Woodstock (1970) - Michael Wadleigh

3 Days of Peace & Music ran the tagline on the poster for the ‘Woodstock Music & Art Fair’ which took place over four days in August 1969. If they’d just worked the words ‘mind altering drugs’ and ‘biblical weather’ into their slogan they wouldn’t have been too far from the truth. Of course Woodstock is now one of that eras most defining moments, at the time though it was just another festival. Today just hearing or reading the word Woodstock conjures up images of stoned greasy haired kids dancing about and sliding through mud, but back before the festival it was a country retreat for a small crowd of artistic types (most famously Bob Dylan) who wanted out of the city life. The fact that the Woodstock Festival didn’t actually take place at Woodstock, but actually some 45 miles down the road is just typical of the zonked out nature of this iconic gathering of tribes.

Thank heavens for Michael Wadleigh then and his idea to gather up a film crew and head out to document the event. He hit on the brainwave that the audience were just as interesting as the performers and shot hours of film of hippie kids rolling in mud, talking rubbish, sucking on tiny yellow spliffs, getting naked, waffling on at length about drugs, war and The Man and a whole host of other things. Wadleigh arrived early enough to be able to capture the transformation of Max Yasgur’s farm, filming the construction of the stage and capturing the locals bemusement (and later anger) about what was descending upon their little hamlet.

The footage itself is great, mainly handheld, it all feels very unrestricted and very free, totally sixties. Wadleigh’s team seemed to be in the right place at the right time. Which is quite a feat in itself. However the editing is where it all really comes together, we get lots of split screen and overlapping effects, which really do a lot to bring to life what could have otherwise been a static shot of someone singing a song. The fact that a young Martin Scorsese and his future editor - Thelma Schoonmaker were on the editing team probably didn’t hurt too much.

But of course the visuals are only half the story, music and sound obviously play a huge role too. For every great act in the film there’s another that played the event but didn’t make the final cut for whatever reason. Some omissions were rectified with the extra forty minutes bolted on for the Director’s Cut, hello Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane, but even now there’s still no Tim Hardin, The Band, Grateful Dead or Ravi Shankar. But what we do get is a good mixed bag of performances, Joe Cocker gurning like a born again 90s raver through With A Little Help From My Friends, likewise Santana and Ten Years After manage to show that with epic guitar solos comes epic face pulling. We get The Who at their live peak, but unfortunately so far no footage of Townsend booting Abbie Hoffman off stage has ever turned up. Other musical highlights include Sly Stone putting the rest of the line up to shame and showing that he was James Brown’s natural heir, Crosby, Stills & Nash doing their acoustic thing, the electric set that included Neil Young wasn’t filmed thanks to Young nixing the idea. Doh! Then off course there’s Richie Havens kicking the whole shebang off, decked out in a kaftan and dripping sweat all over the place. He’s amazing to watch and even better to listen to.

By the time Hendrix hit the stage a staggering four days after Havens the majority of the 500,000 that had trooped along had departed. Almost no one attending had brought any sort of provisions to survive their time at Woodstock, have a look next time you watch it and see how many tents you can spot. The real victory of Woodstock was the fact that it happened and it passed off relatively peacefully, it was organised by the people for the people too. Half a million American youths were able to sleep next to each other in some strange field in atrocious weather without any violence, that’s a wonderful thing. Especially when juxtaposed with the same amount of Americans 8,500 miles away in Vietnam doing the same thing to the same soundtrack but with very different results.

For me Woodstock is something that I watch every five years or so. It’s not my favourite music festival documentary, but it’s damn close. The previous year’s Monterey Pop Festival is far better music wise, but doesn’t spend much time with the audience. In fact with a few exceptions I really don’t enjoy the music in Woodstock as much as the stuff that happened while all that was going on. The thunderstorm, the stage announcements - ‘If you think really hard, maybe we can stop this rain’, the warnings about the brown acid, the interview with the guy who uses a portaloo and describes it as ‘far out’, the locals who rally round to provide food for the festival goers, the atrocious mess call trumpet player - the list is almost endless. It’s easily one of the high points of popular culture in the 60s. The good vibe of Woodstock didn’t last long though, just a few months after on December 6th The Rolling Stones staged their own mini festival in California at the Altamont Speedway and brought the 60s to a bloody violent close.

Magic Mike (2012) - Steven Soderbergh

I like Steven Soderbergh. I like the way he’s able to flit between smaller indie flicks and big studio films. I like the way he jumps between genres with ease, normally subverting said genre by subtly twisting the audiences expectaitions and ending up somewhere slightly different to the film they thought they were going to watch. Most of all I like him for having a vision, a reason for doing what it is he’s doing. I really hope he finds the urge to make more films and doesn’t retire, but rather takes a sabbatical for a while. I haven’t loved or even seen every film he’s ever made (I've seen most though), but I really did enjoy Magic Mike. If it wasn’t for a few key things then I’d probably be writing that I loved Magic Mike, but we can get to that in a minute.

Magic Mike has the simplest of plots, one that you’ve seen time and time again. It’s the old young kid is taken on a journey through a strange new world by an older wiser man. Knowledge will be passed down and lessons will be learnt. You know the sort of thing. The young kid in this case is 20 something problem type - Adam (Alex Pettyfer), who is unable to hold down a job and lives with his sister - Brooke (Cody Horn). He’s befriended by Mike (Channing Tatum) who shows him the world behind the curtain of male stripping.

That’s the basics, but being a Soderbergh film it’s a little more than that. So you get a lot of stripping, there’s at least seven or so set pieces and they are superb and very creative. But there’s also a side story about Mike being an entrepreneur and trying to get his business dreams off the ground in a world where money isn’t being lent out so easily, along with Adam’s tale of flying the nest. Channing Tatum is a revelation as Mike, he can do all the physical gubbins that the role requires, the dancing and moving must be second nature to a guy whose C.V. includes not one but two Step Up films. The impressive thing is that he can act, taking Mike from a shallow all surface type to something a little more human by the time the film wraps up, without anything feeling false or forced.

Unfortunately the same can’t be said Cody Horn who seems to have one blank expression that she uses in every scene. She’s not in the film all that much, but when she is you’ll be reminded that you’re just watching a film. Alex Pettyfer is a little better, but I didn’t really buy the journey he went on, it felt like some scenes must have gotten lost along the way in the editing suite. At one point he’s turned into a drug hoover, which felt a little sudden. The only other actor to really give Tatum a run for his money is Matthew McConaughey. After his incredible turn in Killer Joe, McConaughey manages to impress yet again with very little screen time as Mike’s boss - Dallas. He’s a scream, and manages to pull a performance out of himself that I would never have thought possible. Do you remember Tom Cruise in Magnolia? Well it’s that sort of 180° style turn. I hope he can keep it up, he even reprises his ‘Alright, alright, alright’ drawl from Dazed and Confused.

It’s strange that the world of male stripping is so vastly different to that of it’s female counterpart. The biggest difference being the audience, at male strip clubs the onlookers are almost 100% female, all of whom seem to laugh and shriek their way through the show. Women seem to quite often turn up in groups and it's thought of as more of a night out, a bit of fun. Juxtapose that with the far sleazier crowd that watch women peeling of their undies and you’ll see what I mean. Very odd that they can be poles apart, but they are. At the end of the day it boils down to why people would choose to watch another person remove their clothes on a small stage. For women I think it's less sexual than it is for men. I don't have anything to back that up, it's just what I'm guessing. Although having never frequented either male or female strip clubs I'm probably not the person most qualified to make that judgement.

The biggest problem with Magic Mike for me though was that the whole story had been done far better in Boogie Nights. The rise and fall and slight rise again story, the substitute family (Mike as the father, Brooke as the mother), hell there’s even a scene where a character unsuccessfully and uncomfortably tries to raise a loan, not to mention the descent in drugs hell section. All of which Boogie Nights did before and better. If Boogie Nights didn’t exist then Magic Mike would feel far more original, but it does exist and it’s a far better film. So where does that leave Magic Mike then? Well it’s good solid entertainment, nothing more nothing less. Well worth seeing for Matthew McConaughey alone, but you get the bonus of a Channing Tatum acting like a potential Oscar nominee. Being a Steven Soderbergh film means that it’s well directed and edited (by Soderbergh himself), but it does feel that it was put together a little too quickly in places with a few scenes that feel a little flat and character motivations that you’ll have to fill in for yourself. The stripping scenes are great fun and Soderbergh doesn’t short change his audience when it comes to that stuff. Overall it’s well worth your time, but there’s far more depth to be found in either The Full Monty or Boogie Nights, although neither of them feature assless chaps to quite the degree that Magic Mike does.

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.

Glastonbury Fayre (1972) - Nic Roeg & Peter Neal

I love these late 60's early 70's festival documentaries. Gimmie Shelter and Message to Love (about the 1970 Isle of Wight festival) are watched at least once a year in my house. I've always hankered after seeing Glastonbury Fayre purely because of the Roeg connection. He basically shot all the footage but then buggered off to make Don't Look Now leaving Peter Neal to put the film together.

Anyway said footage is from the second ever Glastonbury festival, the one that Pink Floyd were going to headline but never did. Instead we get a slew of 'underground' groups from the time. Most left over from the sixties, and seemingly a little rudderless. Which is why this documentary is such a great time capsule piece. Music was in a proper transitional phase back then. The sixties had fizzled out into the seventies, and with glam just around the corner, British music was in a bit of a rut. Enter David Bowie who would release Hunky Dory by the years end, and within a year would have given British music that much needed kick up the arse by transforming himself into Ziggy Stardust.

Bowie's set at Glastonbury '71 was made up of songs from Hunky Dory and a smattering of tracks from his already half decent back catalogue. Sadly for us though the people making the documentary were sound asleep when La Bowie hit the stage at dawn. Still what we do get is a great rip roaring track from Terry Reid to kick the film off. Another highlight is a fine 100 miles per hour Fairport Convention reeling, jigging, toking and generally being a fuck sight better than I would have expected they would be considering Richard Thompson had just left. What else? Well music wise there's a tough sounding Family, Roger Chapman singing like his vocals were being filtered through a sheep. Arthur Brown's band proving that they were better when Arthur wasn't onstage. The highlight though was Traffic belting their way through Gimme Some Lovin'. It reminded me Sly Stone putting everyone else to shame at Woodstock. It just sounds powerful, soulful and doesn't meander. Grinding bass, percussion all over the place, Winwood giving it his all into the obligatory gaffa taped mics, and the biggest baddest guy on congas since Big Black walked the earth. Everyone else sounds flat compared to this performance.

To be honest it's hard to see this as being by Roeg, there aren't any of the touches that we all love about him present here. But that isn't to say this isn't worth watching, because it definitely is even if it's just for the footage of Magic Michael. Don't know Magic Michael? Well imagine a seventies version of the Chemical Brothers, the blonde one whacking away with no sense of rhythm at a couple of tiny bongos held at head height. The dark haired one meanwhile is gurning and caterwauling away, pulling some truly excellent electroshock therapy faces, he's also clutching an acoustic guitar which is as close as he comes to playing it. Oh and he's bollock naked except for a grimy grey tank top. As I say Britain was waiting for Roxy, Bowie, Bolan to come along and lead people into the decade proper.

One of the best things about Glastonbury Fayre is the fact that (just like the festival itself) it doesn't focus purely on the music. There is plenty of the spiritual side of things, which could still be found even when I was going to Glastonbury in the 90's. Plus like all the best music docs from this period there is a lot of footage of the people, all 7,000 of them. Oh and Glastonbury back then was free. How hippy a concept is that, eh? Most of the crowd look at best like Mike Oldfield or at worst a Ginger Baker/Van Morrison hybrid (and yes that's the ladies too), but at least the barrier between audience and performer was almost invisible. Something that Punk would later claim to have torn down. It was never really there at Michael Eavis' farm back in the day. Everyone looks like they live in a commune, and it becomes apparent that decent hair products hadn't reached the early seventies British underground. I did find myself wondering if everyone went back to the daily grind after this or if they really did live the life.

Of course it wouldn't be a festival without two things;- naked types and mud. There are plenty of naked people, and they roll in mud, but they also do really bad interpretive dancing, ride motorbikes and paint their sagging dirty pillows really poorly. The weird thing is they just blend into the crowd. I remember one afternoon at some Glastonbury I was at being passed by a guy who was naked except for a bum bag, with the bag bit actually worn at the back. Real horror show like. I would never have been able to stomach Glasters back in the 70's. I could only just manage the few I did attend. Anyway to sum all this up, if you haven't seen this then do, it's a scream, it even has a guy doing stage announcements with a live chicken sitting on his shoulder. What more could you ask for?

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.

Dog (2001) - Andrea Arnold

Thematically linked in a few ways to Arnold's later Fish Tank, this short is her finding her artistic feet and paving the way for what would become her Oscar winning short Wasp. Leah is a council estate teen, her mum screams abuse at her when she leaves the flat instead of waving tutty bye. You've all seen Ken Loach and Mike Leigh films even if you haven't ventured into the wilds of East London, so you know the type of people I mean. She meets up with her boyfriend John, and they go and buy some gear. Romance not being dead he leads her off onto some waste ground and starts to get frisky. A stray dog eats his dope, so John kicks the dog to death. Leah sees him for the idiot he is and goes home to a receive a beating from her mum. Who is the dog of the title? Well it's not as subtle as one would hope, but when Leah starts barking at her mum, all becomes obvious. There are far worse ways to spend nine minutes of your life than watching this. It looks lovely and is stylistically obviously Arnold, Joanne Hill is great as Leah, shame she hasn't been in anything since.

The Acid House (1998) - Paul McGuigan

It used to be all Irvine Welsh around here, of course that was back in the mid nineties when looking like a Jakey and having a brogue accent was all the rage. After the success of Trainspotting it was only a question of time before something was rushed into production, in order to have that all important 'from the author of Trainspotting' on the poster. The Acid House was that film, and boy did it kill off the Irvine Welsh trend. It's a portmanteau film consisting of three short stories adapted from the book of the same name. Two of them work well, one doesn't, and that's what prevents The Acid House from being thought of as anything other than Trainspottings ugly sibling. There is a theme of transformation running through all three chapters, it's none too subtle, but who cares. Like that film, the soundtrack for The Acid House is as good as what's up on the screen.

All three shorts are packed with everything I love about great Scottish films, they are sweary as anything, dark but bristling with humour and packed with a cast of great Scots actors that will have you reaching for the IMDB to find out just where you know them from. The Granton Star Cause is first up. Boab gets dropped by his fitba team, is asked to move out by his Ma and Pa, loses his girl, gets arrested and beaten to a pulp by a couple of the boys in blue, then to cap it all off has a run in with God over a pint. God in his pissed up wisdom decides to turn Boab into a fly. Boab uses this to wreak revenge on those that have dissed him. A Soft Touch is the real centerpiece of The Acid House, Kevin McKidd is Johnny the soft touch from the title. He marries Catriona (Michelle Gomez) the local bike, and they have a kid. Hard bastard Larry moves into the flat above them and starts being more than friendly with Catriona. Will Johnny man up, or mouse off? Last up is the The Acid House itself, Ewen Bremner plays Coco Bryce, yr typical Irvine Welsh clubber, who when struck by lightning one evening ends up in the body of a new born baby.

The first two segments are winners, and would be proudly displayed on any directors CV. It's this last story that let's the side down, everything just goes tits up. It's overlong, the lightning strike scene goes on for what feels like hours. It could really have done with a bit of trimming, the story hangs around for an age. I don't think it helps that all of a sudden we are propelled into the home of a middle class English couple, after spending the previous hour in rundown Glasgow. It's a drag since the other shorts work so well, both sporting that tar black Irvine Welsh humour. McGuigan went on to direct the wonderful but flawed Brit gangster flick Gangster No. 1, and not a lot else. Ho hum.

Mr. Nice (2010) - Bernard Rose

Utter rubbish. Let's get one thing straight from the get go, I don't like Howard Marks (whose life this film is portraying). Drug smugglers tend to have that effect on me. Usually I have very little time for them, and when they start acting as if they're doing a public service I just end up liking them even less. Howard Marks was a drug smuggler, he wasn't a Robin Hood figure, he wasn't some sort of small time villain that loved his mum and was a bit naughty. He smuggled huge quantities of marijuana into both the States and Britain. He made loads of money, he spent loads of money, he got caught, he went to prison. Hero? Total fucking wanger more like. I really don't like the guy at all. I have nothing against people smoking weed, in fact I'm well up for it being legalized. Marks managed to involve himself with the IRA in order to get gear into England. The sort of person that would hook up with murderers in order to make a quick profit, isn't the sort of person I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt too.

So there you go that's Howard Marks and me in a nutshell. Despite what I wrote above I still went into this film with the hope that it could be something fantastic, or at the very least engaging. After all I don't have much time for that Hitler bloke either, but still thought Downfall was a diamond. Mr. Nice though is tosh from start to finish, Marks himself is treated as an average bloke who saw his chance and took it, and good for him type of thing. A quote early on in the film kind of sums the whole thing up for me;- 'A dealer is someone who buys more dope than he can smoke'. Is he? Not too sure about that one Howard. Even if this film is approached as a slice of fantasy it still doesn't work. Why? Well I'm glad you asked.

For a start the central relationship between Howard and Judy Marks is too flimsy, they smoke a bit of dope, make like the beast with two backs, have a few kids and that's about it. You'd think there would be drama gold to be mined there, after all Judy is played by Chloë Sevigny, one of the better actresses out there. Not that you'd guess that from this performance, her accent was impossible to place. I'm presuming it was supposed to British and since I'm fond of her I'll leave it at that. Rhys Ifans was actually pretty good in such a thankless role, I think he did quite well acting under a series of wigs that looked like leftovers from a Shane Meadows short. Little bit of trivia for you while we're talking about Ifans, he was once the singer with Super Furry Animals, who used Marks' image on the front of their debut album. Small world, eh? See I'm not just here to moan about films you know.

Bernard Rose has had a go at doing a bit of a Forrest Gump on a shoestring type thing, by placing Ifans in seventies London, shooting him against a backdrop of archive footage. It's a tricky thing to do well, and Rose just doesn't have the chops to manage it, it looks embarrassing and obviously doesn't work. The film starts in black and white, and only once Howard discovers the joy of marijuana does the film become colour. Tacky doesn't even begin to cover it. For some reason Marks' time inside is hardly touched upon, which is a shame since this was one of the few areas in his book that really showed just how tragic his life had become. Other things that were awful? Well how about Saleem Makik's jacket staying exactly the same despite the fact that the film has moved on several years? What happened to Jim McCann (Thewlis)? Last we saw of him he was there surrounded by armed police, then somehow he let's off a smoke bomb, and then? Well your guess is as good as mine. Shoddy things like this pepper the film, which is a shame since it could have been so much better. Worse than all of this though is how can Crispin Glover and David Thewlis be in a film together and have it end up being so bloody crappy? Steer clear and watch the far superior Blow instead.

American Gangster (2007) - Ridley Scott

As a kid I loved Ridley Scott, he was up there with Gilliam and Argento as total style guru for me. A Ridley Scott film would mean one thing above all else, eye porn. I couldn't care less what the film was about, if he was behind the camera chomping on a cigar then I'd watch it. That's why I've sat through such piddle as Black Rain, and enjoyed it. As I've grown older though I've become less enamoured with the look of films, and far more obsessed with the film as a whole. Style over substance, that's something that people have always thrown at Ridley Scott, and quite often it's true. He does have a little more to him than just his camera work though. He hops from genre to genre like no one else, there is no predicting what he'll do next (although you can always predict how it will look). Another huge plus with Scott is the amount of great female roles there are in his filmography. Far more than any of his contemporaries that I can think of. Since hitting gold with Gladiator, it's felt as if Scott has been coasting along pumping out big historical epics and the odd low budget (for that read $70,000,000) flick. Some have hit the mark, some haven't. Matchstick Men, Black Hawk Down and American Gangster being the best three films Scott has stamped his mark on since Gladiator.

This is one of those based on a true story efforts, I wasn't familiar with the story before seeing the film, but I can imagine it's one of those 'the names are the same it's just the story that's been changed' type scenarios. Denzel Washington is at his nasty bastard best as Frank Lucas, who during the 70's made a fortune by flooding the States with heroin. Russell Crowe is Richie Roberts the cop that put an end to it all and put him behind bars. From those two lines you can guess how the film plays out, it's all attention to period detail, pimp threads and afro wigs for Denzel's crew, Serpico chic for Russell's. The cars are shiny and everything about the film feels unauthentic. It just keeps informing you that you are watching a film, the music pumps away on the soundtrack, people strut into scenes and then disappear onto the cutting room floor, action is handled in a typical action way - not quite as extreme as Michael Bay or Scott's brother Tony, but still all really unrealistically. But then again you don't watch a Ridley Scott film for the dialogue do you? Still compared to other Hollywood gangster flicks of the past few years this is probably one of the better ones, not up there with Donnie Brasco but maybe a little better than Public Enemies.

Style over substance. Remember? Style over substance. What it reminded me of most was that thing that Hollywood always does, you know the thing where some screenwriter/producer sees a TV series and decides that 'Hey wouldn't it be great to make a film like that?'. Of course then they go about ripping the guts out of the show, condensing everything so that it will fit into a two hour time frame, finally their vision disappears when someone with a stronger one (normally the director, or lead actor) is bought on board to get the whole thing off the ground. So with that in mind I'll just say HBO - The Wire, and leave it at that. I think you know what I mean.