Wednesday

I'm thinking of starting a new weekly feature for this blog (the other one, hiding itself rather subtly, is a regular discussion of the header quote) called 'movies you didn't know that guy was in'. It'll be a slight homage/theft from the book Hey! It's That Guy!, which will involve me browsing around the IMDb, finding bizarre facts, and then pretending I'm intelligent for knowing them before you. What do you think?

It was interesting to read a review of The Good Shepherd which said the movie's biggest flaw was what I thought was its greatest strength: the silent main character. They said there wasn't enough action or fun to compensate for him. Another person I read said 'nothing happens', that the 'first hour isn't necessary' and that 'DeNiro shouldn't be let behind the camera again'. Am I crazy, or are they?

Tuesday

The Good Shepherd is a brilliant film. I had gone into it expecting to be bored. The trailers had made it look quite dull and uninteresting, and I had noticed the film was almost three hours long. So, I sat down in my seat grudgingly, preparing to criticise the movie. Straight away, however, I was interested. Nothing was explained. I don't mean that the film is a mystery, or deliberately cryptic, but that it treats its audience as intelligent. The division Eddie Izzard makes between British and American movies is illuminating here; in the former people wander around in empty houses opening doors and not saying anything to each other; in the latter people express their emotions immediately and they have extreme consequences. The Good Shepherd, although American, is definitely more British in its sentiment. We are not told what or how to think. Things are not explained or sign-posted to us brashly. The movie, in a way, is very straightforward, very clear. But rather than naive, I would rather label this mature. Its presentation exactly mirrors its main character, excellent played by Matt Damon (who can't have more than thirty seconds of consecutive dialogue throughout). He is silent and contemplative, acts and offers no explanations to us for his acts. Angelina Jolie is unsuitable as his wife, and his son looks a little bit too old to be believable, but otherwise everyone else is good. There are no clever tricks, or hints at a contemporary political message. It's about a man, a sensitively portrayed man, his actions and their flaws. A very refreshing film.

Monday

There is quite an exciting feature to the IMDb that I noticed today (I'm not sure if it's new or not). I was browing the profile of Max Ophuls and thinking 'I wish there was some way I could find directors similar to him'. I then noticed under the listing of one of his films there were some 'plot keywords'. I clicked on one and it took me to a whole list of films with similar themes. For example: Cigarette Smoking. You can browse all films of this type, ranked in order. To make your search more specific, you can then combine keywords to get just the kind of film you're in the mood for: Cigarette Smoking/ Jumping from Heights/ Man on Fire. Apparently this system is called Moka (Movie Keywords Analyzer). It is fun, but it does have some flaws. They could have been a lot more adventurous with it. And I still didn't find a way to view directors similar to Ophuls. By the way, the film you're looking for is Anchorman.

Sunday

I saw a bit of the Truman Show last night. I had always liked the film. But last night I realised something new, in a similar way to my thoughts about eXistenZ. The movie is not really about reality TV shows. That is its context, but its content is radically different. It is really about all of us. The film is about life in general, about how we all deal with who we are and what we want to be. We are all trapped in a routine, in a way of living, and the expectations of everyone around us to live the way they want us to live. The film is about a crisis in life, in the meaning of life. It is about an overcoming of his disability, and the fulfilling of who he really wants to be. The reality TV thing is just a side issue, not really relevant at all. I wondered as I was watching it what happened to the director, Peter Weir. He is a bit slow in his film making, but he did recently make the excellent Master and Commander, which gets better every time I see it (I first saw it on a trans-Atlantic flight). I can't wait for his next film.

Saturday

So, eXistenZ is a weird film. I feel like I've only ever seen it in bits. Last night was no exception. I saw it from more than half an hour in until the end. Perhaps I have never seen it all the way through? Perhaps the best way to see it is in parts? Anyway, last night I realised something new about it. The film is a comment on film-making itself. It deconstructs plot and narrative and character construction, in the same moment that it is trying to construct them. Whilst this is interesting, it is acted by Jude Law, which is a bad thing. On the other hand, there is Jennifer Jason Leigh, who is excellent. So this movie seems to flick between self-indulgent introversion to perceptive insights into the nature of fiction. Reality and virtual become confused and are never resolved even at the end of the movie. It's a very good set-piece, but because you, as audience, are constantly undermined by the filmmakers it's hard to take sincerely or seriously. Still, maybe I should see it from beginning to end, as intended.

Friday

The quote above from Alfred Hitchcock adorns the foyer of the Odeon cinema in Covent Garden (if I haven't already said, one of my favourites). It backs up the sentiments I expressed a few days ago, but there is more to it than that. Frequently filmmakers shoot more than one ending to a movie. They then show them to an audience and see what they prefer. One that immediately springs to mind is the original ending to Dodgeball where the good guys lose and the bad guys win. As you can imagine, audiences didn't like this at all and the ending was changed. So, Hitchcock's quote refers not just to spoiling a movie, but to movie-making in general. It makes you doubt a director's ability when you find out how many endings they shot - especially if you love the ending you saw. Can you think of any more? The Break-Up was one of my favourite films from last year, but apparently there were several different endings shot. All of them, however, only changed the emphasis slightly, not the facts. This gives me some faith in the filmmaker.

Thursday

I saw Letters from Iwo Jima yesterday (having once again misread the show times), but have been hesitating to post a review. Why? Well, I'm simply not sure what I think of it. Perhaps I need to see Flags of our Fathers to get some perspective, but I don't think the two films are related at all. From what I know, the latter is all about the after effects of the battle on American soldiers. The one I saw is about the run up to the battle from the Japanese perspective. Of course there are lots of connections, but in terms of direct relations, I don't think there are any. So, I must struggle to give a verdict of this one alone. I did think it was good. But it was overlong and sometimes rambling. The forward thrust was sometimes lost in irrelevant details as things started, stopped, then started again. In truth, at moments I got bored waiting for something to happen. Perhaps the greatest interest of this film, then, is to have shown the battle from a Japanese perspective. But I think there's more than that here. The filmmaker doesn't take sides at all. No one is good or bad. It is a stunning insight into the breakdown of an ideology, the loss of control and order, as soldiers wander randomly around the caves, trying to avoid Americans, occasionally committing suicide, or killing each other for trying to surrender. It is fascinating, but I have doubts as to how long it will stand as a really good film.