Thursday

The Walker feels stilted and staged at points. The dialogue is exceptionally good - to the level of theatre almost - but it strains and occasionally feels artificial. Perhaps this is the performances, not of Woody Harrelson himself who was excellent, but the three women - Lauren Bacall, Lily Tomlin, and Kristin Scott Thomas - who I think it would be apt to say 'phoned in' their performances, though I'm not sure. They don't seem natural. The story concerns a gay man who accompanies high society women in Washington to dinner, theatre, etc. when their husbands are away, or even if they're not. He is their confidant and socialite, catching and spreading gossip. Someone he knows is killed, and as soon as he is implicated in the murder, all his friends start to abandon him to avoid scandal on themselves. I didn't think this story, or this character, needed such extreme circumstances (life and death) to show us who he was. It would've been interesting to do a film without any dramatic events - the death when it happened seemed absurd, and the rest of the plot turns into a bit of an ordinary detective story. What was good, though, was that it gave no explanations for itself. The film began, with no introductions, and let you decide what you thought of this man. At first I disliked him, but gradually grew to respect him. There were some awfully staged moments - the kiss through the iron bars - but also some brilliant ones. The music was out of touch with the emotion being displayed, and the direction was bad, giving us jilted camera-angles and awkward zooms at pivotal moments. These two combined made it at times (and in the beginning) feel like a TV movie. I sometimes thought, although this is a harsh judgement, that this was just a film directed by a writer. Paul Schrader has done better than that here, but there is room for improvement I think. Like I said, it is good almost to the point of being theatre, and when it resolves itself at the end you feel like you've just watched a play, which perhaps isn't a bad thing.

Wednesday

The Venice Film Festival is taking place as we speak. Apparently it, in turn, is now focusing more on celebrity rather than artistic endeavour - following the trend at Cannes. The news has all been about how thin Keira Knightley is, although admittedly I have seen some reports on the Oscar-worthy nature of the film she's starring in (with James McAvoy): Atonement. There are some other big names there too, though. Wes Andersen's new film, along with Ang Lee's, Ken Loach, Eric Rohmer, our old favourite Woody Allen, Kenneth Brannagh (in a remake of Sleuth), Paul Haggis, Miike Takashi, and Brian De Palma. Despite my reservations about the last director, his new film, Redacted, has interested me, centering as it does on the Iraq war (something I've been waiting for for some time). The next western, The Murder of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, is also premiering there. It seems the major companies have realised they can get good press from these festivals, and so are starting to send the big stars over there to start generating interest early. It's a good idea for them, although it's sad to lose the critical nature of these festivals - prizes are still awarded, but they mean little for the big studios compared to Oscars.

Tuesday

Last night I watched the first episode of the new US detective series Numb3rs (yes, that's a '3' instead of an 'e'). It involves a professor of mathematics who catches serial killers using (from what I can tell) advanced chaos theory-like equations (so, a bit like Pi meets Columbo). For example, last night he applied an equation to the seemingly random sites of rape victims to deduce where the perpetrator probably lived - and he was right! With the help of his brother, an actual detective, they found and killed the guy. At times it does feel a bit like an elaborate hour-long lesson in maths (annoyingly 'math' to Americans), but it is rather good. The cast is quite low-key: I only recognised Peter MacNicol (the weird guy from Ally McBeal), and Judd Hirsch (the tall guy from Taxi). The reason I mention it on Stranded Cinema, however, is because it's produced by Ridley Scott and his brother Tony (and bears the 'Scott Free' logo at the end). The style of the show bears some of the annoying Tony Scott-isms, direct from his latest films, of fast camera movements, jump-cuts, and montages to portray otherwise dull 'man writing equations on blackboard' scenes. Overall, whilst this is a brilliantly original idea for a detective series, it is still a detective series - and there are far too many of them around at the moment. Plus the title sequence is awful. Hopefully these little problems will get ironed out as the series progresses - so far it appears there have been a further three seasons in the US, so something must be right about it.

Monday

To satisfy the curiosity of those of you piqued by my mention of It Could Happen To You, here's my review of that movie: it's a romantic (comedy) starring Bridget Fonda and Nicolas Cage. Already you can tell there won't be much chemistry, and that one of them (Cage) is entirely unsuited to the genre. I put 'comedy' in brackets because I don't remember laughing once, so I'm not sure that was the director's aim. Anyway, it's one of those films whose sentiment is so sickly you find it difficult to look at the screen. There's so much 'fate' and 'coincidence' and 'it was meant to be' that I couldn't take it seriously at all. The basic premise, that a cop hasn't got change to tip a waitress so promises her half his lottery money if he wins, wins $4m and decides he will share it with her, is absurd. It's awfully played. They could have so easily made it more believable: he doesn't have enough money to buy the lottery ticket itself and therefore offers her half. This would be a slightly more reasonable moral dilemma. Anyway, the logistics of that don't matter too much. I don't suppose I'm the target audience for this movie, but it had very little of any enjoyment in it. The morality displayed here was awful, and the character 'angel' played by Isaac Hayes just about makes this one of the worst romantic comedies ever.

Sunday

In a controversial move for Stranded Cinema, I'm going to review the novel I just finished reading (rather than the film I watched last night, It Could Happen To You). The book was by Enrique Vila-Matas, and is called Bartleby & Co. It concerns a clerk in Barcelona who decides to leave work to write a book about writers who have stopped writing. The problem, for me, was that the elements of this clerk's life that we find out about are minimal - most of the book is taken up relating the lives of those writers who have stopped writing. Admittedly, some of these writers, and some of the anecdotes, are entirely fictional: you have to pick your way through them, forever unsure of what's true or not. But I still would've liked more obvious plot concerning his life, and his successes and failures in attempting to write the book. When they came, they were refreshing, but too little. Aside from this complaint, the book is exceptionally well written (or translated from the Spanish). A very clear and lucid style. The anecdotes are entertaining, and he weaves them together to create a compulsive mythology about why and how writers decide they don't, or can't, write any more. I did sometimes feel that he was making a legend out of the mundane condition of writer's block, but he does it comprehensively enough that you don't mind by the end. Overall, impressive, subtle, and despite the overwhelming literary references, quite a simple, easy novel.

Saturday

There's a film coming out later this year called I'm Not There. Some of you may wonder if there were any intelligent people there when they came up with the idea. It's a biopic of Bob Dylan played by six different actors at various stages of his life - including Cate Blanchett playing him during his 60s high-point, and a black actor playing him as a young man. I personally think it sounds brilliant, but of course we'll have to wait and see. It's directed by the enigmatic Todd Haynes, which may or may not encourage you to see it more. I've only seen his movie Safe, and not the more popular Velvet Goldmine, or the more recent Far From Heaven. I haven't been especially propelled to, though. And as excited as I am by I'm Not There, I don't know if it's going to be able to match the brilliant Don't Look Back.

Friday

Did you know that Quentin Tarantino has directed six films, not five? Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof (coming soon) and, as Alex informed me, My Best Friend's Birthday (not to be confused with My Best Friend's Wedding). How could it be that there is another Tarantino film out there that no one knows about? Well, of course, it's not a major movie - home-made, never publicly released, and only half of it survives. We get so used to knowing and seeing everything these days, that we are surprised to find major gaps of information we didn't know. Frequently, however, with important artists there will be a first novel, or a first movie, that was never published/released. They're never perfect on their debut. You can see what remains of My Best Friend's Birthday for yourself on YouTube. Apparently, the best bits were re-used for Tony Scott's True Romance, and some of the ideas, songs, and actors reappear in Reservoir Dogs. As much as I respect Tarantino, there is something in me that wishes he could apply his style and technique to a serious drama. Perhaps you'll argue Kill Bill, and the upcoming Death Proof, are serious dramas, but I don't think so. You're never really allowed to sympathise with anyone - it's all too plastic. Not that I think that's bad, but I'd like to see him try to apply it to a different situation. He seems to be going the opposite way to Woody Allen, strangely, who started off very unreal and has increasingly become more serious. My Best Friend's Birthday was apparently about a guy just trying to do something right. Death Proof is about an invincible car.