantastic film and an exception that proves the rule. Every other film on my top-ten was original, and the majority of them took risks that most Hollywood producers and money-men would never understand. And some of those films (Oldboy and Eternal Sunshine in particular) will influence other filmmakers for years to come. Who will Miss Congeniality 2 influence? Will a future generation of filmmakers walk away from The Stepford Wives wanting to make movies just like it? God, I hope not.

Mediocrity, however, is only part of the problem.

Admission prices are forever rising. This way the studios are able to pat themselves on the back, grin smugly and say, "Yes, but we made more money than we did last year!" Of course, but that is because the price rises outstripped the decline in audience. Such a situation is unsustainable. Higher prices will deter audiences and this, along with the poor quality output from the studios, will ensure that next year or the year after will see many studios at breaking point because not only will audiences continue falling but they profits will start to decline too! Inflation is one thing, but the theatres and distributors are really starting to take the piss.

Other factors include antisocial behaviour, such as morons talking during a film or having mobile phone conversations, which despite being the province of theatres themselves but such factors will affect studios if people decide that renting a DVD might be better than going to the cinema, something that American audiences are starting to see as a genuine alternative.

The answers might be difficult for the studios to accept, but they had better accept them and soon or they might be in the kind of trouble that isn't so easy to get out of.

1) Better films. It seems simple, but the fact is it needs a visionary studio head to achieve this feat. He / she needs to weed out the people who can't hack it (be they writers, producers, actors, directors and assorted backroom staff) and employ those who can. And the shareholders need to give them time to turn things around. Originality and quality take time. By the numbers hackery does not! Sure, employ journeymen and women for schedule fillers (even the Hobo realises that these kind of films are a necessity) but don't give them the keys to the kingdom of Triple-A filmmaking. Of course, a return to the heady days of seventies filmmaking is too much to hope for. But another year as good as 1999 would be nice!

2) Cut costs. The studios run Hollywood, not the stars and their agents, and the sooner that many executives see that the better. Pay talent what they're worth and not what they think they're worth. Don't give in to demands for ludicrous and expensive perks. If a star wants a trailer filled with shaved Barbary apes then make them buy the things themselves! If the biggest stars were forced to work for £15 million dollars rather than £25 million would they really starve? The Hobo thinks not. And your production would be £10 million cheaper before it has even begun.

3) Extend DVD turnaround schedules. This is controversial, but it works. Some films are out on DVD only three or four months after their run has finished. This means that many people think, 'Oh, you know what, I'll just wait for the DVD. It'll be out in a couple of months!' If somebody has to wait a year for the DVD then they may feel differently about waiting.

4) Remove antisocial types. If some prick decides to have a mobile phone conversation in the middle of a film then there should be an usher around to forcibly remove the motherfucker from the auditorium. The same goes for idiots who decide to chat through the film. This is, of course, the domain of the theatres rather than the studios. But, a zero tolerance policy will benefit the theatre and studios as it will result in increased admissions which means more profits for both.

5) Remove advertising. Incessant film advertising has zero benefits. People don't run from the cinema thinking I really must buy myself a three-seater sofa (couch) or waxing strips or any other product that the man hawks to us in cinema advertisements. The only thing they do on leaving the cinema is discuss the film they have just seen. What adverts actually do, along with the trailers, is drag out a two hour film to something more like two and a half hours. And there is research that suggests that people can't stand advertisements before films, and that such tactics deter people from going to the cinema. Again, this is the policy of theatres, but they would benefit themselves and the studios by losing the adverts. A few fewer trailers wouldn't go amiss either!

7) Kill Freddy Prinze Jnr and Jimmy Fallon. Oh, I'm sorry, I let my mind wander...actually, they should kill Martin Lawrence and bury his remains in the desert. Oops, forget about point 7!

8) Lower admission prices. In conjunction with a zero tolerance policy on troublemakers this would ultimately increase admissions and, therefore, the profits that the theatres and studios crave so badly. Sometimes bold measures are needed in order to improve a situation that is getting steadily worse.

9) Increase film choice. Multiplexes would do better to have less of four screens of the latest Harry Potter and more varied films from all continents of the globe. Variety is the spice of life. People appreciate the ability to see more than the latest blockbuster, even at the multiplex.

10) And, lastly, have more second-run (or repetory) theatres. The more of these the better. They encourage lower prices and enable people to see things that they couldn't see first time around. In conjunction with increased DVD turnaround times this might just net the studios a few extra million dollars before it eventually makes its way to silver disc heaven.

The Hobo can't guarantee Hollywood execs that this will work. But the above list gives them all a fighting chance. And, Christ knows, they need it!

Otherwise, we're talking the death of cinema as we know it! That might sound dramatic, but the digital age has changed the rules. And if cinema doesn't adapt it will die. Darwin's rules work equally well in the marketplace.

Hall of Hate - Part 3

2005-06-27T19:43:00.000+01:00

Once again I'll take aim at those unworthy of contributing to cinema, along with those who should, frankly, be eradicated from the face of the earth!

Batman and Robin - I fucking hate this abomination of a movie. One has to wonder how the script EVER made it past the development hell stage, as it is a clunky, flaccid, worthless turd of a screenplay. The acting, if you can call it that, is uniformly awful. The direction by Joel Schumacher is abysmal, a six hour home movie of paint drying would be more entertaining, and the special effects are some of the worst I've seen in a big-budget film. Thankfully, Clooney and Thurman went on to better things, but this unholy butt-fuck of a movie could have (and should have) ended the careers of all concerned.

Direct to Video Action 'films' - I hate watching fucking charisma vacuum pituitary case retards strut their stuff in the worst action films known to humanity. Don 'The Dragon' Wilson, Billy Blanks, Michael Dudikoff, Olivier Gruner, Mark Dacascos and Dolph Lundgren are amongst the worst offenders but there are plenty more for me to want to destroy. Just because you can string together a few roundhouse kicks doesn't mean that you are an actor. Why do producers throw money at plotless, witless shit when for a similar budget they could throw money at something clever like Cube and maybe try and get their work on the big screen rather than the culture vaccum that is the direct-to-video market.

Modern day rom-coms - What happened to the clever romantic comedies of the thirties, forties and fifties when chemistry, spark and a fucking tip-top screenplay was needed to impress audiences: Bringing up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, Some Like it Hot, His Girl Friday and Arsenic and Old Lace, are just a few ace examples. And whilst it does help that most of these star the greatest comic actor ever, Cary Grant, the fact that today's rom-coms are a jumbled together hodge-podge of cliches direct from Microsoft Comedy Writer 2.1 doesn't help. Yes, let's watch a couple of witless retards spew forth awful one-liners in the hope that a matchstick's worth of chemistry will be ignited. A Lot Like Love, Bewitched, Big Fat Greek Wedding, Bridget Jones, Wimbledon and other assorted turd-fests are not fit to touch the hallowed ground these films walked upon. And fucking Nora Ephron should be destroyed for her 'contribution' to modern romantic comedy. Why is it so difficult to write a great modern romantic comedy? After all, life is more complicated and relationships are harder to maintain in the age of equality so it should be easier to write a good comedy of errors. Christ, even Woddy Allen is rubbish now. Somebody, please write a good romantic comedy; a film with balls and a few surprises. Feed our souls Hollywood and not your bank balance!

Jimmy Fallon - About as funny as being told you have AIDS.

English Language Remakes - Why do films have to be remade for fucking trailer dwelling retards too fucking stupid to read subtitles? Oh yes, profit. Then why do they nearly all have to be complete shit? Oh yes, because Hollywood hires hacks to remake them or brings the original director over to arse-rape his original vision (see The Vanishing and The Grudge for such examples, or better still don't).

Remakes, full stop! - Why do films have to be remade for fucking trailer dwelling retards too fucking slow-witted to see and appreciate the original? Oh yes, profit. Ocean's 11 and The Fly aside, and they remade bad films, I haven't seen one remake that's worth the arse sweat off the original. Please stop, Hollywood. Make original films with new talent. It might work out cheaper in the long run and the world will seem a better place.

My God, a really good blockbuster!! - Batman Begins

2005-06-23T10:24:00.000+01:00

You've got to Christopher Nolan. He followed up his creepy debut Following with that stone-cold work of cinematic brilliance Memento. He then follows that up with one of only a few remakes of a foreign classic that is fit to be mentioned in the same breath as the original, Insomnia. And now he has well and truly established himself as a major Hollywood player with his fourth film, Batman Begins. And added to which he has breathed life into franchise that everyone had presumed dead by the hands of the Campmeister General, Joel Schumacher. The Hobo predicts a long and bright career in Hollywood if this film is anything to go by.

Batman Begins concerns the beginning of Batman's career. It brushes over all the ground that those unfamiliar with the comics may have always wondered about: such as how Bruce Wayne managed to become Batman without anybody knowing and how he came to construct his Batcave and how he acquired the skills to fight criminals in the first place.

The film begins with Bruce Wayne (an impressive Christian Bale) in a prison somewhere in Asia. He spends much of his time fighting the other prisoners. The day before his release he is approached by Ducard (Liam Neeson) a shady character who offers Bruce a way out of his anger and frustration, for him to join the League of Shadows, an age-old organisation dedicated to fighting criminality and corruption in society. Upon release Bruce ventures to the LoS headquarters in the mountains of the Himalayas and proceeds to train, under the tutelage of Ducard and Ras al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), and learns how to fight the criminals. This part of the film also flashes back to Bruce's fear of bats and of the murder of Bruce's parents (Linus Roache and Sara Stewart), which departs from Tim Burton's film and has a homeless non-entity kill them for their money and jewellery. Upon finishing his training Bruce is asked to execute a criminal. He refuses and, in the resulting fracas, destroys the League of Shadows headquarters, killing Ras al Ghul but rescuing his friend Ducard. Wayne then returns to Gotham City, with his butler Alfred (nicely played by Michael Caine), to find out that Wayne Enterprises, the business left to him by his father, is about to be made public by current CEO Earle (Rutger Hauer). Upon his return, and with the help of Alfred he sets about becoming Batman. To do this he works in the special projects division with an old friend of his father, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). He then proceeds to take bring aboard one of the few decent cops in the city Jim Gordon (an excellent Gary Oldman) and then sets about fighting mob boss Falconi (Tom Wilkinson) and discovering a plot involving insane criminal psychiatrist Dr Jonathan Crane (Cillian Murphy) which leads back to the League of Shadows...

To cut a long story short, Batman Begins is excellent fun. It is more intelligent than most blockbusters around these days, although the concept of the microwave emitter is nonsense (after all, if it vaporizes all water why doesn't it vapourize human beings, whose bodies mostly consist of water). It has some nicely done action set-pieces, particularly an edge-of-the-seat chase car chase around Gotham, and develops the main characters in a way that none of the other Batman films ever did. Christian Bale excels as Bruce Wayne / Batman. He has a physicality and a presence that Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney all lacked in the role, and he plays the Batman / Wayne duality nicely, insofar as he seems far less assured as Bruce Wayne than as Batman - an important factor overlooked by the previous three actors. If he allows it - something that seems unlikely given Bale's edgy acting and love of his privacy - then a big Hollywood career is also on the cards. With the exception of Katie Holmes (who is cute but wet as Bale's childhood friend and assistant DA) the acting is all top notch. Wilkinson gives off a menace as Falconi, Murphy is suitably insane and dweeby as Crane / The Scarecrow, and Caine, Freeman, Neeson and Oldman all play their roles nicely. Nolan's direction is superb but unobtrusive: unlike Burton and Schumacher who both gave the Batman their own peculiar slant. His style of film-making seems to be more about telling a story without too much inflection. To this end, he is aided by excellent cinematography from the unfortunately named Wally Pfister, a regular Nolan contributor; nice production design by Nathan Crowley and excellent costumes by Lindy Hemming. The editing and visual effects also assist the process and the screenplay by Nolan and David S. Goyer (Blade and Dark City) gives the characters more weight than might be expected and a decent, though as mentioned earlier slightly ludicrous, storyline. If only all Hollywood blockbusters had this kind of effort put into them, the Hobo might not be angry all the time.

See it. Make it a hit. Tell Hollywood that this darkier, edgier more intelligent summer blockbuster is the kind of summer entertainment you want. With this and Sin City, one suspects that dark is all the rage this season. It's enough to give a hobo hope!

And so it ends - Revenge of the Sith

2005-06-16T16:34:00.000+01:00

The Hobo can remember 1977. I was still a critic without a drink problem and all seemed right in the world. And into this equation came Star Wars (or as it became later Star Wars: A New Hope), and after it the whole climate of the cinema chaned. Think about it. There were blockbusters before Star Wars, and plenty of them, but it was after Star Wars that the nature and demographic of the cinema changed. In the late sixties and early to mid seventies most of the blockbuster film seemed to be aimed at an adult demographic: The Godfathers 1 and 2, The Sting, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, Jaws, The Exorcist, Saturday Night Fever, Rocky etc. After Star Wars, however, it all changed. The studios saw that there was huge money to be made by aiming their products directly at children and young adults and, circumventing their parents, even more to be made by merchandising products from the films and by learning corporate advertising techniques that enabled them to sell directly to the children. As political as all that sounds, and it is, it is the sad nature of things that quality has been sacrificed as a result of this change in business plan and demographic. George Lucas isn't wholly to blame for this state of affairs because he wasn't to know how influential his film was going to be, but he doesn't entirely get off scot-free either. He laid the groundwork for the infantile nature of modern cinema and he appeared to do his best to profit and prolong the process once it was installed.

That's a long hand way of saying I loved the first two, thought Return of the Jedi was okay, and that the two prequels suck hairy dog cock. The Phantom Menace was a joyless affair with the extra added stench that only rasta-alien stereotype Jar Jar Binks could provide. This, however, was only a precursor to Attack of the Colons (sorry, Clones) which was a wretched excuse of a movie. Like a video game made flesh only with worse acting and even worse scripting (of which, 'I find her intoxicating,' was one of my particular favourite Hayden Christensen lines). The action scenes were so rapidly edited that it was barely possible to follow the action on-screen and, Christopher Lee and Ian McDiarmid excepted, the actors were drained of every inch of charisma. So it was with great trepidation that the Hobo approached the third prequel, and why it has taken so long to review a film that has been around for a while now.

I won't bother with the plot to Revenge of the Sith, as the world and their dog should know it by now, I will simply review it. In short, I was pleasantly surprised. Firstly, the film is, against all odds, highly entertaining when viewed on its own terms. It is a vast improvement on the first two, and Lucas ties up the plot that leads into Star Wars nicely. He may not be able to write dialogue for shit but he's not too bad at handling plotlines. However, despite all this, it is still far from being anything even remotely resembling a great piece of cinema. The dialogue remains poor, and in the case where Anakin (Hayden Christensen) and Padmee (Natalie Portman) appear to be having a competition to see who loves the other more it is almost surreal, but the sheer pace of the proceedings and an interest in seeing how it all comes to pass prevent it from ever becoming completely risible. The acting is a mixed bag: McDiarmid is excellent until he reveals his dark side and then takes on facial expressions and vocal inflections that suggest he is trying to audition for his next job in panto; MacGregor (very poor in the first two) is actually okay in this one; Christensen is crap but looks the part more than he did in the first one; his scowl is perfect until he is forced to open his mouth and ruin the good work created by his scowling visage; Natalie Portman comes off better than she did in the first two, but everybody knows that she is a capable actress when given the right material; Samuel L Jackson is better than in the first two but he still seems a pale imation of his usual self. The special effects are excellent but they are still too prevalent. Everything in this film has a digital sheen to it. The film, and the actors within it, appear to be the construct of some sort of cinematic Deep Blue. Even though the effects are mostly flawless, the viewer is still aware that they are effects because the motion and physics just aren't quite right. There is point in the film where I saw the Clones moving and I could sense a slight jerkiness to them. Nothing that the average moviegoer might notice but something that this jaded critic spotted immediately. The entire universe has a CAD (Computer Aided Design) look that suggests the airbrushing of humanity.

And when you look at Lucas's airbrushing of the first three and THX1138 you can see an artist desperately removing the fallibility of humanity from his work. Be it a dodgy effect, or an idea downscaled because of a lack of budget, or a costume or alien that might be considered dated or badly designed, anything that dates a film is removed. And yet, it is the human element within a piece of work (be it cinema, writing, music or any endeavour that invloves communicating with an audience) that makes it art. Lucas, in his need to control every element of his universe, appears to have forgotten that. And one wonders what he could possibly have to say as a director now that his big project has finally been put to bed! Whatever it is, one suspects it will have a great deal to do with profit margins and little to do with art.

I've Been in Business over a Year

2005-06-13T19:50:00.000+01:00

It has just dawned on me that I've been doing this for over a year now, give or take the odd prolonged break, I should have a birthday special but instead I'll play Jehovah's Witness and let the birthday pass with only the barest of comment. Still, I've seen some good stuff and some bad stuff in that time but there's always more to do and see and write!

This year I want to get more than two or three reviews from the London Film festival. I want to get in between 5 and 10 films at the LFF this season. I always want to make sure that I'm at 2005 Frightfest. I enjoyed it last year and saw plenty of stuff that never made it into the cinemas and several short films with promise, although I didn't review them.

Ah, there's always more to do. This year I aim to to do it!

Green Screen Noir - Sin City

2005-06-12T19:29:00.000+01:00

Due to various bullshit reasons, we in Britain didn't get Sin City for two months. The States, along with various EU countries, got the film over two months ago. We, however, had to wait. If Hollywood wonders why people purchase illegal DVDs or download DiVX files of their product then they need only look at a film like Sin City for an excellent example. Staggered release schedules mean that most of the time we in Britain often wait several weeks for a new release to appear in cinemas: America gets the film in April and we get it in June. In theory this should create a bit of buzz and advance word, but in this digital age the film is available on April 10th and the downloadable version is available on April 11th. Why wait and pay for a film when you can download it for free? An interesting question that I may try and cover in a forthcoming blog but for now I'll move on and simply say this: if the MPAA is really interested in reducing the levels of movie piracy then it should get rid of staggered release schedules altogether. Now on to the review.

Sin City is based upon three stories from Frank Miller's excellent series of graphic novels set in and around the fictional area of Basin City. It was directed by Robert Rodriguez (with a guest director spot by Quentin Tarantino) with such a slavish devotion to the framing and compositions used in the graphic novels that Rodriguez gave Miller a co-director credit, and left the Director's Guild in order to do so.

The Sin City novels themselves chanelled and updated every film noir worthy of note along with the works of Chandler, Hammett, Jim Thompson et al into a fantastic whole. The fact that they themselves are now being turned into the medium that influenced their creation is somewhat ironic, particularly as pretty much all the violence is in there. The stories used are The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill and That Yellow Bastard. These are bookended by vignettes featuring Josh Hartnett, who fortunately doesn't do too much speaking, as a romantic hitman. The best story, The Hard Goodbye, features a killer comeback from Mickey Rourke as Marv, a tough giant of a man who won't stop until he finds out who killed the only woman who ever showed him the slightest bit of love and affection. He wakes up after a night of passion to find her dead and himself framed for the killing. The tale leads him to the clergy and a couple of knockout clashes with silent cannibal killer Kevin (A truly creepy Elijah Wood). The Big Fat Kill features Clive Owen, the weakest of the three main actors, as Dwight a killer with a new face who has several run-ins with his girlfriend's ex, Jackie-Boy (Benicio del Toro), one of which leads to all sorts of shenanigans in Old Town which is run by Sin City's prostitutes (with the statuesque Rosario Dawson as their leader, Gail) and which threatens the truce between the prostitutes, organised crime and the police. That Yellow Bastard features Bruce Willis as an ageing cop who takes both bullets and the rap for a crime he didn't commit. On his last day of retirement he saves a little girl from a paedophile whom he shoots (Nick Stahl) only to find that no good deed goes unpunished. The paedophile's father is a Senator who ensures that Willis is imprisoned for his son's crimes. Willis is contacted by the little girl in prison and she becomes his only source of information on the outside world but eventually the letters stop and a deformed yellow monstrosity tricks Willis into believing the girl is in danger and getting himself released from prison to find her.

From the brief synopses above you'll notice that all the stories are the same: gruff, tough men with soft spots for women go through hell to avenge or save them! But the stories don't matter that much. In an exercise as stylish as Sin City it is the way they are told that determines whether they work or not. And in this respect Robert Rodriguez has made his best ever film. Yes, it could do with a trim in places, Clive Owen just doesn't work as Dwight and consequently The Big Fat Kill suffers because of it, and several of the actresses are a bit on the wooden side (Brittany Murphy and Jessica Alba are the two main planks on display), but the film looks fantastic and Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis do their best work in years. Rodriguez takes the green screen technology pioneered by Sky Captain and Casshern (both hideous pieces of arse water) and marries it to stories that work as narratives and has a blast! The fact that most of the writing on-screen belongs to Miller and not Rodriguez is even better. Rodriguez is a poor screenwriter who works best with other people's material, From Dusk Til Dawn being a case in point. The fact that two of his three main actors give some of their best work is also a testament to his method. Acting against a green screen can't be easy and for Willis and Rourke to give such strong performances suggests that Rodriguez might be able to make this kind of filmmaking work in a way that Casshern, Sky Captain and the Star Wars prequels can't. But what makes this film work is the fact that most of the time you really can't see the joins, and the black and white and colour-splashed cinematography (courtesy of Rodriguez) looks astonishing, it really does look like a graphic novel made flesh. But it isn't all brilliant. Big Fat Kill doesn't really grab the viewer because Owen makes for a weak protagonist and, Rosario Dawson aside, the female actors are pretty piss-poor. Jessica Alba looks gorgeous but she isn't much of an actress and her wooden performance weakens the character of Nancy in Yellow Bastard; in addition, the whole package could have lost a few minutes here and there and would have been a tighter, sharper film for it.

But let's not quibble; it looks great, it has two knockout stories and some fantastic action, plus it has the odd surprise or two here and there. Until Batman Begins arrives this weekend you have the finest comic adaptation on celluloid. Enjoy!

I am back, motherfuckers!

2005-05-30T00:18:00.000+01:00

And, fuck me, I am angry. I have lost months of my life to the dreaded alcohol but now I am back. I am here to take apart Hollywood with my bare hands and rip apart the chaff to get to the sweet, sweet wheat!

I am also angry about other things such as why the Crazy Frog is now number one in the UK singles charts. Are we all such complete fucking cunts that we feel the need to move this unholy abomination onto our radios as well as our mobile phones. I feel such hate for the fucktards responsible for this, but even more so for the gullible fools who feel that the crazy frog is: "wacky" or "you know, just fun!". It is neither and you're all fucking idiots if you think it is any of those things.

I am also angry that Reality TV is dominating the the TV listings of just about every TV channel in existence. I have no desire to watch Celebrity Retard Island; I'm a Fucking Wannabe Cunt, Get Me on TV Now; Big Fucker or Celebrity Dance-a-thon 2005; or any other shit stain designed to placate an ever more fucktarded audience. It's no wonder educational standards are dropping when the best we aspire to is to succeed like Jade Goody. If I woke up one day to find myself desperate for that kind of fame I would pay a hitman to shoot me with hollow-point bullets through my fucking brainstem to ensure that my death would be quick and absolute. It is no wonder that, surrounded by this kind of systemic idiocy, cinema is becoming ever more facile and throwaway.

Apathy is everywhere and it is in the cinema and TV where it can be reflected most vividly. Reality shows take the pressure off producers to produce high-class intelligent drama, or comedy, or something avant-garde and out there. Instead we can watch the world's worst comedian, Richard Blackwood, as he gets his colon cleansed with NICAM stereo sound effects for those to fucking stupid to understand the skin-creeping hideousness of it all. In cinema we haven't yet got to the point where reality TV will graduate to the big screen but I can tell you that it probably isn't very far away. After all, why pay $75million for a film that may flop when you can film a series of live executions for a few hundred thousand and screen it to salivating buffoons in the knowledge that you will probably see a profit in your theatrical run (something that is becoming a rarity for big budget blockbusters). For now Hollywood is getting by on rehashing the likes of Dukes of Hazzard, The Longest Yard, The Amityville Horror and any other brand that can save it from having to actually come up with something, you know, daring and original, perish the thought!

Rant over.

I intend to get in a few films this week. In addition I will review any films that I watch on DVD and I am planning a website in the near future with someone else that should provide interesting content for those who love film. This means that this lazy fuck will have to get very busy over the coming weeks and months. I can't wait.

Love Bites - Closer

2005-02-02T22:20:00.000Z

The director of Closer, Mike Nicholls, was the director on one of my all-time favourite films, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, which was - like Closer - an adaptation of a stage play. Woolf captures, in my humble opinion, the best Richard Burton performance ever caught on celluloid, and Elizabeth Taylor ain't too shabby either! Both films deal with the basic compatibility and incompatibility of human relationships. Woolf, written by Edward Albee, deals with grief and its effects upon a couple and anybody caught in their crossfire. Closer, written by Patrick Marber, on the other hand, deals with love and betrayal and the pain it brings. It is also a very good film.

Closer deals with two relationships and continuously jumps forward in time, though occasionally it jumps back to cover a revelation or two, to tell the story of Dan (Jude Law) and Alice (Natalie Portman) and Larry (Clive Owen) and Anna (Julia Roberts). As the film begins Dan and Alice meet when in the process of making eye contact on a busy London street she is hit, but not badly injured, by a taxi. The visit to the hospital and a bus ride after it is enough to begin their relationship. The film then jumps forward several months to Dan, who has just completed a novel, having a dust jacket photo taken by Anna. They flirt and then kiss. Alice who visits the studio learns enough to work out that sparks have flown between her boyfriend and this beautiful photographer. We then jump forward again and meet Larry, a dermatologist, who is having a webchat with Dan on a sex chatroom. Dan is pretending to be Anna for his own amusement and sets up a meeting between Anna and Larry in an aquarium. From this awkward first meeting Dan and Anna become an item. Time jumps forward again and we learn that Dan's novel has failed, he is obsessed with Anna, and that Alice suspects that things are definitely wrong with their relationship. From here the couples split, bicker, take revenge, get back together and (in one case) ultimately fall apart. From the synopsis provided it sounds shitty but, trust me, at its best it is pretty riveting stuff.

A film like this will stand or fall on the quality of its performances. Fortunately, Closer has two superb performances (Owen and Portman), one very good performance (Law) and one decent performance (Roberts). Owen as the egotistical, arrogant Dan is superb, he spits out his lines with all the spite and malice needed to make Marber's superb screenplay sing. Portman is almost as good as Alice, the stripper who ultimately has a heart of stone, and builds upon the excellence of her work in Zach Braff's cracker Garden State, she moves us initially but as the film progresses we realise that truth isn't one of her strong points. The fact that she is gorgeous doesn't hurt the stripping scenes either! Law has never convinced when he is required to carry a film but he makes a superb supporting "star"; The Talented Mr Ripley, Existenz, Wilde, etc. And there is something about his face and manner that makes him perfect for Dan, the slightly needy mother's boy who flits from woman to woman and who writes about love but doesn't understand anything of its complexity. He is especially good in his face-off with Owen's Dan, which is a superbly written scene that begins agressively, gets progressively softer and sweeter, and then hits in the solar plexus with a killer blow. The weakest actor of the ensemble, though she is still pretty good, is Roberts. There is something about her that just doesn't fit with the rest of the production. She has too much star quality and her persona is too deeply ingrained for her to really convince us that she is Anna. However, as Roberts' performances go, it is a very good one and she carries off her two-header with Owen with aplomb, saying words that we never thought would spew from the mouth of a Hollywood star. In fact, the real star of the film is Marber's script. Bitter, misanthropic and with a real bite, it is as far from cuddly rom-com as it is possible to get. The actors say their lines with relish, probably because they know that lines like these come along all too rarely. Nicholls does a good job getting all this stuff out of his cast, and rarely lets the camera intrude upon the actors, he keeps the frame simple and lets the actors fill it. The whole thing nips along at a decent pace and it has a reasonably gritty look to it.

Closer has been out a while but if you haven't seen it yet it is well worth a visit. And it makes a good companion piece with Sideways, although you might feel slightly more misanthropic if you were to see them both in one day!! Neither presents human nature in the most wonderful of lights. But they are both fine films, and if you love cinema then that is all that counts!

Quaffable but not transcendent - Sideways

2005-01-30T22:36:00.000Z

My first review of the year, mostly because I am a lazy fucker, concerns Alexander Payne's excellent Sideways starring the awesome Paul Giamatti and the equally superb Thomas Haden Church with sterling support from Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh.

The film covers a week in the life of Miles, a depressed wannabe writer, and his infantile actor buddy Jack. As a wedding present Miles takes his friend Jack on a tour of California's wine country. Miles thinks that this will be a way for them to reconnect as friends and enjoy each others company; Jack, on the other hand, doesn't share that view of the trip - for him it is his way of getting them both laid with the first available women that come along, as he feels they both need it. Jack is having second thoughts about his wedding and Miles has been suffering from depression since his divorce two years previous. Along the way the men encounter Maya (Virgina Madsen) and her friend Stephanie (Sandra Oh). Jack and Sandra hit it off straight away but Miles and Maya are a bit more of a slow burn. Gradually they become closer but then Miles spoils things by accidentally letting slip about Jack's marriage rehearsal. From there things get alternately darker and funnier.

Sideways reminds of a seventies film, in all the good ways (along with one glaring bad one). It takes its sweet time getting to where it needs to go. It doesn't overindulge the visuals and gives the actors room to breathe, and they do a good job bringing Payne's and Jim Taylor's already sharp screenplay into focus. The performances are stunning and Paul Giamatti does one piece of acting which is amongst the finest things that I have seen in years. It is a scene towards the end of the film where Miles has a brief conversation with his ex-wife. The pain of two years is etched in his face with a brilliance so subtle it is in a class all of its own. Oh...and despite this Giamatti has not been nominated for an Oscar! It makes you wonder if any of these silly old cocksuckers in the Academy even know what good acting is? The guy builds upon the excellence of his performance in American Splendour with another barnstormer and the Academy decide to ignore him because of their alleged dislike of the Miles character! A sad state of affairs if true. Haden Church is nearly as good as the lecherous Jack, a teenager trapped in a middle-aged body. He comes up with some hilarious lines and he finds the likeability in a character that, in the wrong hands, could have come across as a total prick rather than a confused and charming. Madsen and Oh are also excellent in their smaller roles. Alexander Payne is one of the class of 99: one of the young American director's who came to prominence in the last great year for American cinema. The scary and wonderful thing is that he seems to be getting better with each film. Election was very good, About Schmidt was marginally better and this film is better still. The only bum note is in the music, by Rolfe Kent, which sounds like it was done in the seventies. It sounds like some sort of Jazz-Fusion nightmare. It takes the film down a notch, hence the play on a line that appears in the film for the review title. However, this is still a very bloody good film and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

I'm planning to get in some more films this week and catch up on the films that I haven't seen. So expect a few more reviews to follow shortly.

The Ten Worst Films of 2004

2005-01-07T01:08:00.000Z

Here is the shit. And not good shit either! These ten are bad shit. Excrementally awful films that took away precious hours that might have been better spent creating a masterpiece, or killing off brain cells with a turpentine, cider and beer cocktail - or as I like to call it a Turbo Fuck Shandy. It helps dull the pain of this little lot! They are in no particular order!

1) Van Helsing - A diarrhoea bubble caught on celluloid. A CGI mish-mash of lousy scripting, lousy acting and the worst Dracula EVER (courtesy of the poor man's Julian Sand's, Richard Roxburgh). An abomination.

2) Connie and Carla - The cinematic equivalent of getting your eye-sockets raped by horny sex-maniacs. Acting so hammy it should be displayed on a deli counter, writing so bad that it defies belief, and scenarios so unbelievable that you wish only for death at the end of it all.

3) King Arthur - Takes all the magic and fantasy that you know and love and defiles it...nay, anally rapes it. Clive Owen - an actor I respect enormously - is the worst King Arthur ever. Keira Knightley is a "warrior" Guinevere. The best thing to do would be to take this film to a quiet place and put one between its big puppy-dog eyes!

4) Soul Plane - I watched this wet fart of a movie on a download and was glad I was able to view it in a light, airy London squat surrounded by hobos even more pissed and drugged up than I, the spectacle reminded me that there are worse things than films like this. It is like watching your parents trying to be "down" with the kids; embarrassing and painful for all who watch it.

5) The Whole Ten Yards - Pointless; worthless; mirthless. Abandon hope all who enter the world of catatonic Bruce Willis and jittery, flickery Matthew Perry. It's shit. The cast had a hoot (apparently) but you will not. Avoid!

6) Thunderbirds - Imagine two hours of some kids using their video camera to pan and zoom in on a big sloppy turd. Now you no longer have to imagine it because Hollywood and Britain have done it for you. Absolute wank.

7) The Hillside Strangler - Tasteless and shit, a rare combination. The only film on this list that will make you feel like bathing in a sewer afterwards, just to get clean! Avoid like the plague.

8) Chronicles of Riddick - I really like Pitch Black, which carefully minimises the Diesel effect. However, I don't like this. It is rubbish; in the same way that xXx was rubbish (ie. it fucking stinks the place out!). Vin Diesel should retire; his welcome was worn out a long time ago!

9) Izo - Takashi Miike at his best is a great director (I'll fight the corner of Ichi The Killer and Audition against anybody who slates them), however this insane spectacle of a movie manages to make cinematic violence sleep-inducingly boring. The actor who plays Izo shouts a lot and runs, both of which he manages to do badly. The film meanders without point or coherence and the fight choreography is some of the worst that I have ever seen. Shite!

10) The Toolbox Murders - There were apparently some critics who quite liked this. I assume that they either didn't watch it or they have neither the senses of sight or hearing. The film looks like a TV movie and the acting is woeful (with the exception of Angela Bettis). And the main villain is the worst slasher villain since Bobby Ray Schaeffer in Psycho Cop. An absolute piss-stain on celluloid! Director Tobe Hooper should join Vin Diesel in the retirement home!

Hopefully things will be better in 2005 but I doubt it. I expect to see more Hollywood product in this list next year. Who knows, maybe Hollywood will go for a record and dominate the entire list!

Go easy people and expect some reviews to surface in the next week or so.

My Top Ten of the Year

2004-12-28T22:59:00.000Z

Hello all, I've been away for some time. Holidays, moving my homeless carcass from the rich hobo pickings of Farringdon to the altogether chavvier enclave of Enfield, all have occupied my life outside of blogging. But now on to my top ten of the year. The films that in some way made my life worth living and allowed me to see that, at its best, cinema is the best way (with your clothes on) to waste your time. They are in no particular order but they are all excellent.

1) Oldboy - Proof, if proof were needed, that Korea is the place of the moment for interesting, different and thoroughly enjoyable cinema. Oldboy takes risks, thematic and dramatic; it has fantastic acting, superb technical credits, and is boldly written. It looks and sounds great, and if Chan-Wook Park continues to make stuff as good as this he will be have Hollywood knocking at the door!

2) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Charlie Kaufman is probably the first American screenwriter since Paddy Chayefsky to be given most of the credit for the films he is involved in, such is his critical reputation. But a screenplay only works if the director concerned serves it well and the actors make the lines and ideas sing! The director Michel Gondry does a superb job, employing both CGI and old fashioned optical effects to bring a man's disappearing memories to jaw-dropping life. The cast are superb, but Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet are particularly good at making the audience care for these lovers, and the ending - something that Kaufman has struggled with in the past - is a doozy.

3) Memories of Murder - This film gets better every time I watch it. It is the closest that Korean cinema will get to the feel and form of a James Ellroy thriller, and that is one of the highest compliments that a crime thriller fanboy like myself can give. The directing, acting and screenplay are all top-notch.

4) I Heart Huckabees - David O. Russell's 'existential comedy' was one of the biggest surprises of the year. Not because it was good - that didn't surprise me at all - but because it was so amazingly ambitious for a mainstream American film. It manages to shoehorn classic screwball comedies and existential philosophy into one genuinely enjoyable whole. The fantastic cast (Jason Schwartzmann, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Huppert and Naomi Watts) are all on top form; the writing is genuinely challenging; the direction is slick and Schwartzmann and Huppert's sex scene in the mud is worth the entry price alone.

5) The Machinist - The fact that most American critics didn't get this film really surprised me. They attacked the writing, the direction, the music, and the whole sensibility of the film. Frankly, they were all wrong. Time will eventually mark this film out as one of true quality. Brad Anderson's film beautifully gets into the mind of a tormented man, a man who Christian Bale magnificently brings to life; he is aided along the way by Scott Kosar's fine script, Roque Banos' superb music (and the critics who criticised the music are morons because it is fucking fantastic), and cinematographer Xavi Gimenez's moody photography. The fact that the distributor released it in about 3 cinemas across America is a fucking travesty.

6) Before Sunset - The best American film of the year. Superbly written by Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, to the point where we could happily listen to this couple talking all day. The performances are A-grade. The film is tight, superbly structured and has a great, ambiguous ending. The fact that it did $6 million dollars in the US is another travesty. People complain that America doesn't make great love films any more...and when one comes along they all ignore it!

7) Shaun of the Dead - Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's affectionate, and often hilariously funny, pastiche of Romero zombie flicks is the best British film of the year in my opinion. It captures the English 'can't be arsed' attitude to perfection and the cast give game performances. It isn't perfect but it had the ambition to be different and the fact that it made money gives hope to all British filmmakers who don't want to make Working Title style rom-coms and hokey Mockney gangster films.

8) The Corporation - The more you see this film the more resonant it becomes. It covers the genesis of corporations, and the fact that they were never be anything more than temporary structures designed to complete a construction job, through to the modern day behemoths they have become today. It is a more intelligent and rational film than Fahrenheit 9/11 and the points it makes (and the horrible truths therein) are all the more powerful because of the evenhanded approach. Quality stuff.

9) House of Flying Daggers - It was a tough choice between this and Hero. Hero is the more beautiful film, any film shot by Chris Doyle will be, but - in my very humble opinion - this is the better film. Sure, it does get corny at the end but the fact that there are a lot of plot strands and an ambition that is absent from the standard martial arts film mark it out as special (I love the genre but it even I will admit that it rarely aims for anything more ambitious than increasingly complex and beautiful fight moves). The choreography, acting, writing, directing and technical credits are all first-rate. There isn't much between this and Hero, but I personally feel that this shades it...just.

10) American Splendour - Quirky and different, but not self-consciously so. Harvey Pekar's comic strip turned his ordinary life into something resmbling art. And this film turns the bio-pic - a genre that rarely grips me - into something throughly fresh, original and bold. It doesn't hurt that Paul Giamatti's performance is out of the top drawer.

Notable Mentions: These films just missed out on the top ten. Take it from me that they are all worth seeking out because they are all very good!

Finding Neverland; Bad Education; The Motorcycle Diaries; Fahrenheit 9/11; Hero; 2046; I'm Not Scared; The Return; The Bourne Supremacy

Cavern of Love - Part 2

2004-11-26T14:46:00.000Z

This is a continuation of the Cavern of Love I wrote earlier in the year. Detailing more of my cinematic heroes, unsung or otherwise.

Paul Thomas Anderson - Ambitious young American film-maker who is so talented that I really should hate him. The fact that he has made films as good as Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch-Drunk Love ensures that I don't. Not to be confused with English film-maker Paul W.S. Anderson (Alien vs Predator), particularly as he is fucking shite!

Akira Kurosawa - Masterly Japanese director with a painter's eye and a western sensibility. The list of classics is endless: Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, Ikiru (sadly being remade), Yojimbo and Kagemusha etc.. His creative partnership with the brilliant Toshiro Mifune was unsurpassed. If only cinema had more directors like him, particularly in this age of corporate, dumbed-down, market led "Event" movies.

Orson Welles - He may have been derided as a fat, Birdseye Fish-Fingers hawking loser about the time he died but he was The Man. The fact is that Citizen Kane was, is, and always will be the greatest debut film ever made. But he made more than just one masterpiece, often against the odds and beset by studio interference. The Magnificent Ambersons is brilliant cinema even with the tacked-on studio ending; but one hopes that one day someone will find a negative of Welles' cut in pristine condition in their attic. The Lady From Shanghai is fantastic, even if it was again edited into near incomprehensibility by the studio, and it is a visual treat. Even more of a visual treat is the stone-cold classic Touch of Evil; which in it's studio-edited or Welles approved cut is awesome film-making, even with Chuck Heston playing the world's least convincing Mexican. Othello is a amazing looking piece of cinema and somewhat of a triumph considering that Welles had to make the film over two years with any funds he could get his hands on. The Trial, Chimes at Midnight, The Stranger and Macbeth all bear his mark of quality in one way or another. And as Harry Lime, in Carol Reed's awesome The Third Man, he created one of cinema's great villains.

Wong Kar Wai - Hong Kong film-maker whose individualistic cinema has him rightly marked as one of world cinema's brightest lights. His partnerships with renowned cinematographer Chris Doyle and actor Tony Leung have proved particularly fruitful. His films include a roll-call of classics: The Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together and In the Mood for Love. Cinema needs more people like him!

Takeshi Kitano - One of my favourite directors. Highly individual Japanese director who made a fine debut with Violent Cop, despite the fact that he only directed it at the last minute because the original director dropped out. His first absolute classic was Yakuza thriller Sonatine, which is still one of my all-time favourite films. Equally as good is Hana-Bi. This year's samurai stunner Zatoichi was a barnstorming return to form after less effective films like Brother (his first English language effort) and Dolls.

Early Dario Argento - Before he started making cack, mostly because his audience happily accepted his flaws and he got lazy, the Italian Hitchcock made some of the most gorgeous looking and devious horrors and thrillers around. Acting was never a strong point in his films, it was all about set-piece and technical audacity - and, boy, was he audacious! The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, The Cat o' Nine Tails, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebrae are all technically brilliant, beautiful to look at, and great fun. Most of the stuff he did after Tenebrae is shit. But the early stuff still gets my juices flowing!

Early John Carpenter - Before he started making cack, mostly because his audience disappeared and he got a bloated ego, this man made some cracking genre films. Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, Escape From New York and The Thing all bear the hallmark of quality. It is a shame that from Big Trouble in Little China onwards he started making patchy films and then, in the 90s, from Ecape From LA onwards he gave up completely and just started to make total dogshit! Which is a pity because the early films are so good. Technically he was the most proficient of the major American horror directors like Wes Craven, George Romero, David Cronenberg and Tobe Hooper, and - at that time - he was better than them at directing actors too. Sadly, somewhere along the line, he became obsessed with putting "John Carpenter's" before the title of every film and he forgot about the quality control. However, the early stuff still stands up today and Halloween and The Thing are as close to perfection in modern horror cinema as you are ever likely to get!

1999 - Somewhere things got screwed up during this beautiful year for cinema addicts. Hollywood lost the plot and started employing genuinely creative people to make films. For one year only the hacks were put in a box and the young, rebellious creative types were let loose in the dream factory. I intend to write something a little more in-depth on this year in the near future but this is just an outline of the stone-cold classics that were unleashed that year: Fight Club, The Matrix, Three Kings, Magnolia, Being John Malkovich, The Sixth Sense, Rushmore (which we Brits got in '99), The Limey, The Insider, South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, The Blair Witch Project (which though I don't think is great is an important film in the genesis of independent cinema), Election, American Beauty, Go, The Virgin Suicides and Existenz, too name just a few of the American films. I was barely out of the cinema during 1999. Most people reading this will have a few of these films in their collection. And the amount of careers this year launched or made commonplace was staggering: Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze, M. Night Shyamalan, David O. Russell, The Wachowski Brothers, Alexander Payne, Alan Ball, Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Sam Mendes all had their careers/reputations started or cemented on the back of this year. Some haven't fulfilled their potential but others are flying and making cinema as it should be made: without abandon!

The Perfect date movie - Finding Neverland

2004-11-26T10:15:00.000Z

The Hobo doesn't usually like weepies. Weepies are quite often lowest common denominator crap designed to manipulate audiences starring once major stars who are well into the down slope of their career-arc, or TV movie of the week actresses like Valerie Bertinelli (one time wife of guitar wielding straggle-rocker Van Halen). So I approached Finding Neverland with a degree of trepidation, although the pedigree of the cast (Johnny Depp, Kate Winslett, Julie Christie and Dustin Hoffmann) and the director Marc 'Monster's Ball' Forster gave me some hope of getting through this without mental scarring!! And it turns out to be one of the surprises of the year; it is really a very good film. In fact, it is practically the perfect date movie.

The film covers the creation J.M. Barrie's classic play Peter Pan. It begins with Barrie (Depp, with a reasonable generic Scottish accent) producing an awful flop play and wondering what to do next. Theatre producer Charles Frohman (Dustin Hoffmann, underplaying nicely) tells him to go away and come up with a hit, something which is easier said than done. His homelife isn't exactly ideal for the creative muse; he is in a cold, loveless marriage with social climbing former theatre actress Mary Ansell Barrie (Radha Mitchell). But one day Barrie takes his dog to the park in order to sit and get some inspiration and chances upon the Llewelyn Davies family, who take a shine to Barrie's dog and then to Barrie himself when he puts on a make-believe impromptu show for them - to the delight of the children's mother Sylvia (Kate Winslet) and the irritation of young Peter (Freddie Highmore, excellent). Barrie finds out that Sylvia's husband is recently deceased and that the family have had trouble getting over his death both emotionally and financially. Gradually, Barrie grows closer to the family and finds inspiration in his fantasy games with the children, particularly the emotionally repressed and intriguing Peter, and his friendship with Sylvia. Polite society starts talking and Barrie is informed by his friend Arthur Conan Doyle (Ian Hart) and Sylvia's mother, Mrs Emma du Maurier (Julie Christie), that the relationship with Sylvia and the children has scurrilous tongue's wagging. Barrie creates the play Peter Pan and struggles to convince the sceptical Frohman and actors that it can work whilst trying to create a bond with Sylvia, who is showing signs of serious illness, and her family.

Finding Neverland is a very good film. It has a superb cast, all of whom are on top form; particularly the superb Highmore, who brought a lump to this cynical old hobo's throat in the final scene with Depp. The beauty of the film is that it has a genuine heart. It is sweet without being sugary. Warm without being schmaltzy. And heartfelt without being overly earnest. The fact that the cast underplay helps enormously. Winslet could have overplayed her illness for the benefit of the old farts on the Oscar panel, but the fact that she doesn't makes her illness all the more affecting. Depp, as always, brings an affable, genial humanity to his role; his J.M. Barrie isn't a saint - his ignorance of his wife being a case in point - but he is a decent human being. The film has several highlights: the major one is Barrie pulling the P.T. Barnum-esque trick of giving 25 seats away on the opening night to children from an orphan's home; the second is a performance for Winslet's benefit, the delight in this scene is the joy of watching Julie Christie's cold grandmother becoming engrossed in the production; there are others but revealing too much would spoil your fun. The technical credits are all top notch: Forster's direction is playful without being flashy, and he elicits great performances from all (particularly the children who aren't cutesy or annoying); Roberto Schaefer's agile cinematography works superbly; Peter Russell's art direction and Gemma Jackson's production design evoke both the period and the fantasy world's superbly; the costumes by Alexandra Byrne and Mary Kelly also impress. The film looks, sounds and feels like what it is: an A-grade production.

If there is any justice then Finding Neverland will find its audience. And it has a chance because it is being released in the same weekend as Oliver Stone's turkey Alexander; audiences might prefer a film of quality for a change. Plus, word of mouth - which is sure to be glowing - could turn it into a real sleeper. Films that entertain always deserve to find their audience. Let's hope that the audience finds it!!

Hall of Hate Part 2

2004-11-22T15:52:00.000Z

This is a continuation of the Hall of Hate that I did earlier in the year. The Hobo has restocked his well of rage, and will now take aim and fire.

People who Talk in Cinemas - Absolute fucking scum of the earth. Worthless pieces of shit who should be eradicated from the face of the earth by Brazilian death squads. Okay. A bit harsh... maybe. But they are scum!

Working Title - According to the world of Working Title all Brits are wacky eccentrics who live in incredibly large houses and flats whilst wandering around a London that is so picturesque that your teeth rot at the candied sweetness of it all. The reality is that we are all fucking miserable in London, living in tiny properties that we can barely afford (even with a decent job) and though certain parts of London are beautiful a lot of the city looks like a fucking skidmark. And this is coming from someone who likes London. Plus, they are responsible for the anal polyp that is Thunderturds. Enough said!

PG-13 or 15 certificate horror - Am I the only one thinking that kid-friendly horror is one of the most insidious evils creeping around the cinematic world? I want horror to scare the fucking bejesus out of me. I want blood, guts, disturbing scares and a malevolence that prompts the tabloid press to wonder if cinema is turning evil. I do not want bland pretty teen friendly leads running from censor friendly ghouls in order to make money from the largest possible demographic. Horror isn't supposed to be mainstream or kid friendly. It is about time that horror cinema reclaimed the high ground. It is about time horror went old school. I want to see horror hark back to the old days of video nasties. Somebody please scare the shit out of me!

Film Executives - Nowadays these people are faceless bean counters with all the personality of a shit stain. They don't love films, in fact one suspects that they actually despise them, they love only money. One wishes for the old moguls who not only knew films, and loved them, but also knew the audiences better than they knew themselves: the Jack Warners, the Sam Goldwyns, the David O. Selznicks. Hell, why not bring back Don Simpson. Most of his films were crap but at least he did love film and he had personality to spare! The executives now generally make films that are worse and have barely a neutrino's worth of personality. And one wonders why much of mainstream cinema these days is worthless, soulless pap!

Remakes - Hollywood has let costs spiral out of control to such a degree that it considers remakes to be the way forward. They aren't! They are a regression. They are wrong. Originality is not the enemy. The enemy is allowing executives with few life skills and even less sophistication dictate to the audience what it wants to see. The enemy is winning too!

Multiplexes - These eyesores haven't increased choice, unless you consider choice to be ten screens of the same blockbuster shown at ten minute intervals, they have reduced it. I don't want some corporation to dictate what I can and can't watch. That's why - unless I absolutely have to use these places - I try to avoid them. They are also the reason why audiences have grown noisier and more antisocial. The smaller the cinema the easier it is to keep tabs on what the audience is doing. Also, the worse the film the more likely the audience is to chat through it!

J-Lo - Nearly everything this fat-arsed harpy stars in is shite. Why is she still one of the world's biggest stars? Her films are rubbish, her music is worse, and whilst she may be beautiful she has the personality of a dead rodent.

The Oscars - A pointless charade. Usually the wrong films are nominated and the worst film wins. It is also worthy of note that Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick have never won Best Director Oscars. This says everything that needs to be said. The British Academy awards are better.

Steven Seagal - A fat fucker with a pony-tailed wig. Has never made one decent film. And forget about Under Siege, it was rubbish!

I Hate other People - Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason

2004-11-22T13:22:00.000Z

Last night The Hobo nearly had a fight with a Japanese guy.

There I was sat in my seat, next to the Hoboess, waiting for the film to start when this Japanese guy sits next to me with his girlfriend. They proceed to start talking at full volume. Fine, I thought, it is only the trailers. But this proceeds into the first five minutes of the film. After another five I leaned in and said politely, "Can you please be quiet?" The cocksucker ignored me. He continued talking as though he was in his own front room. I thought to myself, "Fuck this!"

Then I just grabbed his arm and said "Shut the fuck up". We eyeballed each other for thirty seconds and then he said "Fuck you" and I said "No, actually, fuck you, you prick! And shut the fuck up." He continued eyeballing me for about another fifteen seconds but I chose to ignore him and he lowered the volume. Although he did text someone several times with his mobile. Ignorant, fucking worthless piece of human faeces.

People like this guy make The Hobo sick to his stomach. They fucking swan into the cinema and make it impossible for other people to enjoy films. I'm relaying a call to arms against all who make cinema-going less enjoyable than it should be. Why sit in silence when somebody is ruining your film. Instead, why not tell them to shut the fuck up? Instead, why not get up get one of the staff and tell them to earn their money and throw the cocksuckers out of the cinema? As for me, I'm going to continue to fight for decent cinema-goers the world over.

Rant Over!

As for Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason: It is simply a continuation of the original, which I quite enjoyed, but without the original's quality. The acting is fine; Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant all reprise their roles well, though - through poor writing more than anything else - Bridget comes off as more of a buffoon and less savvy than she was in the first film. There are a few laugh out loud moments but not enough of them - the two lead men resume their fight from the first film, and Hugh Grant gets most of the best lines. However, the scene in the Thai jail is terrible and is as far from reality as it is possible to get. Also the music is so overpowering at times that the film seems more like a pop video than a piece of cinema. It has a happy ending, resumes Working Titles stock in trade of presenting London as a place populated with "wacky" and chirpy Brits and confectionary box scenery. The truth would, for once, be better: London is a grim, grimy looking place populated by miserable motherfuckers who would rather be anywhere else but here, and tourists (particularly Japanese) who make everybody's life a total fucking misery!

Gah! The Hobo is angry and needs to cool off. Tonight I shall drink several pints of wood alcohol with a refreshing mixer of Irn Bru!

Vengeance is Mine - Dead Man's Shoes

2004-11-21T10:08:00.000Z

The Hobo has never been a huge fan of British writer-director Shane Meadows, until now. I still hate Once Upon a Time in the Midlands, mostly because of the presence of that lanky fucktard Rhys Ifans and the vastly unfunny Ricky Tomlinson...oh, and because it's rubbish. But stuff that kind of washed over me like A Room for Romeo Brass and Twenty Four Seven might be due a reappraisal. In fact, I should really like him more. After all, he doesn't make confectionary box rom-coms and he takes risks with his material. But I guess there's something about his films that hasn't inspired me until now! Dead Man's Shoes is a fine, gritty revenge drama with a washed-out, cinema verite look and a kitchen sink feel to its violence.

The film begins with Richard (co-writer Paddy Considine) a scruffy, bearded former marine arriving at a derelict farm, with his younger brother Anthony (Toby Kebbell) in tow, on the outskirts of a grim midland's town. He then goes into town and puts a scare into a small-time dealer Herbie (Stuart Wolfenden) who quickly flees the scene to see his boss, Sonny (Gary Stretch), to get hold of some drugs to sell. When Herbie leaves Sonny's club he finds that Richard has followed him, to Herbie's surprise Richard apologises but his weirdness freaks him out and he runs away to a friend's flat to chill out. But he then remembers that the guy who challenged him was Anthony's brother. Richard then scares the bejesus out of Herbie again and steals Sonny's drugs. He then breaks into Sonny's house and paints him up like a woman as well as painting up another of Sonny's gang. Once they all realise that Richard is behind it and why he is back - because of things they did to Anthony some time ago - they go back to Sonny's place to think about what to do next. Richard pre-empts them by killing one of their number and sets up a confrontation at the farm which goes very wrong for one of Sonny's crew. Sonny, Herbie and the rest all flee to Sonny's house where things get even more violent...

The power of Dead Man's Shoes creeps up on you gradually throughout the film. Initially the viewer thinks that the nature of Richard's revenge is too much in comparison with what has been done to Anthony. But then, suddenly, the truth is revealed and the nature of the crime, and Richard's madness, is hammered home and we feel understanding, if not agreement, for the brutality and ugliness of Richard's crimes. The beauty of the film is that the story isn't grandiose or operatic, nobody has any snappy lines (although some of them are very funny) the dialogue is grounded in an almost documentary banality. The villains are idiotic and charmless but also resolutely human, and superbly acted by the cast - particularly former boxer Gary Stretch, and the single-minded Richard isn't much better, also excellently played by a bulked up Paddy Considine. Meadows elicits these performances well and gives the film a nice cinema-verite feel (aided nicely by cinematographer Danny Cohen). He also succeeds in making the violence ugly and matter-of-fact without tipping over into the banal. It is an excellent balancing act which keeps the film from descending into the pointless.

Dead Man's Shoes might get a US release in 2005. It is coming the the end of its British run. It didn't do as well as I had hoped a film of this quality might. But it will play just as well on DVD, where the small screen might enhance the almost documentary feel to it. Good stuff!

Who's been Naughty and who's been nice

2004-11-15T13:53:00.000Z

Just too let you all know, I am currently compiling my top ten best and worst of 2004. This homeless Christmas Santa will bestow gifts to all! The best shall get sackfuls of glorious hobo juice, in all the flavours under the sun! The worst shall get sackfuls of rank, foul smelling hobo shit, which is better than many of them deserve.

I currently have a top ten of both, but as there are several weeks left I expect to see new films that will bump some of the old ones off the list. I shall be increasing my cinema-going accordingly. Expect those deserving to be preaised to the Heavens and those underserving to be damned to Hell!

They're coming to get you Barbara - The Corporation

2004-11-08T14:40:00.000Z

In amidst the english language remaking of classic Asian films for audiences too fucking dimwitted to read subtitles, and Hollywood's increasing reliance upon computers to bail out the spastics they have employed to write and direct the latest lumbering, shit-stains that they like to package as "blockbusters", we regular cinema-goers have been lucky enough to see one of cinema's more heartening new trends. Over the past couple of years we have seen the re-birth of documentary cinema as a form of mainstream entertainment. The Fog of War, Touching the Void, Fahrenheit 9/11, Super Size Me, Outfoxed, Spellbound, Capturing the Friedmans and Control Room; all excellently made, all with powerful subjects or stories to discuss, and often better made and more gripping cinema than much of the best fiction cinema. Not since the late 60s and early 70s has the state of documentary cinema been so bouyant. And now there is another quality title to add to that list...The Corporation. based upon the book - and co-directed - by Joel Bakan.

The Corporation follows the birth of corporations from their inception - as limited lifespan concerns created to see a job (usually in construction) through to completion - through to their modern day counterparts - moneymaking behemoths often incorporating multiple business concerns on a world-wide scale - which cause our lives to be both easier and more difficult. Talking to a variety of concerned people - philosophers, sociologists, traders, CEOs and the like: including Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein and Michael Moore - the film charts the rise and rise of the Corporation. The film discusses the fact that under American law corporations are recognised as legal people, often abusing all the constitutional protections that such recognition brings. The film also lets us know that "corporate responsibility" is actually an oxymoron; particularly as corporations can only be truly responsible insofar as it benefits the shareholders, and if it doesn't benefit them then CEOs are legally obligated to ignore the cuddly demeanour that corporations would like to present to us and pursue the bottom line - even at the expense of human lives! In fact, if a corporation were truly a legal person then its psychological make-up would be that of a psychopath! The Corporation is packed full of interesting facts and figures and soundbites.

As somebody concerned about the pervasive power of corporations, and their hold on all our lives, this film merely heightens my concerns about these faceless behemoths: the knowledge that corporations are trying to patent the building blocks of life is particularly frightening. For those not au fait with the way these organisations work The Corporation acts like a wake-up call. It is a nicely balanced, well researched, ambitious and superbly produced film. You know a film is good when its two and a half hour running time seems too short, and this is one of those films! What makes it so good is its balanced portrayal: It covers the ways that certain CEOs have seen that they owe it to society to be more responsible, and have fought hard to do so, and it has given them decent screentime; it also covers the fact that certain societies have fought against corporate greed and won; it also gives screentime to an absolute scumbag of city trader who, whilst an affable presence, is only too happy to profit from the misery of 9/11 and the resulting "war on terror". In covering all bases the film gives us an openhanded view of the corporation's frightening grasp on our lives. The issues and facts it raises are all too sobering!

The Corporation is intelligent film-making with an vital point to make, and one that is made brilliantly. Documentary film-making doesn't get much more intelligent and gripping than this. Actually, scratch that! Film-making full stop doesn't get much more intelligent and gripping than this. If you get the opportunity to see it in the cinema then do so. And when it comes out on DVD rent it or buy it. The more people who see this film the better! Top notch stuff!

They fly through the air with the greatest of ease - House of Flying Daggers

2004-11-07T19:05:00.000Z

Zhang Yimou's Hero was the biggest breakout success in Chinese cinema since Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. It melded Chris Doyle's awesome cinematography with some of the most original and brilliantly conceived wire-fu action ever committed to celluloid. It seemed only natural that he would follow it up with something even more audacious. And he has! House of Flying Daggers is a spectacular piece of action cinema that should do even better at the box office than Hero, so long as it is given decent distribution.

HOFD is set towards the end of the Tang dynasty. The emperor is ailing and the infrastructure of Chinese government is wracked with corruption. Into this mix is a revolutionary outfit called The House of Flying Daggers who wish to overthrow the current regime. Two officers Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Leo (Andy Lau) are given the task of hunting down revolutionaries in their precinct. Leo assigns Jin to a brothel, which has recently hired a blind dancer, Mei (Zhang Ziyi). After, a couple of visits by Jin, and later by Leo, Mei reveals herself to be a revolutionary. After an elaborate, and beautifully executed dance-cum-fight scene she is captured and imprisoned. Jin is then dispatched by Leo to rescue and seduce the girl with the intention that she leads them to the House of Flying Dagger's stronghold. Along the way Jin gets Mei to trust him, and slowly but surely they fall for each other. At this point a Tang general, who is unaware of Jin's agent status, gets involved in the case and dispatches soldiers to kill Jin and Mei. It is here that things get complicated as cross is doubled and tripled before the film draws to a close, leaving itself nicely open for a sequel.

House of Flying Daggers is easily one of the best kung-fu action films of recent years. Not only is the action superbly handled and beautifully choreographed, it also has a nicely executed plot - a rarity in the realm of kung-fu films (and this coming from somebody who loves them dearly). Several of the action sequences will live in the memory long after the end of the final credits. The sequence where Leo tests Mei's hearing skills, a sequence that begins as a dance but ends as a fight is an awesome collision of choreography, cinematography, costume, colour, CGI and sound design. It holds the viewer rapt in its grasp and leaving them begging for more. But this is merely the beginning. The forest attack, where numerous multiples of the General's minions assault Jin and Mei whilst riding and scaling bamboo trees is an absolute classic. Exciting, tense, and brilliantly filmed and edited. This sequence makes the tree fight in Crouching Tiger look cackhanded in comparison, which is about as big a compliment as it is possible to give. The acting by the entire cast is good, everybody appears to be on top form though top marks go to Kaneshiro and Ziyi, both of whom run, jump, fight and emote with total conviction. Zhang Yimou juggles the plot strands and the fight scenes with equal aplomb and he delivers a film that should, if the old fuckers on the Academy are on form, see him in with a chance of a best foreign film nom at the Oscars. The technical credits are all top drawer, the cinematography by Xiaoding Zhao is superlative, and only marginally less evocative than Chris Doyle's work on Hero. But, considering that Doyle is currently the world's finest cinematographer, this is a reflection of how good Zhao's work is. Emi Wada's costumes are beautiful and colourful and superbly crafted. Tingxiao Huo's production design, married with Zhong Han's art direction, helps give the film a gloriously colourful look.

House of Flying Daggers really is a site to behold, a beautiful film that is well written, ably acted and superbly directed. I suggest you see it when it hits the cinema, as films like this are designed for the big screen. Whilst it is true that it will still look good on the small screen, a film of this scale and craftsmanship deserves better than a DVD, or worse still, a computer download screening. House of Flying Daggers is released in Britain on Boxing Day. Go see it as an antidote to stodgy Christmas fare!

Back to the future - 2046

2004-11-02T13:43:00.000Z

Wong Kar Wai is one of world cinema's undisputed masters. His work seems to create order out of improvised chaos and his creative partnership with Tony Leung now ranks alongside Scorsese and De Niro's in terms of quality. They bring out the best in each other. There is something symbiotic about the way they work that just isn't replicated when they work with other collaboraters. Chungking Express, Happy Together and In the Mood for Love; classics one and all (although The Hobo is of the opinion that Fallen Angels is almost as good as these) and as good a reason as any for me to get the early skinny on their latest collaboration: 2046. A sell-out at the London Film Festival.

Ostensibly, 2046 is a pseudo-sequel to In the Mood for Love. It follows the character of Chow (Leung), the cuckolded husband from the previous film, as he pursues his writing career alongside a life of hedonism. Since the end of his relationships with both his wife and Maggie Cheung's character Chow has lived a hand-to-mouth existence in room 2046. He earns decent money writing only to spend himself dry before the end of every month. Chow is writing a novel called 2046, which despite being its sci-fi premise is actually about Chow and his relationships with women. During the film we see excerpts of Chow's novel, set in 2046, a world of trains and technology and dreams. The world of 2046 and Chow's world during the '60s are dominated by one thing: women. Whether it is his relationship with the gorgeous, wilful and kittenish Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi), to whom he can never commit, or his working relationship with his landlord's attractive, intelligent daughter, Wang Jing Wen (Faye Wong), Chow is always attempting to erase the memory of Su Li Zhen, revealed to be two women. The first Su Li (Maggie Cheung) is from In the Mood. The second Su Li (Gong Li) is an enigmatic gambler whom Chow met in Singapore. The film is too fractured for me to present anything other than a fractured synopsis. The key is to see it all gel together on the screen.

2046 isn't Wong Kar Wai's best film, it drags in far too many places to qualify as great, but it is still one of the better films that I have seen this year. And it features a truly great performance from Tony Leung, who seems to get cooler with every film he's in. Great actors do great things without ever appearing to make much of an effort. Nicholson and De Niro in their prime had this skill and Leung has it too. I'm not saying that Leung is as good as those two were, but right now he is one of the finest actors on the planet and this is will go down as one of his defining moments. As ever with a WKW film, 2046 is beautiful to look at. The cinematography - covered by Chris Doyle, Pung-Leung Kwan and Yui-Fai Lai over the film's four year gestation period - is superb, highlighting amazing art direction by Alfred Yau, sterling costume work by William Chang, and nicely frames a very attractive cast, all of whom are exemplary. The CGI work, whilst obviously fake, is beautiful to look at with its riot of almost abstract colour. With a little more spit and polish on the editing and Wong Kar Wai might have been staring yet another masterpiece in the face. As it is he will have to be content with a flawed but excellent movie.

If you want to see something with ambition then 2046 will fit your bill very nicely. It doesn't quite reach the heights of In the Mood for Love or Happy Together but it is still one of the best films of the year. Quite some achievement for a director who could be considered to be having an off-day!

A Great Pile of Pretentious Wank - Izo

2004-11-02T13:08:00.000Z

I thought I would cover the worst of my London Film Festival excursions first. Get the bad stuff out of the way as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Takashi Miike has made some truly great films - Audition and Ichi the Killer being the most well known - but he has also made some absolute tosh. However, he has never made anything quite as bad as this trawl around the celluloid sewer. When I reviewed Gozu earlier this year the film seemed like a logical extension of themes and obsessions that he had explored over his entire career: a flawed but interesting experiment. However, I now know that this was the point where Miike had begun to disappear up his own arsehole. Izo purports to be a philosophical action film. But what it actually is is a great steaming log of faecal matter. And, boy, it really does stink!

The plot, such as it is, involves samurai warrior / demi-god / demon Izo rising up and destroying his enemies who seem to represent the worst elements of both feudal and modern Japan. That's it! Along the way he encounters demons, warriors, half-naked women, school moms, Takeshi Kitano, and a burly black American, some of it in modern-day Japan and some in an idealized feudal Japan. None of it makes a great deal of sense and the last half hour saw me slipping in and out of a boredom induced coma.

The fact that this film has brief glimpses of Miike magic is the only thing that has kept me from hunting down and destroying everybody involved in the making of this cinematic crime. A fight in a school with a bunch of school moms is priceless and there are other similar moments...but that is all they are. Mere moments. Hardly worth the price of a ten pound ticket, and hardly worth enduring for badly edited and choreographed fight scenes, ludicrous cod-philosophical dialogue about the Id and the power of chaos, interminable musical interludes and a hero who spends the entire film bellowing and wailing. At one point I thought that I was starting to "get" this film but then my subconscious kicked in and told me to relax and forget it, I understood nothing because there wasn't anything to understand. I was trying to create order and cohesion in a work without either of those things. It was at this point that my mind gave up and I drifted in and out of sleep, it had no desire to be subjected to anymore of this pretentious wank.

Izo is dogshit by any other name. See it only if you are an absolute Takashi Miike completist. Everybody else: Stay well clear.

Wow! An interesting mainstream thriller - SAW

2004-10-20T20:03:00.000+01:00

It seems so long ago that Cary Elwes got tagged as the "Next Big Thing", in fact it was a long time ago. It all started with his note perfect performance in Rob Reiner's The Princess Bride and from there, sadly, it was all downhill. He never seemed to live up to the hype, then again most of those tagged as a "NBT" disappear without trace! After years in the doldrums his career might just take a marked upturn for the better with his latest film, even though he is one of the weaker actors in it. Saw, directed by James Wan and co-written by Wan and co-star Leigh Whannel, is a tricky, gruesome and devious little thriller that deserves to make a lot of money for all concerned. In a year dominated by underperforming bullshit blockbusters it is refreshing to see something come along that is aimed solely at an adult audience.

The film begins with two men, Dr Lawrence Gordon (Elwes) and Adam (Whannel), waking up in a grotty bathroom. Each is bound to a wall on either side of the room by heavy chains and neither man knows how they got there. Between them is the corpse of a man who has shot himself in the head. As the film progresses we find out that the men are the victims of the "Jigsaw Killer", a fiendish individual who makes undeserving souls appreciate their existence by paradoxically forcing them to fight for the right to live the rest of it! If they fail to escape from the killer's puzzle then they die. Ultimately, the right to survive comes down to how much each man wants to get out of his prison. As the tale weaves its course we find out that the two men have closer links than they initially might have thought and that a detective (Danny Glover) is hunting down Gordon for the Jigsaw Killer's crimes.

As debut films go Saw is a good 'un. The fact that it is one of the better mainstream thrillers to have come out the States this year makes it even more impressive. The plotting is tight, even if the story is too fantastical to hold much water once you are outside the theatre, and the dialogue has bite and some memorable lines. For instance, as Adam explains his fate he states: "All I remember is falling asleep in my shithole apartment and then waking up in an actual shithole!" It isn't particularly original, owing a debts to Seven and Cube, but it is at least trying something different in its execution. Wan's direction is nice and taut, although he does have a tendency to overplay the stylistics when a simpler hand would have been more effective. Still, he drags the viewer by the scruff of the neck and makes them gnaw at their fingernails as the tension builds, not bad for a beginner: there are plenty of overpaid Hollywood fucktards who can't manage that after twenty years in the business of directing. The acting is more controversial. Whannel is excellent, and everybody is agreed on that, but many people have had a go at Elwes, calling him either melodramatic or flat. I disagree, I think he is okay in this role and when he gets tipped over the edge at the end it seemed believable, especially considering the circumstances that he was facing, but his American accent does slip every now and again and a better actor might have made the film even better. The rest of the cast (Danny Glover, Monica Potter, Ken Leung) all do decent enough jobs and the film is over in a nicely compact 100 minutes.

Saw is well worthy of your time, especially with the current glut of decent films around at the moment (and all because the hideousness of Hollywood's blockbuster season is over), and if you are a fan of tricky thrillers then you really should catch it. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Super Size Me - With added narration by the bitch in the Seat in Front (of mine)

2004-10-08T11:56:00.001+01:00

Maybe it's me. Maybe, like most rational cinema-goers, I'm wrong to want to watch a film in silence (stopping occasionally to laugh or groan or whatever in the appropriate scene) and absorb the information that is being presented to me on screen. Am I wrong? Please tell me if you think I'm out of order in this regard....

...and I'll tell you to go fuck yourself.

Yesterday I had to sit and listen to some stupid fucking bitch babble incessantly at top volume to her weedy, speccy fuck of a boyfriend whilst I tried to watch Super Size Me. She managed to drive the people sat right behind her to another part of the cinema. She found that amusing. However, she soon stopped laughing when I leaned over and very loudly told her and her boyfriend that they had better shut the fuck up immediately. I can be rather scary when I try. And she never said another fucking word after that. And neither did anyone else in the (noisy) cinema. Noisy fucking antisocial motherfuckers!

I hate people like this. Antisocial fucks who ruin everything for other people because they are somehow insecure and fucked up. I don't know about any of you but I don't go to the cinema for the conversation. I might chat during the adverts and the trailers but...I do it quietly and try to have a reason for speaking. And when the feature starts I SHUT THE FUCK UP! The next time I hear some fucking prick chatting full pelt during the main feature (regardless of gender) I'm going to drag the motherfucker out of the cinema by their hair and beat the fucking shit out of them!

Oh, Super Size Me is excellent. Morgan Spurlock has produced a slick, funny and scary documentary that tackles America's fast-food problem head on. He puts his money where his mouth is by endangering his health in order to show just how bad a diet of MacDonalds actually is. The statistics it offers are frightening. One instance being that if dietary habits continue unabated then one in three children born in the year 2000 will develop Diabetes during their lifetime. Sobering stuff indeed! Spurlock's month long McD's binge results in him putting on 25lbs in weight, his liver functions become compromised and he suffers from headaches, lack of sex drive and heart palpitations. It skewers the fast food culture and our addiction to it and those who prey upon that addiction, in fact McDonalds refer to consumers who buy there once a week as "heavy users". Yes, it may be sensationalist, but if that is what it takes to make people think twice about what they are putting into their bodies then it is well worth it.

Quality stuff. It would have been even better without the fuckwitted imbecile chattering in the seat in front of mine. Woe betide the fuck who dares to ruin my next evening's enjoyment!

Frightfest Breakdown 15 - The Machinist

2004-09-25T14:01:00.000+01:00

And here, folks, is where my Frightfest coverage ends. The four days I spent watching these films seems so long ago, particularly as it has taken me somewhat longer than four days to get all these reviews on to my blog. There were a few films that I didn't get to, or want to, see along the way: Ginger Snaps Back (I simply couldn't care less, the original was okay but hardly warrants a sequel and a prequel); The Card Player (Argento has lost it, Sleepless blew serious horse cock and rumour has it that this film is even worse); The Eye 2 (slept in, but will review it later as it is getting a British release anyway); and I can't be bothered to review the short films, despite the fact that several of them showed real promise. So I shall end my coverage with The Machinist, which, had it not been for Oldboy, would be my vote for the film of the festival.

The Machinist, directed by Brad (Session 9) Anderson, is most likely to garner interest for the efforts of the film's star, Christian Bale. With his customary method zeal, Bale lost 60 pounds from his buff American Psycho physique in order to inhabit the role of walking skeleton Trevor Reznik. It is an astonishing physical transformation, but discussing this element alone would be doing a disservice to the efforts of Anderson and his talented cast and crew. The Machinist is a fine film, and hopefully it will earn money and awards. But I wouldn't bet on it.

The Machinst begins with Trevor Reznik (Bale) being caught in the act of disposing of a corpse. Before we have the chance to process this information we are plunged into Trevor's routine. Reznik works as a machinist in an old fashioned factory in nowheresville, USA, and hasn't slept for a year; he seems aloof and alienated from colleagues who were once his friends, and his skeletal appearance attracts a lot of comments, particularly from prostitute Stevie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) whom he visits regularly and Marie, (I'm Not Scared's Aitana Sanchez-Gijon), a waitress who works in an airport cafe that Reznik frequents. Also, somebody is trying to tell Reznik something by sticking post-it-notes on his fridge door and he keeps encountering the mysterious Ivan, (Romasanta's John Sharian), a bald, burly, cocky co-worker who nobody else seems to know. In fact, it is Ivan's presence that causes Reznik to make a mistake that results in a horrific injury to Miller (Michael Ironside), who loses his arm as a result. This leads to Reznik's complete alienation from his co-workers, who now shun him. Eventually, Reznik is fired and he starts to investigate why he is receiving notes on his fridge door and who Ivan is.

The fact that The Machinist is graced with one of the finest performances of the year in Bale's haunted, self-loathing Reznik is reason alone for you to see it. But, the knowledge that it is also one of this year's finest American films, despite Anderson having to to go to Spain to make it, should be another. Few films get under the skin of a character like this one does, and the key is all down to good writing. Unbelievably, this film is from the pen of Scott Kosar, who wrote last year's poor Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, but don't let that put you off. This film is well written, densely layered, and the internal logic works beautifully. Anderson's direction is note-perfect, he underplays his hand nicely, starting things off slowly before meticulously upping the tension until we realise that Trevor is heading towards a fate that is out of his hands. It is as close to a Hitchcock as anybody is likely to get without actually being the big man himself. Serious kudos also have to be directed at Anderson and art director Alain Bainee for the way that a Barcelona suburb was transformed into a US Everytown, they don't linger too much to shatter the illusion but they do just enough to make us believe that this is a small town in America. The cinematography, by Xavi Gimenez who did great work on Spanish film Intacto, is stylish, moody and dark and is utilised beautifully by Anderson. The real boon, however, is the best music score that Bernard Herrmann never wrote. Roque Banos superb music sounds like an amalgam of Herrmann's music from The Day The Earth Stood Still, Sisters, and much of his work for Hitchcock, but not for a single second does it come close to sounding like a parody. If there is any justice it will receive an Oscar nom for best original score. The acting is all top drawer. Of course, Bale is marvellous and deserving of an Oscar nom, but the entire cast is excellent: Leigh's prostitute could have come off as one-dimensional but she doesn't, her peformance works beautifully; Gijon's waitress and single mother also works nicely; Sharian is superb as Ivan, a really nice character performance. What amazes me about this film is not the fact that it is excellent but rather the fact that Anderson had to go to Spain to get funding. Apparently, the subject matter was too dark for American financiers - which just goes to show what a bunch of idiots most of these dickheads are - so Anderson worked in Spain instead. Thankfully, this compromise doesn't hurt the film at all. But it does make you wonder about the state of American film when one of the best American films of the year is, in fact, Spanish!

Any American's reading this, and there's a couple that I know of, please go and see The Machinist. Don't download it or ignore it, this film is worth better than that. Let the idiots who turned down funding know that they were very wrong. See it, enjoy it, and spread the word. The Machinist is excellent; dark, yes, but excellent nonetheless.

Frightfest Breakdown 14 - Casshern

2004-09-22T22:56:00.000+01:00

Kazuaki Kiriya's Casshern, based upon a 35 part anime from 1973, is a Japanese film that manages to be both sumptuously spectacular and unfeasibly dull. Of all the films shown at Frightfest this was the one with the loudest word of mouth, everybody wanted to see it and there wasn't a single empty seat in the house. However, to be perfectly honest it wasn't really the film that I wanted it to be.

Neither I nor anybody else could work out the plot to this thing so I have pasted in this description from the Frightfest website: "Enslaved by an army of rebellious super-robots originally designed to help civilization avert a complete ecological cataclysm, mankind's only hope is Casshan (Yusuke), a legendary hero who wages a solitary war to defeat the evil Neoroids and restore the Earth to its rightful order. It was Casshan's scientist father Professor Kotaro Azuma (Terao) who engineered the robot race in the first place. And Casshan's crusade becomes an emotional one because he wants to clear his father's name from any blame even though a robot has absorbed, and now manipulates, Azuma's consciousness. So Casshan must sacrifice his own humanity in order to attain the powers he needs to defeat the powerful mechanical enemies, But that comes at a heavy price." Which just about sums it all up...I think!

Casshern is an aesthetic wet dream. The visuals are an awesome combination of Metropolis (both the film and anime), Soviet Communist propoganda posters and Eisentein, Triumph of the Will, and the director's fevered imagination. There are very few cinematic worlds as enveloping and pervasive as this, it sucks you in and refuses to let go, its imaginative scope is epic and few films have ever lavished as much care and attention upon every individual frame. And yet it is dull. The first action sequence between Casshan and the Neo-Sapiens is superb, it fills the frame with incident and pyrotechnic delights, and pins the viewer to the seat with a wall of sound that would make Phil Spector shit in his pants! And from here onward it is all downhill, right through to a cloyingly sentimental ending that has its heart in the right place (about the mindlessness of war) but cackhandedly stomps this theme into the ground. Dramatically the characters don't engage us, we feel nothing for them and they exist only as ciphers to serve the gorgeous visuals. As much as I appreciated the technical virtuosity on display I felt unmoved by the story that unfolded. Imagination and technology is all well and good but it should be a means to an end and not an end in itself.

Casshern will have its fans...and they will ignore everything I have to say. Visually every single frame of this film could be mounted on canvas and sold as a masterpiece and it was worth seeing for that. However, the story was uninvolving and the two and a half hour length soon turned shock and awe into bemusement and irritation. By all means see it, just don't believe the hype...otherwise you'll be very disappointed.

Frightfest Breakdown 13 - The Hillside Strangler

2004-09-22T22:15:00.000+01:00

A few years ago, film producer and distributor Hamish MacAlpine decided to produce a trilogy of films about the life and crimes of serial killers. The series began with Ed Gein, continued through Bundy and hopefully - oh please dear God - ends with The Hillside Strangler. I haven't seen the other two films, so I can't pass comment on their merits, but on this film I can be entirely candid. It is a repugnant trawl through the sewer of humanity, deriving dubious entertainment through the torture and death of real human beings. After all, let's not kid ourselves, these two evil motherfuckers existed and they really killed 15 women.

I'm neither prude nor censor, I've got no problems with porn and I can watch the most violent films with barely a flinch, but it is all about context. The camera lingers over the naked bodies of these women and takes a pleasure in the acts on display. When I walked out of Irreversible I felt punch-drunk and horrified but also astonished at the brilliance of it all. When I walked out of The Hillside Strangler I felt like taking a bath in a rat-infested sewer to clean myself!

Technically, The Hillside Strangler is average. The camera work is TV movie standard; the costumes and sets evoke the period but little more; and the acting is about par for the course for this type of film, C. Thomas Howell (Kenneth Bianchi) and Nicholas Tuturro (Angelo Buono) both work in their roles, but the same question always arises: Why has it been made?

Maybe there is a huge market of psychopaths just dying to get their greasy mitts on this film? Maybe they will get a kick out the way this film revels in the pain and fear of the victims? Maybe it's a marketing man's dream and this is the secret key to the psycho demographic?

Or maybe this film is a repulsive piece of shit with little or no redeeming features. I would rather eat baked rat-turds with a vomit souffle than watch this fucking pile of wank again. Hamish MacAlpine should hang his head in shame.

Frightfest Breakdown 12 - One Point 0

2004-09-22T14:14:00.000+01:00

Over the years, as blockbuster movies have slowly but surely inherited the earth, science fiction has become less intelligent. Occasionally, when somebody is feeling daring, a big budget science fiction film appears that breaks the mold of stupidity - AI, I, Robot, Minority Report, The Matrix - but, Matrix aside, they aren't usually that successful financially or critically. Science fiction, like all forms of cinema since the 80's, has grown fat and stupid and banal, its dependency upon CGI has is in direct opposition to its increasing dearth of ideas. In the 60's and 70's you had: Planet of the Apes, Alphaville, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, Soylent Green, The Terminal Man, Westworld, A Clockwork Orange...excellent films one and all, and chock full of ideas. And all of them were commercially successful. Since the 90s stupidity has prevailed. Occasionally films like Existenz, Pi, Twelve Monkeys and Donnie Darko, amongst others, come along but they rarely trouble box office staff; it is usually left to those of us with a desire to champion good cinema that keeps these films alive until everybody picks up on the fact that they were good films after all. One Point 0, written and directed by Jeff Renfroe and Martein Thorsson, whilst not as good as the films listed above, falls into this category.

As the film begins Simon J (Jeremy Sisto) is a man with too much to do and too little time on his hands. He is a freelance computer programmer with only twenty four hours in to deliver important computer code to his highly stressed employer, meanwhile his landlord is chasing him for overdue rent. And whilst he is trying to accomplish this empty packages keep being delivered to his apartment, and he keeps feeling the need to purchase more and more milk. Simon J begins to suspect that a conspiracy is afoot. Why is he always feeling ill? Why is he always buying 'Farm Fresh Milk'? Why are people in his apartment block dying with their brains removed? Who or what is behind it all? Who can be trusted: his porno making next door neighbour (Bruce Payne)?; the sexy girl from down the hall (Deborah Unger)?; the eccentric inventor (Udo Kier)?; or the janitor (Lance Henriksen)?

One Point 0 feels like science fiction as filtered through the sensibility of Kafka. The entire film is permeated with paranoia, from its muted but effective beginning through to its not entirely satisfying conclusion, One Point 0 is steeped in suspicion and mistrust. It throws out ideas about advertising, corporate branding, nanotechnology, computer viruses, healthcare, people's increasing isolation in the face of technology - throughout the entire film Simon J has no idea who to turn to - and it is a testament to Renfroe and Thorsson that the audience remains interested until the unsatisfying ending. The ending gives an air of ambiguity but it smacks of budget compromise: one wonders how the film would have ended if the directors had a better budget? As it is the film slow burns when, after all the build up work, it should go out with a bang. The acting is generally pretty solid: Sisto does good paranoia and his decay is gradual and believable; Unger plays slutty and sympathetic like it is second nature and this is no exception; Payne, usually found in made-for-video fucktard flicks, relishes working in a decent film for once and gives the role his all; and the ever reliable Kier and Henriksen are reliable! Despite its low budget (it is a US/Romanian/Icelandic co-production) it uses its Bucharest locations to good effect and the technical credits give the impression of a larger budget: Christopher Soos photography is moody and stylish; Eggert Ketilsson's production design is minimal but nice; and Ralis Khan's special effects do decent things with the funds available.

Whilst One Point 0 is far from perfect it has ideas and intelligence and a point to make. It evokes a nice atmosphere and sustains it, and whilst it isn't able to build that atmosphere to a crescendo the film does at least make an effort to engage the brains of its audience. Until Aronofsky's The Fountain comes along intelligent science fiction is likely to be thin on the ground. One Point 0 is due for release later this year in the States and next year in Britain.

Frightfest Breakdown 11 - The Ordeal

2004-09-21T16:02:00.000+01:00

Hillbillies, or rural folk, and cinema were made for each other. Big thick lips, bulging cross eyes, straggly beards, buck teeth, inbreeding, and that's just the women! Every country has their perception of the rural populace but, until now, only American cinema has been able to turn these people into real cinematic gold. Whether it is hillbilly bum love - Deliverance - or hillbilly cannibals - The Hills Have Eyes - or backwoodsmen picking off soldiers - Southern Comfort - they have been a mainstay of cinema's fear of anything that doesn't represent city life. All these films are classics of their kind. The Ordeal takes this genre as its starting point and moves it into blackly comic and horrific areas that will shock most, plus it has the greatest hillbilly dance sequence in the entire history of cinema. Ever!

But is it a good film?

The Ordeal starts with crap cabaret entertainer Marc Stevens (Laurent Lucas) entertaining an audience at a retirement home. Before loading up his van to play gigs in the south of France he has to fend off advances from both an elderly audience member, a scene as cringe-worthy as it is funny and sad, and the supervisor of the retirement home. This is as good as life gets for Marc! Once the journey gets under way everything seems fine. However, before long, the van breaks down in the middle of nowhere and Marc is forced to spend the night at an out of the way B&B owned by one Paul Bartel (Jackie Berroyer, named in homage to the director of Eating Raoul). Monsieur Bartel takes an instant shine to Stevens because he is an "artiste". Bartel's wife, Gloria, was a cabaret singer and he himself was once a comic. However, his wife left him for another man and he has been reduced to running a hotel that nobody visits any more. Bartel brings Marc's van back to the B&B and tells him that he has hired a mechanic to work on the van. He also steals Marc's mobile phone and documents. Soon Marc realises Bartel has no intention of hiring a mechanic and he confronts him, a fracas ensues and the insane hotel owner renders Marc unconscious. When Marc wakes up he has been transformed in Bartel's errant wife, including dresses and a new haircut, to make "her" less recognisable to the villagers. After an escape attempt, and a painful crucifixion, the villagers eventually find out about Gloria. Head villager Phillippe Nahon (furthering his claim to the mantle of scariest actor of all-time) eventually decides to raid the B&B to free his old love Gloria...

Fucked up doesn't even begin to describe The Ordeal. This film takes every lost outsider cliche and twists them until they reach breaking point. From ours, and Marc's, first introduction to the villagers, where he spies them taking turns to fuck an animal; to Bartel dressing Marc and treating him like a woman; to the villagers doing an insanely funny dance to a hideous piano dirge; all these things add up to one of the strangest and most unique films I have seen in years. I'm not sure how often I would like to see a film like this, or how often I would like to see this film, but it is fresh and different and manages to produce a fresh slant upon a sub-genre awash with cliche. The performances all work and Laurent Lucas has to be commended for allowing himself to be horribly humiliated: he is beaten; his head his shaved; he spends much of the film in a dress; he is crucified; buggered and then pursued through the woods in a dress by psychotic villagers...and who said acting wasn't glamorous! Fabrice du Welz shows his directorial muscle throughout the film but seems uncertain how it should end. The ending consists of a brilliantly shot pastiche of the 'kitchen table scene' in Texas Chainsaw Massacre and then a barnstorming gunfight where you see very little but get an idea of recoil, the camera does a recoil effect with each jarring gunshot. After all this is the chase through the woods and an ambiguous ending, which is nicely done but lacks tension and is found wanting dramatically too. The real star of the show, however, has to be ace cinematographer Benoit Debie, who also did the astonishing cinematography in Gaspar Noe's Irreversible. Debie pulls off a number of flashy camera moves and gives this low budget film a sheen of big-budget invention and class.

The Ordeal is well worth seeing. It has a vicious streak of black humour and cruelty which no Hollywood producer would dare contemplate remaking. It isn't perfect: the pacing seems a little off-kilter, and one wonders how the film might have worked if it wasn't for Benoit Debie's inventive camera work, but it is still more interesting than much of the crap that passes for filmmaking these days. And Amen to that!

Frightfest Breakdown 10 - Code 46

2004-09-21T10:22:00.000+01:00

Michael Winterbottom is arguably Britain's most eclectic director. He seems intent on working in as many different genre's as possible. Sometimes it work's beautifully - Welcome to Sarajevo; sometimes it works well - Jude, 24 Hour Party People; sometimes it is okay or indifferent - The Claim; and sometimes it stinks - Butterfly Kiss, I Want You. Code 46, Winterbottom's first foray into science fiction, falls into the okay bracket, though it, at least, is an interesting and ambitious film.

The film concern's an investigator, William (Tim Robbins), who is sent to Shanghai to investigate the forging of government documents which allow people to travel between zones. Despite quickly discovering the identity of the forger, Maria (Samantha Morton), William charges the wrong person and, after spending the evening in Shanghai with her, falls in love and ends up sleeping with her. This affair is complicated by the fact that William is married and Code 46. Code 46 stipulates that people with similar genetic make-up, despite not being related in any way, are not allowed to have sexual relations with each other. After returning home, William's employers realise that the wrong person has been charged and William is sent back to Shanghai. William reluctantly returns to find Maria but he takes too long in doing this and his own documents (called 'Papelles') run out and he needs Maria to forge documents for him in order for him to leave Shanghai, but love complicates things further still and they go on the run...

Code 46 is a hard film to classify. Some would call it a love story set in the future, others would call it a satire on globalisation, some might even call it a dystopic science fiction. The problem is that this film is none of these things, or it might be better stated that this film doesn't work well enough to qualify as any of these. Firstly, the film is hamstrung by bad casting. Neither Robbins nor Morton could be classified as passionate actors, both tend to offer internalised, ambiguous performances that work well in the right material: Robbins is fantastic in Shawshank Redemption and The Player and Morton is equally superb in Morvern Callar. Code 46, however, isn't the right material, and both actors fail to convince as lovers. Part of the problem is the screenplay, by Frank Cottrell Boyce, which has no dramatic impetus, we don't care about these characters because they are cyphers, aside from forwarding what little story there is they seem to have no reason for existing. The audience feels no tension when the lovers escape nor any real sadness for Maria when things go badly for her. As much blame for this lies at the door of Winterbottom, a director who seems to be better at communicating ideas than he does human emotions. He does a sterling job on the visuals, and there will be few more beautiful looking films this year, aided as he is by cinematographers Alwin H Kuchler and Marcel Zyskind in making Shanghai glisten and sparkle like a jewel bathed in neon. The ambient soundtrack is also worthy of note.

I would like to recommend this film more, but I can't. It is a beautiful artistic achievement anaethetised of emotion or dramatic involvement. It is a film of ideas in search of a heart. It isn't a film I have any desire to see again in the near future.

Frightfest Breakdown 9 - Buppah Rahtree

2004-09-18T23:58:00.000+01:00

Buppah Rahtree: Scent of the Night Flower, to give it its full moniker, is a throughly bizarre melding of horror, drama, and comedy from Thai director Yuthlert Sippapak, and was a massive box-office hit in its home country. I had high hopes for this film. I was hoping that it would be the Thai equivalent of the Kung-fu comedy horror classic Mr Vampire...sadly, I was disappointed!

The film begins as an outright drama, following the rather depressing life of Buppah Rahtree (Chermarn Poonyasak) who is a shy university student who has suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather. As if life wasn't bad enough, she is seduced into spending the night with wealthy Ake (Kris Srepoomseth) who has done merely to fulfill a cynical bet. After getting what he wants Ake abandons her and Buppah finds that she is pregnant with his child. Ake starts to feel gulity about the way he treated her and gets in contact, hoping to beg her forgiveness, but soon finds out that she is pregnant. Ake doesn't hang around and leaves for England to pursue his university studies. Alone, pregnant, and seriously behind on her rent to her harridan landlady, Mrs See, Buppah commits suicide and becomes a vengeful spirit. The tone veers from serious to comic horror at this point and encompasses several botched (and occasionally very funny) attempts to exorcise the ghost. At this point Ake returns from England and visits Buppah, who assumes her normal appearance in his presence, and the tone again veers from comic to serious and back again.

Thailand's cinema is not as well known as that of Hong Kong, Japan, China and Korea, and it is thus hard to tell if this film is indicative of Thailand's output. Buppah Rahtree is not a good film but it does have its moments. The beginning of the film sets up the heroine's depressing existence well and some of the exorcism scenes are hilariously funny. However, the tone is all over the shop, veering awkwardly from one genre to another with little skill. The peformances are SHOUTED VERY LOUD by a cast who seem confused have confused passion with breaking the decibel level and the eardrums of the audience. The technical credits are fairly standard, nothing particularly stands out and grabs the audience; the special effects, the cinematography, the sets, all are okay but nothing special. If you are in the hunt for something different then by all means see this film, as it is certainly different from the norm. However, I find it hard to recommend this film for its qualities, as it is a little lacking in them.

Frightfest Breakdown 7 - Hellboy

2004-09-18T21:48:00.000+01:00

Guillermo del Toro is one of those directors who alternates between big budget horror and fantasy that panders to the mainstream crowd - Mimic, Blade 2 - and smaller scale films that are aimed at a smaller more selective audience - Cronos, The Devil's Backbone. Hellboy falls into the former category, but it also seems more personal and heartfelt than Mimic and Blade 2. And whilst Hellboy isn't going to win awards for originality or artistic merit it is at least a lot of fun, and bodes well for the possibility of a franchise.

Hellboy begins in 1944 on an island off the coast of Scotland with Trevor 'Broom' Bruttenholm (Kevin Trainor) accompanying a group of gung-ho marines on a mission to prevent Rasputin (Karel Roden) from starting the next apocalypse by opening up a portal to another dimension. After a gunfight, where we see Rasputin's seeminly indestructible henchman Karl Ruprect Kroenen (Ladislav Beran) take bullets and a spike to the chest but still escape, the allies manage to destroy the portal (killing Rasputin in the process), though too late to prevent the infant Hellboy from coming through the portal. Broom from that moment on becomes the father to the child. Years later the elderly Broom (now played by John Hurt) is told that he has terminal cancer. Broom is a bigwig in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. In his urgency to find Hellboy a father figure he employs John Meyers (Rupert Evans) a fairly green around the gills agent to do the job. As all this is happening Rasputin is brought back from the dead by Kroenen and Ilsa (Bridget Hodson). Rasputin is intent on bringing about the apocalypse and needs Hellboy (Ron Perlman) to do it. He starts by freeing a demon going by the name of Sammael. Meanwhile Hellboy keeps flitting away from the Bureau's headquarters to see Liz Sherman (Selma Blair) a "firestarter" whom he is in love with. It all gets complicated, with Meyer's having a thing for Liz and Hellboy not being the easiest of creatures to work with. Rasputin eventually gets Hellboy over to his tomb to put his final plan into action.

Hellboy is certainly Del Toro's most ambitious film but it isn't his best, that distinction belongs to his fine Spanish ghost story The Devil's Backbone, despite this it is still highly entertaining stuff and has a few set-pieces that work well. The actors all handle their roles well, in particular Ron Perlman who handles with one liners and Hellboy's teenage yearning for Liz with equal aplomb. John Hurt, Selma Blair, Rupert Evans, and David Hyde Pierce (who voices Abe Sapien) all bring their characters to life with decent performances, which is testament to Del Toro's handling of actors: he seems to be one of the those rare fantasy and horror directors who is as concerned with acting as he is with visual flair. The visuals for this film are all very well done. The production design by Stephen Scott is superb, showing that in this age of CGI sets (step forward George Lucas and Kerry Conran) there is no substitute for well planned and creative production design. The cinematography by regular Del Toro cameraman Guillermo Navarro is also excellent, giving us good vistas of the production design and illuminating Rick Baker's fine make-up and creature effects. The weakest part of the film is the screenplay which is serviceable but overly reliant upon one-liners, though it does at least give Hellboy and Liz a decent love story and gives the audience plenty of set-pieces to feast upon, though it does feel a little like scene setting for the planned sequel (a problem that afflicted X-Men too).

In a summer of fairly shitty blockbusters this is one Hollywood big budget film that does at least have a heart in amidst all the technological virtuosity. Here's hoping that the sequel fleshes out these characters further and gives us a film that could be one of the best blockbusters of 2006. However, I'm hoping that Del Toro returns to the smaller scale pleasures of Cronos and The Devil's Backbone soon, that is what he is really good at!

Frightfest Breakdown 8 - Monster Man

2004-09-18T12:11:00.000+01:00

Monster Man, directed by Mark Davis, got the biggest applause of the entire festival. It also, sadly, had the fewest viewers of any film at the festival. It is a low budget comedy horror in the vein of Bad Taste, making up for its low budget with some genuinely gut-busting belly laughs and a jokey attitude that doesn't flag for a minute.

The story concerns two students - neurotic "wussie" Adam (Eric Jungmann) and the hilariously obnoxious Farley (Justin Urich) - travelling to the wedding of a girl we never see, and with whom Adam is secretly in love. The two bicker and squabble and Farley pisses off the locals with his obnoxious tirade against rednecks. Along the way, for reasons that are not immediately apparent, they are pursued by a large, deformed psychotic in a massive monster truck. Along the way they pick up a sexy hitchiker, Sarah (Aimee Brooks), and the pursuit becomes more and more ludicrous and over-the-top, culminating in Adam having to overcome his neuroses' as he takes on an insane family of rednecks!

Monster Man is nobody's idea of high art or sophistication but it is very good fun. This was definitely a "festival film": the sort of film that panders to the sensibilities of the horror film crowd. The plot means nothing in a film like this, and it is easily the poorest element of the film, but the screenplay gives the actors (especially the Jack Black-esque Urich) some very funny lines and some hilarious set-pieces to deal with: Urich's attempt to siphon petrol with a soft drink cup and a straw; Urich perfoming cunnilingus upon the open wound of a dead rabbit. Like I said, it ain't high art but it is often very funny. The performances by Jungmann and Urich are better than something like this has any right to expect, they make the film work, and Brooks is okay, but the rest of performances are fairly amateurish, which is to be expected in a film like this. The production values are higher than I expected: Matthew Irving's cinematography is decent and the special effects by Todd Masters are suitably gory and inventive; the design of the Monster truck is also very effective. Davis keeps the thing moving at a decent pace and has it all wrapped up in 90 minutes.

Monster Man is be no means the best film of the festival but it was perhaps the best liked, simply because it didn't pretend to be something it wasn't. It is wears its B-Movie heart upon its sleeve and has no pretensions to high art. I enjoyed it, sometimes in spite of myself, and I suspect if you watch it with a group of people or at home with friends, and plenty of beers, you will enjoy it too!

Pirating the Pirates - Part 3

2004-09-14T13:51:00.000+01:00

The last part detailing what I personally think Hollywood should do in the face of online movie piracy. Of course, I could go further than this but this is getting a little large and unwieldy.

Fourthly, Cut down on the Big Sell
Bill Hicks was on to something when he said that people in marketing were “the ruiners of all things good”. Overhype, media saturation, test audience overload and focus group nonsense are just a few of the problems that come with the Hollywood blockbuster. Again, it all costs money, these people don’t work cheap! Now, I’m not saying do away with all marketing, but all this fucking shit about demographics and other assorted twat-speak, “You know, with this scene, I think we’re really nailing the Mongolian dollar. You know, if we employ this star, I think we’ll rake in the pink pound.” Hey, you know, you aren’t fooling anybody by condescending to them, fuckers! The same goes double for test audiences. Get this, if test audiences had had their way the ending of Seven would have been somewhat different to the one we all know and love. Some of these cocktards are barely capable of thinking and breathing simultaneously so why Hollywood is putting millions of dollars worth of product in their hands is beyond me. The only time a test audience should be consulted is if a film looks as if it is in real trouble. And it shouldn’t be a professional test audience either, instead it should be random people pulled in off the street and who will say what they feel without some sort of hidden agenda. Blanket coverage / media saturation is another irritation. By the time a blockbuster film shows itself in the multiplex there are so many column inches, trailers, TV specials and web-sites about it that you feel you have already seen the film. Why go and see a film when all the best scenes are in the trailer and the HBO special? If you’ve already seen the best stuff then you may as well just download it, after all the rest of the film is only likely to disappoint, right?

Fifthly, Pull a Napster
Why not make films available online commercially. Sell single play films online; downloadable code that corrupts within a few days of use (technology the software industry uses in trial versions of applications / games etc.). Why not create a market where downloaders are able to watch something legitimate for about half the price of a regular ticket? Also, satellite channels that run the latest films encrypted that can be watched once a fee is paid. This technology is already in use for films that are making their video or DVD debut, why not just make selected films available via this method. Again, there are technologies around that can prevent copying to video etc. build these into all transmissions. If audiences can’t be bothered to go and see your movie then bring your movie to them.

Sixthly, Be Original and Take a Risk
Now, I know it is impossible to be truly original in this day and age but a little originality goes a long way. Instead of remaking old classics or foreign language hits; instead of slavishly copying the current trend or concept; instead of treating audiences with contempt, why not try to do things a little differently? The reason that The Sixth Sense was successful was because it took a tired genre and did something a little bit fresh with it, it had a decent script, and it didn’t treat audiences like fucking simpletons; ditto squared for something like The Matrix (and why its sequels suck big-time cock). Even if risks are taken and a film fails during its theatrical run it isn’t always the end of the world. Many films that initially flop do barnstorming business on Video and DVD, basically because the audience realises its mistake: Blade Runner, The Shawshank Redemption, Fight Club, Donnie Darko, all these films are snapped up by consumers with each special edition that is released. People will pay for originality and daring and accept their mistakes if a film is ahead of its time, they will never extend that same courtesy to a hack film. I will happily watch some mediocrity on pirate but I won’t pay for it. Likewise, I would never watch a pirate version of a film that I genuinely wanted to see. Why ruin the thrill of seeing it first time on the big screen? The more big budget films take genuine risks – thematically and dramatically - the more the public will want to view them in the cinema and not on the small screen. In the 70s Hollywood spent big on ambitious, daring and intelligent productions and the public went to see them. In a period when more and more people are pirating films without a second thought maybe Hollywood should be thinking less about the money lost and more about the reasons why there’s so much money lost. If it looks hard enough for them it might save itself a lot of heartache.

Pirating the Pirates - Part 2

2004-09-13T16:17:00.000+01:00

In the last installment I outlined a few reasons why online movie piracy is becoming ever more prevalent, and now here are a few things I think could improve their profits (potentially) and improve our movie-going experience!

Firstly, they reduce budgets:
How much better can a star / director / producer eat at $25 million than they can at $10 million? If all the studios were to take the brave decision to cut inflated star salaries they could potentially shave off tens of millions of dollars off production costs. Let’s say that Star A’s $25 million salary demand is refused by one studio and in a huff he goes to Studio B, who offer him the same as Studio A, then imagine if studios C to Z follow suit: Star A would either have to accept the new order or leave the business, one finds it unlikely the Star A would choose the latter! The studios have the power to say no. And if they want to reduce costs then collectively they have the power to reduce the salaries of even the most powerful actors. Also, perks, ludicrously extravagant trailers, entourages etc. etc., these things add up to a tidy sum; get rid of them. Are these people so utterly spasticated that they can’t operate without a team of sycophants to cook their food, tell them how great they are, and ultimately wipe their hairy arses for them? Does a film really need hair and make-up artists solely for the benefit of an individual star; what, aren’t the highly trained experienced on-set make-up and hair people good enough? Does a star really need a trailer bigger and more luxurious than most people’s homes? There is a lot of waste on these productions, scores of people who appear to have no reason for being on set and are paid decent salaries for it! The fact is that millions could be shaved off a production without the need to skimp on production values. It just needs people with the gumption to set the ball in motion. Think about it, the lower your production costs the bigger your profit ratio is and the less profit loss from online piracy hurts.

Secondly, cut down on the quantity of “Blockbusters”:
Blockbusters should be the cream of seasonal output rather than the core of it. This year alone the amount of films in the $90 million+ production cost bracket is huge: Troy, Van Helsing, I Robot, King Arthur, Catwoman, The Day After Tomorrow, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Spiderman 2, Shrek 2 and The Chronicles of Riddick, to name the main players so far. Collectively these 10 films cost considerably more than a billion dollars, a massive outlay. With the exception of Shrek 2, Spiderman 2 and Harry Potter (and that made considerably less than the first two Harry Potters), all of them either underperformed or flopped outright, and some may not see a profit till they hit video and DVD. True, merchandising profits for several of these films will be huge but let us analyse the quality of those films: Van Helsing and Catwoman were abysmal; The Chronicles of Riddick and King Arthur were poor; Troy, Harry Potter, Shrek 2 and The Day After Tomorrow were okay; I, Robot was interesting but flawed; and only Spiderman 2 gave the impression of being a genuinely good film, and even then it was disappointing. The truth is too many big-budget films are being pushed into the fray and many are flopping as a result, possibly because people feel compelled watch the couple that really interest them and to download the rest. Which leads me on to…

Thirdly, up the quality!
The reason many people download blockbusters is because they can’t be bothered to go and see the film in the cinema. Their apathy is usually due to the fact that what Hollywood serves up as a “blockbuster” to quality starved movie-goers is about as edifying as a starving man being offered a turd cutlet with a semen glaze as a main course! You may fool people once, you may fool others twice, and some may even get caught out three or four times, but their trust is finite and once lost is very difficult to regain. People feel hard done by, and their fingers have been burnt too many times, so why should they pay for a piece of shit when it can be downloaded for free. There are only so many Batman and Robins, XXXs, Van Helsings, Matrix Revolutions and The Haunted Mansions that people can watch before the whole notion of big money films loses its appeal. Fewer blockbusters truly did the business this year - Spiderman 2, Harry Potter, Shrek 2 - and even fewer will do the business next year. Most of the really profitable films came from the second tier, medium large / medium budgeted films: Passion of the Christ, Dodgeball, The Bourne Supremacy, Dawn of the Dead, Along Came Polly, etc. Hollywood should take note of that fact. The only way to get audiences back is to create an event that people will feel compelled to see. Working from a good script would be a start. A good script, not some high concept scribbling on the back of a restaurant napkin, should be the basis of every big budget production. The entire production should be built from the script up. Would an architect assemble a structure without a good foundation? Christ, aren’t these films supposed to be flagships for the big studios? If so, why aren’t they working from the best scripts, using the best directors, producing something truly worthy of the term blockbuster. A great script can work without CGI but even the best CGI ever can’t save an atrocious script. Again, something for Hollywood to think about.

TO BE CONTINUED

Pirating The Pirates - Part 1

2004-09-09T09:43:00.000+01:00

I thought that I'd interrupt my Frightfest coverage, but only temporarily dear readers, to write something about the buzz subject of the moment: online movie piracy. To say that Hollywood is shitting itself over movie piracy would be to understate the enormity of its panic. Unlike video piracy, this isn’t just a couple of kids joining up their VCRs with a scart cable and hoping for the best, it is entire back catalogues of films readily available for download to every movie consumer on the planet; it is a swathe of the latest blockbusters available for the price of a broadband connection; it is a peer-to-peer nightmare that is costing Hollywood millions of dollars in profit every year. And it is getting worse with each passing month. So what should be done about it?

It isn’t as if less of us are going to the cinema, in fact - if this years current figures are anything to go by – the reverse is true, but could it be that audiences have had enough of the blockbuster? The fact is that many of this year’s heavily touted films ended up underperforming to one degree or another: Van Helsing made $120 million; Troy made $133 million; I Robot has made $140 million. Vast sums of money, yes, but when you consider that Van Helsing and Troy made over $40 million less than their production budgets you can see why Hollywood is starting to sweat. The marketing budget alone for films like Van Helsing and Troy would fund the entirety of a years movie output for some countries, and when you add in print costs etc. you are moving well into the $50 – 100 million bracket. We are talking about insane sums of money! It is this money that online piracy is eating into. And I, for one, have no sympathy with Hollywood’s plight.

It wasn’t consumers that allowed star’s wages to increase to $25 million+ per film. It wasn’t consumers who then allowed those same stars to take a percentage of the profits in addition to their astronomical salaries. It wasn’t consumers who allowed inflated-ego directors and producers to follow suit. It wasn’t consumers who increased film budgets in order to compensate for the inherent weaknesses in the screenplay (i.e. throwing a massive special effects budget away on a screenplay that amounts to a 100 pages of toilet paper). It wasn’t the consumers who paid these same “writers” a fortune for their barely coherent scribblings. It isn’t the consumers who create a gargantuan web of hype around each and every “product” that comes off the conveyor-belt. It isn’t the consumer who allows professional test audiences to gauge, and often ruin, films because they are too lazy or weak to trust their own gut instinct. I could go on ad infinitum but it would amount to the same thing: Hollywood has undone itself with its own considerable greed!

The reasons that people download films are manifold but the basic crux seems to boil down to four or five different themes: 1) The viewer who wants to see the film before anybody else; 2) the viewer who wants to see a film (foreign or somehow obscure) that they can’t easily purchase online or because it isn’t out on DVD; 3) the viewer who wants to view a film before purchasing it on DVD; 4) the viewer who is interested in copying stuff for other people either for kudos or money; and 5) those who know the film they are downloading is, or probably will be, shit so they can’t be bothered to waste good money to sit in a cinema and watch it. Points 1 to 4 are things that studios can do little about: more exclusive, and earlier preview, screenings might sate those who fall into category one; greater availability of foreign and obscure films on DVD could reduce point two; point three is irrelevant because the downloader will eventually purchase the film anyway; and seriously prosecute and financially destroy all those who fall into category four (but it still won’t prevent copying). These points are all difficult to deal with, for varying reasons. Point five, however, can be dealt with more easily.

Hollywood gets its house in order.

Sounds difficult, and it is, but the difficult decisions that are made today might just prevent a financial meltdown tomorrow; and they might result in better output too. Because, like it or not, the studios are going to have to deal with the very real fact that online piracy is here to stay and that the nature of the business has to be streamlined accordingly. So, what can they do?

TO BE CONTINUED...

Frightfest Breakdown 6 - The I Inside

2004-09-07T21:59:00.000+01:00

We lucky viewers at Frightfest 2004 have got this several months ahead of its 2005 UK screen debut. The I Inside, starring Ryan Phillippe, Piper Perabo, Sarah Polley and Stephen Rea, comes from the pen of Identity scribe Michael Cooney and is based upon his play Point of Death, so twists in the tale come as standard, and it is directed by German director Roland Suso Richter, who directed an excellent film called The Tunnel a few years back.

The basic premise of the story has Simon Cable (Phillippe) waking up in 2002 in a hospital bed after a near-death experience with no memory of anything that has occurred within the last 2 years. He has forgotten his wife, Anna (Piper Perabo), as well as everything else that has happened since he was last admitted to the hospital two years previous. As his memory returns he begins flitting between the years 2002 and 2000, the tale growing ever more entangled and dark as Simon moves further into the recesses of his memory. And, yes, it has the obligatory twist or two.

Although some of my fellow viewers had a poke at this film for copying several other twisty tales I thought it was rather good. A film like this is only as good as its twist and the internal logic behind that twist. For instance, the twist in Switchblade Romance stinks because the internal logic just makes no sense, it asks us to suspend too much disbelief. Likewise, Jacob's Ladder's end sucks because it appears to be some kind of tacked-on ending that, again, takes our suspension of disbelief too far. I personally think that The I Inside judges its internal logic well. I did manage to guess the twist before the end; though the end wasn't telegraphed it did seem to be the most logical explanation. However, despite my guesswork, I still enjoyed the film: it has a lot of plus points.

Ryan Phillippe, after abandoning his early career as a vacuous pretty boy, continues the upward trajectory he began with Way of the Gun and Igby Goes Down; he carries the film well and shows a range that in the days of 54 and I Know What You Did Last Summer would have been entirely beyond him. Piper Perabo, in what is a dual role of sorts, does an excellent job, suggesting there is a future for her beyond the sexy roles that she has generally been typecast into. Stephen Rea and Sarah Polley are very good, but does this surprise anybody? Both actors are renowned for their reliability and versatility. Cooney's screenplay gives the cast some good lines to chew on and spit out and the internal logic of the twist works, however the film does jump timeframes a little too much and I did see the twist coming, although I have seen countless films of this kind and I only saw it coming towards the end. Richter directs his actors well, eliciting good performances out of the entire cast, in particular some of the support players like Stephen Lang, as a heart patient, and Stephen Graham, as a ward nurse. Richter also keeps the momentum going for most of the film, and it is only towards the end that the pace and interest begins to flag. As American debuts go for a foreign director this is a confident one. The film has a slightly washed out gritty feel to it, courtesy of Martin Langer; who also worked with Richter on The Tunnel. The editing, by Chris Blunden and Jonathan Rudd, is also worthy of note, particularly the way it juggles the timeframes and the segues between them.

This film deserves an audience. If it is marketed the right way it might become a sleeper hit, though it isn't quite good enough to warrant anything like blockbuster status. And, Christ, if a fucking piece of kangaroo shit like Van Helsing can make over a hundred million then a decent film like this should be able to make a dollar or two. And whilst it isn't going to figure in my top ten for the year, it is a well made piece of filmmaking with some respect for its viewers and a degree of intelligence above and beyond your average Hollywood schlock.

Frightfest Breakdown 5 - Romasanta

2004-09-06T22:51:00.001+01:00

Romasanta, or Romasanta / The Werewolf Hunt to give it its full moniker, is a horror film from Brian Yuzna's Fantastic Factory film production company. If you like cult movies you may remember Brian Yuzna; he was responsible for Society (1989), one of the darkest and strangest comic horrors of the 80's and certainly the weirdest film about class war you are ever likely to see! After that came a roll-call of direct-to-video dogshit, each title as undistinguished as the last, usually film's that claimed to be loosely based upon the scribblings of H.P. Lovecraft. To say that I had few hopes for this film would be understatement, particularly when you consider it stars Julian Sands, an actor currently in an unholy war with Richard Roxburgh for the title of "Worst English Movie Actor Ever".

Romasanta is based loosely upon the true story of Manuel Blanco Romasanta (played by Sands) who admitted to the murders of 13 people, the fat of whom he used to make soap. Despite being a definite candidate for execution, he avoided his date with the executioner by claiming to be a werewolf! The Queen took an interest in his case and decided that he should be studied and commuted his sentence down to life imprisonment.

So is it as bad as I feared? In a word no! But that isn't to say that it is great, it isn't, but it is a damn sight better than it has any right to be.

The story begins with Barbara (the gorgeous Elsa Pataky) living with her sister, and caring for her sister's mute daughter. They are part of a village that is being plagued by wild and bloodthirsty wolves. As the film begins there have been several killings blamed upon the wolves. As things get more serious Romasanta, who is Barbara's sister's lover, returns from his travels to spend sometime with his ready-made family. As the wolf attacks get worse, and as the villagers begin to hunt the wolves, Romasanta decides to take the sister and her daughter away to a school, leaving Barbara behind. However, they never reach their destination because Romasanta kills them. Romasanta returns to Barbara and seduces her but as one thing leads to another Barbara becomes suspicious of her lover and eventually finds out about the murder of her sister and niece. At the same time an attorney Luciano de la Bastido (Gary Piquer) is investigating some of the killings, as he suspects that not all of them are at the claws of the wolves. To assist his investigation he brings in an anthropologist, Professor Phillips (David Gant), who informs him that they are indeed hunting a murderer. As these two continue their manhunt, Barbara escapes from Romasanta and begins to turn the tables upon him by hunting down other women that the slimy travelling salesman has seduced. Eventually Barbara's and Luciano's search coincide and they track down and capture Romasanta. The resulting trial is a farce presided over by Phillips, whose flawed scientific methods enable Romasanta to elude the sentence that the public felt due to him. But they didn't figure upon Barbara...

So, is it good? Not really, but it isn't rubbish either! Like any co-production, the acting is of varying quality. Sands gives an average performance as the villain, but considering his pedigree this is an improvement upon practically everything else he has ever done as an actor. Elsa Pataky is gorgeous to look at, and drool over, but as English isn't her first language she lacks presence and power. David Gant as Phillips does well with his role and John Sharian as Antonio, who may or not have been Romasanta's partner-in-crime, is also decent, but the cast is the usual mix of Spaniards and Brits and is pretty variable as a result. Javier G Salmones cinematograpy is the best thing about the film; crisp, bold, superbly lit and composed, it is this - more than anything - that takes this film a notch above its DTV pedigree. The special effects are also noteworthy: a fantastical sequence where a wolf changes back into Romasanta is one of the best transformations ever, an excellent mix of traditional and CGI techniques which puts Van Helsing's Playstation 2 transformations to shame, especially when you consider that Romasanta cost a fraction of that abomination's budget! Paco Plaza's direction is big on imagery but low on scares and thrills and his pacing is uneven, but this seems to be more a fault of the script - by Alfredo Conde and Alberto Marini - than the director. Romasanta tries to be all things to all people (werewolf horror, serial killer thriller, police procedural and detective story) but is eventually unravelled by being none of these things. Basically, the film bites off more than it can chew, but its ambition is admirable: it isn't some shitty H.P. Lovecraft rip-off; it has plush production values for a low budget feature; and it has a few decent set-pieces and one fantastic moment (the transformation). The fact that it is better than its pedigree suggests is an achievement in itself. My suggestion is to check it out on DVD and pay close attention to the transformation!

Frightfest Breakdown 4 - The Tesseract

2004-09-04T22:36:00.000+01:00

From Oxide Pang, one half of the Pang brothers who directed Bangkok Dangerous and The Eye, comes The Tesseract, an adaptation of Alex Garland's overrated novel about colliding destinies. A film as glittering and shallow as a rain puddle in Las Vegas.

The plot, such as it is, concerns the destinies of four characters. Firstly, we have Sean (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), a twitchy and highly strung drug-runner in Bangkok, waiting around his sweaty flea-pit hotel room for a delivery that will make him a rich man. Also in this hotel is Rosa (Saskia Reeves) a kind, troubled child psychologist researching the dreams of Thailand's numerous street kids with her digital camera. On the floor below is a dying hitwoman who aims to intercept Sean's delivery before she bleeds to death. And linking them all is the young hotel porter Wit, a street kid who supplements his income by stealing valuables from the rooms of the hotel guests. The delivery is the macguffin around which this film is constructed and it leads these characters to their various fates.

Here is a film that values style over substance. Pang uses a variety of eye-popping effects in a tale that really doesn't need them. He uses and re-uses bullet-time effects to hammer home the impact of gun battles (although the crunching impact of bullets on human flesh is brilliantly realised in the excellent sound design). Pang also uses a variety of different looks for the cinematography: black and white, colour, duotone, grainy, video footage. It all looks fantastic, but the truth is that there appears to be little reason for all this cinematic variety, other than the fact that Pang is doing it simply because he can! Not content with the photographic trickery of Decha Srimantra, Pang also uses flashy editing that plays out scenes from four different viewpoints. One can't help but feel that this is a device that merely serves to bolster a paucity of plot. The fact that the film is rendered more interesting because of these tricks is a testament to Pang; there's no doubt that technically he is one of the most proficient and gifted visual stylists around, but all the tricks in the world are no substitute for a good story. Half way through the film I began to shuffle in my seat, realising that I neither cared about the characters nor their predicaments, again Pang must take the blame for this. His handling of the actors, particularly the English language cast, leaves a lot to be desired. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Saskia Reeves give performances that seem stiff and lightweight, which makes me wonder about Oxide Pang's grasp of English. When you consider that Reeves and Meyers are normally very reliable, you have to wonder if the problem lies with the director rather than the actors. One suspects that a British or American director would have elicited more nuanced performances from the cast. The script by Pang and Patrick Neate overdoses on a tricksy narrative approach but gives the character's nothing interesting to say, at the end of the film the audience finds itself pummelled by an aural and visual onslaught but underwhelmed by the lack of empathy for the characters. The film fails as drama and thriller and no imagery, no matter how arresting and bombastic, can compensate for that.

If Pang is able to marry his visual panache to a decent script, as well as controlling his urge towards visual overkill, then he could be the next Asian film director to cross over into mainstream American cinema. But whilst he works with material as undernourished as Tesseract then he will continue to flounder in cliche and bombast!

Frightfest Breakdown 3 - The Toolbox Murders

2004-09-04T22:00:00.000+01:00

The Toolbox Murders is a remake (or more reinvention) of the 1978 original directed by Dennis Donnelly. It is about a killer roaming a decaying heap of an apartment building in Los Angeles picking off the tenants and one woman's fight to stop him.

I'll sum this up quickly: the original was dogshit and so is this! It is yet another nail in the career coffin of Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper. He hasn't made a single film of note since Poltergeist and this film is no exception. For a director with some visual flair this is a flatly shot film, having the look of a bad TV movie, with little in the way of cinematic impact. For the most part the actors are poor, with the exception of the waifish heroine Angela Bettis who is really quite good and deserves better than this crap, and the acting of the main villain is awful, actually the main villain is awful full stop! A film like this is only as good as its main villain: Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, these villains provoked genuine fear and they made frightening scenarios even scarier. The villain in The Toolbox Murders is just some giggling, bandage-swathed twat. He is about as scary as Graham Norton and twice as camp! The screenplay by Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch is an amateurish hodge-podge of violence, hokey black magic, and hokier black comedy. The only entertainment value in this film comes from the unintentional laughs, of which there are plenty. This film has all the dramatic impact of a pillow fight in a girl's dormitory. It stinks!

Frightfest Breakdown 2 - Switchblade Romance

2004-09-04T20:58:00.000+01:00

The second film at Frightfest is a film that is somewhat difficult to review. Alexandre Aja's Switchblade Romance, or Haute Tension (High Tension) in France, for three quarters of its running time, is one of the most gruelling and effective shockers to have been released into the cinema in years, before it blows this brilliance on one of the cheapest and most wretched plot twists I have seen in some time! For three quarters of this film I was locked in a vice-like grip as a beautifully photographed and artfully staged survival horror film played out before my eyes: horrific violence perpetrated by one of the most unpleasant killers ever to be caught on camera. Then comes a twist that takes a huge dump upon everything that we have seen before, rendering it nonsensical. But more on this later.

The films begins with two young women, Marie (Cecile de France) and Alex (Maiwenn Le Besco), driving to Alex's parent's home in the countryside in order to have a nice, quiet place to study for exams and for Alex to visit her family. Before the girls have a chance to study anything this quiet idyllic home is shattered as an apparently motiveless psychopath (Philippe Nahon) murders Alex's father, mother and younger brother before raping her. Whilst this is playing out, Marie is running around the house frantically trying to keep out of reach of this merciless killer, who doesn't realise that she is even there. Once his spree is finished, the killer loads Alex in the back of his truck which Marie sneaks into in an attempt to free her friend from his clutches. From here things get even more brutal as wincingly real gore splashes across the screen but then, just as you think this is one of the finest examples of the slasher horror in years, disaster strikes... in the form of a very crappy twist.

Is the twist really that bad? Some say no, and you may find yourself disagreeing with me, but I'm prepared to stick to my claim that it is one of the worst twists I have ever seen. It renders everything that has played out for the first 65 minutes as nonsense. All the tension we feel as Marie flits from room to room in a bid to evade the killer's grasp; as Marie hides out in a gas station as the killer nonchalantly chats with the confused and frightened clerk; as Marie follows the killer's van in a game out cat and mouse, all of this brilliant work (and it is superb) is ruined by the inroduction of one artlessly integrated twist. Until the twist the film is fantastic. The script, by Aja and Gregory Levasseur, is tight, taut and unfliching, and whilst it may not be original, what it lacks in originality it makes up for in sheer tension building bravado. The acting is good throughout: De France plays a survival heroine par excellence; Le Besco does the abused victim's fear and confusion with gritty resolve; Nahon (arguably the world's scariest actor) does yet another psychopath with the kind of nonchalance that would make Christopher Walken proud! Aja's direction is as tight as a snare-drum, even after the twist, and he brings the whole thing home in 85 minutes. The cinematography by Maxime Alexandre is crisp, colurful and well-composed, enhancing the mood and tension that Aja builds with aplomb, and brings out Gianetto De Rossi's horrific make-up effects in vivid scarlet tones! But, for all this good work, there is still that fucking twist! If Aja takes a great deal of credit for all the superlatives I've lavished upon his film for the first 65 minutes then he also has to shoulder the blame for the final twenty. The twist is bad. Bad in ways that the first three quarters of the film doesn't deserve. If only he had decided not to use this twist, he would have had a classic on his hands. As it is, he doesn't have a classic on his hands. Aja has directed a fatally flawed but often superb film and is a talent to watch for the future. It is just a pity that his next film is a remake of another film that doesn't need one: Wes Craven's The Hill's Have Eyes.

Frightfest Breakdown 1 - Oldboy

2004-09-04T20:51:00.000+01:00

Regular readers will already know my feelings on this film. I reviewed it some time ago and it blew me away. In short, it is fantastic. If you haven't read the review then feel free to hunt it out in the archives. That review still stands, and I stand by everything that I previously wrote about the film. My opinion hasn't changed one iota!

Oldboy is getting released in Britain this month. Tell people about it. Spread the word. Do something good for those who strive to make high quality films. Turn this into a hit!

Frightfest 2004

2004-08-31T19:05:00.000+01:00

Frightfest 2004 was excellent. Kudos to all those who organised it and to the Prince Charles cinema for staging it, although they could do with sorting out that rattly, piece of shit air conditioner which spoilt many a first twenty minutes!

Successfully made it through this without too much harm being done to my body. Lot's to report and will do so when time allows. Watch this space or check out www.milkplus.blogspot.com, which is rather a decent film blog with a nicer design and feel than my blog.

The Hobo Reviews will also be appearing in another film website that "The Man" is working on. But it's all rather hush-hush at the moment. Once it's up and running you will all be invited to partake of its delightful pleasures!

Thunderturds

2004-08-23T13:12:00.000+01:00

In amidst all the other pain in my life, Thunderturds has added a new low. To alleviate this pain I decided to get drunk quicker by doing the new "yoof" trick of pouring shooters directly into the eye. In my urgency to wipe this horror from my mind I thought I would use wood alcohol instead. Sadly, it didn't work and I am now blind! Oh, and the pain hasn't gone either. I think, instead, I might just pump air directly into my veins. At least it will be quick. Which is, at least, more merciful than what I was subjected to just a few days ago.

Whichever satanic fuck was responsible for this worm-ridden shitstorm should have puppeteers string tied around their gonads and have that string pulled really tight! The producers include Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, who, for their sins, are responsible for the rom-com boom that is currently strangling creativity out of British film. Somehow these two, who have been responsible for some phenomenally successful British product, have pulled an enormous steaming turd out of the hat, and with their track record one might assume that they would realise this project was doomed from the beginning. After all, it wasn't as if they were re-making something that was particularly good in the first place. Let's face it, once you get the nostalgia and the novelty factor out of the way, Thunderbirds was shite! The stories stank, the voice-acting was as wooden as the puppets, and the whole thing has a sixties vibe that hasn't aged well. And this is from somebody who loved the programme as a youngster!

When you marry this vehicle to several of the most annoying preppie teen twats in the entire history of cinema, and older actors who realise this demon-stench is just another payday, one comes to realise that this film is a monumental waste of time, effort, money and talent. For the amount that was spent on this elephant stool (nigh on $60 million) one could have produced six or more low budget features. Therein lies the tragedy: with this money something great could have been produced.

However, for sixty bucks, something good could come of this debacle. For that sum, and not a penny less, I'll hunt down and burn, on a pyre in the shape of Thunderbird 2, Fellner, Bevan, "director" Jonathan Frakes (responsible for the hideous Cockstoppers - oops, Clockstoppers) and "writer" William Osborne, although I might need a golden retriever to guide me on my quest.

I could waste my time and yours recounting a plot that makes little sense but what is the point. All you need to know is that the screenplay takes all those elements you remember as a child and wipes its hairy, sweaty arse all over them. It even gives Brain a child! What. The. Fuck? Then there's those fucking teenagers! Brady Corbet, as Alan Tracy, Soren Fulton, as Fermat, Vanessa Anne Hudgens, as Tintin, amongst others. They're shit. They should never be allowed to act again, even in a crimewatch reconstruction! None of the actors are good. None of them. Ben Kingsley takes The Hood and phones in a performance that would make the sixties puppet proud; Anthony Edwards, as Brain, just looks like a cunt. Blah, blah, shit direction, blah, blah, chronic CGI, blah, blah fucking blah...and gah, it's all too painful to recount!

Leave me be, festering with my weeping pus-seeping eyes, and do something better with your life. If you do need to lose two hours wallowing in the filth of humanity then climb into a sewer, close your eyes, and use it as a sensory deprivation tank. It will make for a more rewarding and fulfilling use of your time than this.

Korea Confidential - Memories of Murder

2004-08-17T21:58:00.000+01:00

Something exciting is happening in Korean cinema. They are showing Britain the way forward. They are making successful homegrown product that appeals to a world audience using a system of movie quotas: the system requires movie theaters to allocate two-fifths of their total screening days to Korean films, or 146 days out of the year. It may not be fair trade, and it definitely pisses off the Americans, but it works. The last few years have seen Korea move beyond Hong Kong, China and Japan as the premier country for Asian film afficionados: Shiri; The Isle; Spring, Autumn, Winter, Summer...and Spring; Musa; Sympathy for Mr Vengeance; Oldboy; A Tale of Two Sisters and now Memories of Murder, all have benefitted from this quota, and without which several of these films might never have existed. For that reason alone Korea's quota is a good thing, and long may it continue I say, particularly when yet another Korean film sits proudly in my top ten of 2004. Yes, Memories of Murder is that good.

Joon-ho Bong's Memories of Murder tells the story of Korea's first documented serial killer. It covers ineptitude, brutality, archaic policing and the changing methods and characters of two very different policemen. It begins with Officer Park, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance's Kang-ho Song, being taken to a field where children have discovered the first body. Park and his thuggish partner Jo (Roe-ha Kim) soon find that more victims are turning up. They investigate in the only way they can, by beating up and torturing suspects and botching crime scene investigations and forensics, they have neither the manpower nor the technical expertise to do anything else (and the lack of manpower assumes tragic consequences later in the film). At this point an officer from Seoul, Seo (Sang-kyung Kim), turns up to help on the case, leading to a case of mistaken identity that prompts Park to attack his future partner. Eventually, Park and Jo's thuggery gets them one key suspect, a retarded young man who barely seems to know what day it is, and a lot of publicity. Park and Jo badly beat the man and get him to admit to the killings. Park, Jo, and Seo then take the suspect out to the woods, where he regales them with the story of the murder. Seo accuses Park of tutoring the man on the story, an accusation which Park denies (and again assumes a deeper resonance later in the film). Then, in one of the funniest sequences of the year, the officers, to the delight of their chief and the disgust of Seo, stage a reconstruction for the press. It is a Keystone Cops debacle! The suspect's father turns up and shouts that his son is innocent to the members of the press and, in slow-motion, the police try to shepherd the suspect and themselves away from the cameras whilst falling over themselves in the rush. From here the story gets darker as the killer becomes more audacious, placing objects into the vaginas of his victims. The police then find out that the killer only ever attacks in the rain and that he requests the same song to be played on the night he performs a kill; leading to one setpiece where the police realise that their lack of manpower will lead to the death of another victim. All this leads to one man, who fits the profile of who they are looking for, and a satisfyingly ambiguous finale and beautifully understated coda.

This film is filled with things that make it special. Beautiful cinematography by Hyeong-gyu Kim which captures the sun bleached days and rain swept nights. The performances of all the lead actors are excellent, particularly the amazing Kang-ho Song as Park, who shows that his brilliant work in Sympathy for Mr Vengeance was no fluke, his transformation from thoughtless thug to somebody who realises the gravity of his job is fantastic, and his reaction in the final coda is priceless, he never overplays it. Sang-kyung Kim as Seo is also noteworthy in his transformation as he moves in the opposite direction to Park, in the face of Korea's feeble forensic science he sees how little the police have to work with, and how brutality seems to be the only way of dealing with the process of gathering evidence. Joon-ho Bong's direction does everything right, he makes sure the comedy is underplayed - which is not something Asian films are renowned for - and ensures the performances are pitch perfect. He also sets up some brilliant set-pieces: the scene where the killer's head pops slowly out of the long grass as he spies on his next victim is amazing, spooky and totally right; the reconstruction is brilliant; the scene where Seo finds the last victim, a girl he helps earlier in the film, which leads up to the finale is powerful; and the finale itself works beautifully. What is key to all this though is a superb, and superbly structured, screenplay by the director, along with Kwang-rim Kim and Sung-bo Shim, which does fantastic things with a genre all too often awash with cliche. Park and Seo's transformations in the face of a meticulous killer who benefits from Korea's archaic forensic and intelligence gathering technology. Also little things like Park buying the retarded suspect, who is now free, a present of 'Nike' shoes to make up for beating him up only for Seo to point out that the shoes aren't 'Nike' but 'Nice', cheap rip-offs of dubious quality. Also, Jo loses the leg that he uses to kick his victims due to Tetanus. He loses the leg in a fight because of intervention by the retarded victim, whom he kicked about so mercilessly earlier in the film. The main suspect is never portrayed as a one-dimensional evil bastard, but he does come across as an enigma, to both the audience and the police, and little is gleaned from him: which is the way it should be. Basically, the screenplay does all the right things and does them well.

But, enough of this! I could go on for hours, and bore you all silly in the process. I'll simply say this. This is an excellent film, it is part of BBC 4's Discoveries season, and you should go and see it. Whilst this film will work in the home cinema there's nothing like seeing films like this on the big screen, where they are meant to be seen. The more we go and see films like this in the cinema, the more films like this will get distribution in this country.

Matt Finish - The Bourne Supremacy

2004-08-17T20:53:00.000+01:00

The Bourne Identity was one of the big surprises of 2002; firstly that it was successful, because Matt Damon was going through a lean patch at the box-office at that time; and secondly that it was good, thanks to Doug Liman's (Swingers, Go) direction, a lack of Bond gimmickry, and a surprisingly good turn by Damon. Its success meant that the sequel, based upon the second book in Robert Ludlum's Bourne trilogy, wasn't going to take too long in arriving.

The sequel, directed by Sunday Bloody Sunday helmer Paul Greengrass, follows on a couple of years after the original. A Russian assassin kills a couple of American agents during a bust that goes wrong and frames Jason Bourne for the killing leaving their boss, Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), somewhat understandably aggrieved and itching to get her hands on Bourne. Meanwhile, Bourne and Marie, Franka Potente reprising her role from the original, are still on the run but have been living in Goa for some time. The same assassin turns up and, in an attempt to kill Bourne, manages to kill Maria which leaves Bourne as pissed off as Landy. He sets off on a trek round Europe to find out why he is being hunted again. Cue a lot of chases, stroboscopically edited fight scenes, and the odd twist here and there.

In many ways The Bourne Supremacy is a minor miracle. Firstly, it is a Hollywood sequel that gives the audience what they want without the need to short-change them in some way; it is well acted, intelligent and superbly crafted. Secondly, it maintains the quality of the first film and advances on it in many ways. And thirdly, it has one of the best car chase sequences ever filmed. Whilst the film isn't perfect, it is several notches above the dreck that usually gets passed off as a summer blockbuster. The screenplay by Tony Gilroy, who wrote the screenplay for the first film, gives the actors some meaty lines to chew on whilst crafting a plot that is considerably better than the usual join-the-dots farrago that graces many a summer film. It does a good job in condensing Ludlum's novel onto the screen. The acting from all the cast is done with panache; Damon gives the hero a vulnerability seldom seen in this type of film, particularly in the final scene as he expresses remorse over past deeds, and he doesn't stint on the action heroics either; Joan Allen plays the hardboiled Landy with her usual excellence; Brian Cox, as ever, is excellent in a reprise of his role from the first film, his world weary performance makes his character's actions seem believable; and the rest of the actors acquit temselves well. The direction by Paul Greengrass gives the film a gritty, verite feel photographically (kudos go to Director of Photography Oliver Wood). He uses lots of handheld camera and fast cutting and puts a reliance upon giving the film a grounded, authentic look. Also there is a sense of realism in the fights and stunts; whilst leaping onto a barge boat Bourne injures himself and he carries that limp for the rest of the film. He also manages to film one of the most invigorating car chases in years. The main chase through the streets of Moscow is a masterpiece of editing. It is one of those scenes that drags you around by your guts and refuses to let go. Kudos for this scene must also go to editors Richard Pearson and Christopher Rouse, but they are also to blame for the stroboscopically edited house fight sequence, during which it is often difficult to determine exactly what is going on. Even the car chase has moments where the whole thing teeters on the edge of collapsing into incomprehensibility, fortunately it never does!

If you are looking for the action film of the summer then this is probably it. The Bourne Supremacy is well scripted, ably acted and often extremely tense and exciting. It will be interesting to see if Universal continue the series after the already greenlighted second sequel, thus turning Bourne into a franchise divorced from Ludlum's source novels in much the same way that Bond is no longer the creation of Ian Fleming. Personally, I hope they don't. But it seems likely that the dollar will talk louder than common sense.

Layout Change

2004-08-13T14:37:00.000+01:00

Have decided to make a layout change. Dark text on a pale background is far more readable than the pale text against a dark background. After all, there has to be a reason why publishers use black on white, right?

Let me know if this is more readable or if you preferred the old style.

It Never Rains...

2004-08-11T17:40:00.000+01:00

Oh joy! Apparently, the world's first computer generated director, Stephen Sommers, has the rights to Flash Gordon, which means the Flash Gordon character will be painstakingly rendered on a PS2 and voiced by some jobbing B-list “actor”. The music will probably be the entirety of Queen’s soundtrack, which was rubbish anyway, covered by talent-lite arse-steaks Busted. The screenplay will be provided by Sommers via Microsoft Franchise Generator 3.2, so prepare for cliches, stereotypes, obvious plot twists, and lame dialogue ahoy!

I used to enjoy the old black and whites when I was a kid and even have a soft spot in my heart for the Mike Hodges camp-o-rama film, although in my heart of hearts I know they were both rubbish!

Prognosis: Will make Mike Hodges’ Flash Gordon look like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I Think I may get in a Few Films this Weekend

2004-08-10T16:30:00.000+01:00

Bourne Supremacy is a cert. I also think I may go and see a piece of Hollywood pap, just so that I can refill my well of rage, and some arthouse / World Cinema film too, just so I can counterbalance that anger. Reviews will, of course, appear shortly afterwards!

Hawke the Player – Before Sunset

2004-08-10T12:52:00.000+01:00

Nine years ago Richard Linklater made a film called Before Sunrise about an American student, Jessie (Ethan Hawke), and a French girl, Celine (Julie Delpy), who meet on a train and, having an almost instant connection with each other, decide to explore Vienna for an evening until they need to head off to their respective lives. As the evening progresses their connection deepens and they fall in love, regardless of this they still go their separate ways, with the promise of meeting six months later. And there it ended! Whilst it wasn’t a masterpiece, Before Sunrise was still a piece of quality cinema: well acted, off-beat and the characters spoke intelligent dialogue (even if they did occasionally come off like monologues), it was also a romantic film for people for didn’t like romantic films (all understated emotion and dramatics).

The sequel takes up the story nine years later. Jesse is in Paris to plug his new novel, which deals with the events of that night. Celine, who has read about this visit, turns up at the event. Jesse, who has to get the plane back to the States that evening, sees her and asks her to go for a coffee. From here the two shoot the shit, catch-up on each others lives, reminisce, fill in the gaps and, eventually, open up wounds old and new before moving on to a climax that ends on a beautifully ambiguous note.

Before Sunset is one of the most intelligent films of its kind to have come out in years. Although the dialogue was written by or semi-improvised by Linklater, Hawke and Delpy, the structure of the screenplay is all Linklater’s. And it is the structure of the thing that is nigh on perfect. At the beginning, the film is all sweetness and light; Jesse and Celine discuss anything and everything - the fact that they both lived in New York, what they are both up to now, politics etc - before Jesse reveals, after some prompting, that he did turn up six months later, Celine reveals that a family bereavement prevented her from doing so, but they both laugh and joke about it and dismiss it. In the middle they start going into their personal lives, revealing in Jesse’s case that he is married with a child and that in Celine’s case that she is living on and off with a war photographer. Neither is entirely happy, and both ponder what might have been if they had both turned up at the six month rendezvous. The film then moves into the third act where Celine and Jesse explode and reveal just how unhappy they are before going to Celine’s flat, at which point the film ends suddenly and ambiguously. This is perfect three-act structure, but it is made all the more effective by sidelong glances between the two, things that get said, things that don’t get said, pauses loaded with meaning. The conversations between the two darken as the film moves along; in one monologue from Jesse, concerning his wedding day, the knowledge that both he and Celine lived in New York takes on a tragi-comic tinge. But there are things like this revealed throughout the film, little moments that hark back to things said earlier in the film. It is great to know that there are filmmakers out there who are prepared to let audiences work things out for themselves without the need for telegraphing a “moment”, if there’s any justice the screenplay should get an Oscar nom.

The performances by Hawke and Delpy are note-perfect, they inhabit their characters like they are a second skin. Both actors relish the sort of role that comes along once in a blue moon. They play the light-hearted stuff with a deft touch and play the heavy scenes with gravity. Linklater’s direction allows all this stuff to appear naturally, there are no flashy camera flourishes (even the long takes are designed to keep attention on the actors) or moments of symbolic portend to enhance the mood or give slower members of the audience the opportunity to follow, it assumes the audience is intelligent and lets the actors get on with being natural. He also does a lot of incredibly long, and presumably very complex, takes and consequently Lee Daniel’s camera takes in a lot of Paris in an understated and technically brilliant way. Again, if there’s any justice, Oscar noms should be forthcoming for all concerned. Unfortunately, the Oscars is never about credit where credit is due it is always about something else, money mostly, hence Before sunset is likely to lose out.

If you are sick of Richard Curtis romantic comedies set in a confectionary box Britain that never existed then this is the film for you. It is smart, funny, genuinely heartfelt and, at 80 minutes, doesn’t outstay its welcome. It is also one of those rare sequels that is better than the original. This deserves a bigger audience than it is likely to get so if you’re facing upto the choice of this and something like The Stepford Cunts don’t even think twice: put your money in real filmmaker’s pockets.

The Moore Conspiracy - Fahrenheit 9/11

2004-08-09T13:15:00.000+01:00

When Michael Moore won an Oscar last year for Bowling for Columbine last year he made a controversial speech decrying George W. Bush's right to the presidency and the legitimacy of the war in Iraq. Let's just say that he was not given a standing ovation by the celebrities who sat and watched him: those who didn't boo sat with rictus smiles, or rolled their eyes at the rantings of the fat man on the stage! This response - definitely not the one that he was hoping for - must have rankled, because his response, Fahrenheit 9/11, is the political hot potato of the moment. It is also the most successful documentary of all time...a feat that is unlikely to be broken anytime soon! Despite the fact that it isn't really a documentary at all!

A documentary, at least of the political or social kind, should usually present both sides of an argument in a balanced manner. Fahrenheit makes no attempt to present a balanced view of events. No, Fahrenheit 9/11 is a polemic that goes right for the Bush jugular.

It begins with a funny opening sequence with the Bush team preening themselves before going on camera, and despite being a total cheapshot - well, doesn't everybody preen themselves before they go on camera? - it works effectively in making them all look like complete and utter pricks! Then it moves swiftly into the main topics. Firstly, it picks apart the manner in which Dubya "won" the election, implicating Jeb Bush and Fox News executives amongst others: in addition to lambasting the Democrats for their gutless response to it. It also quickly covers the disenfranchising of Florida's African American voters, many of whom would have voted against Bush. The film then makes an attack on Bush for his regular holidays when he should have been working before jumping to the most effective part of the film. It presents 9/11 as a black screen over which the sounds of plane's crashing, screaming and buildings collapsing can be heard. It is, for a filmmaker as unsubtle as Moore, an incredibly effective and restrained piece of filmmaking, brilliant in fact! It then moves on to show Bush being given the news that a second plane has crashed into the Twin Towers; he then sits for about seven minutes reading My Pet Goat to some school children as he decides what should be his next course of action. It is both painful and funny to watch: funny because you realise how helpless this man is without his ubiquitous Aids and Advisors to fall back upon, and painful because you realise that there are a lot of people dying - and about to die - at this point and there's little that can be done about it...or maybe he realises that there was something he could have done but didn't do it. Then the film focusses on the Bin Ladens and the fact that they were allowed to fly despite the rest of America being grounded just after 9/11. It also makes links between the Bush family and the Bin Ladens and the Saudi Royals. Most of this is covered more thoroughly in House of Saud by Craig Unger but it is still disturbing stuff, particularly if it is proven true: though I doubt Moore cares about truth, so long as it makes for an effective segment and some of the mud that is flung sticks! From here Moore covers the resulting terrorist alerts: ludicrous alerts designed to keep people paranoid; idiotic security measures for planes; and equally stupid espionage attempts against peaceful organisations; and a look at the fact that certain parts of America are woefully unprotected against likely terrorist attacks. This section is easily the weakest, even though it gets some laughs. It drags because it takes a scattershot approach to these topics and, frankly, the last part of this section - where he deals with underfunded police - could have been excised altogether without anybody missing it.

From here the film snaps into focus on Iraq, and America's somewhat dubious reasons for going to war. It also covers the rather disgusting attempts by big business to carve up Iraq as a new market, even before the war was over. But, as we all know now, the war is very far from over - despite America handing over "rule" to the new Iraqi government - and the film covers this, along with yet more evidence of military torture and blunders: the images of injured Iraqi children are horrific. However, it is also here that the film makes its biggest mistake. At the beginning of this section it shows Iraq as a happy places with children and old people larking around. It's cheap filmmaking and bullshit politics! Nobody, but the intellectually lowest of the low, could possibly buy Iraq - decimated by UN sanctions - as a happy place before the first bombs landed. But Moore goes ahead and presents it anyway, despite the fact that the film would work better without this revisionism. But, regardless of this weak and cheap beginning, this section has some of the most effective moments of the film: the story of Lila Liscombe and the death of her son in Iraq, and her pain and disgust at the pointlessness of it all; the two army recruitment guys racking up new recruits with hard-sell glee; troops expressing initially delight and later disgust at the war, and the reasons for it; and - of course - the sight of injured and dead Iraqis (the greater majority of whom were killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, most of them being civilian). This section also has Moore haranguing politicians, getting them to sign up their children for the army, and whilst it is funny, it is also cheap and unnecessary: everybody knows the families of the priviliged get away with things that the sons and daughters of Joe Average do not! However, this is the section that nails Bush the best. When it hits the target, it crunches into the bullseye with brute force. If Bush remains undamaged after this I would be appalled but not surprised!

At its best F9/11 is superb, hard-hitting, popularist filmmaking that makes politics accessible to those who don't do a lot of reading (Moore covers all these topics better in Stupid White Men and Dude, Where's My Country?). But at its worst it smacks of tabloid cinema, patronising an audience who are already patronised by election campaigns fought entirely upon image rather than policy, and dulls some of the punches that the superb sections make spectacularly. Still, even with its numerous flaws, it is quality, impassioned filmmaking at a time when passion is quickly being homogenized into the corporate network. It is a film worth seeing, if only to remind those in power that in this day and age they can't get away with anything. It's about time somebody did the same for Teflon Tony!

What - The - Fuck?: Gozu

2004-08-08T12:21:00.000+01:00

For those you who are familiar with the work of the prolific, censor-baiting director Takashi Miike, the meaning of the title above will be of no surprise. To those unfamiliar with his work let me explain.

Takashi Miike is one of those directors who defies classification, he works in no fixed genre and his style is almost self-conciously cult. His work is, more often than not, graphically explicit in terms of both sex and violence, often to the point where it is trimmed by British censors. He revels in the Japanese underclasses, particularly the Yakuza, and has flights of cinematic fantasy that are alien to most mainstream film-makers: In Dead or Alive the two main characters destroy the world with weapons they pull from behind their backs; in its sequel the two main characters (who have nothing to do with the first film) turn into birds as well as fighting hit-men who communicate only by text message; and in Happiness of the Katakuris he builds a musical around zombies! Also, he is not afraid of the ambiguous ending or of confusing his audience. His best work - Audition, Ichi the Killer, Rainy Dog - is outright brilliant, whilst his worst work - City of Lost Souls, Full Metal Yakuza, Happiness of the Katakuris - is downright awful: but all these films in some way bend or subvert genre. Once seen, a Miike film is rarely forgotten.

And so, on to Gozu. Part of Tartan's Asia Extreme season of films.

Gozu begins with Ozaki (Sho Aikawa), sat in a restaurant, telling his Yakuza boss that a little Chihuahua looking in the restaurant window is, in fact, a Yakuza attack dog sent to destroy them. He then proceeds to wreak a horrible revenge upon the unfortunate creature as he is watched by the dog's traumatized owners and the horrified Yakuza inside the restaurant. The Yakuza boss, tired of Ozaki's insanity and worried that he might make a play for his position, dispatches Ozaki and his best friend and underling Minami (Hideki Sone) to Nagoya on a mission to meet up with another crew. He has given Minami an order that he is to return home alone, leaving the corpse at the town dump. Minami carries out this order by accident when he saves a woman from being the latest victim of his friend's paranoid delusions. Realising what he has done, he stops at a restaurant in Nagoya to make a phone call to his boss, leaving Ozaki propped up and in sunglasses in their car, but one thing comes to another and the body disappears. He then spends his time running around Nagoya, or in the creepiest hotel since The Shining, trying to find him whilst encountering freaks and weirdos that put David Lynch to shame: An ageing hotel owner with lactating breasts; a man with a case of Vitiligo that would impress even Michael Jackson; an American woman who reads all her Japanese dialogue from cue cards; a strange demon with a cow's head and a woman who claims to be Ozaki...plus, it has a birth scene that has to be seen to be believed!

It has been over a week since I saw the film but I'm still not sure what to make of it. I know I enjoyed it but I'm also aware that it is one hell of a shaggy dog story. Ozaki makes the merest of side comments to Minami stating that women will be the undoing of a particular character only for it to come to pass later in the film, and that's all it's really about. However, be rest assured that this is isn't low-key Miike - anyway, the guy doesn't do low-key - but it isn't exactly in his best work either. It is well-written in places and has some fantastic ideas, some frightening and some funny, but not everything comes off successfully; a botched attempt to incant a spirit just seems to go nowhere fast, and after the final set-piece the film ends abruptly. It has a resolutely nightmarish feel in the photography and performances but, at the same time, it doesn't convince in the same way that Ichi or Audition do: it is a solid film with some fantastic moments, but - after a brilliant final gross-out scene - a poor resolution. It isn't so much ambigious as it is just plain puzzling, as if Miike and Sakichi Sato (who also scripted Ichi) had no idea how to end things satisfactorily, or maybe - knowing the prolific nature of his work - he just wanted to finish and move on to the next project.

For Miike completists this won't matter. They will go and see the film and love it. With time my opinion of it might change, a second viewing is definitely required, but I'm ranking it with his second-tier films, those that are good but not great: Dead or Alive 1 and 2, Visitor Q and Shinjuku Triad Society. Good but no cigar!

It's Woody Allen but, you know, for kids! - Anything Else

2004-08-07T23:13:00.000+01:00

Much as I hate to say it: Woody Allen's been losing it for years.

Allen was once one of the most consistent director's around: Sleeper, Love and Death, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Broadway Danny Rose, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors, etc. all hit the ball way out of the park. I loved his films. In an environment that fostered ever more idiotic comedies and rom-coms, Woody Allen stood out like a beacon; writing and directing adult comedies and witty dramas for an intelligent audience. Recently, however, his films have been patchy and he seems to have become an anachronism. So patchy in fact that a few years ago I stopped watching his films altogether. My rapidly deteriorating love affair with Allen's films ended in 1998 with the luvvy crapfest Celebrity, an awful film that drowned within a sea of its own smugness. I had seen enough to know that Woody Allen really didn't have a whole lot to say any more. Although I heard that 1999's Sweet and Lowdown was good I didn't care, I figured that it was an Indian Summer rather than a return to form and I was right: everything Allen has made since has - to one degree or another - been universally panned or greeted with blithe indifference. But, in the hope that things had changed, I decided that I would go and see his latest Anything Else starring Jason Biggs, Christina Ricci, Danny De Vito and the Woodmeister himself!

Jerry Falk (Biggs) is a twentysomething comedy writer mulling over his life in New York. He is the only client of the world's worst agent (a cameo from Danny De Vito); he is in relationship with Amanda (Ricci) a girl who isn't interested in him sexually and who is self-obsessed to comical extremes; his best friend David Dobel (Allen) is a sixty-something survival nut who wants him to go to California with him; and he is a patient of the world's worst psychiatrist (William Hill). There isn't really a plot as such more a progression of a relationship from beginning to end with some flashbacks.

Although this is head and shoulders above Celebrity that isn't to say it is a great film. It isn't! Whilst it is an entertaining diversion, the film says nothing to modern audiences. Allen is stuck in a timewarp and is putting his interests in the mouths of youngsters who, to be perfectly honest, probably don't give a shit for Billy Holliday, Frank Sinatra or Diana Krall. The twentysomething characters talk about old Jazz music and old personalities in a way that doesn't work. If they were talking about Franz Ferdinand, Dido or some other recent phenomena the dialogue would work, but they don't and it doesn't! The truth is that neither Ricci or Biggs have any real chemistry together in the same way that Diane Keaton and Allen had chemistry, they have some good dialogue but they seem to say it at each other rather than to each other, they have moments, but not enough of them to get you anything other than mildly interested in their fate. The best scenes involve Biggs and Allen and this is where Allen's whip-smart dialogue gets a chance to come to life, but, even then, the writing isn't in the same league as Annie Hall or Hannah and Her Sisters and lacks the crackle of old. Its well photographed by Darius Khondji but that reveals a facet of Allen's oeuvre that many may have overlooked - watching this film you realise how ethnically cleansed Allen's New York is: there's hardly a black, asian or hispanic face on view for the entire 90 minutes, which in such a cosmopolitan city seems barely believable. Also, the cinematography reveals how much Jason Biggs looks like an owl. With his big, practically black eyes and his beaky nose, he looks like one of Hieronymus Bosch's nightmare owls in human form. In fact, towards the end of the film I could only marvel that he didn't hoot wildly, take off from the ground and fly off into the night, where he could pick off lone joggers in Central Park. Cruel I know, but the film - even at a short ninety minutes - was starting to drag at that point and my mind was wandering! This, I think, kind of says it all: it's interesting, diverting and occasionally funny but it is also self-conscious, slow-paced and out of tune with the youthful audience it has been marketed for.

Much as I hate to say it: maybe it's time for Woody Allen to start pondering retirement!

Oh, I've come to realise how good an idea my giant owl in Central Park is. Thriller, ecological comment, and satire rolled into one. And the perfect casting in Owl-man Biggs. It is my copyright Hollywood so hands off!

On the Web - Spiderman 2

2004-08-07T21:51:00.000+01:00

Sam Raimi's original Spiderman (2002) was, in my mind at least, the best comic-strip adaptation to come along since the original Superman. It was fun, superbly shot, beautifully played and had Kirsten Dunst in a wet t-shirt! The only two problems were the CGI which, whilst well done, made it clear that the web-slinging around New York was computer generated rather than a man in a costume and the Green Goblin's crappy mask, which always looked like some pathetic Halloween mask that Willem Dafoe had stolen from a child. It gave audiences exactly what they wanted at the right time and, because it was one of the best blockbusters of summer 2002, it did superb business - making nearly $900m worldwide. The critics liked it too, strange for a summer Event Movie.

But, if they liked the first then they positively flipped over this one! Spiderman 2, reuniting Raimi with his original cast: Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco and J.K. Simmons among them, has received some of the best reviews of the year. And despite it being a summer of underperformance for many blockbusters (Van Helsing, Troy, Catwoman and even Harry Potter didn't do as well this time around) Spiderman 2 is going to come fairly close to matching the original's massive haul. I have to say I was looking forward to this one.

Peter Parker (Maguire) is suffering in life due to his devotion to his duties as Spiderman. He is fired from his pizza delivery job, he is failing at University, his relationships with Mary-Jane (Dunst) and best friend Harry Osborn (Franco) are disaster zones, and his spider powers are failing from time to time. After only so much of this Parker throws his Spider suit in a bin and decides to get on with his life as an ordinary man. In the meantime, Parker's scientific hero, Octavius Otto (Alfred Molina), is coming close to finding the solution to creating nuclear fusion. In order to handle the heat of the sun-like energy source, he has created four artificially intelligent arms which are connected to his spinal cord. Needless to say the unveiling of this experiment does not go well: the demonstration is a disaster; Octavius' wife is killed; and the arms are permanently fused to his spine, driving him insane with their chatter. He goes on a crime spree in order to re-fund his experiments and forces Spiderman to come out of retirement...

So, did it meet expectations?

It was good but it wasn't the film that I had hoped for. For some reason I expected more. The story (co-written by the Pulitzer prize winning author of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon) and the screenplay by Alvin Sargent is deeper and better characterised than one should have a right to expect from a Hollywood blockbuster and there are some fantastic lines. Sam Raimi's handling of the action and the greatly improved CGI is as good as the handling of the quieter scenes: the subway train fight is fantastically shot and edited and drags the audience on to the edge of its seat and the "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" scene is hysterically funny. The cast have fully matured into their roles, particularly Maguire, plus Molina makes for a sympathetic three-dimensional villain. And yet there's something missing! Firstly, the sense of wonder of the first film is gone, though in its place is a better story and more finely honed characters. Secondly, everybody in New York must now know Spiderman's identity as he loses his mask far too often - and in one scene he loses his mask in front of an entire carriage of a subway train, in which the passengers, rather laughably, tell him that they will keep it a secret. Do me a favour, in the real world they would sell his story to J.J. Jameson the very next day! The whole point of being a secret superhero is for the identity to remain a secret, it seems almost pointless to have a third film because his identity has been revealed. Thirdly, the way he gets with Mary-Jane at the end seems somehow false, it has a kind of laughable romanticism about it although it sets up Franco nicely as the villain of the next installment.

But, maybe I'm being picky. After all, this is a comic-book fantasy we're talking about: and a good one at that! In a poor summer for blockbusters this film stands tall but, at the same time, it isn't as good as X-Men 2, which is still the best comic-book kid on the block!

Frightfest 2004

2004-08-03T15:33:00.000+01:00

The man has come through for the hobo once again! Although he hasn't bought me what I really wanted - an intervenous drip pumping pure grain alcohol into my liver - he has procured a full weekend pass for Frightfest 2004. Instead of pounding my brain with Mad Dog during the bank holiday weekend I will be pounding it with horrific images that are liable to make me a little psychotic. I will give detailed reviews for both the films and the event itself once my sanity returns!

Cavern of Love

2004-07-30T19:32:00.000+01:00

Here are some of those things that make the cinema a fantastic place to be when free from all the evils mentioned in the last blog. Some are purely cinematic and some relate to the cinema. If there are links here, check 'em out - who knows, you might enjoy them as much as I do! The list is shorter only because, in my enthusiasm, I've written more about them!

Chan-Wook Park - Thus far his major films list Joint Security Area, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and Oldboy. Not a huge list I agree, but when you've done two films as good as Sympathy and Oldboy it doesn't matter. The potential is there for this guy to become the best around and, with Korea's film industry currently so bouyant and his own films generating both cash and cachet, there's no reason why he can't fulfil that potential.

Stanley Kubrick - Forget Eyes Wide Shut, which was a sorry film to go out on, and remember the good stuff. And there was lots of it. Though his filmography was fairly small, how many directors had a better batting average than this man? And how many directors have created as many iconic moments as this guy, the sort of moments that get copied and paraodied ad infinitum? Not many I can tell you. Innovative, intellectually challenging and visually arresting; without him cinema would be a paler, weaker place!

The Seventies - People forget just how good this decade was for cinema. It pushed the boat out for everything. And when you look at the decade that followed, it is a fucking tragedy that the cinematic legacy of this decade was discarded so lightly: intellectually, politically, thematically and just in terms of quantity of quality, it shits all over the decades that followed it. Many of the finest screenwriters around operated during this decade: Paddy Chayefsky, Robert Towne, Paul Schrader, William Goldman. Many great directorial talents did fantastic stuff within this decade, and most of them have since lost it to varying degrees: Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Werner Herzog, Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg, William Friedkin, and this list goes on and on. And any decade that generates forgotten films like The Terminal Man deserves all the credit it can get!

Sergio Leone - Some love affairs are fleeting, and some directors have you hooked for life. Sergio is as good for me now as he has always been.

Subtitles - Short of learning another language, don't knock 'em! These little beauties have given us access to some of the finest cinema ever in all the languages under the sun. And in a weak, tabescent period for English language cinema there is another option! Start reading subtitles and checking out what old Johnny Foreigner has to offer. You won't be sorry.

Independent Cinemas - Fuck the multiplex. You want choice then you come here. Most big cities have them, so use them...or they'll disappear. Put money in the hands of those who give a shit about cinema and not about making more money!

Revels - The crack of cinema snacks!

Empire - It's been around for a while and for good reason. It's the best cinema mag around.

Hollywood Elsewhere - A film column by Jeffrey Wells...it's a good 'un. Says things as he sees them. And whilst I may not always agree with everything he says, I agree with most of it. Currenly on Kevin Smith's website Moviepoopshoot, but will be moving to his own URL soon. Check it out. And likewise...

IMDB - If you want to find something out about that film, with that bloke, who was in that thing...then you come here to do it.

There will be more of this to follow in amidst a lot more reviews.

Hall of Hate

2004-07-28T15:53:00.000+01:00

These are the major cinematic criminals and crimes that I feel make life a poorer place. I despise them one and all. Let me know if you agree. They are in no particular order.

Freddie Prinze jr – wooden pretty boy with as much talent as a burst carbuncle but without the oozing charisma.

Rhys Ifans – If you see this man’s name in the credits of the film you are about to go and see run screaming from the auditorium and warn others. His ability to spot a bad script is unsurpassed – not even Joseph Fiennes has managed it.

Richard Roxburgh – Has created both the worst Dracula and the worst Sherlock Holmes ever. He should never be allowed to act ever again…not even in pantomime.

Martin Lawrence – Ugly, squat, talentless fuck whose idea of being funny is to shout a lot and mug. About as funny as being told you’ve got HIV.

Michael Bay – Cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cut cunt. Stroboscopic editing, lousy scripts, camera shots that move with no purpose other than for the sake of camera movement, no subtlety. He could very well be Beelzebub.

McG – Ditto squared

Stephen Sommers – CGI fuckwit. Van Helsing is a cinematic crime. He would love to be either of the directors above. He hasn’t even achieved that dubious distinction.

George Lucas – He can’t write dialogue, he can’t direct actors, he can’t edit action properly any more and he can’t leave his best films alone. He is an idiot.

Steve Martin – Once unbelievably funny. He had it all and squandered it on feeble crap. Felt the need to bugger the memory of Phil Silvers with Bilko, has now decided to perform a similar act of artistic sodomy upon Peter Sellers. Does this man have any sense of shame?

The Rock – People say he is next big thing in action. Maybe I’m confused but I thought he was just a big, talentless twat in spandex pants

Akiva Goldsman – Oscar or no Oscar he is shite.

The Matrix Sequels – Took a fantastic original and ground it into the dirt. Thoroughly worthless pieces of CGI shit done for the money. All those concerned should be ashamed.

Brett Leonard – Anybody remember this guy? A pioneer in plotless, witless, CGI crapfests: The Lawnmower Man, Hideaway and Virtuosity. The traiblazer for every CGI blockbuster that has crawled up from the sewer since. Now in obscurity but there is always the fear that he could make a comeback. The hounds of Hell should be unleashed to track him down!

Bond Films – Goldeneye was good fun and all seemed rosy in the Bond camp. However, it was the cinematic equivalent of an Indian summer. Every Bond film since has been worthless. Die Another Day was an atrocity. The Bourne films are the future for this kind of film.

Ashley Judd – Imagine every woman in peril film that’s been absolute crap in the past six years and, more often than not, this woman’s fingerprints will be somewhere upon it.

Sean Connery – Has lived off the cachet generated by The Untouchables for 18 years, and nearly eveything he has made since then has been shit. His last good performance was in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade…that was fifteen years ago! His last great performance was in The Man Who Would Be King, and that was in 1975! His work with Sidney Lumet was awesome, and his Bond is the best but he has squandered all that on being the World’s Sexiest OAP!

I will continue this from time to time along with my list of things that makes cinema a wonderful place to be

You Have to Ask Yourself Why? – The Ladykillers

2004-07-28T11:38:00.000+01:00

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of this film I’ll deliver one simple fact: the Coen Brothers have never made a bad film. And The Ladykillers continues this enviable trend. However, since The Man Who Wasn’t There in 2002 the Coen Brothers have been treading very safe waters. Intolerable Cruelty was good but unspectacular and this film falls into that same bracket and, more worryingly, even repeats one of Cruelty’s funniest gags. It is good but, when you are as talented as the Coen Brothers, you have to ask yourself why they bothered. The original is nigh on perfect black comedy.

The basic plot of the original concerns Alec Guinness lodging in King’s Cross with sweet old lady Mrs Wilburforce (Katie Johnson) and using the room to plan a robbery with his crew, who are pretending to be part of a string quintet to avoid making her suspicious. They also use Mrs Wilburforce to move the money after the robbery has been done as they know that nobody will be suspicious of an old lady. It also becomes the ruse by which Guinness tries to emotionally blackmail her later on in the film after she discovers what they have done. But, after failing with this, they decide to kill her instead and fail…spectacularly!

The remake covers much of this territory but relocates it to the deep south, replaces the sweet old lady with the blustery, religious and well meaning Marva Munson (Irma P Hall) and the Guinness role goes to Tom Hanks, who plays it with relish. Instead of robbing a payroll in daylight in King’s Cross, the motley crew use Munson’s cellar as the starting point to dig into a casino boat’s underground counting room. When Marva discovers the money Hanks uses a different form of emotional blackmail but when it fails the same sort of attempted killing / failure scenario ensues.

Watching this film you can’t help but think about two things. Firstly, you can’t help but think about the superb original, and how this film – though often very funny – just isn’t a patch on it. The original is, Guinness aside, rather subtly played and all the funnier for it. Peter Sellars, Herbert Lom, Cecil Parker and Danny Green, all provide sterling support and Katie Johnson is fantastic. The script, by William Rose, is beautifully balanced and extremely black, and Mackendrick’s direction is perfectly paced. The remake has some genuine guffaws but, Hall and Hanks aside, the performances are anything but subtle. Marlon Wayans, J K Simmons, Tzi Ma and Ryan Hurst all do well with their roles but you feel that if they hadn’t played them quite so broadly the film would be all the better for it. The script, particularly for a Coen Brothers film, is lazy and derivative. Yes, there are plenty of good lines, and someoutright great jokes both visual and verbal, but there are also snipes at black culture, irritable bowel syndrome and a more or less outright steal of the funniest joke in Intolerable Cruelty; this smacks of writers running out of ideas.

Secondly, you can’t help but think about the Coen’s earlier comic films – the fantastic The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona and, to a lesser degree, O Brother Where Art Thou and The Hudsucker Proxy – and wonder why they bothered. Yes, it is a good film but, when you have made a black comedy as good as The Big Lebowski, was it really necessary to remake a classic that was never in need of an update? Only the Coens can answer that one. Maybe, after a long unbroken run of fantastic cinema, the brothers are running out of steam. I hope I’m wrong. Cinema would be a much poorer place without these two on top form.

By all means see it, as it is much better than a lot of the summer dreck stinking up multiplexes, but have no illusions that, at this particular moment in time, the Coen Brothers are coasting by on former glories.

Hollywood remakes the world in its own image! Part Two

2004-07-27T16:05:00.000+01:00

In the last wacky installment of this article I made a few points about the reasons that Hollywood chose to undertake pointless remakes: black and white; foreign language; old fashioned acting / special effects / fashions; pacing; a convenient good story to work from, and discussed the black and white and foreign language angles in greater depth. Now I’ll cover the rest of that list.

Being old fashioned. Again, I see no problem with this. Imagine, for instance, the corpse of Rembrandt rising up from his grave, a bone-bag of pent up rage and aggression staggering through the reefer strewn streets of Amsterdam, demanding to repaint his masterpieces because the fashions, hairstyles, techniques and people are all out-of-date. Imagine him going to work on redoing his self-portraits with a Paul Smith suit and a Hoxton Fin in the Post-Modern idiom. It doesn’t make much sense does it? Surely, a classic is a timeless and needs no updating. And even if it does date: fashion is fleeting but brilliance is without a sell-by-date.

Apparently, this is untrue. Hollywood execs, and certain bearded, quiff-headed filmmakers, would have us believe that pre-CGI cinema was…well, a bit shite! It seems that we cinema-goers are unable to handle the originals. We are unable to compute old fashioned acting, optical special effects and actual real stunt work, and pre-millenial fashions. Well, thank God we have the corporate studios to protect us. For the price of a ticket they will erase all those horrors and replace them with vapid teen-friendly leads, Playstation 2 computer graphics, CGI stunt people, and the latest in trendy retro-chic. It doesn’t matter about not replacing the composed direction and literate screenplay of the original, not when you see how dreamy the leads look in tight T-shirts! Allow me to use an example.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre replaced the sweaty tension, relative lack of blood letting, inventive low-budget design work, and motiveless psychos of the original with Jessica Biel smuggling peanuts in a very tight T-shirt, gore, and a back-story for Leatherface. Admittedly, some of the acting in the original is poor, but the design, cinematography and execution of the piece is not. The design of the house, the skin mask, and the look of the piece are amazing. It all looks organic, dirty and real, as if put together in ramshackle fashion by a real psychopath. In the remake the skin mask looks like it was created by Jean-Paul Gaultier and the house looks as if it was designed by Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen in his best approximation of psycho-chic. In the original the blood was sparse, Hooper preferring to keep the horrors offscreen or obscured, partly to get it a PG rating, which - ironically - only served to get people’s imaginations filling the gaps that Daniel Pearl’s inventive documentary style 16mm cinematography created. However, in the remake we characters looking through bullet-wounds to the head, arms and legs are removed with abandon and the whole thing has a digital polish to it. The audience might be grossed out but it isn’t frightened. The film isn’t awful, though it has awful moments, but it is pointless piece of shit with barely a scare in it. But, as one of the few remakes to actually turn a decent profit it makes sense: and that is the only point you need! Longevity be damned; a quick profit and a new franchise can be had by all (so long as you are a corporate suit).

However, what these corporate cretins fail to see is that a genuine classic captures – amongst its cinematic qualities - not only a time and a place but also a mood. The original Chainsaw appeared during a period of uncertainty for America: serious social and political unrest; high-profile assassinations and murders; Vietnam; and underlying economic troubles. Horror films, and the increased public demand for them, reflected the change in the public’s perception of America: Romero’s zombies aside – and even they had human origins – the horrors of these films, serial killers, psychopaths and perpetrators of random acts, were thoroughly human monsters and mirrored what greeted the public in the press and TV news every day. That is what Chainsaw, Last House on the Left, and Night of the Living Dead capture, and what a thousand remakes never could: a genuine fear of the unknown. Even more more mainstream classics capture something that their remakes never could. The Italian Job - whilst hardly the greatest film ever but still a classic of its kind - captured the swinging, vibrant mood of Britain in the the mid to late sixties, and Get Carter - arguably the finest British crime film ever - captured the dark end of that decade and the beginning of a seventies Britain awash with industrial actions and fuel crises. Both films had remakes that stank out the cinema because somebody somewhere felt that they had dated. They have. But, in the case of Get Carter, the film has a brilliance and a grasp of human darkness that remains undiminished after 30-odd years in the public domain! Things like that don’t change…and they never will! Hollywood should remember that.

Pacing. Older films are edited at a more sedate pace and they don’t always have the drive and dynamism of modern cinema. However, why is it that modern running times are longer? The original Chainsaw runs 83 minutes but the remake runs at 98; the original Italian Job is 99 minutes but its remake is 12 minutes longer; The Ladykillers 2004 is six minutes longer than the original. This rule doesn’t apply to everything – the original Get Carter is longer, as is the original Psycho – but most remakes come with extra padding. Also, in an age where modern editing speeds can induce fits in all but the most hardy, isn’t it nice to watch something that takes its time over scenes and doesn’t cause confusion when it becomes difficult to follow what is going on onscreen, even during the most frenetic of action scenes! No! Okay, go fuck yourself then!

Lastly, and most contentious in this critic’s eyes, is the one of having a convenient good story to work from and rehash. Get to fuck is my response. Try employing decent writers or start looking through the library of original screenplays rejected for not following the commercial formula. Or better still, grow some fucking balls and develop riskier but cheaper projects, take some pride in having originality and vision. Don’t be afraid of the nihilistic ending; don’t be afraid of dark subject matter; don’t be afraid of missing out on a PG-13 or 12 certificate.You might not earn as much money for coke and hookers but you might sleep better at nights. There are hundreds of writers better than the drones you currently employ with far better ideas than simply rehashing old films or books that did things far better the first time round.

Of course, all this will fall on deaf ears. Nobody reads these things, at least nobody who can change the way producers think. The only way is by voting with your feet. Instead of following the crowd, think for yourself and go see something with a little originality. If you keep money out of the hands of those who see invention as something to be afraid of then maybe those people will think long and hard about their stance and maybe things will change.

Hollywood remakes the world in its own image! Part One

2004-07-15T10:38:00.000+01:00

As the Coen Brothers’ latest, “The Ladykillers”, proves: Hollywood just can’t let a good story rest in peace. Despite a slew of remakes that seem to exist only to defile the memory of the classic original and, generally, make only a fraction of the box-office (Psycho, King Kong 1977, Get Carter, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Vanishing, The Mean Machine, The Assassin, to name but a few) Hollywood still hasn’t absorbed the message regarding remakes: they’re shit, we don’t want them, so leave us alone! In fact, one wonders how long it take before Hollywood Execs decide that, instead of re-making a classic, they’ll just defile a director’s memory by digging up their mouldering corpses, piss on them, film the abomination and release it into the cinemas! Though, truth be told, that might be more a more pleasant viewing experience than the re-makes themselves!

Despite this, Hollywood continues to supply the public with remakes of films that were perfectly fine in the first place. The reasons for remaking classic films are obvious: moolah! Forget all this nonsense about ‘re-imagining a film for a new generation’: it’s bullshit. If a film was great in the first place why would it need to be ‘re-imagined’? I’m sure that Hollywood executives would counter with a raft of excuses: black and white; foreign language; old fashioned acting / special effects / fashions; pacing; a convenient good story to work from etc., but none of these excuses wash.

Firstly, black and white. What, in the name of all that is Holy, is wrong with black and white? At its best it looks amazing: deep shadows; flattering on close-ups; great for highlighting compositions. What’s not to love about black and white. Some of the finest photography ever committed to celluloid is monochrome: Greg Toland’s awesome deep focus compositions in ‘Citizen Kane’; Robert Krasker’s skewed camera angles and deep shadows in ‘The Third Man’; John Seitz’s work on ‘Sunset Boulevard’; and Roger Deakins’ neo-noir for ‘The Man Who Wasn’t There’. However, the public don’t like it. They won’t go and see it. But it isn’t as if they’re given the choice. With the odd exception, nobody makes films in black and white anymore, in the same way that nobody makes films in Academy ratio! The general public’s tolerance for black and white, and the square format, has been gradually eroded by their lack of availibility. New films are colour and widescreen, so that is what the public wants. But, if filmmakers started working in these formats people would go and see the films, particularly if it was a director or actor who had mass appeal. Because executives don’t see “viability” in these formats, they try to ensure that they don’t get put on modern celluloid.

Secondly, foreign language. For some reason people are led to believe that world cinema is arcane, that its charms are only truly appreciated by super-intelligent beings who quaff sherry and cook strange ponce food! People are led to believe, usually by executives with a vested interest, that they won’t be interested in reading subtitles and watching images at the same time, and what might be best for all is if the original is discretely released, forgotten, and replaced by an American Stepford Film. Bollocks, I say! Delicatessen, Diva, Cyrano de Bergerac, Nikita, Audition, The Ring, Amelie, Y tu Mama Tambien, City of God, Infernal Affairs, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, all these films made a dent at the UK box office despite the considerable handicap of being played on vastly fewer screens than domestic and US product. Many of these films also did good limited release business in the US too, particularly Crouching Tiger and Amelie! Another thing about these films is that they were resolutely commerical affairs. They weren’t high-brow or arcane, they were simply fantastic films that entertained and delighted their audience. How can anybody have a problem with that? Well, apparently, many chain cinemas disagree. It seems far easier to have 14 screens of Harry Potter taking a shit in a Hogwart’s toilet than it does to release a funny foreign film, but choice is a beautiful thing! If the public are given more options then they will usually choose the best one. Is that what the makers of $100m+ white elephants are afraid of, that maybe if the public are given a choice they might choose to see the quality film? Maybe that’s why they feel they have to re-make foreign language films in english.

TO BE CONTINUED!!

A Hole Lot of Trouble – I’m Not Scared, a critique

2004-07-14T14:27:00.000+01:00

One of the beauties of cinema-going is departing from the throng, as it sweatily pushes itself into the latest blockbuster, and wandering along a path less travelled! Why cram yourself into a packed cinema, surrounding yourself with muttering, gorging, mobile phone wielding troglodytes, for the latest identikit “event movie” when you can sit in a comfortable, half-full cinema with fellow cineastes and watch something a little different? Don’t fear subtitles embrace them.

Outside of an ever decreasing band of British and American directors, world cinema is the way forward for originality. Regardless of genre, foreign filmmakers appear to be blazing a trail for their English language counterparts. Whilst British and American filmmakers are hamstrung by suit-wearing, chicken salad eating bean-counters who babble to anyone interested about “negating risk”, “franchise possibilities” and other assorted “Twat-speak”, foreign filmmakers are given less money in exchange for more creative freedom and more scope to be inventive. Consequently, in a new millennium that has been dominated by Hollywood blockbusters and British rom-coms, many film buffs have been looking abroad for their cinematic kicks. And they haven’t been found wanting. From Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) to Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amelie (2001) through to last year’s City of God and Nine Queens, foreign filmmakers have been providing film goers with well written, entertaining, lucrative and popularist films whilst their english langauage counterparts persist with squeezing out hack-work via Microsoft Franchise Generator 3.11 and Norton Rom-Com Writer 2.5. As much as it pains me to say it, the trend doesn’t seem set to change any time soon and I expect to look increasingly to world cinema to provide my future cinematic pleasures!

And with this is mind I offer I’m Not Scared for your perusal. The latest film from Gabriele Salvatores, director of the Oscar winning Mediterraneo (1991), melds several genres whilst remaining refreshingly unclassifiable. The story unfolds at a gentle pace, allowing the characters to breathe and come to life, whilst providing the viewer with images both beautiful and disturbing. Don’t be put off by fact that the three characters with most screen-time are children, these are not the hideous, sugar-coated homunculi that populate many Hollywood films, they resemble real flesh-and-blood kids, and are often as cruel and misanthropic as their adult counterparts. It is just one of the many refreshing elements of a film that does things its own way.

The film is set in southern Italy in 1978, and concerns ten-year old Michele (Giuseppe Cristiano) who, whilst playing with his friends amongst the wheat fields near his village, discovers another ten-year old boy, Filippo (Mattia Di Pierro), who has been imprisoned in a pit for reasons that aren’t initially clear. At first, the terrified Michele runs away but, with his interest piqued, he goes back and gradually finds out that several adults in the village – including his own parents – are involved in a kidnap and ransom plot. Initially, he does little more than visit the boy and make friends with him but, as the authorities close in, he is forced into making a plan to rescue Filippo.

From the plot description above I wouldn’t be surprised if readers thought this might be a conventional thriller. It isn’t. The exciting ending aside, the pace is far too measured and the characters far too minutely observed for it to be considered conventional. I’m Not Scared mixes intelligent suspense thriller, rites-of-passage tale, and a study of friendship into one neat package. And whilst it isn’t without flaws (sometimes it is just too slow for its own good) the air of suspense and a palpable sense of dread are brilliantly realised. Even when the Michele and Filippo are at their happiest, playing amongst the endless wheatfields, you are aware that this happiness will be short lived. However, the real beauty of this film is in the characters. Through good writing and excellent acting all the characters take on a three dimensional quality. The kids, particularly Michele (brilliantly performed by Cristiano), are non-cutesy and often act in a cruel and underhand manner towards each other: one child tries to force a girl to strip as a punishment; Michele’s friend betrays him in exchange for the chance to drive his uncle’s car. The adults are never portrayed as one-dimensional evil bastards, with Michele’s parents (played convincingly by Dino Abbrescia and Aitana Sánchez-Gijon) being particularly well rounded, they come across as real human beings who have made a fatal error of judgement. Another plus point is Italo Petriccione’s luminous cinematography which captures the rural summer with a painterly eye. The one thing that prevents it from being superb, as opposed to being merely very good, is the pacing. More judicious editing could have shaved five minutes from the running time, and a better film would have resulted. However, this is a moot point. The film is what it is, and what it is is very good!

See it now. Before Hollywood ‘re-imagines’ it in English with direction by Chris Columbus. Your brain will thank you for it!

Some Like it Shit – Connie and Carla

2004-07-12T12:44:00.000+01:00

Imagine eating the worst meal known to man; a half-eaten kebab that you’ve rescued from a bin, that has been marinated in pure rat’s piss and baked hard by the summer sun. Can you see it? Good! Now imagine being forced by hunger to chow down on this monstrosity? Are you gagging yet? Excellent! Now, imagine a fate that’s ten times worse.

Yes, welcome to the magical world of “Connie and Carla”.

How this lumbering, cack-handed, humourless and thoroughly brainless piece of shit was greenlighted is beyond me. Yes, I’m aware that the writer, and co-star Nia Vardalos, was the creative spark behind the monster-hit “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, but that’s no excuse! Surely, somebody involved in script development must have seen that they were dealing with a stinker? Or, maybe, they got so caught up in the high-concept wackiness of it all – i.e. stealing the entire premise for “Some Like it Hot” and changing the genders - that somebody forgot to add important elements like a good script, believable characters, fine comic acting, and a director with a deft touch. Yes, C&C has none of these and a whole lot less!

Vardalos and Toni Collette, a fine actress who deserves a better agent, play the titular characters…badly. In the real world, the only way these two fuckwits could get away with their ruse is if the entire world had been subjected to Randall MacMurphy style lobotomies. In ‘Some Like it Hot’ Lemmon and Curtis weren’t entirely convincing, which was part of the joke, but they were convincing enough to make us believe that people might fall for the act, and smart enough to keep themselves out of the limelight. Vardalos and Collette are about as convincing as Arnold Schwarzenegger would be if he took on the role of Anne Frank! They roll their eyes like a pair of fucktards and mince around drawing attention to themselves like a pair of ADD afflicted children in a school production of Aladdin! David Duchovny assumes the Marilyn Monroe mantle (What. The. Fuck?) with all the brio and panache of a stuffed animal. A variety of other actors play mafia stereotypes and “comedy” drag queens with all the exquisite subtlety of a baseball bat to the head. A note to drama students: frantic mugging does not a comedy actor make! Nobody gets out of this car wreck unscathed, and nor do they deserve to.

This is supposedly a ‘Chick-Flick’. Hack-flick more like! If I was a woman I’d be offended that Hollywood execs think that this brain-dead faecal impaction is exactly the sort of thing that I would want to see. If I was a woman watching this film I’d demand my money back, and by force if necessary!

Shite. Fucking shite!

Dude Looks Like a Lady - Bad Education

2004-07-05T17:52:00.000+01:00

Spain's finest living director, Pedro Almodovar, has been on one of the longest winning streaks in world cinema. Recently, everything this cinematic alchemist has touched has turned into gold. Since 1997's 'Live Flesh', and through 'All About My Mother' and 'Talk to Her', he has created a body of work that has seen him installed as one of the finest exponents of cinema anywhere! And the most beautiful thing about his artistic rise is the fact that he has achieved it without compromise. Almodovar hasn't needed to work within Hollywood, direct in English, tone down his themes, or short-change his audience to achieve his current critical and financial success; no, instead, he has simply matured.

Whilst the palette remains as colourful, and the framing as idiosyncratic, as ever, the material he has worked with has grown gradually more mature. The camp immaturity, and the penchant for shock tactics that resulted in duffers like 'Kika', 'Matador' and 'Tie Me Up Tie Me Down', seems to have become a thing of the past. The energy that drove those films - and classics like 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown' - is still there, but it is focussed energy rather than his previous scattershot approach.

Bad Education - starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Fele Martinez - continues both Almodovar's winning streak and his increasing maturity. It is about a film producer, Enrique (Martinez), who is given a script, by an old school friend, Ignacio (Bernal), and his first love, whom he hasn't seen in years, which covers unpleasant goings on that occurred during their school years. The surprise meeting rekindles feelings in Enrique, and the script fires his imagination, but there is something about the adult Ignacio that doesn't feel right...from here the film moves into the sort of territory that Hitchcock would have covered if he was gay, and if there had been no such thing as the Hay's Code! The plot is suitably labyrinthine and covers child abuse, drugs, double-crossing, dual identities, murder and that old Almodovar staple Transexualism!

For three quarters of the film the tension is palpable, and the plot is as tight as a drum, but it does taper off towards the end, particularly when dealing with Ignacio's back-story. Almodovar ties off the loose-ends, but does so with a damp-squib involving Martinez and Bernal before revealing the character's fates through a text description. This certainly doesn't ruin the film but it does take some of the lustre off it. The film is beautifully shot by José Luis Alcaine - who worked on 'Women on the Verge' and several films for Bigas Lunas - but the framing and the look is pure Almodovar. The acting is uniformly superb, but particular kudos goes to Bernal who plays a tricky dual role with conviction; if this was an English language film he would be a shoo-in for an Oscar nom'. The screenplay by Almodovar is good but not a classic, particularly when you consider the flaws in the plot, but it does, at least, favour story and plotting over mindless destruction and CGI bullshit, which in this current climate of dumbing-down is no bad thing. No, it isn't perfect, its unsatisfactory ending prevents that, but it is still very good. However, a very good Almodovar still dumps a load upon the very best that Hollywood fuck-hacks, like Michael Bay and Stephen Sommers, can produce. And amen to that!

A Revenger's Tragedy - Oldboy

2004-06-26T18:21:00.000+01:00

Anybody sitting on a park bench in Farringdon at two or three in the morning is likely to have been regaled, at some point, by a large, drunk hobo muttering about "Sympathy for Mr Vengeance". If you have, then you needn't worry about my sanity. "Sympathy for Mr Vengeance" isn't a proclamation, it is quite brilliant Korean film about a kidnapping that goes wrong, and a revenge that goes even worse. However, it is more than that. It is a film about decent people driven by circumstance to do things that are indecent, it is - amidst the horror and the bloodshed - a tragic film in which one misjudged decision by a major character (trying to obtain an illegal organ transplant to save his sister's life) leads into a spiral of violence and revenge. Despite the odd flaw in the plotting it is a beautifully filmed, superbly acted, and emotionally wrenching piece of cinema. I remember seeing it without knowing anything about it, walking out into the sunshine dazed, and vowing to keep tabs on director Chan-Wook Park's career from that day forward.

Well, thanks to "The Man" giving me access to a computer, in addition to the free films, I was able to keep tabs on the Cannes Film Festival. In amongst the dross came reports of "Oldboy", that it was by Park and that, thematically at least, it was a sequel to "Sympathy". For the most part the critical opinion was good, and the jury must have agreed because it won the jury prize; the main prize, of course, going to a little film called, "Fahrenheit 9/11"! I decided to mention it to my employer at the nearest practical moment.

Well, eventually I was able to get word to "The Man" about Oldboy. His reply was short but sweet: Leave it to me! He was as good as his word!

And now, after sitting through three Hollywood films of varying quality, I'm able to write a review of a film that makes me remember the reason for becoming a critic in the first place: To see something that makes me glad to recommend it, and to see the development of a director who might just become something great if he continues to make films like this!

Ostensibly, "Oldboy" is about a man who is incarcerated in a hotel room/prison cell for fifteen years for no apparent reason. Whilst inside his wife is murdered, his daughter taken into care, he spends a lot of his time in an hallucinatory state, and he begins to plot his escape and revenge. Eventually, in a hugely surreal sequence, he gets out of his prison and starts to trace those responsible, only to find out a few things that he wasn't prepared for!

The film begins brilliantly with the wild-haired protagonist, Oh Daesu (Min-sik Choi), appearing to be dangling a man over a ledge by his tie whilst asking the man to listen to him awhile...but appearances can be deceptive! We then jump back fifteen years to his abduction, incarceration, and gruelling self-examination of why he is in the situation he is in! He then gets out, which leads him back to the rooftop incident.

From there he moves into revenge mode and his first meeting with the enigmatic Woo-jin Lee (Ji-tae Yu)...

And there I'll leave it. To say more would spoil discovering things for yourself, and that isn't my intention. "Oldboy" is too good to give out spoilers.

Park's latest has a competely different feel to "Sympathy", which has a cold, cruel, metallic feel to it, with its stark photgraphy, deliberate pacing and brutal violence. "Oldboy", has a warmer colour scheme; the pacing is faster; the use of CGI is prevalent; the scenario is almost Kafkaesque; and the violence is more comic book in feel. However, the sensibility and technique behind it is the same. The film questions the pointlessness of revenge and turns the screw on the main characters in a similar fashion.

The acting is uniformly superb (especially Min-sik Choi who makes his insane, feral protagonist's plight a sympathetic one), the writing is excellent, the direction is with a master's hand, and the technical aspects - particularly Jeong-hun Jeong's stunning cinematography - are all top-notch. Several sequences burn their way into your subconcious: Daesu's hallucination with the ants; the live squid eating scene; the torture of one his captors; Daesu's return to school. I could list more but, again, to do so would deprive you of the enjoyment of discovering all this for yourself. But please try to discover it for yourself, even if you have to travel around to do so, as it may not get a widespread release in this country! Hell, put some money in real filmmaker's pockets for once!

In short, I'll leave you with as good a reason as any to see it. Would you rather see the powerful original, subtitles and all, or would you prefer to wait a couple of years to see Freddie Prinze jr and Skeet Ulrich in the teen-friendly Hollywood re-make?

Ten Yards of Crap – The Whole Ten Yards, a critique

2004-06-25T16:33:00.000+01:00

Imagine being eye-clamped in a device similar to that used in “A Clockwork Orange”, only without the helpful man with his eye drops to prevent your eyes from drying out. Instead, imagine that service being provided by a group of tramps pissing into your open eyes. Wince, as each hot stream of meths-tinged urine burns away your corneas. Now, this has nothing to do with “The Whole Ten Yards” except, as fate’s go, it’s preferable to another viewing of the latest steaming log on the Bruce Willis conveyor belt of shit!

“The Whole Ten Yards” is the sequel to “The Whole Nine Yards”, which was a film about a dentist (Matthew Perry), a hitman (Bruce Willis) and the Hungarian Mafia. Trust me, it wasn’t funny; which makes the commissioning of a sequel all the more bizarre, particularly when you consider that the original did little to set the box-office alight. But, somebody felt that we hadn't quite seen enough of the comic dream team of Willis and Perry, and thus a cinematic abomination was green-lighted!

Apparently, many of the actors involved in this debacle enjoyed their roles so much that they improvised huge swathes of what is onscreen. This at least saves me trying to comprehend how anybody could write such abysmal dialogue, characters, and plot scenarios. They didn’t! The cast improvised it! The actors assumed that because they were having fun we would too! They were wrong! This film is about as much fun as a mercury enema. In fact, during this film I remember openly weeping and praying for somebody to hunt down those responsible for my tears! As yet, my prayers remain unanswered.

The plot, such as it is, appears to have been conceived via a revolutionary new method: each scene seems to have been plucked out of a bag via random lottery, and the order of their selection neccessitates the order that they appear, such is its random nature! In short, it involves a load of nonsense about Willis’ retired, and now domesticated, hitman being brought out of retirement by Perry’s gurning dentist in order to rescue his wife from the Hungarian mob.

The acting is uniformly terrible: Perry’s performance consists of gurning, shouting, and what appears to be sudden involuntary twitching; Willis sleepwalks through the role with all the gusto of a fucked corpse; Amanda Peet has finally nailed down the mantle of worst actress of her generation; Natasha Henstridge is predictably shit; and Kevin Pollack, from underneath the worst latex make-up of all-time, mumbles in an accent that is closer to emphysema than Hungary. This all begs the question: If the cast were having so much fun, why are their performances so joyless? Well, because…

The direction by TV sitcom hack, Howard Deutch, is non-existent. Any director with balls would have told the actors to cut out the improvising, would have controlled Perry’s tendency to overact and overreact, would have shot Amanda Peet, and would have told Willis to emote a little more and…actually, if he had any balls he would have burnt the celluloid master and thrown himself and the cast upon the flames for good measure.

If you have any sense you will avoid this film like the plague. However, if you don’t have any sense then your money would be better utilised in purchasing a bag of shit, emptying the contents onto the ground and watching this for ninety minutes. It will make for more entertaining viewing than this monstrosity!

It’s about time The Man gave me tickets for a good film!

Ice Ice Baby, or A Company of CGI Wolves – The Day After Tomorrow

2004-06-15T11:55:00.000+01:00

Let us get things nice and sparkling clear right from the beginning: I dislike Roland Emmerich. From “Moon 44” right through to the genuinely despicable ‘The Patriot’ starring Mel Goebbels…sorry, Gibson, the man’s oeuvre consists of prettily filmed exercises in monotony. When you consider that, up until this point, his finest film, Independence Day, is complete dogshit, you know you’re not dealing with the next Stanley Kubrick. So, considering the animosity that I hold for Emmerich and his kind, it comes as a pleasant surprise to say that TDAT really isn’t a bad film.

By now, amidst the press hooplah, you should know the plot. Nasty governments have created a greenhouse gas problem, yada yada, melting polar ice-caps, yada yada, flawed but saintly scientist, Jack Hall, (Dennis Quaid) tries to reason with said governments, yada yada, much ignorance ensues from them and a Cheneyesque Vice-President (Kenneth Welsh), cue rapid climate change, wholesale destruction of the Northern United States along with its funny accented 51st State, Great Britain, and other less important countries of the world. Cue second half consisting of scientist venturing to rescue estranged son, Donnie Darko…sorry, Sam Hall, (Jake Gyllenhall), his teeny bopper friends (including Emmy Rossum as pretty lurve interest) and an assorted cast of two-dimensional stereotypes etc. etc.

The first forty-five minutes are sugar-rush cinema of the highest order. The dialogue may be risible and the characters two-dimensional and shallow but, for a while at least, it doesn’t matter. The pacing is pitch-perfect, the spectacle and scale of destruction magnificent, and the CGI is impressive. The first major set-piece the destruction of Hollywood by tornadoes (personally, I consider the scene with the hailstones in Japan to be little more than scene setting), is filmed and edited with gusto; multiple twisters tear up the town as buildings and people are thrown around the maelstrom with glee. It’s heartening to see a director raze his spiritual home to the ground with such unabashed joy. Maybe, just maybe, Emmerich isn’t quite the corporate drone we all believe him to be. However, all this is just window dressing for the main event; a tsunami that wipes out most of Manhattan. This sequence is one of the most exciting set-pieces to come out of Hollywood in some time. The build up, execution and the pay-off are all top-notch, so much so that, for a few moments, you forget you’re watching a screen; from the moment the wave washes over the Statue of Liberty to the moment the onrushing waters hits the New York Library, the film drags you into its web of destruction. It is a classic of its kind.

From there it is downhill all the way. Now, don’t get me wrong, the very end excepted, it is never truly awful, and there are a few neat touches along the way (particularly the scene where American refugees try to cross the border into Mexico), but the film fails to engage in quite the same way as it does in the first half. The pace slackens and forces the viewers to try and engage with the characters, but because they’re all stereotypes the viewer feels nothing, despite spirited if one-note performances from a talented cast. Consequently, we fail to care about their fates and, as the third major setpiece deals only with the fates of these cyphers, the film collapses in on itself.

The third major set-piece involves a tanker that has been washed into Manhattan by the tide (though where it has come from, how it got there, and where the crew are, are never explained) which is then boarded by three of the teenagers as they battle to save the life of one of their friends, in order to do so they must battle wolves and the “Big Freeze”. This would be all well and good except the wolves are blatantly CGI and the big freeze is badly executed. Firstly, the wolves. Why they chose to do the wolves as CGI is beyond me. In truth, the wolves are well designed but they still look like CGI, which renders the fear factor negligable. Real wolves might have required more handling and effort to get the same effect, but they would have made the tension more palpable. Secondly, the big freeze. It starts off well enough, as the freeze creeps down the buildings quickly and malevolently, but once Gyllenhall and his fellow protagonists are running through the library corridors away from the slowly creeping frost, science and credulity fly out of the window. And as for the notion that a fireplace full of books can offset temperatures of minus 150 degrees…absolute bullshit!

The very end is a crock too. Suddenly the Cheneyesque vice-president, who has since become President because of a convenient off-camera death for the least believable President since George W., becomes soft and cuddly and tells the authorities to “bring the survivors home”. One suspects that the real Cheney would leave them to die and then have their bodies turned into a convenient new food source: Haliburton Green. Then comes lots of rescuing, smiling and bonding and the promise of a brighter new day…because life’s just like that, right? Oh!

For the most part, TDAT is enjoyable, disposable garbage that has a few set-pieces of real quality. If you check your brain in at the door, ignore the dialogue and the lack of depth, and take the ending with a block of rock salt then you’ll find the film an enjoyable but forgettable diversion.

Please do me a Big Favour and Shut the Fuck Up! A Hobo’s Guide to Cinema Etiquette

2004-06-11T11:30:00.000+01:00

Home Cinema may be the next big thing, in fact it may be the current big thing, but until it addresses one serious flaw it will never truly recreate the cinema-going experience. To that effect I have created the next big advance in DVD technology: RAS, or “RetardAroundSound” to give it its full moniker. Utilising the full power of your Dolby Digital, or DTS, system the cinema-going experience will come alive in the confines of your own home. Gasp, as some fuckleberry opens the world’s crunchiest bag of Kettle Chips and rustles it right beside your fucking ear; Sigh, as a gang of teenage unemployment statistics strike up a full volume conversation during the film’s most pensive moment; Weep, as the simpletons behind you explain to each what’s going on, plotwise, at any particular moment and; Shit, as mobile phone after mobile phone resounds around the auditorium. I have submitted my plans to all the major companies and expect a positive response, particularly as it gives them the opportunity to resell their entire back catalogue to unwary customers. Consider me a pioneer…and don’t say you haven’t been warned!

Actually, consider me pissed off! What has happened to cinema audiences? There was a time when audiences went to the cinema to watch a film in relative silence, and the only time they stirred was to make the appropriate sound at the appropriate moment: cue gasping, laughing, crying, shrieking etc. They were generally a conscientious bunch who were well behaved and genuinely sorry if they disturbed the experience of those around them. They are sorely missed. But, then again, I do drink a lot, so maybe they are a figment of my imagination, or I’m looking into the past through rose-tinted specs! But, things feel different today.

Nowadays, audiences chat, shout, shuffle, slurp and belch their way through the entirety of the film. In fact, in today’s climate, I don’t consider my cinematic experience truly complete until some intellectually deficient chav sears away my retinas as he types a text message into a mobile phone with a display light bright enough to power a solar panel. And woe betide those who even dare to question these people about their behaviour. A recent episode involved a teenager who, upon my polite request for silence, offered me a look of disgust akin to me offering him a freshly laid turd in a box. To say he wasn’t pleased would be an understatement.

So, who is to blame for this? God knows. And, frankly, I don’t care. I’m a critic not a social scientist, but I do know this: basic courtesy costs nothing, and usually leaves the recipient feeling better about both themselves and humanity in general! But, for those who don’t understand basic courtesy, here are a few rules that will enhance everybody’s day at “the pictures”:

1) Leave your conversation outside the auditorium. Your friend isn’t going anywhere, so whatever you need to tell them can wait a couple of hours. And if it can’t wait then whisper it. And to those fucktards who feel the need to explain every plot-point to their dimwitted chum/girlfriend/family member: Don’t! If they can’t follow a basic plot, and most Hollywood stuff is pretty basic, then they have no place in the cinema. Frankly, they might be better served by being placed in a small room, sat on a chair, and given a cup with a ball on a string to play with. So, please, just shut up!

2) Turn off your mobile phone. They are no longer status-symbols. They are just plain annoying. So are you for texting your friend in the middle of a darkened auditorium. You are a twat. Get out! Ditto cubed for those engaged in mobile phone conversation.

3) Eat with your mouth closed and stop rustling your snack bag. Major advances in table etiquette mean it is now possible to eat with your mouth closed, amazing but true. Eating with your mouth closed has two benefits: one, the sound of nachos being crushed between your molars is deadened, therefore reducing their ability to distract your fellow cinema-goers; two, eating with your mouth closed prevents your gnarly, nacho cheese ridden breath from stinking up the airspace of those around you.

By following these simple rules everybody can have a good time, unless, of course, they are watching “Van Helsing”. And if you don’t shut up, don’t be surprised to find a loud, stinking, drunken and homicidal hobo threatening your safety. You have been warned!

Where's Your Teeth? - Van Helsing: A Critique

2004-06-10T14:39:00.000+01:00

I am writing this review through tears of pain whilst pounding my liver and sensibilities into submission with copious quantities of wood alcohol, I guess returning to this reviewing malarkey is harder than I thought. My hope is to drink enough of the stuff to wipe all traces of Van Helsing from my brain. And if I drink too much, at least the pain will be over for good!

In recalling this debacle the minus points seem to divide and increase with a fervour matched only by Agent Smith. They. Are. Everywhere. Firstly, we have the world's first screenplay written directly from a Microsoft wizard: character's speak risible, trite dialogue that appears to have been pre-selected from a menu screen rather than written; scenes fall together in an order that suggests they were selected from a flow-diagram; and the characters appear to have been assembled from pre-loaded templates - Wisecracking Hero v2.1, Sassy Heroine v1.5 and Shite English Villain v3.4 - and appear to bear no resemblance to any human living or dead.

Secondly, we have acting that appears to have come direct from the bottom drawer. Lots of pretty people (and some ugly ones too) attempt comedy foreign accents and fail abysmally, and even Jackman - who is normally so reliable - fails to exert his presence upon the film. Then there's Richard Roxburgh, the poor man's Julian Sands, who has created arguably the worst Dracula in the entire history of cinema. This must be a proud moment for an actor who has already cornered the market as the worst Sherlock Holmes ever, for his wretched performance in the BBC's 'Hound of the Baskervilles' calamity. Imagine, if you will, a slightly gothier Laurence Llewellyn Bowen with a lighted roman candle shoved up his arse and you might get the picture. He alternates with aplomb between wince-inducing campness and eardrum bursting rage with nary a shade of grey inbetween. And his brides stink out the place with acting that would shame a pantomime production of Aladdin. Kate Beckinsale fares little better, saddled with a vowel-bending "Eastern European" twang and a wardrobe that suggests she stumbled dazed and confused out of Adam Ant's worst nightmare, but she looks pretty and does lots of backflips.

Stephen Sommers direction is another minus. His speciality is trash formula. Occasionally his formula works: Deep Rising and, to a lesser extent, The Mummy. Mostly, however, it fails. He throws lots of action at the screen, possibly to distract attention from the screenplay and the acting, but none of it sticks. People, and horses in one particularly naff sequence, leap through the air in a manner that suggests that Newton's theory of gravity might not be entirely understood by those good folk in Hollywood. CGI action sequence blends into CGI action sequence as characters generated entirely by computer (and badly at that) battle on the finest backdrops that an Apple Mac G5 can generate. When this is thrown into a mix that includes Dracula harnessing the power of the worst Frankenstein's monster ever created to produce little Drac-babies, a werewolf that mournfully howls at the moon upon the death of a major character, a wretched sub-Bond and Q dynamic between Van Helsing and his sidekick, and a major character becoming at one with the clouds (I kid you not), you know that you are getting a product rather than a film. A product designed by consensus that fails on all cinematic levels. Save your money for something better or - if you must waste your money - try to recreate the Van Helsing experience in your own home.

Firstly, take your money and burn it, then knock back a quart of hard liquor, and watch a PS2 intro sequence on continuous loop whilst listening to Slipknot at full volume. Believe me, its probably more fulfilling than paying to watch this garbage.

I pray the next film on the list is better than this tripe as my liver might be unable to cope...

The Beginning

2004-06-10T14:30:00.000+01:00

I remember that May morning as if it was only yesterday. There I lay, within the haze of my own crapulence, surrounded only by empty cans of hobo juice, morning dew and delirium tremens, shivering upon the sweet grass in a park on Benjamin Street, when something strange occurred. A tall man approached me, well he could have been three feet one but - considering the supine position I was in - he looked tall to me, and looked down upon me with pity. He asked me if I was happy. I stated that I'd had better days. He asked me if I was fulfilled? Considering the fact that my belly was full only with out-of-date hobo champagne I stated negative. He asked me what, had life dealt me a better hand, my dream career would be. I stated instantly, film critic. The tall gentleman smiled knowingly.

For that is what I once had been: a critic. Renowned for my love of fine films, fine women, and fine food and drink. The Raffles of the Reviewers was my nickname and the Seventies was my hunting ground, cutting a swathe through the last golden era of film, as classic after classic dropped out of the skies like manna from Heaven! For a while I thought it would last forever.

I was wrong. I hadn’t counted on the ‘80s!

Out went the risk takers, and in came the deal makers. And, boy, did their films suck! Overnight, audiences lost about 50 I.Q. points in addition to the development of attention spans that ran to seconds rather than minutes. After three or four years of reviewing garbage – and being too refined to say what I really thought - I began to seek solace in alcohol. From there I went on a long downward spiral and dropped out of society, and the world of the cinema, completely. And along my journey to a grassy bed in Farringdon I encountered a lot in life that made me bitter.

The gentleman knew all this. He felt I was ready to cut loose with my pen. After years of being flummoxed by reviewers with agendas different from his own, he wanted a reviewer to tell it like it is: praise to the heavens those in need of praise; and damn to the fiery pits of hell those in need of damnation. And to this end he had a deal for me, one that would give me my chance to review again.

Every week he will leave me cinema tickets in a locker. Once sobered sufficiently, I will collect the tickets, see the film, write the review and put it on Blog (via an account that he has set up specifically for me). Once online, the gentlemen will then place sweet hobo juice and money for food in the locker for me to collect. The proviso being that I don’t pull my punches.

I won’t. So here goes…