Uncategorized | The Cutprice Guignol

September 24, 2013

Movie Marathon #17: Sinister

Now, I write quite a lot. Hence, I enjoy movies and books about writers. True, most of the time they make the lot of us seem like a ragtag group of garrulous scum, but nonetheless, it’s always fun to see how various people produce their own interpretations of what the glamorous and brilliant lives of writers are actually like.

And that’s what eventually turned me onto the Scott Derickson flick Sinister. Following the tale of writer Ethan Hawke trying to write a follow-up to his hugely successful true-crime novel by shifting his family across the country to live in a house that was initially home to a grisly murder.

Personally, and judging by the conversations I’ve had with other people who write lot, there’s a similar experience most of us have had. At one time, you write something you’re inordinately proud of; an idea so brilliant, so well-articulated, so utterly perfect that you can simply never top it-but you’ll spend years trying to do exactly that. And that’s entirely what Sinister is based around.

There’s an incredibly well put-together scene in Sinister where Ethan Hawke first encounters real evidence of some majorly unsettling events taking place in his new home. His immediate reaction is to phone the police and, as he does so, he paces around his office, coming face-to-face with a stack of copies of his last book. He’s presented here with a choice; take his family and run like hell, or have one last grab at the fame, fortune and respect he always dreamed of as an author. And what does he choose? Like any writer, he dobs in safety and sanity to chase after one more hit. It’s brilliant; Hawke’s writer isn’t a terrible man, but he makes some awful choices based on what he thought would lead him to his Capote-level discovery.

Aside from that, I think it’s a generally solid horror film; unrelentingly tense, very disturbing, and completely compelling. It owes a huge and obvious debt to Stephen King-the rural setting, the family in peril, the author as a lead character-but that works in it’s favour rather than against, as the straightforward and classical stylings of the plot work to elevate it above overly complicated fear fodder like Insidious.

Overall, it’s a film I have particular affection for because I like the character it follows and the genuinely fear-inducing scary bits. It might not be the best horror film ever made, but compared to a lot of the dreck currently being churned out in the name of fear, it’s a very tight piece of cinema.

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September 22, 2013

Movie Marathon #15: Elysium (Guest Post)

I’d very much like to welcome a guest author for this post-the formidable talent of my father Steve, and his quite expressive reaction to Elysium which I received via email from Thailand this morning. You can find more of his bloody brilliant writing (well, I must get it from somewhere) here, here and here.

Saw Elysium last night. Also read your review. I agreed with most of it, but overall I think you were too kind. It was no more than a loose grouping of ideas stolen from a range of sources. Elysium was a straight copy of Citadel from the computer game Mass Effect (look at the screenshot – it’s so close I’m surprised no-one seems to have mentioned it). The look of the dystopian earth (and how bored I am with dystopian Earths!) is a straight lift from the second Mad Max film. The plot, if you can call it that, had all the depth and complexity of a teletubbies episode. With pathos added by the wheelbarrow-load just in case you didn’t get it – the little girl dying of leukemia who tells the parable of the meerkat and the hippo. I guess it was supposed to get you right in the heart, but it caused me only an involuntary spasm of the lower bowel.

And don’t get me started on a dying Earth, polluted and starved of resources, but where all the characters are plump and healthy looking (including the little girl in the terminal stages of cancer) with great teeth and men who clearly manage to spend several hours a day in the gym despite their poverty-stricken lives. And then there’s Sharlto Copley, notable only for the ability to flex his muscles and shout in a funny accent, who for no discernible reason dons an exoskeleton to fight Matt Damon (I mean, it’s not as if he was short of guns…) and then decides to make himself President of Elysium. And Jodie Foster, who’s death when it arrived meant nothing at all. And Matt Damon’s death, where we were bludgeoned with the terrible pathos of it all (“Tell her I understand about the hippo”) in a way that had me spluttering indignantly over my choc ice. And a plot so full of holes that it looked like a string vest (to take one minor example, Elysium has all this technology and wealth, and how do they defend themselves against attack? By depending on a renegade agent on Earth who has less than five minutes to nip out to a mysterious parked van and launch the requisite missiles. What if he’d been dropping a big one on the bog? Or his car wouldn’t start? Or he was watching something really, really good on TV and couldn’t be arsed? Wouldn’t it have been logical to build some sort of defense system on Elysium?).

I agree that Spider was probably the least crap character. But he was still a long way short of plausible or engaging.

Pah! What an utter waste of time, money and effort. For me and all the poor souls involved with making this dreck. It’s not often you’ll hear me say this, but I actually preferred Pacific Rim. At least it was cheerfully and unashamedly crap, and had a sort of childish exuberance that prevented me from lapsing into a coma.

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September 8, 2013

Movie Marathon #2: Pan’s Labyrinth

Now, I have an opinion about Pan’s Labyrinth. This won’t surprise you, as I have a fucking opinion about everything; only a few nights ago I had a balls-to-the-wall rant about urinary tract infections. But Pan’s Labyrinth, the Guillermo Del Toro fantasy romp set against the background of the Spanish revolution, is something I have a very strong opinion about.

I don’t really like it. And I want to; I really like Del Toro in general, especially the wonderfully creepy The Devil’s Backbone. I like films that use major historical events to tell smaller stories, and I love the kind of vaguely Grecian mythology that’s woven throughout the film. But I just-don’t-get it.

The film isn’t bad. It looks absoloutely stunning; visually, it’s a luscious film, whether it’s following an annoying little brat running around a maze (for some reason, I just can’t stand the little girl who is the focus of the film. It’s beyond the child-actor affect; she’s a fucking idiot) or watching a man sew his cheek up in brutally unflinching detail. But it feels unfocused; it wants to be a biting historical commentary, but it never really bothers to flesh out the relevant characters, with anyone involved with any kind of political intrigue essentially acting as a big cardboard cut-out with a smiley face and a funny mustache scrawled on them. The actors do their best, and manage to scratch out some genuinely affecting scenes from the messy script, but overall the film becomes lost in what it wants to be rather than what it can actually achieve. It is neither a brilliant historical drama or a magical fantasy movie; it is a reasonably average representation of both, mashed together with a big stick of fascism.

Del Toro himself said that Pan’s Labyrinth was the first film he’s ever had complete artistic control over; great for him, but for me it proved that the Peter-Jackson-alike is best when his genius is reigned in by someone to point the story and the characters in the right direction. Or just when he makes stuff like Pacific Rim. Which was incredible.

And yet Labyrinth is almost universally considered a genius piece of cinema. I’m not saying I’m right and the entire critical world is wrong. But then again, I’m not not saying that either. Ho hum.

Pan’s Labyrinth

Spectacle: 9
Script: 6
Acting: 7
Entertainment Value: 6
Influence: 8

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September 2, 2013

Anniversarial

(skip to the final paragraph for the interactive fun-time talky-talk blogosphere bonanza)

So, I realised this week that my humble blog, The Cutprice Guignol, will be reaching it’s anniversary very soon. When I started this blog, I had just begun university, was living away from home for the first time, and couldn’t legally drink. Now, I’m days away from entering a second-year journalism course, in my first flat, with a bottle of half-drunk rum in the cupboard above my oven. It’s been a year of whining, moaning, and bitching about Glee, and I’d like to take this opportunity to raise a glass of Merlot to everyone who has ever accidentally stumbled onto this blog. My commiserations to the one guy who searched for Karen Gillan Snuff Movie and ended up here; I can’t imagine your disappointment. You absolute freak.

And so I’ve decided to do something a little bit different for the next month. To celebrate the year of writing, I’m going to create a month-long movie marathon for all you movie buffs and idle cinema goers. For thirty days straight, I’m going to watch and review a variety of movies and post the results onto this blog. I’m going to try to mix up the genres (I would just do thirty days of horror, but I fear the dribbling, trembling mess that would result), but because I’m distressingly lazy and also because I like finding out about new movies, I’m opening the door to my head.

If you-yes, you- have any particular films you’d like to see reviewed-favorites, classics, something you can’t be bothered watching but want to say something pithy about at parties-just leave a comment on this post of any or the Movie Marathon debacle and I WILL review it, starting on the 7th September. So settle in, get some wine, amass your loved ones, and join me on a silver screen adventure while I go slowly mental with the strain of dealing with manafactured realities every day for a month. We’ll have a cracking time. Maybe.

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August 25, 2013

A Wanker’s Literary Reaction: The Bachelor

Well, it’s been far too damn long since I wrote something cynical. What can I say; it’s summertime, and I’ve spent the sun-washed months sleeping till noon, holding hands with kittens and wearing kooky skirts. But I’m back, bitche- kind readers and subscribers to my humble blog. And I watched The Bachelor.

Recently, I was pretty ill; miserably bedridden for a week or so. Bundled up in bed with nothing but my sociopathic roommate and my laptop for company, I naturally decided now was the time to start a new TV series. Nothing too taxing, you understand; I wanted trash. So I decided to watch The Bachelor. I’d heard plenty about it-a harmless, moderately amusing reality dating show where a bunch of false-nailed vixens cat-fought it out over a dim Ken doll. But, my God, it was so much worse than I could have ever imagined.

The show did more than simply encourage a bit of competitive dating; it actively encouraged a passive-agressively horrible storyline where scores of insecure women simultaneously dated what the show believed was the epitome of a “nice guy”. But this man was displaying high levels of affection to almost every woman he was thrust together with-the goal of the show is to find “The One”, at any rate. And, clearly, this televised polygamy ended in the horrendous spirit-crushing of pretty much every contestant, as the Bachelor convinces them all he wants to marry them and have twenty children in a field in Ohio. I found the whole thing genuinely disturbing.

And that brings me onto my main point-recently, dating, romance and love has been co-opted by reality TV. And that’s dangerous. People, by nature, are boring, rambling beings who generally need to be coaxed and prodded into making a good story. That’s slightly more acceptable when it’s, say, a high-stakes cookery show or home makeover programme, because the whole thing is already presented as a little ridiculous, a little unbelievable. But, in order to reel in the viewers, the creators of these shows need to convince their audience that this is all genuine, a true romance leading to endless happiness for all involved. Hint for even a moment that these emotions are manufactured for the sake of good television, and you’ve lost your main demographic-romantics.

This awful, fishbowl-style take on romance presents highly concentrated emotion and saccharine sweetness-the dates are ridiculous, the endless lingering shots of contestants canoodling in full view of the camera are awkward, the preposterously quick declarations of love are borderline hilarious. They present a skewed view of love in fast-forward, and, for the sort of people who already believe that this is genuinely reality TV, everything in real life is going to seem disappointing.
So, more or less, The Bachelor ruined my (love) life.

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May 16, 2013

The New Doctor

Well, it’s time. Me. I’ve decided to bloody sort out Stephen Moffat. Not in an Robert de Niro way, you understand; no, I’m going to help the wonderful bastard. Yes, I’m going to give you my well-considered and positively not a result of drinking seminal ideas about who should take on the mantle of Doctor Who.

1. Sue Perkins

Everyone’s favourite lesbian. It’s Doctor Who, not Doctor Him, and this eccentrically coiffed and comedically bespectacled British institution would be delightful at the helm of the Tardis. She’s got the manic energy of Matt Smith, and I reckon she could pull out the dark side if we needed-just really watch her make another somehow classy innuendo on The Great British Bake Off. You can see the thesp within. In this scenario, Sandi Toksvig would be the assistant, because I want to see them in an enclosed space together for a long time. It’s the closest thing Radio 4 will ever come to hardcore lesbian pornography.

2. Will Smith

Throw him a bone. He’s a solid actor, and something Doctor Who has been missing of late is the genuine cool factor-yes, Matt Smith gave us bumbling charm, David Tennant gave us goggle-eyed presence, Christopher Ecclestone gave us glowering angst-but genuine, all-out cool? Will Smith could pull that off. Go on. Give him some gravitas. You’d just have to keep reminding him the sonic screwdriver wasn’t his mind-wiping gadget from MIB.

3. Barry Lydon

He’s sarcastic, he’s horrifyingly intelligent, desperately funny and he’d bring something very, very new to the show. Have an old, tired, pissed-off Doctor, sick of the endless rotation of foreign planets and cheap whores (Catherine Tate excepted, because she’d probably gank me). I’d really love to see this happen, purely because it’s a pet theory and I’ve grown up with his brandy-swilling brand of warm cynicism for as long as I can remember. Do it.

4. Alan Davies

He can do the adorable puppy thing beautifully, but in Johnathan Creek he pulled out a very nice brand of thin-lipped humour which would make a perfect Doctor, but a new one. He’d could bring the bouncing-off-the-walls thing and the bang-on comic timing with ease, then go all Black Ops on their asses just as convincingly. And he’s fascinatingly, terrifyingly, somehow unfairly ageless. Clearly in this scenario, it’s a toss-up between Caroline Quentin and Stephen Fry as the assistant.

5. Stephen Moffat

Because anyone who gets involved in Doctor Who on any level secretly wants to be the Doctor. You’re fooling no-one, Moffat.

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April 26, 2013

A Dinner Party with Rob Zombie

I have a long-standing and constantly evolving list of fantasy dinner party guests. There are the obvious ones-Stephen Fry, Sandi Toksvig, Sue Perkins-and there are the pretty ones-Leigh Whannel, Shiloh Fernandez, Christopher Ecclestone (swoon)-and then there are the ones whose brains I’d take great pleasure in picking. These vary from day-to-day (the only constant is Stephen King) but one definite introduction to the table is Rob Zombie.

I know shag all about his music-don’t care, don’t want to-but his films are a different kettle of giblets. He directed the pointless but very good Halloween remake, as well as the House of 1000 Corpses/The Devil’s Rejects duo and his recent release Lords of Salem. Now, House of 1000 Corpses is a film which I can understand issue with-hardcore mega-schlock bordering on jet-black humour is a difficult one to sell, but I loved it (for anyone who has seen it-“BEHOLD! FISH-BOY!”). The balls-to-the-wall energy of Sheri-Moon Zombie, Bill Moseley, and Sid Haig sold it as the Chainsaw-Massacre-y Firefly family, and the greasy, sweaty aesthetic makes your toes curl. Then The Devil’s Rejects happened.

The Devil’s Rejects is one of my all-time top ten movies. It’s a gleeful subscription to every eighties exploitation flick you’ve ever seen and then some, carrying on the story of the brutal Firefly clan and their escape from the enroaching cops. It’s part road movie, part superviolent slasher, part police procedural, part revenge movie, with dialogue so sharp you could hunt deer with it and the sort of visuals Tarantino would piss himself for. The ending, too- no spoilers here, but suffice to say the ending flips the whole damn thing on it’s head and remains to this day one of the most kick-arse shootouts in movie history. Not for the faint-hearted but for those with sturdier cardiovascular systems it’s a riot.

I really loved Lords of Salem too, though I won’t say too much about it here-a much weightier role for the deliciously husky Sheri-Moon Zombie (Rob’s wife, by the way) but retaining the feeling of having dirt under your fingernails for the whole running time. I have watched every bloody, horrendous, twisted horror movie under the sun (well, the moon) and I can safely say that some scenes in Lords really got under my skin, and so I’d recommend it if only for that.

But what I adore about him most is that he represents a resurgence of dedicated horror film directors. No, not like Eli Roth, who desperately grabs at whatever bandwagon may be trundling by, or James Wan, who (Saw excluded) grabs at whatever bandwagon was trundling by in 1982, but people like Darren Lynn Bousman who nudge the boundaries of horror to test what we can do with the genre. We had a spate of them in the 70s and 80s- John Carpenter, Wes Craven, Sean S. Cunningham- and that set the tone for decades of slashers to come. Zombie is, along with a few other directors, making the films he wants to see, and the audience can either get on board or fuck the hell off. Will he start a horror revolution? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a damn good time of it keeping up with him while he tries.

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April 20, 2013

Doctor Who: Timeholes and Romantic Developments Involving Spirits

I love ghost stories. Oh, I bloody love ’em. I have never been as scared as I was reading Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come To You My Lad, the masterclass in tension by MR James. Something about ghosts freaks the bollocks off of me, and this week Doctor Who offered up its first proper ghost story in yonks in the form of Hide. And it was top.

Right off the bat, the episode set itself up as a classic, haunted-house story-the muted colour pallette, whirly-crackly ghosthunting equipment, the constantly flickering candlelight- a media student’s wet dream in terms of production. There’s a lot to be said for an ever-expanding Doctor Whoniverse, but if you are going to fall back on an old faithful, at least make it a good one. One that does not involve the Ood and instead involves a ghostbusting duo made up of a charmingly awkward Dougray Scott, a ballsily vulnerable Jessica Raine and a shoveload of crackling chemistry, for example. Chuck in a nice little reference to The Haunting of Hill House, and I’ve got a massive Who-on.

First and foremost, there’s a thumpingly good plot at the heart of this episode-the Doctor and Clara arrive at a creepy old mansion to aid a couple of supernatrual investigators in sorting out their witch problem (no, don’t worry, they haven’t brought back River Song). Of course there’s more of a sci-fi spin on it, but screw that: HAUNTED HOUSE!

But there’s a lot more going on; including a brilliant speech from Clara about the nature of the assistant in the show, the deeply enjoyable humanizing of the Tardis like a big, blue HAL, and the continuing questioning of the Doctor as the be-all, end-all hero. In the last few series, there have been various hints at the Doctor’s fallibility; it’s a brave choice for such an iconic leading man, but it’s one I like very much.

A few solid performances from guestars Scott and Raines cement and sell the story-did anyone else finally feel like they were looking at all the Doctor Who ships for the next four months every moment they shared the screen?- and a kick-arsingly creepy monster turns into teatime television at it’s best. Hide was a very, very good episode; advancing a few themes without letting it get in the way of the plot having a rollicking good time of it. Oooh, and you see next week? I got me the tingles I did.

But don’t think I didn’t notice how obviously you’re setting up Clara and the Doctor for a bit o’ romance later in the series, though-I’ll have you yet, Moffat.

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April 18, 2013

A Meaninglessly Mawkish Meander Through Must-See Movies

I like movies, lots. If I didn’t have things to do, I would just laze around marathoning David Fincher movies and drinking beer. And I’d love it. Here I have compiled a list of movies I think everyone’s life would be improved by seeing. Like every movie list ever made, it’s essentially pointless; a vile, opinionated snobfest of epic proportions that everyone else will violently disagree with. Long live film criticism.

1. Saw

This film has slowly worked it’s way into my life to the extent that I get physical withdrawal symptoms unless a watch it at least twice a month. I think it’s a perfect movie; it’s put together beautifully, a considered, dark, unsettling piece which is not even close to being the torture porn it’s often sold as. Hostel it ain’t; it’s far more like Se7en in that it’s as much a meditation on what it actually means to be “living” and what separates a good person from a bad one as it is a film about the machinations of an evil genius and his ever-widening collection of hilariously horrifying “traps”. Okay, it’s not for the totally feeble, but it’s a damn good film, with superb performances from Cary Ewles and Leigh Whannel. And just a brilliant soundtrack which you should use to spice up your day-to-day events against the clock.

2. Muppet Treasure Island

I distinctly remember, as a po-faced child, my Dad taking me to see this and having to take him aside and have a serious discussion about him definitely not being allowed to sing along to any of the songs in the cinema. Now, I’m the one being taken aside and told the same thing. For pure, total, unpretentious fun, there is simply nothing better than this rollicking voyage of tunes, treachery and treasure, featuring a disconcertingly handsome Tim Curry as Long John Silver. And it features some properly pumping choons, including the insanely good When You’re A Professorial Pirate, which I like to rewrite as an anthem for male prostitutes. Listen to it now and replace “pirate” with “rentboy”. It works. Also, this.

3. The Skin I Live In

Yes, I’m a hipster so massive I’m on the brink of turning into a self-aware black hole. But fuck it, I love me a bit of Pedro Almodovar (a very little bit-pretty much only four of his films are worth seeing, but how), and this bizarre body-horror-cum-soap-opera-drama is a mad, disturbing and brilliant little gem. Featuring a properly sinister Antonio Banderas and perhaps the grimmest rape scene of all time ever, it’s still peppered with spots of humour and Almodovar’s penchant for picking up on great female characters. It’s not a perfect film, but damn, you’ll see nothing like it this year and you’ll be haunted by the image of a man in a tiger suit having sex for weeks afterwards. Eurgh.

4. Little Miss Sunshine

Oh YES oh YES oh YES. This teeny little indie comedy follows a family as their daughter competes in the beauty pageant of the title. But it’s not about that; it’s about the failings and faults of every family member, from the hyper-sexed, heroin snorting grandfather portrayed by Alan Arkin to the gay, suicidal Proust scholar played by a superbly reserved Steve Carell. I love the clinky-clanky music, the way it elicits emotions without having to fire a nail gun of schmaltz into you, and the fact that’s it’s abso-bloody-loutly hilarious. Shout out to a baby-faced Paul Dano completely destroying the role of a voluntarily mute disengaged teenager, and also for being pretty.

5. Brick

I only saw it this year to get my Brownie badge for watching indie films, but hotdamn, I enjoyed it. Featuring an outrageously handsome Joseph Gordon-Levitt (whose name I always mispronounce as Goseph Jordon, which sounds like a prairie animal to me), this neo-noir teen crime sort-of romance thrillery thing is a strange little offering, but an interesting one. It transplants Dashiell Hammet into a high school, giving an aneamic Lucas Haas the role of the bizarely appealing villain and a collection of wonderfully suave femme fatales and mob thugs. Do it. Do it for me.

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April 11, 2013

The Great British Television Revival

Britain, eh? Just sitting there, in the middle of the sea, getting the craic. My home and native land. What may not strike you about this teeny little craggy island drifting about like a philosophy student is that it’s television has suddenly become….well, very British.

You can’t click on anything on BBC iPlayer just now without being faced with some gurning “quintessentially British” personality or other fronting another show prefixed with “THE GREAT BRITISH” *insert seemingly arbitary activity here*. The Great British Bake-Off. Great British Railway Journeys. The Great British Sewing Bee, for Christ’s sake. Victoria Wood, grandmother of all British female comedians, can currently be found peering coyly out from the front page of iPlayer presenting a show about tea. The final of The Great British Bake-Off last season was watched by 6,743,000 people-just to put that in perspective, more people tuned in to watch Paul Hollywood make accidental double entendres about buns than live in the country of my birth. That’s mad, but also kind of understandable; I’d rather watch people baking than live in Orkney. It’s not just over here, either- Doctor Who, the gleaming jewel in the crown of the BBC’s schedule that’s celebrating it’s fiftieth anniversary this year, has been regularly broadcast in 48 countries-that’s means pretty much one in four countries in the entire world enjoying the exploits of a space cowboy with a light-up dildo.

So what’s brought this on? Well, we’ve got the obvious patriotic nonsense that’s we’ve been fish-slapped with over the last year-the Olympics, the Jubilee, the impending birth of a royal sprog. The whole year has been spent trying really, really hard not to talk about the Good Old Days-Christ, I’m surprised the Spice Girls weren’t strapped to a taxi emblazoned with “THE SUN NEVER SETS ON THE GREAT BRITISH EMPIRE”. As a nation, the BBC wants to think that we’re shakily saluting the flag with our eyes glistening with tears, and it’s reflected in their dredging up of every British insitution-cookery, industry, Stephen Fry- while we still care. And you know what? I’m alright with it.

Bloody hell. Anyway, next time: lols.

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