In The Crap

There’s an article here by Toby Young that essentially talks about this:

As a reviewer, I always accepted that film is a collaborative medium, but until I started spending time with film-makers I had no idea just how true that is. It is most obvious when it comes to the screenplay. It is fairly well known that the officially credited writers of a film are rarely, if ever, the only authors of the shooting script, but I was still shocked when a famous screenwriter confided he'd been Oscar-nominated for a film he hadn't written a single word of...

I now realise that describing someone as the "director" - or "screenwriter" or "producer" - is completely misleading, in that there are no clearly circumscribed areas of responsibility on a film set. Those official titles are, at best, starting points, guideposts that sometimes point you in the right direction, but equally often lead you astray.

Slogging my way through In The Cut, a single question became immediately apparent: if film truly is a collaborative process as Mister Young states in his article (and I’m not suggesting for a second that it isn’t), then how on earth does something like In The Cut limp its way onto celluloid? Didn’t anyone involved with the making of this film have the presence of mind to say, “Uh, Jane, sweetie – that film you’ve directed? It’s utter guff.” Perhaps everyone was intimidated by the Oscar that Ms Campion no doubt takes everywhere with her, but even so, that’s not really an excuse. If you believe Toby Young, then a film can be made or destroyed in the edit. With that in mind, just imagine the raw material that the editor Alexandre de Francheschi had to work with – it doesn’t really bear thinking about it.

Just what makes In The Cut so toe curlingly bad? Talking about film as a collaborative process is all very well, but if you’re going to start with a script that’s essentially rubbish, then no amount of blood, nudity, swearing and pretentiousness is going to help you. The protagonist Frannie is as drearily passive as a wet weekday morning, where the male characters veer between being either cardboard cut outs or gross stereotypes. Campion can sprinkle the finished product with as many moody atmospherics and pretentious asides as she likes, but she can’t disguise the clunky, paint-by-numbers plot that telegraphs its ending a good hour before it occurs. In other words, you can’t make a skyscraper out of housebricks – and the building that In The Cut most closely resembles is a brick outhouse.

Perhaps the fact that Meg Ryan takes her clothes off might divert attention from the mound of rubbishness clunking about on screen?

Er, nope.

As above, the one thing that constantly staggers me with films such as this is that it has taken a small army of professional, intelligent people with an Oscar winning director (supposedly) at the helm to get the thing made. So why is it so bad? There has to a reason: too many cooks? Or not enough? Maybe there weren’t enough suits involved (Toby Young’s criteria for getting a half decent film made)? Who knows? And more to the point, who cares? All I know is that some collaborations work and others don’t – and you can safely put In The Cut in the latter column.

Moan-a-thon

Now that my Red Planet and RISE submissions are out of the way, I can get back to doing what I do best: watching a whole load of really crap TV. Hooray! And first out of the blocks is Hole in the Wall – the ‘gameshow’ where celebrities have to force themselves Tetris-like through a variety of holes or risk being dunked in the drink. I lasted five minutes before I became acutely aware that the show is merely a ploy to drain your IQ so you are mentally unable to switch channels, thereby ensuring that you stay tuned for Strictly Come Dancing (or Celebrity Ham Twirling as it’s known here at Chipster Towers). Shows like Hole in the Wall make you yearn for the golden age of television, where Mr Blobby and the malevolent evil that is Cilla Black presided colossus-like over the Saturday night schedule. As Dale Winton says, “Join me next week for more celebrities and more holes.” Can’t wait.That said, Hole in the Wall wasn’t the stupidest thing I’ve seen on teevee recently – that honour goes to Guy Richie’s Revolver, which wasn’t of course made for television, but hey, who's splitting hairs? The only essential difference between Hole in the Wall and Revolver is that Hole in the Wall is knowingly dumb, whereas Revolver is dumb masquerading as clever, which is in fact even worse than plain old dumb (with Luc Besson contributing to proceedings, you know you’re in for a veritable festival of stupid anyway). Quite what the screenplay is aiming to say is anyone’s guess: characters supposedly inhabit each other’s heads to the point of mind numbing existential tedium, ill-thought out symbols litter the film like so much landfill (twelve dollar bills, half a crucifixion, endlessly boring games of chess), Ray Liotta chews up the scenery (in his underpants mostly, not really my definition of viewing pleasure), and there are swathes of entirely pointless pieces of animation. I was going to mention the long and pointless voiceover and the acres of repetitive dialogue, but I simply can’t be bothered (is it just me, or does the lost art of the voiceover seem to be making a resurgence of late? Most everything I see at the moment features a metric tonne of the stuff: Lost in Austen anyone? The major unifying thread of all the shows I’ve seen recently to feature voiceover is that it’s just not needed).

So, to summarise: Revolver – the only film in living memory that would have been improved with an appearance from Andi Peters in a skin tight Lycra bodysuit.

Austened

On paper, the prospect of Lost in Austen must have seemed like a pretty good bet. Into the ITV marketing blender went Life on Mars, Being John Malkovich and Bridget Jones – add a dollop of high concept and a hugely intrusive voiceover, and there you have it: television for that supposed demographic who gather round the television supping Lambrini and being ‘carefree’. So: obviously not designed for the likes of me (I’m more of a Special Brew and swearing at passers-by type of guy). However, my wife – who laps up any type of costume drama going – avoided it like the plague. In terms of viewing figures for Lost in Austen, this might be prove to be a significant fact as people desert it in favour of more demanding fare, such as Rory and Paddy’s Great British Adventure (that’s a joke, by the way).

That said, at least Rory and Paddy are actually going somewhere. I lost patience with Lost in Austen after forty minutes, as it didn’t seem to be doing or saying anything. Once the realisation struck that there was another three hours of this stuff to sit through, I went elsewhere. The only conclusion I can draw from that is that Lost in Austen isn’t as 'high concept' as it likes to think it is.

Consider the set up: bank clerk Amanda Price finds a portal into the fictional world of Pride and Prejudice in her bathroom – she enters the world of the novel at the start point and immediately begins to inadvertently subvert this fictional world by attracting the eye of Bingley (nice but dim), thereby disrupting Mrs Bennet’s plans to marry off her gaggle of daughters to the first big pile of bank notes that wanders past. The only problem here is that there is absolutely nothing at stake. Price (herself a fictional construct) is fannying about in a fictional world where the worst that can happen is – what exactly? That Mr Darcy ends up marrying someone other than Elizabeth Bennet? Why does this matter, and more to the point, who cares? And if Amanda Price has entered the novel at its outset, who’s writing it? Jane Austen herself? In which case, perhaps she’s having some type of weird Georgian psychotic episode as she imagines a future Hammersmith where people obsess about Jane Austen novels to the extent that they start having their own psychotic episodes where they believe that they are in fact interlopers in Austen’s own fictional world? With this type of brain-boiling logic on show, the more I watched the more I became convinced that the only explantion as to what the hell was going on was that Price was a raving lunatic – and watching what are apparently the romantic delusions of a demented bank clerk does not make entertaining television in my book.

All these meta-questions would be interesting if posed by someone like Charlie Kaufmann, but judging by the second episode preview, we’re going to get more of the same, i.e., Price trying to guide the course of the novel through to its ‘rightful’ conclusion – and where’s the fun in that? Like a great deal of high concept cinematic guff, in pitch format (forty words hurriedly garbled to an ITV executive) Lost in Austen’s premise sounds pretty good. However, in its execution you start to wonder exactly what the point of it is. Perhaps a gallon of Lambrini might have helped.

Off on a Tangent, Part 16 - I Am Being Stalked by Myleene Klass.

Much in the same way that I was stalked by Stanley Tucci over the Christmas period, I am now experiencing the same with Myleene Klass (which is why there is now a photo of her on my blog – I mean, Jesus, she’s everywhere else, so why not here as well?). Not exactly an unpleasant experience you might think, but every time I see her, she is trying to sell someone something (all quotes taken from Myleene’s website):

Released under a multi-album series 'Myleene's Music' is compiled from the EMI Classics catalogue, with the tracks on each album united by a particular lifestyle theme. Each 2-CD set carries the added bonus of at least two tracks performed by Myleene herself on the piano to complement the theme of the album.

I love the mention of the ‘at least’ in the second sentence (as well as the dubious phrase ‘added bonus’). Doesn’t make me want to buy the album though, although people on anti-psychotic medication would probably like it.

With Myleene’s new born baby Ava came the opportunity to create a collection of clothes and accessories for children aged 0-3 years named ‘Baby K’. Myleene takes a very active role in the project testing zippers, fabrics and ensuring the highest quality on all product. This range is Myleene’s second baby and has been made with love for all to enjoy.

I don’t have kids (thank the Lord), so this passes me by as well. However, the thought of Myleene testing zippers is highly suspect. But wait!

Each month in Classic FM magazine Myleene brings you the new faces to watch in classical music. Singers, instrumentalists, composers and conductors – no-one escapes Myleene’s critical gaze as she combs classical music for its freshest, brightest talents.

With Myleene’s work in quality control and zipper testing, I’m surprised she’s got the time.

My Bump & Me is about everything Myleene did ‘wrong’ during her pregnancy, how her hormones turned her into a woman she hardly recognised, and how incredible it feels to be expecting a baby.

Pregnancy as a business opportunity: you gotta admire the girl and her get up and go attitude to rampant capitalism.

Myleene's natural charm on television caught the eye of the directors of M&S who quickly signed her up to be the face of their 2007 and 2008 advertising campaigns. Myleene now adorns billboards and M&S windows across the country as well as appearing in their TV advertising campaign...

And this is why you can’t get away from the woman. It’s a perfect storm of personal appearances, incessant advertising and compilation albums. Open any newspaper and there she is, grinning inanely back at you whilst trying to flog you travel insurance. I’m sick to death of the woman.

Friday 20th June: Myleene hosts Miss Ireland 2008 competition.

Meh.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Played Out Franchise

Contains Spoilers for Indy 4.

Bearing in mind the middling reviews that IJ4 has already received, I went along to my friendly, local multiplex not expecting to experience a landslide of narrative coherence. I mean, the words ‘Story by George Lucas’ is enough to make anyone spontaneously combust, but I was prepared: just entertain me, goddamn it! With a big marquee film like this, I don’t expect anything more than that.

One thing I just wasn’t prepared for was just how damn boring the whole thing was.

Mystery Man lays into the whole thing here better than I could, but the one thing he seems to miss is just how frickin’ dull it all was. The first fifteen minutes are a case in point: Indy and his chronically underwritten double/triple-dealing sidekick Mac find themselves prisoners of the Russian Army, forced to search an American military warehouse for the body of an extraterrestrial (don’t bother asking how half the Russian army have somehow ended up in the United States; you won’t understand – or even care about – the answer). OK, that much I can buy – it’s the heavy handed set up that really starts to grind. The three previous films hit the ground running – this one sort of limps out of the gate and has a lie down for fifteen minutes whilst it tries to figure out where the hell it wants to go. What’s more, the entire opening of the film is effectively made completely redundant by the fact that the narrative starts again with the arrival of Mutt (another crap sidekick). The scene in the diner is where the film actually begins, albeit with a landfill of boring and confusing exposition thrown in for good measure. Add in some pointless sub plots, far too many underwritten characters and a narrative that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and there you have it: the worst film of the quadrilogy by a long, long way – which brings me back to the whole problem of coherence.

I get positively autistic when faced with a narrative that doesn’t make sense, although I was quite prepared to temporarily suspend this debilitating condition in order to be entertained. Didn’t happen. Now I know that narrative coherence is not a luxury to be sacrificed in favour of spectacle: if you’re confused, you’re not involved - you spend half the time fretting away at a confusing narrative detail and not emoting, which is probably why Indy 4 has no discernible emotional intelligence to it at all. The first step should have been to make the thing actually make sense – everything can then follow from there. But then again, coherence is not something we’ve come to expect from George Lucas, bless him.

No Brainer or Five Brains?

I never thought I’d say it, but there are far too many films out there – and for some lunatic reason, I feel duty bound to watch them all in the hopelessly deluded notion that perhaps one day I will simply come to the end of all films ever produced.

Let’s hope so if Die Hard 4.0 is anything to go by...

Die Hard 4.0 – directed by Len Wiseman, written by Mark Bomback.

Watching this, all I could think of was something I read in The Guardian a little while back, inasmuch as that the film industry is the only industry that has used digital techniques to significantly increase costs. What we used to have was a two hour film with five to ten minutes of expensive effects – in Die Hard 4.0 there’s an eye-wateringly expensive digital effect every two minutes. Add in your trademarked ‘Really Shit Sidekick’ (hang on a minute, that sounds like something on Cartoon Network) and all of a sudden, you’re in dumbass heaven (unfortunately it looks like the new Indy film is going to be cocked up by an surfeit of RSS as well.)

(I suspect the reason that the Really Shit Sidekick theory is being applied to well loved franchises such as Die Hard and Indy is purely to get that all-important teenage demographic through the turnstiles, which probably means that the scripts have been ‘written’ by focus groups, marketing goons and clever bits of software. That said, it’s surely got to be better than anything written by George ‘Lead Ear’ Lucas).

And then, king of the nerds Kevin Smith shows up!

What set the first two Die Hard films apart for me was the tight focus by way of location (respectively, an office block and an airliner). In Die Hard 4.0, McClane rushes around the US as if he’s on some weird and incredibly boring tour of electricity substations. Surely the template for any action movie is to keep the focus tight and light the blue touchpaper: something that Die Hard 4.0 completely neglects to do.

I’m with Gilbert Adair on this one – I love special effects, I just don’t like the films they’re in.

Inland Empire – written and directed by David Lynch.

I really was not looking forward to this at all. Three hours of brain-bending cryptic nonsense all filmed on digital video – sounds like a migraine waiting to happen.

And you know what? That’s exactly what it is.

Don’t get me wrong – I love Blue Velvet. Wild at Heart is a blast. Lost Highway is deranged, most certainly. Mulholland Drive is, yes, well, ahem... But Inland Empire? If there was ever a need for restraint and a roomful of rabid script editors, this film is living proof.

Maybe I’m just not intelligent or patient enough to watch films like this – either that or I need to grow a little goatee for some serious beard scratching.

Sight and Sound voted this number 2 amongst their Top 10 films of 2007. Uh, hello? Here are some selected critical highlights:

Mark Fisher: Convoluted and involuted: Lynch's rabbit warren anarchitecture of trauma is difficult, unsettling and endlessly, weirdly fascinating.

Peter Matthews: After ten minutes of more or less consecutive narrative, you're pretty much free-falling. David Lynch's three-hour surrealist odyssey vanquishes the conscious ego and heads straight for the id. A mind-warping masterpiece.

Chip Smith: What’s going on here then? Oh, look, rabbits – I like rabbits. My head hurts. Is it over yet? Ooh, time for a nap. Zzzzz...

If you need to suspend all brain functions to watch a film like Die Hard 4.0, then you need to harness the processing power at least five brains to try and piece together what the flying arse is going on here. That said, perhaps Inland Empire is some kind of bizarre intelligence test – everyone who professes to understand it or at least expresses an admiration for it will get a regular column on Sight and Sound. Everyone else who simply shrugs and scratches their head will get a job on The Dandy (and I know which one I’d rather write for).

Admittedly, the three hour running time doesn’t help. After the first hour, the film went into a determinedly mentalist freefall and I dozed off intermittently (only the second time I have ever done this, Institute Benjamenta being the other culprit). Even the end title sequence is tortuous and never–ending.

After the most gruelling three hours I have ever spent in the company of a DVD, I read this in The Guardian – the thought struck me that David Lynch is no longer a filmmaker, he’s an artist. As far as any audience is concerned, that really is not a good place to be.

Guilty Pleasures, Part 3 – Watching Nothing

First off, what I’m about to list aren’t really guilty pleasures: they are purely examples of things I can watch without wanting to throw bricks at the TV. For instance, live football. I couldn’t really care less about football (what exactly is the point of watching a bunch of super-rich thickos kick a bit of leather about?), but there’s something wonderfully stultifying about watching it – the same thing happens over and over again for ninety minutes. It’s hypnotic, slightly boring, ultimately unsatisfying – a bit like any TV drama produced with early Sunday evenings in mind (which I can’t watch as they annoy me too much).

Football is often a default position for me: after flicking through thirty eight channels of cack, it’s one of the only things I can sit and watch without getting annoyed. That, and cookery programmes (although I have to draw the line at Jamie Oliver).

I can also quite willingly sit through any programme that features endless clips of real life police chases, but when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all. That, and any programme on Bravo about how much us Brits like to drink thirty pints of Skol before going out and picking fights with the local constabulary.

The one thing I’ve noticed about these programmes is that they all feature a great deal of repetition. Perhaps my attention threshold has gotten so bad I can’t concentrate on anything unless it’s repeated over and over again just to ram the point home, like a senior's version of Teletubbies – which makes it quite strange that I can’t stand things like Big Brother and I’m a (Z-list) Celebrity. The problem with these shows is that they annoy me so much I can’t help shouting at the TV like some mad, wild-eyed drunk (one of the last clips I saw of Big Brother was when one of the slack-jawed contestants described the show as a ‘celebrity factory’, which begs the question: why aren’t these people smothered at birth? My first exhibit, your honour? Michelle Bass. I rest my case).

Even adverts wind me up: that flippin’ Pantene advert with Anna Friel that’s started a re-run for some bizarre reason (hmmm: she’s not going in Big Brother’s Celebrity Christmas Jungle Farm, is she?). Why does the unbearable smugness of it all make me want to swear loudly and pointlessly at inanimate objects? Why does Friel’s voiceover sound as if she’s sucking on a handful of pebbles? Arrrgghh! For the love of god, turn it over before I implode!

That said, I think I’ve just seen my ideal television programme: on the set of Saturday Kitchen (it’s Saturday, we’re in a kitchen: glad to see that imagination isn’t dead in teevee land), behind the genial host AWT there was a flat screen television showing a roaring log fire – nothing else, just one long shot that played for the entirety of the show. Now that I could watch.

Code 46 - What the...?

Warning! This post contains spoilers for Code 46.

There’s a great blog I happened upon recently by Leanne Smith called Film Flam, which mostly consists of scurrilous takes and diatribes regarding the Scottish film ‘industry’. However, for the purposes of this post, I thought I’d steal her incredibly apt description of any Michael Winterbottom film:

“...it’s by Michael Winterbottom, so it’s bound to be boring and weirdly undirected.”

‘Undirected’ is a word you could apply to the entirety of Michael Winterbottom’s filmed output (do you know anyone who’s managed to sit through 9 Songs? And if so, why?). Code 46 is no exception.

Hmmm... where does one begin with a film like Code 46? How about the opening super?

Article 1

Any human being who shares the same nuclear gene set as another human being is deemed to be genetically identical. The relations of one are the relations of all.

Due to IVF, DI embryo splitting and cloning techniques it is necessary to prevent any accidental or deliberate genetically incestuous reproduction.

Therefore:

I. All prospective parents should be genetically screened before conception. If they have 100%, 50% or 25% genetic identity they are not permitted to conceive

II. If the pregnancy is unplanned, the foetus must be screened. Any pregnancy resulting from 100%, 50% or 25% genetically related parents must be terminated immediately

III. If the parents were ignorant of their genetic relationship then medical intervention is authorized to prevent any further breach of Code 46

IV. If the parents knew they were genetically related prior to conception it is a criminal breach of Code 46.

Got that? Great, ‘cos I didn’t, which immediately put me on the back foot (I know, I’m stupid – I’ll just have to get over it). Things didn’t really improve from that point on...

* The script is by Frank Cottrell Boyce – in any other circumstance, I would no doubt appreciate this, but in the hands of Michael Winterbottom, things get random very quickly. To steal Leanne’s description once again, it all feels curiously ‘undirected’, such as:

a. an interminably lengthy close up of Samantha Morton’s face for no good reason.
b. a completely random flash of nudity which made me go, ‘Uh?’
c. a pile of beautifully composed shots of Shanghai inserted for no other reason than to make people say, ‘Wow, what a beautifully composed shot of Shanghai.’

All of which makes me wonder exactly what FCB’s script might have looked like before Winterbottom got his randomising hands on it – for example, how exactly do you write a ‘scene’ that focuses interminably on an actress’ pained expression whilst Tim Robbins pumps manfully away off screen? Answer: you don’t – you simply hand your script over to Michael Winterbottom who provides a ‘visual interpretation’ that is strikingly at odds with the written word. In any case, I very much suspect the script wasn’t as wildly dull as the end product turned out.

* The casting of Samantha Morton and Tim Robbins just seems wrong - he falls for her during an interview where her character (Maria) comes across as a total arse, which made me wonder why he would fall for her in the first place. But perhaps more importantly is their physical dissimilarity – Robbins is tall, solid, fleshy; Morton is tiny, doll-like. Maybe the vagaries of film financing meant this was the best coupling money could buy, but for me they just don’t synch at all. Their physical dissimilarity is also fatal to their onscreen chemistry (i.e., where is it?). At best, they seem curiously distant from each other. This is obviously something that any script, no matter how good it is, cannot legislate for. Then again, perhaps this lack of emotional intimacy is a vagary of Winterbottom’s directing style: he seems more at home with the other wordly strangeness of Shanghai’s cityscapes rather than with the complex interplay of living, breathing human beings. 9 Songs is all about two dull people shagging – it’s tempting to see Code 46 simply as a sci-fi version of 9 Songs.

* Winterbottom’s visual style is certainly striking, but there seems to be something strangely improvised about the film. The most interesting and intriguing elements – Robbins’ ability to ‘empathise’ with minor characters and read their thoughts, Morton’s recurring dream regarding a train journey that never reaches its destination – are examples of solid screenwriting that even Winterbottom can’t screw up. However, give the director a couiple of skyscrapers and splash of neon and he’s off on a series of wild visual riffs that no amount of screenwriting can redeem. For example, the car crash in the desert that effectively spells the beginning of the end for our mismatched lovers comes completely out of left field – a potentially good thing in any other’s director’s hands, but as Winterbottom films it from a bird’s eye view, it immediately distances us from the action.

There was a recent Samantha Morton interview in the Guardian that doesn’t even mention Code 46, a fact that is remarkably telling - i.e., it’s not very good. I think this is purely down to the collision of a half decent script with a director hell bent on stamping his supposed visual authority on everything he points his camera at.

I think on this basis, I’ll give A Mighty Heart a miss thanks!

Institute Benjamenta – As Dull as Opera

I once went out with a trainee Stage Manager from the Central School of Screech and Trauma, which meant that I had the envious task of attending a lot of student and semi-professional productions (guaranteed to put you off the theatre for life). One such episode was a production of Giovanni d’Arco, by Verdi, held at the Bloomsbury Theatre. Uh-oh, I thought – opera. Me and opera get on like two cats in a sack – I mean, what’s the point of it? If it had some relevance, I could understand it, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t – not one iota.

Anyway, I went along to the 'public' dress rehearsal , which was a bit misleading as I was the only member of the public there - not that I wanted to be of course. I was waiting for my girlfriend, but to get to see her I had to put up with three and half hours of bloody opera. Well, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I fell asleep halfway through the second act, sparing myself the full three and hour torture. Problem was, I woke myself up with up with a massive snore as old Joanie was ascending piously to heaven on a creaky old pulley operated by two sweaty stage hands. The poetry of the moment was irrevocably disrupted, and my Stage Manager and I parted ways soon afterwards.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying that Giovanni d’Arco is one of only two things I have slept through – the other being:

Institute Benjamenta

On Rotten Tomatoes, this film gets a 100% rating! Uh? Did these guys sleep through the same film as I did? I remember spending a cosy afternoon in the Duke of Yorks dozing fitfully to this. I have never slept through a film before or since, which should give you an idea just how boring this film really is. Visually, it’s absolutely sumptuous (but thereagain, maybe I was in the midst of some pleasant REM sleep), but it takes more than eye candy to hold my attention I’m afraid. Reading the synopsis at the Zeitgeist Films website, it really is as dull as it sounds.

Now, my wife – she can sleep through anything. We went to see The Usual Suspects when it came out, and she spent half the film asleep. To add insult to injury, she woke up just before the end and gave me a potted précis of the story, as if she had somehow absorbed the entire narrative by osmosis. What a weirdo!