"He never said that, and wearing a wedding dress is not gonna change his mind." -- Izzy, "I Could Never Be Your Woman"

Film It would be interesting to find out exactly what went wrong with Amy Heckerling’s I Could Never Be Your Woman. Slamming straight to dvd in most of the world, this May to December romance with a satirical wink towards the politics of US network television seems unfinished, with poor pacing, stilted editing and irritating shot choices. Heckerling previously directed the flawless Clueless and underrated Loser as well as the cult Fast Times at Ridgemont High so obviously has some idea of what a proper film looks like. Having created all of those films, could she really have decided that this was finished or did the studio fire her?

Though Michelle Pfeiffer sparkles as usual and has some convincing chemistry with her on-screen pubescent daughter Saoirse Ronan, Heckerling somehow manages to make Paul Rudd (playing her toy boy) seem like the least charismatic actors around, employing almost every unspeakable cliché imaginable to indicate their romance. She the older woman, he’s a young buck, so it uses The Graduate as a point of comparison even to the point of having Rudd say glibly at one point: “Mrs Robinson, I think you’re trying to seduce me.” Oh do sod off. And just what is Tracey Ullman doing there as a kind of imaginary conscience for Pfeiffer dishing out advice apparently with the glow of a desk lamp following her around?

One of the other chief irritation is that since it was partially shot at Pinewood, so a raft of our comedy actors drift through in a series of minor roles. Look there’s David Mitchell playing an English comedy writers! Steve Pemberton as the studio censor! Sarah Alexander using an admittedly pretty decent American accent as a conniving secretary! Graham Norton playing Pfeiffer’s gay best friend and camp fashion designer! Even rent-a-face Mackenzie Crook sits on screen for a few minutes as a rude producer and with Ed Byrne appearing fleetingly as a delivery boy, it starts to look like a pilot for the new series of Carry On films. I know all of this sounds intriguing, but don’t. Really don’t.

Unpredictably, about the only point of interest is for Doctor Who fans since Yasmin Paige, Maria from The Sarah Jane Adventures oddly plays Ronan’s best friend and sings along to a cover parody of Alanis Morissette’s Ironic, which is admittedly one of the few genuinely funny scenes. There’s also a slow pan across the cover of Cult Times advertising the return of the Cybermen in Season Two. Though quite what that magazine is doing amongst the fashion mags on Pfieffer’s table in LA is anyone’s guess. Other than that it’s a godawful drift through a world were an unfunny Saved By The Bell knock-off appears in prime time (at least until its cancelled) and Henry Winkler still goes through life doing Fonz impressions.

Film Watching Hal Hartley’s Trust just now has reminded me of just how the independent film ‘industry’ was in the early nineties before the big studios began to control production. Hartley’s is a singular voice; like the great auteurs his films with their understated acting, lyrical dialogue and deserted suburbia paradoxically offer a more realistic evocation of the human condition than the costume dramas and self-consciously post-modern movies that clogged up the release schedule that saw that decade out.

Here, we find a meeting of misfits; twentysomething Martin Donovan lives with an abusive father and sometimes repair televisions, teenage Adreinne Shelley causes hers to have a heart attack when she reveals her pregnancy. As the film progresses he learns the simple life from her and she realises that there’s more to life than fashion and boys and as the title suggests they learn to Trust one another. It’s the incidental details of their personalities – he carries a grenade ‘just in case’ and she is trying to find a baby snatcher – which provide the most pleasure.

It’s also just refreshing to see a film with such a spare style, with long takes at allow the actors room to do their job without the camera restlessly rolling hither and thither, or an editor with an itchy splicing finger. Much of the film happens in two shots and though this is probably a function of the budget, they’re never less than interesting and much of that has to do with being in the company of these players, Donovan and Shelley in particular. The latter is simply amazing, perfectly capturing the girl’s developing maturity, a process completed in a final heartrending shot.

Film A couple of years ago there was a screening in Manchester of Mitchell & Kenyon’s football films. M&K were two Blackburn entrepreneurs who for a period in the early part of the last century set about filming people and work and play and then charging them to see their life projected that evening at various locations including fair grounds and libraries and it turned out St George’s Hall. I’ve thought since then how wonderful it would be to organise such a showing at that venue again and last night I got to see what that looked like as hundreds of people piled into the main hall to see a selection of their films of Liverpool, in a screening organised by the BFI and Liverpool University.

My version of the event was a plasma tv running from a Matsui dvd player with about thirty chairs. Instead, the main stage was filled with a giant screen, showing images from a state of the art projector sat on the organ balcony and an audience covering the whole floor. The programme selected highlights from over two hours of footage shot in the city, generally places with large gatherings of people such ass football matches, parades, the return of soldiers from the Boer War, the leaving of Cunard ships from the Pier Head and oddly a reconstruction of the arrest of a criminal.

As you can see from these edited highlights, that’s a very broad description of the marvels we saw, blurry scenes of the past put into context by the guest speakers, Julia Hallam from Liverpool University and Vanessa Toulmin from Sheffield’s National Fairground Archive, who’d also commentated on the football in Manchester and has apparently presented over a hundred and thirty similar shows throughout the country. Vanessa seems tireless and has the same enthusiasm for the subject that I saw two years ago.

I went with my Dad and he was particularly impressed with the musical accompaniment provided by Stephen Horne, who at one point played the flute and piano simultaneously creating a spooky atmosphere to accompany the recreated Arrest of Goudie (a film which demonstrates exactly how difficult it was to spin a narrative when you’ve only very long static shots to work with, establishing shots lasting many minutes). Now and then Horne imported familiar melodies including You’ll Never Walk Alone and The Leaving of Liverpool, which created some wonderfully post-modern moments, different eras of the past combining.

Seeing images such as the giving of medals to soldiers even I can’t but feel that we’ve lost something in our stupid cynical world. True, some of the audience in the footage of the May Day Demonstrations look bored stiff (with the exception of one particularly enthusiastic gentleman waving his hat in the air) but it was at least a regular gathering in which the entire community could become involved and which by the looks of things hadn’t been hijacked by commercial concerns (with the exception of the ice cream man perhaps).

The Capital of Culture year, with collective experiences such as this screening are proving that actually such things are still possible. Usually in screenings I’m quite obsessed about talkers making noise during the main feature. Here it seemed positively encouraged, a collective brains trust attempting to work out exactly were in Liverpool particular films had been shot, or exclamations of surprise as the older demographic of the audience saw shops and streets that have long disappeared.

"Look for the bare necessities...." -- Baloo, 'The Jungle Book'

Film Watching The Jungle Book today for the first time in about twenty-five years I was surprised by how simple the narrative structure actually is. After the prologue in which Mowgli is brought up by the wolves (after the implied death of his parents, the background painting of the broken boat as economic a bit of storytelling as you’re likely to see anywhere) it’s largely just about his passage from the jungle to the man village. Almost like a variety show, each of the different animals shows up and does their turn, perhaps with a song, before shuffling off ready for the next one, sometimes collaborating on various tunes. Disney dumped Kipling and the work of original adaptor Bill Peet (who had in mind an adventure film) in favour of a concoction which he thought should favour character over plot.

Usually I get quite annoyed by episodic film structures because done badly they tend to drag; much as I love Time Bandits, it can seem at times like a bunch of television episodes strung together. Film review maverick Mark Kermode jokes that the likes of The Ice Age represent ‘the death of narrative cinema', and it is fairly amazing how many recent releases do set off their characters and premise, noodle about for an hour of incidents before desperate grabbing for a conclusion twenty minutes before the end. Arguably, for all of its innovations, There Will Be Blood does exactly that, with vignettes such as the introduction of his ‘brother’ eminently droppable from the story, no matter how much it apparently says about the main character.

What saves The Jungle Book is the quality of the songs, all of which I know word for word anyway after listening to the record hundreds of times as a kid, and the quality of the character animation – as one contributor notes on the dvd it’s amazing how something drawn can have that much weight and can be giving such a loose and colourful performance. But the story has a metaphoric significance too -- it’s about our own journey from childhood to adulthood, Mowgli leaving the talking animals to join his own people. The girl he meets at the end, sweet and romantic as she is, represents the introduction of responsibility and that makes the climax very sad indeed. Except, since composer George Bruns layers her song, ‘My Own Home’ on the soundtrack right from the beginning, it was inevitable from the opening moments, the music arguably tying the film together more than the script.

"I'm an oilman, so hopely you'll forgive me for my plain speaking..." -- Daniel Plainview , 'There Will Be Blood'

Film There Will Be Blood is an immense film and the ramifications of its artistry probably won’t be measured for some years. Which I’m well aware is a bold statement but Paul Thomas Anderson has created a very bold film, a manifesto offering yet another alternative to the kinds of filmmaking we’re so used to enjoying from Hollywood. In other words, it's an art film. But what's clever is that Anderson has somehow managed to cloak it in the trappings of a mainstream movie to such an extent that unlike previous examples ( particularly Fight Club) it's actually being recognised and hailed by people who tend to run a mile from that sort of thing (particularly the Academy).

Classical Hollywood techniques such as establishing shots, the 180 degree rule, expository close-up and continuity editing are all tossed out and although the likes of Godard have been doing that for years its just not something we’re used to seeing in this context and in much the same way as Orson Welles borrowing from pioneers and innovating by accumulating in Citizen Kane, Anderson has absorbed the work of 70s directors, the French New Wave, Third Cinema and the rest to create something which seem paradoxically utterly unlike anything we’ve seen before on screen.

It isn’t just Daniel Day-Lewis’s unhinged yet hypnotic performance as oilman Daniel Plainview that makes us uneasy then – it’s that we’re just not used to films looking and to some extent sounding this way. But what Anderson also cleverly does is to underpin the enterprise and make the film watchable and pleasingly familar by sending Plainview through a character arc not unlike a gangster film from the 1930s. Squint and you can see James Cagney in Angels With Dirty Faces, a determined figure taking advantage his persuasive abilities both verbal and violent in order to become a very rich king pin, with God glancing over his shoulder and offering the odd warning were necessary.

"When we look back on the noughties, how will we remember them?" -- The Guardian

Film The G2 section of today's Guardian was given over to an amazing collection of essays suggesting "the events, objects and trends that will come to define the first decade of the 21st century." Since it doesn't include the subject I'd be most interested in and I've decided to try and fill in the gap. Sadly, I fear, I'm no Jess Cartner-Morley but I've tried my best. And so...

The movies

Stuart Ian Burns
Wednesday January 2, 2008
the feeling listless blog

Future cineastes will remember the noughties as the digital decade. Computers have not only changed the way that films are made but also delivered. Clearly the roots of this transition can be traced back to the eighties when music could be bought on shiny disc rather than relatively reflective black plastic and into the nineties with Jurassic Park resurrecting the dinosaurs albeit without actually cloning anything. But it’s in this decade that these innovations have flourished and changed the way that popcorn chompers interact with movies.

During the commentary for his extended edition of King Kong, the film’s direct Peter Jackson, having already brought some of the decades most potent images during his Lord of the Rings adaptation, marvels at how anything is now possibly visually when pixels are engaged. Not quite – as Final Fantasy and Beowolf have demonstrated convincing photo-realistic actors in close-up from scratch are yet to come and Joanna Cassidy’s head still needed to be engaged to replace the visage of the stunman who blundered through the windows during her character’s death scene in the redux of Blade Runner.

But as this illustrates there’s no denying that the acronym CGI is now used throughout the industry as almost every film, and not just in the fantasy and science fiction genres are taking advantage of artificial ways of manipulating the image to the point that it’s almost impossible to believe anything we viewers are see anymore and arguably judging by some of summer’s threequel offerings far from releasing creativity, it’s stultified the narrative impulse to an embarrassing degree, making the foregrounded images more important than story.

Digital colour timing also means that a cinematographer no longer has to rely upon their camera when painting with light – and the use of digital cameras during the process makes this transition even easier. Star Wars: Episode Two: Attack of the Clones was arguably the first film shot, edited and in some place projected totally digitally and this process is slowly becoming the norm; as the price of blockbusters overinflates, the biggest cash suck – literally the negative and also the duplication of prints -- is being removed from the equation.

Nay-sayers (sounding not unlike vinylists when criticise cds and mp3) argue that digital films are too static and lack the warmth of their analogue cousins. But directors from Michael Mann to Robert Roderguez and even Steven Spielberg promote the flexibility of digital shooting and its ability to inspire young filmmakers who can now apparently make and edit movies in their bedrooms. All is not lost though – the new Indiana Jones adventure is being shot on film.

Yet like music since the eighties, the audience’s interaction with film has been led by something small round and circular. Whilst television and then video undoubtedly opened-up the ability of the viewer to see material which otherwise would have become lost in the mists of old Hollywood, the relative cheap to reproduce dvds have made large sections of the history of cinema almost instantly accessible for the first time. Unlike tv and tape we no longer even have to wait for a film to be broadcast or turn up amongst the limited stock at the local video emporium – the likes of Lovefilm (or Netflix in the US) can deliver every disc ever released through the letterbox – presuming they’re in stock at the time.

Whilst the core audience predominantly continue to watch new releases, they’re still vastly more cineliterate than ever before and the quality of presentation has improved with films appearing in the home much as they are in the cinema – correct ratios and five channels of stereo and with high definition discs with an even better picture quality. Even if the pictures themselves are fake, we’re able to see them with unprecedented clarity and strangely unlike those vinylists, few say they prefer video – except film study students having to present a particular scene to their classmates. No doubt though by the end of the next decade, dvds will look rather quaint to the teenagers who’re having the Star Wars trilogies, released on yet another format, being projected directly onto their retinas.

Not Review 2007: Films

Film Once again this year my cinema going was random at best. As I said last year, my approach to film releases has stopped being – chronological. There have been very few films which I’ve dragged myself to the picture house to see and more often than not I’ve completely missed something. So I’d be shocked if any of the Branagh trilogy (man had three films out this year) or Two Days In Paris wouldn’t have been on this list had they actually been on in Liverpool for long enough for me to realise. Anyway, apologies in advance for the mainstreaminess of the films, and I’ve really got my work but out next year catching up on everything. Not that I’ve caught up with 2006 yet. And in case you're wondering I've included films which were released in the UK in 2007 based on this official listing.

300
Sometimes all that's needed to make a great film is Gerard Butler and pals implacably facing down demon hoards with nothing but some swords and a bit of shouting. Underneath all of that though, the film takes a very interesting theological perspective on the art of war and actually gives the ravishing Lena Headey some cogent political intrigue. Plus Xerxes!

Hallam Foe
Sometimes quirky is good, and Hallam Foe is oh so very quirky. Demonstrated to me for the first time that Jamie Bell does have the chops for an extended acting career and Sophia Myles confirmed that she’s entirely wasted currently working in an Angel knock-off for US television. It’s also one of the best looking films of the year, the night time scenes of Edinburgh by cinematographer almost worth seeing the film for on their own [full review].

A Prairie Home Companion
Perfect footnote to Robert Altman’s career with a massive improvisational cast, supernatural element and the overall sense of the end of an era – it’s almost as though he knew it would his last film. Musically it’s perfect too, weaving the same magic as Nashville in making country and western listenable [full review].

Blade Runner: The Final Cut
I’m sure there’s a rule against including rereleases in these things, but it’s not often your served with your favourite film, something you’ve seen dozens of times, in way which makes it totally new again. This cleaning and re-editing doesn’t put a foot wrong and actually deepens the experience, as well as underscoring what’s been lost as Hollywood’s shifted inexorably towards digital imagery [partial review].

Bobby
Emilio Estevez’s fictionalisation of the assassination of RFK was largely ignored or shouted at by critics even though it features some of the best performances of the year. Yes, it slackens narratively somewhat in the middle – as most of these Grand Hotel-style films tend to, but given that the writer/director actually references that earlier work right at the beginning, it’s almost as though he intended it to.

Enchanted
Very late entry, but I couldn’t not mention this really sweet and charming piece of work that I’m still thinking about days later wishing that the dvd was already available (legally). Loony Tunes: Back In Action was on television earlier and that’s a salient and humourless demonstration of how not to do this stuff (even though it features a Dalek voiced by Roy Skelton) [full review].

Hot Fuzz
Watched this again yesterday and although I still don’t think it’s as good as Shaun of the Dead, it was still the best British comedy of the year, constantly inventive and hilarious always repaying repeated viewings. I love that Somerfield agreed to let their supermarket with the film be managed by an utter murdering bastard (albeit one played by Timothy Dalton) – I can’t think of many other brands that would be that open minded.

Notes on a Scandal
The trailer for this turned out to be total disappointment. As usual we found clips from the film with jangly piano music underneath. When what it really needed was names in block capitals and exclamation marks filling the screen one after another DENCH! BLANCHETT! ONLY ONE WILL SURVIVE! Followed by a clip of sour faced old Judi and naïve Cate wrestling with one another outside the house. Yeah, that would have been nifty.

Ocean’s Thirteen
Well I thought it was good. Again the reviewers jealously described the cast as smug or detestable whilst simultaneously ignoring Soderbergh’s experimental approach to narrative, imagery and editing. Both this and Twelve are ripe for reassessment in the future and I look forward to the fall out. Roll on Fourteen frankly. I mean how can you not love a film when one of the characters has The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me as a ringtone? [full review]

Orchestra Seats
Whilst I wait for Cécile De France to accept my friend request on Facebook, I can at least watch her brightening up a small corner of Paris. This is the kind of romantic drama which the French seem to do so effortlessly but always end up feeling a little forced over here (see Born Romantic etc.). Now that I’ve been through the Proms education plan, it’d be nice to revisit it this with half the possibility I’ll understand the musical references [review].

Paris Je T’aime
Clearly I can’t get enough of films about Paris and here were a couple of dozen of them. Why should it be unsurprising that most of the contributing directors managed to produce some of the their best work in years given the tiny and focused running time? Apparently the plan was to make this even more of a hyperlink-lite work, with the various characters interacting more closely – I suspect that would have spoilt it though – this film is about showing a collection of unconnected visions of one city [review].

Sicko
I was watching Bowling for Columbine the other day, and in between bothering Moses, Moore offers some suggestions as to why the US has the highest number of gun related deaths and already he was comparing the health system of his own country with Canada and its almost as though you can see him test out a few ideas for this later film. These films are not isolated collections of anger but a sustained attack [full review].

Sunshine
If ever there was a film that deserved to be made in IMAX. Some hated the ending because it seemed to throw out the more thoughtful elements of the film out in favour of a good old fight to the death, but throughout this straddles the sub-genres and although it’s clearly at its most comfortable when exploring the Sol imagery it wouldn’t nearly be as watchable were it not for the crew [full review].

The Bourne Ultimatum
Magnificent, majestic and obviously the best action film of the year. Die Hard 4.0 was good fun, but it simply lacked the emotional character beats and understanding of how they can drive a plot forward, that contrivances are not always the only option. I’m still reeling from the realisation that the first two thirds of the thing happen in the closing moments of Supremecy. It takes a really gutsy bunch of filmmakers to try something like that and pull it off [review].

The Last King of Scotland
Forrest Whitaker seems to live two lives. In one he’s the director of fairly anodyne chick flicks like Hope Floats, Waiting To Exhale and First Daughter – he might even help his landlady out with her garbage. In the other he plays, crooks and charlatans and African dictators demonstrating what a job of acting his turn as Idi Amin actually was. It’s one of those rare occasions when a man looking through a television screen actually makes you take a step back because you think he might kill you.

Water
Taking two whole years to be released in this country, this Oscar-nominated film which you’ve probably never seen looked at how we really do need to balance how religious and cultural ideas effect human freedom. Why should the life of a seven year old be mapped out because a fated husband she’s never met dies? A truly courageous and surprising piece of film making that deserves to be seen by everyone [old review].

"Is that the only word you know? "No?" " -- Giselle, 'Enchanted'

Film On the face of it, Enchanted really shouldn’t be very good. The blasting of characters from a fantasy realm into the movie version of reality isn’t a new idea, last attempted properly by the underrated Last Action Hero and on top of that the characters making the trip are from the fairy tale Disney film filled with princesses, talking animals and songs of the type which has fallen out of favour of late, only continuing a semblance of existence through Shrek’s increasingly anodyne parody. But its actually (PIXAR accepted) their best film in years, an ironic dollop of entertainment that should have kids returning to their copies of Beauty & The Beast, Cinderella and Snow White.

One of the problems with the Shrek films is that in the midst of their caricature, only rarely do they betray a love of their subject. Plus they’re laced with timestamped pop culture references which were dropping out of date even when the first film was released. Enchanted has none of that – with the exception of a couple of mobile phone gags there’s nothing here that, like the Disney films of yore, shouldn’t play ten or twenty years from now. In the kingdom of Andalasia, Giselle (Amy Adams) literally falls into the arms of Prince Edward (James Marsden) and within moments they’re engaged to be married, but fearing her crown is in jeopardy his wicked step-mother (Susan Sarandon) banishes her to our reality. Here, she meets Patrick Dempsey’s New York divorce lawyer who through his own relationship problems is the embodiment of the fact that unlike in her home, people don’t live happily ever after. As she stumbles with him about the city, Edward follows through the portal searching for her, closely trailed by his untrustworthy servant Nathaniel (Timothy Spall) – oh and Giselle’s best friend Pip, a chipmunk.

Frankly, the film’s worth seeing for Adams alone; in a career defining moment she commitedly mimics an animated character, not once betraying a moment of irony as she runs about bringing some sunshine into the dark lives of those around her. It’s a tricky balance to pull off, since it could have spilled over into parody, but not once does she seem to be winking at the audience. But the film isn’t afraid to make fun of the fact that some of the givens of the animated kingdom don’t work in quite the same way in New York, such as when she calls upon the local animal kingdom to help her clean an apartment and the local vermin come calling. She's helped clearly by Billy (totally forgiven for Premonition) Kelly's script which doesn't force the character to embrace reality and whilst the story could have dipped into far darker territory with the character being committed for being a bit of a loon, everything's kept on a child-friendly keel as the people she meets simply accept that she's just not from around their part of the world and enjoys a different belief system in which everyone could and should be happy and in love.

This commitment to plausibly making flesh the animated characters is carried over to each of them with James Marsden in particular finally given the comic role he was born for, the best chisel jawed beef cake innocent since Brendan Fraser pulled on a pair of trunks for George of the Jungle. Spall too is predictably good, only now and then showing signs of taking his cues from panto instead of Walt but they’re forgivable lapses given the various disguises he’s asked to act through. Sarandan is largely called upon to mimic the queen from Snow White, her old hag make-up looking surprisingly like Jimmy Saville. Patrick Dempsey’s performance hasn’t been universally loved because he comes across as a bit dull – well yes, but anyone would opposite Adams’s unalloyed joy. He’s the real world, a literal straight man, all broken and divorced and jaded and as Giselle brings her fairytale magic into his life, he certainly lightens up, as usually happens in these screwball dynamics and there’s no denying he has some of the funnier moments.

The film is a technical marvel. Sadly, because Disney has jettisoned its cell animation department, the opening scenes set in Andalasia weren’t animated in house, but the company James Baxter Animation, capture the mood of the original animation perfectly taking visual cues from 2D animation history with Thumper-style bunny rabbits and a horse that seems to have galloped in from Hercules. The leap from animation to live action doesn’t jar though, because director and Disney veteran Kevin Lima has been careful to make the rest of the film an aural and visual feast. When Giselle first appears in New York, the mono audio of her realm is replaced with surround sound, the noise of the city assaulting our ears from all sides. Bed-decked in her massive wedding dress she has to traverse the city, carried aloft by the crowds in the vistas.

That's all punctuated by some really wonderful songs by Alan Menken & Stephen Schwartz entirely in the groove of their previous work on everything from Aladdin to Pocahontas, and again they’re entirely affectionate and in the case of a number that spills out across New York City probably transcends the originals because of the audacity of the accompanying non-animated images. Is it a musical? It depends upon your definition; like the characters in Woody Allen’s Everyone Says I Love You, they’re certainly aware of bursting into song and one of the pivotal scenes revolves situation when that doesn’t happen. As with much of anything else in the film, it’s something which will be argued over by film critics in the field for years to come.

Some have argued the story is a bit predictable to which you can only say – of course it is. As theorist Vladmir Propp discovered, fairy tales only have a certain number of different elements; above all, despite the shifting locale, this is supposed to be an old fashioned Disney fantasy all of which follow a deliberate pattern and actually arguably here, without giving too much away, the roles are subverted anyway, giving young girls a role model in Giselle which their older sisters once found in the likes of Xena and Buffy. This might well be the first non-PIXAR kids film in ages which adults will also want to watch over and over as it takes us back to the more innocent type of storytelling we remember when we were young, bereft of the cynicism which has been quietly strangling the fun out it all.

"Let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone..." -- Madeleine Peyroux,, 'Dance Me To The End Of Love'

Film At the box office buying a ticket for director André Téchiné’s new film I entirely forgot what the title was.
‘One for … I’ve forgotten the title …’ I said as the clerk looked up puzzled, ‘Erm … it’s the French AIDS drama …’ I continued throwing genre in her face.
‘The Witnesses?’ She said thinly.
‘That’s it.’
Someone wiser than I am has said that French cinema essentially contains two genres – the so-called heritage films (corsets and revolutions) and everything else. Oddly enough that works pretty well, although it has to be said there are still sub-genres within that which despite the best efforts of the film makers still manage to fit in with pre-existing Hollywood genres one of which on the basis of And The Band Played On, Philadelphia, Angels in America and RENT is the AIDS drama.

AIDS dramas tend to be set in the early to mid-eighties just as the virus spread throughout the western world and depending upon the date it’s given a name. One of the main characters will to some extent experience prejudice which stems both from their condition and from the sexual orientation and they will more than likely die during the course of the film while their friends and family look on helplessly and hopelessly. Before death though they’ll appear to have put their lives in order and proven to someone who once mistrusted them that they’re a real human being really.

The Witnesses does all of these things. A young gay man, Manu (Johan Libéreau), moves to Paris and shares a hotel room in what transpires to be a brothel with his opera singing sister, Julie (Julie Depardieu). Cruising in a local park he meets Adrien (Michel Blanc), a medical doctor and they become inseparable and he’s then introduced to a middle class couple, Emmanuelle Béart’s Sarah, a writer and her husband Mehdi (Sami Bouajila), a local policeman. His appearance in all their lives disrupts the status quo particularly when he develops the virus and we watch his slow death, as those around him try and get on with things as best they can.

The film is indeed set in the 80s although there isn’t too much in the way of period detail – some of the fashions perhaps and some god-awful pop music. Téchiné is clearly wanting to show that the opening of the epidemic afflicted gay communities in the whole of the western world and it’s useful that Adrien is a doctor since it allows him to show the first hopeless steps in the research of the virus as it becomes clear that it’s nothing like anything that they’ve tackled before. Mehdi is a vice-cop and becomes part of what governments thought was the solution at the time of shutting down dens of iniquity. The director uses a very small ensemble which pays dividends as we can see the characters change during the two or three years that the film is set.

They’re the real reason for seeing this and there’s not really a weak link between them, the particular surprise being Bouajila whose initial one-note bullishness rapidly gives way as the story evolves and we find out that Béart has the strongest position in their marriage. Libéreau sparkles as Manu and deserves some recognition for bringing some shades to what’s otherwise a thankless role. Blanc (looking disconcertingly like a bald Woody Allen) is equally strong but the best performance of the lot is probably from Depardieu (daughter of Gerard) since despite having less to do than anyone seems just as prominent, this dignified woman whose somehow managed to find the niche in life that’s been denied to everyone else.

If there’s a problem it’s that in the end despite the cast and material everything is just a touch underdeveloped. Between the surprisingly abrupt opening and climax there’s enough interesting drama going on, but it never seems to get under the skin of the characters and worse you often the same emotional beats keep repeating which might be true to life but give the impression of a film which isn’t going anywhere fast. The screen is certainly filled with emotion, but it lacks the warmth of something like The Barbarian Invasions or the bite of Harry, He’s Here To Help. There is a structure – the opening Act is rather sunny, then the darkness and the return to a positive outlook (there are even captions) – but you do wonder if the film might have gained some reality and depth if these brackets had been less stringently adhered to giving the characters breathing space.

"Gonna take more than a shot to get this poison out of me." -- Bon Jovi, 'Bad Medicine'

Film Michael Moore’s documentary Sicko enjoys a far simpler structure to his earlier Fahrenheit 9/11 but is no less polemical. In expressing his disappointment at the health care system in the US which is based on a for profit insurance model, he simply contrasts situations in which the sick have died or become close to mortality because they’ve been refused vital cure with the health care systems in Canada, France, Cuba and the UK where treatment is ‘social-based’ and the primary concern is making the patient well. He’s pondering why a nation which convinces itself that it’s the best in the world would apparently treat its citizens with such contempt.

Despite being a film which has been made very specifically for a US audience – at times Moore uses pronouns which could only be intended for his fellow countrymen – it travels well because its essentially revealing to the rest of the world a range of issues which have been obscured to us because the country's foreign policy is more likely to be reported. There where gasps in the screening I attended when a man revealed that he had to choose which finger to have sewn back on and that volunteers workers at ground zero who’d become ill weren’t being treated as those who were on the government payroll. That people who thought they were insured where suddenly being denied the service they’d paid for because of a box they’d forgotten to tick on an application form.

The film has been criticised over here because of the rather rosy image it provides of the NHS as Moore underlines that people don’t have to pay at Hammersmith Hospital to get their broken limbs fixed or have a baby delivered. There’s nothing about waiting lists, or the postcode lottery, or trying to get an appointment to see a GP, about targets, the closing and consolidation of A&E departments and the strain that junior doctors are under. Tony Benn is a welcome inclusion to provide some history (and we get to see his front room, a shrine to the Labour movement) and he talks about how there would be a revolution if the government tried to privatize the NHS, a version of which seems to already be happening with businesses becoming involved in the building of hospitals.

But Moore rightly doesn’t want to muddy his argument by providing ammunition for people on his home turf who’d oppose his views; he’s simplifying the material so that the documentary doesn’t get bogged down with information (which is something similar works such as The Corporation certainly do) and he’s very specific about highlighting just those items which help his argument which is what a polemic is all about. In fact, the UK government should love Moore for this since it demonstrates that despite all of those things, at present the NHS is better than anything going on in the US – except they won’t because they’ve been fact finding about the system in the States for the past couple of years and wouldn’t want us to see what they’re contemplating.

In fact, if anything some of the non-US sections were enough for us to look on the likes of France and Canada and even Cuba with envious eyes, our gaelic cousins in particular, who much have five weeks holiday a year by law and can have up to ten and very generous health care provision to the point of providing a state-employed nanny who’ll do your laundry. If there’s a criticism to be made though, in that case Moore only looks at relatively well off ex-pats and natives of Paris, never venturing to the inner-cities and other parts of France where it is very different. He does though provide footage of protests in France, a place where that kind of thing is encouraged as a contrast to the some other places where it’s considered terrorism.

"It's too bad she can't live, but then who does?" -- Graff, 'Blade Runner'

Film Despite my cashflow problems -- the more things change, the more they stay the same ad infinitum, I couldn't not pre-order the Blade Runner: The Final Cut five disc dvd boxset from Play.com for the staggeringly reasonable price of £17.99. As it is probably with many people, it's a film I've grown up with, from, in my early teens, seeing a heavily cut midnight showing on ITV one birthday night, right through to a couple of Christmases ago when I finally saw it projected in the 'director's cut' version at the Chester Odeon from a cruddy old print so bad that the usher came out an apologized beforehand. It might have been blurry and covered in dirt and hairs but it had bags of atmosphere.

The box set is about as comprehensive as they come. It includes the original version with the voice over and offcuts from The Shining stuck on the end, plus an international version with four minutes of violence editing back in, then the so-called 'director's cut' put together by a fan then approved by Ridley Scott (the one with the unicorn and no voiceover) and the legendary 'work print' which was shown at a 70mm film festival in New York and led to the re-evaluation of the work which has some different scenes and dialogue and then the new, new version which extra pick-ups to cover up continuity errors, new SFX. And all of the deleted scenes. The list of extras is here although the promised Channel 4 Mark Kermode documentary seems to be missing which is a shame.

In Wired magazine, Ridley Scott talks about putting the dvd together. He's in bullish mood:

"I read an article recently saying that one of the reasons the film has found an ongoing audience is that it was incomplete. That's absolute horseshit. The film was very specifically designed and is totally complete. In those days, there was more discussion than was welcome, as far as I'm concerned. [Screenwriter] Hampton Fancher, [producer] Michael Deeley, and I talked and talked and talked — every day for eight months. But at the end of the day, there's a lot of me in this script. That's what happens, because that's the kind of director I am. The single hardest thing is getting the bloody thing on paper. Once you've got it on paper, the doing is relatively straightforward."

It's interesting to note this isn't a 'special edition' in the style of his Gladiator -- he hasn't just dropped in all of the deleted scenes for the hell of it -- he's left out anything which would hurt the piece. Just so long as it ends on a foil unicorn and the closing of some lift doors, I'll be happy.

"I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens." -- Woody Allen.

Film “I think I'll let the film marinate in my memory for a few months so that I can enjoy the dvd release even more.” -- From my review of Match Point

I was something of a fair-weather fan of Woody Allen’s first film produced in London, Match Point, loving it on cinema release then seeing it’s many flaws rather more closely on the small screen. It was a curiously nervous concoction, melodramatic elements usually so effortlessly pulled off in a New York setting seeming rather arch and artificial against the backdrop of our nation’s capital. His follow-up Scoop offers many of the same problems, but on this occasion the directing is far more assured, the material more clearly focused and overall has nothing which would indicate why it shouldn’t have been released here considering what has been released here lately, especially considering the cast.

During conjurer Woody Allen’s magic show, a volunteering student journalist Scarlett Johansson is given a tip-off by a recently passed now ghostly legendary Fleet Street hack Ian McShane that Hugh Jackman, an old money British aristocrat is the notorious Tarot serial killer. Chasing the story, Johansson pretending to be American money, becomes involved with Jackman with Allen in tow pretending to be her father and as they say with hilarious consequences. This is Allen returning to territory previously investigated in Manhattan Murder Mystery although this a far lighter on complications and heavier with the farce despite in the end cover much the same investigation of the British class structure as Match Point.

Having obviously lived with the city for a while, Allen spends far less time here presenting a tourist view of London at least in terms of exteriors with only The Royal Albert Hall returning to create a thematic connection with the earlier film. It’s certainly an example of old fashioned film making with scenes and shots which run for far longer than contemporary audiences are used to in a comedy, with perfectly planned tracking shots and push ins -- I don’t think he uses a steady cam or hand held at all.

The performances too are often theatrical but not necessarily in a bad way -- bucking the latest trends, everyone is in a character role. Johansson surprisingly reproduces the younger Allen role previously essayed by the likes of John Cusack and Jason Biggs, almost copying Woody tick for tick and often displaying excellent comic timing -- if they don’t always quite gel its because Allen usually works best when he’s against a straight person and I don’t know that he’s ever found anyone quite as good as Diane Keaton. Hugh Jackman just about works as an aristo, giving his British accent another airing. But it is Ian McShane who steals the show making such an oily impression as the hack that you spend much of the film hoping for his re-appearance.

A recurring element in many of Allen’s films is the supernatural and here it is again, as McShane’s character first appears on a barge drifting towards the afterlife trying to bribe its helmsman Death into giving him a second chance (an image which mixes Bergman and Powell and Pressburger). There are also the aforementioned Tarot cards and Allen’s own character’s profession all recalling everything from Curse of the Jade Scorpion and Oedipus Wrecks. It’s this artifice which saves the film from being accused of being unrealistic at least in terms of its story and resolution; it’s all purposefully old fashioned, the music too, a return to the classical music of Match Point, the main theme being ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’ from Peer Gynt.

If there’s a problem it’s that unlike even Match Point you’re never quite as involved in the action as you could be. To an extent it is because these are character performances and so Johansson’s character isn’t quiet as likeable as she needs to be and in some places the Allen approach to Englishness becomes a bit distracting. But I did laugh all of the way through, admittedly at some of the blink and you’ll miss them cameos from a range of British actors obviously just happy to be in a Woody Allen film (yes, that was Linda Baron dashing into a room and yes indeed Richard Briers and Toby Jones saying nothing on the Death barge), but more often at the one-liners and bits of farce. If we can never have the Woody Allen of Annie Hall back, this will do.


Cassandra's Dream, Woody's next film is slated for a UK release in the new year. Finger's crossed it's a massive success (yeah, right) and then there's a chance that Scoop might yet be seen here and you'll be able to enjoy it for yourself without having to import it from Sweden, like I did.

"Why didn't you take the shot?" -- Paz, 'The Bourne Ultimatum'

Film David Bordwell considers the use of shakycam in The Bourne Ultimatum: "Partly, it’s not the pace of the editing but the spasmodic quality of it. Cuts here seem abrasive because they interrupt actions and camera movements. Pans, zooms, and movements of the actors are seldom allowed to come to rest before the shot changes. This creates a strong sense of jerkiness and visual imbalance."

One of my favourite shots in the film was an over the shoulder in which the head and shoulders of the interviewer appeared in silhouette and literally trapped the interviewee's in the corner of the screen. I'm not sure I entirely agree with Bordwell's assessment of the story towards the end. He seems to have not noticed that that section of the film is being told from the point of view of the CIA officers and that it's important that we make the same discovery as the Strathern character at that moment -- the methodology of how he does it isn't all that important -- we just know he has the capacity based on a range of previous scenes. We don't need to see Bourne doing that yet again it's more exciting the way it is, and more mythic.

It's all over.

Film It's only in the final moments of The Bourne Ultimatum that it occurred to me that the whole trilogy is actually just one long detective story about a man trying to discover who his own murderer was and who led to him becoming a murderer. Bourne spends the three films shifting from location to location, criss crossing the globe picking up clues along the way which send him to the next destination. But whereas for Miss Marple the impediment is high tea and for Sam Spade it's lack of sleep and a hang over, for the hero of this trilogy it's the CIA and whichever hitmen are chasing him and his own ability to stay off the radar until he chooses to show himself.

Writer Nick Lacey describes Star Wars as being of a super-genre nature because it encompasses the recognisable elements science fiction, western and fairy-tale fantasy. There aren't many films in the new Hollywood order that don't cross these lines and Bourne is another example, and it's as super as they come. As well as a detective story, it's also a spy thriller, a revenger thriller, a psychological drama, to some extent fantasy, gathers up new-wave influences as well (not just in terms of editing but also story construction) and it turns out even more of a romance than we might have imagined. That it manages to throw even a couple of these genres together is a minor miracle, that it does this without jarring and with such aplomb is definitive.

In fact you could argue that because the film doesn't fit in one particular genre very easily it's actually without genre -- it's simply telling a story. I wouldn't argue that because clearly films can be of a cross generic nature (see Back To The Future: Part Three), but I'd be interested to know if Greengrass and co even actually thought of the kind of generic implications I wrestled with writing my dissertation last year (beyond describing it as an action adventure) as they were working or if they did if it was in the same way that James Mangold must have during production on 3:10 to Yuma which judging by the trailer must be one of the most obvious, non-deconstructed westerns in years (unsurprisingly perhaps because it's also a remake).

Needless to say, it's an amazing piece of work, certainly one of my favourite films of the year and ties up the trilogy in fine style, which makes a real change in the year of threequels. I agree with Mark Kermode (when do I ever not) -- Paul Greengrass is one of the best directors about at the moment who somehow manages to turn out these exciting actioners which also have a thematic message (on this occasion the surveillance society). Matt Damon's never been better than in these films but it's also a rare occasion in these things when no one seems miscast -- and it has an interesting continuity continuity in that regard with the appearance of a German actor from a certain German film which is as perfect a choice as Franke Potente in the first film and Oksana Akinshina in the second.

Will there be a fourth film? Greengrass seems interested (but needs a break) and Matt says he'll do it if Paul's directing. Is there enough plot? Well actually, yes there is. Without spoiling the ending, although it's an emotional resolution, it's far from a geopolitical full stop and indeed there are a few dangling story details which could be spun out into something else. The next available title, The Bourne Legacy (from the next official novel, this time by Eric Van Lustbader) is certainly atmospheric and could refer to a whole range of outcomes from this film. But perhaps, just this once, it should be left as it's own perfect little trilogy.

Meanwhile, how cool is the poster for Clooney's next movie?

Bell Tower

Film In David Mackenzie's, Hallam Foe (which I saw during a preview tonight), Jamie Bell plays a slightly eccentric young man with peeping tom tendencies attempting to get over the death of his mother. He's kicked out of the big house his father (Ciarán Hinds) shares with a new young wife (a reptilian Claire Forlani) when he accuses her of murder and seeks his fortune in Edinburgh were he meets and becomes obsessed with a hotel staff manager, Sophia Myles, who is a dead ringer for his dead mum.

This is a warm hearted and sympathetic piece of work, never quite tipping over into the needless quirkiness which the title suggests and offering Bell's best ever work, a multi-layered portrayal of someone who's inherently shy but putting on a front in order to survive. That could also be a decent description for Myles character too -- she has both and private facades -- and once again the actress demonstrates just how underrated she is (this time showing off her Scottish accent) and what a loss to our industry when she's off in the US doing network television.

The third star though is the landscape, both in the highlands and Edinburgh in a slight return to the underworld seen in Trainspotting. Bell spends much of his time on the rooftops of the city and like Boyle's film we're presented with a side of place totally missed by the festival tourists. When he gains employment in a hotel we never meet the guests who's presence instead is signaled through dirty dishes and over-abundant luggage.

Giles Nuttgens's photography comes into its own at night, as like the little matchstick girl, Bell looks into the glowing windows of apartments from the cold darkness outside. As cityscapes go, Edinburgh is one of the best and it's refreshing to see the story not simply being defaulted to London and for this unfamiliar place being used in a kind of non-specific way in a film which isn't necessarily about Scotland. Indeed with it's slightly continental storytelling it could have worked just as well in Paris or Madrid.

Hallam Foe was unfairly treated by the critics when it opened the Edinburgh Film Festival some of whom suggested it teases more than it delivers which is a nonsense given that it never tries to present easy answers to its questions of psychological ultimately noting that nothing in life is ever truly resolved, there's always some emotional niggle left handing. If the film dips towards melodrama at its climax, within the rest of its pleasingly short running time, it's a charming, warm and funny piece of work which suggests that even though you'll never get exactly what you want out of life, some people will leave you along the way, but that in the end, that's ok.

"Why, oh, why do I love Paris?"

Film The tourist experience of Paris is unlike anywhere else. It is an intimidating place, especially for a lingually challenged dolt like me and there is so much going on it's difficult to focus and you're inevitably not going to see all of the things you’d want to. But it’s also a dream-like, intoxicating place and the emotions you experience as you stroll along its long boulevards, through its ancient buildings and attempt to get service in its restaurants is like nowhere else. It can also be depressing, particularly if like me you've visited alone, and there isn’t anyone with whom you can share the romance (except, perhaps, total strangers).

I’ve yet to see a film which entirely captures the experience of an outsider visiting the place that manages to highlight the magic with the tragic but the new anthology film Paris J’Taime comes very close, particularly in the segment by Alexander Payne about a woman who visits the city alone but still somehow manages to fall in love with the place despite that. Payne’s section of the film manages to combine some of the funniest material with the saddest as she notices that you can both love and hate the city in equal measure. Best moment? When she says in the voice over that asking for directions gives her a chance to try out her French, only to be answered in perfect English by the Parisian shop keeper -- something which has happened to us all probably.

Anthology films are tricky to design because any linking theme can either free up or be a millstone to directors and writers. In this case it’s a mix of the two and the seventeen segments that appear before Payne quietly steals the show are a mixed bag and it’s certainly true that the very best are those which address the cultural concerns of the city rather simply presenting a story that could happen anywhere. Vincenzo Natali’s contribution in which Elijah Wood has an encounter with a vampire, whilst creepy, could have occurred in any city, whereas the film from Coen brothers in which a silent Steve Buscemi falls foul of the language barrier and someone’s fist on the Paris Metro seems as though it could only happen in Paris.

That isn’t always true and if you’re not a fan of French mimes Sylvain Chomet’s intrusion with its story of how two met and began a family is going to look like a waste of its inspiration, the Eiffel Tower (each of the segments is set in a different arrondissement of Paris). Similarly Christopher Doyle’s surreal fantasy about a traveling hairdresser, looks like the one of those films that introduces an Olympic opening ceremony or the French entry to the Eurovision song contest. But such things are more than made up for by the likes of the tale from Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas starring Catalina Sandino Moreno (from Maria, Full of Grace) which cleanly demonstrates the gap between the immigrant population of the city.

But it's to the credit of producer Emmanuel Benbihy that the film never feels empty and indeed there are segments where you wish a director had been given more screen time or would go back and continue the story begun. Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Quais de Seine’ is probably her best film, a cross cultural romance with more real heart than the whole of her Bride & Prejudice. Tom Tykwer‘s ‘Faubourg Saint-Denis‘ too is a masterpiece, a love story between the blind Melchior Beslon and movie actress Natalie Portman told in flashback employing a return to the rapid editing and shooting style of his Run, Lola, Run. But in the main each director manages to say everything they want to in the time limit, with Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Parc Monceau’ playing out in a single shot as Nick Nolte and Ludivine Sagnier walk and talk and cleverly, in the end you have re-evaluate everything you’ve heard.

If there’s a problem, because the directors appear to have been given a freehand, their only pediment being the running time and the arrondissement it’s obvious that Benbihy has had to assemble the pieces retrospectively hoping that they'll all tonally fall into place. Unfortunately it doesn’t quite work, partly because of a middle section in which most of the segments seem to end melancholically but mostly because, despite short buffers introducing each area there isn’t enough time for the audience to refocus ready for the next treat and in some cases that means that they’re not giving the new film enough attention because the previous one is still in the mind. That’s a hazard all anthology films have to deal with, but it’s particularly acute here because of the brevity of the works and the sheer number of them. But you can’t fault the ambition and Paris J’Taime is never less than touching, funny and surprising.

"Costner’s urine-drinking escapade primes audiences for abundant distasteful behavior down the road."

Film The AV Club's My Year of Flops reaches Waterworld:

"Waterworld immediately throws down the gauntlet by introducing Costner’s mysterious water-drifter urinating, then gulping down his own sweet elixir. It’s possible that there are more off-putting ways to introduce the hero of a giant would-be blockbuster (at the time Waterworld was the most expensive movie ever made), but until some Costner-level auteur of the future develops the testicular fortitude to introduce a hero raping a nun, defecating on an American flag, or attending to painful hemorrhoids, Waterworld’s record for queasiest introduction of a stoic hero appears secure."

I was quite forgiving of the film on release simply because it wasn't as awful as we'd been led to believe by the press and the poster, despite the presence of Costner as 'pee-drinking man fish'. It was just so wierd that you couldn't help but enjoy, at least for the first hour or so. But then it drops in a stupid cliche of a finale in which the fishman has to battle crazy Dennis Hopper to save the damson and everything falls apart.

No, now look I'm sorry ...

Film In a summer of bloated blockbusters and hardly enticing torture horrors, I haven't been to the cinema much, preferring instead to catch up on all the films I missed in the first seventy-five years of cinema history when I hadn't been born yet. What thirties films lacked in budget they made up for with invention, tight scripts with incisive characterisation.

Largely my abstinance has been critic and word of mouth led with the new Pirates and Spiderman films apparently being particularly avoidable. By rights, I should have missed out Ocean's Thirteen too, but having been the only person who seemed to think Ocean's Twelve a work of genius (outside of the people who made it) I couldn't pass up the chance to fly against the critical tide again.

Ocean's Twelve was roundly regected by critics but the reception for this has been pretty mixed, ranging from Mark Kermode's rant and Peter Bradshaw's one star lambasting in The Guardian to Empire Magazine's four stars. Director Steven Soderbergh's has generally endured this reception of late with writers generally focusing on what a work is not rather than what he's delivered.

Which is a shame because once again, this is an amazing film, ambitious in its narrative, experimental in its use of character, visually and sonically a feast. It's disappointing that even when Soderbergh has succeeded in producing a work of purposeful entertainment and artistic brilliance there's still almost being treated like the hack he certainly isn't.

It's not entirely above reproach. The storyline, another casino heist, does not have the emotional punch of the first and to a degree second films. In addition, anyone paying attention could work out what twists there are in the climax. Although the entire crew is back minus the ladies, not everyone has that much to do with Bernie Mac in particular being particularly hard done by. Now and then it seems just a little bit too pleased with itself, but that smacks of confidence more than anything else.

These do however seem to be effects of parring the story and the requirements of the narrative down to their most basic parts. The film is about the heist and the mechanics of the operation, the opening act of the second film stretched over a couple of hours. It's comedy drama then in its purest form, grabbing the funny where ever possible. It's also clear that Soderbergh and writers Brian Koppelman & David Levien want the audience to be in on those mechanics so that they can feel included rather than excluded from the team.

That means that unlike other sequels which get bogged down in giving everyone their own subplot to keep the stars happy, its able to keep the focus on the goal. In fact, it's quite refreshing to once again see these actors, who've carried films themselves, just popping in for little more than a cameo in order to facilitate a gag. What's wrong with having something that amounts to the Record Breaker's Christmas Special were Roy Castle would be joined by a galaxy of stars during the festive period?

It's one of the first films in years not to waste Al Paccino's devlish personality and here he's in full shit-eating hoo-ahh mode as the villianous casino manager whose at the centre of the trouble. It's equally refreshing to see someone like Ellen Barkin playing this kind of comedy role again. The criticisms were basically in the order of 'How could you treat this older actress in this way, putting her in the sad position of being seduced by this young buck' failing to note how sexy she is and that actually lesser films would have cast a much younger actress in the role.

The young buck by the way is Matt Damon, who I think has finally gotten over the pasting he recieved in Team America: World Police -- in other words I don't have their way of saying his name flashing into my head every time I see him on screen anymore. Everyone in the cast is a natural comedian though, with the double acts of Scott Carn and Casey Affleck, Shaobo Qin and Damon and George Clooney and Brad Pitt all making welcome returns. The latter is perhaps the funniest, time and again the mirth developing from what isn't being said and a mere weary look or tired gesture stealing the show.

Their scenes together are just a couple of the array of very funny moments that litter the film and which, crucially unlike many sequels aren't contingent on you having seen the other two. There are character moments sure with will resonante if you know who they're talking about and why (there are still some hollywood in-jokes which will only work amongst the really clued up amongst us) but in the main the funny is brought without prior knowledge and it's the first time I've laughed out loud at the cinema in ages.

Some complained that in the second film the main gang weren't together nearly enough, blown across the four corners of Europe with the structure of the story being dictated by the scheduling of the cast. If that was still the problem here, it's largely been solved and there's certainly more of a sense of the family again, probably helped by everything taking place in Vegas. Some of my favourite scenes in Twelve were when the cast were in a hotel room or whatever generally improvising with the camera trying to pick up what it can. There's less of that here, with Ocean's team collected across the widescreen in tableau.

In fact, wasn't prepared for how well photographed the piece is, Soderbergh (who operates the camera himself) using a range of pallets, some of which recall the opening film all reds and browns through to other works -- there's even the odd shot which could have dropped in from his low budget experiment Bubble. One amazing shot which pans across a casino floor zooming in and focusing on the faces of each of the team in turn as they communicate to each other with an adjustment of their glasses. There's no doubt that the director is an auteur, all of his films sharing a distinctive look and feel.

The film is also bathed in more of series regular David Holmes music. There's also a pleasing return to the old Hollywood style montage sequences that mix text and images to communicate story points and the passage of time, accompanied by Holmes mix of jazz and blues music. There are moments when the characters return locations from the first film and Holmes quietly underscores the scene with a subtler version of music from Ocean's Eleven, in one scene in particularly almost suggesting a nostalgia for a time when it was easier to see the goal and (without givin too much away) when you knew who your enemies were.

The oddest of the criticism was unsurprisingly from the usually right Mark Kermode who when he wasn't ranting on about the appearance of Julian Sands (who isn't that bad here) took up against the film for being set and about Vegas which he didn't have very many nice things to say about. Whilst its true that this is a pretty good tourist recruitment film for the area, how could this film exist without perpetuating that fantasy? If I was something akin to social realism I'll dodge through a copy of Leaving Las Vegas or Casino(?) or Showgirls(!?!). Some of the most impressive shots are from the sky as we see the new imaginary casino photorealistically inserted into the real Vegas.

The presence of Sands though does indicate one of the more unusual elements of the film, its Britishness. As well as Eddie Izzard there's a startling appearance from Olga Sosnovska who fans of the BBC series Spooks will know as Fiona Carter and is utterly luminous in her small role. Some of the film looks to have been shot in London (and real London not the version that appears in Lost) and there are some unexpected reference to UK pop culture which you can't imagine anyone in the US audience (or anyone else) would get. Perhaps it's as an apology for Don Cheadle's accent which is noticably less mockney this time out but still doesn't sound quite right. Frankly, I'm amazed that his character Basher wasn't outed as being really American, the sound of his voice being an affectation. In Ocean's Fourteen maybe.

Since this has done great business at the box office despite the critics I can't imagine a fourth film hasn't been discussed. Whether the formula can stretch to another installment I'm not sure -- apart from anything else, would all of the cast return? If I had one small criticism, with the exception of Barkin and Sosnovska the film lacked a feminine touch and it would be great to see Roberts and Zeta Jones back next time in bigger roles. There was also an even greater reliance on technology too and perhaps next time the gang could be placed in a position where they have to work completely on their wits to succeed. It'd have to be against a different landscape though. How about Shanghai?

May the twenty-fifth be with you.

Film So Happy Birthday Star Wars, everybody's favourite film (inc). Thirty years and the franchise is still kicking, albeit in comics and novels and computer games and what not marking time until it turns up on television in some form. I'm just old enough not to remember the original release and maintain that I saw Empire Strikes Back before Star Wars although it was such a long time ago I can't really remember. I do remember a double bill of those two at the Woolton Cinema one afternoon with an ice cream and Kiora in the middle.

There have been all kinds of curious reports on television and radio all day. Jayne Nelson talks about giving an interview here, and a slightly startled sounding David Malcolm appeared on Radio Four's Front Row to talk about going to a special screening in London weeks before the release when George Lucas was apparently still sounding out opinion on whether the film was worth releasing. David told him it was (good man) and the rest is history.

For a while, the myth was that on release the original film received the kinds of notices greeting the final(ish) Pirates of the Caribbean film now (you can hear Mark Kermode being particularly angry opinion hear). Imagine my surprise when I look up Malcolm's own words here and find and indeed he was pretty positive about the thing. What's lovely about that review is that ultimately describes why the the film was a success -- the timeless qualities and the familiar aspects blended into something that no one had seen before.

When The Matrix was released in 1999, everyone called it the new Star Wars (and let's not forget that was the same year that there real was a new Star Wars film released). And yet just seven years later that film is hardly thought of with the same affection. If there are Matrix conventions the profile isn't as high. Partly this is to do with the lack of new product but to an extent it was simply because at its core it was smoke and mirrors and actually essentially doing everything Star Wars did all those years before. It also had those timeless qualities, same familiar aspects and in bullet time something no one had seen before.

But one they'd gone, there wasn't an expanding universe for people to become lost in and be curious about. In fact the two sequels (which I still maintain were pretty good films) went so far into explaining away the magic, they literally sapped the mystery out of the franchise. Looking up at the box set that contains the three movies and the Animatrix spin-offs in its lovely green box you don't feel as though there's anything else you need to know. In Star Wars, it's like you're watching the tip of a narrative iceberg, that there are hundreds of stories of which you're just seeing one. I think that's why its survived -- it has the power to open up the imagination.

Malcolm also mentioned in the Front Row interview how amazing it was, at least at the UK release to see people queuing up around the cinema to see the film. Looking at this review from The Times, I'm not surprised. The competition was The Deep and Goodbye Emmanuelle. Tough choice that.

"I thought I was the last Jew left alive. I walked out to the surface and waited for the Germans."

Film For the past few months I've been keeping a filmlog, short reviews of most of the things I've been watching, including a review as long as the del.icio.us note box will allow. It's quite a test reducing everything you think about a film to two lines and I think I fail more times than I succeed and sometimes it's basically impossible.

Claude Lanzmann's Shoah is a nine-hour film about the Holocaust which instead of following the usual pattern of including archive footage of the concentration camps and ghettos, instead relies on the testimonies of survivors, bystanders and even perpetrators.

It's simply harrowing as men and women force themselves to remember events and feelings that they've buried for forty years and you can often see a fear in their eyes as it becomes apparent that in some ways the Nazis succeeded in creating the legacy they strove for at least in the minds of these people.

At no point does anyone seem exploited; although Lanzmann sometimes nudges them to continue talking (painfully in some cases) they all have an understanding that they're putting their experiences on record. But he doesn't stop if he thinks an interviewee who had the capacity to do something about it, or even perpetrated the crime is being evasive with their answers.

I'll admit to not watching the whole film in one sitting. My rental service treated the work as a television series and sent it a disc at a time, so it was section of two hours or so. Even then it was a difficult ask and at times I would guiltily set the disc aside until I felt like I could just ...

Which explains the power of the film -- considering it mostly consists of talking heads and verite footage of survivors returning to the scenes of their nightmares. I have a vivid imagination and just with their subtitled words I conjured up all kinds of images, some of which I'll never forget.

Now and then, the grainy 16mm footage fills in the gaps with shots of the mountains of possessions collected by the aggressors before the Jewish people entered the concentration camps or of the train that carried them to their certain death. Often shots would be repeated to remind the viewer that this wasn't simply a single act of murder. The Nazis systematically went about their business, day in and out, week in and out, over and over.

I was originally going to say on my filmlog that everyone should be able to find nine hours in their life to sit through this. But it's really the kind of work that can profoundly effect the way you think about the world and what a certain version of humanity is capable of and if you're not prepared for it you'll have to be a very happy person to bounce back easily.

What I will say is that at the age of thirty-two, having seen Schindler's List, Conspiracy and countless other dramas and documentaries about the holocaust I've only now gone some way to really understand what happened and for the first time in ages wanted to pray that something like this never happens again. Even though I know that such evils have happened day in and out, week in and out, over and over since then and continue to happen today.

Anyway, back to the filmlog. Next, Congo (1995) ...