The Cutprice Guignol

The Ninth Year: The Haunting of Swill House
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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September 10, 2013

Movie Marathon #4: Withnail & I

How many of you, after watching Withnail & I for the first time, decided to model your life on Withnail? Started swaggering around in a big coat, drinking questionable substances and quoting Shakespeare in the park? Hands up. Right, fuck you all. You’re the reason I can never love this film as much as I should. Because it created scores of establishment-bending wankers trying to emulate Richard E. Grant playing one of the most interminably terrible cunts in silver-screen history.

And it is a brilliant film; dawdling around with pseudo-philosophical bullshit, reveling in the beauty of the English countryside, and constantly spouting eminently quotable lines. Very little happens to shake the earth, and that’s the beauty of the piece; Paul Mcgann’s guileless but neurotically endearing actor brings a wide-eyed innocence to the otherwise very black-hearted little movie. Richard Griffiths (may he rest in peace) is simply fantastic as Uncle Monty, one of the most watching-through-your-fingers lecherous poshos I’ve ever clapped eyes on. And the film is utterly British, in general-with coffee shops, pubs, Shakespeare and the muddy countryside, it smacks of a knowing but ultimately affectionate pat on the head to all the awesome and awful corners of British culture.

But yet. The constant imitation of Withnail is a testament to the sheer comedic force Grant brings to the role; he’s briliant. Shamelessly cowardly, pathetic, dependent, arrogant and pretentious, he represents the one of most toe-curlingly unbearable characters even created, and he delivers every line with a tongue-rolling aplomb that’s simply irrepeatable.

IRREPEATABLE. Get it? Withnail is a vile, vile man; deeply entertaining for a two-hour on-screen dalliance, but no-one you’d really want to have around for any lengthy period of time. He’s a child with delusions of adulthood; a grimly awful man who you’d simply tire of in the real world. So, to everyone who’s toying with that extra-long coat and furniture polish: chin-chin, motherfuckers. Chin-chin.

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September 9, 2013

Movie Marathon #3: A Nightmare on Elm Street

I like classic horror movies. I like movies starring Johnny Depp before he only played one character. I like Robert Englund running around with a spiky glove of death terrorizing sexy youths while they sleep.

No, I’m not suddenly going to turn around and admit to hating another seminal film-I love Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s absolutely, utterly, wonderfully absurd; one of the first movies to employ properly hilarious and creative methods of violent death, in the form of the supernatural kiddie fiddler Freddie Krueger.

The first of the Big Three of Horror I’ll be reviewing over the next thirty days (Halloween, Friday the 13th and Elm Street), Wes Craven’s creepy little horror comes up it around a bit, threw in a pointlessly alcoholic mother, some soft-core sex scenes, and tried to work out what they couagainst one major barrier; the film itself is pretty awful. Now, shut up and let me explain; Wes Craven is a cracking director, and his skill at shooting a gorgeous, claustrophobic chiller is evident even in this, which was one of his earliest movies. But Christ.

It’s clear from the complete lack of skilled actors that the budget went on making this a gory, scary slasher; the idea behind it is fantastic, and the film pretty much relies on the strength of the concept and Englund’s cackle (“DON’T RUN IN THE HELL-WAYS!”). The rest of the acting is pretty shockingly terrible; I know time makes fools of us all, but Elm Street looks beyond dated; it looks like someone took dated, then bashed it wround a bit, threw in an alcoholic mother, some soft-core sex scenes and then worked out what would stick to the wall with a litre of pigs blood. The writing revels in the limitations of the youthful, glassy-eyed leads, and Wes never forgets what he’s trying to do: create a new, violent, scary but ultimately entertaining movie. He’s working from his weird, pretty unmarketable idea in a genre that wasn’t really respected at the time-the peripheries, such as acting, script, characterization, etc, weren’t as important or fun as drowning Johnny Depp in a backwards waterfall of blood. All hail Wes.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Spectacle: 7
Acting: 5
Script: 6
Entertainment Value: 9
Influence: 9

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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 7, 2013

Movie Marathon #1: Muppet Treasure Island

It was only this week that I watched Muppet Treasure Island for the eighth time this year. There’s something deeply comforting about that movie; I don’t know if it’s Tim Curry, a bear with a man living in his thumb, or Billy Connolly exclaiming “RUM TILL I FLOAT!”, but there’s something distinctly adult about this kid’s movie.

It’s peppered with meta nods to a more mature audience; clever little asides that stop the whole thing turning into a kiddie-centric retelling of a classic novel. More importantly, though, it’s fucking entertaining; I watched the show with my good buddie , and we could both unashamedly chant along with at least three quarters of the dialogue and every single one of the songs. I have no idea how anything that I know that comprehensively and with that level of constancy could still entertain me, but it does. Maybe it’s because I have a relationship with Muppet Treasure Island that outweighs most of my major romantic couplings, but there’s something warm and fuzzy about crawling back into that womb of childish glee at seeing Kermit in a funny coat. It’s also heartwarming to see how these big-name stars always just avoid the trap of being out-acted by a puppet, while maintaining a ridiculous amount of chemistry and camaraderie with these mechanical teddies voiced by Frank Oz

I will stand by my belief that anyone who doesn’t know the words to at least one song from Muppet Treasure Island is inherently not worth knowing; anyone who can’t understand the appeal of a movie which is guileless and cheekily self-aware in equal measure, a movie which truly immortalized some lesser-known pirate book from, like, forever ago, and a movie with some of the coolest action scenes in history. Do it. Do it now. Preferably while drunk.

Muppet Treasure Island

Spectacle: 8
Script: 10
Entertainment Value: 10
Acting: 9
Influence: 7

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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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