Wener Herzog Retrospective 1 - FATA MORGNAN (1971)

Werner Herzog makes insane movies about insane people. That's the only conclusion I can come to after watching his latest Hollywood-backed release, BAD LIEUTENANT: PORT OF CALL NEW ORLEANS. This is a movie so insane that it makes everything else Nic Cage has ever done look understated. A movie so insane you can actually see Val Kilmer cracking up on screen. A movie so insane it randomly pauses to give an extended close-up on a lizard!

So I thought I'd take a look back at Herzog's earlier work, which I'm ashamed to say that I have never viewed before, to see how early this insanity set in. First in the DVD queue was his 1971 film FATA MORGANA. Shot on hand-held cameras on location in Africa, the film has seemingly no narrative structure. The POV is of a person randomly wandering through a barren landscape strewn with old car parts and machinery. Local people, kids, drift in front of the camera's gaze and are photographed in a peculiarly objectified manner. Occasionally they wear stylised round goggles. The whole thing is just plain bizarre - a feeling heightened by the eclectic soundtrack featuring a number of Leonard Cohen tracks. Notionally split into three parts: The Creation, The Paradise and The Golden Age, and pretentiously introduced by narrators (including Lotte Eisner) reading from mystical texts, the movie resists explanation. I came through the other end wondering why anyone would actually want to watch such a bizarre flick except as part of a Herzog retrospective.

So then I watched it again with Herzog's commentary. Apparently, the effect he is going for is "political science fiction", in which you imagine what it would be like for a bunch of aliens to land on earth and survey the people. Hence the strange, alien landscape and the curiously objectified presentation of the people in the film. I guess what Herzog was trying to for was some sort of abstract, strangely compelling picture of a planet ravaged by human brutality? Or am I reading too much onto this from his later work? Fans may speak of "beguiling poetry" but I found the movie rather tedious after the first fifteen minutes of interest in the landscape. I tend to think that a movie in which the director's commentary is the only point of access can never be more than an oddity.

FATA MORGANA played Cannes in 1971 and is available on DVD.

Additional tags: lotte eisner, blind faith, the third ear band, jorg schmdt reitwein

Miguel Arteta retrospective - THE GOOD GIRL

The only good thing to have come out of my watching YOUTH IN REVOLT is that it prompted me to look back at the career of director Miguel Arteta. It turns out the last feature he directed was way back in 2002 - the bleak tragicomedy THE GOOD GIRL. I really enjoyed THE GOOD GIRL, not least because I was pleasantly surprised that Jennifer Aniston would have the balls to play such an equivocal and drab character. I was even more surprised at how convincing she was in the role. The film garnered a lot of critical praise, and I guess its surprising that Arteta took so long to get back into features. It's slightly less surprising that Jennifer Aniston has drifted back toward the light and cheery comedy fare that made her name.

Anyways, back to the matter under consideration. THE GOOD GIRL is the story of a supermarket check-out girl called Justine (Aniston) who is married to a good-hearted but dull pot-head (John C Reilly). For no better reason than boredom, she starts an affair with a slightly creepily obsessive college drop-out with Catcher in the Rye delusions (Jake Gyllenhaal). Things get even more complicated when her husband's even more creepy best mate (Tim Blake Nelson) attempts to blackmail her with this knowledge.

What I really love about this film is that while the situation may be contrived, and some of the characters exaggerated (particularly Zooey Deschanel's brilliantly subversive store assistant), the emotional conflicts ring true. Because, at its core, this is a film about a typical housewife who finds herself settling for less than she had hoped for, and needs to decide where the balance lies between selfishly pursuing her happiness and disappointing those that she does, on some residual level, love. And it's about a woman wondering whether settling is really as bad as she thought itm might have been. The great thing is that Justine isn't just a plain vanilla good girl. She is fundamentally decent but does not some really questionable shit and makes some terrible decisions. It's rare to see such a realistic and nuanced character study outside of European art cinema.

If you haven't seen THE GOOD GIRL, don't be put off by YOUTH IN REVOLT. This is a great little black comedy that's well-acted, intelligent and interesting to watch.

THE GOOD GIRL was released in 2002 and is available on DVD.

YOUTH IN REVOLT - affected nonsense

YOUTH IN REVOLT is an 89 minute quirky hipster comedy that felt like it last three hours, irritated me with its affectations, and didn't make me laugh. It stars Michael Cera as the same character he always plays - an unthreatening, horny teenage boy, desperately courting a cooler girl who stoops to conquer on account of his taste in films and music or whatever. It's the same schtick that was cute in JUNO, became less so in NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST, positively irritated in PAPER HEART, and really, really pissed me off here. He needs to stretch himself and try something different. Or at least deign to inflect his voice on occasion.

Anyways, in this particular film, Cera plays a kid called Nick Twisp, a sensitive loner who has good manners, likes Sinatra, and wants to travel the world. He meets the girl of his dreams and, hipsters being self-involved, she's his female double - an unthreatening hipster loner who dreams of a tall French boyfriend. Both of these kids speak like no-one you've ever heard of, and hatch up plots that are contrived and distancing, including getting expelled, trashing several cars, and drugging people. Of course, Nick Twisp doesn't really need a double to end his loneliness - he already has the voices in his head - his bad alter-ego, European play-boy Francois, and his feminine alter-ego Carlotta. Stop me if I'm freaking you out.

I think we're meant to find the incidental characters amusing - Ray Liotta as the sleezy cop; Zach Galifianakis as the loser boyfriend; Steve Buscemi as the dad; Fred Willard as the liberal neighbour; Justin Long as the doped up brother - but I found them to be under-used and unfunny. I can't disguise how tired I am of Cera. But I guess my real problem is with Gustin Nash's script based on C.D.Payne's novels. This film is too absurd to get emotionally involved in, but not stylised enough to be as good as, say, THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS.

YOUTH IN REVOLT played Toronto 2009 and is currently on release in the USA, Canada and the UK.

DVD release - THIS IS IT

THIS IS IT is a masterpiece of editing. HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL director, Kenny Ortega, cuts down hours of concert rehearsal footage into the skeleton of a live show. We have two further things to be thankful for. First, that the rehearsals were shot on hi-def Red One digital cameras with rich sound. Second, that Michael Jackson is so astonishingly talented that even watching him marking out steps and singing every other line is fascinating enough to sustain our interest. The resulting movie is a pretty simple film documenting what would surely have been a remarkable live concert - combining Michael Jackson's superlative choreography, extravagant sets, and intensive use of CGI rich video footage. As a film, I can't fault THIS IS IT. It does what it's meant to do: it provides ticket-holders with a vicarious experience of the concert they will never attend; and it provides the concert-backers with some financial recompense. Everyone goes home happy. And if you go home with the Blu-Ray disc you get the video shorts for Thriller and Smooth Criminal that would have been played before the performances and further behind the scenes footage of the casting process and production design. You even get members of the production reminiscing about Michael - a video eulogy. Stuff to keep the fans happy.

Still, my experience of watching this film was conflicted. Once again, that's nothing to do with any flaws in the film-making, but rather to do with the complex nature of our relationship with Michael Jackson as a media object. I grew up in adoration: going to the Bad tour concert at the Milton Keynes bowl was by far the best concert experience of my youth; we played the Thriller cassette on constant loop for about a year, so much so that we bought about 5 versions because they'd wear out or get caught in the car cassette player; my cousin Miguel had a mini Beat It jacket and new all the dance steps. Michael Jackson was just part of what it was to be a kid in our house. But by my late teens, Michael was already Wacko Jacko - a man who had too much money, too much fame, and was surrounded by too many yes-men. His music didn't seem relevant. His persona was just weird. And then, as the nineties continued, he became sinister. Even if you didn't believe the worst of the allegations, his apparent erasure of his racial identity through plastic surgery, his bizarre marriage and child-rearing - it was all too tragic to contemplate. There was something hypocritical and patronising about Earth Song and Black and White. So when Jarvis Cocker mooned Michael at the Brits, I was with Jarvis, not with Michael. In later years, as he became even more reclusive, paranoid, persecuted, one couldn't help wonder why someone didn't just take him in hand and tell him to stop. And finally, in La La Land, Michael bought access to anesthetic drugs and died.

So, when the movie came out in theatres I didn't want to watch it for the same reason that I didn't want to go to the concert. I wanted to remember Michael as the sweet kid in the Jackson Five, or as the charismatic young man in Off the Wall, or as the icon in Billie Jean live at Pasadena for Motown 25. I didn't want to see a financially desperate man forced into touring - who died during the preparation - pimped out by his concert promoters, who were shamelessly exploiting the grieving fans. The film gave me another chance to marvel at Michael's talent. But it wasn't happy viewing because it just makes you think, yet again, how wasted that talent was in his final two decades, and how corrupted our memory of that talent will always be by the controversies surrounding his private life. You look at the concert footage and you see him direct everything just as he wants it, but never raise his voice. Sure. He doesn't have to. The deference, the worship, is palpable. No wonder he ended up in the mess he did.

THIS IS IT is a deftly edited concert rehearsal video of a superlative talent. But it's also documentary evidence of the hermetically sealed world in which a megastar was allowed to indulge his every fantasy to whatever end. As such, I found it a profoundly sad film to watch.

THIS IS IT was released in October 2009 and is released in the UK on DVD and Blu-Ray on February 22nd.

THE BOOK OF ELI - Spoiler free review before release date notes, spoilers afterward

THE BOOK OF ELI is the latest flick from The Hughes Brothers, the directors behind the impressive DEAD PRESIDENTS and the piss-poor Alan Moore adaptation FROM HELL. ELI lies somewhere in between: it's visually imaginative and audacious in its premise, but it's so ludicrous in its execution as to undermine its credibility. The story has Denzel Washington play a lone man with kick-ass knife- skills walking a lonely highway in post-apocalyptic America. This basic set-up has some similarity with THE ROAD, leading some critics to draw comparisons. But that's just nonsense. Viggo Mortensen looks like he's been walking for years without a haircut or soap or a decent meal in THE ROAD. In THE BOOK OF ELI, all the lead characters sport a look that's more Hollister Hobo - pearly white teeth, skinny jeans, cool boots, latest-season sunglasses. Where THE ROAD is shot in a menacing sombre murky grey, THE BOOK OF ELI is sunbleached and de-saturated. It feels more like the Wild West than the end of the world as we know it. So, back to the story. Our lone man with mad kung-fu skills walks into a Wild West town, run by local fascist Carnegie, played by Gary Oldman. (We know he's a Fascist because he reads Mussolini, because the film is THAT subtle. Seriously, it wouldn't have surprised me if Carnegie were sending out biker gangs to find Unobtainium). Carnegie sends out illiterate biker gangs to hunt down a book - a book that Eli happens to be carrying - that he believes will give him the power to dominate mankind. And, in case you really can't guess what that book is, I'll say no more about it. Everything else about the town is pure movie cliché. There's a seedy bar where the out-of-towner kicks off a fight. There's a cute chick in distress (Mila Kunis) who looks like she has full access to a functioning hairdresser. There's even a general store full of goods that apparently isn't knocked off, despite the fact that it's only guarded by Tom Waits with one gun.

So, Eli realises he needs to get the hell out of dodge and the Hughes Brothers make a lame attempt to have him bond with the cute chick who insists on following him. We pause for a truly bizarre encounter with an old cannibal couple, played completely improbably by Michael Gambon and British comic gem, Frances de la Tour. I'm almost tempted to say that this movie is worth the price of admission for this crazy scene. But that would be a misjudgement.

Because in the final act, THE BOOK OF ELI wraps itself up in a manner so stupidly that you really shouldn't respect anything about the film at all. But, in case you are going to see it, stop reading here. Those of who have seen it, continue on, after the release date notes.

THE BOOK OF ELI is on release in the UK, US, Greece, Russia, Canada, Kazakhstan, France, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Poland and Romania. It opens on February 3rd in Egypt; on Feb 10th in Belgium; on Feb 18th in Australia, Germany and New Zealand; on Feb 26th in Finland, Italy and Sweden. It opens in March in the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Singapore, Argentina, Brazil and on June 19th in Japan.

.....SPOILERS FOLLOW.....

Okay, so there are three major problems with the ending of this film. First, you know that even after Carnegie gets his hand on the book, he's not gonna be able to read it. (I was betting on it being in a foreign language). So there's no suspense. The second major problem with the film is the way in which the rug is pulled from under the audience with the revelation of Eli's blindness. This was just totally lame. A blind man simply would not be pulling off the manoeuvres he had pulled off throughout the movie, and I'm not buying the "divine protection" crap. The final problem is that, even if we buy the blindness and the surprise, what was the point? I mean, the world has been near-annihilated by an apparently religious war and we're meant to be all happy that religious books have survived? Don't get me wrong - I'm not anti-religion - indeed, I am a practising Catholic - but shouldn't someone in the movie at least QUESTION whether Eli is doing the right thing?

Ah well. The whole thing was frustratingly ill-conceived.

Preview - BOOGIE WOOGIE

BOOGIE WOOGIE is a highly enjoyable, acerbic satire on the contemporary art world, directed by debutant Duncan Ward and based on the novel by Danny Moynihan. Both are art-world insiders and the film has the feel of authentic anecdotes on speed.

The film has a large cast and many sub-plots, but these all coalesce around the gallery of Art Linson - a Jay Jopling like art-dealer who stands at the centre of the London art scene. Art is played in trademark oleaginous, sinister mode by Danny Huston, who needs to seriously worry about typecasting. Three main stories whir around Art. First, his main clients - art collectors Jean and Maclestone (Gillian Anderson and Stellan Skarsgard) are fucking a young artist and a gallery assistant (Amanda Seyfried) respectively, and are engaged in a bitter battle over who gets the art. Second, naive Dewey (Alan Cumming) is trying to promote his best friend, video artist Elaine (Jaime Winston) who ditches him for Art's assistant Beth (Heather Graham). Finally, ageing collector Alfred Rhinegold (Christopher Lee) is being manipulated by his wife (Joanna Lumley) and her butler (the ever brilliant Simon McBurney) to sell a valuable painting, at a price manipulated by art dealer Art Linson.

In short, the majority of characters are self-involved, sexually promiscuous, and care more about jockeying for money and fame than about art itself. Only a few - Alfred Rhinegold and Dewey - have a genuine passion for the work - and they basically get screwed over for their pains. It's not that the art world is indifferent to their pain, but that characters like Beth and Elaine will actually exploit it. After all, in the era of reality TV and constant self-exposure, pain is just another means to create a sensation.

The movie moves quickly; finely balances humour and disgust; assuredly handles its large cast; and is sharply photographed by John Mathieson (HANNIBAL, GLADIATOR). Art aficionados will appreciate the fact that the art was curated by Damien Hurst. I presume that when this finally gets released, it will be very limited. But this flick is definitely worth seeking out.

Additional tags: Joanna Lumley, Christopher Lee, Alan Cumming, Duncan Ward, Danny Moynihan.

BOOGIE WOOGIE played Edinburgh 2009 and will be released in the UK and US in April 2010. It is, rather improbably, currently being shown on British Airways long-haul flights.

EDGE OF DARKNESS - Curiously flat

EDGE OF DARKNESS is a curiously anemic political thriller starring Mel Gibson as a straightlaced cop whose daughter is assassinated by her employer - a shadowy military defense contractor. While the police are distracted with the idea that the killer was really after the cop, the father begins his own investigation that takes him into the upper reaches of government and business. The marketing campaign for this film led me to believe that the film would be akin to the recent Liam Neeson vehicle TAKEN - in which a vengeful father murdered and tortured his way through Paris. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that EDGE OF DARKNESS is a far quieter, more talkative film. Indeed, barring one or two scenes, it is hardly an action movie at all. Rather, the movie takes the form of a series of conversations. Mel Gibson is actually rather sympathetic and credible as the grieving father and his scenes opposite Ray Winstone, who plays a government fixer, are marvelous to watch. Winstone is more modulated than is typical, and keeps us guessing as to his true motives. But I was rather disappointed to see Danny Huston roll out the same oleaginous sinister performance as the corporate boss. I was also disappointed by the technical quality of the film, despite being shot by the team behind CASINO ROYALE, and by the complete lack of tension. Indeed, the film was so baggy that after an hour I was tempted to leave. The mechanics of the plot - the secret everyone is trying to hide - is very mono-dimensional and obvious. There is no real attempt to work out the ramifications of the secret either politically or in the media. Indeed, despite a rather impressive corporate HQ, the movie has a rather parochial air (all the more because only Gibson attempts a Boston accent.) This extends to one of the most flat and brushed aside endings to a thriller I've seen in a while. So, all in all, despite a rather sympathetic performance from Gibson, this is ultimately a rather frustrating film.

Additional tags: Martin Campbell, Phil Meheux

EDGE OF DARKNESS is on release in the UK, the US, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Singapore, Brazil and Canada. It opens next weekend in Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Finland and Sweden. It opens later in February in Belgium, Slovenia, France, the Czech Republic, Greece, Norway, Romania and South Korea. It opens on March 4th in Argentina and Germany; on March 12th in Taiwan and on April 2nd in Estonia.