The Cutprice Guignol

The Ninth Year: The Haunting of Swill House
September 20, 2013

Movie Marathon #14: Sideways

Sideways is one of those movies I’m almost pre-programmed to love. An cynical comedy (check) starring Paul Giamatti (Check) as a struggling writer (check) who goes on a wine tour (check) to celebrate his best friend’s upcoming nuptials. But I saw it before any of those things really meant anything to me-in my pre-film-buff, pre-alcohol, pre-writing days. I didn’t even know who Alexander Payne was, for the love of God.

But I still thought it was a beautiful movie. A small, ultimatley sad little film, it features some bloody good performances from the lead four (Daniel Hayden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh and the aforementioned Giamatti), and makes the most of the beautiful backdrop of the wine country. It also steers mostly clear of heavy wine talk or too much in-depth angsty author rubbish, so don’t keep using those as an excuse.

I think the reason Sideways ranks among my favourite films is because it takes such a different look at romance and love- for what boils down to a slightly puffed-up romantic comedy, it’s got a hell of a lot to say about various different kinds of relationships; friendship, engagement, marriage, divorce, affairs, romance. The central friendship between Giamatti’s depressive author and Church’s washed-up screen star is the driving force behind the film, and the way their respective relationships develop with their two lady friends says a lot about each character. For Church, what was meant to be a final fling before a life of married bliss turns into something uncomfortably genuine; for Giamatti, it’s all about nervously trying to navigate the minefield of romance after his divorce and general faliure.

The film pulls no punches with a wearily honourable ending, with both men basically attending to their responsibilities and facing an uncertain, probably rocky, future. Despite this, it holds a certain sense of optimism for both characters, refusing to consign them to the theoretical skip just yet; things might be difficult and pretty set-in-stone for now, but quote some Bukowski and everything’ll look a little brighter. If those aren’t words to live be, I may as well just end it now.

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September 19, 2013

Movie Marathon #13: Rush

So, I went to the cinema last night with some friends. I’m trying not to make that sound sarcastic because I know at least one them will be reading this, and he knows where I live, and he’s a big bastard. But, believe it or not, I managed to rustle up some popcorn and the motivation to walk thirty paces to the cinema and went to see Rush, the new Ron Howard racing epic starring Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt and Daniel Bruhl as Nicki Lauda.

I find the general tale of Hunt and Luader pretty fascinating to begin with -one of those “you-couldn’t-make-it-up” real-life stories that seems like it only happened in the first place so someone could make a film out of it. And, in the hands of the sterling Ron Howard, it genuinley looked like it was going to be the perfect mix of Oscar-bait and actual entertainment.

And….it was. Sort of. A bit. I was discussing the film later with a friend and we both agreed that, although the film had been a very competent bit of cinema, it also wasn’t much more than that. Aside from the beautfiul cinematography and race sequences, everything remained decidedly average, decidedly first-draft-y. Chris Hemsworth made a fine James Hunt (whose name sounds almost incorruptibly like a rhyming slang), and there were lots of appropriatley gorgeous women wandering about in the pits, but the film suffered from it’s own story from the second act onwards.

Nicki Lauda was involved in a truly horrific crash in the 1976 German Grand Prix, where his car rolled into an embankment and burst into flames. Lauda was trapped in the burning car for over a minute until fellow drivers worked together to pull him out of the scorched wreckage of his ferrari, during which time his modified helmet had slipped off, leaving his face pretty much fully exposed to the flames. The crash left him in hospital for over a month, with many assuming he would never race again, if he lived at all. He did survive and did race again, but was the crash claimed his left ear, a large part of the skin on his face and most of his hair.

Several things struck me about the way this accident was handled in the film. For one, it was a brilliant bit of filmmaking. The crash (and Lauda’s recovery) were pretty harrowing to watch, even for those who wouldn’t call themselves petrolheads, and Daniel Bruhl did a great job with Lauda’s sheer force of will and almost dangerous ambition. But that crash was pretty much the climax of the film-and it came two-thirds of the way in. After we’d seen Lauda’s triumphant return to the field, etc, etc, and James Hunt claiming victory in the 1976 World Championships, it felt like Howard was just presenting us with an extended “happily-ever-after” sequence. Trapped by the boundaries of real life, he was left with trying to gum together some kind of closure through Bruhl’s forced narration and Hemsworth bouncing onto a private jet full of sexy ladies. And when your epilogue takes up that much of your film, you have to wonder whether the rest of it was worth watching in the first place.

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September 18, 2013

Movie Marathon #12: Death Note

Continuing the theme of nicking every aspect of my interests and personality from anyone around, I was introduced to Death Note by my older brother when I was around fourtten. He passed me down the manga when I spent about ten minutes staring at him blankly while I tried to work out why he was reading a book backwards, and I devoured them in a ridiculously short amount of time. I will stand by ther Death Note books as a work of true genius; a ridiculously overwrought, convoluted story that only stops being fustrating after you’ve put down the last book. The art is beautiful, the ideas mind-bending, and the characters ridiculously compelling. With that source material, really-really-how badly could they fuck up the films?

Well, a lot. Seriously. Coming at the films with less an open mind than one that was an endless plane in every direction, I wanted it to be superb, and it was barely passable. You’d think that a manga (and anime) with such heavy influence and general, all-over popularity would have been able to garner, say, some people who could genuinley act. Starring Tatsuya Fujiwara (the lead in the equally dissapointing Battle Royale) as Light Yagami, the sociopathic student who ends up with Godlike powers after discovering the notebook of a Shinigami (God of death), and a perfectly-cast Kenichi Matsuyama as the mysterious and emotion-free detective L who’s constantly one step away from busting Light.

The story’s great but it’s been mangled almost beyond repair in the pair of movies, dobbing in Light’s brilliantly evil character for a matyred young man just trying to put the world to rights. Adapting a twelve-book series into a pair of relatvely short movies was always going to be a mountainous challenge, especially with a fanbase as dedicated as Death Note’s. But it’s not just that they’ve screwed up the plot.

Both films can relax in the knowledge that they have a solid, pretty huge fanbase for their creation, however brilliant or terrible the movies might be, and everything about them-the casting, the direction, the writing- smacks of this. It’s lazy. When you don’t have to fight to get yourself recognised, there’s always the temptation to just sit back on what you already have and point the camera at a couple of teenagers pouting at each other over a table.

Disclaimer: Kenichi Matsuyama is one of the most singularly beautiful men I’ve ever seen in my entire life and I would happily rub my head on his chest for days at a time.

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September 17, 2013

Movie Marathon #11: The Dark Knight

Well, it’s come to this: another thoughtless rehashing of the final role of the hugely lamented Heath Ledger. Appearing here in what is essentially the definitive representation of The Joker (save for maybe Mark Hamill’s work on Batman: The Animated Series), Ledger did himself spectacularly proud with his swan song. A deranged, unhinged, terrifying performance in which Heath inhabits the role of this psychotic villain, it rightly garnered an Oscar win and gallons of critical praise, acting as a tragic marker for just how far this exceptional actor could have gone.

But. I watched the second installment in the Nolan’s trilogy recently, and it struck me how questionable the film is a whole. I’m not one of those Christian Bale haters who seem to loath the very talented actor on principal; I think he makes a grand old Batman, as well as being a swoonsomely suave Bruce Wayne. And he brings a bit of subtle humour to the role, a hint of tongue in cheek wit that elevates this Batman tenfold. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Aaron Eckhart also do solidly well, prancing around in the B-stories of the movie’s outskirts with glee (even though they talk almost entirely in exposition). I also developed a powerful crush on Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon in this segment, but that’s neither here nor there.

But this film is always going to be overshadowed the fact that it features the final, almost portentous performance from one of the best actors I’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. A powerhouse, hypnotic role that almost feels unfair in how good it is; it’s not right that we lost Heath Ledger as he was cresting the wave of what promised to be a fantastic career. This film, however entertaining and absorbing it might be, will forever stand as a morbid momento of what might have been.

Also, do you think Heath ever brought up the fact he filmed a gay sex scene with Maggie Gyllenhaal’s brother? I sincerely, truly hope so. For Heath’s sake.

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September 16, 2013

Movie Marathon #10: Brazil

My earliest memory of Brazil-indeed, of any film, come to think of it-was growing up with a huge Brazil poster dangling above the stairs next to my room. I loved the wierd imagery; a great winged figure rising from a set of drawers in some existential office block, framed with the neon pink script declaring the movie’s title. It’s one of my dad’s favourite movies, and one that I received on the understanding I would watch it immediately the day I turned fifteen. It’s one of those wierd films that I was aware of in intimate detail before I’d even seen a snippet of it; so often a disappointment, but not in the case of this dystopian Gilliam masterpiece.

Brazil is one of the few films whose appeal I’ll admit is limited; it’s a deliberately wierd, passionately contrived, extremely dark sci-fi comedy set in an unnamed period of time that draws heavily from Orwell’s 1984 for themes and imagery. I know how awful that makes it sound, but none of that ever takes over Gilliam’s bonkers imagery and cunningly crafted story. Like Wes Anderson, I usually think Terry Gilliam’s makes interesting movies as opposed to perfect ones; somehow, he drew together the perfect cast-including an utterly fantastic Michael Palin as a professional torturer-and one of the most brilliantly depressing/life-affirming endings I’ve ever seen.

Much has to be said for the sheer creativity poured into Brazil; it would make no sense to spew it all up here, but when you do watch the film (and you will), the devil’s in the details. It’s like being squirted by a joke flower on the lapel of the Thought Police. I also developed a huge crush on Johnathan Pryce over the course of the film, portraying a beaten-down office drone who becomes a superhero in his dreams. Ridiculous? Almost as much as Jim Broadbent playing a questionable plastic surgeon. But fuck it: this is a film that defined my experience as an avid audience member because it was so unaplogetically ridiculous on every level. But that didn’t stop it being one of the most resonant, touching and consistently entertaining movies in existence. All hail Gilliam, except when he’s making yer Imaginarium shite.

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September 14, 2013

Movie Marathon #8: The Mummy

Now, I believe there to be a real dearth in the world of family horror films. You know what I mean-the type that terrify the kids into silence while the grown-ups can drink wine and enjoy the general rollick and fun of a good story. Babysitting movies, essentially.

The Mummy is a perfect example of that; fun, light, exciting, entertaining and properly scary in places. I saw it when I was twelve and incredibly impressionable, and I was shit-scared by it. It didn’t help that my father spent the rest of that evening chanting “Ih-mo-thep..” whenever I was in a room by myself, but frankly that’s just good parenting. I needed toughening up.

It’s also a wonderful throwback to the Hammer Horror films of the sixties; all glamorous women, handsome heroes and bumbling sidekicks. It’s difficult to balance homage with making a solid film of your own, but here it works; there’s just enough tongue placed firmly in cheek for the movie to pull it’s own style out of film history. It’s also greatly blessed by a cast who look like they’re having the best time ever, especially the eccentric English collector played by a gurning, goggling, gaping John Hannah. And Rachel Weisz as the sexiest librarian known to mankind. Which certainly helps.

It’s properly scary, too; from the opening scene of live mummification to the slowly-regenerating ancient killer mummy running around Egypt waging war with a wannabe Liam Neeson on a horse, it doesn’t skimp on getting in some really traumatic scenes for the kids. And therein lies it’s allure-when you’re a kid, you secretly hunt out the scary stuff, the stuff you shouldn’t really be watching. I still think that one of the reasons I have such a passion for horror movies is that feeling of crawling into the comforting womb of Something You Shouldn’t Be Doing, and The Mummy balances the fun adventure story with the nasty, violent horror side with panache. It’s a brilliant way for kids to get into the scary side of cinema without staying up late and ending up wide-eyed with terror-fueled insomnia after over-indulging on some blood-soaked frames of film. And anything that gets kids into horror is something I love. Saves me the bother.

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September 14, 2013

Movie Marathon #9: The Bling Ring

The Bling Ring marks Sofia Coppola’s fifth venture into feature film territory, her first since the 2010 drama Somewhere. Starring Emma Watson, Katie Chang and Taissa Farmiga as members of the titular crime gang, the film draws from the true story of a privileged group of teenagers in California who routinely burgled celebrities to collect trophies and trinkets from their homes-victims included Paris Hilton and Orlando Bloom, with some scenes shot inside Hilton’s own residence.

The film is filled with Coppola’s trademark ennui-the beautiful cinematography is chock-full of long, languid shots, and that very specific sense of disaffection and mild, middle-class dissatisfaction. Coppola’s ability to capture the frustration and discontent of beautiful young women-as she displayed in her first feature, The Virgin Suicides, and later in Lost in Translation-is brought to the forefront in a very different way in The Bling Ring, with a bunch of pretty young things and their social restlessness captured to a tee. One of Coppola’s key skills is her ability to remove herself from the action, acting only as a passive observer to the increasingly mad events taking place around her-she refuses at any point to become involved in the world of the girls or their high-profile victims. Instead, she focuses on what has driven these privileged young women, on the cusp of adulthood, to steal pointless knick-knacks from their idols; less a physical or psychological need to burgle, but rather for the pseudo-fame that came from the news coverage and social interest in the case.

Kudos has to go to the actresses who inhabit the challenging roles with ease. Finding young actresses who can convincingly portray, well, anything, really, is a challenge, but Coppola hit the jackpot with the lead five. Emma Watson, in the process of throwing of the shackles of her rise to fame through Harry Potter, rightly received buckets of critical praise for her performance as the leader of the group.

However, perhaps too much emphasis was put on her character at the expense of any sort of reasonable characterisation of the other four girls, as they begin to meld together with little defining characteristics. That said, this is a film about teenagers occupying the height of vapidity; the blank stares, mundane dialogue and overwhelming sense of senselessness, though sometimes seeming put in place just to emphasise how crushingly shallow these women are, are required to truly put across how crushingly shallow these women really, truly, and utterly are.

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September 13, 2013

Movie Marathon #7: Talk to Her

Pedro Almodovar makes patchy, patchy films. Volver? Genius. Atame!? Pish. The Skin I Live In? Visionary. Bad Education? Bleh. And so on. Pretty much, when he’s on, he’s on with fireworks blowing out his arse and steam coming out of his ears, and when he’s off he makes soap operas with actresses who should be doing far better things.

Luckily for me, Talk to Her is an excellent movie; flawed, yes, but driven by two excellent central performances. Tracking the relationship between the male nurse of a coma patient and the boyfriend of another patient in the same hospital, it takes on a variety of typically huge themes; sexuality, love, rape, obession, men climbing up inside giant metaphorical vaginas-your usual Almodovarian affair. But what sets it apart, at least for me, is the quiter nature of the film- although it features some ridiculous sequences and powerful scenes, it eschews his usual shrieky stlye of direction to create a mournful, very modern tragedy.

The real kudos must go to Javier Camara for his performance as Beningo, the male nurse who looks after a young female dancer stricken into a coma. He’s an awful man, in so many ways, but he’s also an innocent; there’s only a small part of him that is aware what he’s doing is inherently wrong, and he is consistently misled by emotions only he truly believes he has. He’s ambiguos and interesting, and that’s more than can be said for most of Almodovar’s straight-down-the-line creation.

The developing relationship with the gorgeous Dario Grandinetti, who winds up meeting Beningo after his girlfriend, a bullfighter, winds up in a coma after a fight turns nasty, is also beautifully handled. Grandinetti’s Marco is reiticient and as weak as Beningo in his own ways, but gradually comes round to feel sympathy and to even care for the horribly misguided nurse. It’s an odd Almodovar film in that it doesn’t focus on the women in the story-for most of the film, the key female players are in comas- but rather on the way that, even when they are not physically or mentally present, these strong, ambitious women have an untold influence over both these men’s lives.

Christ, that was pretentious.

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September 12, 2013

Movie Marathon #6: District 9

Recently, I went to see Elysium. Unfortunatley, I can’t review it here as I already did so for one of the sites that pays me to write for them here, so I’ll have to bloody well satisfy myself with Neil Blomkamp’s electric debut, Distric 9.

Now, I LOVE sci-fi movies; I love movies in general, granted, but boy-oh-boy-oh I love me some sci-fi. From the momen my dad handed me my first book of Philip K. Dick short stories to the first time I saw Alien, I’ve been fascinated by how people view the future. As I got older, I became a little disenchated with the super high-tech, glossy version of days to come, and found myself leaning more toward a Bladerunner-style grottiness; I loved writers and directors who created their future as a kind of nasty, dirty, unpleasant world of shuderring awfulness. But that’s because I’m wierd.

I thought I’d seen every variation there was to be seen on this idea. That’s why it took me so damn long to get around to District 9; an unknwon actor, a big action move, some aliens, the future’s shite, etc. Yeah, yeah. But, one day (the very day my brother left for university, bizarrely, though this is neither here nor there), I was slouching around the house with nothing to do and decided to watch it.

And it’s brilliant. Truly, mandly, wonderfully brilliant. First off, you’ve got that intriguing premise- when aliens DO get to us, we bung them in a ghetto in Johnanesburg and try to keep them off our streets and give them derogatory nicknames (yeah, so, Blomkamp hadn’t quite got his head around the idea of “subtext” yet). Then throw in the documentary format of following Wikus- a propely stunning big-time debut from Sharlto Copley (whose name I didn’t know for so long I began to refer to him as “Wikus” in my head)- a government offical, as he begins the process of moving the “prawns” to a larger, safer commune far and away from any human contact. It’s a sympathetic film; warm, intelligent, with smatterings of humour throughout that show Blomkamp doesn’t quite take himself too seriously. It’s emotional without being cloying; exciting without going overboard, and creative without trying to smack us in the face with a big stick that says “LOOK HOW FUCKING TALENTED I AM! DICKS!”.

Copley is the real human heart of the film (excuse the pun-ishment), an innocent, slightly dim guy who ends up working against the Collusus of the media manipulation of the events surrounding his exploits, while simulateneously fighting for his life and his right to carry on living the way he was used to. It’s a great role for a kind-of debut; almost Shakesperean in it’s tragedy, while also maintaining some of Wikus’ humanity and flawed, naive nature. Copley rips it to shreds. Pun not intended but enjoyed.

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September 11, 2013

Movie Marathon #5: Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl

I’m a big Johnny Depp apologist. I love him in a few films- Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood-like him in a couple more-Sweeney Todd, Edward Sisscorhands-and hate him in more than I could comfortably count on all my appendages. Dark Shadows, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Alice in Wonderland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Finding Neverland, and so on. And it doesn’t help that he manages to come across as a washed-up reject from the world of Bohemia, with interviews like painting him as the worst kind of unnecessarily adored, pointedly laid-back bastard. Which I’m sure is at least something of a collective misinterpretation.

But I will stand by his rightfully Oscar-nominated performance as Captain Jack Sparrow in the glorious adventure romp, Curse of the Black Pearl. It truly transcends simple prancing around on-screen-within that first, glorious introduction of Jack pitifully attempting to salvage a sinking ship, you’ve forgotten that you’re watching an actor trying to convince you of his validity-and bear in mind that actor is Johnny In-Depp-titude (look, I fucking tried)-and you’re drawn in by the charismatic piraate who redefines the word “swagger”.

Luckily, the film manages not to rely on Depp’s staggeringly good (literally and metaphorically) performance. Director Gore Verbinski weaves together a thrilling family adventure romp that nails the pacing (a tricky one for a child and adult orientated movie), relating a complicated and lengty ploy without ever dropping pace. Add to that some cracking action sequences-the budget was blown in the right place- and you’ve already created a movie I’d be happy to sit through. He even manages to coax some perfectly passable performances from wooden-as-a-stick eye-candy Kiera Knightely and Orlando Bloom as the star-crossed lovers at the story’s heart.

Verbinski is spoiled for choice with his supporting cast-the gleefully dastardly Geoffrey Rush, a rare American silver-screen appearence for Mackenzie Crook, the luscious Zoe Saldana and the criminally underused Johnathan Pryce (whose masterpiece Brazil I’ll be investigating at some point). But he doesn’t neglect them; rather weaving them into this gorgeous world of pirate zombies, boat chases and acursed gold. A beautiful, unreserved bit of entertainment from the Oscar-winning director of The Lone Ranger. If that sentence doesn’t cause reality to combust.

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