Wednesday 28 February 2007

Wednesday

Some people like to know the whole plot and point of a movie before they see it. I don't. I like to know as little as possible. What are the reasons for these differences? I am not silly enough to say that my way is better. Knowing the whole plot leaves you open to appreciate technique, but I just can't deal with that. I like to be engrossed in a film. I need to be there from the first credits to the last. I need to see the title of the movie, and the director's name. Yesterday, when I missed them in The Number 23, I was perturbed. I got over it, but still have this niggling feeling of having missed something. I've known some people who look at the last line of a book before reading it, or flick through and read random passages. I simply can't do this. It's from the beginning to the end, or not at all. Perhaps I am the one with the problem? Perhaps. There is a website for those of you who want to know everything about a film: The Movie Spoiler. I think the title alone gives away the real significance: movie 'spoiler'.

Tuesday 27 February 2007

Tuesday

I missed the first few minutes of The Number 23. I had, once again, misread the cinema times for The Good Shepherd, and so ended up running across Shaftesbury Avenue in order to make it on time to see The Number 23. Maybe someone who sees it can tells me what happens. I don't think I missed much, and it was actually fun to try to guess what had occurred. Anyway, was it a good film? That's what you're all here to find out. I was hooked on the concept from the trailer, but have to say the movie was a little disappointing. I like Jim Carrey, and he does add a bit of humanity to what might otherwise have been an austere film, but he's not really stretched here, seems to be 'performing' rather than 'acting'. I wasn't as engrossed as I thought I would be. At times I was, at times I wasn't. I suppose I was wanting more from the film than was there - paralleling, perhaps, the character's fixation with a number. It could have been better, I guess is my overall verdict. There was too much narration, too many flashes into the narrative of the book he's reading, the psychological breakdown wasn't convincing enough, and the plot never really got as dark as I was hoping it would. I didn't see the final twist in the end coming, and was shocked, but somehow I wasn't satisfied. This is a miss hit, I think, though I should mention the cinematography was very good.

Monday 26 February 2007

Monday

There is an IMDb of car chases: Varaces. It is an event peculiarly cinematic. As Eddie Izzard once hypothesised, you don't have car chases in books. Yet most of them, to me, are very dull. It does take quite a lot of talent to make them interesting. I saw part of Escape to Athena on Sunday, and within that is an excellent motorbike chase through the narrow streets of a Greek village. They really do go incredibly fast. I believe it was Orson Welles in Touch of Evil who first developed the on-board camera, but have no proof of this. Incidentally, in researching Touch of Evil I found out that Welles wasn't hired to direct it, but ended up doing so by accident because
Charlton Heston thought he was, and then demanded that he did. Anyway, back to car chases. I think the key things are to keep them as real as possible, and to have no music. I believe the one in The Bourne Identity is good too. Varaces at least give it 8.83. What a very odd website.

Sunday 25 February 2007

Sunday

The first half an hour of Point Break is excellent, and the last few minutes are good (I've been thinking the ending of a film is essential for the impression especially of cinema goers, defining that important walk from the theatre to the tube station). When I was younger, this film was very cool. I was far too underage to watch it, but somehow we managed. Girls (I'm thinking mainly of my sister) loved Keanu Reeves (the perfect role for him), and guys wanted to be him, the music was good (with even a role for Anthony Kiedis), there were naked women, and guns, and of course surfing. The movie does quite excitingly capture a culture, a time and a place. I was reminded of it recently by the references in Hot Fuzz, and so decided to watch it tonight. As I say, it starts very well, with sharp dialogue, and with another of those great minor-role performances from John C. McGinley (Doctor Cox in Scrubs). Then, however, it deteriorates into pretty average stuff - routine chases and love scenes. It's not as glossy as some movies, and does begin to scratch the surface of the cop undercover/buddy cop genre, but only that. It never goes deep enough. The ending is satisfyingly grim and uncertain, with again a hint towards the psychology of the two main characters. Overall, after those first thirty minutes, I felt let down and disappointed. This is a strange movie, incidentally by a rare female director (Kathryn Bigelow), and owes most of its success to its era rather than its art.

Saturday 24 February 2007

Saturday

The quote by Jean Renoir, above, seemed when I first heard it to confirm everything I ever thought. Now, however, I am beginning to doubt its consistency. When applied to some filmmakers it appears true. For example, you could say Woody Allen made one good film, Annie Hall, and has been remaking it again and again since then. We wait to see if someone like Wes Anderson can break free of The Royal Tennenbaums (I don't think he quite did with The Life Aquatic). It might seem like Kubrick broke new ground with every movie. He covered almost every major genre, but the stylistics were the same throughout. And whilst Spielberg's movies are very different throughout his career, there is a continuity of sentiment. What, then, does Renoir mean? He obviously means something beyond the simple and obvious, and this points to sentiment and stylistics. But I think there is always something else which escapes this. I think great filmmmakers, like Kubrick and Spielberg, never make the same film twice. I even think, perhaps, that Woody Allen too escapes. There is always some slippage, some fissure, which undermines the 'one film for life' principle Renoir espouses.

Friday 23 February 2007

Friday

Is the cinema turning into the theatre? This is a random postulation since I went to the theatre last night, to see Charley's Aunt, and thus didn't see a film. What struck me is that when we go to the theatre most of the time we expect to see a 'classic' - a play that was originally written over fifty years ago. Very rarely do most people go to see a new, contemporary play. I have done it, of course, as have you, and there are a great many of them out there but many theatres aim at presenting mostly, or only, classic drama. It is a sign, perhaps, of the fading interest in theatre. Now, are there not a lot of remakes going on in cinema at the moment? Could this be compared to the predominance of classics on in theatres. Most obviously, no, not at all. The two art forms are wildly different. A remake of a film involves a lot more creative input than a re-presentation of a play, but then a play is performed everyday for a week, and normally much longer. But is it a sign that cinema is beginning to turn inwards on itself. There are filmmakers making extraordinary films, as their are similar playwrights, but what I'm talking about is general trends and impressions. Maybe your impression is entirely different? Cinema, after all, began by making almost entirely remakes of plays, then slowly expanded its creativity. You could say, the remake has been a part of Hollywood since its inception. Perhaps.

Thursday 22 February 2007

Thursday

The problem with Mike Yanagita. Is there one? I have to admit, first off, that I had not fully comprehended the dimension Alex points out. However, is the very fact that I didn't notice it important? Richard Kelly (the director of Donnie Darko) spoke on Radio 4 about Fargo and a full transcript of the interview is available here. He says "So the Mike Yanagita scene is actually really, really important on a character level. On a plot level, it’s superfluous and it’s just the Coen Bros. just being weird or self-indulgent maybe". In a way then, Alex and I agree. He was thinking of character, I of plot. But I remember in this viewing of the film thinking 'why is Marge going back to see Jerry?'. I couldn't figure out why. Now it makes sense. But is this sense far to formulaic? Is it overly contrived? My very inability to figure it out points to that conclusion, for me. It's not obvious to the audience. It alienates them. The scene with Mike seems strange and out of place. When people criticise my writing for certain things I sometimes say 'well I meant to do that', and they reply 'it doesn't matter if you meant to do it or not, it's bad'. Is this the case here? I think so. I think it is a very clever moment. Marge realises she can't trust people and so goes back to Jerry. But that is an internal reaction and we are given no indication of it. I don't think it would've taken much to give us some help here. This could've been done much better, I think.

Also, Alex asked a question which he didn't answer: 'But will the changes in her appreciation of others affect her much more over the course of her life even though everything seems the same at the end?'. I think the answer is no. I think this is the importance of the line about stamps that I mentioned. She tidies things up, but never really realises anything herself.

Wednesday 21 February 2007

Wednesday

It is sometimes necessary to see a truly awful film in order to appreciate the good ones. The Truth About Love was one such terrible movie. I have to admit my main reason for seeing it, however, was Jennifer Love Hewitt. Nonetheless, I almost walked out of it halfway through. It was that bad. I don't know if it's even worth trying to detail how terrible it was. Suffice it to say the acting was bad, made worse by what seemed like out of time dubbing. None of the voices seemed 'real', least of all Hewitt's English accent - although the dialogue let her down a lot. An even worse fault was the complete lack of relationship between the two people who eventually fall in love, meaning that the entire point of the movie felt unconvincing. They didn't have more than three scenes together - most of the film is occupied with the dissolution with Hewitt's previous relationship, rather than the developing of her new one. The two characters 'suddenly' realised they loved each other, and the audience couldn't really sympathise. Great romantic comedies are very hard to pull off.

A point about Fargo: isn't the whole subplot with Marge and Mike Yanagita very strange?

Tuesday 20 February 2007

Tuesday

'Whenever they raise the postage, people need the little stamps'. This is a line from the last scene of Fargo, and I think it neatly sums up the theme of the movie. I haven't seen this film in a very long time, and perhaps was only ever in it for the jokes back then. Now, however, I am trying to see a bit more. I didn't find the beginning of the film as gripping as I used to. Only on the introduction of Marge Gunderson does the plot really start. I didn't know she'd won an Oscar for her performance. The music of Carter Burwell is also a great help here, and the photography of Roger Deakins. I'm not convinced it's a great film, though. It is a good one, but there is something hollow at its centre - like an empty show, with no real characters or emotions you can engage with. I was disconcerted.

By the way, are you as perturbed as me with the new-look IMDb?

Monday 19 February 2007

Monday

Hot Fuzz is terrible for the first hour and a half, then brilliant for the last 30 minutes. It is too annoyingly over-stylized for those early parts. We're not allowed into the film, but seemingly shut out of it. It's too loud, and glossy, and too close (or maybe I'm just getting old). More importantly, perhaps, it just not that funny. Sure, there are the occasional funny bits, but not enough. Besides, I've never really found quaint English villages as humorous as some people seem to (which was my problem with the Wallace and Gromit film too), perhaps because I wasn't raised in one? However, as I say, the final half hour is excellent. The film finally goes somewhere, and the humour and the movie-references take over. Perhaps some might say it gets ridiculous, but that's the joy of it for me. The only slight problem is the multiple endings - they only need one of them, I think. Overall, the movie seems too small-minded for me, too provincial, too interested in itself. Plus, the title is awful.

Sunday 18 February 2007

Sunday

As I strolled down Gipsy Hill this foggy evening, I wondered if I Heart Huckabees is actually a good film or not. I enjoy it, there's no doubt about that, but is that enough? I saw an episode of Family Guy where they ridiculed it as one of the worst films of recent years. I can also imagine certain people I know, if they watched it, saying that they thought it was terrible. The philosophy of the film is certainly very rudimentary, but that shouldn't matter. Perhaps these people would say the whole thing is pointless, about annoying people doing self-absorbed annoying things - a deliberately 'quirky' film with nothing to it. It is a movie that invites hatred. I searched the internet and found: 'unmitigated disaster', 'save time by not watching it', and 'a shambolic affair'. This took 30 seconds. As we know from psychology 101, hatred stems from jealousy. If so, what are these people jealous of? Perhaps they just 'don't get it', or don't get that there is nothing to get. I enjoy it, and many other people enjoy it. Perhaps it will be forgotten in five years. For now, however, it is a good film.

Saturday 17 February 2007

Saturday

I'm not sure if we are supposed to take Lady in the Water seriously. M. Night Shyamalan clearly says that it was a bedtime story for his children before he made it into a film. This shows in the final movie - its scrappy and silly. It clearly hasn't been conceived as well as a unit, like his earlier films (which I very much like). For some reason the special effects are very bad. There is also a substantial and very obvious dig at cinema critics. The opening animation is unnecessary, and many plot points seem too obvious, others too obscure. However, there is a lot to like here. There are some amazingly suspenseful moments - Shyamalan unashamedly makes 'movies' - and how the story as a film turns inwards on itself is fairly thrilling. Giamatti and Howard are both excellent. So, overall, another film with a lot of potential poorly conceived. He makes it at once too complicated, and too simple.

Friday 16 February 2007

Friday

The quote above by Federico Fellini might seem to undermine the whole point of this blog, but I don't think it does. I have always felt exactly the same way. A good work of art (not just a film) can never be described or explained in any other words. I used to have in mind poetry when I thought of this: you shouldn't be able to abridge, summarise or characterise a poem. You shouldn't be able to say it in any other way than the way it was written. If you can, then the poem has failed. A good work of art is the perfect expression. So, I agree with Fellini, but I think even he agrees that talking about films isn't pointless. Articulating your thoughts and responses to a work of art is necessary to understanding. What he is criticising is the stance of some critics who seem to believe they know more about the movie than the movie does about itself, that they can tell you more about it than is there. I hope I don't do this here.

Thursday 15 February 2007

Thursday

What the hell's happening in Austria? First there was the shocking case of Natascha Kampusch, kept in a cellar for 8 years. Now, a mother has kept her three daughters locked up for 7 years. What is strange and amazing about this is that the girls have become intolerant for light, and they developed their own form of language, somehow 'singing-like'. Apparently they also finish every sentence with the word 'but'. It is cases like these that reveal to us the nature, or lack of it, of humanity. Perhaps only the youngest will recover from the psychological trauma.

The Kampusch case has already generated film interest (with Scarlett Johansson as lead?) and of course it sounds quite similar to Silence of the Lambs as well as John Fowles' The Butterfly Collector. Such incidents are cinematic in their intensity, and in a way we need to see them visualised on screen - for some it acts as a relief, to others as a confrontation. Movies frequently deal with the psychotic, the serial killer. Seeing and hearing them is much more effective than reading about them. On the topic of recent events being made into film, however, I have felt a distinct lack of Iraq war movies. As I mentioned the other day, there were a phenomenal amount of World War II films. Why has this one not generated as many?

Wednesday 14 February 2007

Wednesday

I've never quite got the humour of Christopher Guest's movies (except This is Spinal Tap). I suppose they are what you should call 'black comedies'. The humour is implicit, subtle, and the characters themselves are unaware of it. I find some of the jokes funny, but not enough to make me laugh out loud. At best, a slight chuckle is emitted. But I have watched his movies with other people who have been laughing outrageously. Is it, then, just me? Whatever the case, For Your Consideration has definite failings in areas other than its humour. The whole thing is quite rambling. Yes, there are some good moments, and some good characters, but it's not a very consistent or complete film. The situation itself isn't that funny, and a film about film has been done before. I always think that in a comedy, whilst there has to be a lot of good jokes, you have to find the basic situation itself consistently funny. This just isn't the case here. That said, I was mildly chuckling more than most people in the cinema (the Screen on Baker Street). It was amusing, but not as funny as I, and probably the director too, thought it should have been.

Tuesday 13 February 2007

Tuesday

I am always surprised by the bleakness of some of the early World War II films. I was first shocked many years ago by the Noel Coward movie, starring Richard Attenborough (and co-directed by David Lean), In Which We Serve. To ruin it for you, they all die at the end. Somehow I had grown up thinking war movies finish happily. Perhaps these were the films made a while after the war, but there is definitely a strand of those made during and immediately after which are extremely depressing. I was reminded of this recently with Angels One Five and O.S.S. (which seems as if it might be a precursor to the upcoming The Good Shepherd). And there are of course many more. There is a silent, stoic suffering to them, a necessity of loss, which can be very shocking if you've been watching the other type of war film. You expect the polite, upper-class Englishman to survive, but he doesn't, and there is no compensation for the audience. I think we're slightly afraid of making, and watching, this kind of movie nowadays.

Monday 12 February 2007

Monday

Marie Antoinette is an irksome film. I had not wanted to like it, which was why I waited so long to watch it. But seeing as it was on at the Prince Charles Cinema, which I haven't been to in a long time, that nothing much else was on, and that it had been recommended to me by a friend, I saw it tonight. It is irksome because there are some very good parts to it. The film begins and ends well, but the 'punk' parts were disconcerting. Not that I disagree with them in principle, but that she didn't commit to them consistently. The dialogue too was muddled - half-way between contemporary and 18th century. I think she should've stuck to one aspect and followed it through thoroughly. Personally I thought her more 'realistic' portrayal of the period was excellent - the silence, the wide open spaces, the long pauses, the artificiality of conduct. Jason Schwartzman was excellent, Kirsten Dunst quite bland. Altogether, not a good film, but an intriguing one.

Sunday 11 February 2007

Sunday

I, Robot is a great movie. I don't think I saw it in the cinema, but I've seen it many times since, and own it on DVD. It's one of those movies, like Evolution, that I guess I should class as a 'guilty pleasure'. But I don't feel guilty. This movie is just great fun. The whole feel of it - the music, the acting, the photography - is good. The final action sequence, normally a let down in such films, is actually entertaining. The whole film is funny, slightly ironic and self-reflexive, but at the same time challenging and engaging. I love it.

Want to be a film director? Then try this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/games/callingtheshots.shtml
Not exactly a foolproof method of deciding if you're good enough, but still fun.

Also, I heard a great sketch about cinema by the stand-up Jason Manford. His girlfriend was complaining that a film they were watching wasn't realistic because the actress had just come out of the water and her hair and make-up were perfect. He replies: 'my popcorn cost £6, this isn't a place of realism'.

Saturday 10 February 2007

Saturday

Have you heard of Blind Horizon? Because you probably haven't, and even if you wanted to see it would probably never find a copy of it, I'm going to ruin the plot here for you. Val Kilmer wakes up in New Mexico with no memory except that someone is going to try to kill the president. He has suspiciously detailed memories of how this will happen. A good hour is spent with Val looking confused and trying to figure out his life, having flashbacks and seeing suspicious looking men. Eventually, it turns out he was going to kill the president, hired by the government to do so but now hunted down by them. It is, I suppose, to be classed as a psychological thriller. The music, however, doesn't help suspend the tension, nor does the dialogue (of which there is too much). The main problem, I think, is Val Kilmer himself, and indeed Neve Campbell. Both are wrong for this film. It is somehow a mix between Memento and The Long Kiss Goodnight, but inferior to both. This is how not to do a psychological thriller.

Friday 9 February 2007

Friday

Why did I see Smokin' Aces tonight? Well, For Your Consideration has only just come out, so I wanted to save it for next week. Otherwise, I couldn't find much else. The title is terrible, and it in someway prepares you for what you're going to see. So much of this film is puerile rubbish, but underneath it all there is some potential. This could have been a good movie. I was involved in the tension as all the assassins gathered for a great showdown in a hotel, but it all fell apart. The great showdown never really happened. There were moments of good movement and music, but they didn't hold the thing together. The characters were just too infantile to take seriously. If you stripped the film down, what you'd have is a good idea that could've made a pretty interesting hour and a half. As it as, it gets messy and breaks down towards the end. The plot twists unnecessarily - they should've just kept it as simple as possible - and all the tension that was collated disperses in an anti-climax. Ryan Reynolds is good, but you're never really sure if he's the main character or not, as in the end he turns out to be. The film needs some focus and some clarity, and I would've been thoroughly recommending it to you.

Thursday 8 February 2007

Thursday

Would you watch Memento in order? Perhaps you already have. Some might say the only value in the film is that of solving a complex puzzle. I don't agree this is the case, but what would be wrong with it being so? Solving a puzzle at least has some value. Anyway, there are a few questions that occur to me: where has the tattoo gone on his chest that says 'I've done it'? What does he do after he's killed Teddy? The tattoo should be there, and should stop all of the events of the film from happening. And once he's killed Teddy, surely everything is finished? He has Teddy's numberplate tattooed on his leg. There can be no other 'John G'. He can only assume that he's 'done it'. However, it seems that the first question answers the second one, and so on. He will forever search for his wife's killer. He will reinterpret what he sees in the way he wants to see it, as long as it perpetuates his quest.

The whole thing has profound psychological undertones: his drive which will never be fulfilled; his search for his wife's killer, which is in fact himself, and he can never find himself. He believes in some certainties, but even these aren't certain. Memories shape us, and are shaped by us. The whole film is motivated by what happens in the last scene with Teddy, when Lenny burns the photos and writes 'Don't believe his lies'. One last question: why is the film in reverse order? It doesn't, theoretically, matter. What is fascinating, and perhaps worth bearing in mind, is our ability to make sense of a story (and other ones such as Pulp Fiction) that happens out of order.

Wednesday 7 February 2007

Wednesday

Apocalypto is, I have to admit, an entertaining movie. I had been putting off going to see it, and only saw it this week because I've seen virtually everything else. The title is terrible, and the trailers (without any dialogue) made the whole thing seem like a bizarre dumb show. All the promotional material seemed to emphasise the aspects of the film that aren't interesting, which is strange, because this movie does have a lot that is very interesting. I don't want to spoil too much, because I knew very little about this when I went to see it and enjoyed it a lot. Perhaps that's the best way to do it. There are a great many surprises and twists, tension, drama, and exciting action sequences. The dialogue is a mix between being very stilted and then suddenly contemporary colloquial. Nevertheless, this was good fun throughout. Definitely a 'movie' -although it does have a half-serious message about the decadence of civilisations and their inevitable downfall, with perhaps a slight nod towards America - and a pretty good one at that (although I was a bit annoyed at the 'mythology' aspect, which undermined the interesting objective perspective, and was never fully explained). Because I'm entirely influenced by names and reputations, I probably would've enjoyed this even more if it wasn't called Mel Gibson's Apocalypto.

Tuesday 6 February 2007

Tuesday

I've enjoyed the films of Alfred Hitchcock since before I knew what I was enjoying, since before VHS was replaced by DVD*, at least. I liked them partly because Hitchcock shares the same birthday as me (as does Fidel Castro, which is why I used to say I was going to grow up to be a Communist filmmaker), but I suppose what I liked most was the ideas and the stories, Rear Window being my favourite. As I grew up I watched them less and less. I hadn't seen one in perhaps a year or more until today, in my lunch-break, I watched part of North by Northwest. It had never been one of his films that I'd seen much of, but now it has me thinking it may be one of the best films ever made...

Everything I saw was excellent. His films are clear and precise. There is no excess, it always seemed to me. Everything leads effortlessly onwards. Nothing is ever overstated or overdone. Dialogue is not necessary, but when it comes it is razor-sharp. The editing is so natural, and of course the plane sequence is perhaps one of the best action scenes ever filmed. The users of IMDb voted it in at number 25. I'd say it could be higher.

*I know this because I have a VHS box-set of Hitchcock films which is enormously heavy, and which I have had to lug around when moving houses 4 times in the last two years.

Monday 5 February 2007

Monday

I've always liked the quote by Stanley Kubrick that is in the header of this blog (and is about to change). I've liked it because the first time I heard it, I didn't hear the 'or thought' part, and my first reaction was 'Well, he's wrong. I would say anything that can be thought can be filmed'. But when did he say it? Did he say it before the advent of believable special effects? It's interesting to think about why he might have said it if it was before the 1990s. Perhaps he meant 'anything can be filmed, but not necessarily very well', but I don't think so. I have a feeling it might have been in reaction to A Clockwork Orange, a supposedly un-filmable book. Perhaps he meant 'anything that can be thought can be translated into film'. You might think cinema can represent everything to us, but it cannot do smell or taste or touch. Do you ever smell or taste or touch something in your thoughts? I think I'm getting on to dangerous ground here. I believe anything I can think can be filmed, because most of my thoughts are, I believe, very visual. I see images and associate them with sounds. I can't claim to know if this is the same for everyone else. Perhaps cinema has shaped my thoughts. How did people think before it?

Sunday 4 February 2007

Sunday

Stranded Cinema can now be found at www.strandedcinema.co.uk, mainly to help me when I'm at internet cafés and can't remember the full blogspot address. I'm still not sure if it's functioning properly as blogger gave some very confusing instructions as to how to set it up. At one point it had my browser going round in cirlces: going to the new address which redirected it to blogger, which sent it to the new address, and so on. It was, like watching a dog chase its tail, quite amusing.

You can now also visit our film production company, Troy Road, at www.troyroad.com. Stranded Cinema will remain focused on my movie reviews and criticism, whereas Troy Road, and its accompanying blog, will, inevitably, be all about making films. We welcome, and perhaps need, as much input as you can offer.

Saturday 3 February 2007

Saturday

Today I learnt valuable lessons in how to make a movie. The first thing you do, if you're going to have dialogue, is hire actors or learn how to act. The second thing is, learn your lines. Aside from this, I feel we made quite a successful first film, which will shortly be posted either here, or by Alex. We learnt how and when to cut dialogue - starting a person's line before cutting to them helps the flow. We learnt to slow things down, and leave long pauses before lines - it helps enormously with the editing. We learnt the camera positions and how to manipulate them, how jarring they can seem, and how seamless they could be. We learnt lighting is very important. We learnt music can add an enormous amount. We learnt you need to write a script before you start shooting. The next film we do will be much, much better.

Friday 2 February 2007

Friday

I'm not sure whether it was my attitude to Babel, or Babel's attitude to me, but I couldn't connect with this movie. I suppose 'hollow' is the word that best describes my experience. I couldn't engage with the characters and the situations they found themselves in. It felt like an empty exercise, rather than a film. But because it has received a lot of praise, I tried to stay open-minded. One of the basic elements of story making, however, is to get your audience to empathise with the choices your characters make, no matter how foreign. I didn't empathise. More than this, I found myself disliking some of the people we were obviously meant to sympathise with. The characters felt too obvious and stereotyped, the situations too simple. The long parts where music played over silent action only further distanced and bored me, where they were meant to engage our emotions more. The parts where we were given the perspective of what it was to be deaf seemed too simplistic. I'm fairly sure that's not what's it's like to be deaf. But of course we'll never, I hope, know. Nonetheless, perhaps any reaction is good; it shows the filmmaker has created something that you engaged with, rather than ignored. I don't know. I have a feeling this was just a bad film. Anyway, Gael Garcia Bernal was great, as always; it's just a pity he didn't have a larger part.

(I saw this at the Odeon Tottenham Court Road.)

Thursday 1 February 2007

Thursday

Having been intending to see The Holiday, the mood was somewhat altered in preparation for Infamous. It starts off like a comedy, but quite quickly becomes very serious. However, it does alternate a bit too much - suddenly he's in New York, then back in Texas, then in New York. He's serious and then he's gossiping with women in cocktail bars. It disconcerts you a little, doesn't let you settle into the pace of the narrative. Another problem is the speaking to camera. It is never explained but the close acquaintances of Capote all have 'interviews' to camera, as if we were watching a documentary. This undermines the illusion of the fiction completely. To make it worse, letters are read out to camera and as voice overs. Again, this ruins the world that we had up until that point been happily observing - they speak directly to us, involving us in ways we don't want to be involved. Otherwise, I thought this was a good, engaging film. However, I haven't seen Capote and have no idea how this one will relate to it. Which one is more truthful to his life; which one the better performance? Certainly Toby Jones was excellently convincing at bringing a person to life; but was that person Truman Capote? The issues dealt with here are engrossing - art and its cost to the writer and his sources - but does the film address them sufficiently, or simply present them to us? I hope to answer this question soon.

(I saw this at the Odeon Mezzanine.)

The Hateful Eight

Tarantino has said he'll only make ten films, and then retire. I don't know if he still stands by this statement, and if he does we ...