Film Review: Date Night

DATE NIGHT
DIR: Shawn Levy
CAST: Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Mark Wahlberg



Date Night has a lot going for it. Its stars, Steve Carell and Tina Fey, are both big TV stars, and both recognisable faces in cinema as well, but more than that, both of them are genuinely funny. Casting them as a married couple seems so natural that it’s almost a surprise that nobody had done it until now and the setup for the film; Carell and Fey as Phil and Claire Foster, a middle aged couple whose relationship has lost a little spark, attempting to fix it with one adventurous date night, promises plenty of interesting situations for them to mine laughs from. It is, then, a bit of a shame that the film loses sight of this premise relatively early on, and feels the need to bolt on an action comedy to what was a rather engaging rom-com.

The film’s first twenty minutes are its best. Carell and Fey play really well off one another, and though neither is exactly renowned as a dramatic actor they do establish a believable marriage, going through a believable seven year itch. They’re also very funny together, without really overplaying it. In a nicely played early scene they invent a dialogue between the couple a few tables over from them in their regular date night restaurant, it’s funny, but in a naturalistic sort of way. There is some of this in the latter part of the film, and whenever the movie slows down for those low key moments between Phil and Claire (as in a scene on the subway when Fey confuses the terms ‘Whacked off’ and ‘Whacked’) work nicely. It’s never gut bustingly funny, but those moments never failed to make me smile, and they hint at the rather better film that Date Night might have been had Levy and screenwriter Josh Klausner not over complicated things with stolen flash drives, corrupt cops and car chases.

In and of themselves, many of those things work well. The car chase, for instance, which has the car that Phil and Claire are in wedged to a taxi, is pretty damn exciting, and efficiently shot by Levy (who, on the evidence of this and the equally fine Night at the Museum 2, doesn’t deserve the reputation that he seems to have developed online as something of a hack), but it feels like it belongs in a different film. When Phil and Claire are asking a shirtless Mark Wahlberg for help, the discomfort that Phil feels when confronted by this man to whom his wife is clearly attracted is real and funny, but when he’s actually helping them, by triangulating the mobile phone signal of the people Phil and Claire believe have a stolen flash drive, again it starts to feel like we’re watching a new movie. A scene in which Phil and Claire are forced to dance in a strip club is also funny (and Fey, it has to be said, looks great) but again, it just doesn’t feel like it belongs. Despite having only one credited screenwriter, Date Night often feels like a film written by committee, every producer weighing in with their own funny thing that could happen to the Fosters, creating a patchwork of scenes that never quite feel like a whole.

Carell and Fey are both excellent, and that the film hangs together at all is testament to their chemistry and their individual talents (I suspect, and the outtakes at the end would seem to attest, that many of the funniest lines in the film are improvised). Despite the bitty nature of the film and its ultimate shallowness, Carell and Fey forge enough of a connection that I did find myself caring about Phil, Claire and their relationship, so much so that I wished that were more what the film was about. The rest of the cast contribute cameo roles, some recurring, others for single scenes. There are disappointments; a boring Common and Jimmi Simpson as corrupt cops, and an equally dull Taraji P Henson as a virtuous cop, to say nothing of the fact that the hilarious Kristen Wiig is given very little to do. There are, however, also star turns among the cameoing celebs, chiefly James Franco and Mila Kunis, who are extremely funny as the criminals whose restaurant reservation the Fosters steal and the aforementioned Wahlberg, who has a one joke role that manages to stay funny.

Date Night may be messy, but it’s always diverting despite that, and when it comes together it really is funny, and sometimes rather sweet. If we get to see the Fosters again though, I’d rather they didn’t have to get involved in a car chase.

Next Week

UK DVD [26/4]

The Girlfriend Experience
Steven Soderbergh’s improvised drama isn’t especially brilliant as a whole, but it’s well worth a rental just to see the revelatory performance by 21-year-old porn star Sasha Grey, whose work suggests that there may be a bright future for her outside of titles like Butt Sex Bonanza.

Oh, and something called Avatar, which can [still] go fuck itself


US DVD [27/4]

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Terry Gilliam’s latest film is often beautiful, sometimes captivating, and always a mess. That mess is sometimes glorious and sometimes frustrating, but when it all comes together there are flashes of the great filmmaker that Gilliam undoubtedly is. The recasting of Heath Ledger’s role works very well, and among the rest of the cast young model Lily Cole stands out.


UK THEATRICAL RELEASE [30/4]

The Disappearance of Alice Creed
A trio of fine performances from British actors Eddie Marsan, Martin Compston and Gemma Arterton mark out this stripped down, extremely intense, debut from director J. Blakeson. It’s tough going, especially in the brilliant, near silent, opening half hour and even though it starts to fall apart when the story opens up beyond a single location this is an interesting calling card for Blakeson and a notable tour de force for Arterton.


US THEATRICAL RELEASE [30/4]

A Nightmare on Elm Street [2010]
I would love this to be great, I suspect it will be terrible, but let’s face it, all us horror fans are going to want to see what Jackie Earle Haley can bring to Freddy Kruger.

Please Give
Nicole Holofcener is far from my favourite director, but she’s always got a fantastic cast for her films, and it should be a pleasure to watch the likes of Oliver Platt, Catherine Keener and Rebecca Hall play off one another.


LINK OF THE WEEK
The Editing Room
The problem with Rod Hilton’s excellent site, which skewers movies by ‘abridging’ their screenplays, and generally being honest, if scathing, about their clichés and shortcomings, is simply that it doesn’t update often enough. Generally there’s just one slice of fried comic gold every month these days, but fortunately there’s also an extensive archive to laugh your way through.


NEXT WEEK @ 24FPS

Among other things I'll have reviews (and, with a bit of luck, Q and A reports) from Sci-Fi London on Vincenzo Natali's Splice (starring the brilliant Sarah Polley) and sci-fi rom-com TiMER (starring Emma Caulfield of Buffy). Other screenings set or probable for next week include The Joneses and Iron Man 2.

Film Review: Centurion

CENTURION
DIR: Neil Marshall
CAST: Michael Fassbender, Olga Kuryelenko, David Morrissey



Even when he has an all female cast (as in The Descent), Neil Marshall is probably best described as a testosterone fuelled filmmaker. Centurion doesn’t see him breaking that mould. It’s based on the legend of the Ninth roman legion which, supposedly, went into Scotland to attempt to finally defeat the Picts and were never seen or heard of again. Marshall imagines the tale of the dregs of the legion (a ragtag group of seven led, after their commander Dominic West is captured, by Fassbender as Qunitus Dias) as a western of sorts, with the Picts (led by tracker and warrior Kuryelenko) chasing down the last of the roman invaders, and like many Westerns, it asks us to invest in and take the side of those invaders.

As you’d expect from the director of such splashy genre delights as Dog Soldiers and The Descent, Centurion doesn’t lack for action. We’re seldom more than a few minutes from arrows and axes flying in a series of brutal and very bloody action sequences. In the past, many films that have dealt with swordplay did so in a rather polite way; actor gets stabbed under the arm, falls out of frame. That’s not what Marshall’s interested in, here rivers literally run red with the blood of hacked off heads and claret arcs across the screen from brutally inflicted stab wounds. This is all rather good fun, or it should be, the problem, which hasn’t previously dogged Marshall, is that the action is often very hard to see. The BBFC have specified that Centurion has a 15 certificate because the violence is often fast cut, and doesn’t, therefore, dwell on detail. Unfortunately, this means that the action sequences can often feel bitty, the camera movement is fast and renders much of the large battle scene that ends the first act a blurry, detail free, mess. When Marshall calms down the action is great; well choreographed and seriously vicious, but it’s a frustrating watch at times.

Some critics have taken issue with Marshall’s screenplay, and especially the fact that his Roman characters speak modern English. The first time someone says “Fuck” it takes a little getting used to, but what Marshall’s doing is actually rather clever. If you want scrupulous authenticity then the only way to do it is to have the roman characters speak classical Latin, that’s not really an option, and so what Marshall does is takes the sentiments - including the vulgar ones - he believes his characters would be expressing and translates them into modern English. It works perfectly well, and is a clever way of making sure a mainstream audience can get close to these rather broadly drawn characters. The character development here isn’t especially brilliant, but Quintus Dias does go on a bit of a journey, and Fassbender puts it across nicely (even if his take on the neutral English accent Marshall has settled on for the Romans sometimes slips into his native Irish). The other performances are also decent. Kuryelenko is effective and genuinely threatening as the mute hunter whose “empty soul can only be filled by Roman blood”. Among the other Romans David Morrissey is the real standout, lending solid support as a man raised by the army and, in a small role, Imogen Poots continues to show that she’s an interesting and versatile rising talent (and contributes a Scottish accent so good I’m astonished to discover she’s a Londoner). On the whole only Noel Clarke lets the side down on a performance level, monotonously growling every one of his mercifully limited lines.

I’m mixed on Centurion overall, because while I was very much taken along on the journey of the remnants of the ninth, engaged by much of the visceral action, and hugely impressed - as ever - by the photography of Marshall’s regular DP Sam McCurdy (really, there isn’t anyone who lights darkness as beautifully) there were also things that consistently bothered me. I’ve mentioned the problems with the action, but there’s also the problem of identification. I’m supposed to be rooting for Quintus Dias and his soldiers, but it’s hard to do that when they are the invaders and when you get the backstory behind the ferocity of Kuryelenko’s Pict warrior Etain. So I was really left with nobody to care about, I had fun watching Centurion, but there’s really not a lot more to it than that. That’s fine, and it will make a great night out for a bunch of male friends who fancy turning their brains off and enjoying a bit of a violent romp, but I had hoped for a little more from Neil Marshall.

From The Archives

THE HOTTIE AND THE NOTTIE
DIR: Tom Putnam
CAST: Paris Hilton, Joel David Moore, Christine Lakin


I’ve seen some sick, demented, shit over the course of watching something in excess of 7000 movies. I’ve ploughed my way through Cannibal Holocaust, The Toolbox Murders and many other video nasties. I’ve suffered the hopelessly inept likes of Date Movie and A Certain Sacrifice and I’ve somehow sat through the vomit inducingly offensive Pumpkin. And yet I still feel like The Hottie and the Nottie has reached a new low, a place so despicably terrible that it may scar me for life and should be supplied with not just a piracy warning but a health warning. I feel like I need to bathe in disinfectant to wash the stench away.

Hottie tells the story of Nate (Moore) who has been in love with Christabel (Hilton) since first grade, though he hasn’t seen her since then. Tracking her down to LA he finds that Christabel will only agree to date him if he agrees to find ‘someone special’ for her epically ugly best friend June (Lakin). Guess what happens.

It’s not so much the outline of the story, okay it’s generic, the same Pygmalion riff we’ve seen a million and six times, but it’s not actually offensive. It’s the way events play out that makes you want to scrub your eyes with a brillo pad. Here’s why; if The Hottie and the Nottie were a person it would be a jackbooted, armband sporting, sieg heiling Nazi. It’s an easy charge to make, and it’s been made (erroneously) in the past in reference to films like Starship Troopers and Fight Club but honestly, at times this feels less like a film than an advert for eugenics.

To finally get the man (as we all know she must) June’s inner beauty doesn’t come through, allowing Nate to see past her looks, no, instead she goes through an array of cosmetic surgery. The message of this movie isn’t that love is blind it’s that you MUST conform or you will go through life alone. Unconventionally attractive? FUCK YOU screams The Hottie and the Nottie, for in this world there is no such thing, you WILL fit the cookie cutter ideal of beauty or you will die a pathetic virgin.

Virginity is another thing that is demonised in this film, as much as sex is constantly idealised. Nate doesn’t seem to have any feelings for Christabel that emanate from above his groin. Nothing here indicates that he loves her, he merely wants to fuck her (something which she, classy, classy girl that she is, implies he’ll get to do the second he finds June that special someone) and rather than having a change of heart and deciding that, hey, that June might be the right girl for me he seems merely to look at her post-surgery and decide “Oh she’s hot now, perhaps I’d rather fuck her”.

The deeply suspect messages of the film continue in its treatment of alcohol. Christabel is constantly drinking, yet she never seems to suffer ill effects and all the characters seem to treat booze almost as medicinal. For a film that is clearly pitched at teenagers this is hugely irresponsible, it may as well flash up cards saying, “Drink. Solves all your problems”.
Not a single character (I use the word in the loosest sense possible) has a through line. They all seem to be different people depending on what scene you are watching with only the barest of traits to suggest that these aren’t actually a bunch of disconnected characters that we’re watching (Nate is obsessed with Christabel. Christabel is a total slut, but concerned about June. June is disgusting, until her surgery.)

Some of the films shallowness might be excusable (though the fascist outlook would still be reprehensible) were it in any sense competently executed, but it’s not, so it’s offensive in terms of quality as well as attitude. To begin with, the casting is truly, epically dreadful. Paris Hilton has all the screen charisma and acting ability of a chair. Well, maybe that’s unfair; I imagine there are a few chairs that could act her off the screen. The dead eyed Hilton never delivers any line in anything other than a flat, bored, monotone. Beyond that, though, her casting as the ultimate ideal of beauty is truly laughable. Hilton’s look here is best described as Anorexic Whore Barbie, for all the times that people in the film nearly lose their lunch merely by looking at June it was Hilton who made me struggle to hold on to my lunch. Joel David Moore, relatively entertaining in Dodgeball and Hatchet, is also terrible, his comic timing set by a metronome that is hopelessly off the pace. Christine Lakin is, on this evidence, a quite staggeringly average actress, which makes her look like Meryl Streep among a cast that would have failed auditions for a nursery school nativity. If June had anything resembling a character Lakin might have been able to do something with it, but even the modicum of presence that she brings comes as welcome relief, even if it is the very definition of too little too late. It’s also worth singling out, though he’s not in the movie much, The Greg Wilson (yes, that’s how he’s credited, I swear) as Moore’s best friend, as he gives perhaps the least funny performance ever to grace an alleged comedy.


It’s not, though, like the performers ever had a chance. The script from which they are working is so apparently and so irrevocably broken that the cast could have comprised a peak form DeNiro, Streep and Spacek and it still would have been a hateful, depressing experience. The most surprising thing about this rampantly misogynistic piece of sewage is that it was written by a woman; take a bow Heidi Ferrer, you’ve set sexual equality back 30 years, may you be cursed if ever you lift a pen or approach a keyboard again. As well as being offensive bilge The Hottie and the Nottie is a comedy containing precisely no laughs, believe me, I looked for them. It features not one single line of dialogue that you would believe a real human would utter and its romantic scenes are so utterly devoid of feeling that you may never love again after watching them.

The parade of ineptitude doesn’t stop there though, no, here comes Director Tom Putnam. Whatever Tom is he’s not a film director. The Hottie and the Nottie has no visual identity at all. Its set in LA, but there’s no sense of place. It’s lit and shot with a flatness that makes it look like the world’s dullest looking sitcom. There’s not one frame here that looks like a professionally produced movie, it looks like something three blind 12 year olds shot on their summer holidays.

I didn’t pay to see The Hottie and the Nottie, I saw it online, technically I was stealing from the filmmakers (which makes me feel like I’ve done a small public service) and yet I’M the one that feels robbed. Rather than feeling like I owe the ticket price for this film to its makers I feel like I should consider suing for the considerable emotional damage I’ve suffered watching their excrementally awful product.
In case I wasn’t clear about this: The Hottie and the Nottie is unfunny, offensive, misogynistic, hateful, evil and fascist. Fuck you, movie.

Film Review

BOOGIE WOOGIE
DIR: Duncan Ward
CAST: Danny Huston, Gillian Anderson, Stellan Skarsgard,
Heather Graham, Jamie Winstone, Alan Cumming



Before I launch into my thoughts on this satire on the modern Brit Art scene I should probably clarify my position on modern art. By and large, I don’t get it. Now, that’s not to say that I assume it’s all rubbish but while I can see the layers upon layers of meaning in, say, the incredible shot of Kathleen Byron putting on lipstick at the end of Black Narcissus, I struggle to see the artistry or meaning in a pile of bricks, or running Psycho really slowly so it lasts 24 hours, or in the painting around which Boogie Woogie centres. To me it just looks like black lines on a white background, with one square coloured in in yellow. Great, but honestly, I don’t see the artistry in it for one second, doesn’t mean it isn’t there, just that it’s not for me.

By the same token, if you are into modern art, if you are part of that scene, Boogie Woogie may be cutting, incisive, clever and hilariously funny. From where I’m standing, as that painting looks like a few lines and a yellow square, Boogie Woogie looks like an irritating, desperately unfunny, smugly pleased with itself piece of shit. My GOD but it’s annoying. Okay, maybe that’s the essence of its satire, maybe it’s making fun of the pretentious nature of the art scene, but if that’s what it’s doing, well, it’s failing, because it isn’t funny or clever, there’s no skewering of pretentiously fashionable Londoners here that isn’t done better (and faster) in Private Eye’s It’s Grim Up North London comic strip, it’s not even really clear if any of it is meant as a joke.

This isn’t to say that Boogie Woogie isn’t funny, just that isn’t funny for the right reasons. For example, the two contenders for the worst performance prize; Gillian Anderson (as a rich socialite who loves her art more than her husband, played by Stellan Skarsgard) and Danny Huston (as an art dealer whose laugh made me want to strangle him), are both hilariously bad. Anderson’s accent is note perfect, but that aside she’s titanically terrible, giving a performance so huge that I’m sure you can be irritated by it from space. Her wooden spoon moment comes when she realises the husband she’s divorcing has sold their entire art collection as she screams “The art”, the way that a mother might scream “the baby” on seeing it run over. Huston, usually so good, has clearly been directed to give this teeth-grindingly annoying performance, typified by the fingernails down the blackboard sound of his “ha-ha” laugh, which occurs roughly every 2.5 seconds when he’s on screen, which is for a good hour of this crap. The last time a laugh was so annoying and ill used was when Vince Vaughn followed his every line as Norman Bates with that fey “tee-hee”.

The rest of the cast is little better. Alan Cumming overacts outrageously as the agent video artist Jamie Winstone chucks the minute she gets a show, Stellan Skarsgard seems half asleep as Anderson’s husband. Amanda Seyfried has little to do, in a role that seems to have suffered in the editing room (though, small blessings, this means we don’t see her make out with Skarsgard, who was one of her possible fathers in Mamma Mia) and there are similarly dull, if not bad, turns from Christopher Lee and Joanna Lumley as the formerly rich owners of the titular painting. Jamie Winstone is okay as the lesbian video artist, though her character is as dull, pretentious and annoying as all the rest and the angelic Heather Graham, still unreasonably beautiful at 40, is almost good as Huston’s secretary who wants to open her own gallery. Their (very brief, and pretty tame) lesbian sex scene is perhaps the only thing in this film worth seeing on its own merits.

Don’t go and see Boogie Woogie. It’s shit. But when it comes out on DVD (on MONDAY) rent a copy, get some witty mates round, and mock it mercilessly. It’s an anti-classic in the making and the only really awful film I’ve seen this year that is at least entertaining in its complete dreadfulness.

Film Review: The Ghost

THE GHOST [WRITER]
DIR: Roman Polanski
CAST: Ewan McGregor, Olivia Williams, Pierce Brosnan,
Kim Cattrall, Tom Wilkinson



You’ll notice that I’ve written the title of this film slightly oddly. That’s because I’m not sure what it’s actually called, and neither is the film itself. The (very abrupt) opening title has it as The Ghost while the closing credits - which, to be honest, don’t have the tacked on feel of that opening title - suggest that the title is The Ghost Writer. Sadly, whatever it’s called, this is one of the more interesting questions raised by Roman Polanski’s latest.

What really struck me while watching The Ghost was how stale the whole thing felt. Some critics have dubbed this a return to 70’s style filmmaking; slow and deliberate pacing rather than the ten cuts per second that a lot of modern cinema throws at you. I’d like nothing better than to say that that was true, but the problem here is that that slow pace is used in the service of a story that feels utterly by the numbers. The plot plods forward step by laboured step, nothing truly dynamic really happens, nothing in this thriller ever thrills - well, unless you think Ewan McGregor typing is the height of excitement - because by the time the film reaches its ultimate destination you’ve already been there for some time, made yourself a drink, and put your feet up to wait for Polanski and company to join you.

This is also a lazy film in almost every way. The plot turns, as is sadly so often the case now, on the main character running a Google search. This usually strains credulity, but here it’s just laughable. McGregor’s ghost writer, suspicious of the former Prime Minister (Brosnan) whose memoirs he is currently rewriting, runs a very simple search and, essentially, uncovers a global conspiracy with about three clicks. And they say investigative journalism is hard work. That said, Polanski is a great filmmaker and he’s made serviceable thrillers out of unpromising or silly screenplays before (see The Ninth Gate, for example).

Sadly he can’t pull it off this time out. The direction is possibly the most disappointing aspect of The Ghost. It seems as though Polanski was present on the set only in body, because his work here is so listless, so disinterested, so irredeemably dull, that you can’t believe it’s the same man who made the likes of Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby and Chinatown at the helm. There’s not one memorable shot in this film, nothing that has any verve to it, no image that will stick in your head. I haven’t seen Rosemary’s Baby in two years, but still I can summon the image of Mia Farrow waking from a nightmare with scratches down her naked back. It’s been under 24 hours since I saw The Ghost and I’d struggle to relate one image from it without glancing at my notes.

There’s also a seeming lack of interest from the cast. Ewan McGregor, once possibly the finest actor of his generation, now lurches from paycheck job to paycheck job and he’s clearly not even trying here. His English accent is, as ever, abysmal, but it’s more than that, his character is the one who is supposed to take us with him into this murky political world, but he’s a blank slate. McGregor brings absolutely no personality to his nameless alter ego, and because he’s not interesting I didn’t care what he discovered (you also get the sense, thanks to his professed lack of interest in politics, that the character doesn’t care either, which really doesn’t help). Pierce Brosnan is better as Tony Blair - sorry - “Adam Lang”, but he too is underdeveloped and until the film’s one really good scene, when he at last confronts the moral issue of torturing suspected terrorists for information, Lang is really just a grinning Blair analogue played by Brosnan with enthusiasm and a dubious accent. The parade of bad accents continues with Kim Cattrall’s pretty damn funny attempt at upper class southern English as Lang’s secretary.

The sole reason to see The Ghost (other than to see just how insultingly terrible its ending is, because it really does beggar belief) is Olivia Williams. Now in her early 40’s, Williams has been plugging away in Hollywood since the late 90’s, when she debuted in Kevin Costner’s The Postman, but impressed in Rushmore. She’s had a low key career, and deserves better, if only because she takes what is another rather underwritten part (as Lang’s more politically astute wife) and invests it with a reality light years beyond what the rest of the cast manage. In a couple of scenes with McGregor she manages to kick a little real life into the film, and make you both wonder and care about her motives as she begins to get close to ‘the ghost’ (the McGregor character is never given a name). It’s not great work, not Oscar calibre (which I’ve seen suggested in a few reviews) but frankly I can see how people might think that, given what she’s playing against.

The Ghost - or The Ghost Writer - is a pretty terrible film; a plodding thriller, all but devoid of thrills, poorly executed by all but Olivia Williams and the overall feeling is one of watching some very talented people, especially McGregor and Polanski, pay their bills.

Next Week

UK DVD [19/4]

Crazy Love
I don’t really want to tell you anything about this film, which relates the story of how Burt and Linda Pugach, who have known each other for fifty years, ended up getting married. It is a story so completely outlandish that nobody would dare make it up. This is a compelling documentary about two frankly unique people.


US DVD [20/4]

The Lovely Bones
Really recommended purely for Saoirse Ronan’s performance, which really keeps Peter Jackson’s otherwise pretty awful movie afloat. It’s a bad week for US DVD releases.

Oh, and something called Avatar, which can go fuck itself.


UK THEATRICAL RELEASE [23/4]

Dogtooth
I’ve discussed this on a couple of occasions already. Hopefully I’ll be bringing you a review from another perspective (that of my friend Guy, who I’m dragging to it this coming Friday) in the future. The bottom line is this; Dogtooth is a truly original, strange and haunting piece of work, and marks director Yorgos Lanthimos as a real talent. You MUST see it if you get the chance.

Life During Wartime
Todd Solondz’ spiritual sequel to Happiness (which sees an all new cast playing the same characters), hasn’t had the warmest of critical welcomes, but I saw it at last year’s LFF, and thought it was extremely interesting and exceptionally well acted throughout. It is, incidentally, almost worth going just to see Ally Sheedy’s priceless cameo appearance.

La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet
Frederick Wiseman is one of the legends of documentary cinema, and I’ve heard great things about this long, but apparently engrossing, study of the Paris Opera ballet from several people whose opinions I hold in very high regard. I’ll be seeing it anyway, because my love for The Red Shoes has really made me interested in ballet (watching it, that is).


LINK OF THE WEEK
Melonfarmers
No, it's not porn. Melonfarmers (named for a dubbed alternative for motherfucker, used in a TV screening of Alex Cox' Repo Man) is a brilliant anti-censorship site which, as well as covering the BBFC and MPAA casts a net over any free expression stories and concerns the world over. It's a great repositry of information and a campaigning site that manages not to be self-righteous.

Mini-Reviews: Three slices of American Pie

AMERICAN PIE / AMERICAN PIE 2 / AMERICAN PIE: THE WEDDING
DIR: Paul and Chris Weitz / JB Rogers / Jesse Dylan


The American Pie movies are not, perhaps, quite as funny now as the first was eleven years ago, when it essentially revived the raunchy teen comedy in the mould of Porkys and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The first Pie was generally spoken of as being more remeniscent of the former, but for me it's closer in both spirit and tone to the latter. That's because, behind all three of the original Pie films (I've never seen, and won't, the direct to DVD films which have followed) is Adam Herz, who apparently based significant amounts of the the story and events of each film on his own experiences with his friends. Herz' writing isn't especially original, and certainly couldn't really be called intellectual, but what he does bring to the table is an obvious affection for and understanding of the characters he's created.

Even when they're not at their best (and the sequels are both patchy, and often feel more like a series of linked skits than a real story) these thrree films are saved by the fact that Herz really seems to want his characters to grow and change through the films. They always hit familliar beats: Jim (Jason Biggs) always does something very embarrassing and unwittingly public; Stifler (Seann William Scott) is always a raging asshole, and always gets his comeuppance; Finch is refined, and always lusting after Stifler's Mom... etc etc, but most of them do grow and change through the series. It's best seen in the relationship between Jim and Michelle (the ever adorable Alyson Hannigan). In the first film Michelle is a one joke character, but the combination of Hannigan's winning performance and some surprisingly sensitive writing (particularly for a film that is otherwise so messily written) allow her to grow into a much more rounded character in the second film; someone you feel for as well as finding funny.

This all said, I know that these films aren't primarily designed as character pieces, and the accent is always very much on trying to make us laugh rather than trying to make us think. All three films are, for me, hit and miss in this respect; every one boasts huge belly laughs (Michelle's famous "This one time, at band camp" in the first film; her lessons, helping Jim prepare for meeting up with Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth) in Pie 2 and the scenes in which Finch and Stifler essentially trade characters in The Wedding stick out for me) and each also has things in it that fall terribly flat, especially the second film, which suffers from trying to tell too many stories and thus sacrificing laughs.

Overall, this is one of the more consistent trilogies out there, the first probably remains, just about, the best but the solid performances, the reliably funny writing and an unusual level of thought at character level make it a close run thing and mean that all three of these films are fun to revisit.

They Made Tom Watch...

What’s it about?
YOU GET THE BEEEST OF BOTH WORLD… LA LA LA LA… Sorry… Umm… The film. It’s about a girl called Miley Stewart who is secretly pop star Hannah Montana. She gets a bit out of control so her dad takes her home to the deep south so she can find herself. Finding ensues, as do a few really annoying sub-plots.

Is it any good?
I have a reputation for having the cinematic and musical taste of a 9 year old girl, and thus, I quite liked it. There are a few annoying niggles, like the various extraneous sub-plots, but nothing that a good ol’ song and dance doesn’t cure. All is righted in the end after all…
It’s a charming film that does what it was designed to do and does it well. It drags a little in the first half, where the song set pieces seem to be designed for people with ADHD, but settles nicely in the final act, and delivers nicely at the end.
On a side note, someone should hunt and kill Billy Ray Cyrus.

Who is it for?
Pre teen girls. And me.

What is it like?
Hannah Montana: The Concert (though sadly I’ve not seen this… yet.)

Good Stuff
The set piece songs, the simple and effective plot.

Bad Stuff
English people, sub-plotting, Billy Ray Cyrus.

24FPS on Superpodcast

Well, I've been trailing it for long enough and here it finally is. I've been talking with the lovely Supermarcey for a little while about appearing on and lowering the usualy extremely professional standard of her always entertaining and instructive Superpodcast.

The topic for this podcast (Episode 27) is "Why haven't you seen these films?" Each of us picked five great movies that you probably haven't seen, but should, to talk about. I think it's an interesting and entertaining hour. Thanks to Marcey for having me, I hope we'll do it again some time.

The player embedded below will, hopefully, work for everyone but if it doesn't you can find the podcast streaming at Marcey's site (which you should visit anyway, because it's ace).

As ever, comments will be much appreciated.



Listen Here

Mini-Reviews: Tin Cup / My Summer of Love

TIN CUP
DIR: Ron Shelton


Director Ron Shelton has made something of a trademark of sports movies, with White Men Can't Jump, Play it to the Bone and Bull Durham (also with Tin Cup star Kevin Costner) among his credits. He's left the world of sports behind recently, and, tellingly, his more recent work hasn't been as well recieved comercially or critically.

Tin Cup combines a sports movie with a romantic comedy, and both are actually pleasingly different. In featuring two relatively mature (in years if not attitude) characters the romantic storyline between Costner and Rene Russo - who have pretty strong romantic and comedic chemistry - feels less rote than usual. The golf storyline, while it ends, as expected, on a high note for Costner's washed up golf pro Roy 'Tin Cup' McAvoy doesn't quite go in for the last second victory that is the preserve of almost every sports movie ever made. Tin Cup doesn't radically depart from the cliches of either genre, but it shakes them up just enough to feel fresh.

This is also helped by the energetic and engaging performances. Kevin Costner; an underrated actor who always seems to be at his best as some sort of sportsman, gives one of his best performances as the neurotic McAvoy. He's especially good when he's nervously trying to ask Russo out, in the manner of a 14 year old boy asking the prettiest girl in school to prom. Russo is also good, she doesn't have quite as much to play as Costner, but she does funny and maturely sexy well. Tin Cup isn't a great classic, but it's an amusing couple of hours; it never feels baggy and it always remains fun, great escapism.


MY SUMMER OF LOVE
DIR: Pawel Pawlikowski



I always seem to forget, between viewings, just how dark this film about Yorkshire girl Mona (Natalie Press), and the summer over which she falls for upper class Tamzin (Emily Blunt), really is. Theere are certainly shades of other films in this one; echoes of Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures abound (a relationship between two girls, one of them upper class and a fantacist (Blunt here, Kate Winslet in Jackson's film) and, if anything, it bears that influence more heavily than that of the (TERRIBLE) novel the film is ostensibly based on.

If anything the story is a little banal and familliar, the only signifcantly new element coming in Paddy Considine's role as Mona's newly born-again brother Phil, but the performances, the music (by Goldfrapp) and the gorgeous images crafted by Pawlikowski, whose previous documentary work here gives way to something more impressionistic, all exceed the screenplay. For me it is Natalie Press, as the rather naive Mona, who really owns the film. She's able to turn on a dime from being broad and comic (as in a scene where she demonstrates to Tamzin how her older boyfriend would have sex with her) to something much smaller and heavier (The way she tells Tamzin "If you leave me, I'll kill you, and then I'll kill myself").

Considne also gives a remarkable performance; all repression, emotion held barely in check by his newfound faith, he's particularly outstanding when Tamzin tries to seduce Phil. I'm a little surprised that it was Emily Blunt who went from this film to a Hollywood career; she's beautiful, ceertainly, but while she's good here she's perhaps not as strong as Press and Considine. My Summer of Love is a beautifully made film, if perhaps a deceptively titled one, but it's one whose excellent performances allow you to get really wrapped up in the film's small, personal story.

Self Promotion

The trailer for the next episode of Supermarcey's Super Podcast, on which I'm the guest, has just come out. Check it out here, and be sure to tune in for the whole show from Friday. Comments, of course, will be welcomed here, on youtube and, I'm sure, at Marcey's site.

I Love Paul Verhoeven

A lot of actors and directors have, shall we say, interesting hobbies, but few more so than Paul Verhoeven. I've seldom been more surprised than I was when I discovered that Verhoeven, the provocateur behind the likes of Robocop, Basic Instinct and The Fourth Man, is an internationally recognised scholar on the subject of the historical Jesus. Yes, really. He's the only lay member of the Jesus Seminar. He's also just published (in English, it came out in his native Holland a while back) a biography of Jesus, simply called Jesus of Nazareth. And he wants to make it into a film.

If no other film is made in the next year, that one HAS to go before cameras, it will probably be greeted with controversy that makes The Last Temptation of Christ seem like Toy Story 3, I can't wait to hear the sound of the heads of groups like Mediawatch and Christian Voice exploding with rage.

Another reason I love Paul Verhoeven, aside from the sheer entertainment value of his movies? Try this quote, about Mel Gibson's torture porn take on the New Testament; The Passion of the Christ

“If that’s God, then we are really fucked.”

.
Yeah, I love Paul Verhoeven.

Mini-Reviews: How to Train Your Dragon / The Scouting Book for Boys / The Fish Child / I Am Love

2010 films I Neglected to Review

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON [3D]
DIR: Dean DeBlois / Chris Sanders



Dreamworks’ latest animated film lacks the emotion of last year's Pixar effort Up, and the lunatic invention of Columbia's wonderful Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, but it isn’t without charm. The performances by the vocal cast (even, surprisingly, Gerard Butler as a Viking chief) are fun and relatively engaging and, while it’s very generic, the buddy movie story between misfit Viking Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and the wounded dragon he adopts is funny and has moments of real charm.

The look is enjoyably cartoony, and the character design largely appealing (though, sadly, the dragon; Toothless, is rather a bland design) and the 3D, while as pointless as ever, is well implemented enough that, while it adds nothing to the film, it manages not to detract from it. No classic, but an agreeable timewaster.


THE SCOUTING BOOK FOR BOYS
DIR: Tom Harper


Despite giving the film its (awful) title the book Scouting for Boys appears in this film for approximately five seconds, and is of little to no importance. Instead the film revolves around David (Thomas Turgoose of This is England) and Emily (Holliday Grainger), two roughly 14 year old friends living in a caravan park, currently on its off season. One day Emily disappears, and the community suspects foul play, centring round an older boy (Rafe Spall) who may have been Emily’s boyfriend, however, Emily is in hiding, and David is helping conceal her in a local cave.

This dark tale stands or falls on the performances of Turgoose and Grainger, and both are excellent. Turgoose, finally, shows that he’s real talent, rather than just receptive to Shane Meadows’ direction, giving a complex and realistic portrayal of a young man nursing a painful, unreturned, crush on a friend. Grainger is equally fine, moving as a desperately naïve young girl running away from a pretty awful situation, and the two play off each other well, with that easy intimacy of friends giving way to a slight, but real, awkwardness when the difference in their feelings is stated.

The ending is shocking, and not entirely convincing. I understood David’s jealousy, but never quite bought the film’s last ten minutes, solid as Turgoose is in them, but that’s a small issue next to the preceding tense and involving 80 odd minutes.


EL NIÑO PEZ
[THE FISH CHILD]
DIR: Lucia Puenzo


This was a real disappointment. The last collaboration between writer/director Lucia Puenzo and actress Ines Efron was the excellent XXY. Unfortunately, The Fish Child; a rather muddled and uninvolving tale taking in a lesbian relationship between the daughter (Efron) of a murdered judge and their young house maid (Maria Vitale) and vacillating between being a romance, a road movie, a dark drama and a crime thriller with little purpose or direction, lacks any of the emotional punch of that first collaboration.

Much of the problem is down to Puenzo’s storytelling; she chops the timeline up so much in the first hour of the film that it’s unclear what is happening when, and it’s really hard to get a handle on what you’re supposed to be feeling at any given moment. When the flashback disappear in the films last act the story takes a radical, and risible, gear shift. Efron is a great actress, and she does sterling work here with a thin role, but she’s just laughable in the last few scenes as she simply isn’t physically threatening enough. What does work relatively well, though it’s given surprisingly little prominence, is the relationship, there’s a real intimacy between Efron and Vitale and Efron’s longing for her lover comes through viscerally. A great actress then, in a rather underwhelming project.


IO SONO L’AMORE
[I AM LOVE]
DIR: Luca Guadagnino



I Am Love has taken a long time, over a decade in fact, to reach the screen. It was born out of the friendship between director Luca Guadagnino and leading lady Tilda Swinton. Set in Milan, and played entirely in Italian, it sees Swinton as a Russian woman who has married into a rich and powerful industrial family and raised three children, when her younger son befriends a chef (Edoardo Gabbriellini) Emma begins to fall for the handsome young man.

As its title might suggest, I Am Love is cinema on a rather grand scale. Guadagnino’s images are striking, often almost operatic in their scale and intention, metaphor isn’t dealt with subtly here, it’s thrust at you in glorious colour and intricate, imposing, composition. The score is similar in tone; John Adams’ music is very beautiful, and it is also, at times, almost assaultively deployed, asking, nay, demanding that you experience the desired emotional response to each scene. For about an hour I Am Love is exceptional, the images and the music cast a spell on you, and the rather intimate screenplay and Swinton’s brilliant performance (in what sounds to me like perfect Italian) draw you in despite the artifice of much of what Guadagnino is doing. Unfortunately, after a pivotal mid film sex scene (which is gorgeously shot, as if Terence Malick had put an urgent and explicit sex scene into Badlands), the film begins to fall apart.

The focus drifts from Emma’s new experience of love and instead there are several dull scenes revolving round the family business and a last minute twist that turns the film from something operatic in scale to something overwrought and more concerned with that operatic tone than with the more down to earth emotion of the first part of the film. Swinton remains astonishing throughout, but as the film goes on it begins to crumble around her faster and faster.

Film Review: Storm

STORM
DIR: Hans-Christian Schmid
CAST: Kerry Fox, Anamaria Marinca, Stephen Dillane



Storm has an interesting idea. Set at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, it follows a prosecutor (Fox) who finds that a three year old case against a former Bosnian general is about to collapse because a witness lied to her. She’s got a week to get the case back on track and convince a new witness (Marinca) to testify. The problem with this film is that the execution just doesn’t match the promise of the idea.

As you might expect with a distinguished cast and Hans-Christian Schmid, who drew such remarkable work from Sandra Huller in his previous film Requiem, behind the lens the performances are excellent. Fox, allowed for once to use her natural New Zealand accent, is an excellent and underrated actress, and she’s entirely believable as this lawyer with a desperate desire both to put a disturbing case to bed and to see justice done. She’s also a good physical fit for the role, at 44 she’s certainly an attractive woman, but she’s no glamour girl, she’s the right age and has the right look for us to buy her in this role in a way that, say, Penelope Cruz really doesn’t. It’s more than that though; the lines that she’s given as Hannah Maynard are largely very functional and actually rather lacking in character, but Fox manages to bring more depth to the role than was likely there on the page, only coming unstuck when the screenplay essentially throws up its hands and abandons plausibility entirely.

There’s also a fine performance from Anamaria Marica, the Romanian actress lauded for her work in Channel 4’s Sex Traffic and, more recently, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Here she manages to bring emotion to her part in three languages; Czech, German and English and bring a measure of credibility to her character’s emotional journey, despite the fact that, again, the screenplay, by virtue of its very truncated timeline, offering little in the way of help or plausibility.

The workings of the ICC and the way it takes care of witnesses are convincingly observed, and there seems to have been scrupulous research into the manner in which it conducts its business. The first twenty minutes of the film are especially convincing, and thus especially interesting, from this point of view. Sadly the screenplay begins to fall down in its second and third acts, with character motivation feeling hazy (Marinca’s character especially, who goes from ‘can’t hep, won’t help’ to ‘lets get the bastard’ in a very few scenes). The ending is what killed the film for me though, a ridiculous, laughably implausible, piece of grandstanding, followed up by a coda all of which feels like a sermon directed at the ICC, really, if that’s all that Schmid and co-writer Bernd Lange had to say I wish they’d just written a strongly worded letter to someone.

Fox and Marinca’s excellent work aside, Storm doesn’t really work, perhaps Schmid and Lange aren’t yet assured enough in English, or perhaps this clanging, declamatory tone is exactly what they were after, either way it really undermines what could have been a genuinely smart and provocative film, and it’s a terrible disappointment from a filmmaker who had previously made something as subtle, as intelligent and as absolutely real as Requiem.

Film Review: Clash of the Titans [2010] [3D]

CLASH OF THE TITANS [2010] [3D]
DIR: Louis Leterrier
CAST: Sam Worthington, Mads Mikkelsen, Gemma Arterton,
Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes



Before we go any further, here’s the first thing to say about Clash of the Titans [2D in selected theatres]. It’s not in 3D. That’s absolutely, unambiguously, true for about 75% of the film, take your glasses off and you will see that the post conversion process which has been hurriedly done to allow this shoddy film to pretend that it’s in 3D had been applied to barely a quarter of the shots, and in those scant moments in which the 3D is utilised it is absolutely terrible. There’s no illusion of depth here, just three very distinct planes; foreground, middle ground and background. Director Leterrier has already compared the 3D effect to looking his film through a viewmaster, and frankly that’s being kind. It’s hazy, dark thanks to the 3D glasses and distractingly badly implemented. It detracts from the action scenes in particular, because of the technical problem that 3D still hasn’t solved; the fact that fast motion is often extremely blurry and indistinct. This is NOT a 3D film, in any sense.

Talking of things that aren’t three dimensional; ladies and gentlemen… Sam Worthington. Over the past 12 months Worthington has gone from being a nobody to Hollywood’s newest anointed action star. He combines half the talent of Arnold Schwarzennegger with none of the presence; he’s simply one of the blandest actors on screen right now. There’s nothing interesting either about Worthington or about his character Perseus. The only diverting aspect of his ‘performance’ is noting how wildly his accent skips around the globe, often crossing continents between words. Sometimes he’s broadly Australian (so much so that it’s a surprise he doesn’t refer to Gemma Arterton’s Io as “that gorgeous Shiela that keeps following me”) sometimes he unconvincingly attempts American, and sometimes, yet more risibly, British. The man has no ear for either tone or emotion in language. When he’s supposed to be angry (as he is for most of this film) it sounds more like he’s concentrating REALLY hard on ending an especially difficult bout of constipation and when he’s trying to convey warmth he just sounds bored, as if he’s reading from cue cards. It’s a performance so bad it almost approaches parody.

It’s hard to really blame Worthington for his terrible performance though, because the screenplay is an absolute trainwreck (involving, by the way, precisely no Titans) and nobody, with the exception of the effortlessly awesome Mads Mikkelsen, comes out of this thing with their dignity intact. I’m not sure whether I’ve seen the original Clash of the Titans, and certainly if I have my memories of it are lost among the thousands of other movies I’ve seen, but I understand that Gemma Arterton’s character Io is newly created for this version. This may explain why she’s so completely bereft of purpose. She seems to be some sort of oracle, cursed by the gods with agelessness (when you look like a 23 year old Gemma Arterton, I’m not sure that’s much of a curse) and she’s apparently been watching over Perseus his whole life. What’s really unclear is whether she’s real, only once does she interact with any other character, in a brief exchange with Mikkelsen which is so perfunctory and pointless that I could easily believe it’s a continuity error. So is she some spirit guide for Perseus, is she a real person or is she some supernatural being somewhere between those two states? The film doesn’t care; as far as it’s concerned Io’s job is to be gorgeous (check) and to spew raw exposition every ten minutes. Arterton does her best, but the dialogue clunks horribly and sounds more like readings from a five year olds book of myths than dialogue.

Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes are way too good for this movie. They both stand around in ludicrous wigs and beards, spouting raw exposition (roughly 90% of this film’s dialogue is exposition) and neither advances beyond a single note. Neeson bellows as Zeus, Fiennes hisses as Hades and Danny Huston looks vaguely embarrassed, and says one line, as Poseidon. Credit where due though, Mads Mikkelsen, who treats the film with the contempt it so richly deserves and seems barely to be trying, is so charismatic that even though he’s half asleep he steals the film and the strikingly lovely Alexa Davlos is well cast and gives a decent performance in a very small part as Andromeda.

The thing is, these things - the performances, the script - are crap because the film simply doesn’t care about them, it’s not about those things, it’s about loud noises, CGI and fighting. Louis Letterier is becoming, like his star, Hollywood’s action movie go to guy, and while his work is certainly more intelligible than that of Michael Bay, he’s no great shakes as a director. The effects aren’t bad (though the poor 3D does the integration of the CGI absolutely no favours), but there is little imagination in Leterrier’s shot selection and the action scenes never really excite. Part of this, especially in the scene in Medusa’s lair, is also down to the fact that the 3D glasses darken the film, sometimes to the point of obscuring action, but it’s really because Perseus comes across as a brat. At one point Mikkelsen points out just how many people are dying for Perseus’ petulant need for revenge, Perseus petulantly ignores him… My hero. This means that the hero isn’t heroic, the story isn’t engaging because we don’t give a tuppenny fuck what happens to any of these not quite characters (and also, frankly, because every beat of the film is predictable) and the CGI, while it might have been impressive to begin with, is very poorly served by the 3D conversion process. That’s not to say that Clash of the Titans will be good in 2D; it will still be boring, have exposition in place of character, and feature risible performances from almost the entire cast, in short it will be shit, but at least it will be shit you wont have to strain your eyes looking at.

Next Week

UK DVD [12/4]


Raging Phoenix
I loved Chocolate; the first film starring martial arts actress Jeeja Yanin, and I’ve been enthusiastically aniticpating the arrival of Raging Phoenix for some time. On the evidence of Chocolate Yanin has all the power and flexibility of Tony Jaa, but also much more on screen magnetism and even a smattering of acting talent. This ought to be lots of fun.

Henri Georges Clouzot’s Inferno
Clouzot’s Inferno, about the jealousy that drives a husband out of his mind when he suspects his beautiful wife is having an affair, was never finished. A version of the film (an excellent version, which I imagine would make a great double bill with this film) was eventually made by Claude Chabrol, but this documentary tells the story of the original shoot (abandoned three weeks in) and features fragments of the footage Clouzot shot. It should be a fascinating unmaking of.


US DVD [13/4]


The Daisy Chain
It’s a shame that this excellent British horror film, which I saw at its world premiere at the Raindance film Festival more than two years ago, is only now seeing a release, and that it is direct to DVD and, at least for the time being, only in the US. It’s a creepy little film, boasting strong performances from Steven Mackintosh, Samantha Morton and especially young Mhairi Anderson. It’s perhaps closest in tone to The Wicker Man (the original version, that is). Also, the cover art (shown above) has less than nothing to do with the movie.


UK THEATRICAL RELEASE [16/4]


The City of Life and Death
Lu Chuan’s film about the Nanjing massacre has attracted some of the most admiring reviews of the year so far. It is, apparently, an extremely challenging film to watch (though not because, as with say Philososphy of a Knife and Men Behind the Sun, it revels in the violence of its times), but that’s to be expected of any film taking on these events. I’ve not seen any of director Lu Chuan’s previous work, but if what I hear about this film turns out to be true I think I may be seeking it out soon.


US THEATRICAL RELEASE [16/4]


Kick Ass
As previously discussed, it’s better than the hype. No, really, I’ve seen it twice now, and I’ll see it again before it leaves cinemas. It’s just brilliant, make sure you see it so that in two years I can write about how amazing Kick Ass 2: Balls to the Wall is.


LINK OF THE WEEK
Movie-Censorship.com
This is a German site, so sometimes you’ll have to excuse their English (though, lets be fair, it’s better than my German, and probably yours too), but the content here is fantastic, and updated almost daily. The focus is side by side comparisons (including screencaps and running time info) of the different versions that many movies exist in, from official director’s cuts to never released workprints to (as the name implies) censored versions. There’s a huge amount of useful information here it you are a film fanatic.


24FPS NEXT WEEK
Back to normal service, with all your favourite features returning. The big news though is that on Thursday last week I recorded a guest spot with the lovely and movie crazy Super Marcey (of Supermarcey.com) for her Superpodcast. Our subject, which she graciously allowed me to pick, as the guest, was “Why haven’t you seen these movies?” and we discussed ten great movies that you (probably) haven’t seen. There should be a youtube trailer out soon and the full, roughly hour long, show ought to be out on Friday morning. Look out for it, either here or at Marcey’s site.

Film Review: Samson & Delilah

SAMSON & DELILAH
DIR: Warwick Thornton
CAST: Rowan McNamara, Marissa Gibson



When were you most bored? What did it feel like? Midway through Samson & Delilah I wondered just how I could possibly review it. How, with mere words, I could communicate the sheer bludgeoning tedium of the experience. I’m not sure that I will succeed, but do me a favour, and picture this… Imagine you are attending an evening class, each class is an hour long, and there are ten lessons. The subject of the class is: “How to watch paint dry”, the dominant teaching aids are bar graphs, demonstrating how long paint will take to dry, given various states, surfaces and other variables. The charts are black and white. The class is being taught by Ben Stein (the teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off). This, I imagine, approaches being half as dull as the experience of sitting through Samson & Delilah.

The film begins in the Australian outback, in a scattered aboriginal community. The titular Samson and Delilah appear to be the only residents in their late teens. Samson (McNamara) sniffs solvents, and moons around after (well, stalks might be a more accurate description) Delilah (Gibson), whose only occupation is looking after her grandmother. She never encourages his affections, but when he’s thrown out by his older brother and her Grandmother dies the two go to the city together (why? Because that’s what it says, here in my script) and live on the street. The entire time they never exchange ONE SINGLE WORD.

I’ve said before, it’s not that I mind films about nothing, or films with little to no dialogue, but if you are telling a story which essentially just almost silently follows two people’s lives, with no real big events or larger sense of drama you had best make sure that those people are fascinating. It’s here (well, it’s almost everywhere, but notably here) that debuting director Warwick Thornton falls down. Largely by dint of the fact that neither of them speaks more than a handful of words. In Samson’s case it’s somewhat understandable; his brain may be affected by his solvent habit, but in Delilah’s it just feels unrealistic to the point of being silly, even if she’s shy, or traumatised, there are a mass of scenes here where it’s just totally unnatural for her not to speak (for example, she never exchanges one word with the older tramp who shares both his sleeping site and his food with them). Perhaps Thornton just isn’t confident in his ability to write dialogue, but if that’s the case then you bring in another writer rather than just having your characters be silent.

This silence, combined with the somnambulant performances of McNamara and Gibson, also means that neither Samson nor Delilah ever develops anything resembling a trait, let alone a personality. These aren’t characters. Like Twilight’s Bella Swan they are walking shells, spaces of totally pure vacancy, unencumbered by emotion or expression. Nothing happens in this movie (or, when it does, as when Delilah is kidnapped – oddly she doesn’t even appear to try and scream, which really is taking the silence motif a bit far – it happens almost entirely off screen), and so the running time is filled with endless repetition; Samson’s brother’s band play the same single refrain throughout every scene in the outback; Samson constantly has a cup of petrol under his nose; Samson and Delilah walk around aimlessly, saying nothing; the tramp tries to engage them, they stare silently into space. Look, you don’t have to be entertaining, movie, but DO SOMETHING.

Warwick Thronton is a cinematographer by trade, and the photography here is pretty good, but honestly, who cares, because this film is no more interesting for being nicely shot, the pretty pictures being akin to a pink ribbon, wrapped round the dog turd you’ve just been given for Christmas, I appreciate the gesture Warwick, and it’s a nice ribbon, but that’s still a turd you’ve wrapped it round.


More reviews tomorrow.