Very well-paced and plenty of action, but completely devoid of suspense. I have a real problem with "horror" movies which achieve the horror by scaring the audience with abrupt loud noises following extended periods of silence or low grumbling. It feels so cheap, and the constant heart-beat sound effect didn't help. It was like I was being pounded on the head by someone saying "this is tense, OK? I just want to make sure you know that this bit is tense".
I really loved Geiger's overall set designs and the face-hugger and chest-burster aliens, but as is too often the case in sci-fi the main alien itself looked too humanoid: two arms, one head, it even had fucking fingernails. Fingernails! What does an alien like that need with fingernails? Do we humans lack the imagination to create aliens that look like anything other than humans with different skin and heads? Why don't any aliens ever look like cows? Or creatures completely different to anything living on Earth?
While I loved the general feel of the spaceship sets, a lot of little things annoyed me about them, too. I know I'll sound like one of those retards who picks irrelevant faults in fantasy films (and I probably already do), but, honestly, am I supposed to believe that someone can read a computer screen full of binary code and understand it? Or read a raw feed of numerical data streaming down a screen at high speed and understand the chemical make-up of a planet's atmosphere and surface? What's wrong with a nice, user-friendly interface that clearly communicates the required information? If I was NASA and was sending human beings far out into space, I'd want to make it as difficult as humanly possible to make a mistake or misunderstand critical mission data. "Fuckloads of numbers trailing down the screen" would probably be near the bottom of my UI prototype list.
And if I were to design an emergency self-destruct sequence for a vehicle, I sure wouldn't choose a sequence that takes 15 minutes to complete and involves the screwing of four cylinders into four techno-looking slots. The slots had hoses surrounding them that weren't attached to anything; what purpose did they fulfil? In a spaceship there is nothing superfluous. The little off-white decorations in the corridors looked awesome, sure, but one feature of every spaceship ever designed in real life is that there is very little decoration. Decoration is unecessary and can add mass, the sworn enemy of space travel.
And as my brother (whom I watched the movie with) pointed out, wouldn't you make the command to cancel the self-destruct sequence a big fucking red button that's impossible to miss, just in case by some freakishly unlikely accident the sequence is started by mistake? In Alien, the sequence to cancel the self-destruct order is just as drawn-out and ridiculous as the self-destruct command itself. Predictably, Ripley was unable to perform the complicated dance required within the short time limit, and as a result was trapped on her spaceship with a murderous alien on her heels, and only five minutes to escape. Obviously that design feature was a great success.
But anyway, now that I've channelled my inner Comic Book Guy, I will say that I actually enjoyed watching it and will keenly see Aliens. I do like the odd bit of mindless action, even though I can't help but pick ridiculous faults in it, and while not up there with the best, Alien wasn't quite as horrible as I thought it would be.
(I found a better review of it on The Auteurs.)
The Auteurs has just made available the first ever film adaptation of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, released in 1903 by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow and recently restored by the British Film Institute's National Archive.
The film is in the public domain around the world and is available to watch for free at http://www.theauteurs.com/films/24647. It's a mind-blowing example of just how quickly cinema developed in the early years: it was made only eight years after the birth of the motion picture, and yet the narrative form and techniques like continuity editing and cross-cutting were already standard. Nearly all of the conventions of film were already in place by the 1900s and have remained pretty standard in the 100 years since.
But the best thing about watching films from the 1890s and 1900s is seeing special effects that, still, to me, are amazing. Alice in Wonderland uses the simple stop trick a lot (the sudden appearance of the table and door key in the rabbit hole; her baby's sudden transformation into a pig; etc.), but there are also a lot of dissolves and double-exposure shots... and this is 1903! I wouldn't have the feintest idea how to perform a simple dissolve on film, not that I'll ever have to in the age of digital edit suites, but Hepworth and Stow were using all kinds of wonderful double-exposure tricks to bring to life the fantastical journey of Alice in Wonderland. It's absolutely amazing to see.
Anyway, watching Alice sent me off on a journey to watch some of my other favourite early films, and discover a few more, which either introduced or perfected a lot of special effects techniques that would become standard for decades to come:
L'homme orchestre [One Man Band] (Georges Méliès, 1900): Multiple exposure shot allowing Melies to play seven musicians himself, 96 years before Michael Keaton would do the same. Also uses the stop trick to great effect.
What Happened on Twenty-Third Street, New York City (Edwin S. Porter, 1901): Soft-core pornography, in this case a woman's ankles becoming visible below her skirt. (Ignore the incongruous jazz score; it's the best-quality version I could find).
Le Voyage dans la lune [A Trip to the Moon] (Méliès, 1902): Many special effects techniques, mostly involving matte painted backdrops, and a frickin' spaceship flying into the moon's eye. Hard to imagine what the world thought of space travel and a journey to the moon sixty years before it happened.
Life of an American Fireman (Porter, 1903): Cross-cutting and simultaneous action (also interesting to watch for the horse-drawn firefighting carts).
The Great Train Robbery (Porter, 1903): Cross-cutting and simultaneous action (and a shot of a bandit firing a gun directly at the camera, which must have been terrifying to audiences that lost their shit seeing an oncoming train in 1895).
The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, 1915): Racism; popularised feature-length films.
Age has not wearied Rear Window as much as it has North by Northwest. The simple but gripping storyline is just as effective by modern standards, possibly because voyeurism and people-watching will always be one of mankind's favourite activities. The film still feels true after fifty years, partly because interwoven into the murder mystery are some great little vignettes following what happens in the lives of other people visible from the rear window, which is something any person will relate to.
And honestly, I will never tire of James Stewart. He's becoming one of my favourite actors.
(Another side-effect of my IMDb Top 100 project is that it's becoming increasingly clear just how much The Simpsons references these movies. One of my favourite episodes is the one in which Bart breaks his leg and is unable to enjoy the pool in his backyard, so he takes to spying on Springfield's townspeople with a telescope.)
As much as I've been anticipating Martin Scorsese's latest flick, it didn't take long for me to grow wary of where it was headed.
In the very first scene, when it is established that the two main characters are U.S. Marshals investigating a disappearance at a hospital for the criminally insane, ridiculously loud "suspense" music completely overwhelms the scene. It's just two guys walking into a hospital, but the music sounded like it was the end of a Hitchcock thriller. Baffling decision from a filmmaker who usually uses music to brilliant effect, and emblematic of what I didn't like about the film generally: cheap tactics to project an atmosphere of foreboding, without progressing the film at all. Drab, washed-out cinematography is another of such techniques.
Towards the end of the film, once it enters a simpler "chase" mode leading up to the mildly surprising twist, it picks up a lot of steam. I actually enjoyed the last quarter or so of the film quite a lot, especially Leonardo Di Caprio's performance, but overall Shutter Island is nowhere near Scorsese's best work.
It's really hard to put a movie like North by Northwest in perspective. It feels like a by-the-numbers thriller, but it was one of the movies that helped to create thriller cliches in the first place. Watching it fifty years after the fact dampens its effect, but that's not to say I didn't enjoy it.
The viewer is taken on a lightweight thrill ride with the impossibly charismatic Cary Grant as the perfect host: charming and dryly funny even when faced with some hilariously unlikely situations (obviously the most efficient way to kill someone is to lure them into the middle of nowhere on a two-hour bus ride and then attempt to fly a plane into them, duh), but smart enough to save the day in the end. His chemistry with Eva Marie Saint, however, was cold at best, and this renders the final third of the film completely limp.
There are no incredibly surprising plot developments, but it is beautifully shot with some brilliant camerawork. The shot looking down on the forecourt of the United Nations building actually made me rewind back to watch it again. Just gorgeous.
So I've enrolled in two units of study at Open University, hopefully my first steps on the way to a Communications degree majoring in Media Communication. The two units I've chosen to start with are "Developing Research and Analytical Skills" and "Introduction to Film Analysis", and I just got word today on which films will constitute said introduction to film analysis.
- Shadow of a Doubt (Hitchcock)
- The Wizard of Oz (Fleming)
- Rear Window (Hitchcock)
- Citizen Kane (Welles)
- Vertigo (Hitchcock)
- Our Hospitality (Keaton/Blystone)
- Fight Club (Fincher)
- Samson and Delilah (Thornton)
- The Grand Illusion (Renoir)
- Batman (Burton)
- Rebel Without a Cause (Ray)
- Raging Bull (Scorcese)
- The Birds (Hitchcock)
- Run Lola Run (Tykwer)
- The Maltese Falcon (Huston)
- A Man Escaped (Bresson)
- Se7en (Fincher)
- Once Upon a Time in The West (Leone)
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Forman)
- The Godfather (Coppola)
Four out of the twenty (that is, twenty per cent) are Hitchcock films. I dig the guy's movies, and sure it's not like he released the same movie over and over, but isn't the point of a course like this to get a wide range of source texts to study? And there's exactly one comedy on that list, which was released almost 90 years ago. I guess comedy isn't worth analysing.
I think we're expected to watch each movie on the list and then choose one to study for each of two our assessment tasks. This will give me a good excuse to watch a few unfamiliar movies, and perhaps grow my DVD collection in the process as well.
In 2006 I went to a pre-release screening of Clerks II (and Q&A session with its writer/director Kevin Smith) at the Astor. The cinema was packed with over one thousand of Smith's most hardcore Australian fans, and every joke in the movie killed. Seeing a film amongst a full house of fans makes it far more enjoyable, and seeing The Room at Nova last night was one of the most enjoyable film experiences I've ever had.
The screening was a chaotic scene with people throwing spoons, pre-empting dialogue and losing their shit whenever Denny was on screen. I went with Carmen and two friends who hadn't seen it before, and I can only imagine how perplexing it must have been for them to see three grown men in tuxedos throwing a football to each other before the film began.
I never really understood the appeal of, say, seeing The Rocky Horror Picture Show at a midnight screening, but now that I've experienced being in a theatre with hundreds of people who love the film on screen enough to make complete asshats of themselves, it makes perfect sense to me.
We're hoping to go back and see it again in a couple of weeks, so if anyone is interested let me know and we'll get another group together. But my advice is to see the movie before you go to a screening, because you won't hear half the dialogue in the theatre.
Darker and bleaker than an Opeth album cover. (Or an Opeth song, such as the song "Bleak".)
I've never liked Viggo Mortensen in anything, but I enjoyed The Road in spite of his presence.
Little things about it niggled me, such as the fact that a child who has grown up in a world of complete desolation and cannibalism is nonetheless whimpering with fear all the fucking time. But such niggles do not get in the way of what I liked about the film: its depressive mood, stark cinematography and fantastic supporting performances (especially by Robert Duvall).
Tommy Wiseau wrote, directed, produced, executive produced and starred in this, the most piss-poor, amateurish, laughably bad film of the past decade. I heard about it due to its cult following on the internet, and all you need to know about it is contained in this YouTube clip:
By some incredible miracle Wiseau managed to raise $7 million of his own money to finance what is essentially a how-to guide in horrible filmmaking. He shot the film on 35mm and high-definition video simultaneously because he was confused about the differences between the two formats, but ignorance of the technical aspects of making a film were the least of his troubles.
The script is full of the most unnatural, stilted dialogue ever written, with characters matter-of-factly stating their thoughts, emotions and actions in every scene. On multiple occasions the two main male characters, Johnny (played by Tommy Wiseau) and Mark, re-affirm their status as best friends by literally saying "You're my best friend" to one another. Lisa, the main female character (who is engaged to Johnny and sleeping with Mark), succinctly recounts her situation daily to her mother, who inexplicably turns up at Lisa and Johnny's house every day and only stays for exactly the amount of time it takes to listen to her daughter explain her feelings. Lisa also at one point says to Mark, about Johnny: "he's your best friend".
Almost every line sounds like it was looped in post-production, and there are several occasions where a character will deliver a line without their mouth moving. Wiseau has some kind of vaguely eastern European accent which makes his lines almost unintelligible, and he has a habit of bursting into laughter at the most inappropriate times. His poor English probably explains the script's ridiculous dialogue:
Mark: How was work today?
Johnny: Oh, pretty good. We got a new client… at the bank. We make a lot of money.
Mark: What client?
Johnny: I can not tell you, it's confidential.
Mark: Oh come on. Why not?
Johnny: No I can't. Anyway, how is your sex life?
The most confusing aspect of the film is that plot points are introduced and then never re-visited, making it extremely difficult to follow what's actually happening. One line in the film is – and I'm not making this up – "I got the results from the test back; I definitely have breast cancer". That line, uttered non-chalantly by Lisa's mother, is the first, last and only mention of this seemingly life-changing revelation in the film and it is never addressed again. There's another scene with a tense showdown on the roof of their apartment building with a drug dealer (again, mostly unexplained and given no background at all) which is never mentioned again after its resolution.
Characters, too, walk into scenes out of nowhere, with no introduction or explanation for their presence in the scene, and deliver their hilariously ham-fisted lines of dialogue before completely disappearing from the movie. A psychologist friend of Johnny's (we know he's a psychologist because Johnny says "You're a psychologist") disappears after engaging in a game of football with the other main male characters. It's not explained why they happen to be wearing tuxedos at the time, and they stand about three metres from each other while throwing the football, but the psychologist somehow manages to trip over and is never heard from again.
(This particular disappearance is because that particular actor quit halfway through the production due to creative differences with Wiseau. The psychologist character is supposed to have some lines later in the film but they are instead given to another character, who walks into a scene with no introduction to speak the psychologist's lines before completely disappearing.)
Tommy Wiseau appears to have made an earnest attempt at high drama, but he's such an incompetent auteur that his message is completely lost amongst the woeful dialogue. That message, I think, is that women are evil witches.
Everything about the film is embarrassingly low-quality, but I have to say I had heaps of fun mocking it with Carmen. If I were to score it purely on its merits as a film, say in comparison to The Godfather or The Shawshank Redemption, I'd obviously have to give it a zero, but I can't deny that I genuinely enjoyed watching it and have been quoting it to my girlfriend ever since we saw it.
So I'll give it no stars, but strongly recommend that you watch it.
If you want to have a raucously fun evening, get some friends together for a screening. There are apparently midnight screenings happening all over the U.S. to cater to its growing cult following, and I've heard that Melbourne's own Cinema Nova is screening it soon as well.
I've been watching Band of Brothers for the past couple of days and continue to be amazed by the good humour and matter-of-fact style of wartime soldiers in recollecting their almost superhuman tales of survival.
Yesterday I came across this fascinating piece in the words of one of the main characters in Band of Brothers, Major Dick Winters:
On the way to the camp I was pretty unsettled. I took Highway 13, passed a casket factory and reported in at Camp Toombs.