Shalako

Despite the successes of some Westerns in recent years, cinema audiences still seem ambivalent about the genre. In the late 80s and early 90s there was quite a resurgence with Young Guns, Dances with Wolves, Unforgiven, Open Range, and Tombstone. More recently we’ve had There Will Be Blood, True Grit, Appaloosa, 3:10 to Yuma and Cowboys & Aliens. The genre has expanded to include revisionist, noir, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, futuristic, contemporary and comic book westerns. Despite this, you will still occasionally meet people who’ll say ‘I don’t like Westerns’. For a genre to be discounted entirely seems rather dramatic, and may stem from a European distance to these movies (despite the efforts of Sergio Leone). It is perhaps down to films like Shalako, made in 1968, that the reputation of Westerns still sometimes suffers. Starring Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot, it purports to be a more sympathetic Western – the Indians are not unreasonable savages, they just want their land. However, they are still men in wigs, their faces painted brown, screaming as they attack, simple-minded in their intentions. The film reminded me a lot of Zulu, made four years earlier, but with much more success. The title, Shalako, probably put a lot of people off. The entirely miscast Connery as the main character doesn’t help, nor does Bardot in a strange, uncharacteristic role (one of the few American films she’s in). It feels very much like, and probably was, a cast put together before a script. The film is in fact far smaller in scale than it purports to be. There are sweeping landscapes, but the plot follows only a few characters for little more than two days. They are attacked and surrounded by Indians and try to escape. Eventually they are caught again by the Indians and a final showdown is expected. What we receive at the end, however, is highly disappointing. There is no substantial conclusion or resolution. The real enemy, of course, as in all these movies, is the in-fighting between the white men. Shalako is as tremendously flawed as a film can be. We never have sympathy for any of the characters, despite Connery’s natural charisma, or Bardot’s beauty. It is in all a weird movie, probably better forgotten.

Lesbian Vampire Killers

I’m ashamed to say I saw this film, although in my defence it was on the television while I was waiting for someone. That person didn’t arrive and I ended up seeing the whole movie. The title is self-explanatory. There’s no subterfuge around what the creators were trying to do (when a vampire is killed, white gunk spurts out of them – I probably don’t need to spell out what it’s supposed to be). In fact, my one complaint would be not that they went too far, but that they didn’t go far enough. It could’ve been far scarier/sexier, if they’d been willing to be daring. Unfortunately what we have is a rather tame B-movie that only half-delivers on its promises. The set up is fairly abysmal – why does the vampire queen have to wait until the last in the family line? Why is the main character the last in the line? Likewise, towards the end, why do the vampires leave the two lovers alone for a few minutes – just so the script writers can fit a bit of dialogue in? These may seem like trivial details, but I believe it is exactly on details like these that B-movies need to be perfect. They need a compelling, believable set up and strong character motives – that, in fact, is almost all they need. See the films of John Carpenter for how to do this properly. The film also needs a good ending – here it is poor to the point of boredom and distraction. There are multiple climaxes with no point or impetus – people running backwards and forwards in the woods mindlessly. It’s obvious that this film owes a lot to Shaun of the Dead, but its creators can’t deliver half of the wit, irony, music, pacing and fast camera movement that Edgar Wright can. There is, however, one great line. It’s a line that you secretly wish every character in a horror film would say: ‘I know there’s some really strange stuff going on, but can’t we just pretend like it’s not happening?’.

Dead Poets Society

Of the many gaps in my movie knowledge, Dead Poets Society was perhaps a significant one, but not because it is considered a great movie (it received no votes in the Sight and Sound poll). It’s a film instead that had and still has a profound impact on my generation. It came out just as I was starting in secondary school myself, and there are a few parallels to my own experiences (albeit this film is in fact set in 1959). I had seen parts of it, and knew a great deal more about it from the many secondary references that exist in other films, TV shows etc. It was, as they say, not a movie but an experience, seeming to summarise the feelings of a generation. The performance of Robin Williams and the appearance of several teenage stars (Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard) no doubt helped to make it popular. Undoubtedly it is deeply moving, and you’d have a heart of stone not to feel some emotion at the ending – even if it’s fairly manipulative. The film as a whole, though, speeds rapidly along, and only gives us a glimpse of the story that we are watching. It is, after all, adapted from a novel. We seem to skip much that is of importance – his audition and rehearsals, for one. The society of the title actually plays only a small part in the film. There is also little real motivation for the action of the ending. We get the sense of something richer, but don’t experience it. The direction of Peter Weir is good, as always, but the philosophy that Williams promotes is fairly simplistic, as is the attitude to poetry – dominated by American and in particular Beat generation poets. We feel such a strong connection to the 1950s because the issue of over-protective, traditional parents and a repressive society that an individual struggles against is something that, whilst prominent then, stays with us always. It is this, despite everything else that the film provides, that is the main pull and message of the movie.

Horse Feathers

I can’t remember when I first saw the Marx brothers. This is odd. I imagine most people can or will remember (if they haven’t seen them yet). There is nothing in the world like them anymore, although there may have been at the time they made their movies. Nonetheless, where to rank their films as cinema is still an issue – are they just good comedies, or something more? It could be argued the sheer force and relentless nature of the jokes makes them great – even if, as films, they are simple and somewhat inane. They take the physical comedy of Chaplin to a new level, adding not just the verbal wit, but songs, dance and music. Horse Feathers, however, isn’t the title with which to introduce someone to the Marx brothers. The films starts almost immediately with a bizarre, nonsensical monologue by Groucho, followed by a song and dance routine. It includes great lines such as ‘Well, I thought my razor was dull until I heard his speech’ and ‘I came into this college to get my son out of it’, but there is a lot there which I didn’t, or couldn’t, understand. As an introduction it’s baffling, but it at least makes it clear to the audience what the Marx brothers are trying to do here: tell jokes, regardless of any plot. The humour is strange in places (this film was made 80 years ago after all), the jokes sometimes either seem not funny at all or offensive, and the plot is flimsy and strained, but there are equally moments when you’ll laugh so hard you’ll cry. ‘I married your mother because I wanted children. Imagine my disappointment when you arrived’. Their best films are more than just a collection of sketches like this, but still in Horse Feathers you will find the relentless verbal and physical humour and some great songs, including the classic ‘everyone says I love you’ – with different verses depending on the perspectives of the different characters.

Edge of Darkness

One of the strangest remakes of recent years has been this film, derived from a 1980s British television series. Unfortunately I think I only ever saw the first episode of the series, and so I can’t offer much of a comparison between the two. However, it’s relatively obvious from watching the film that there is a great plot and script behind it all that must have come from the series. Indeed, the director Martin Campbell was the director of the original series (he has since directed Casino Royale, but also The Legend of Zorro). This, unfortunately, is where the comparisons end. Perhaps the greatest disaster of this remake was the casting of Mel Gibson. He is quintessentially wrong for this role, and not just because his attempt at a Boston accent is jarring. Production started just after The Departed won several Oscars, and you can’t help but hear the studio saying ‘let’s do another thriller set in Boston, only this time let’s get Mel Gibson!’. The plot is long, the characters are complex, and it all feels too much for this film. What’s more, the idea of a nuclear threat is not so strong today as it was in the 1980s, and the feel of a secretive, oppressive government (based on Thatcher at the time) isn’t as compelling anymore. Having not seen the original, there is still intrigue here, but the whole thing falls awkwardly together. The saccharine ending in particular I can’t help but feel was designed by Hollywood, and the two anonymous men in suits who follow Gibson around, like Men in Black, are one of the most ridiculous aspects of the remake. It is perhaps a television series that could be adapted well to the cinema, but this film isn’t it.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

David Fincher’s career as a director has been a strange one so far, and I still can’t decide if I like his movies or not. Audiences seem equally uncertain. Perhaps it’s because although Fincher’s films all have a certain style and economy, his stamp is not as obvious or noticeable as, say, the Coen brothers or Spielberg. A lot of people might have seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, or The Social Network, and not known they were watching the work of the same director as Se7en and Alien 3. He’s one of only a few directors, however, that I can say I’ve seen every one of his films, for one reason or another. The last one was Benjamin Button, which I’d never been as greatly interested to watch as some of his others. I have to say it’s marred by the cliché of an old woman narrating a story from her deathbed. Indeed, aside from the one unique aspect of Button’s existence (which you will probably know about even if you haven’t seen the film), there is nothing surprising about this movie. We follow his life story from beginning to end – it’s ups and downs, romantic or otherwise. He does not discover something revolutionary about the meaning of life, imparts no great wisdom, nor does he receive any. I kept expecting a twist, or a deeper meaning, but none came. There is no reason for what happens to him. The film is developed from a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and that is what it felt like – short. It should, ultimately perhaps, have been a short film. There is not enough here to be a full-length feature, despite it containing the whole life of a man. It does not have the depth or richness that a novel, or film, should have. There is also something very creepy about Brad Pitt as an old/young man, especially in his relationship with the girl. Perhaps this is what Fincher was going for - it’s sometimes very hard to tell what his intentions are. Despite displaying that same style and economy, the same careful attention to detail, the film feels empty, and I think you'd find it hard to find someone who ranks it among Fincher's best.

True Grit

I try wherever possible to read the book of a movie before seeing it and watch an original before viewing the remake. On this occasion, however, I failed on both counts. In fact, I made the decision to watch this regardless of the original. I trusted that the Coen brothers had made a film that was their own, and did not need reference to an original (someone who’s seen it can tell me if I’m right). This dilemma, however, is occurring more and more. Can we have seen and read every book or original that a film is based on? Sometimes there are several versions, at least (see the recent Spider-man reboot). It is perhaps a question for another time to ask why it is we’re making so many remakes. In the theatre this is an assumed practice, with only a small proportion of London’s stages taken up with original works. Film exists somewhere in-between theatre and the novel, which is what makes it so compelling. Each new production is far more permanent than the single performance it purports to be. This version of True Grit, for example, may outlive its predecessors. The Coen brothers decided to return to the book and be more faithful to it than John Wayne’s version was. It is arguably the first straight genre movie that they’ve ever done, and it’s interesting for that alone. Jeff Bridges plays a wayward U.S Marshall hired by a young girl to find her father’s killer. The action is short, brutal and occasionally gruesome, as we can expect from the Coen brothers. There is also a dark humour, Carter Burwell’s score, and that bleak, unforgiving outlook, lacking sympathy for any of their characters, that is typical of their films. This movie sits somewhere in-between the somewhat comic nature of films like O Brother, Where art Thou? and the more serious tone of No Country for Old Men, but it can still be clearly seen as directed by the same hands. I wouldn’t class it as one of their best, but it is certainly head and shoulders above a lot of other films you might be choosing between on a Friday night. Despite being nominated for ten Oscars, it won none.