My Favourite Film of 1976.

Film "Nobody knows anything." Hello William Goldman. If there's an co-architect of my film appreciation, its William Goldman and his books, notably and especially Adventures in the Screentrade of which "Nobody knows anything" is the key and most often repeated quote. As the wikipedia notes in a rare example of bit of editorialising surviving the editor's knife, it's often used in film articles to suggest film executives are stupid, which is why such and such a film has been a failure, but what Goldman actually means is that executives, however much planning they do, can't really know how a film will be received until the opening weekend. In other words, Waterworld was going to be an expensive, expensive failure until it wasn't.

For the uninitiated (and what is wrong with you), Adventures in the Screentrade is part biography, part screenwriting manual and filled with extraordinary anecdotes about filmmaking during the 1960s and 70s.  As well as the above quote, it's also the source of the Marathon Man story about Dustin Hoffman killing himself physically as part of his method process until Larry Olivier tells him to "just act".  But that's just the start.  If Kevin Smith's anecdote about working with Jon Peters on Superman Lives sounds extraordinary, he's essentially following the Goldman pattern of expurgating the irrational twists and turns many screenwriters have to cope with thanks to indecisive producers and directors.  If his name's on a script, it doesn't necessarily mean he wrote any of it.

Goldman's book introduced to me to All The President's Men, a rare example of having read around a film thoroughly before having a chance to see it.  In writing the script, as I explain in this ancient article about film adaptation, Goldman bravely garoted Woodstein's original account of their investigation into the Watergate break-in, ending his story half way through removing their self adulatory and triumphant conclusion, which in the film is relegated to the newsroom wire machines.  Realising that the lesser known material will be of most interest to an audience which has seen how they story ends, he chooses to close on a downbeat moment in which his characters are on the brink of failure.  Imagine trying to sell that story beat in 2015 without a second film having been greenlit.

The reasons why it's a favourite, if you've been keeping an eye on this list will be pretty obvious.  As with so many of them, it's about city folk dwarfed by their surroundings, architecture as antagonist (see this essay about the Library of Congress sequence for an in-depth analysis).  It's beautifully shot by Gordon Willis in a style which has been cribbed by David Fincher and his DPs in most of his work, especially in the presentation of night contrasting with the blary light of the newsroom (made all the more present by the use of dual focus lenses which keep both a foreground and background object in focus) (discussion of a key shot here).  But mostly it's because Dustford is so damn witty as Woodstein, making Goldman's script feel improvised and natural even though they're following it to the letter (or part of the Bernstein/Ephron draft).

What makes Goldman's book timeless is that in mixing anecdote and methodology he manages to make each of the films under consideration deeper experiences without entirely removing the veil, even those films, like The Stepford Wives, in which his contribution is almost gone.  Knowing his approach to structuring A Bridge Too Far we now can see the difficulty he had in bringing the characters in and out of focus and servicing its miriad stars (a work the Russos would do well to have a glance at before embarking on the Avengers 3 circus).  Arguably the final third of the book in which he writes a script for others to poke holes in is less readable or useful for people who aren't considering a job in actual screenwriting but we forgive him because the other two chunks are so compelling.  Expect me to return to some of its themes again over the coming year.

Jimmy Carter's Cinema Choices.

Film As you know I like a good, massively depthful and time consuming annotation project. So here's a very good, massively depthful and time consuming annotation project. Matt Novak has worked his way through Jimmy Carter's presidential diaries and made big long list of all the film that President watched:

"It seems like Carter would watch anything and everything, with over 400 movies screened at the White House and Camp David while he was in office. Some of the screenings were private affairs with just the President and First Lady. Other times a movie was that night’s entertainment for guests at the White House. An April 30, 1979 screening of the Ingmar Bergman film Autumn Sonata notes that there were “approximately 48 members of the White House staff” on hand to watch."

Of course it's worth reminding younger viewers that in order to view these films in the late 70s and early 80s he would have had to have viewed an original print. The first film he apparently saw after his inauguration was All The President's Men, which is of course, hilarious. But the title at least of his final film more than beats it.  I'd say if you wanted a pretty varied, cineliterate list to work through, this would do the job, albeit a few decades out of date.

"No studio would make a movie like this one at all"

Film Focus is key to the most subtly powerful moment in All The President’s Men:

"All The President’s Men tells the story of the Watergate investigation in ways that scarcely seem fathomable from today’s perspective. Most notably, the movie runs nearly two and a half hours, yet ends before Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) crack the case—in fact, it concludes on a note of defeat, immediately after they make a huge mistake that sets back their efforts enormously. No studio nowadays would even consider trusting the audience to know that a movie’s heroes will be vindicated at a later date. (No studio would make a movie like this one at all, arguably, but that’s a separate issue. The closest contemporary equivalent is Zodiac, and that’s at least punctuated by murders.)"

Just like Richard Nixon.

History Investigating the politics and potential narrative manipulation inherent in his presidential library, the New Yorker asks, "Who owns Richard Nixon?"

"Most Presidential libraries are terrific, if sometimes inconveniently located, resources for researchers; what turns up in their archives (especially documents from the typewriter-and-ink era) can be fascinating and sometimes revelatory. Meanwhile, the adjoining museums, which draw the tourists, tend to turn these sites into temples of Presidential sanctification and sympathetic history. The Nixon Library is no temple, mainly because (Timothy) Naftali (director) was determined to give an honest picture of the Watergate scandal, which after much effort led to a smart, instructive interactive exhibit. This somewhat asymmetrical focus is part of the draw for curious visitors. But it cost Naftali any remaining support from the foundation, whose members hated the direction he was heading. Naftali finally quit two and a half years ago. He still hasn’t been replaced, which, as he recently wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “has disturbing implications both for how public history is approached at federal museums and for how public access is granted to crucial historical information.”"

We Need To Talk About Steve Rogers.

Film Or more accurately I do. I was going to wait until the weekend, but the whole thing is still fresh in my mind's eye. So if you are planning on watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier at any time in your life and frankly why wouldn't you, it's a very strong entry in an epic superhero franchise, then stay away. I'll even put a Scarlett Johannson song, or Scarlett Johansson singing a cover version of a Tom Waits song in between this and the next block of text so your eyes can look away.

All The President's Men. The Animated Gif.

Film I've just made my first animated gif, inspired by this, and using the screengrabs I created for this university project:



Bit juddery. Bit blocky. But I get the idea.

Just Like Richard Nixon.

Politics  Ahead of tonight's US presidential debate (2am, here, um, not sure, might stay up) and with only so much speculation available, the web's also been busy looking for other angles. What about debates of the past? What of their participants? What of Nixon? Again?

1960's Awkward Richard Nixon
Dicky finds himself trying to spin himself out of a massive put down by his president in the famous debate opposite Kennedy. It's roughly the moment he started sweating, an involuntary response which would continue, unabated, for several decades.

The Checkers Speech After 60 Years
He went on to be at the forefront of a number of firsts though unfortunately most of them weren't for the most positive reasons.  The Checkers Speech was the first televised address by a politician, not because of war, not because of a national disaster, but to answer questions about abusing a political expense fund.  If only some of our own politicians had been as forthright a couple of years ago.

Nixon gets socked in Laugh-In’s most famous, and influential, five seconds
It's the Nixon equivalent of Blair's "Am I Bovvered..." moment.  Except that Nixon was running for office.  Obama later appeared on The Daily Show though arguably his appearance was far more directed towards hard news in style than some of what purports to be hard news in the US.

There are a few changes.

Film Rather spoiling the fun of finding out by reading the magazine, Sight & Sound tonight released their 2012 list of the greatest film of all time and here it is:

1. Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
2. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
3. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
4. La Regle du jeu (Renoir, 1939)
5. Sunrise: a Song for Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)
6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
7. The Searchers (Ford, 1956)
8. Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
9. The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1927)
10. 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)

There are a few changes. A new rule which means films have to be treated separately has led to The Godfathers dropping out leaving room for The Searchers, an also ran in 2002 to sneak in and Singing In The Rain is gone with interestingly considering its lack of availability in this country at time of voting (soon out on Eureka), The Passion of Joan of Arc is in.

Vertigo dethroning Citizen Kane after five decades is making headlines but there's been a series of articles in the magazine suggesting essentially that it was time to give another film a chance so it's not really. The backlash was bound to happen eventually. Personally I'd still go for Kane but that might have more to do with a bad experience with Vertigo during my film course at uni.

Here's what happened when I watched it in sequence with the rest of Hitchcock's films. It isn't my favourite, one to be admired intellectually rather then entertained in the purest sense, which is presumably why it topped this poll which is essentially a list of academically significant works. Odd to see Potemkin having dropped out but editing style is still generally covered by the Vertov.

The fringier directors list is understandably more eclectic:

1. Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953)
=2 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)
=2 Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
4. 8 ½ (Fellini, 1963)
5. Taxi Driver (Scorsese, 1980)
6. Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979)
=7 The Godfather (Coppola, 1972)
=7 Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958)
9. Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1974)
10. Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, 1948)

Tokyo Story right at the top with Bicycle Thieves which topped the poll when it was first attempted back in 1953 nudging in at the bottom, throwing out half the choices from last time.

 Mirror's a bit of surprise; of all Tarkovsky's films that 's perhaps the least accessible, even if it's one of his most beautiful At least The Tree of Life's not there as predicted. It'll be at least twenty years before we know if that has (dinosaur) legs.

Back in April, I posted my own contrarian list:

Citizen Kane (Welles)
Annie Hall (Allen)
The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais)
Hamlet (Branagh)
All The President's Men (Pakula)
Rear Window (Hitchcock)
Blade Runner (Scott)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Scorsese)
Magnolia (Anderson)

1/10. Oh well.

Scene Unseen: All The President's Men

Film During my post graduate film studies course, we were asked to write a short piece unpacking the mise-en-scene of a famous film shot. I'd just recently watched All The President's Men and was fascinated by the Library of Congress scene in which the two reporters are photographed from above.  Fortuitously it was also shot that many other people were fascinated with and within a few hours I was able to pull together enough research to knock something together. Here it is:

Mise-en-scene:

All The President’s Men

All The President’s Men (1976) portrays the true story of how Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, reporters from the Washington Post newspaper investigated the circumstances surrounding the burglary at the Watergate Building in Washington and how their journalism led to the eventual resignation of President Nixon. The subject of this essay is the “famous” Library of Congress reading room scene in which the reporters are attempting to ascertain, by checking every slip for items requested over a two year period, whether a White House aide has been looking for material related to Nixon’s presidential rival Ted Kennedy as part of an alleged smear campaign, The following will describe how the mise-en-scene underlines the difficulties the reporters faced and also their determination to succeed.

It is the first scene within the film without dialogue and that does not specifically give direct information pertinent to the plot, instead presenting themes on an entirely visual basis. Storytelling overall in the script is extraordinarily dense, and although screenwriter William Goldman is able to mask much of the exposition in excellent characterisation, cinematographer Gordon Willis would later admit, ‘if you went out to the restroom during the movie and came back, you would have missed something important.’ (Schaefer and Salvato, 1984: 296).

This long shot begins with a high angle close up of the hands of Woodward and Bernstein as they rhythmically sift through the requests. Relatively quickly the camera pulls backwards to reveal the journalists are heads down, deep in concentration. Surprisingly the shot does not end here; in a virtuoso move, the camera continues to pan backwards revealing the whole work table, then after a dissolve, the larger area surrounding them and after a further dissolve an extreme long shot of the entire floor of the reading room.

In a film that largely happens in close-ups and mid-shots, the audience attention is suddenly struck by a visual and technical spectacle and the effect is startling. The scene is reported to have cost $90,000 (Ehrlich, 2004: 114). As Willis describes, a crane could not be used so ‘a winch and a cable (were placed) in the top of the Library of Congress, and that winch actually pulled the camera up. It was done with an Airflex and some stabilizers to keep it from shaking […] My assistant built a radio-controlled focus system.’ (Lobrutto, 1999: 28).

The scene symbolically represents the story of the film, that of two men against an entire administration. It expresses the immensity of the task that lay ahead for the reporters, not just in searching through library cards, but in revealing the truth behind the misdeeds of the administration. Willis explains: ‘The idea was, Woodward and Bernstein were looking for “a needle in a haystack.”’(Lobrutto, 1999: 28) This was originally one slow continuous take (Lobrutto, 1999: 27) but the two dissolves and the speed of camera movement shorten the time between close up and extreme long shot emphasising the scale of the building as the protagonists becoming mere specks dwarfed by the larger space. If they do not entirely disappear from frame they become lost, ‘trapped in maze-like configurations whose spaces are perceptible only from a bird’s-eye view.’ (Cook, 2000: 366). The ’concentric circles’ (Lindamood, 1999) resemble the wheels of power they are attempting to puncture.

The lighting within the shot runs in opposition to the approach taken throughout the rest of film. The scenes within Washington Post offices are bathed in an oppressive ‘hard and unpleasant’ fluorescences, creating scenes in which absolutely everything is visible (Schaefer and Salvato, 1984: 297). Everywhere else in Washington is often ‘shrouded in darkness’ giving a ‘nourish tone’ (Ehrlich, 1984: 114), underlining the frustration that Woodward and Bernstein often express in the dialogue about their inability to see the whole picture, that patterns are there but that they cannot see them. That in this key scene, fill light is being used inside a large public building suggests that on this occasion the journalists are clear of a way forward, that they know the purpose of these particular actions and what they will prove or disprove.

There is a gentle antagonism existing between the two reporters throughout the opening of the film, but this scene is the first to demonstrate that they can work together and are presenting a united front. They appear almost symmetrically within the shot. The angle of framing is from above and they are looking downward and although their faces are not shown their stance with their jackets are off and their shirt sleeves rolled up, is one of concentration. The colour of the shirts, blue and white, is traditionally symbolic of power and authority. Their bodies are rigid in their seat, and although they make mistakes as they check the cards these are quickly remedied. This is the presentation of a single unit is an image repeated throughout the film as the pair stand together in doorways and close to each other in diners.

Director Alan J Pakula ‘needed to show that the materials Woodward and Bernstein used – typewriters, pencils, pads, and library cards – served as important weapons that could bring down some of the most powerful men in the country.’ (Toplin, 1996: 187) In this scene this focus is achieved through diagetic sound design. Even as the camera moves away from them, the synchronous sound of the flicking paper continues at full volume in the sound mix right up until the end of the shot, still audible over the music. In later scenes, a similar technique would be used in the newsroom as the only sound which can be heard are the reporter’s typewriters.

This scene generally suggests that Woodward and Bernstein are facing an impossible task as they appear lost in the immensity of the library’s reading room. But it also presents them as a united front, full of dogged determination. In the following scene it is revealed that the search through the records was in vain, with both reporters wondering if some slips had been pulled or names changed or if they’d missed a card. But in the next breath they suggest another possibility and so the investigation continues.

Bibliography

Cook, David A. 2000. Lost Illusions: American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam, 1970-1979. University of California Press Ltd., London.

Ehrlich, Matthew C. 2004. Journalism in the Movies. University of Illinois Press, Illinois.

Goldman, Willian. 1975. All The President’s Men screenplay: May 10, 1975 draft. Wildwood Enterprises, Inc.

Lindamood, Brian. 1999. Cub Reporters. In Columbus Alive. http://www.columbusalive.com/1999/19991202/film1.html (link now broken)

Lobrutto, Vincent. 1999. Principal Photography: Interviews with Feature Film Cinematographers. Praeger/Greenwood, Westport.

Schaefer, Dennis and Larry Salvato. 1984. Masters of Light: Conversations With Contemporary Cinematographers. University of California Press Ltd., London.

Toplin, Robert Brent. 1996. History by Hollywood: The Use and Abuse of the American Past. University of Illinois Press, Illinois.

Filmography

All The President’s Men. 1976. 133 mins. Production: Warner Brothers, Los Angeles. Directed by Alan J. Pakula.

"hundreds of hours of Nixon’s secret tapes"

Politics Earlier in the month, working together for the first time in decades. Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post reflected back on Richard Millhouse Nixon's time in office and concluded that historical records demonstrate that he was far worse than they ever imagined:

"Today, much more than when we first covered this story, an abundant record provides unambiguous answers and evidence about Watergate and its meaning. This record has expanded continuously over the decades with the transcription of hundreds of hours of Nixon’s secret tapes, adding detail and context to the hearings in the Senate and House of Representatives; the trials and guilty pleas of about 40 Nixon aides and associates who went to jail; and the memoirs of Nixon and his deputies. Such documentation makes it possible to trace the president’s personal dominance over a massive campaign of political espionage, sabotage and other illegal activities against his real or perceived opponents."

On the Post's own version of the story (which is here but shuts unregistered readers out after a few pages) there are more than five thousand comments which demonstrates how this affair above most others still captures our imagination.

the greatest films of all time

Film Roger Ebert's been asked to include his votes in Sight & Sound's decadal poll for the greatest films of all time. One of the films he's swapped in for this go around is certainly brave and certainly wouldn't be my choice. 

Since I have a spare half hour this evening before the usual fifty minutes of prevarication thinly disguised as current affairs programming (#newsnight) I thought I'd attempt my list.

 Again this isn't just favourite films. This is films which I objectively believe to be the best constructed in film history. Eep.

Citizen Kane (Welles)
Annie Hall (Allen)
The Seventh Seal (Bergman)
Last Year at Marienbad (Resnais)
Hamlet (Branagh)
All The President's Men (Pakula)
Rear Window (Hitchcock)
Blade Runner (Scott)
The Last Temptation of Christ (Scorsese)
Magnolia (Anderson)

Which is bloody outrageous frankly.  No Ozu.  No Coppola.  Nothing silent, what's worse Blade Runner and not Metropolis.  Here's some brief justifications.

Because it's Citizen Kane.
Because it would have been outrageous to include my original choice.
Because it's strangely the most life affirming of Bergman's films.
Because it's Last Year at Marienbad.
Because I needed to include something Shakespeare.
Because it rewrote narrative expectations.
Because it's subtle in its genius.
Because no other film is quite this immersive.
Because I couldn't get away with The Aviator.
Because of the middle hour.

No Tarkovsky either.  But I do still think Solaris is an all round better film than 2001.  Oh I could be at this all night.  Or for the rest of my life.  Should I have picked Wild Strawberries?

"Our goal was not to get into Cambodia"

History One of the most iconic moments in US presidential history - apart from his later resignation speech - was the moment during the Vietnam war when Richard Nixon met protesters at the Lincoln Memorial. Up until now, the moment has been built on the quites from the youngster and second hand reporting of comments (which is how the scene in Oliver Stone's biopic was developed). Now, thanks to another release from Nixon's tapes, we have snatches of his account. Here's how PBS have covered the release and this is the key quote:

"And I said I was sorry they had missed it because I had tried to explain in the press conference that my goals in Vietnam were the same as theirs -- to stop the killing, to end the war, to bring peace. Our goal was not to get into Cambodia by what we were doing, but to get out of Vietnam.

There seemed to be no -- they did not respond. I hoped that their hatred of the war, which I could well understand, would not turn into a bitter hatred of our whole system, our country and everything that it stood for.

I said, I know you, that probably most of you think I'm an SOB. But I want you to know that I understand just how you feel."

This moment is probably the reason why heads of state rarely meet people who disagree with them. The last thing they want is to look like Richard Nixon.

"It will remain for British authorities"

Journalism Carl Bernstein looks for Watergate comparisons in the #notw scandal:

"The circumstances of the alleged lawbreaking within News Corp. suggest more than a passing resemblance to Richard Nixon presiding over a criminal conspiracy in which he insulated himself from specific knowledge of numerous individual criminal acts while being himself responsible for and authorizing general policies that routinely resulted in lawbreaking and unconstitutional conduct. Not to mention his role in the cover-up. It will remain for British authorities and, presumably, disgusted and/or legally squeezed News Corp. executives and editors to reveal exactly where the rot came from at News of the World, and whether Rupert Murdoch enabled, approved, or opposed the obvious corruption that infected his underlings."

Sadly he misses the clearest comparison from his end. Nick Davies's dogged investigation at The Guardian, an investigation almost entirely unreported by the rest of the press up until this week when it's being publically praised by actors, politicians and fellow journalists mirrors Woodstein's own Watergate investigation which was considered equally eccentric at the time. I like to imagine Alan Rusbridger giving Davies a pep talk similar to the one Jason Robards as Post editor Ben Bradlee gives the fictional version of them at the end of All The President's Men.

Ben Bradlee: You know the results of the latest Gallup Poll? Half the country never even heard of the word Watergate. Nobody gives a shit. You guys are probably pretty tired, right? Well, you should be. Go on home, get a nice hot bath. Rest up... 15 minutes. Then get your asses back in gear. We're under a lot of pressure, you know, and you put us there. Nothing's riding on this except the, uh, first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press, and maybe the future of the country. Not that any of that matters, but if you guys fuck up again, I'm going to get mad. Goodnight.

Here's Davies talking about the story, which includes a rather startling section about David Cameron and George Osborne which I've not seen elsewhere:

Arthur clearly likes Karen rather a lot.

TV Kerry Shale is one of life’s unsung actors. Like Stephen Tobolowsky he’s a character actor who’s never out of work but unlike Tobolowsky who’s had a fair few iconic roles in his career (Ned Ryerson, Werner Brandis, the forgetful guy in Momento), Shale’s always stayed on the fringes, and despite turning up in some prominent tv work, including Moffat’s own Joking Apart, he’s primarily called upon for voiceover work on the likes of Budgie: The Little Helicopter and the cgi abomination of Thomas The Tank Engine.

He’s also the king of audio books including the majority of The X-Files tie-in readings (despite never having appeared in an episode) so it was quite a pleasure to see him as the random oppressed stranger saying enigmatic things when Doctor Who paid homage to its US genre cousin. Dr. Renfrew is just the sort of desperate figure who doesn’t receive a happy ending in either show, so far gone that their function along with their bloody environment is simply to creep out the audience, a wide-eyed desperation that suits Shale’s style.

If such talk seems like I’m playing with the packaging and not the treats inside, it’s because appreciating such incidental pleasures will be the first casualty of the opinion war when The Day of the Moon with its gobsmacking, hopping on one foot pointing at the television screaming epilogue is discussed. I’ve already glanced at a couple of reviews and neither of them have seen fit to even mention Shale or his character even though they’re both vital in making us understand what The Silents are psychologically capable of.

Similarly Mark Sheppard’s laconic gay agenda nudging Canton Delaware one half of the Mulder/Scully dynamic in these terrifying haunted house sequences might not be recognised for the point of view character he is, orientating the audience outside of a TARDIS crew which has slipped ahead of us three months in terms of understanding, as Moffat boldly experiments with the temporal order of his narrative having already begun a narrative which resequences the temporal order of his characters. Luckily he’s rather smarter than Duggan in City of Death.

And so I think is the television audience. Rather like the politicians in the NO! campaign for AV in relation to counting from one to some other number under ten, professional tv reviewers this week have seriously underestimated the capability of the public to follow the twists and turns in the show’s sequence of events, some even suggesting that Doctor Who has lost the ability to tell a coherent story even though they were reviewing half of one and had no problem previously in suggesting that they should keep with something like The Wire because it’s a slow burn.

Well, this is Doctor Who as slow burn. As Doctor Who Magazine dvd reviewer and ex-editor Gary Gillatt tweeted earlier, this is just episode fifteen in a twenty-six part story which in terms of the Key To Time season means part three of The Androids of Tara which as episode threes often were, half an hour of running around hoping to bump into the cliffhanger. We know now what the aliens behind the cracks and the explosion of the TARDIS in the last run of episodes look like and that Amy's Schrodinger's pregnancy (that joke © a bunch of clever people on Twitter).

Plus there's the epic concept that the silent have been on Earth for thousands of years guiding the human race each of its scientific marvels a result of their nudging, rather like Scaroth times several dozen. Reminds me a lot of the revelation in Big Finish's Sixth Doctor and Charley arc that he's had an invisible friend floating around the TARDIS for the duration of the series. That the Silents own the FAUXDIS also explains why the Doctor failed to notice all of those deaths in The Lodger. He simply didn't remember.

But I’m getting ahead of myself because as well as the Canton device, Moffat keeps the audience orientated here by offering what at its heart is actually a pretty trad bit of Doctor Who. For all their other functions in the wider story, in The Day of the Moon, Moffat keeps The Silents very much in the alien of the week mould with the Doctor having already decided how to defeat them very early in the episode, the methodology unspooling like an episode of the unreal Hustle, a methodology for all its epic underpinnings that shows the Doctor himself learnt something from The Wire. No, the other one.

This is not a criticism. Big, cocky speeches from its Bafta award winning Time Lord centre are the franchises’s stock in trade as is the “broadcast something to defeat the enemy” trope. Perhaps his visit to the royal wedding this week was to make sure that it all went down without a hitch because as per some story soon to appear in Doctor Who Adventures, he’s using the tv coverage to battling a time travelling rogue element in the Forest of Cheem who’s trying to destroy the fleshy future of the human race by activating his ancestors incongruously planted in Westminster Abbey.

You know you want to Eddie Robson. Russell T Davies already did at the end of Torchwood’s Children of Earth. And Moffat himself a couple of times. Not to mention the classic series. At some point, some clever person will work their way through the whole series, perhaps the whole franchise and produce a taxonomy of story resolutions and find there are only about five. Which is another of my problems with professionals who suggest the tv series has run out of ideas because they’re clearly under the impression that’s why we love the series.

We love the series because it surprises us. Surprises us by employing the real moon footage as part of the plot or by creating NASA related elements that feel just right, feel indeed like Apollo 13, even if detaining of the Doctor in a lecture theatre is a bit of a hedge scratcher as is the fact that Nixon now seen more of the TARDIS interior than Churchill despite his slightly less admirable rep. We love that the cliché of American’s previous oblivious huddled around their televisions watching history is can be given a neat twist as they turn to fight a newly obvious interloper, regaining their grip on that history in the process.

Yet in the midst of all that, we love that this is still the Moffat who brought fairy tale scares back to the series, and stunning images like faces covered in tallys, doubly scary because they’re self inflicted, a physical approach to remembering the unmemorable. Employing a similar jump cut to the that used for the voting machine in The Beast Below, when the character forgets we remain in their point of view by not witnessing the events they’ve missed, piecing together their action just as they are like that Hangover film over and over again the hierarchy of knowledge forever fluctuating.

Yes, this is Moffat who even as far back as The Empty Child isn’t capable of writing a script with a simple conclusion, without some strands left dangling (two years?) and given the reigns of the series has taken it to the most obvious extremes. It’s not enough to Amy to become lost in the haunted house; she experiences strange images which generate still more questions. Who’s baby are you? Who was that terrible woman? When she’s snatched by The Silents and spirited away to the FAUXDIS did Amy spend all the time just strapped to the chair or …

At least we know that Rory does sort of remember his two thousand year wait and the depth of performance Arthur Darvill’s capable of. As I’d hoped more of the chemistry between he and Gillan seen in Confidential has seeped into the scripts and it’s rather poignant not mention realistic that no matter how much she says she loves him, he still can’t quite believe it. If you want my opinion (and lets face it you’ve read this far) I think some of their character’s relationship has soaked into their real world friendship. Watching this week’s Confidential, Arthur clearly likes Karen rather a lot. Bless. But then, don't we all?

Speaking of which, storywise, River had less to do this episode, leadership of the group dynamic having shifted back to the younger version of the Doctor for the duration and into the rest of the series. The already convoluted TARDIS Index File entry for the character will now require and extra dimensional supplement as we now have to cope with the fact that the version left in the Stormcage at the close of the episode has already had dozens of adventures with the future Doctor (including Billy the Fish & The Easter Island statues) and now shared her final kiss with the younger version.

I’ve suggested previously that Moffat’s running two separate narrative threads and that at some point in the future we’ll be able to watching all of the River stories in reverse order culminating in Forest of the Dead. Now I’m not so sure. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell at which point their time lines intersect since this version seems well aware of the Pandorica business even though if we’re taking things literally as backwards/forwards it should be in her future. Either way, her reaction to the kiss, impeccably played by Alex neatly demonstrates her fears and apparently hints at more complex issues.

All of which brings us back to the alleyway in New York and the little girl regenerating. There’s a universe of possibilities, from Jenny to any one of a number of other random femlords (let’s not forget when the Master was hidden away it was as a child – imagine if he’d opened the pocket watch at a much younger age) but because this is episode fifteen of a longer story it can’t be some random element it has to be locked into the story. Could my unlikely theory that River Song’s a Time Lord and Amy’s her mother be combined here somehow?

Professional journalists will hate all of this of course but us amateurs are also in a bit of a bind (explaining a little bit why this has all been a bit slapdash and haphazard) because we won’t properly know just how successful as a piece of art even this episode is until Moffat reveals his whole story or indeed how much of it was just in service of this week’s set of incidents, if we’re all just chasing a transparent dangling carrot or if in another eleven episodes we’ll be properly satisfied. It has to at least be better than The Armageddon Factor. "Men out there - young men - are dying for it." Including Canton apparently.

Next week: Shiver me timbers.

Review 2010: The Opinion Engine: 16/31: 'The Big Picture: Who Killed Hollywood? and Other Essays' by William Goldman.

Film William Goldman sets out his stall early in the introduction to The Big Picture, a collection of articles originally published in the likes of Premiere Magazine and the LA Times: “What you have here is a chronicle of the worst decade in movie history” Those of us who’ve sat through both Transformers films, watched the rise of torture porn and 3D conversions might imagine he’s talking about the Noughties (especially if we’ve skipped the copyright page) but the next sentence elaborates: “If you were to ask me what were the best ten films of the 90s my first thought would be the old joke ‘the girls in my town were so ugly that once we had a beauty contest and nobody won.’

For someone like me who became cine-aware in the 1990s, the decade didn’t seem too bad. As he lists in the following paragraph, it brought The Shawshank Redemption, Unforgiven, Babe, Hoop Dreams, Fargo, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Four Weddings and Groundhog Day, which is high praise indeed from someone who delivered the screenplays to All The President's Men, Marathon Man and The Princess Bride. But his argument is that in comparison to earlier decades, when the studios were still making thematically strong films for grown-ups and nearly every film nominated for best picture had integrity and would go on to be considered a stone cold classic, in the 90s, Hollywood had fallen back on producing genre based entertainments and nothing more (not something which has arguably changed).

It’s this persuasive argument he returns to throughout the collection which contains roughly three types of essay, previews of coming seasonal attractions, Oscar speculation and ceremony reviews, interspersed with the longer polemicals that create the back bone of his argument with titles like “Who Killed Hollywood” and “Year of the Dog”. Mixing his own opinions and those fielded from friends in the industry, he makes his best guess as to how something like The English Patient will do at the box office and what chances it has at winning Best Picture, all the while pushing against the truism from his seminal Adventures In The Screentrade which has become to most quoted line in film journalism “Nobody knows anything”.

With an extra decade of hindsight (the collection was published in 2001), part of the pleasure of the book is the nostalgia for a time when Apollo 13 was new and exciting release rather than something that not too long ago was repeated once a fortnight on ITV2. Flicking through to the piece looking towards the release slate for summer ’93 and we find Cliffhanger, The Firm, The Fugitive and In The Line of Fire all ready to be obliterated by Jurassic Park, which also left Last Action Hero as a casualty (remember the rocket with Arnie’s likeness on the side?). It’s impossible not to want to line up a day reliving that group (and even Super Mario Brothers which also came out that year, though not Dennis The Menace). Twenty-ten looks weedy by comparison.

His longer essays are best. Goldman’s analysis of Saving Private Ryan is pretty seminal already with a structural deconstruction demonstrating why the last half hour is phoney as hell (who’s flashback is it?) and his neutering of LA Confidential is similarly painful (six minutes too long). He suggests Twister is “the worst movie in the history of the world” then offers some close comparison with Jaws to conclusively prove it which seems a bit unfair until you realise what he’s demonstrating the extent to which computer generated spectacle has replaced proper characterisation. This is exemplified in “And Where Will You Leave Jimmy Stewart?” in which he uses the death of the actor as a jumping off point to list the images which he believe best exemplify certain actors like “Bill Holden, running at the Kwai Bridge shouting ‘kill him’”.

In the end, Goldman was a soothsayer. As he predicted, Hollywood is no longer interested in the middle budget film preferring instead to plough their millions into goliaths like addicted gamblers going all in with the hope of jackpot. Which pays off quite often now because people are still desperate to go to the cinema even if whatever’s on is rubbish or at least that’s the only explanation I have for the aforementioned toy related franchise films doing the business. He’s no longer writing about films in the same way so we won’t know whether he thinks Inception or The Social Network will win best picture. I think he'd go with the former because it would show Hollywood congratulating itself for producing an expensive blockbuster that just this once made the audience think as though that absolves them from churning out the shit they do the rest of the time.

horrible

Film Heaven hath no fury than a film fan handed a poor transfer on Blu-ray:

"Gladiator is plagued almost from beginning to end by a lack of definition. The image appears blurred and smudged, with facial textures taking on the consistency of wax and the sets and locations faring no better. [..] Worse still, presumably in an attempt to compensate for the low detail the image has, the BD been subjected to an inordinate amount of edge enhancement, resulting in some of the worst haloing I have ever seen on an HD release. Soldiers now appear to be protected by force fields rather than regular armour, spears and trees literally glow, and, during Commodus’ triumphant return to Rome, literally every single poppy fluttering through the air has a defined white outline several pixels wide."

More screen caps here. This kind of issue plagued dvd at the beginning, with Warner Brothers in particular issuing what looked like transfers from the same master they used for the VHS. My original copy of All The President's Men is horrible. Still holding off on investing in BD for now then ...

a review of the film version of Frost/Nixon

Elsewhere I've had a review of the film version of Frost/Nixon published at Liverpool Confidential. I'm not engaging in hyperbole -- it is a masterpiece. Some of the most annoying criticisms I've read is that it's very talky or static or stagey. It's a film about an interview. What are you expecting?

Remember...

Meme

The first movie you remember seeing on the big screen:
Pete's Dragon with my parents at the old 051 cinema in Liverpool.

Movie from which you can quote multiple lines in your sleep:
Adventure In Babysitting
'Get in the car and run him over.'
'I can't -- contagious.'
'I mean, your eyes, your hair.' 'What about them?' 'They're so well placed.'
'Thor's my hero.' 'Thor's a homo.'
'It was just pool of mushy goo.' 'Like spagettios?' 'Like spagettios with meat.' 'Oooh gross.'
'How can a righteous babe like you be lonely.' 'That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. Wanna go to bed?'
'Ted Lesher? Loyola Law?'
'We're at my dad's party.'
'Nobody leaves this place without singin' the blues.'

Director (dead or alive) that you?d most want to have dinner with:
Young Orson Welles. Before the life got to him.

Movie that should have won an Oscar but didn?t:
The Ice Storm was robbed.

Movie that didn?t disappoint despite being the adaptation of a book:
Since I make a point of not reading a book if there's a mere hint of a film or tv adaptation in the offering so I can watch the thing without impunity I can't really compare. BUT if I can include Shakespeare since his plays are printed in books, Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing pretty much covered all the bases.

Movie you were dragged to by someone else expecting to hate, but which you loved:
Funnily enough Twister. Always go with the worst expectations and you'll never be disappointed.

Movie that scares the crap out of you no matter how many times you see it:
All The President's Men.

Movie that makes you bawl no matter how many times you see it:
Map of the Human Heart. I haven't actually seen the film for seven years simply because the ending is so sad. But if you want a film you've heard of, Amy Heckerling's Loser. Wrong, I know.

Movie that still has you rolling on the floor with laughter no matter how many times you?ve seen it:
Shaun of the Dead. 'Would anyone like a ... peanut?' [via]

Pick of the pocket

Film This relatively old Slate article has been knocking around my favourites for a while. It's a bunch of filmmakers talking about those films that they've watched the most. I'm wondering how many of these are true. Has Paul Schrader really seen Besson's Pickpocket more than any other film? In the spirit here are the five films I've somehow seen more than any other. In decending order. Not including Star Wars or Lost In Translation. Funny how some of these aren't on my favourite film list.

Adventures In Babysitting

When I was at school and a teenager I watched this as though it was the only film ever made. I think it became a habit. I've probably seen it about fifty times and in fact I've probably seen it more than Star Wars. Certainly I can quote more scenes from this film that anything else. It's a very wierd phenomina. I mean it's not exactly artless and I'd go so far as to call it teen-noir. But really I should not be able to do this fifteen years later ...

"You've got to be kidding me."
"Watch you're mouth."
"Watch my mouth, you've gotta be kidding me. What if I fall."
"I won't let you fall."
"Thanks Sarah."

... note that I wasn't even watching the theatrical release of the film but a cleaned up tv version with some of the worst, wrong voiced dubbing seen this side of the legendary BBC version of Beverly Hills Cop. I now have the film on dvd. I've watched it once in about five years ...

When Harry Met Sally

This is my comfort film. When I'm feeling really down I'll watch this and pretend I'm living in New York. I haven't oddly enough had to see it for a few years. I think I'm phobic now that I've reached the same age as the main characters. I have never made a woman meiow.

All The President's Men

Now you're getting into the road map of my brain. It's simply a perfect screenplay, impeccibly directed and performed. So what if sections of it didn't happen and the story ends half way through. I like to think that there's a bit of Woodstein in all of us.

In The Bleak Midwinter

Every christmas since the mid-90s. It's a ritual now, but an important one. Good message about going for your dreams even when they seem horribly unrealistic and unimportant. Probably going to be really good thing to remember at the start of September when I re-enter the real world again in my usual directionless way.

Love and Other Catastrophies

I think some of us would like to say -- 'Oh yes I've seen Wild Strawberries a hundred times, Bergman's my hero' -- and we do, but often we'd be lying. In the end film becomes the thing that comforts some of us and is our touchstone but also it reflects out personality. It's also like a conversation and it's who you'd like to end up talking to at the end of the day.

City Girl

Film I wondered, after the identity of Deep Throat was revealed to the world, whether the scenes in All The President's Men, still one of my all time top ten films, continued to keep that mystery or whether knowing the identity of character Hal Holbrook is playing ruins things because crucially we're beginning to learn about what was happening on the other side. You know what? They really don't. In fact, an extra vibe is in the mix -- the tension that we know what Felt was risking being in that underground car park. When he tells Woodward not to call him at that crucial moment you assume it's because his life is in danger. It adds shades of grey to the Redford character because it now seems as though he's will to risk a man's life for the investigation. I'm sure it's a complete co-incidence that the documentary, Inside Deep Throat is being released next week. I hope people aren't going to turn up expecting an expose of the FBI during the Nixon era.

Updated: I've just read here, that sales of the dvd of the movie have increased by 1000%, which is shame because its a foggy old transfer which seems to have been created by pissed monkeys (do I not tire of that phrase). This is the same one which was released at the dawn of the dvd age, with a bit-rate lower than most Sky shopping channels. I've had better performance from my £40 Freeview digibox. Hopefully with this new release Warner Brothers will see fit to give the film, the full Special Edition treatment with a new transfer -- might I suggest they get Felt into a commentary studio pronto?