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

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

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

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

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

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

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.)