The Day of the Locust

(Film)



JAMES says:

It was as if everyone decided that there were only a small number of films from the past that were worth watching, and these films must be watched for ever and ever until we all drown in a sea of Great Escapes and Godfathers and Jawses. An understandable reaction, I suppose, to the horrific realisation that you will never be able to watch every film, read every book, sleep with every hootchy mama. This explains the rise in these lists of 1000 things you must do before you die otherwise your time on this planet has been a complete freaking waste of time just because you’ve never found the time to sit through Sixteen Candles. If you can create a fortress against the great tide of culture constantly being spewed at you, if you can say ‘These things I will watch, the rest can go hang’, then you can escape that gnawing feeling that maybe you should have watched Revenge of the Nerds II, I mean the first one was pretty crappy but maybe the turned it around with the sequel, maybe it was all building up to some pretty biting social commentary.

A natural human reaction to mortality, but one that leaves you in danger of missing out on some pretty cool stuff that for some reason or other never made the canon. Day of the Locust, for instance (just in case you had forgotten what the actual subject of the review is by this point). I had never heard of the film version before seeing it, and the only reason I sought it out on Lovefilm was that I am currently at the point on my literary cycle where I am wanting to re-experience stuff I read or saw 10 years ago. I had read the novel by Nathanial West at university and not since, but it is one that has stayed with me and I am always curious to see adaptations of books I have enjoyed.

The Day of the Locust is set in 1930s Hollywood, amongst the bit-players, the art assistants and the wash-outs that live of the fringes of the great entertainment machine. These people are completely sure of their own talent, but are only able to survive by debasing their talent. The great clown becomes a polish seller, the visionary artist designs sets and the actress is a prostitute. But then aren’t they all. The characters sweep along in their own tawdry worlds, blinded by the glamour that is so close and yet out of reach, until into their world comes Homer Simpson (yes, really), an awkward repressed bumbler, the poor slob representing the consumer of the entertainment industry’s product and whose money funds the clouds the artsy types live in. It will come as no surprise that his life is not improved by this meeting.

The mix between fantasy and reality, between the degraded world of the bottom feeders and the divine life of the chosen few is captured well by the style of the film, as is the human cost of the fantasy being created in Hollywood. The sweat is always visible beneath the make up. The plot also sticks admirably close to that of the novel, allowing the characters to commit unforgivable actions that would alienate the viewer if they ever really asked for forgiveness. The finale, meanwhile, transcends the rest of the film. It was as if reading the Great Gatsby you find that the last page had been replaced by a Goya etching. When Debbie awakened after falling asleep as usual and asked me what happened in the end, all I could answer was the end of the world.

The only criticisms I have are with casting. Firstly they have that funny looking woman whose eyes are too close together and who seems to be in every single film from the 70s as the romantic lead. Secondly, the only guy in it that I’d actually heard of, Donald Sutherland, was completely miscast as Homer. Far from bumbling, he appears almost debonair at times, and it is unclear at times just why the character is acting the way he is. However all this is forgiven for the ending of the film, and I would beg all reading this to watch the film, tell your friends, and don’t let it become a forgotten gem. Um... might have missed the boat on that one actually.

And if you too have deep seated worries that you are missing out on cultural greatness in your life, don’t worry. Nothing that has been produced is entirely without value, nothing can be watched without some kind of benefit or enjoyment. Except The Edge of Love with Keira Knightley.

9.1/10

No Country for Old Men

Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007
(Film)





JAMES says:

It’s the Coen brothers, so it’s beautifully shot, and full of quirky but interesting characters; this time round they’re proper cowboys and Indians (well, Mexicans but close enough). Fairly early on in proceedings (about the time the guy starts shooting dogs) we agreed that it wasn’t a Debbie film. What surprised me, by the end I had decided that it wasn’t a James film. I will explain my reasons, but I warn you they might be misinterpreted to create the impression that I’m low brow, stupid even. Far from that being the case, I am as highbrow as Stephen Fry without an anus.

With that mental image always close at hand, let us continue. When we watch a film it is often a give and take process, we suspend our disbelief and they give us a satisfying but generally absurd experience. Now, this is of course not always the case, and there is a valid and growing subset of movies concerned with a couple of hours where nothing much really happens, y’know, just like life. Mutual Appreciation is a very good example of this. But No Country for Old Men isn’t. Rather a lot happens, mainly involving men ending the lives of other men using firearms or vacuum cleaners.

And that of course is fine. Movies where lots of people kill other people, movies where one guy takes on rooms full of slightly sweatier men with semi automatics and comes out unscathed, I love movies like that. Every bullet that whizzes past as our protagonist does a forward roly poly to the scant cover of a hotel bed makes you feel a little bit invulnerable. So it hummed along perfectly nicely until it suddenly decided to be inconsequential, unresolved and unsatisfying, y’know, just like life.

But it hadn’t been like life up until then, and the sudden change of tone was jarring, annoying even. After all that crossfire foreplay we want the money shot, the hero and the villain, the showdown, the kiss and the sunset. What we get is an old guy having some dinner with his wife. It’s like at the climactic point of a porn film the couple (or group, or menagerie) just stop doing it and start playing Mario Kart. Which is probably artistically valid and clever but leaves you frustrated and tugging desperately at your drooping member (I hope you’re still remembering Fry and his lack of anus).

Maybe I’m being shallow in desiring traditional resolution, or maybe I’m just annoyed because I got confused and had meant to order There Will Be Blood from Lovefilm (though to be fair there was quite a bit of blood). What I definitely am is disappointed by this whorish tease of a movie.

4.2/10

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Buy No Country For Old Men [2007] on DVD from Amazon now!

Shark in Venice

Dir. Danny Lerner, 2008
(Film)



NEILL says:

There are doubtless people in this world who, upon stumbling across the existence of a film titled Shark in Venice could simply smile wryly, shrug their shoulders and walk away. I am, regrettably, not one of those people. Before we go any further, I am aware that coming so soon after some of my recent posts, what follows may seem like I am recounting some strange fever dream experienced after eating too many anchovies late at night. I wish to assure you, this film is entirely real. Look, here's the poster and everything.


Admittedly, that looks like I could have knocked together in Photoshop in about twelve bored seconds, so does not really help my case. Let me just repeat: this is a real film. Real people spent substantial amounts of real time and real money making this film. Just hold on to that thought.

Shark in Venice opens with a team of divers in Venice's canals being attacked by a shark. Or rather, a team of divers in a swimming pool somewhere in Bulgaria going "Aargh", intercut choppily with stock footage of a shark swimming around the ocean somewhere. This horror is witnessed by a team of observers on a nearby boat, who helpfully remind us that we are supposed to be in Italy by uttering lines of dialogue like "Dio Mio! Grazie! Marco Polo!". (That is, almost unbelieveably, a direct quote. I spent the rest of the film waiting for someone to start shouting "Carbonara! Bambino! Gino Ginelli!!!").

We cut to San Francisco, where we meet nature's least-loved Baldwin, Steven Baldwin, cast in the not-entirely-suitable role of a university lecturer. A kindly dean informs Baldwin that his father has disappeared mysteriously while searching for a treasure hidden beneath Venice during the crusades by three knightly brothers. Hang on, what? No, he really did just say that. If the scenario sounds oddly familiar, that's because it is at this point that Shark In Venice boldly throws off expectations and turns out not, in fact, to be an incredibly low-rent rip-off of Jaws. No, it is actually an incredibly low-rent and frankly quite demented rip-off of Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. But with sharks.

Baldwin shuffles through the film doughy-faced and glassy-eyed, delivering his lines in a disconnected mumble that was possibly intended as a shot at 'brooding' but mostly just gives the almost-certainly-correct impression that he is on some really quite substantial medication. At one point about halfway through the film he actually comes close to emoting for a few seconds (well, he shouts a bit, anyway) and then - and I remind you yet again that I am not making this up - has to sit down, apparently exhausted. Despite his figure-hugging 'sexy' t-shirt, Baldwin largely fails to convince as an action hero. This is not least because of his peculiarly uncomfortable-looking walk, the unmistakeable sign of a man whose girdle is done up slightly too tight. Baldwin's character is accompanied to Venice by his fiancee, who is described as "an expert." (Long pause.) "In medieval literature." She fulfils the odd role of having heated conversations with all the other characters on Baldwin's behalf while he sits there staring into the middle distance. The curious result is that she seems less like a girlfriend and more like some kind of psychiatric care assistant.

The plot proceeds to go off the rails in the most fantastically bizarre and spectacular ways. The villain of the piece is a mafia boss who, it turns out (SPOILERS) unleashed a swarm of man-eating great white sharks into Venice's canals to prevent anyone finding the treasure, and then becomes increasingly frustrated as everyone he sends to retrieve the treasure is killed by man-eating great white sharks. He tries to strongarm Baldwin, kidnapping his girlfriend to force him into finding the treasure again. About halfway through the film he apparently decides this plan is not exciting enough, and sends a squad of uzi-wielding motorcycle ninjas to assassinate Baldwin for no clearly definable reason. I tried to put down in an ordered, logical way the villain's stated motivations, but only managed to give myself a tremendous tension headache. Often in recent years I have had the impression when watching a film that the screenplay has been generated by some kind of computer program, the producers having merely selected character names, setting and genre from a series of drop-down menus. This is the first time it has felt like that program has thrown some kind of fatal Logical Exception Error and crashed.

It takes a certain kind of chutzpah to make a film about killer sharks using only stock footage and occasional bursts of CGI so spectacularly bad that they are actually preceded by the screen becoming all grainy and pixelated like a YouTube clip watched over an old person's dodgy dial-up internet connection. But that kind of chutzpah is evidently to be found in abundance in Bulgaria, where the end credits reveal this film to have been produced, funded and directed. Somehow that seemed to explain a lot.

4/10

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Buy Shark In Venice [2008] on Amazon! If for some reason you think that is a good idea.

Still don't believe me? Look!



See?

The Day After Tomorrow

(Movie)

JAMES says:

It is already about a month after the day after tomorrow when I originally saw this film, and life so far has been surprisingly free of wolves, giant hail stones and maverick scientists who no-one believes until everything they were talking about actually happens. So the film got the timescale a bit wrong, along with most of the science and the belief that we actually care about whether little Petey the blind boy lives or dies. Still, it kept my mind off the whole getting married the next day (yes, my last night of freedom was spent in an out-of-town Watford leisure park eating Mexican food, shooting zombies and watching a crappy American disaster film. It was great!), it taught us a valuable lesson, and it's nice to see that if there ever was major climate change over 2 weeks, everyone in the third world would be only to happy to have their countries overrun by whiney white people. The wolves were a bit over the top though.

4.8/10

Van Helsing

(Film)
Dir: Stephen Sommers



NEILL says:

Van Helsing is a true heir to the 'classic' Hammer horror movies of the 1970s in that it is actually completely shit. I consider it a bad sign that I spent long portions of the running time mentally organising my bank account, and even longer seeing how many adverbs I could come up with for the word 'stupid'. I lost count in the end, but my top 3 favourites were: 'heroically', 'monumentally', and of course the classic 'un-fucking-believably'. The whole thing resembled nothing so much as an extended version of the cut-scenes that you get between levels on PS2 games, and had all the depth, intelligence and artistic subtlety that implies. It is a very strange thing to sit through an entire film feeling an overpowering instinct to 'press the start button and skip this shit'. I will share one choice snippet of dialogue with you, and that will tell you all you need to know about the heroic, monumental and quite un-fucking-believable stupidity of this movie. Whilst hunting down a vampire, or possibly a werewolf (I forget - I think I was running through my standing orders at the time), one character asks Van Helsing about his motivation: he has no personal or family connection to the fight against vampires (or possibly werewolves), so why does he do it? What is he looking for? And what does he reply, this nineteenth-century Vatican solider?

"I don't know... maybe some self-realisation."

I mean to say, for fucks sake.

4/10

Versus

(Movie)



JAMES says:

This is without a doubt the best Samurai/Horror/Yakuza/King-Fu/Zombie/Sci-Fi movie I have ever seen. And that includes Attack of the Zombie Gangster Samurais from Outer Space with Fists of Fury.Anyway, without giving too much of the plot away, largely because I didn’t understand most of it, I have made the following observations-

1. Japanese Gangsters are really gay. (Note to any Japanese gangsters, I am basing this entirely on the film, not personal opinion. Just relax, eh?)


2. This film seems to have quite improbably been the inspiration for both the policeman character in Catterick and Jonathon Ross’s dress sense.


3. Blair Witch Project would’ve been much better with zombies.


4. For a self confessed feminist, that guy sure seems to enjoy hitting chicks.


5. Fully 1/5th of the budget must have gone on fake blood.

Within the first two minutes of this film you know you’ve made the right choice, and from there onwards it’s a magnificently violent, slightly odd, chuckle inducing master piece.

7.8/10

Zatoichi

Dir: Takeshi Kitano
(Film)



NEILL says:

Samurai movies make me deeply happy; Takeshi Kitano movies make me deeply happy. There was really no way this was ever going to suck. Many people are killed in spectacularly violent ways, there are transvestite Geisha assassins, and there is a very amusing scene where a guy gets hit on the head a bunch of times with sticks. This, people, is Art. A steady flow of richly absorbing and frequently beautiful vignettes are interspersed with surreally bloody action, building up to a rollicking violent climax. And just when you think you couldn't be enjoying yourself any more, everybody starts tap-dancing. This is not a film overly worried about pansy-ass notions of 'authenticity', god bless it. I would like to voice my fervent personal hope that Takeshi's first period movie is not his last; that instead it marks the beginning of a whole new 'Samurai movies' phase in his career. If the guy were ever to make a samurai movie with the grace, depth and beauty of 'Hana-Bi'... well. I imagine it would be quite cool, that's all I'm saying.

7.7/10

Elephant

Dir: Gus Van Sant
(Film)



JAMES says:

There are drawbacks to going to the cinema with someone else. Sure, you look less like a lonely pathetic loser psychopath, and you have someone to steal popcorn from. On the other hand, you need to have an opinion about a film as soon as you walk out. Not wishing to appear like an uncritical fool in the inevitable post-screening discussion, I took a negative position towards Elephant. Thinking about it afterwards, however, I was unsure that this was how I felt about it. Then I decided I was right.

One thing I had no problem judging was the cinema we saw it at. Have you ever been to the Odeon in Wardour Street? It’s rubbish! First of all it’s basically in an office block, on the 3rd floor, no less. After the non-descript elevator ride I was surprised to find we got in without needing to give a password to some doorman. The cinema was smaller than my office, and the screen itself was about the size of my sister’s TV. And they call this a West End cinema and charge you 8 quid? Madness.

Being in a place that small, I was very aware of the rest of the audience, and I think the people who walked out half way through had the right idea. They would’ve got a nice but quite short tableau on American high school life, like an arty Saved by the Bell. It was when all the guns and stuff came in that it lost me. For those who don’t know Elephant is Gus Van Sant’s ‘response’ to the Columbine shootings, and from what I can gather he was against them. However, the film didn’t seem to have anything more to say on the matter than that gay nazi kids shooting other kids was a bad thing.

And this was where the uncertainty came into my views. Does a film need to have a message to be worthwhile? Can it just be a thing as and of itself? I think in this case it can’t. In exchange for the couple of hours of your life you give to it, a film needs to entertain, educate or enlighten. Especially when you take on an actual event that took peoples lives. Elephant just struck me as a bit empty. Plus, the girls changing room scene certainly didn’t reach its full potential. Van Sant should consider watching Porky’s if he ever makes a sequel.

4.7/10

Open Your Eyes

Dir: Alejandro Amenábar, 1997
(Film)



NEILL says:

Amenábar's 1997 thriller is an interesting thing. It won critical plaudits, international success and a big-budget Hollywood remake for pulling off what seems to me the rather sneaky trick of being a derivative third-rate sci-fi flick that doesn't actually mention the fact that it's a sci-fi flick until you're halfway through the third act. By which point you've already seen Penelope Cruz's breasts and are understandably powerless to change the channel. Now I ask you, is that fair? There you are, innocently watching what seems to be a run-of-the-mill European arthouse film dealing with themes of identity, memory and sexual obsession, when seventy-five minutes in and it suddenly becomes apparent that no, in fact you're watching fucking 'Total Recall'. I don't know about you, but I call that a bit mean. It's a very disconcerting thing for the audience. I mean, imagine you're watching 'Iris', and in the final ten minutes it's suddenly revealed out of nowhere that Judi Dench is in fact an evil android from the future, programmed with false memories and sent back in time on a mission to kill the young Kate Winslet before she can write 'The Waves'. Ask yourself: would that have made 'Iris' a better film? Well, yeah, of course it would. That was a bad example. In fact, the addition of some killer androids is the only thing I can think of that would make 'Iris' even halfway watchable. Fucking piece of shit that it was. Still, you take my point.

Actually, I quite liked 'Open your eyes'. Just felt like a bit of a rant.

6.2/10

The Matrix Revolutions

Dir: Andy & Larry Wachowski
(FIlm)



NEILL says:

Because I'm having something of a zen day, and so as not to reveal any explicit plot spoilers for my hapless co-reviewer, who has failed to see it yet, I'd like to review this film in the form of a haiku:

Superman Kung Fu,
Think that's air you're not breathing?
Our Lord, Thou Art Ted.


6.9/10

Rules of Attraction

Dir: Roger Avary
(Film)



JAMES says:

If you haven’t already seen this film, you’ve probably seen reviews for it. In the Guide, in Empire, even from dear old Steve Preistly. You’ve probably already decided if it’s a film you quite want to see or don’t, so what’s the point of this review? I’ll tell you; Dawson’s big sweaty forehead. No other review I saw warned you that this film contains gratuitous Dawson sweaty forehead shots. Thus I came to this film completely oblivious to its horrific contents. I even, in my naivety, decided to eat my dinner while I watched it. Even the shot of someone throwing up on someone else’s back during sex within the first few minutes couldn’t prepare me for what was to come. And, sure enough, there it was. A POV shot from the perspective of some unfortunate wench being done by James Van Der ‘Dawson’ Beek. It fair near put me off my curry, I can tell you. And it doesn’t only happen once, but a number of times.

So, thanks to this superb review you know not to watch this film. Unless you’re curious to know what it must feel like to have Dawson make sweet love to you. Without these offending scenes, it’s a fair old nothing movie. Sometimes trying to be a bit visually innovative, with a bit of nudity, and a big ol’ scoop of youthful nihilism. Basically this film will take a couple of hours of your life without giving anything in return, other than showing you what various teen movie bit-parters are up to these days

5/10

Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires

Dir: Roy Ward Baker, Chang Cheh, 1974
(Film)



NEILL says:

'Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires' (AKA '7 Brothers Versus Dracula', AKA '7 Brothers and a Sister Meet Dracula') is a 1974 Hammer/ Shaw Bros. co-production in which Peter Cushing as Profesor Van Helsing teams up with a plucky band of martial artists and a busty blonde scandinavian woman to fight evil vampires and kung-fu zombies in rural China.

Now, anyone in possession of all their faculties would read the above description and think 'By Christ, that sounds like the single greatest film ever made!' And yes, by Christ, it does. The fight scenes are energetically choregraphed, the special effects are an endearing blend of laughable cheap fakery and genuine gruesomeness, and there are not one but several scenes featuring a bevy of naked screaming chinese virgins. A BEVY, I tell you.

It is with a heavy heart then that I must inform you that it is not, in fact, the single greatest film ever made, by Christ. In fact, it's all a bit dull. There are several problems with the script, foremost amongst which is that no-one involved seems to have actually bothered to write one. It takes a rare blend of perseverance and determination to make a movie about kung-fu vampires and naked screaming chinese virgins and actually make it dull, and the writer here has pulled off the trick with applomb. The screenplay is credited to 'Don Houghton', but in fact this is merely a clever anagram for 'Don't Thug No Ho', a fact which I think speaks for itself.

To see the true entertainment possibilities inherent in kung-fu vampires, I would refer you to the 1985 Ching-Ying Lam / Ricky Lau classic, 'Mr Vampire', which may not boast Peter Cushing, but in its defence actually IS the single greatest film ever made. By Christ.

4.8/10

Buy on Amazon:
The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires [1974]

Alfred Hitchcock

(Director)



JAMES says:

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. The man Hitch. What a guy. No other fat guy in history commands as much respect as old Alfie, and he deserves it. A sort of Anti-Father Christmas, a kindly old man who instead of toys distributes incredibly disturbing films. Hitchcock treads the line between artistic vision and commercial success in a way not often seen. He was a master of imagery, of the mis-en-scene, and a major inspiration to the French New-wavers of the sixties. He was also one of the most visually innovative directors of his time. Witness the dream sequences in Vertigo and Spellbound (directed by Salvador Dali).

When you sit down to a Hitchcock film, you pretty much know it’s going to be a good’un. While he has admittedly done a couple of duff ones (Topaz and Jamaica Inn don’t really bear repeated viewing) considering the number of films he churned out the quality levels are usually set surprisingly high. And that’s not including the classics, such as Psycho or Rear Window. And in Vertigo, which I consider the pinnacle of his career, we have one of the all time greatest films of all time ever. There are better directed films than Vertigo, and other directors with good track records, but I honestly cannot think of a director as consistently good as Hitchcock.

You might claim a limited range, but he could do it all, from psychological thrillers to psychologically thrilling black comedies. But his strength was in his ability to unsettle. He could do it with something as simple as a striped cushion in Spellbound, or as explicit as the rape scene in Frenzy, filmed in unflinching long shots and as a result a lot more uncomfortable than the jump cuts of the infamous shower scene. Apparently all Hitchcock’s fears derived from a time when he was locked in a prison as a child, to teach him ‘what happens to naughty boys.’ His greatest gift is the ability to recreate this childhood sense of fear and helplessness.

He is helped in this by usually having a fantastic cast. There could not be a more icily beautiful leading lady than Grace Kelly, nor a more effortlessly likable and charming leading man than Gregory Peck or Jimmy Stewart (though slightly miscast as a Nietzschean in Rope). He even got Richard from Keeping Up Appearances for Frenzy. But the biggest star was always Hitch himself. He created a cult of personality around himself, unusual for a director. He made sure he made an appearance in each of his films, though usually near the start so people didn’t spend the whole film looking for him. He even managed to make a cameo in a film set entirely in a life boat with two men in it. And he had a very distinctive silhouette. Imagine how good 24 could have been if Hitchcock had been around to direct it.

8.9/10

NEILL says:

My brother mentions the fact, familiar to all self-respecting cinephiles, that Hitchcock made a point of appearing in cameo roles in all his own films. What is equally fascinating but less well-known is that he also appears in each of the movies of Molly Ringwald. Adopting a series of ingenious disguises, the corpulent presumed-dead auteur can be seen in such fleeting but memorable roles as 'Geeks father' in The Breakfast Club, and 'Prom Bitch no. 2' in Pretty in Pink. Hitch would keep his identity secret from everyone else on the set, only revealing himself when principal photography was completed by posting to Ms. Ringwald a set of photographs of herself he would take over the course of the shoot using his trusty telefocus night-vision camera. It is widely rumoured that the strain precipitated by this behaviour caused Ringwald to suffer a massive nervous breakdown, resulting in her otherwise thoroughly inexplicable expulsion from the upper echelons of cinematic stardom.

Of course, these days it is generally accepted that Hitchcock is indeed dead, but still across the land there are those who keep the faith; whispered rumours wherever brave men dare to gather that he did not die, but went into hiding; standing vigilant against the dark day that Molly Ringwald's career should rise again. Waiting, forever waiting...

9.2/10

Catch Me If You Can

Dir: Steven Spielberg, 2002
(Film)



NEILL says:

Worth watching if you are starved for entertainment on a 10+ hour flight, otherwise inadvisable.

4/10

JAMES says:

Worth watching if your girlfriend forces you to watch it with her and then falls asleep. Just. Although Leonardo DiCaprio's continuing ugliness is a distraction.

4/10

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Buy on Amazon: Catch Me If You Can [2003]

A Matter of Life and Death

Dir: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, 1946
(Film)



JAMES says:

Certainly one of the greatest films of all time, this is one of those films that, no matter how many times I watch it, I still feel all warm and emotional at the end. In fact, I’m crying now just thinking about it. Not really. The plot, without giving too much away, involves a British airman (David Niven) being shot down over the channel during the war. He is due to have died, but the agent sent to collect him, being French, messed the whole thing up. By the time he’s caught up with, he has fallen in love with a comely American nurse, and doesn’t really want to go to heaven yet. So it all goes to trial. Then it turns out that machines rule the earth, and that the airman himself is the murderer. It’s a fantasy, but it’s the details that impress.

Sure, it’s settled, and a little sentimental, but it’s an honest sentiment not seen in big budget films that much these days. Back in those days, in the immediate post war years, there was an optimism and a feeling that anything was possible, hence this love conquers all storyline. It’s a film where you have to leave your cynicism at home, and just enjoy. I’ve just realised how girly this is all making me sound. Well, heck, I just don’t care. You want post-modern cynicism, go and see ‘Peeping Tom’, also directed by Enoch Powell. This is one to touch the heart.

It has a few duff moments. The heavenly trial for some reason descends into which is better, Britain or America, and it is all a bit unfair to one of the characters. But, the sets and the set-pieces more than make up for this. The view of Heaven, to which Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey is clearly indebted to, the celestial staircase, the colonel from M*A*S*H, it’s got it all. And it proves once and for all that God is English.

This is less a film, more a work of art, of the type seen in the National Gallery. Superbly rendered by masters of their class, and not as shocking as anything in the Tate Modern, but more satisfying on a basic level.

8.8/10

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Buy on Amazon: A Matter Of Life And Death [1946]

Godzilla

(Giant monster)



NEILL says:

Godzilla movies are a funny thing. There is a striking qualitative disparity between the absolute coolness on a conceptual level of giant monsters destroying Tokyo and the generally disappointing and somewhat tedious experience of actually watching what are by and large pretty unremarkable films. It's kind of like love, or sex; perfectly great things which nevertheless invariably and necessarily fail to live up to the pressure of their own platonic ideals. Or is that just me? Either way, it must be said that Godzilla does have fire breath, and Mothra is just plain dope.

6/10

Go

Dir: Doug Liman, 1999
(Film)



JAMES says:

When you watch a film, context is very important. For instance, a film like ‘Independence Day’ looks great when seen at the cinema, but on video is lamer than a Cretan Blacksmith during the Bronze Age. Therefore, I am reviewing Go as watched on video on a fairly large TV for the second and a half time. The first time I saw it, on video, I thought it was OK, but not as good as Swingers. The second time, on TV in a hostel, I fell asleep, but that might have more to do with the somnambulist effect of Canberra. This time, I enjoyed it a lot more than ever before. It still bought back happy memories of the energy of being young and partying, as well as the scuzzier side, like the discomfort of odd peoples’ flats while you’re on drugs. There were also bits I hadn’t noticed before, like the repetition of the line ‘Go’, or some of the background people being in lots of scenes. It’s a very funny film, and manages to come out with a happy ending against all the odds. The best part is how, like Swingers, it makes you feel alive and excited, without having to have friends or spend money going out.

7.5/10

NEILL says:

Go scores bonus points for being both the best film ever to star a member of the Dawson’s Creek cast (by a factor of 100) and, simultaneously, the best film ever to star a member of the Grange Hill cast (by a factor of 100,000).

8.7/10

JAMES says:

What I would take you up on is your claim that Go is the best Dawsons Creek featuring film, by a factor of 1000. Have you not seen 'Varsity Blues'? 'I love football, when it's pure. But this ain't pure' and 'I thought you only kissed heroes!' You can't fault a film with such sparkling dialogue.

Varsity Blues - 4.8/10. Just for sheer American Teen earnest crappiness

The Matrix Reloaded

Dir: Larry & Andrew Wachowski
(Movie)



NEILL says:

Liking a movie is a funny thing. By liking a movie, and expressing that like, one is in a way exposing a part of oneself. It's a lesser but similar version of the anxiety that accompanies actually creating an artistic work and putting it out into the public sphere. The things you like are in a way as much a reflection of yourself as the things you create, and criticism of either can feel oddly personal.

Perhaps it's because I have so little faith in the value of my own opinion, but I find this to be a very fraught and complicated area. It may have something to do with the absolute vacuum in our society where genuine political debate should exist, but it often feels as if one has to have a position on the book/movie/TV show of the day. The web of argument, counter-argument, strategy and alliance that can spring up around these positions does to me genuinely resemble politics. The weight of opinions surrounding a work can take on a greater significance than the work itself. I myself am so feeble-minded that I can listen to an album, enjoy it, and then read so many reviews and have so many arguments (both internal and with actual real other people) that I can actually get to a point where I am no longer able to tell whether I like it or not.

Furthermore, when dealing with art that is approached in a communal setting, the opinions of others take on an inescapable power. I have a friend who shall remain nameless (... actually, forget that, it's Emma) who is by no means shy about expressing her scorn vocally when watching a movie, through a series of tuts, sighs and the occasional "oh for fuck's sake...". To give an example of how powerfully affecting this behaviour can be: after an initial tut-heavy viewing of 'Fight club' it took several years and numerous ‘return visits’ for me to come finally to the realisation that it was, in fact, a fucking spectacular movie.

Anyway, where was I? I liked Matrix Reloaded. Or at least, I think I did.

7.5/10