Shock Corridor

What's all that about then? What's all that about!? What's it not about more like! It is life and love and death. A beautiful collage of everything that makes life beautiful, scary, exciting, frustrating, wonderful, angering, reassuring and unsettling; a visual poem that is at it's best when the narrative is sidelined for montage. The sequence surrounding the birth and infant years of the son is quite staggering. Terrence Malick has always liked trees and this film is no different, lots of lovely low angle shots up through the branches, splitting the light in kaleidoscopic shards. The fractured light might be seen as symbolic for the contradictions that shaped the man; a beautiful whole pulled in different directions, both mystifying and simple. A complex work of tremendous beauty that may be wonderfully profund and delicate, or maddeningly boring and pretentious. Go on, find out. J

Drive (2011) the new film by Nicolas Winding Refn is (perhaps expectedly) a dark, violent, brooding affair but (perhaps unexpectedly) one with a great deal of heart. At Cannes, the film garnered a Palme d'Or nomination and picked up the Best Director award for...well, the director and, in a ridiculously unfounded assertion having only seen one of the other films in competition, it was well deserved. The beginning (and most of the rest) of the film invites comparison with Walter Hill's 1978 film The Driver , with Gosling even resembling Ryan O'Neill at times - at the film's credit in low-key lighting and from a low angle I, just for a minute, thought it was Ryan O'Neil. Parttime stunt driver, parttime mechanic, parttime getaway driver and fulltime toothpick chewing 'brooder' Ryan Gosling plays the unnamed lead, with no past he just drifts into his closest friends life like a Sergio Leone hero, and dares to dream of a future as he becomes involved with a

I watched Attack the Block , a film by Joe Cornish (of Adam and Joe fame). I don't mind telling you, I was more than a wee bit apprehensive but I have to admit that it has completely won me over. Described as a sci-fi comedy it certainly appears to have those elements sewn up given the production team's credentials, Nira Park and Edgar Wright have production credits, and the premise involves alien invasion, neither of these elements were the key for me. As is often the case with invasion films we find our protectors in the most unlikely guises and here we find a group of teenage 'hoodies' from a high rise estate in Brixton as our best chance at survival. I felt worried about representations at the outset of the film as the gang, composed mainly of black youths, are initially seen mugging a young, lone female at knife point - I thought more of Joe Cornish...I should have had more faith. The gang, some of whom sacrifice themselves in the process, not only save the earth b

Last weekend I watched films…I’ll give you a couple of minutes to compose yourself. Ok? Ok. I did this at – well I did it at home as usual but I also toddled along with the lovely Hannah to the rather fine GFT . It was here that I was treated to a brace of non-fiction cinematic offerings: a preview of Project NIM , the new film from James Marsh ( Man on Wire (2008) and Wisconsin Death Trip (1999)) and Cave of Forgotten Dreams by Werner Herzog (a chap I personally admire) in 3D because you just need all the D’s you can get. In short, this was thoroughly pleasant way to spend a Sunday and if you'll allow me to indulge myself I'll let you into why I think...y'know...why. In Project NIM James Marsh has sewn together newly shot interviews with stock footage from the 1970s and created a piece of film that is thoughtful, funny and highly emotional – it is impossible not to love the star, he’s like people! They call him Nim Chimpsky! And this is perhaps (part of)

Lessons learned from watching films… 1.     If you don’t want to look foolish ensure you buy a French loaf and a green leafy vegetable of some sort anytime you have to carry a brown paper grocery bag 2.     Small children properly trained in a martial art can floor any adult regardless of comparative size and/or strength 3.     If involved a war for pities sake do not show anyone a picture of your ‘sweetheart’ 4.     Bars in the old west never give change, so please make sure you have the exact amount 5.     Nighttime is blue 6.     If a monster/serial killer is floored it will remain motionless for many minutes, please do not return to a floored evil 7.     Attractive women should always wear gloves, knee and elbow pads, as they will invariably fall over when chased (particularly if they are otherwise scantly clad) 8.     It is just polite if you are part of murderous gang attacking a lone hero to wait your turn – one at a time! 9.     Recycling is prevalent in filmland

The continuing comparison of The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) and…ehh…well – The Day the Earth Stood Still but the one by Scott Derrickson in 2008 In last the post I blabbered on about my thoughts on the original films New Testament references and the remake’s tendency towards the Old Testament. What I would like to try and do now is argue that because of this the original movie was perhaps subversive where as the new one just plain isn’t. 1951 or 2008? Have a guess, go on! In 1951 America found itself entrenched in a Cold War, and the politics of the time awash with anti-communist sentiment. This was driven in the main by Senator Joseph McCarthy and backed by the House of un-American Activities commission. 1947 they successfully blacklisted the ‘Hollywood 10’; screenwriters, directors and producers believed to be communist and therefore a threat to the American way of life. The suspicion of communism was widespread in

A comparison of The Day the Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise, 1951) and…ehh…well – The Day the Earth Stood Still but this one was by Scott Derrickson in 2008 Let’s just get this out of the way at the outset, if you read my first post then you’ll know that I have a certain affection for the 1951 original and so may be prone to more than a touch of bias. Couple that with the fact that the contemporary version decided that Keanu Reeves would make a sensible choice for the lead role of Klaatu and we should all be packing up now and going home. But since we are probably all already home, please believe me when I say that I shall endeavour to be objective and choke the festering bile back as it rises and taking pleasure in the fact that at least it wasn’t Tom Cruise. To aid my objectivity I’ve decided not to focus on film form, or actor’s performance, or, at least directly, the plot, but instead hone in on one particular element – biblical references, and draw contextual pol

The next post will be a comparison of the original 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still by Robert Wise and the 2008 remake by Scott Derrickson. In the meantime here's a little something to tide you over. J

        From the minute Gort, a ten-foot tall robot, walked down the runway from his spaceship, I was mesmerised. When you are six staying up late is exciting enough, but when you’re six - staying up late - waiting for your dad to come home - during a ferocious thunderstorm, you really have to keep an emergency set of clean underwear beside you. But this is exactly what I found myself doing. Sitting in the dark, which was only interrupted by the crackling coal fire, the flickering black and white portable TV and the occasional flash of lightning, I flicked through all 3 available channels and found an old movie called The Day The Earth Stood Still . For those that don’t know, the film’s plot revolves around the reasonable enough premise that an alien comes to earth, sent by a federation of planets, in an attempt to convince mankind that they are making a huge mistake by testing nuclear weapons. The spaceship lands in Washington D.C., fair enough as it is the capital of the world