This film is incredibly bad. I was about to write that it was the worst Oscar-winning film I'd ever seen, but then I remembered The Dark Knight, Moulin Rouge and Titanic. Dreamgirls is probably as bad as these films, but it would be mere pedantry to try and decide which of them is worst of all. Director-screenwriter Bill Condon has made at least two films (Gods and Monsters and Kinsey) which are quite watchable, with genuinely developed characters. Perhaps the artistic failure of Dreamgirls can be partly blamed on the musical format, which makes it much harder to develop characters. (This is a problem even in better musicals like Jesus Christ Superstar - we never really understand Jesus's motivation. Sure, he's a nut, but there's got to be more to it than that, right? Perhaps not.) But  for goodness' sake, even Chicago was better than this! Perhaps it's not even enough to say that the characters aren't developed: rather, it occurs to me that Dreamgirls is a film which simply does not have any characters in it, just stand-ins. And as if this wasn't bad enough - not one of the songs is remotely memorable, not even the title song. This is extremely frustrating since the actresses can obviously sing very well - their abilities are entirely wasted. And yet this is a film that's supposed to be chronicling a significant period of change and excitement in the music industry, with the emergence of truly great groups like the Supremes (on which the Dreams in this film are all-too-loosely based).

Matty and I had hoped that the film would at least be hiarious because it has Beyonce in it. But the most one can say is that Beyonce occassionally looks hilarious and that there is some hilarious interior decoration and costumes. None of this makes the film worth watching. You'd get far more out of Beyonce's music video of her hit single "Irreplaceable" - an infinitely better movie, both musically and in terms of plot and character development, and only about one-thirtieth the length of Dreamgirls. (There's also a good Spanish version of this song, with even more empowered lyrics, and many more insults).

And I haven't even mentioned the film's revolting politics and distorted version of history. For more on that, though, you should really read the World Socialist Web Site's review.

Hi everyone,
Sorry for not reviewing anything in a while. Unfortunately, I have such a huge backlog that I can't write long reviews - my memory is not that good. So I'll limit myself to brief comments. I'll post some more tomorrow, if I get around to it.
Anyway. . .

The Hollow Men * * *
A very interesting documentary about the inner workings of the National Party, based on Nicky Hager's book about the infamous leaked emails. This movie presents more than enough damning evidence to shatter any illusions one might have about the honesty/integrity/respectability of National's MPs - especially Don Brash and John Key.
Still, the film is severly limited by its more or less uncritical depiction of the Labour Party. To set the historical scene, the narrator describes how right-wing ideologues in David Lange and then Finance Minister Roger Douglas's Labour Party gutted NZ's social services in the 80s, primarily for the purpose of enriching the country's bourgeoisie (including John Key, and NZ's richest man Graeme Hart, among others). So far so good. But the film makers then make the claim (which they do not bother to substantiate) that this "new right" tendency has now fully migrated to ACT and National, leaving Labour a "centre-left" party. This is rather misleading. Helen Clark, for instance, was a cabinet minister in the Lange Government. More to the point - when Roger Douglas recently returned to the ACT Party and found himself under attack by both John Key and Clark, he managed to embarrass them by asking: If you don't like my reforms, why haven't you reversed them?

Iron Man * *
A not very worthwhile superhero film. Engaging as entertainment, with plenty of absurd dialogue and some good effects. A disgusting, imperialist plot.

Diamonds are Forever * 
One of the worst Bond films. Don't see it.

The Magnificent Seven * * *
A decent western. Not as good as Seven Samurai, on which it is based, but lots of fun all the same.

Bande A Part * * *
Interesting Godard film about petty, bungling criminals. Sort of a pisstake of the gangster/noir genre, as well as an homage.

Johnny Got His Gun * * *
A very interesting film about a man who loses his limbs, his sight, his hearing, and his power of speech after a shell explodes next to him in a World War I trench. It has shades of Kafka's Metamorphosis and is very good at capturing the Army officers' indifference to the suffering of those beneath them. At times a bit too artsy/"dreamlike".

Cleopatra Jones * * * *
One of the best blaxploitation films ever made. Cleopatra is a foxy detective with stunning outfits, fighting a drug-dealing mafia led by a vicious lesbian. Okay, the film is a bit homophobic, but if you ignore that, it's pretty cool. Excellent music.

Five Easy Pieces * * *
Worth seeing for Jack Nicholson's performance and other amusing characters. Unfortunately, the script is fairly trite.

Fists of Fury * * * *
A very awesome Bruce Lee film about factory workers fighting back against their evil, exploitative boss. Everyone should see this.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? * * *
An hilarious film about an ageing history professor and his wife who amuse themselves by inflicting their personalities on their younger guests. It was quite risque for its time.

The Road to Guantanamo * * *
A powerful dramatisation/documentary, which tells the true story of some young British men captured in Afghanistan and detained at the US torture camp in Guantanamo. Not quite as good as Winterbottom's In This World, but still definitely worth seeing.

Last Days * *
I didn't really get this. Some dudes, including Kurt Cobain, hang around in a big house. After a while Cobain kills himself. I guess it's realistic.

Tristram Shandy * *
Supposedly a spoof of the British costume drama film-making industry. Occasionally funny, but mostly just annoying, full of obviously forced "spontaneity".

Rififi * * * *
Very gripping French noir thriller directed by Jules Dassin. Perhaps the best heist movie ever made.

This is supposedly the first US film by a black director, Melvin van Peebles. It tells the story of Sweet Sweetback, a black male prostitute of few words who decides to fight back against the Man, with vermicious consequences. Sweetback kills a racist cop, sparking a brutal police crackdown in a black neighbourhood - with much graphic, racist violence. The pigs pursue Sweetback as he flees toward Mexico, through a surreal desert landscape, to the tune of strange negro music. The film is elliptical and sometimes hard to follow, but overall a very intriguing, lyrical work.

High Noon * * *
This is a fairly decent, gripping Western. If the plot is a bit workmanlike then this is more than made up for by the strength and focus of the acting. It's basically a morality tale which centres around an about-to-retire sheriff who hears that some old thug nemeses of his are on their way back into town, due to arrive on the train at . . . high noon. Defying his pathetic Quaker-pacifist wife, the sheriff sets out to recruit some deputies to help him kill the baddies - but everyone in town is just too damn cowardly, so he ends up killing them off himself. The film is enlivened by two supporting performances: the air traffic controller from Airplane! as a drunken, yellow-bellied deputy; and the Mexican fortune-teller from Touch of Evil as the sheriff's feisty ex-girlfriend. Well worth seeing.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford * * * *
This exceptionally good Western tells a complex and amusing tale of celebrity-worship. Casey Affleck plays Robert Ford, a pathetic, fawning youngster obssessed with the infamous outlaw Jesse James (Brad Pitt). Robert teams up and tags along with his boyhood hero, who turns out not to match his glamourised media image: Jesse's fortunes are in decline and he is looking at retirement.
Starry-eyed Robert's constant attentions elicit only annoyance, and Jesse comes to despise and mock him. I suppose it's hard to put up with non-stop praise, and it must be irksome to be equated with your pop-culture image.
Obsessed as he is with Jesse, Robert himself is curiously unreal, pitiably lacking in personality. His presence casts a ghostly shadow over the whole film - the impressionistic, sometimes blurry cinematography, the melancholy score, and the detached, hilariously baroque narration.

You Only Live Twice * * *
Definitely one of the best Bond films. In it, Bond (Sean Connery) is sent to Japan to track down some stolen nuclear weapon or sumthin. There he meets the head of Japan's secret service, who enjoys an ultra-luxurious lifestyle, surrounded by a harem of bimbos and his own private ninja army - not to mention his own private underground rail network ("I'm sure your M has something similar", he says to Bond). This is also the Bond film in which you get to see the face of Spectre's Number One.

High Noon * * * *
A good classic Western about a lone sheriff who stands up to some thugs in a small town, receiving no assistance from the rest of the cowardly townsfolk. The film is remarkable for its suspense and for a feisty Mexican lady.

Goodbye Pork Pie * * * *
A film which brilliantly evokes an era - as all good road movies do. The simple premise and lack of rigid plot structure allow for creative and diverting car chases and plenty of bogan/white trash comedy.

The Tin Drum * *
Yeah, I didn't really get this film.

Kiki's Delivery Service * * *
A charming anime movie about a witch who starts her own broomstick-mail delivery service in an imagined central-European village where everyone is affluent and troubles are all minor (as in losing one's cat, etc.). Not as imaginative as Spirited Away, the movie kind of peters out inconclusively towards the end - and there's not a lot to it anyway. Still, an overall pleasant experience.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence *
Pretty much crap. Plotwise Innocence is a re-hash of its marginally more coherent prequel, though it also visually plagiarises Blade Runner. Animation-wise it doesn't stand up to the first movie, despite being more advanced technologically. Innocence is saturated with idiotic computer screen images which I can't imagine even the most thorough cyber-geek would find engaging. The DVD cover-praise tells us that Innocence "argues that being human is more than just flesh and blood" (or some such phrase). Well, okay, but who cares? If Innocence is anything to go by, the whole Do-Robots-Have-Feelings? genre has reached an impasse.

Lust, Caution * * *
This is a gripping story about a group of Chinese actors who become spies during the Japanese occupation. One of them, a chick, sleeps with a collaborator-Minister in the puppet government as part of a well-orchestrated assassination attempt. It's a psycho-sexual rather than a political thriller, that is, you won't come away from Lust, Caution with a greatly improved understanding of what actually happened during the war. But the film has many compelling scenes, capturing the claustrophobia as well as the excitement of espionage.

Another Gay Movie - ZERO stars.
Probably the worst gay movie in existence. We follow a group of affluent, suburban gay teenagers, just graduated from high school, as they attempt to lose their worthless virginities. Essentially there's no difference between this and movies like American Pie, except that Another Gay Movie is lower-budget and has no big-name stars in it. Anyone looking for a good film about gay teens, with genuinely sexy actors in it, should watch Totally F**ed Up.

Jin-Roh: Wolves in Human Armour *
As in many shit anime movies, Jin-Roh's animation is superb. The premise is also promising. A narrator explains at the start that the action takes place in a post-war Japan in which extremely oppressive policies have been implemented to stifle rebellious feelings in the population. What could have been an interesting political critique along the lines of, say, Akira, quickly gets bogged down in a tale of personal mystical redemption, with incessant and entirely gratuitous references to Little Red Riding Hood. The plot is a barely comprehensible string of sentimental drivel.

The Naked Gun * * *
Quite funny, like the sequels.

From Russia With Love * * *
This is a pretty decent Bond movie, in which a crazy lesbian Soviet commander, secretly a member of the Specter organisation (which is bent on world domination), sends a Russian spy-woman to seduce Bond and accompany him to London with some secret plans or what-not, with the aim that he and the plans be captured by Specter en route - or something like that. Anyway, the movie has some fun scenes with Turkish gypsies, a train ride, and a dramatic boat chase with an ending very similar to Thunderball's.

The funniest line from Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes:

"So the fags were without their lawful masters and protectors, and ridden over rough-shod by a set of boys whom they were not bound to obey, and whose only right over them stood in their bodily powers"

(The word "fag" here refers to a younger public school boy who performs menial errands for an older public schoolboy. The double entendre is terrific.)

Logan's Run *
This film starts out camp and gets increasingly tedious and at incomprehensible. Logan is a "sandman" who lives in a hedonistic dystopia in which people are all killed when they reach the age of thirty in some kind of laser light show hippy cult gathering (why this happens isn't explained). It's the sandman's job to catch and kill anyone who tries to escape their death (such people are called "runners"). The premise is idiotic enough, but the plot beggars belief: Logan is ordered by an omnipotent computer-god to accompany a Hot Chick who wants to get out of the stupid domes (which everyone lives in even though the outside air is perfectly breathable). They face many perils along the way, including a lunatic robot who wants to turn them into protein a la Soylent Green, a vindictive sandman, lots of water, some cats and an old man. One loses interest in all this after about five minutes. Pathetic.

High Heels *
A dumb Almodovar film about rich people, murder and a transvestite. Who cares?

The Last Detail * * and a half
A fairly average film about a couple of (navy? army?) officers who accompany a younger soldier to a military prison, getting up to some rowdy drinking and visiting of whores along the way. The story isn't all that compelling, but Jack Nicholson gives an interesting performance which makes it all fairly watchable.

Banana in a Nutshell * * *
This is an interesting "home-made" documentary about a Chinese New Zealander chick who wants to marry her white boyfriend but has to struggle to win the approval of her parents. It's a sensitive first-hand account of cross-cultural angst. Watching Banana in a Nutshell feels at times almost like watching someone's personal video-diary: it's fun, in this age of privacy, to see such an intrusive portrayal of how other people live. People need to make more such films.

But I'm a Cheerleader * * and a half
I think the only reason this film is so popular is that it fills a market niche: there are no other films about re-education camps for turning gays into straights. It is, also, somewhat amusing. But it's all so "stylised", and its characters are such crude stereotypes, that the "satire" sorta misses the mark. The film wants to make several worthy points: such camps are absurd, it is ludicrous to suggest that men are gay because they were pampered by their mothers, or that women are dykes because they weren't taught to do housework, etc. But we already know all this, and there's something just too darned easy in setting up bigots to be crudely laughed at. I would have preferred to see a more realistic portrayal. Such "ex-gay" groups are part of a genuine social problem, and the people who go along often experience serious and complex trauma. What we need are films which explore the dilemmas faced by gays and lesbians in the US who feel pressured into attending such groups. None of this really comes across in But I'm a Cheerleader. Even the "ex-gay" group in the TV show Queer as Folk is more interesting.

"North Americans feel too much, latching on to grief that isn't our own, drooling over Princess Diana's all-star funeral or the televised memorial service for the dead in Oklahoma City or Littleton, Colorado. No one's allowed to grieve in private any more, and pain has become one of the performing arts, one that the simpleminded and the talentless can excel at." - Dan Savage, from The Kid.

There Will be Blood * *
PTA's latest film is a confused, ahistorical mess. It's a pity, really, that such promising subject matter - an American oil businessman in the early 20th century buying up land and getting embroiled in a small-town rivalry with a puny evangelist - should yield so little. But PTA ignores his story's potential by willfully eschewing social criticism in favour of what I assume he thinks is a more serious, dark "psychological" portrait of the oilman. It's a flawed approach which pretty much ruins the film. Daniel Day-Lewis does give a gripping performance as Daniel Plainview, but I'm not as impressed by him as others are: after all, it's comparatively easy to play a psychopath. I agree with the World Socialist Website that his performance "attempts to make up for the absurdity of the events, which come largely out of the blue, by sheer force of will, with ever diminishing results. The over-acting here is in inverse proportion to the emotional and social authenticity of the drama." (The same is true of PTA's other films. Even the good ones (Boogie Nights and Punch-Drunk Love) suffer from moments where the over-acting is clearly intended to disguise a lack of compelling dialogue.)
Plainview's enemy, the evangelist preacher Eli Sunday, also appears to be a psychopath (though perhaps this portrayal is marginally more realistic). Both men make lots of noise, and sometimes their insanity is pretty funny, but it's unclear why I should care about any of it. The ending is idiotic.

The Great Muppet Caper * * *
In a second effort to get me to like the Muppets, after showing me the shit Muppets from Space (reviewed below somewhere), Matty showed me this, which is much better and well worth seeing. The Muppets travel to London to catch a jewel thief. It's full of genuine witticisms and cool eighties-ness, as well as a very amusing bit-performance by John Cleese.

Two-Lane Black Top * * * and a half
This is a really excellent road movie about a pair of drag racers who "race" their way across the USA, while getting embroiled with trampy girls and hicks. Although not a lot "happens" in the movie, it's strikingly realistic and extremely funny, largely thanks to Warren Oates, who plays the brilliantly conceived GTO driver who challenges the two main dudes to a race across the country. Oates picks up several strange hitch-hikers along the way, with whom he shares intimate but wildly false tales of adventure. Part of the fun of the movie is trying to figure out where these stories come from, and whether any scraps of them are true. This talkativeness and insecurity juxtaposes nicely with the main dudes' one-dimensional manliness.

Infamous * * * *
This biopic of Truman Capote is considerably better than Capote (see my review), which came out first and stole the limelight. Both films were made around the same time and cover roughly the same biographical material: the flamboyantly gay Capote and his friend Nelle Harper Lee go to some hick town to cover a multiple homicide there. Then the murderers are caught, Capote talks to them extensively in jail until they are executed, then he publishes a book about them called In Cold Blood. In Infamous, Capote is egotistical, snobbish and extremely witty. In other words, a thoroughly likable character. Capote's Capote is all these things too, but the film is somewhat colder, more self-consciously serious. Infamous captures the seriousness of its subject without missing the fun of it all. It's a multi-faceted portrayal.

Delicatessen * * and a half
Another film by the French Tim Burtons, Jeunet and Caro, who made the shit films Alien Resurrection and City of Lost Children (see my reviews). This one is a marginally better. A butcher manages some apartments in some kind of post-apocalyptic city somewhere, and lures lodgers whom he then butchers, distributing the flesh to his hungry tenants. There are plenty of "quirky" characters, and the plot is stupid, but the art direction yields interesting and atmospheric details (the room filled entirely with snails and frogs, for instance) and there are some genuinely funny slapstick comedy moments.

This is a special post to tell you all to read Matty's post on the murder of Pihema Cameron and the disgusting, inflammatory reactions from politicians and media "personalities" who have sided with his killer. I was going to post about this myself but Matty's done a pretty thorough job so I won't bother. Suffice to observe that this fascist blaming of victims is becoming increasingly widespread in NZ's media (see my post on the Lion Man). 

This is a superlative musical. The plot - from Shaw's satiric play Pygmalion, about a professor who attempts to bring a lowly flower-girl into upper class society by reforming her speech - is ingenious. It shows up the idiocy of class snobbery and the illogic on which it is based. It's also a very interesting polemic against Victorian/authoritarian theories of education (Henry believes that rational explanation is wasted on Eliza, and that only military-style drilling can teach her anything - we've all had teachers like this, if less extreme). The characters, especially the vile linguist Mr Henry Higgins, are well drawn and thoroughly appealing, and acted with gusto. (Incidentally, there's a Family Guy episode that pays homage to My Fair Lady and Henry Higgins is expertly imitated by Stewie, who clearly idolises him). Many of the songs are amusing, and one or two are hilarious (particularly Mr Higgins's "Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man?"). The film does have a few flaws, most significantly its implausible love-story conclusion. Then there are a few songs which could easily have been edited out (the tiresome "Get Me To the Church On Time", for instance, sung by Eliza Doolittle's father). And it does all go on a bit long (2 hours and 40 minutes). Still, My Fair Lady is definitely worth seeing.

"Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm." - Graham Greene, The Quiet American.

Once *
A low budget indie Irish film about a remarkably talented busker destined to become a famous singer/songwriter in the easy listening genre. Once appears to be just about universally loved: it has a "98% fresh" rating on rottentomatoes.com. Peter Calder of the NZ Herald calls it a "perfectly formed gem that will leave you glowing for days". Such shallow platitudes appear to have been the order of the day for most critics. Roger Ebert's marshmellowy ejaculations are typical:

"We are in love with this movie. He is falling in love with her. [. . .] She is falling in love with him. [. . .] All with music. And all with their love, and our love for their love, only growing."

As these comments indicate, the film is trashy and sentimental. It's in the same genre as Before Sunrise and Lost in Translation: two people meet, interact briefly and begin to fancy each other, then for whatever reason go their separate ways and  "parting is such sweet, sweet sorrow". Coppola's and Linklater's films are worth watching because they give us more than a "simple" or "pure" love story. There's peripheral comedy, for instance - like Bill Murray's antics and the many racist jokes in Lost in Translation or the chick's semi-coherent postfeminist rantings in Before Sunset. If the protagonists' love is unconvincing (or just uninteresting), at least the tale is fleshed out in other directions. It seems to me that there's nothing particularly interesting about on-screen love per se. Most good "love stories" are about other stuff too: Brokeback Mountain is about midwestern attitudes toward gayness, The Wedding Banquet is about cross-cultural tensions/Chinese attitudes toward gayness, Far From Heaven is about racial and sexual attitudes in 1950s America, My Beautiful Laundrette is about racial/sexual/class relations in Britain in the Thatcher era, Casablanca is about the effects of World War 2 on ordinary human relationships. Etc.

Once is bland, inoffensive, and fails to say anything about anything. The characters are boring, self-absorbed cretins with little to say. Critics wank on about how the pair's "true feelings" are only expressed through their music. But their songs don't get much deeper than Busker's overplayed hit single to be, supposedly a comment on his relationship with his ex, which repeats ad nauseum the refrain: "When your mind's made up, when your mind's made up, there's no point trying to change it". Pointless crap.

Howl's Moving Castle * *
Not as good as Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle starts out promisingly enough. The protagonist, a young lass who works in a hat shop, gets caught in a web of political/magical intrigue when she bumps into Howl, the famous, elusive, handsome wizard. This arouses the jealousy of The Witch of the Wastes - Howl's stalker - who casts a spell turning Hat Shop Girl into an old lady. Hat Shop Girl (now old) eventually meets up with Howl in his moving castle. Howl is himself in the grip of a spell, having made a bargain with a demon fire which propels his castle. Hat Shop Girl wants to save Howl. In the meantime there's a war on (the cause of which remains obscure).

From here the plot doesn't seem to know how to resolve itself. Attention to detail and character development are sacrificed as the filmmakers resort to a series of grand, magical gestures to straighten things out. The animation is pretty as ever (far prettier than the special effects in, say, the most recent Star Wars films), but the barrage of deus ex machinas ruins it.

Mr Death * * * *
A documentary about Fred A. Leuchter, an American engineer specialising in "humane" methods of capital punishment whose life changes when he is summoned as an "expert witness" in the trial of a Canadian Neo-Nazi Holocaust denier. After a trip to the ruins of Auschwitz, where Fred finds no trace of gas, he concludes that the Nazis never built gas chambers. His celebrity status grows among Neo-Nazi groups, who see him as lending scientific legitimacy to their cause. But his career goes downhill: suddenly, no American prison wants him to work on their death equipment.
Fred is a fascinating example of the simple-minded (or "banal") roots of evil. His consistent refusal to examine his beliefs (he persists in outrageously heavy coffee and cigarette consumption despite his doctor's repeated warnings) is an extreme example of what is in fact quite a prevalent phenomenon - particularly in the States.

Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story * * * *
Todd Haynes's "breakthrough" 1989 film tells the story of Karen Carpenter (lead singer of the Carpenters) and her struggle with anorexia using Barbie figures and lots of Carpenters' music. The film was banned after the Carpenters and Matel both sued. It is still illegal to distribute the film. It can be viewed online, though the quality isn't great. The film is remarkable for its literal understanding of "body fascism". As one expert opinion quoted in Superstar points out, the causes of anorexia are often directly related to one's upbringing: oppression, for Karen, begins at home. Her overbearing mother and image-obsessed brother are forever policing her behaviour - her input is never sought. Consequently, she develops a self-destructive brand of self-discipline. Images of spanking flash through her mind (this is a motif much more fully explored in Haynes's Dottie Gets Spanked), and grainy, holocaust-like images of a body being tossed off a cliff haunt the film. Much like Elvira in Fassbinder's In a Year of 13 Moons, Karen is fascism's willing victim.

Christmas quote:

"Kenneth said when he went out he saw an old woman in Marks and Spencer's. She was very poor. And she'd bought herself a packet of jam tarts and half a chicken. Obviously she could afford nothing else. How awful to be trying to celebrate when you're old and lonely. I wish there was something to be done. We're not taking any notice of Christmas." - Joe Orton, diary entry.

In a Year of 13 Moons * * * *
A Rainer Werner Fassbinder film about Elvira, who was a man but who had a sex change to comply with the whim of Anton Saitz, a powerful businessman. Having a main character who is literally selfless - i.e. willing to alter any aspect of his/her identity to satisfy others - allows Fassbinder to craft what is both an intensely personal, emotionally hard-hitting film which at the same time acts as a political indictment of capitalist society. Because Elvira allows society to mold her, to write upon her blank slate of a personality, its uncaring brutality is reflected in her personal predicament. (Todd Haynes, who cites Fassbinder as his favourite film-maker, uses the same device in his film Safe). In one obviously symbolic scene Elvira visits a bar and sits next to a slot machine, where she begins to cry: she is society's dehumanised consumer, and yet her situation is paradoxically all the more affecting because of her willingness (but seeming inability) to please, to become what others want her to be. In an earlier scene - perhaps the film's most beautiful, brutal and haunting sequence - she visits a slaughterhouse, which she tells her friend encapsulates what life is all about. The camera lingers on cattle who have the blood drained from their necks, the skin peeled from their bodies. This is, for Elvira, what life is all about: allowing others to systematically re-shape you, drain you, skin you and package you. She is a willing victim, intoxicated by and unable to resist the power others hold over her, even while she is pathetically reduced by this power. She is Anton Saitz's cow. His piece of meat. (Indeed, in the film's second scene we hear Cristoph, Elvira's current lover, refer to her as "a piece of meat").

This is a very dense film. Unlike Fox and His Friends and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, it is not strictly realistic, and contains elements of surrealism and expressionism. Some scenes I just didn't understand. I'm thinking in particular of the surreal scene in which Elvira witnesses a man hang himself. But this didn't detract from my overall viewing experience, it just made me want to watch it again.

Tabu: A Story of the South Seas * * * *
This is the best silent film I've seen. Admittedly, I've only seen Metropolis (which bored me), The Battleship Potemkin (which is fantastic), and some Charlie Chaplin film which I don't even remember. Tabu tells the story of happy, frolicsome, semi-nude, nubile young love on the island of Bora Bora thwarted by an unholy alliance of colonialism/capitalism and ancient tribal customs. A pretty girl is chosen by some important elderly local to be his sacred, "tabu", virgin. She must be taken away, and all men are forbidden to look upon her with lust. Her boyfriend, after an initial period of dejection, rescues his girlfriend from the vile man and together they flee to another island where the white man has supposedly banished the old Gods. There, however, the "Tabu" pursues them, and the elderly noble attempts to kidnap the girl. Exceptionally technically accomplished, the film contains terrific performances by the handsome natives, haunting dream sequences which display a depth of psychological understanding immeasurably more profound than is achieved by most modern films. The film also displays a relatively sophisticated understanding of colonialism: the imperialists team up with the native authorities to stifle dissent. If you aren't a silent film fan, don't be put off Tabu. It is gripping, sexy, hilarious and tragic - all in the short space of 84 minutes.  Everyone should see this film.

Days of Heaven * * * *
A young Richard Gere plays an agricultural worker in the 1910s. He travels with his girlfriend who poses as his sister and an odd girl who is his real sister. Trouble starts when Gere's girlfriend starts fucking the wealthy farmer (Sam Shepherd) in whose wheat fields they are labouring. Gere tells her to go ahead and marry Shepherd so that they can enjoy his wealth. This happens, but passions flare up, Shepherd discovers his wife and Gere are lovers and there's murder and passion. All the while, the odd girl who is Gere's actual sister looks on and narrates in a hilarious, lyrical, hard-boiled manner. An elliptical story, sensuously filmed with careful attention to details, the sounds, the sensations of day-to-day life. A period piece/romance/western which is strangely non-generic. Fascinating stuff.

My favourite S. T. Coleridge quotes:
 
"What is familiar to the imagination ceases to be terrible; and what ceases to be terrible we no longer feel a strong inducement to resist." - "On the Insensibility of the Public Temper"

"The Groans of the Oppressors make fearful yet pleasant music to the ear of him, whose mind is darkness, and into whose soul the iron has entered." - "A Moral and Political Lecture"

"And what if all-avenging Providence,
Strong and retributive, should make us know
The meaning of our words, force us to feel
The desolation and the agony
Of our fierce doings?"
- "Fears in Solitude"

Mr. Inbetween *
A pretentious English film about a hitman who becomes torn between his life of crime and the growing desire to lead a normal life, have normal friends, all that kind of crap. Stylistically it's like Lost Highway, but with none of the frills: no loud music, no sex, and no graphic violence to speak of. Trash, in other words.

Office Space * * *
A very funny film that centres around a trio of disgruntled office workers who decide to rip off the company. Many amusing characters, particularly the slimy boss. Captures the absurdity of office jobs several years before The Office was made.

Cry Baby * * *
The only film I've seen in which Johnny Depp is genuinely attractive. (Perhaps it's the gay director John Waters who managed to bring it out). Depp is Cry Baby, the leader of a gang of juvenile delinquents or "Drapes". The Drapes' rivals are the disgusting, upper class, preppy Squares. Plenty of fun, over-the-top musical numbers and some good satire on fifties yank values. The kind of film Grease should have been.

Who Killed the Electric Car? * * *
A revealing documentary which follows the rise and fall of the electric car in California. As you would expect, the corporations are mostly to blame. General Motors didn't want to go on making a car that would compete with their other products. Then there was pressure from Big Oil on the government. Etc. The film tells a frustrating but important story. There are moments of comic relief: one of the  celebrity electric car fans interviewed is Mel Gibson. He has a crazy beard, and is crazy.

Sunset Boulevard * * * *
An extremely good Billy Wilder film about a down-on-his-luck screenwriter who, in an attempt to elude debt-collectors hot on his tail, pulls into the garage of an old, big house on Sunset Boulevard. The owner is an aging and faded - but extremely rich - silent film star. She quickly gets the screenwriter to help her on an appalling, sentimental screenplay she has written. The relationship quickly becomes destructive for all concerned. A remarkable look at how money stifles creativity in the film industry.

Finally, a "fun for the whole family" movie which actually is fun for the whole family - as opposed to mildly amusing for kids and unutterably boring for everyone else (except for those insufferable people who call themselves "kids at heart", who imagine that we need to hold on to the kid within if we are to remain sensitive and loving in this cruel crushing world. It's about fucking time we stopped fetishising children as though they were "noble savages" - representatives of an uncorrupted past to which we yearn to return).
Ratatouille is an interesting hybrid of the Pixar fast-paced action and slapstick comedy genre and what might be called Restaurant Cinema (a genre which includes Big Night, The Cook the Thief His Wife and Her Lover and Eat Drink Man Woman). It works perfectly. The opportunities it throws up are perfectly exploited. Plus, the film has a positive anti-junk food message: it might even help children get interested in food preparation - which can only be a good thing.
There's also a good socio-political message, underscored by the name of the great chef Gusteau's cookbook: Anyone Can Cook. "High-brow" art - the art of cooking, in this case - is radically democratised: the rats take over the kitchen. Ingrained prejudices are overcome: "peasant food" (ratatouille) is made delicious. The cold-hearted food critic Anton Ego abandons his ivory tower. (Incidentally, Anton Ego looks just like Will Self, the English novelist and former restaurant critic for The Observer - in which capacity he was ruthlessly scathing). A very good film - perhaps the best Pixar movie yet, better than Shrek, Finding Nemo and Toy Story.

"Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'" - Mary McCarthy on her personal enemy Lillian Hellman

"Serious artists do something other than merely registering their despair (or joy) at events or assembling their impressions and intuitions and passing them on." - from David Walsh's review of The Departed on the World Socialist Website.

"Cleanse my heart. Give me the ability to rage correctly." - Joe Orton, Head to Toe.

Talk Radio * * * *
This is a really excellent film loosely based on the true story of a Dallas talk show host who was murdered by neo-Nazis. A fascinating foray into the heart of insane America. The protagonist is funny and self-destructive as he takes on his insane callers. The radio studio atmosphere has the intensity of a WWI trench. Anyway, this is a totally awesome film and I reckon y'all oughta see it.

Benny's Video * * *
The always interesting Michael Haneke gives us Benny (played by the same actor who plays one of the psychos in Funny Games), a warped 14-year-old Austrian laddie with a penchant for violent B-movies. His favourite movie is one he made himself of his daddy killing a pig with a strange gun-wand thingy. Anyway, the dehumanising effects of TV cause him to bring some random chick home and kill her with the gun-wand. Then his parents help him cover it up. It's all very psychological.

Salaam Bombay * * * *
This is a really excellent film by the director who later went on to make the extraordinarily shit Monsoon Wedding. Salaam Bombay  tells the story of a street-kid in Bombay and the characters he encounters - the drug dealer, the prostitute, the pimp, the other street kids, the police, etc. Anyhow, it's good and rarely stoops to cheap sentimentalism.

Super Amigos * * *

This is a Mexican film we saw in the documentary film festival. It's about a group of masked wrestlers turned social activists. Super Barrio fights for the rights of poor tenants, Super Animal campaigns against bullfighting, Super Gay campaigns for gays, then there's an environmentalist, a priest, and one who runs an orphanage. Some serious issues are raised and it's all fairly amusing and watchable, if kinda amateurish.

For this meme thingy I have to post a blurb and link to five texts which must be associated together in a kind of chain (following on from each other), as per Matty's instructions.

1. Susan Sontag's famous essay, "Notes on Camp": http://interglacial.com/~sburke/pub/prose/Susan_Sontag_-_Notes_on_Camp.html

This is a neat essay to start with, since it is chock full of references to various artists/films/writers. It's the first significant attempt to explore the nature of "Camp" sensibility. Written in 1964, it's stood the test of time, and unlike some of her essays it isn't too po-mo. If you're unsure what people mean when they say something is "camp" or "campy" you'll find this essay illuminating. Actually, everyone should read it.

2. One of the writers Sontag says does not write campily is Jean Genet. Todd Haynes adapted Genet novels A Thief's Journal and Miracle of the Rose as part of his unnerving film Poison. Here is Todd Haynes's first film, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=622130510713940545
Using Barbie dolls instead of actors he tells the story of Karen Carpenter (of the band The Carpenters) and her struggle with anorexia. You ought to watch it.

3. Haynes's favourite filmmaker is the German Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Fassbinder made what is probably my favourite film, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. Since I can't link to that film, I'll link to Roger Ebert's review of it instead.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19741005/REVIEWS/401010302/1023

4. One of Fassbinder's many films (one which I have not seen, but would like to), is an adaptation of Hedda Gabler, the great Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's disturbing play about a suicidal housewife. I acted as Hedda's gormless husband when Saint Louis University, Madrid put on a production of the play. It can be read online. Here's the link:
http://www.4literature.net/Henrik_Ibsen/Hedda_Gabler/
But I recommend that interested people just buy it, as there are many cheap secondhand editions of his works.

5. The author/man of letters Edmund Gosse was among the first to introduce Ibsen's work to British audiences. He collaborated in a translation of Hedda Gabler and wrote a biography of Ibsen. He is also the author of one of my favourite books, the autobiographical Father and Son. In this book, Gosse describes his relationship with his puritanical Christian father, the scientist Philip Henry Gosse. Gosse senior is notable as the first creationist scientist. That is, he was the first scientist to respond to Darwin's theory in book form. Edmund Gosse writes that his father's thesis was "that there had been no gradual modification of the surface of the earth, or slow development of organic forms, but that when the catastrophic act of creation took place, the world presented, instantly, the structural appearance of a planet on which life had long existed". This is an interesting cop-out: the world was created to look older than it is. Eddie tells us in Father and Son that his pa's book was ridiculed by "atheists and Christians alike" on its publication.
Some creationist (Lorella Rousler) has, by the looks of things, put a different spin on Father and Son, suggesting that that the real tragedy of the story is Eddie's repudiation of religious fundamentalism. Here's her crackpot article:
http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v02n3p10.htm

Well this was an interesting exercise. From Sontag to Rousler - that is, from camp to creationism.

"Straight people - and even gay men who should know better - shake their heads and make pronouncements about "anonymous sex", as though knowing a name promoted rather than defeated intimacy. As the Catholic confessor knows, anonymity is essential to telling the truth." - Edmund White, States of Desire: Travels in Gay America.

The Wedding Banquet * * * *

This is a very funny film of the culture-shock/romantic comedy genres. A Young Gay Taiwanese Businessman (YGTB) living with his partner in New York has managed to conceal his sexual orientation from his parents back home. But now they want him to get married and produce offspring before his dad dies. His mother is busily searching for the appropriate bride. When his parents threaten to come to visit, YGTB panics and recruits his Impoverished Tenantess (IT), who is desperately seeking citizenship, to marry him. Complications follow as YGTB’s parents overstay their welcome, IT is carelessly impregnated during an extremely rowdy wedding ceremony and YGTB’s boyfriend threatens to leave, forcing YGTB to consider coming out to his parents. All very amusing.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner * * * and a half

A film about a couple of rich white liberals who must find it in their hearts to accept their daughter’s marriage to Sidney Poitier - a successful and incredibly philanthropic Negro doctor. The white couple’s attempts to overcome (or at least to disguise) their racism are extremely funny. No less comic is their ecstatic sexually/racially liberated daughter, who (as Derrick pointed out) behaves as if high. Another surreally liberated character is the friendly neighbourhood clergyman (on whom the rich white couple seem to be dependent for advice). Then there’s the black maid, incensed that a “boy” like Sidney has the audacity to marry above his station (as she sees it). This film is a laugh and a half.

 

Zodiac * * * and a half
Based on the true story of the San Francisco serial killer who was never apprehended, this film has several things going for it. The main drawing card is Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays a suitably cute nerdy cartoonist whose interests include "books, and reading" ("those are the same thing", remarks Robert Downey Junior). Jake and Robert both work at The San Francisco Chronicle, to which the mysterious killer sends cryptic messages about how he loves killing, etc. Soon they become amateur detectives - much to the chagrin of the real detectives. The film meanders about in standard noir-ish fashion, taking a long time to resolve itself. When it does end, it's in a Memories of Murder way - but to my thinking it's not quite as good as that Korean masterpiece (which is also based on actual events). There's also not the same cinematographic flair as in Seven and Fight Club (though script-wise these earlier Fincher films were far from perfect). Nevertheless Zodiac is very much worth watching.

The Departed * * *
It's hard to decide whether Scorcese's  "great" movies - Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, and now this - are critiques of the kind of testosterone-fuelled silliness they portray, or whether they are just as in thrall to macho culture as their most avid fans. I think there's a bit of both in his earlier films. In The Departed, however, it's mostly the latter.

This is not to say that the film is bad. The plot is ingenious and very engaging. But the characters are one-dimensional, drowning in a vat of macho silliness. I suppose it's appropriate that the psychiatrist ends up screwing both Leo and Matt, since they are essentially the same character, differentiated only by Leo's more-furrowed brow. Even Jack Nicholson, who is, as always, excellent, isn't really given enough space to fully develop. Mark Whalberg's character is clearly intended just to frustrate us, which is a sign of good casting, I suppose. Anyway, it's a good film. The action and spontaneous violence, which is Scorcese's forte, more than held me.

"This business about the box-office is just a sentimental democratic fiction. If you stuck together and refused to make anything but, say, abstract films, the public would have to go and see them, and like them." - a character in Christopher Isherwood's Prater Violet.

"There’s no way we should go belly up and sentimental and see Diana Spencer as some kind of saint on HIV or landmines or anything. The mood Diana captured was one of blatant materialism and self-indulgence. It was celebrity obsession, mass hysteria with no cogent or rational thought." - Will Self on the portrayal of Princess Di in his novel, Dorian.

The Queen * * *
An affectionate, humerous portrait of the Queen in the immediate aftermath of Diana's death. A newly-elected Tony Blair goes into damage control mode as public opinion turns against the "heartless" monarch, who refuses to make a speech about dead Di.
It's hard to decide who's most despicable: the slimy, patriotic PM as he tries to "save" the royals "from themselves" while spouting PR nonsense about "the people's princess"; the mass media for milking the public hysteria over what is, in the end, a fundamentally frivolous affair; the royals for having such barely-disguised contempt for their subjects; the public for being stupid; or Diana herself for being the cause of the whole circus.

But the film makes it hard to really dislike anyone in it. It's gently comic rather than scathing. The royal family are presented as loons - but lovable loons. Tony is a careerist/populist/opportunist, but he too is cuddly. Diana's lovableness is assumed. And the public, who pile masses of flowers before the palace, are the most lovable of all - and they only want their Queen to reach out and love them. Which, finally and to the relief of all, she does. Awww.

Calamity Jane * *
A mostly irritating musical in which racist dyke gunslinger Calamity Jane has a flirtatious fling with a music-hall tart, then turns out to be straight after all. No memorable songs. Some funny moments - the "A Woman's Touch" piece, in which Calamity finally straightens out her act, does some home decorating and puts a dress on, is fantastic. But overall this film ain't really worth it. It didn't even have the "Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)" song in it. Does anyone know what film that song is in?

Sweet Smell of Success * * * *
A fantastic film noir in which a sniveling press agent will go to any lengths - no matter how obscene, illegal or degrading - to curry favour with the most influential columnist in town. A fascinating study of the often petty and vindictive motives which determine the content of what we read in the paper. The top dog in this film is not above using libel, pimping and murdering to get what he wants. Again it's hard to know who's more despicable: the ruthless columnist or the fawning press agent who wants to be like him. Everyone should see this.

Double Indemnity * * * *
In this, the early film noir which inspired Body Heat, an insurance salesman gets into bed with a disgruntled housewife, and the two plot to murder her husband so they can get their hands on the life insurance pay-out. It's a straight-forward enough story-line brilliantly acted and executed, very atmospheric, with ludicrously hard-boiled dialogue, interior monologues, sexual innuendo and overuse of the word "honeysuckle".

Madame Bovary * * * *
The unrivalled Isabelle Huppert stars as Flaubert's silly, lovable, adulterous heroine. I haven't read the novel and was only vaguely familiar with the story-line. It's about this chick who marries a nice boring doctor and, finding that her life is to be nothing like that of a cheap romantic heroine, proceeds to cheat on him and spend up large, with consequences both hilarious and sad.

Bad Blood * * *
A NZ film of the "man alone" genre, based on the true story of a farmer and his wife who suspect their neighbours of poisoning their livestock and eventually shoot the cops who come to confiscate the husband's rifle for the war effort. Despite ludicrous dialogue and scenes that could easily have been played for laughs, the protagonists come accross as realistically troubled and fascinatingly maladjusted rural folk. The acting is gripping and the atmosphere is tense, the action well-paced and dramatic. Also, it's amusing the way these old dissections of kiwi blokedom often are (see Smash Palace, for instance). Worth seeing.