Small Time (1996) - Shane Meadows

From little acorns…

After years of knocking together short films, Shane Meadows secured enough funding to make the huge leap into feature film territory with Small Time. As debuts go it’s not the strongest I’ve ever seen, but with hindsight it’s easy to pick out more than enough of Meadows’ tropes to make this well worth a look. What little story there is revolves around a group of ne'er-do-wells in a suburb of Nottingham, who basically steal, drink and smoke themselves through life. Meadows plays Jumbo, the gang’s leader and hard man. Once you get used to the comedy wig (which must have helped massively with continuity) you'll find that he’s not too bad as an actor. His next door neighbour and fellow gang member is Malc (Mat Hand), who’s under pressure from his girlfriend Kate (Dena Smiles) to ditch Jumbo and move on with his life.

For the most part it all works well, the acting is a bit all over the place at times but the dialogue has a crackle to it that makes up for any actorly shortcomings. With a budget of just £5,000, it’s not that surprising to find that it’s not the most beautiful film you’ll ever see either. However Meadows works at his best when on a tight budget, and manages to turn this to his advantage. It’s all location, no sets, and hand held rather than dolly shots, all of which inject some life into the film. Just look at the scene towards the end of two robbers running away from a botched heist. It's lifted wholesale from Reservoir Dogs, a film that seems to have had a hold on Meadow's around this time - his short Where's The Money, Ronnie? being hugely influenced by it too. It's the most exciting scene in the film and has a real kinetic energy to it. As does the hilarious car boot sale montage, where our heroes distract stall owners just long enough to swipe anything they can get their mitts on.

Small Time’s biggest flaw is the balance between it's comedy and violence. Jumbo knocks his girlfriend Ruby (Gena Kawecka) about, but this is never really addressed as much as just accepted. There’s a running gag about Ruby using a vibrator that falls a bit flat, but it’s after one of these scenes that Jumbo lays into her. Meadows doesn’t give the audience time to adjust to the sudden switch in tone, and it becomes a bit of a mess. Within three years though he would nail this particular idea with A Room for Romeo Brass, which successfully managed to shift from comedy to domestic horror without any warning to great effect.

The core idea running through Small Time is the influence that violent people can have over others. It’s a theme that runs through most of Shane Meadows’ filmography. It’s there in A Room for Romeo Brass, Dead Man’s Shoes and more recently This is England. Another constant in his work is Gavin Clarke’s music which is all present and correct here. Pretty much all of the above crop up again and again in Meadows’ work, the Nottingham setting, the working class characters, the music, the humour, the hand held camera work - it’s all there in abundance in every film he makes. Over the years he has refined all this and managed to make it his own thing. Almost twenty years later Shane Meadows has become the closest thing we have as a successor to Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Alan Clarke. Now who would have thought that when watching this all those years ago?

The Evil Dead (1981) - Sam Raimi

Five ‘kids’ spend a weekend at some manky old cabin in the middle of nowhere. After finding a book bound in human flesh and listening to a tape recording of some old fossil going on about bygone civilizations, evil and chanting in some ancient made up language, everything goes tits up. The woods come alive and so does the film. From that point on we get a healthy dose of low budget gore, more rubber puppets than your average episode of Spitting Image and best of all Sam Raimi’s amazing eye for camera set ups.

I was around 14 years old the first time I ever watched The Evil Dead. It had long been deemed far too nasty for the great British public to watch. So like pretty much everyone else my age, my introduction came via a fairly decent VHS pirate copy. I remember being really excited to finally be getting to see one of the school playground’s most talked about films. Me and John Jackson (who had procured said VHS from God alone knows where), had bunked off school for the day and holed ourselves up in my front room. The curtains were pulled tight, not just keep he sun off of the TV screen, but also just in case a passing neighbour should happen to witness the naughtiness and buckets of gore that were about to explode off the screen.

Eighty minutes later and it was all over. It wasn’t quite as great as I’d hoped it would be. We made some toast and watched it again. It was alright, but not really all that scary. Not like American Werewolf in London or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, both of which still made the dash from the light switch to my bed the most frightening five seconds of my day. We watched it a third time that day knowing that we might never get to see it again. We laughed quite a lot third time around, but there wasn’t really anything that made me want to check under my bed before turning in for the night.

Over twenty years later I can’t say how many times I’ve seen The Evil Dead. It’s been quite a few though. Yet I would never claim to be a huge fan of the film, maybe that’s because I have friends that have Book of the Dead tattoos and all that sort of thing. Still every few years it ends up being thrown into the DVD player. And every few years I end up feeling the same way I did all that time ago when I first watched it.

The big problems for me stem mainly from the fact that it doesn’t scare me at all. Not in the slightest. Then there’s the fact that it looks cheap, really cheap, which of course it was. Haircuts change, continuity doesn’t appear to exist and the acting is pretty ropey. There’s no real attempt at any character development or backstory either. It’s a simple set up, and you get what you get. Raimi never let the lack of budget get in the way of his vision though and I feel torn between applauding him for managing to do so much with so little, and also wishing that maybe he could have dialed it back a little. Maybe have creatures lurking in the shadows instead of totally visible all the time, since when you see a rubber head being bashed with an axe, it just looks like a rubber head being bashed with an axe. The claymation sequence at the end of the film is on the one hand Raimi pushing himself further than any first time director ever should. On the other hand though it looks woeful, goes on way too long and should probably not be in the film. Still it’s these sort of things that give the film it’s charm and have earned it a hugely loyal following.

Where the film works best is when the awful dialogue disappears and Ash (Bruce Campbell) takes center stage. Campbell has a screen presence that the rest of the cast lack. The scenes of him just reacting to what’s going on are fantastic, as are a number of the things Raimi does with his camera during these sequences. The last shot of the film for instance is one of those ‘once seen, never forgotten’ moments.

For me this is a film that’s easy to admire but difficult to love. Nowhere is that better shown than the infamous tree rape scene, which is technically well executed, but is quite grim to watch and feels out of place with the rest of the horror in the film. I prefer the Evil Dead II far more than The Evil Dead, which is probably sacrilegious to some, but what the heck it's the truth. It’s still not scary but it's at least looks like a professionally made film. It's funnier too.

Gray’s Anatomy (1996) - Steven Soderbergh

This is the last of the four monologues Spalding Gray filmed for the big screen, before his suspected suicide almost ten years ago. Gray’s Anatomy is basically about Spalding’s experience after he discovered that the vision in his left eye had become fuzzy. After visiting an eye surgeon and being told that an operation was inevitable, Spalding decided to try absolutely everything he could think of to fix his eyesight rather than going under the knife. And of course Spalding being Spalding he turned it into one of his best monologues.

For those unaware of who Spalding Gray is let me start by saying he’s a bit of an acquired taste. But once you fall for him you won’t be able to get enough. Primarily an actor, but finding writing more rewarding, he’s probably most famous for his one man shows. Sitting behind a desk with a notebook, microphone and a glass of water and would pour forth amusing, poignant and often tragic stories from his own life. Think a slightly more neurotic Woody Allen and you’re in the right ballpark.

Both Jonathan Demme and Nick Broomfield have had a crack at filming a Spalding monologue before, with Swimming to Cambodia (1987) and Monster in a Box (1991) respectively. Both opted for the straightforward approach of what you’d see at one of his shows, quite spartan. What Soderbergh does is throw all that out of the window and do what he often does in his films, which is to do things in a way they haven’t been done before. So straight away there’s no audience and everything is far more stylized. For the scene in the doctors waiting room Soderbergh shoots through a opaque glass door. Likewise for the trawl through various alternative medicines Soderbergh uses various film making techniques to highlight what Spalding is rabbiting on about. It works a treat, never detracting from Spalding, and actually makeing it more of a film than the previous two efforts.

Gray’s Anatomy doesn’t actually open with Spalding Gray at all, but rather a series of short interviews with people who have all suffered some form of eye injury. My favorite of these is the woman who put super glue in her eye thinking it was eye drops. These interviews are filmed in stark black and white and look gorgeous. At various points in the film these interviewees return and say what they think of the various weird alternatives that Spalding is trying. Making them basically a representation of the audience. It’s a good idea that works really well.

If you don’t know Spalding Gray then either this or the equally aces Swimming to Cambodia are perfect places to start. I think this might have the edge since it’s visually rich too, the blood red lighting and silhouettes used for his visit to a psychic doctor in the Philippines being a particular highlight. Oh and there’s a wonderful minimalistic score by Soderbergh favourite Cliff Martinez too. So come on what are you waiting for?

Brazil (1985) - Terry Gilliam

Brazil had a huge impact on the teenage me, from the very first time I saw it I instantly got it. Whatever it was. The fact that my dad (who'd introduced me to Monty Python and subsequently by default - Gilliam) hated Brazil only made it even better. Here was something that only I understood, a film I'd found all on my own, a film that required a degree of decoding and more than a little effort to watch. But more than that it arrived in my life at just the right time, a time when I was starting to question everything around me, a time when I was supposed to be preparing for the rest of my life by knuckling down and doing well at school. Instead I was becoming obsessed with surrealism and the Dada movement, Chuck D, Roger Waters and The Edge were my musical idols, I'd just read 1984, The Catcher in the Rye and Naked Lunch for the first time and my head was abuzz with the ideas that would grow and inform who I eventually became. And right at the center of all of that was Terry Gilliam's masterpiece - Brazil.

I first stumbled upon Brazil on BBC2 back in the late eighties. The thing that drew me to it was the little blurb in the TV listing that stated it was by the person who'd made Time Bandits. That hooked me straight away, I'd loved Time Bandits as a kid and used to rent it on a monthly basis, this being in those dark days before ordinary people could actually own films. Brazil was the film that introduced me to the idea of auteur theory too, since after falling in love with it I started to link films together via directors rather than actors, which is what I had done before my epiphany.

So what is Brazil? Well it's a lot of things, almost all of them contradictory. For starters it's a very British film that just so happens to be directed by an American for a major Hollywood studio. It's also set in a dystopian future that has been set dressed with things from the past. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, so let's backtrack for a second and I'll try my best to write a brief synopsis.

Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a lowly bureaucrat in a world tied up in red tape. He has no ambitions, but he does have dreams, quite literally - he dreams of an ethereal girl whom he continually rescues by casting himself as a armored winged hero. A departmental error forces him out of the comfortable environment of his office and into the real world, where he bumps into the girl from his dreams - Jill Layton (Kim Greist). From there things spiral beyond Sam's control, he becomes mixed up with a subversive repairman (Robert De Niro) and his fantasy world and real world begin to overlap.

Brazil is an intricate film to say the least, and to really get the most out of it you need to have a basic grasp on what Britain was like during the mid eighties. Back then Britain wasn't so much swinging as sinking. The optimism of the sixties high had long since faded leaving behind a sense of defeat and mild betrayal. The country Napoleon once described as a nation of shopkeepers was now on the dole. Those that weren't unemployed were most likely on strike, teachers, nurses, firemen, coal miners, ship builders and factory workers had all downed tools at various times. The Conservative Government even tried (and failed) to send the army in against the striking miners in order to break their lengthy dispute. Add to that the fact that British industry was on it's knees, the shipyards were steadily closing and our car industry had folded, and you can tell things weren't rosy. To top it off the Government had decided to privatise key public assets starting with British Telecom. Public became private. If the key word of the sixties was LOVE, then for the eighties it almost certainly had to be GREED.

Also the IRA had stepped up it's bombing campaign, detonating a series of bombs around London. Anyone who lived through those times will remember the bombs in both Regents and Hyde Park as well as the bombing of Harrods during the Christmas season. Most famously though the IRA managed to bomb the the Grand Hotel in Brighton where the Conservative Party were staying during their annual get together. Fun times it wasn't.

It's all of the above more than anything else that runs through Brazil like letters through a stick of cheap seaside rock. Gilliam and his co-writers (Tom Stoppard & Charles McKeown) real masterstroke was to be able to get all of the above (and a whole lot more) up on screen, almost without people noticing. How? By placing it all within the framework of a Science Fiction/Fantasy flick. Even the greatest most political British directors of the time - Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Alan Clarke - couldn't shoehorn all that into one film.

Phew! Right so history lesson over, let's get onto the film itself. Brazil is surprisingly enough set at Christmas. Sam spends most of the film receiving the same gift (an executive toy that makes decisions for you) from the people around him. Mrs Buttle (or is that Tuttle?) is reading Dickens' A Christmas Carol (the second greatest of all Christmas stories) to her children just before her husband is taken away for interrogation. In fact just before the police swoop in through the windows and down the hole drilled in the ceiling, one of her children asks how Santa will be able to deliver presents if they don't have a chimney? Even towards the end when Mr. Helpmann (the ever wonderful Peter Vaughan) visits Sam in his holding cell, he's dressed as Santa and has just stopped in on his way to entertain the orphans.

One of the great things about Brazil is the fact that it's hero - Sam - is actually quite detestable in his early scenes, he's so passive, ignoring the viciousness of the real world, in favour of his fantasy one. For instance when he has dinner with his mother and the restaurant is bombed, he's not alarmed and does nothing more than finish his meal - 'It's my lunch hour. Besides, it's not my department.' he explains to his fellow diners. He's only awakened to what is going on or able to feel any empathy once he comes into contact with people outside of his sphere. In fact it's two female characters (Jill Layton and Veronica Buttle) that force him to rethink the world he's living in. Sam only gets anywhere in his professional life thanks to his mother pulling strings for him, and only discovers Jill's name thanks to a little girl telling him it right after the gang of urchins set his Messerschmitt alight. Making Brazil one of those rare films where the women are more potent than the men. Which isn't such a strange concept when you consider who the British Prime Minister was at the time. There's a great visual gag when Sam's traveling home on the train and Gilliam pans the camera around the carriage of seated men to reveal a lone woman standing. Which in itself is quite unchivalrous, but just to add insult to injury the camera ends up at her feet to reveal that she only has one leg. It's these little moments that keep Brazil fresh even for the most ardent fan.

Being a film by Terry Gilliam you know it's going to have a wonderful look to it. Gilliam is very much an old school director, favoring image over words every time. Which isn't all that surprising when you consider his background in animation. His sets are stuffed to the gills with eye candy, most of which is only revealed upon repeated viewings. The numerous 'Loose Lips Sink Ships' style posters that are scattered throughout the film for instance. His use of locations is a delight too, Gilliam works best when on a limited budget, give him a stack of dollars and he'll build a set, hold back on the cash however and he'll find a set. So thanks to budget constraints we go from a working Oil Refinery through to strange modernist French housing estates and of course most famously the inside of a cooling tower. Creative solutions to problems rather than the usual money hose that Hollywood favours. His sets look lived in too, with a patina on the surface of everything.

Brazil isn't set in the future so much as an alternative now. If Blade Runner was Future Noir, then Brazil is Future Retro. The fashions for a start hark back to the fifties and that whole post WWII feeling - rationing coming to an end, clothes having more material, wider lapels and dresses that flowed, hats for everyone that kind of thing. The haircuts also date from that era as do the furnishings. The technology on show is a hodgepodge of bits and pieces from the past, all cobbled together typewriters and old valves, ducts everywhere. Of course none of it actually works, lifts, computers, toasters you name it, it's all on the fritz.

It's also a film chock full of film references too, from Casablanca ('Here's looking at you kid'), Battleship Potemkin (the fight on the steps towards the end of the film) and even The Empire Strikes Back (when Sam removes the Samurai's mask to reveal his own face). It's the shadow of Metropolis that looms largest over the whole film though.

Of course the thing that Brazil is most famous for now is the battle that Gilliam had with Universal head honcho Sid Sheinberg, who didn't care for Brazil at all and loathed it's downbeat ending. I've only ever watched the 'Love Conquers All' version once. It's interesting for anyone who adores the film enough to see just how it might have ended up. Thankfully for us Gilliam stuck to his guns and saw it through to the end, eventually winning his fight and having his cut become the default version. Speaking of endings Brazil has the best ending for a film that I can think of. It's up there with the greats - Citizen Kane, Dr. Strangelove and Some Like It Hot. It's a total shock to the system the first time you see it, and it's one of those that you'll never forget.

Jonathan Pryce will always be Sam Lowry for me in much the same way as Richard E. Grant will always be Withnail. Pryce really gives it everything and gets to show a lot of range from slapstick through to action hero. I couldn't ever imagine anyone else as Sam Lowry. Apparently Gilliam wasn't all that happy with Kim Greist's performance and cut down her role accordingly in the edit suite. You'd never know from watching the film though, she's feisty and hard to read all the way through. The rest of the cast is really a who's who of British acting from that period, Bob Hoskins, Ian Richardson and Jim Broadbent all get extended cameos yet manage to really stamp themselves onto the celluloid. Gilliam regulars Michael Palin, Ian Holm and Katherine Helmond get a bigger piece of the pie. All three are first-class, Palin is deliciously weaselly as Sam's best friend - Jack Lint, Helmond plays Sam's manipulative plastic surgery obsessed mother, a fantastic role that she doesn't waste. Best of all though is Holm who almost manages to steal the show as Sam's boss the sad and rather pathetic Mr. Kurtzmann.

Behind the camera Roger Pratt returned as cinematographer after having already worked on Gilliam's segment in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, as did editor Julian Doyle. I can't write about Brazil without a nod to Michael Kamen's sublimely odd score, which bounces between full on heroic strings to a bizarre symphony for typewriters, as well as several versions of Ary Barroso's Aquarela do Brasil. Weird but perfect.

Brazil is without a doubt for me Terry Gilliam's masterpiece. His follow up The Adventures of Baron Munchausen tried to do everything that it's predecessor had done, but ultimately failed. Tales of overspending, of sets being destroyed and of general on set chaos only fueled the legend that Gilliam was a difficult director, a perfectionist that would do almost anything to achieve the vision in his head. Gilliam managed to pick himself up after the debacle of Munchausen (which I like a lot by the way), and even managed to make successful films (12 Monkeys, The Fisher King) without ever losing sight of his distinctive vision. Since 12 Monkeys however he has struggled to get projects off the ground, and seems to have lost the momentum that was so essential in making Brazil.

Ultimately Brazil can be read a number of ways, at it's core it's a love story, but it's also about the bureaucracy of modern life, the suppression of the masses by the few and the technological revolution and how it's failed us. In hindsight though maybe more than any of that it's about a director standing up to a giant studio system and saying 'No'.

Down By Law (1986) - Jim Jarmusch

I’m going through a bit of Tom Waits phase at the moment. Whenever that happens you can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll watch Short Cuts and Down By Law. Waits plays a version of himself in both films, but fuck if you’re going to put a Tom Waits like character into your film then you might as well cast the man himself. Right?

Jim Jarmusch first met Waits through John Lurie at a party thrown by Jean-Michel Basquiat. They hit it off immediately, recognizing kindred spirits in each other. Just as he had with Lurie, Jarmusch used Waits again in various other projects - he recorded the soundtrack for Night On Earth, was the voice of the DJ in Mystery Train and appeared in one of the better Coffee And Cigarettes shorts.

Down By Law has been a constant favourite of mine since I first saw it back in the early nineties. I’ve even managed to see it at the cinema - twice. See I told you I liked it didn’t I. It, along with the two films that Jarmusch made either side of it - Stranger Than Paradise (1984) and Mystery Train (1989) are (for me at any rate) his best films.

The story itself, like most of Jarmusch’s films is fairly straightforward, three people get thrown together in jail, learn to get along, escape and start their lives over. Separately. It's never really about the plot with a Jarmusch film, it's more to do with the situation and the dialogue. The little things are the scraps that stick in your memory. The film kicks off with some gorgeous pre-credits black & white tracking shots, setting the scene and tone before we’re thrown into the film proper. This was the first time Wim Wenders’ cinematographer Robby Müller had worked with Jarmusch. Something must have clicked since they’ve collaborated on five films and a handful of shorts since.

Set in a run down near mythical New Orleans, that’s seemingly populated only by prostitutes, their customers and various pimps and low-lifes, Down By Law doesn’t try to lay any claim to being an authentic slice of life drama. Instead it heads off on it’s own course, doing it’s own thing with scant regard for the rest of the world. It’s neatly divided up into three half an hour acts. In the first section we meet Zack (Tom Waits), a radio DJ with the handle Lee ‘Baby’ Sims. He’s all pork pie hats and pointy shoes, muttered wisdom and walking like he’s full of bad booze. When we first meet him he’s being dumped by his irate girlfriend (Ellen Barkin). This sends him off on a bender and leads to him being set up for a murder and winding up in jail. Next up we meet Jack (John Lurie) a pimp who takes some stick off a woman (Billie Neal) before being set up for a crime and being hauled off to jail. Sound familiar? The second section of the film finds Jack and Zack sharing a jail cell with Roberto (Roberto Benigni), who as it turns out is actually guilty of his crime. The final section sees our trio on the run from prison through the Louisiana swamplands.

The first thing that strikes you about Down By Law is how good it looks, and just how out of step it was with the other films coming out of America at that time. The acting style is loose but the script is tight. In fact Jarmusch wrote the script with his three leads in mind and it shows. The three characters contrast each another, Benigni is like a puppy full of boundless energy, Lurie is the polar opposite, cool and destracted while Waits is almost simian like, lots of hand acting and grunts. The dialogue is gloriously weird, Benigni in particular is almost Manuel like with his over the top non grasp of English. The scene where our trio sing ‘You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice cream’ for instance, is the sort of thing that most people would chop from a film, since it doesn’t move the plot forward at all. Yet in Jarmusch’s world it feels like one of the film’s pivotal moments, since it's a bonding moment for our three stooges. Plus in a nod to one of Jarmusch’s heroes (Yasujiro Ozu) the camera is static and set at a low angle.

My favorite portion of the film is the last act as they plunge through the Bayou. It reminds me of Letter Never Sent and Southern Comfort, in the way the natural world is both beautiful but dangerous and harsh. The stark black & white photography being so reminiscent of those Russian man against the elements films. Jarmusch doesn’t bother showing the jail break, and yet you never feel like you’re missing it. You hear the bloodhounds but never see them. Down By Law is low budget film making at it’s finest in that way.

Incidentally it turns out that there actually was a real Lee ‘Baby’ Sims, he was a DJ back in San Diego when Waits was a young ‘un. Funnily enough he wasn’t too happy about having his name pinched for such a scuzzy character. Can't imagine why. Anyway, even after seeing this film more times than I care to remember it still has a shine to it, still feels new every time I watch it. I don’t know why that is. But I’m glad it’s like that.

Good Morning (1959) - Yasujiro Ozu

There’s always been an itch that certain directors get once they’re established that can only be scratched by revisiting one of their earlier films. Hitchcock famously remade The Man Who Knew Too Much as did DeMille with The Ten Commandments. It’s not something that happens so much nowadays, most directors are happy enough to recut their films instead. Sometimes it works, Blade Runner only really started earning any real kudos after Ridley Scott went back in with his scissors and chopped out the naff narration and altered that ending for instance. Then of course there are the times it doesn’t work quite so well and only ends up annoying the people who adored the original film. Cough cough, George Lucas and his little sticky CGI hands.

Yasujiro Ozu felt the urge to remake not one, not two but three of his own films during his career. All three arrived one after the other at the end of his career. Good Morning is a retelling of his silent great I Was Born But…, and was the first time he attempted a direct remake. Of course it could be argued that after a certain point in his career Ozu actually made the same film over and over, since most of his films feature the same plot of a middle class family trying to marry off one of their daughters.

As is usual with Ozu films the story itself is very simple, two boys Minoru and his incredibly sweet younger brother Isamu become obsessed with television after their beatnik neighbours buy a goggle box. They first beg, then scream and eventually go on a silent strike when their parents refuse to buy a TV set. Onto this Ozu hangs his observations of Japanese life in a Tokyo suburb. He sets the scene by opening the film with a misunderstanding about some unpaid money. Through this we get to visit each of the three main households in the film and meet the main players within the first ten minutes. It’s an excellent way of introducing the characters and giving a feel of how everything fits together spatially.

Good Morning seems destined never to make it onto any list of Ozu’s greatest works, but I think it’s one of his finest films. It’s quite different for him it’s funnier than most for a start, there’s even a running gag throughout the whole film about farting. The main difference between Good Morning and Ozu’s more famous films though is that this time the film isn’t shot from the parents perspective but from the children’s. Yes it’s still centered around a middle class Japanese family, and yes there is a hint of romance between their daughter and the kids English teacher. But getting her hitched to him isn’t the central theme this time ‘round. It’s still instantly recognizable as being an Ozu film though, the obligatory static low angle camera set up, scenes taking place at a train station and Chishu Ryu are all present and correct. As are the boiling kettles, clocks with pendulums and kids with baseball caps.

Good Morning is far lighter than most of the Ozu’s other work and at just a tad over ninety minutes flies by and is over before you know it. His use of colour after so many black & white films is a revelation. All reds and greens with almost every shot having one bright red object somewhere in the frame. By using the children rather than the parents as a voice, Ozu gets to wag his finger at certain things such as the mindless chit chat of everyday life, and of course the idea that television is only good for one thing - ‘producing 100 million idiots.’ Obviously he was worried about the negative effect television was having on cinema attendance.

This is a perfect film for anyone unfamiliar with the films of Yasujiro Ozu, and essential viewing for those who’ve already seen his ‘classics’. I’m not really sure what the conclusion of the film means though or even if Good Morning has an overall message beyond the obvious ‘the future is coming deal with it’. But that's neither here nor there since for the short time it's on screen you'll find yourself living in Ozu's world. Which is a great place to be.

The Game (1997) - David Fincher

I saw The Game when it first hit British cinemas back in October ’97. As it turns out it was one of the last films I saw before moving to Sweden, but that’s neither here nor there so forget that bit. Truth be told I found it underwhelming and since then have only caught bits of it on TV. Which is weird since like so many others I love David Fincher, and up until 2008’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button had this film earmarked as easily his worst. So I was quite excited to sit down all these years later and watch it again with fresh eyes. And you know what, it holds up pretty well, so much so that it made me wonder why I’d given it such a wide berth for so long. Well at least that’s what I thought until the last ten minutes, then it all came flooding back to me - like a drowning man's memories - just what the problem with The Game is.

Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) is a riff on Gordon Gekko, an investment banker who seems to have no pleasures in life beyond his work. Which is much the same as his late father, who ended it all on his 48th birthday by jumping to his death. Van Orton is totally alone, cocooned in the world he’s built around himself. His brother Conrad (Sean Penn) is the polar opposite and seems to have done enough living/finding himself/experimentation (man) for the both of them. For Nics 48th birthday Conny gives him a gift certificate for a company called CRS. The ever cautious Nic ponders about using it for a while before finally giving in and taking the plunge. He contacts CRS, takes the tests, asks the questions (what is CRS, what do they do?) and really only receives one answer; CRS creates games, games which are individually tailored to each client. However later Nicolas is told he didn’t pass the test, so his game won’t happen. Or will it…

What follows is every bit as visually rich as you’d expect from Fincher who was still on a roll from the much lauded Se7en. For the first two hours it's a top notch thriller, thundering along with all the energy of an Indiana Jones film, never giving the audience the opportunity to digest what’s going on and more importantly question and pick holes in what they’ve just seen. Which is totally essential for this type of film. It's always one step ahead of the audience and keeps you guessing throughout the whole running time.

The acting on display in The Game is as good as any of Fincher's visual flurries. Michael Douglas (who’s in every scene of the film), is particularly on fire. It reminded me that I actually really like him and that on a good day he’s up there with any of his Hollywood peers. He manages to go from arse Gekko to humble bum in under two hours very convincingly. In between he gets to give his acting chops a good workout. The supporting cast (i.e. - everyone else) are all top notch too, be it a reigned in Penn or the full on James Rebhorn or the underused Deborah Kara Unger.

What I noticed this time around that the younger me missed was just how much this film is a nod towards films and film making in general. So we get Van Orton plunging into the San Francisco Bay (Vertigo), an overflowing toilet (The Conversation) and a stiff exchange of words between Van Orton and a desk clerk which recalls Jack and Delbert Grady in The Shining, to name but three. Then there’s the fact that it’s really as much a black comedy as a thriller. Which I wasn’t expecting first time ‘round.

Then there’s the whole pulling the curtain back - as Van Orton says at one point, in reference to The Wizard of Oz, see those pesky film quotes keep on coming. Hell even the canteen scene at the end is lifted wholesale from Blazing Saddles. Deborah Kara Unger gets a great moment at the end where she makes it crystal clear for the audience that the whole film has been Brechtian in style, and that the game was actually being played on us the audience and not Nicolas Van Orton.

Ah yes the end. Well it’s still the films big problem for me, just as it was all those years ago when I first saw it. It’s just not good enough, it’s like a bad punchline to a well told joke. You see you can have dodgy sections in films, but you can never have a bad ending. That’s the bit people remember as they walk out of the cinema. It’s been the downfall of many an otherwise great film. Which is a shame since this is a really really solid film for the first two hours. However it’s that ending, it just does not work, and no matter how good the rest of it is, the chases, the wonderful one liners, Michael Douglas losing his shit and looking as stressed as you’ll ever see him, even seeing Nicolas Van Orton rising from the dead - reborn in a white suit doesn’t save the film from that ending. Shame.

French Cancan (1954) - Jean Renoir

I love Jean Renoir. He was without a doubt one of the greatest French directors ever, always pushing the possibilities of what can be achieved with a camera and a reel of film to it's limits. He was also one of the great humanitarian film makers, concocting stories that were not only entertaining but also moving, and in hindsight incredibly poignant about their particular moment in history. During his thirties heyday he belted out classic after classic (Boudu sauvé des eaux, Toni, La chienne, La bête humaine, La grande illusion), culminating with his masterpiece La règle du jeu in 1939. He continued to make great films after this, but they were a little more patchy, and almost never managed to reach the stature of that earlier body of work.

In 1951 he made his first colour film - Le fleuve, which was shot on location in India and could easily lay claim to being his great lost masterpiece. So that little around the houses introduction brings us up to French Cancan, which is about the birth of the Moulin Rouge. French screen legend Jean Gabin plays Henri Danglard the theater owner who puts everything he's got into getting his dream venue off of the ground. Françoise Arnoul is Nini a laundry worker who Danglard discovers can dance, and decides to revive the titular dance using her as his principle dancer. Weaved amongst that are loads of thinly sketched out characters - a duo of pickpockets, an ex dancer now down on her luck, a prince about to become a king, basically the rich and the poor all mixing it up in Montmartre.

When I was a kid (bear with me this is going somewhere), my nan used to buy these little sponge cup cakes that were covered in brightly colored icing. They looked gorgeous but tasted of nothing special. That's what French Cancan reminded me of more than anything else. It's a good looking film, full of colour (Technicolor at that), but ultimately quite empty. The characters are all surface, and there seems to be very little depth to any of them. Nini gets some stuff to do and is probably the best overall role in the film. Gabin is severely underused for an actor of his talents, with only one scene at the end of the film where he really comes to life. Which only compounds the films problem, since the speech he gives just reminds one of what is lacking from French Cancan.

 On the plus side we do get a couple of numbers sung by Edith Piaf, and the film itself is likable enough in a Sunday afternoon sort of way. If it had been made by some lesser talent then I probably would have enjoyed it more, which is terrible to say, but is the truth. This is Renoir after all. The sets are great, but look like sets and are ultimately too brightly lit. I suspect this has a lot to do with the fact that it was filmed in Technicolor, although I have nothing to back that up with. Surely the Moulin Rouge should be darker? In Renoir's film it looks like a giant well lit soundstage. But hey maybe that was his intention so I'm not going to knock him for it. As I said though it's a hollow experience, Danglard beds anything that moves, there are lots of scenes of people drinking and shouting, plus love triangles galore - none of which hold the attention in the way these plot devices should. Still at ninety minutes it flits past easily enough, but is that what you want from a Renoir film? I think not.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2008) - Sacha Gervasi

Second viewing for me of this great little documentary about long forgotten METAL group Anvil. Back in the early to mid eighties Anvil were it seems swimming along and playing on the same bills as a whole stack of bands, whose names fall off your tongue at the merest thought of the M word, such as Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer. Then for reasons unknown they dropped off the map while their contemporaries stock rose and rose. Well I write reasons unknown but to me it feels like Anvil's peers changed and developed, whereas Anvil seemed to stick to their guns, and so the music scene they were a part of moved on without them. Also once you get to know the members of the band a little you realise pretty quickly that they're too damn nice to make it in the back stabbing, shit slinging world of big bucks music.

Anyway when we catch up with Anvil there are only two original members left;- Steve "Lips" Kudlow (guitar hero, lead screamer and driving force behind the band) and Robb Reiner (drums, grumbling, awful paintings and old faithful). They're about to embark on a dismal 40 day European tour, highlights of which include a piss poor 174 punters turning up in an arena that holds 10,000, and not getting paid for a gig in Czechoslovakia after playing the gig. The tour is a shambles right from the off, for a start the tour manager is going out with the one of the members of the band (who she eventually marries), and doesn't really have all that good a grasp on the English language. It feels like Lips is just happy to be away from his meals on wheels job back home in Canada, and be back on stage and living some sort of semblance of the rock star life. Which in a way he is, kind of, if you squint your eyes and look into the sun, maybe. After said tour we get to see them record their thirteenth album, after Lips borrows $13,000 from his sister to cover the recording costs. Reiner constantly seems to be at the end of his tether and on the verge of quitting once and for all. He's the 'too old for this shit' Murtaugh to Lips' Riggs.

Both Lips and Reiner live in a bit of fantasy world, since they've had a taste of the high life (as seen in the opening montage of them playing at some huge Japanese Metal fest in the mid 80's), and seen everyone around them go on to sell more records, earn more money and get more tattoos than them. The thing is it's difficult to be hard on either of them since if they want to chase their dreams then that's fine. As long as they enjoy it and aren't causing anyone any harm, what's the problem? Well the problem is mainly that these are two middle aged guys, who both have families that suffer due to them not wanting to accept what everyone else accepted years back. IT'S OVER, you've had your shot and you didn't make it, now concentrate on the here and now and look back on those days as something you can tell your kids about. The sad thing is no one seems to be willing to tell either of them that. Which might have saved a lot of heartache, but not given us the chance to spend a few months with Anvil feeling both happy and embarrassed for them in equal measure.

Director Gervasi obviously has a love not only for Anvil (he was one of their roadies), but also for the whole scene that spawned them. Which is something that is lacking from my music collection, I was never all that into metal as a young lad. My rebellious jukebox was Hip Hop, so metal has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I love the things that inspired it, such as Sabbath and Purple and all the rest of it, but you won't find any Slayer, Metallica, Megadeath or Judas Priest in my collection. I do own two Iron Maiden LP's though, does that count? The point I'm trying to make here is that just like the Metallica documentary before it, a love of the music isn't essential.

Now if you're thinking this is all a bit This is Spinal Tap then you are on the right track. There's even a tears running down your face funny moment, where they talk about an early unrecorded song called Thumb Hang, all that's missing is the 'Shit Sandwich' review. So in a way this is equally for fans of Tap or even Tap's far better British brother Bad News, as much as for Kerrang! heads. Gotta love the circular structure to the documentary too, and the fact that this has managed to give Anvil a new lease of life, since they've managed to squeeze another album out since this films release. If you haven't seen it then do, it's a great life affirming hilariously sad documentary. And you don't get many of them nowadays do you?

The Maggie (1954) - Alexander Mackendrick

 

Some films are best viewed at certain times of the day/week/year. Michael Bay flicks for instance aren't ever going to play as well on a Sunday morning as they do on a Saturday night. The same can be said for the films that emerged from Ealing Studios back in the middle of the last century. Whenever a rainy Saturday or Sunday afternoon comes along and I find myself at home alone, it's those warm unquestionably British films that I reach for first. Especially those directed by Alexander Mackendrick such as The Maggie. Which sadly seems to be overlooked in favour of Mackendrick's big hitters for the studio - The Ladykillers, The Man in the White Suit and Whiskey Galore! Which is a shame since this is just as perfect as any of those classics.

The Maggie is an old puffer (coal fueled boat) who like it's captain Mactaggart (Alex Mackenzie), has seen better days and should probably be put out to pasture now. Brash American businessman Calvin B. Marshall (Paul Douglas) meets his match when by a typical Ealing twist of fate, The Maggie is contracted to carry his valuable load. Once the mix up is discovered Marshall is determined to have his cargo removed from The Maggie and shipped by someone more reputable. After his bowler hat wearing lacky Pusey (Hubert Gregg), tries and fails (ending up in jail for poaching in one of the films most memorable sections) to reverse the problem he has set in motion, Marshall takes matters into his own hands. This is where the real meat of the film is, since from here on in the film becomes a battle of wits between the gentle Scottishness of Mactaggart and the throw money at problems, time is money attitude of Marshall.

It's a truly perfect post war British film, and contains just about everything I love about this period in British film making. Mackendrick's eye for framing is every bit as good as Carole Reed's or Hitchcock's, his compositions are both beautiful and practical. Just look at the way Pusey is framed when the cell door is slammed shut. The locations that The Maggie and her crew bob past are those jawdroppingly epic Scottish coastal ones that I love, and Mackendrick being a Scot himself obviously feels the same way. Although he never lingers on them, they are just there in the background drifting by looking sublime. There are no David Lean style setting the scene by showing the landscape shots. The script is tight with the film itself coming in at just under 90 minutes, the comedy is gentle and easygoing. Best of all though is the cast, who are just wonderful, from the smallest rolls up to that of the two leads, everyone turns in a great performance. The Wee Boy (Tommy Kearins) has quite a bit of business, loads of lines and is an essential part of the script, and yet despite the fact that this was his first and only film, Kearins proves to be a real find, believable yet still childlike.

There is almost a sub-genre of films set in rural Scotland pitting the wiley locals against some suit from the big smoke. I'm thinking about another favourite film here Local Hero, which is the closest film to The Maggie that I can think of in both feel and subject. Both films feature the fish out of water character changing and learning that life doesn't have to travel at such a fast pace. In fact in both films that character even ends up wearing the costume of the locals. So much so that Pusey doesn't even recognise Marshall when he eventually catches up with him at the films conclusion.

Apparently Mackendrick always saw The Maggie as flawed, I only wish he could have seen it through my eyes since for me it's nothing short of a masterpiece. So if you haven't seen this, and the weather forecast is bad for the coming weekend, then you know what to do. Believe me you'll be hard pressed to spend a better 90 minutes in front of your TV.

The Dentist (1932) - Leslie Pearce

So so W.C. Fields short, that works in some places and fails in others. Fields plays the titular dentist, whose daughter is in love with the guy that delivers the ice. Of course old W.C. doesn't like this situation and forbids her from seeing him. Other than that we get a quick round of golf before Fields deals with some patients. That's it plot wise, but let's face it no one watches a W.C. Fields for the plot do they?

The high points are many, the golf segment is a gem, Fields is on fire as possibly the rudest person on screen during the early talkie years. The frustration of not being able to hit a ball over a lake builds and builds until not only do his clubs end up in the water, but the caddy too. Fields is equally mean to his patients, best of the bunch being a society lady who Fields drags around the room whilst trying to extract a tooth. It's painful to watch but at the same time immensely funny. Kind of like a forerunner to that whole Jackass brand of humour. Kind of. Best moment of the film though is old W.C. trying to put some ice into the freezer, it's moments like this that make his place amongst the early comedy greats seem well deserved.

Although having said all of that this isn't one of his greatest films. It's watchable and at a mere twenty minutes it skips along and is over before you know it. It just didn't feel very focused, golf + dentistry + the daughter story = one story line too many for a slapstick short. Pearce is no great shakes as a director either, he knows enough to set the camera back and follow Fields' lead, but beyond that it could have been any monkey directing. However if you like Fields and enjoy visual humour I'd say take a punt on this, you could do worse.

The Lady Vanishes (1938) - Alfred Hitchcock

It's easy to see why this film over almost all others from Alfred the great's British years, still manages to enrapture generation after generation. It has a certain charm to it that is lacking in a lot of the fat mans other work from this era. In fact I wouldn't be sticking my neck out too far, if I said that it's by far and away the best film he made before upping sticks and moving across the Atlantic.

Set in the fictional European country of Bandrika on the eve of WWII, a rag tag bunch of Europeans are homeward bound on a train. Amongst the various types making the journey are Michael Redgrave as Gilbert, who despite looking like a typical boys own type is actually quite an odd character, a sort of proto-beatnik if you will. Then there's Margaret Lockwood as Iris, who's also nicely unique being quite firey and independent. After all she's all the way out in the heart of Europe by herself, that sort of thing never normally happens in British films from this time, young women are almost always chaperoned by someone or other. Of course these two are bound to end up together by the end of the film, it's Hitchcock after all. As per usual in films of this ilk they don't hit it off immediately, and only really start to get it on once Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty) goes missing.

The film actually kicks off with the whole cast being stranded in a hotel overnight due to heavy snow. It's an odd way to get the film rolling, and feels like an excuse for the ace writing team of Sidney Gilliat & Frank Launder, to fill some screen time with a succession of gags mainly centered around their most successful creations Charters and Caldicott. Who themselves would go on to appear in numerous films and even their own TV series, after the success of this film. However like so much else in this film, all is not what it seems. So the whimsical opening scene is actually pretty essential, since not only does it introduce us to the principal characters, but it contains information vital to understanding what transpires later in the film.

The pace of the film really picks up once the train journey begins and doesn't let up until the final beautifully framed shot. It's here that it really feels like a Hitchcock film, especially once Miss Froy goes missing. It's also at this point of the film that it becomes obvious that The Lady Vanishes isn't so much about bumbling Englishmen trying to find out the cricket result, or even old ladies disappearing, but is rather an allegory of the imminent war. People that once seemed perfectly normal and friendly, suddenly seem less so, and of course the Italian's are in league with the German's.

My favourite section of the The Lady Vanishes is towards the end of the film. One of the train cars has been uncoupled in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by the enemy. There's a shoot out, but it's not that that endears the scene to me. It's also where we find out just what the film is about, but it's not that either. It's more to do with the fact that the carriage represents Britain, which itself is of course cut off from mainland Europe. Britain would stand it's own ground against the threat from across the Channel, in much the same way that the Brits in the carriage pull together for the first time in the film (except Eric Todhunter, but I'll get to him in a minute), and stand up for what's right. As a piece of propaganda it's second to none, but the thing that makes this so good is that it's also great film making. You don't feel like you are being force fed a message like in so many other films made during the war years. Charters and Caldicott step up to the mark, as does almost everyone, except as I said Mr Todhunter (Cecil Parker), who strangely for someone who doesn't believe in violence carries a gun. Hmm.

Anyway I've rambled on plenty about this film, it's definitely essential viewing for anyone who loves Hitch, or for that matter films. Plus there is so much more to it than what I've written, a nun in heels, a wrapped up body, a wonderful scene using magicians props, lashings of romance and derring-do all filtered through the genius eye of Alfred Hitchcock. As I say essential stuff.

I'm Still Here (2010) - Casey Affleck

Damn this is a tricky one. It's not often I'm left unsure about what I've just seen, but that's exactly how I felt after seeing this. Not because of the whole is it real or not thing (it's so clearly staged - but we'll get to that later). No it's more to do with is it any bloody good or not?

For those that don't have the foggiest what all this is about, it's as simple as this. Top actor Joaquin Phoenix wins his Oscar for Walk the Line, seems to have a little wobble about the idea of making films for the rest of his life, and decides he wants to make Hip Hop records instead. Luckily best buddy Casey Affleck is there to document Phoenix's journey.

You see I adore the idea, and the potential for what messrs Affleck & Pheonix could say about the idiocy and vacuousness of celebrity is almost limitless. Living as we do in a world where people are absolutely 100% obsessed with other peoples lives, the more famous the person the better. It's also a world where the famous seem to be able to do whatever they want and nine times out of ten get away with it. Hello O.J., oh the gloves didn't fit, eh? So Phil Spector can wave guns around in studios and no one would think about ringing the police, but if he was to try and change careers then he'd be for it. How strange is that? People make far more fuss about Bowie being a naff actor than any of the fascist claptrap he came out with in '75. How can that be?

Then there is whole celebrity meltdown thing that people seem to gather around and stare at in a way that is just uncomfortably bizarre. Be it Tom Cruise on Oprah or Mel Gibson turning Nazi, people just lap this stuff up. This is the sort of thing that I'm Still Here attempts to lampoon/explore. Just what is it like to be an A-lister, is it possible to move out of the box that you've been placed in and just why do people love to see someone fuck up?


Now let's get one thing straight from the get-go, this isn't real. Just check the end credits - Joaquin's old man is actually played by Affleck's pa, and there are a few continuity goofs in there too. At times the acting is totally believable, such as the David Letterman interview or any scene involving Puff Daddy/P-Diddy/Puff Pastry or what ever the fuck his minions are calling him this season. All that stuff works wonderfully. Other times though it feels as if I'm Still Here has wandered into Abel Ferrara territory, the uncomfortable scene with the drugs and prostitutes for instance, and let's not even get into the face poo scene or the amount of times you get to see Phoenix's friends man bits. Those scenes are so over the top you almost expect a full tilt Jack Nicholson to start axing his way through the door. It's a shame because they do destroy the believability of the film. Still real or not would be beside the point if I'm Still Here managed to answer or at least attempt to answer the myriad of questions it throws up, but it doesn't even try to do that. Instead it meanders and is far too long, outstaying it's welcome by a good 20 minutes.

As I write this (and even while I was watching the film), I can't help thinking about how I feel about the whole cult of celebrity and everything that goes with it. You see I'm obsessed with films and music, but don't really read publicity interviews or gossip rags, never watch adverts or have any real interest in the people behind the music/films/books I love. I've never been into the idea of getting autographs or meeting my heroes either. Yet when I look across my bookcases I see loads and loads of biographies/autobiographies, so I'm kidding myself when I say I'm not interested. What I really mean is I'm not obsessed. I couldn't care less about what happened to Michael Jackson or Charlie Sheen, the most their private lives are to me is something to talk about down the pub. Beyond that they are only as relevant to me as their latest work.

Anyway rant over and back to I'm Still Here, I'd say it's worth a look, and who knows maybe in time it'll become a This is Spinal Tap for the noughties, anything's possible after all. I have to mention the ending too, I'm not giving anything away here so don't worry. It's just a long one take tracking shot following Phoenix from behind as he walks further and further up a jungle stream. He walks against the current and slowly sinks deeper and deeper, until finally he is completely engulfed by the water. It may not be all that subtle but I thought it was a beautiful lyrical way to end the film. Oh and I actually thought the music Phoenix made was pretty good, although live he was toilet.

Paul (2011) - Greg Mottola

 

I wanted to like this, I really did. I've had a soft spot for Simon Pegg and his bestest friend in the whole world Nick Frost, ever since seeing them in Spaced all those years ago. Paul isn't actually a million miles away from that TV show, it's chock full of references to those Science Fiction films we grew up with, especially those made by the beard brothers - the original Star Wars trilogy, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The thing is peppering your script with nods to other films might have worked well in a sit-com ten years ago, but all these years later it just smacks of being a bit of a one trick pony.

It's this that made me not really enjoy Paul quite as much as I would have hoped too. The story itself is Starman by way of E.T., alien crash lands on Earth and needs a bit of human help to help him get home. Pegg & Frost are a couple of British comic com type über nerds, you know fluent in Klingon, film quote tees and all that. They're in the States on a road trip taking in various UFO hotspots when they bump into Paul (the aforementioned Alien). Now Paul is on the run from The Man and our duo have to help him, while having adventures and learning valuable life lessons on route. It's nothing you haven't seen a million times before.

Paul himself is totally CGI and and looks fine and you quickly just accept him as being real and alive. He swears and is cruder than the rest of the cast, it's a joke that is amusing at first, slightly less so twenty minutes down the line. Being a road movie we pick up various characters on route, there are some laughs but in general I found myself nodding when I picked up on in jokes/film references, rather than rolling around on the floor trying to wipe the tears from my eyes. That sounds a bit harsh though, I did laugh a fair bit at first but Paul suffers the same thing that most big comedy films do. Which is about half way through the comedy gives way to the drama that is needed to propel the film forwards. That's not to say there aren't laughs at the end, it's just that they don't come quite as thick and fast as they do at the start. On the plus side though both Frost & Pegg have a natural chemistry which doesn't need time to grow, it's there from the very first minute of screen time. That's what you get from working together so often, which is a huge plus.

I have to say that the whole thing doesn't look great either, Mottola with mega bucks doesn't have the visual flair that Edgar Wright had with a miniscule TV budget. So while the script may riff on Star Wars the camera work never does, which feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. It's also generic to the point that when Paul brings a dead bird back to life and is asked if he's ever managed to do that to a human, you just know that someone is going to snuff it at the end and be resurrected before the credits roll. In summing up I'd say this is well worth watching once, but I'll be surprised if it manages to hold up to multiple viewings. Oh and the Wild Geese nod made me grin from ear to ear.

Art School Confidential (2006) - Terry Zwigoff

I was in a DVD store in Copenhagen yesterday glancing through the bargain bins (well you never know what might turn up), when something caught my eye. It was a sleeve illustration that was unmistakably by cartoonist Danny Clowes. Back in the day I used to adore Clowes, but for some reason he's dropped off my radar during the past fifteen years. In fact it was only when Ghost World was released that I even started to think about him again. Now for whatever reason Art School Confidential had totally escaped my attention, which is odd since just like Ghost World it was written by Clowes and directed by Terry Zwigoff. So me being me I took the chance, handed over my coins and watched it when I got home.

Along with the above talent is a cast of firm favourites such as John Malkovich, Jim Broadbent, Anjelica Huston and Steve Buscemi. So Art School Confidential should be a perfect 'quirky American indie comedy drama', the type of film that would appeal to Noah Baumbach fanboys. And for the first half of the film at least that's exactly what it is. Jerome (Max Minghella) makes the big leap from the suburbs to the big city to go to art collage. Jerome's class is populated with typical Clowes grotesques, the greasy haired girl and the pretentious white guy with a 'fro called Eno, being the two that spring to mind most readily. Best of all though is Malkovich as the art teacher who never made it. It all feels a little cliché ridden but being Zwigoff you go with it, after all he's not exactly Mr Hollywood.

Jerome has never been much of a hit with the ladies, so much so that he's still a virgin. So when he meets Audrey (Sophia Myles) he falls head over heels despite the fact that she's well out of his league, it's this storyline that carries us through the first half of the film. Which is all well and good, except that what at first feels like a unimportant sub plot (someone killing off students) soon takes over and becomes the focus for the rest of the film. It's an uncomfortable shift and Zwigoff doesn't manage to pull it off. Leaving Art School Confidential feeling unbalanced and a bit of a mish mash. Plus considering the film is 98 minutes long it's strange just how underdeveloped the characters are, it feels like there was a lot left on the cutting room floor. I don't want to make out that this film is awful, because it's far from that, I laughed a fair bit. It's just that, well…

Maybe it's the fact that the original story (which appeared in Eightball issue 7) was just a few pages of filler, and as such possibly shouldn't have been expanded to a feature length. Maybe it's the complacency that comes with success. Who knows what went wrong? All that matters is that this film is flawed, which is a shame since this really does feel like it should work, but that bolted on murder story really does distract from the original premiss. By the time it's all finished you'll just be happy to get the film out of the DVD player and back onto the shelf, hopefully it'll improve with a second viewing rather than becoming another dust collector. File under coulda been a contender.

Big Trouble in Little China (1986) - John Carpenter

I was never a fan of this back when it first came out. Simply put it's one of those films that can't decide what it wants to be, is it a parody of martial arts flicks, a comedy, a horror or a gung ho 80s actioner? The truth is it's all of the above duking it out in a film that's madder than Ghostbusters and Weird Science. Over the years though it's grown on me like cancer cells on a 40 a dayers lungs. It's hard not to be drawn in by Kurt Russell who despite not being the greatest actor in the world, has a charisma and twinkle in his eye that kind of says 'it just a bit of fun, chill the fuck out'.

In fact it's Russell that has pulled me back time and time again to this film, as a nipper he was the reason I wanted a mullet. If I could have worn my faded denims tucked into knee length boots, believe me I would have. So while Rocky Rambo and Arnohlt were the bigger stars it was Kurt Russell or rather Snake Plissken that every kid of a certain age wanted to be. I have a nasty feeling I even wore an eye patch for a while.

Carpenter on the other hand was really on the slide by the time he filmed this. It began with turning out a couple of average (for him) films - Christine and Starman, and wouldn't really let up with a few exceptions (Prince of Darkness, In the Mouth of Madness), for the rest of his career. It's a shame, but at least with this film you get the feeling he was having fun. I think that might have been my biggest problem with it all those years ago. Russell's character Jack Burton is played for laughs and my teen brain couldn't handle that, I just wanted Plissken to go in there and do his thing. Over the years though I've really grown to love this film, mainly because I watch it as an out and out comedy, which is what it works best as.

The actual story is pure twaddle, some old guff about some Chinese curse that can only be lifted by marrying a girl with green eyes. Cue lots of daft set pieces and some of the greatest hammy voice over-acting since Donald Pleasence played Blofeld. It's all as daft as a lorry, but if you give in to it and go with it it's a riot. Great sets too, the rubber faced monster that can't move it's mouth and the flying eye head thing are pretty ropey though. It all just about hangs together. For years this was the worst of the Carpenter/Russell collaborations, but then that all changed in '96 though with Escape From L.A. But that's another story.

Head (1968) - Bob Rafelson

In 1970 Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson made Five Easy Pieces. A film which would shape the way the better dramas of the coming decade would be crafted. Small, intimate, well written and acted and shot through with an indie sensibility. Before that though they set about deconstructing the popular modern beat combo The Monkees. Rafelson had produced/written/directed their TV show and had obviously decided that it was time for things to move on. So when it came for them to make their first (and last) feature film Davy, Mike, Pete and Micky (The Monkees) along with Nicholson (writing) and Rafelson (writing and directing) went all out to address the things that weren't allowed on the TV series.

So we get subtle (and not so subtle) drug references, lots of Vietnam footage and of course loads of the lads sticking it to the man. There's no real plot, more just a series of interconnecting vignettes. Which is all fab gear for the first half hour or so, but after that it just drags. There's none of the zaniness of the series, which isn't a problem, but there isn't really anything funny in here either. For all it's shouting it doesn't have much to say beyond, 'um WAR isn't good, you dig' either. So quite a hollow 85 minutes then. It's not as bad as The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour, but that was at least saved by having a soundtrack to die for.

Ah yes the music, well it's actually pretty good, the film kicks off and ends with one of The Monkees best moments - Porpoise Song. There are a few cameos too, we get Zappa waxing forth about how the boys should stick to music, Dennis Hopper walks through the frame at one point, as do Rafelson and Nicholson. There's plenty of late 60's playfulness too, camera equipment in full view, and continual reminders that this is a film, so people walk off sets or break out of character half way through a scene. Wacky groovy et cetera.

Head tanked at the cinema, the hipsters that would have lapped this up would never go and see something staring that most manufactured of bands - The Monkees, and The Monkees audience were too young to get in and see the film. Ho hum. If you like this sort of thing then maybe this is for you, although I'd say you're better off with something like Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain, which is amazing, trippy, beautifully directed, has a better soundtrack and is still like really far out man.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) - Steven Spielberg

 

What with all the hooha surrounding the production and eventual release of this film, I found myself not being too bothered one way or the other about seeing it. So I let it slide past me at the cinema, and later found myself shaking my head at the on line reviews that screamed bad things about ALIENS, and CGI monkeys and all the rest of it. It all sounded about as much fun as being hit round the face with a used nappy.

Of course the world has turned several revolutions since we last saw that hat or heard that music, we're now in the fifties, both the decade and Indy's age (well give or take ten years). Nazi's are long forgotten and we're well into the Reds under the bed era. The story is some old gubbins about crystal skulls (you worked that out already from the title didn't you?), lost South American cities and UFO's, oh and (cough cough) Indy's son. Of course all of that is just an excuse for huge set pieces involving everybody's favourite whip slinging, wise cracking OAP archaeologist. It follows the same structure as the films that have gone before it, James Bond style opening action, then onto the school where all the exposition is gotten out of the way before Indy heads off on his globe trotting adventure. It's worked in all the previous films, so why change it? Likewise the pacing in this installment is superfast, it nips along at great speed, never giving the viewer time to pick holes in the plot. So when the dodgy CGI monkeys do turn up, they are gone before they have time to ruin the film.

In fact it's the use of CGI that I'd gripe on about most after a few Guinnesses down the pub I imagine. But that's because I love the old matte paintings and models of the original trilogy. But times change and so do film techniques, and let's face it the kids that this is aimed at aren't going to get all excited by claymation are they? So updating the look is fair enough. I really do wonder why people didn't enjoy this more though, maybe they expect too much while I expect too little from a film like this. It's true that neither Spielberg or Ford are at the top of their game anymore, but they can both knock out stuff like this easily enough. The rest of the cast is secondary to the action, so you may well have Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone and John Hurt but none of them do anything more than what is required. To be honest how could they do any more than that in this sort of film?

There are plenty of things I didn't like about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull such as the sub plot with his son, those monkeys or the opening Paramount logo dissolve. Then there are moments where belief has to be asked to step outside while the scene plays out, such as when Indy manages to survive an atomic explosion by climbing into a fridge. Still none of the above was able to dampen the film for me, and let's face it if you want realism watch Nil By Mouth, if you want heroes who are as good with the quips as they are with their fists then you could do much worse than this. So much worse.

Play Time (1967) - Jacques Tati

Tati's masterpiece. If you only ever get the chance to see one Tati film in your lifetime, then make it this one. If you get the chance to see two, then watch this twice. Play Time demands to be seen multiple times, not because of any labyrinthine plot or anything like that, but more because of the sheer volume of information up on the screen. Tati films the whole film using master shots, which he sometimes cuts into (although rarely), and avoids the use of close ups almost entirely. This means that the viewers eye is free to wander around the frame, sometimes a sound, or splash of colour will guide the audiences gaze towards a particular point. More often than not though your eyes are free to follow whatever you choose. On first viewing Play Time can appear cold or even empty, but the more time you spend with it the more it reveals it's delights. Quite often there are things happening in the background of scenes that are easily missed first or even second time round. Like the cardboard cut out figures peppered throughout the film, or characters that pop up again and again.

There's no real plot to Play Time, it all begins in an airport, we follow a group of American tourists as they weave their way out and into Paris. Not the old romantic city that usually springs to mind whenever Paris is mentioned, but rather the Paris of the then yet to be built La Défense, all glass and steel, impersonal and cold, straight lines dominating over curves. We also follow Monsieur Hulot (Tati) who crosses paths with everyone in the film, acting as a link to various set ups. First he has some kind of meeting, then he ends up at a trade fair, then a friends home and lastly at the Royal Garden restaurant. The whole film takes place over the course of one 24 hour period, and at the end we follow our coachload of tourists back to the airport.

Play Time follows on from Tati's previous film Mon Oncle both thematically (more of which later) and literally, beginning as it does where Mon Oncle ended, in an airport. Although like many things in Play Time all is not what it appears at first. Tati uses misdirection to fool the viewer into suspecting that this opening scene could in fact be taking place in a hospital. After all that's a nurse carrying a baby, isn't it? Except of course it isn't, the nurse turns out to be carrying paper towels, and with a change of camera angle the hospital becomes an airport. This happens throughout the film, initial perceptions are continually turned on their head. The trade fair section of the film features objects that look like one thing but are in fact something entirely different. Likewise the first appearance of Hulot is preceded by a series of Hulot doppelgangers. Even more so than Tati's previous films this should be considered a silent film, what little dialogue there is, is of little or no importance. With one exception, at the start of the film Hulot is told 'You don't belong here'. I think that is the key line in the whole film.

One of the things Tati does best is the running gag. Nowhere is that better displayed than in Play Time, each character is given some business or other to propel them through the film. So someone that we might see in the background of a scene at the start of the film, could have their story conclude in the restaurant scene towards the end of the film. It's almost like they are clockwork toys that Tati winds up, then releases with wonderful results. There is a theme of both reflections and glass running throughout the film, from the reflections of beautiful old Paris (Arc de Triomphe, La Tour Eiffel and Basilique du Sacré-Cœur) in various glass doors, to the endless jokes based around the opacity of glass, with numerous people walking into doors that were thought to be already open. One of my favourite moments is the scene where the shattered glass door of the Royal Garden restaurant is still opened and closed by the doorman, despite the fact that it doesn't exist. Glorious.

The real tour de force of Play Time is the Royal Garden restaurant sequence, which takes up almost half the running time of the film. A new trendy modern restaurant/discotheque has it's opening night and of course everything goes tits up. It's a film within a film really which builds steadily to it's chaotic end with the increasingly frantic music. It's also in this section of the film that Tati's main bugbear comes to the fore, that of the modern world increasingly forcing itself into people's lives, and the alienation of the people that this newness creates. It's something that has been there right from the start with Tati, and was developed in each successive film he wrote/directed. It's interesting to note that it is Hulot that pulls down the trellis in the restaurant, creating a restaurant within the restaurant, echoing the film within a film set up. It's Hulot that forces people to make their stamp on their environment. It's this human intervention that is a constant in Tati's work. How do people fit into architects plans, and should they?

Now most successful directors get the opportunity to realise their dream project at some point in their career. As is often the case the heart rules the budget, and things start to get out of control. Think of Scorsese with New York, New York, Coppola with Apocalypse Now or worse than either of those Cimino's Heaven's Gate which managed to sink United Artists. Play Time was to be Tati's downfall, both financially and artistically. Massive sets were built which were subsequently destroyed in a freak storm, of course it turned out Tati was uninsured, and from there on things only got worse. Filming stretched out over years instead of months, when the money ran out Tati took out loans, when that money dried up he begged his mother to invest Tati's inheritance so that he could finish the film. The film tanked at the box office in France, which made American distributors give it a miss (it would eventually receive a limited release in 1972). Tati lost everything including the rights to his own films, his home and his and his sisters inheritance. He made one more feature after this, the rather lackluster Trafic in 1971.

Time has been kind to Play Time however, and it is now rightly viewed as one of the greatest films ever made. Somewhere along the line half an hour of footage has gone missing, most likely it'll turn up long after I'm dead and buried. Until then I have this to watch over and over, each time seeing something new. If you haven't seen Play Time, you really should be asking yourself why not and when can that be rectified.

Jackass 3D (2010) - Jeff Tremaine

The law of diminishing returns definitely applies to this third film by the Jackass crew. That's not to say it isn't funny, in places it really is, it's just the simplicity that they used to have has long since given way to bigger gags. Which in turn can lead to the actual funny stuff being overshadowed somewhat by the execution of the joke. But what else can they do? This is a film after all, not a TV episode, so it's expected that they'll step up a gear. It's just that there are set pieces such as the gorilla segment, that leave you just waiting for it to end so that you can start laughing again. Still it's not all bad news, there are still plenty of shots of Steve-O emptying his guts via his mouth and nose, Knoxville gets to work out his obsession with being trampled by bulls even more, not to mention enough poo related nonsense to keep even the most ardent fan laughing.  There's even a Will Oldham cameo just for old relics like myself.

This is also the best looking of the Jackass series, super slow motion shots are peppered throughout the film and look stunning. I didn't watch this in 3D, because if that can be avoided then I try and do just that. The opening and closing set pieces (traditionally the biggest and most intricate in the film), were damp squibs. Although seeing 'the gang' all lined up in front of a giant rainbow did bring a smile to my face. It also made me ponder the idea that it's possible there could be a little subversion going on within the Jackass camp. After all the target audience for these films has to be yr typical lad, and yet here we have a group of half naked (and sometimes butt nekkid) lads (no women allowed remember), all letting it hang out together. Plus there isn't any of the racist or homophobic humour that you'd expect from frat house types. And then there is that rainbow, it's the logo for their production company - Dickhouse. Makes you wonder if someone in the team has a little agenda doesn't it?

Anyway getting back on track, I laughed at this, sometimes loads - the farting guy, the poo volcano and bungee port-a-loo segments being the ones that made the tears roll. Other stuff made me roll my eyes and think that I've seen this all one too many times. Then there was the snake pit gag which was just intensely uncomfortable viewing. I never thought I would feel sorry for Bam Margera, but that's exactly how I felt. The end credits montage felt very much like a farewell, and I hope for their (and their bodies) sakes, it's just that. Time to hang up those Converse Knoxville.