In a world of voiceover artists...

Don LaFontaine
1940—2008

Judgement day

Stan Winston
1946—2008

If you have seen Aliens, the Terminator films, Predator and Predator 2, Jurassic Park or Batman Returns then you have seen the amazing monster and make-up effects of Stan Winston who has sadly passed away after a seven year battle against multiple myeloma.

Hats of to a special effects genius.

Heart of stone

It is a brave actor who dares to speak publicly about politics, current affairs, poverty or the environment. "What do actors know about anything?" cry the media pundits, "Talking down to us from their ivory towers." True, there are plenty of artistes with little in the way of brains between their ears but that is true of any profession or walk of life. There are plenty of bright people working in the entertainment industry who have as informed opinions as anyone else who works and pays their taxes.

And then there is Sharon Stone's profound insights on the earthquakes in China:

"Well, you know, it's very interesting because at first I'm, you know, not happy about the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else; and so I've been very concerned about how to think and what to do about that because I don't like... that.

"And then I've been, you know, concerned about, 'Oh, how shall we deal with the Olympics?' because they're not being nice to the Dalai Lama who's a good friend of mine.

"And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened and I thought, 'Is that karma? When you're not nice then the bad things happen to you?'

"And then I got a letter from the Tibetan Foundation that they wanted to go and be helpful and that made me cry. And they asked me if I would write a quote about that and I said that I would, that it was a big lesson to me, that sometimes you have to learn to put your head down and be of service even if people who aren't nice to you... and that that's a big lesson for me."

You can watch the clip for yourselves here if you can stomach it.

Apparently, Sharon Stone can be a cunt on screen without crossing her legs.

The slender thread breaks

Sydney Pollack
1934—2008

REVIEW: Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull

S'alright.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong #... sorry, I've lost count

My heart is breaking at this news, it really is:

A remake of Abel Ferrara's controversial 1992 masterpiece Bad Lieutenant is going into production later this summer.

I know. Wait, though, it gets worse:

A remake of Abel Ferrara's controversial 1992 masterpiece Bad Lieutenant is going into production later this summer. Taking on the role, brilliantly portrayed by Harvey Keitel with searing intensity in the original, is Nicolas Cage.

Yeah, I know. But wait, though, it gets worse:

A remake of Abel Ferrara's controversial 1992 masterpiece Bad Lieutenant is going into production later this summer. Taking on the role, brilliantly portrayed by Harvey Keitel with searing intensity in the original, is Nicolas Cage. And the remake will be directed by Werner Herzog. Yes, the Werner Herzog who made such magnificently barmy classics as Aguirre - Wrath of God, Woyzeck, Fitzcarraldo. Yup, another once great film-maker has "done a Scorcese", succumbed to sucking Hollywood studio cock and jumped on the remake bandwagon*.

Please, Werner, don't do it. You're better than that. Ah fuck, what's the point...

I envisage a future where Hollywood studios start remaking films that haven't even been shot yet. The Golden Age of the "Premake" is upon us!

* Yes, yes, I know Nosferatu was a remake and that was brilliant, but still...

The talented Mr. Minghella

Anthony Minghella
1954—2008

I was saddened to hear of Anthony's passing despite the fact that I am not a huge fan of his films. I hated The English Patient, thought it trite and empty albeit beautifully shot. On the other hand, Truly, Madly, Deeply is a wonderful little film and I also quite enjoyed The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Even though I do not care greatly for his work he always came across in interviews as intelligent, good humoured, passionate about film and basically a lovely human being. I always felt a bit bad that I didn't like his films as much as I liked him.

The Coens on fire, Camden burns

I was very shocked to wake up this morning to the news of a major fire at Camden Market. I'm not intimately familiar with the place but I have strolled around the market and drunk in many of the pubs around there. There are several great gig venues in the area too like Koko, the Electric Ballroom and the Roundhouse that I visited several times last year.

Damn, a real shame, that.

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In an attempt to rekindle my interest in films, I made the effort to go and see The Coen Brothers' adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country For Old Men. And what a relief it was. After two disappointing films, Intolerable Cruelty and the utterly pointless (if beautifully shot) remake of The Ladykillers, No Country For Old Men sees the Coen boys on cracking form. I read the novel last year when I heard that The Coens were making a film of it and I immediately realised that McCarthy's sparse, violent and melancholy neo-Western was perfect material for them. And how. It is reminiscent in tone and pace of the brothers' first film Blood Simple but in an older and wiser way. Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones are all wonderfully understated in their roles, Kelly MacDonald is strong too.

I can understand why the ending has pissed people off but, having read the novel, I was prepared for it. I don't think I would have minded anyway: I wouldn't have expected a nice, tidy and typical thriller-style ending from the Coens anyway - that is not what the film (or the novel) is about.

To find out what it is about, I suggest you go and see it, think about it for a while, see it again and then read the book. Or read the book first; I always prefer to read the book first for some reason.

Anyway, the film is good enough to make you think that it should be law that all McCarthy adaptations are made by the Coen Brothers. Having said that, The Road is currently in production under the directorship of John Hillcoat, the fella who made the Nick Cave scripted The Proposition, a powerful film that stayed with me long after I left the cinema even though I didn't really know whether I liked it or not as I was watching it. I think Hillcoat and McCarthy will be a good match. Also, Blood Meridian (which is on my ever-growing "to read" shelf) is on the slate for Ridley Scott. McCarthy... Ridley Scott... hmm, it could work; Ridley is nothing if not eclectic in his choices.

As yet untitled blog post

I don't know where to begin so I will skip the beginning and begin in the middle.

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Finally went to see a shrink - sorry - counsellor today and it turned out to not be as an horrific waste of time as I might have feared. She discerned very quickly that I am not interested in discovering why I am a miserable failure with no self-esteem but how I can stop being a miserable failure with no self-esteem. Yes yes yes, it's all because of my mother probably, great, but what do I do about it? I'm not interested in examining the past, I want to fix the now. She said the three magic words before I had a chance to bring them up: cognitive behavioural therapy. I decided I liked her very much at that point. "Oh thank fog* for that, she gets it." She is going to refer me to a CBT group which is nice. Unfortunately, the next round of classes doesn't begin until the beginning of April but, I don't know, having somebody who knows what they are talking about acknowledge that I have a real problem and could offer a practical way forward was comforting. April, though... bit of a long way off. I may buy myself a copy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies (seriously) to tide me over.

I feel oddly... validated

She was also quite attractive. She wore nice boots.

---

I am glad to hear that despite the death of Heath Ledger production of Terry Gilliam's new film The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus will continue.

When I first heard of Ledger's death I could not help but recall the collapse of Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and think, "Oh no, not again." I don't wish to sound as if my desire to see a cool movie overshadows the sad loss of such a young human being but I am glad the film can be completed. Dr. Parnassus (along with the upcoming Dark Knight) will give us a final glimpse of how this intriguing young actor might have developed, and what better tribute to an actor is there?

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I am fucking loving Bartók at the moment

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Don't know how to finish either so I will stop here at the end of the middle.

---

* As an ignostic, I am loath to use the phrase "oh my God." However, from a purely aesthetic point of view and in certain circumstances "oh my god" is exactly the right phrase to use. Therefore, in order to circumvent my distaste for the word "god" whilst not depriving myself of the satisfaction of using the phrase "oh my god" I am experimenting rhyming substitutes such as "dog", "fog", "bog". I must confess, though, that it just isn't the same**.

** However, I have found a most favourable substitute for the exclamation "for the love of god", namely, "oh for the love of fucksy". Go on, try it. The next time you feel the need to express your incredulity at the sheer stupidity of a person or persons in your immediate vicinity, try screaming from the very depths of your diaphragm, "Oh for the love of fucksy!" It really works.

A dark night

Heath Ledger
1979—2008

In Review (finally): 2007

2007: The year I stood up in church during a friend's wedding ceremony and read out an extract from The Velveteen Rabbit - a moment I will always remember with great fondness.

2007: The year we lost Kurt Vonnegut. The discovery of his work in my late teens was pivotal in my development as a serious reader. Having gobbled up Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett I felt the desire to adventure deeper into the literary landscape. I was in the habit of picking books at random from shop shelves, reading the blurb, scanning a few pages, impulse buying. One book I found using this method was Jack Womack's Random Acts Of Senseless Violence, a disturbing and vivid vision of social breakdown. I enjoyed it immensely. One of the quotes of praise on the dust jacket likened Womack to some guy called Kurt Vonnegut so I went out and bought Slaughterhouse 5, the title of which sounded vaguely familiar.

The book was a revelation. Funny, serious, wise, angry and compassionate, a moving story of war and the bombing of Dresden that somehow involved time travel and extraterrestrial zoos. Reading this book I realised that serious fiction could be funny and stories didn't have to be told in chronological order. I was amazed how effortlessly Vonnegut took all these fragments, all these disparate threads, and somehow tied them all together on the final page. Most of all I was won over by Vonnegut's wry charm and humanity; reading him was like being taught life lessons by a favourite uncle. "Come here, son, I want to tell you a few things about the world."

Reading Vonnegut is liberating in that he shows you that you can do anything you damn well please in fiction - his books are like permission slips. I'm very sad he is gone but I'm happy that he was here at all and gave us so many wonderful words.

2007: the year I read Ulysses and I finally finished Boccaccio's Decameron. I experienced something of a reading renaissance in 2007: I always have a book on the go but for some reason my appetite became particularly voracious (which maybe explains my resolve to conquer James Joyce's colossal tome). I read a lot of excellent stuff including Pamuk's My Name Is Read, John Fowles' The Magus, Georges Perec's Life: A User's Manual, several Richard Brautigans (what a beautifully quirky turn of phrase that man had), The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, Slow Chocolate Autopsy by Iain Sinclair and José Saramago's Blindness, the last of which affected me the most with its harrowing vision of the ease with which "civilised" society could collapse.

If my appetite for reading increased in 2007 then my interest in film waned considerably. I know I've complained bitterly about Hollywood remaking every good Asian film barely five minutes after its released but it now it seems studios are cannibalising every nation's celluloid history including their own. We're going to get Paul W.S. Anderson's remake of The Long Good Friday pointlessly relocated to contemporary Miami, Ron Howard doing Michael Hanecke's Caché (Hidden), Michael Hanecke doing an American remake of his own Funny Games (why Michael, why?), The Taking Of Pelham 123 and Fritz Lang's Metropolis for fuck's sake. What happens when you've flogged a franchise to death with increasingly shite sequels? Why, you simply start again by remaking the original! Hello Halloween! And talking of John Carpenter, hello Assault On Precinct 13 remake! Hello Escape From New York remake! Apparently John Carpenter is happy to piss all over his own back catalogue of DIY cult classics by endorsing uninspired remakes.

The event that epitomised this trend for me is the fact that Martin Scorcese finally won his long-deserved Oscar for his laziest, most derivative film. Not only is The Departed inferior to its Hong Kong progenitor but it also feels like Scorcese simply imitating his own past glories. You'll say I am taking this far too seriously but watching The Departed and witnessing the subsequent praise and adulation Marty received actually kinda' hurt.

Thank Whoever, then, for David Lynch who delivered three hours of magnificent dread and weirdness in the form of INLAND EMPIRE. It doesn't matter that I didn't follow the half of it, I loved every damn digitally videoed frame of it. Even when I had no idea what was going on I never felt that Lynch was wasting my time with mere self-indulgent waffle - which, coincidentally, was exactly how I felt reading Ulysses. I seemed to be in that kind of mood in 2007. The only other films I enjoyed at the cinema were Zhang Yimou's Curse Of The Golden Flower which, despite the lukewarm critical response, I really enjoyed, and Hot Fuzz, the most gloriously absurd and entertaining film of the year.

Never mind, I procured lots of good music this year. I got stuck into two genres that I have long-intended to investigate properly: Post-punk and classical. By "classical" I really mean "orchestral", I suppose, because the era I have been drawn to has been that of 20 Century modern composers. Yes, I'm loving all that dodecaphonic atonal shit.

Best albums released this year? Chicago, Detroit, Redruth by Luke Vibert, Book Of Dogma by The Black Dog (well, OK, I admit that this is a compilation of previously released material but much of it has only appeared on vinyl so it still counts), Whisper Me Wishes by Kettel, Oblivion With Bells by Underworld, Foley Room by Amon Tobin and the magnificently barmy Tromatic Reflexxions by Von Südenfed.

I managed to keep a New Year's resolution for once by going to some gigs, something I hadn't done for a long time. I went to see Aim, Bonobo, Underworld and Amon Tobin and I'm so glad I made the effort. Music really is one of the things that makes life worth living - a world without music doesn't bear thinking about.

But otherwise 2007 sucked. Let's see if I can get my shit together in 2008, eh?

Ha. I say that every year.

Slappy Poo Smear

Jeez, 'bout time I wrote sumfink on this 'ere blog o' mine.

Well, I hope you all had an above average Christmas and an adequate New Year. I've already had my first anxiety attack of 2008! That's got to be a record even for me. Never mind, I got better.

Let's get down to the important bit: summary of Crimbo stash!

• Blade Runner 2007 Final Cut Collector's DVD box-set (only one problem: I can't decide which of the five included versions of the film to watch first).
• Jan Svankmajer - The Complete Short Films DVD box-set. Fantastic and surreal animations from the mad Czech genius Svankmajer.
• The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld Deluxe Edition CD. Owned this on cassette years ago but finally got it on CD with an extra disc of remixes. I'd forgotten how brilliant this album is.
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (I loved No Country For Old Men and I can't wait to see the Coen Brothers' film adaptation).
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat by Oliver Sachs.
• The Gospel According To Jesus Christ by José Saramago. I've been reading this over the Christmas holiday - seemed appropriate.

A most excellent haul, I think you'll agree. Now, which bloody version of Blade Runner shall I watch first...?

Hmm. And, hmm again

Simon Pegg as Star Trek's Scotty? Simon Pegg... as Montgomery Scott. Pegg... Simon... Scotty...

Hmm.

Don't get me wrong: I love Simon Pegg. He is a very funny man and a strong enough actor to pull off serious roles as well as comedic ones. But Scotty? "You cannae' change the laws o' physics" Scotty? I can't quite see it somehow.

On the other hand, the presence of Pegg has finally made me slightly interested to see JJ Abrams' "rebooting" of the tired old Trek franchise. Possibly.

But never mind Star Trek: the real question on everybody's lips is "Who will be the next Doctor Who?" (not that David Tennant appears to be going anywhere in the foreseeable future even if he is taking a "gap year" to do some Shakespeare; but you know what the world of fandom is like).

[Hmm, this turned into a bit of a geek thread, didn't it?]

Do not adjust your browser

Here's a bit of a find: Terry Gilliam's first foray into animation circa 1968, including the famous "Christmas Card" skit from Do Not Adjust Your Set.

Enjoy!

"Some people are bullfighters. Some people are politicians. I'm a photographer."

Michaelangelo Antonioni
1912—2007

"I met Death today. We are playing chess."

Ingmar Bergman
1918—2007

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong #3

Handmade Films are plundering their back catalogue in order to shit on the memory of... sorry, I mean to say remake some classic British films for a contemporary international audience.

Among the titles up for ruination are Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits, Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa (with - woohoo - Larry "Kids" Clark at the helm) and - I can barely bring myself to say it - The Long Good Friday...

... relocated to contemporary Miami.

... and directed by... directed by... oh, for fuck's sake... Paul WS Anderson.

The London setting and the IRA are intrinsic elements of the original film; they're what the film is about. Transposing the story, the mere sequence of events, to Miami strips away everything that raised the original above and beyond a generic gangster flick. And allowing Paul WS Anderson, the hack who brought us such timeless classics as Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil and Alien Vs. Predator, to direct... that's just an insult to humanity.

What next? A remake of Withnail & I with Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Simpson? "Yeah, see, let's make Withnail a girl and they can fall in love. It would be a smash hit romantic comedy: When Withnail Met I!"

There are some studio executives out there who need to have a few things explained to them with a very heavy piece of wood with a nail in it.

UN-REVIEW: INLAND EMPIRE

I've been trying to fathom how to write a meaningful review of David Lynch's new film for over the last week since I saw it but I just don't know how. I could explain that it begins with Laura Dern playing an once popular actress whose career has settled into a rut. She secures the lead role in a movie that she hopes will rejuvenate her career but it comes to light that the movie is a remake of Polish film that was never completed because the lead actors were murdered.

That synopsis covers about the first 45 minutes of Lynch's film... except that I forgot to mention the sitcom with the rabbits who talk in stilted non-sequiturs but whose words are greeted with hysterical canned laughter. Oh, and the crying woman watching said bunny sitcom on a TV in a hotel room. But apart from that the first 45 minutes of INLAND EMPIRE kinda' makes sense.

And then after that Laura Dern goes on some kind of nightmarish journey where the real world, the fictional world of the film she is making, the Polish film upon which it is based and the true story of that film's making collide, merge, blur, overlap and loop back on themselves.

But I was expecting that so before I went into the cinema I resolved to not attempt to make sense of the narrative as it went along and simply allow INLAND EMPIRE to happen at me. And I loved it, all three hours of it. INLAND EMPIRE is a natural successor to Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive in its multiple layers of reality and fiction and Lynch's immense skill in wringing every ounce of tension and terror from the dark spaces in familiar, ordinary environments. The film is shot entirely on digital video and some critics have complained that this results in an cheap, amateurish look. Personally, I found the look of the film wonderfully disorienting. No, it doesn't have the look of traditional film stock, it is something different, something that is visually striking in its own right. The sound design, as always in Lynch's films, is tremendously atmospheric and greatly contributes to the sense of unease that pervades the film.

In conclusion I can conclude nothing. One viewing simply isn't enough to take it all in and start to process the information. As with all Lynch's films, there is no definitive interpretation of what it is and I suspect that it will take many subsequent viewings on DVD before I will even begin to formulate an opinion on what it's all about. As I watched it, I felt some subliminal intuition that INLAND EMPIRE does make some kind of sense, that it is actually about something on not just a load of random weirdness that Lynch has thrown at the screen for a laugh.

Laura Dern gives a wonderful and varied performance that is by turns timid, awkward, angry, bitter, heartbroken, compassionate, distraught and disturbed.

Many people would find this film utterly infuriating, maybe even those who have enjoyed some of Lynch's work in the past. It is therefore a difficult film to recommend. All I can say is that I am so grateful that, despite the dearth of imagination and rabid pursuit of commercial success that dominates contemporary culture, people like David Lynch are still sometimes able to get their mad ideas out there into the world. At a time when I feel that dogmatic rules dictate mundane formulas for what films and books and music and art should be, I needed something as wilfully barmy and disobedient as INLAND EMPIRE to come along.

Thank you, David.

REVIEW: Sunshine

I have a strange relationship with Danny Boyle films. I always feel a little underwhelmed immediately after seeing them but, in the days that follow, they stay with me and I eventually feel compelled to see them again. This happened with Trainspotting and 28 Days Later in particular. My opinion of both films grew with subsequent viewings. I believe the same will be the case with Sunshine.

Boyle directs an Alex Garland scripted tale of everyday astronauts travelling to the sun while strapped to a massive nuclear bomb. The sun is dying, y'see, and if our eight space-faring heroes can't reignite it with aforementioned bomb then all life on Earth will die. No pressure, then.

The first thing to say is that this film is gorgeous. Danny Boyle fills the screen with some truly awesome imagery. The vessel upon which our heroes make their journey, the Icarus II (no, really), is a beautifully rendered modular spacecraft hiding behind a massive umbrella-like reflective shield. But the real star of the film is the sun itself. I can't remember ever seeing the scale or power of the sun so impressively presented on the cinema screen with such deserved reverence. It is, after all, the source of all life on our planet and this film certainly does it justice. Indeed, this is one of the film's major themes. What's even more impressive is that the budget for the film was a modest $20 million - you could easily believe that it cost ten times that amount. The visual splendour of the film is complimented by brilliant sound design that makes an invaluable contribution to the sense of space and atmosphere.

The performances too, from the likes of Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh and Chris Evans, are strong and believable even if the characters do feel like archetypes rather than complex human beings. Indeed, Sunshine suffers from a problematic script such as the decision to call the ship Icarus II. Even the least superstitious of scientists wouldn't call a spacecraft heading for the sun Icarus II - that's just asking for trouble, isn't it? And please note: that's Icarus II. Yes, this is the second mission to the sun called Icarus. The first mission, Icarus I, set off seven years prior to the events in this film and disappeared without trace. Didn't anyone think that maybe calling not one but two missions to the sun Icarus was perhaps tempting fate?

There are bigger problems, though. The film-makers seem to be unsure of what kind of film they are trying to make. It is clearly influenced by many sci-fi predecessors - 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris, Silent Running, Alien, Event Horizon - but can't settle on whether it is a philosophical rumination of the nature of humankind's relationship with the universe, a taut psychological thriller or an horror flick. The answer is that it flips from one to another and doesn't quite satisfy as any of them.

Having said all that, it is definitely worth seeing, especially in the cinema. As well as the aforementioned beauty of the ship's journey to the sun, director Boyle sustains the tension throughout brilliantly as one disaster after another afflicts the mission. There are some brilliant moments such as the spacewalk across the ship's gigantic shield where cameras inside the space helmets create a true sense of claustrophobia. It is only in the final act that he seems to loose his way and bombards you with frenetic, confusing weirdness.

I was lucky enough to see Sunshine at a special "bloggers' preview" about a month ago (thanks to Suw Charman for swinging that for me). I was quite down on the film when I came out. But, as I mentioned at the top of this review, I feel more sympathetic towards it and, now that it has a nationwide release, I want to see it again. It is, without a doubt, a flawed piece of work but it is an intelligent sci-fi film for grown-ups with some thought-provoking ideas and some truly stunning imagery. And it's a British film.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong #2

Dimension Films are preparing a remake of David Cronenberg's Scanners to be helmed by Darren Lynn Bousman, director of Saw II and III.

For fuck's sake...

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong

Ron Howard plans to direct a remake of Michael Hanecke's Caché (Hidden).

Christ on a bicycle. At least when Hollywood remade Infernal Affairs they had a high-calibre director with Scorcese so there was a chance that it might turn out to be good (but, sadly, we got Scorcese-by-numbers, a poor man's Goodfellas). But Ron Howard, America's blandest and most inoffensive filmmaker, taking on Hanecke's masterfully suspenseful and dark Caché? No, no, no. We'll end up with an utterly forgetable and sanitised thriller stripped of the original's complex and ambiguous heart.

Hollywood is already in the process of adapting Hanecke's Funny Games. I wonder who will direct that one? Brett Ratner?

Crimbo stash

Sod peace and love to all humankind: Christmas is about getting cool pressies. In a manner of speaking, I didn't actually get any. I sent my Amazon wish list to the the parents as per usual (they have long since given up any pretence of knowing what books, films and music I like) but due to a technical difficulty that arose from trying to install Internet Explorer 7, my dad's computer simply refused to log into any secure sites which meant no online shopping. Seeing as there was no way he would be able to find any of the stuff I asked for in any of the local consumer outlets in the parents' little corner of Devon, I ended up getting a cheque on Christmas Day accompanied by many humble apologies. (Actually, Dad could have probably got a fair selection of the stuff on my wish list if he had popped into Exeter but he didn't think of that).

But never mind. Cheque was paid into bank account, stuff was ordered (managed to get around Dad's inability to use secure sites by installing Firefox on his computer - fixed the problem immediately) and most of it was waiting on my doormat today when I returned to Oxford.

So, here is the booty I have treated myself to:

• Lost Highway 2 Disc Special Edition DVD
• Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? 2 Disc Special Edition DVD
• Don't Look Now Special Edition DVD
• Mirrormask DVD
• The City Of Lost Children DVD (the edition which finally includes the subtitled French language version so you don't have to suffer the awful, awful, awful English dubbing)
• The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch

And because all of the above were available dirt cheap in various winter sales, I still have some Crimbo dosh left to play with. I predict a pleasant Sunday afternoon browse of Oxford's bookshops and music emporiums tomorrow. Nice one.

Robert Altman 1925-2006

I was greatly saddened to hear about Robert Altman's death on Monday night at the age of 81. He was unique in American cinema, a director who built up stories from mostly improvised and overlapping dialogue. It was a technique that didn't always work but when it did it was wonderful. Besides, he was so prolific that if one of his films didn't succeed then there would be another one along in no time.

I'm not a huge fan of Raymond Carver but I loved Altman's take on his work in Short Cuts. The Player is delightfully vicious, a treat for movie buffs with an ingenious twist at the end. I wish all period dramas were as entertaining and engrossing as Gosford Park. And then there is M*A*S*H, Nashville, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Long Goodbye...

So, thank you, Bob, for all the great films you gave us. Rest well - you've earned it.

"Aw, it's a pity, really. I thought it was a good idea to have someone in the house who is actually sorry he's dead."
- Constance Trentham (Maggie Smith), Gosford Park

The Movie Event Of The Century

Fraggle Rock - The Movie is coming. Meh - I always prefered The Muppet Show although Sprocket the dog was cool.

Fuck that: I want a Dangermouse movie!

On a sidenote, I am not as excited as I should be about the forthcoming Transformers flick. Despite that funky advert (for Citroen, is it?) proving that the current CGI technology can convincingly depict a car turning into a robot, the movie is being directed by Michael "Master-Of-Retarded-Spectacle" Bay. Hey ho.

Peter Jackson: what the hell happened?

Does anyone remember when Peter Jackson made hilariously over-the-top horror films like Bad taste and Braindead with a wry and knowing sense of humour? Does anyone remember his surprisingly tender and intelligent drama about troubled teenagers, Heavenly Creatures? Does anyone remember his hugely entertaining, funny and smart Hollywood debut, the supernatural thriller The Frighteners? In short, does anyone remember when Peter Jackson was good?

OK, Lord Of The Rings was a mighty achievement - granted - and his sense of the macabre was well utilised in bringing Tolkien's epic to the screen. But how much you liked the films depended a great deal upon how much you liked the books. I read and enjoyed the trilogy when I was a teenager but my tastes have moved on considerably since then; so by the time Jackson's film adaptation arrived I was not especially interested anymore. They were extremely well-made movies and I enjoyed them but they are not films that I will return to again and again.

And then Jackson decided to become some kind of celluloid remake factory and gave us King Kong. Not only that, he gave us three fucking hours of it. The original King Kong from 1933 was a great story told in 100 minutes - what possible reason could there have been to double the length? OK, sure, the special effects of the original look very primitive compared to what can be achieved today but there is still plenty of striking and iconic imagery. I'm not saying that Jackson's version was bad - it was was much, much, much better than the 1976 remake - but it all felt so unnecessary.

Not as unnecessary as a remake of The Dambusters, though, but that's what Jackson is planning to do next. Yup, Jackson will produce a remake of the 1954 British war movie The Dambusters. Why, for fuck's sake? He apparently saw it as a child and loved it. Jackson says his remake will be "as authentic as possible and as close to the spirit of the original as possible". What's the point of that? Why not just watch the original? Why not just finance a re-release of the 1954 version instead of spending millions of dollars on an utterly pointless and cynical remake? Leave it alone!

Besides, in the context of a world currently shaken by violence and an ill-conceived war on terror, is there a place for such war films? Won't it simply reinforce the erroneous notion that "we" are fighting a clearly defined enemy rather than a widespread ideology with no single leader? Won't it simply make people believe that, hey, all we gotta' do is build some fancy weapon and go destroy some specific building somewhere and the world will be safe once again?

On many levels, I don't think the world needs a glossy CGI remake of The Dambusters. And I want the old Peter Jackson back, the wickedly mischievous little imp.

Dearly Departed

“The worst of the Eight Hells is called Continuous Hell. It has the meaning of Continuous Suffering. Thus the name.”
- Nirvana Sutra – Verse 19

I love Martin Scorcese - Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The King Of Comedy, Goodfellas: wonderful films - but I was saddened when I first heard the news that he would be remaking the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs as The Departed. Why? Why does a great director like Scorcese have to jump on the contemporary Asian movie remake bandwagon? His remake of Cape Fear was good but no improvement over the original - an enjoyable but redundant experience.

Now, I have to admit that I have a possibly irrational bee in my bonnet about Hollywood plundering East Asia's recent back catalogue. I love the atmosphere and pace of the Asian versions of Ringu, The Grudge, Dark Water and The Eye and, being an intelligent human being who can walk and chew gum at the same time, I have no problem with subtitles. But no, lazy Western audiences don't go to the cinema to read. If they wanted to read they'd buy a book. So, in order to make these modern foreign classics accessible to Western cinema-goers, and to save themselves the effort of coming up with interesting ideas themselves, the Hollywood studios are only too happy to remake them.

So what? OK, the thing is that the Hollywood producers wax lyrical about the emerging talent in the East and about how Asian filmmakers are making the best films in the world right now and how they want to share these modern classics with Western audiences. And then they purchase not only the rights to remake the films but also distribution rights... but they don't distribute them. They sit on the Asian originals and fire out their own remakes to cinemas.

I will concede that, from what I've read, the US remakes have not been all bad (except Dark Water and, from what I gather, it was a pretty dismal experience for the very talented director Walter Salles) but, being the stubborn bastard that I am, I ain't gonna' see them. I've no need to. I've got the originals to enjoy.

It saddens me, therefore, that Scorcese is tossing his hat into the Asian remake ring (no pun intended). Infernal Affairs, in case you don't know, is the story of an undercover cop who has infiltrated a Triad gang in a game of cat-and-mouse with a mole who has risen through ranks of the police force. Directed by Wai Keung Lau and Siu Fai Mak, it is as much a rumination on identity and the idea of "Continuous Hell" as it is an action thriller. As well as the beautiful photography, direction and editing, it features some superb performances from Andy Lau as the mole in the police force, Tony Leung as the undercover cop, Eric Sang as the Triad boss and Anthony Wong as Leung's commanding officer.

This leads me onto another bone of contention: the casting of Scorcese's version. In place of Andy Lau and Tony Leung we will get Matt Damon and Leonardo di Caprio respectively. Matt and Leo are both good actors but when compared to the likes of Lau and Lueng (the latter being possibly my favourite living actor) then neither of them quite make the grade. One of the things that defines Lau's and Lueng's characters in the original is that they have been living the lie of their respective deceptions for so long that they no longer know what they are fighting for or whose side they are really on. They are getting older and world-weary. But Matt and Leo are, frankly, still too young and fresh-faced for the roles. Give them another ten years and they would probably be right for the roles, but not yet. And as for Mark Wahlberg taking on Anthony Wong's role as the police chief... ugh, please. The mighty Jack Nicholson is playing Eric Sang's gang boss part; the only bit of casting I feel could work well.

I don't doubt for a second that The Departed will look fantastic and that the cast and crew have given the project their all but, sorry Marty, I just can't muster much enthusiasm when I have the superb original already on my DVD shelf.

Oh, and the Hollywood machine is also going to remake the South Korean extreme cinema classic Oldboy. Yeah, right, that won't be neutered at birth. I can't picture any of today's popular Hollywood pretty-boys eating a live octopus on screen, can you?

Nice Guy Eddie, R.I.P.

Actor Chris Penn, younger brother of Sean, was found dead at his Santa Monica Home. He made his film debut in Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumblefish in 1983 but was probably best known as Nice Guy Eddie in Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

The most curious thing mentioned in all the news reports of his death is the fact that nobody seems to know for sure exactly how old he was: somewhere between 40 and 43 is the rough estimate.

Anyway, he was a talented character actor who still had a lot of interesting parts to play.

“OK, first things fuckin’ last!”
- Nice Guy Eddie

Because there just aren't enough movie reviews on the web already... Episode III

Other Most Disappointing Movie of 2005: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

After some twenty years in development hell - and four years after Douglas Adams' sadly premature departure from this world - The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy finally made it to the big screen.

I really wanted to love this film, I really did. I was not going to be one of those hardcore fanboys who would be horribly upset at every little deviation from the novels that I love so much; after all, the novels deviated quite a bit from the original radio series - the plot to Hitchhiker's has been nothing but maleable over the years.

Early statements and reports from the filmmakers demonstrated that everybody involved was in love with Adams' creation and wanted to remain as faithful to the spirit of his work as possible without sacrificing too much to Hollywood conventions.

The resulting film was, indeed, different from the novels and the radio series. I didn't mind that Ford Prefect was played by an American; I didn't mind the way that Zaphod's secod head was realised; I didn't mind the new plot strands and characters that were introduced. And the whole thing looked fantastic.

But the film didn't work.

The charm of Douglas Adams' writing is in the tangental ramblings, the imaginative and absurd linguistic riffs. That is a difficult thing to translate to a two hour movie. Obviously, a lot of material would have to be ditched but instead of picking a handful of the best bits and letting them play out in full, the filmmakers picked lots of bits and severely truncated them. The conversation with Prosser as Arthur Dent lies in front of the bulldozers at the start, the explanation about Babel fish... many of these classic scenes were present but horribly cut short.

The pacing was too fast. The gags did not have the time to breath. The actors' performances suffered because they were trying to get through the dialogue as quickly as possible so that they could get to the next scene. The whole thing needed to be taken down a gear.

And the romance between Arthur and Trillian? I was ambivalent about that. On the one hand, it was understated and not too schmaltzy but, on the other, the whole point about Arthur Dent is that he has lost his home and is hopelessly out of his depth in the wider universe. Baffled, confused, frustrated, anxious: Arthur Dent is a loser, an essentially nice man who is embittered by the more exciting and dynamic people who succeed where he fails. And for him to decide that he doesn't actually need to return to that mostly harmless little blue/green planet simply goes against every incarnation of the character that has gone before.

In fact, Arthur Dent as portrayed my Martin Freeman doesn't leave much of an impression at all. He sort of bumbles around looking surprised and a bit confused and... that's about it. The banter between him and Ford that was central to previous versions of Hitchhiker's is almost entirely absent. Many people criticised Mos Def's performance as Ford but I think he could have been fine if he had had the opportunity to take more time over delivering his lines. Even the usually faultless Bill Nighy - the perfect actor to portray Slartibartfast, you would have thought - gave a rather flat peformance.

There are some fine moments: Arthur's reaction to the spectacular planet factory is genuinely affecting and real; Stephen Fry was the perfect choice as the voice of The Guide; the graphics that accompany the Guide entries are simple, inventive and very funny; Bill Bailey as the voice of the whale; the "So Long And Thanks For All The Fish" song.

All the ingredients were there for a great adaptation but, despite the obvious love that went into the making of the film, they botched it.

Because there just aren't enough movie reviews on the web already... Episode II

Two more runners up for Favourite Movie Of 2005 which I completely forgot to mention when writing my previous post and then couldn't be bothered to add later once I had remembered

• 2046 - Wong Kar Wai's follow up to In The Mood For Love. Tony Leung Chiu-wai (who is one of my favourite actors - check out Infernal Affairs if you haven't already) is trying to deal with life after his almost-affair with Maggie Cheung's Su Li-zhen from the previous film. He becomes strangely obsessed with a hotel room baring the number "2046", moves in next door, and conducts a series of relationships with the women who move into "2046". These relationships inspire a short story, a science fiction tale about a place in the year 2046 where you can go to forget and live in eternal happiness. A gorgeous, meandering, dream-like film that takes its time but is definitely worth the effort.
• Team America: World Police - Utterly profane and hilarious marionette fun. A film without prejudice: everybody is mercilessly ridiculed. But there is also a profound insight into the human condition about how there are three types of people in the world: dicks, pussies and arseholes.

Because there just aren't enough movie reviews on the web already...

Yeah, well, hardly original but here are my utterly inconsequential thoughts on the movies I've seen in 2005.

Favourite Movie in 2005: A History Of Violence

Cronenberg was back with his best film since Dead Ringers. I always enjoy his work but the films he put out in the last ten or fifteen years - Naked Lunch, Crash, Existenz, Spider - were all a tiny bit undercooked as if he struggled to find stories that fully engaged his intellectual and artistic faculties. A History Of Violence, on the other hand, hit the bullseye. Read my review (if you like).

Other Favourite Movie in 2005 if only some bugger would distribute it to UK cinemas: Mirrormask

Dave McKean's and Neil Gaiman's beautiful and surreal fairytale. Why hasn't anybody put this onto cinema screens in Britain where it belongs? Why do we have to suffer crap like Fantastic Four but we don't get a chance to see genuinely inventive films like this in our multiplexes? Read my review (if you like).

Runners Up

• Sideways - Funny, smart, painful, brilliantly acted; it felt like a movie from the 1970s or the sort of film that Barry Levinson used to make where people sat around and had funny, smart and painful conversations.
• Batman Begins - The best of the summer blockbusters... Batman regains his cinematic dignity after the Schumacher neon nightmares of Batman Forever and Batman And Robin.
• Kung-Fu Hustle - just... mad.
• Serenity - A curious beast in that it felt like more than simply an expanded episode of its television progenitor (Firefly) but not quite a fully cinematic piece of work. Not that it really matters: it was bloody good fun, well written, well acted and looked marvellous despite its relatively small $40 million budget.

Biggest Cinematic Disappointment of 2005: The League Of Gentlemen's Apocalypse

There were plenty of worse films knocking around than the League's first full blown cinema outing but Apocalypse was disappointing because the Gents are capable of so much better. Their three wonderful television series - and their feature length Christmas Special - are littered with movie references and filmic flourishes in amongst the wonderfully macabre comedy so for them to make the transition to the big screen was a logical thing to do. Sadly, they opted for the tired old postmodern premise of fictional-characters-stumble-into-real-world-and-meet-their-creators. A real shame. Like I said, not an awful film by any standard but it should have been so much more.

Movie That Will Be The Source Of Baffled Ambivalence Until The Day I Die: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith

Why do I like this? It is rubbish on so many levels. Admittedly, it is better than the first two Star Wars prequels... but I still kinda' like them as well... OK, maybe I only bother to watch two scenes from The Phantom Menace and I skip the excruciating love scenes in Attack Of The Clones... It's no good: I can't justify liking these dreadfully scripted, woodenly acted, CGI-soaked, pumped up video-game trailers but...

What's wrong with me?

Worst Film Of 2005: Sin City

Quite how I have the audacity to condemn Sin City for being a mind-numbingly shallow sequence of film noir clichés after admitting that I like Revenge Of The Sith, I don't know. I realise that I am in the minority by disparaging Frank Miller's and Robert Rodriguez's movie and am expecting an enraged comic-book fanboy lynch mob to kick down my door any second to inflict a little of the old ultravoilence to my person; but that will not prevent me from categorically stating that Sin City is shite - wonderful looking shite, I admit, but shite nonetheless.

Coming as soon as I can be bothered to write it... Films I am looking forward to in 2006...

Richard Pryor, R.I.P.

Richard Pryor has died at the age of 65 after suffering for many years with multiple sclerosis.

Born in Illinois and raised in a brothel, Pryor started out trying to appeal to respectable audiences until he experienced what he called an epiphany whilst onstage in a swanky Vegas hotel in 1967. He looked out at the audience, said, "What the fuck am I doing here?" and walked off stage.

He reinvented himself and cultivated his 'angry nigger' style of profanity and storytelling, the influence of which can be seen through not only successive black comedians like Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock but also the likes of Bill Hicks and even Robin Williams.

He moved into films and became one of the first black men in Hollywood with the power to pick and choose his own projects.

His stand-up routines often drew on personal tragedy, including one infamous incident when he set himself on fire whilst high on cocaine. Probably the best example of his stand-up material is the 1980 film, Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip.

Raise your glasses, if you will, and drink a toast to a great man of comedy. Cheers, Richard.

REVIEW: Mirrormask

During the Q&A session after Tuesday's London Film Festival screening of Mirrormask, Dave McKean mentioned that while he and writer Neil Gaiman were holed up at Lisa Henson's London home thrashing out ideas for the film (and, for the first time in their longstanding partnership, having a bit of a bust up), Terry Gilliam popped round and took them out for a drink. This association is so apt as there is a comparable blurring of reality and fantasy in McKean's feature debut as director and Gilliam's work.

Mirrormask tells the story of Helena (Stephanie Leonidas), a 15 year-old girl frustrated by life in the circus, living her parents' dream. This frustration manifests itself during a hurtful argument with her mum, Joanna (Gina McKee). Most kids dream of running away to the circus, argues mum, but Helena wants to run away to real life. Helena then gets a big dose of real life when her mum collapses later that night, stricken by an unspecified growth or tumour. Helena is shipped off to her grandmother's dreary council flat in Brighton, passing time covering the walls with fantastical drawings and visiting her mum in hospital while Dad (Rob Brydon) negotiates with bank managers to find the money to pay for his wife's life-saving operation while still keeping his dream, the circus, above water. "Dreams only take you so far," says one of the circus performers. "After that you need cash."

It is against this troubling backdrop that Helena stumbles into a surreal fantasy world one night, a world of two opposing lands - Light and Shadow - where unwanted books return to the library under their own volition, shoals of fish swim through the air, cats with human faces issue riddles and married giants orbit each other above the ground; a world where everybody wears a mask to show how they feel and Helena's naked face is considered weird and confusing by the inhabitants.

Helena befriends one such inhabitant named Valentine (Jason Barry) - "I'm an important man. I have a tower." - but is soon mistaken as the ersatz princess that ingratiated herself into the Queen Of Light's confidence but then stole a secret charm, the eponymous Mirrormask, sending the Queen (McKee again) into a deep sleep and disrupting the balance between Light and Shadow. Helena takes it upon herself to retrieve the mask, restore the balance between Light and Shadow and return to her own world.

On the face of it, Mirrormask is standard fairy tale stuff filled with familiar archetypes: the young child transported from her ordinary life into a world of fantastical creatures; the local inhabitant who befriends her but must make a choice between looking out for his own selfish needs or facing danger to protect his new friend; the opposing forces of good and evil personified by the Queens of Light and Shadow. But the film succeeds in transcending these stock elements for several reasons. Firstly, it would be impossible for any movie directed by Dave McKean to look anything less than astonishing. The fantasy worlds he shows us is one stuffed with beautifully weird creatures, buildings and textures. Once we step foot into the Lands of Light and Shadow every single frame is stuffed with wondrous computer generated creations. But compared to something like the Star Wars prequels, where the screen suffers from pristine CG overload, McKean's impressionistic, dreamlike imagery is mesmerising and draws you in to the story rather than bombarding the senses. Even the scenes set in the real world that bookend the film have a curious, otherworldly quality to them.

Then there is Gaiman's thoughtful, warm and witty script. As with his comics and fiction, Gaiman is very good at keeping even his most fantastical scenarios grounded by putting ordinary people into extraordinary situations. Once in the world of fantasy, Mirrormask could have so easily succumbed to the portentous, pseudo-Shakespearean gibberish that blights the Star Wars movies. However, Gaiman never lets this happen and the characters in Mirrormask react to all the strangeness surrounding them in very real, down to earth dialogue. This is aided by the superb cast. Stephanie Leonidas carries the film with great skill, portraying an initially stroppy teenager without appearing obnoxious, a concerned daughter fearful of her mother's illness without being overly sentimental and a curious observer in a strange land without resorting to manic, bug-eyed astonishment. McKee, Brydon and Barry offer equally strong support delivering believable and sympathetic performances. The scenes between Leonidas and Brydon as they anxiously await the outcome of Joanna's operation are particularly touching and understated rather than manipulative or sentimental.

In recent interviews to promote his film The Brothers Grimm, Terry Gilliam has been lamenting the current climate of fear with regards to parents wanting to shield their children from anything in the media they deem to be too frightening. This is a mistake, reasons Gilliam: fairy tales have a useful function because although they are traditionally dark and frightening they always have a happy ending and therefore teach children that there are dangers and demons out there in the world but they can be overcome. This is surely a better lesson to teach to the young rather than wrapping them in cotton wool and pretending that the world is just lovely. This kind of thinking can be seen at work in Mirrormask which has its fair share of frightening moments: the arachnid-like eyeballs on legs, the mysterious black gloop that consumes its victims or attaches itself to creatures' faces in order to possess them. Such images might be enough to compel younger viewers to watch through the gaps between their fingers but there is nothing in the film unsuitably graphic.

As I mentioned earlier, it is easy to see similarities between Mirrormask and Gilliam's films such as Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Brothers Grimm - but where Gilliam's films are anarchic and messy (in a good way), McKean and Gaiman's film has a more measured, contemplative pace. Some reviews that have been knocking around the interweb have complained that, despite the spectacular visuals, the film's narrative is slow and tiresome. Other criticisms have been levelled at the plot saying that it simply doesn't make sense. It is true that anyone used to the Michael Bay school of frenetic editing and nausea-inducing handheld camera work may be on unfamiliar territory. Likewise, anyone who takes the Robert McKee/Syd Mead guidelines of screenplay structure as gospel will scoff at the dream logic of the film. But it is a mistake to judge this film by such dogmatic, inflexible criteria - that would be missing the point. As with Gaiman and McKean's graphic novel collaborations, Mirrormask sets its own rules. The story is perhaps an allegory, a visual manifestation of Helena's fears that she could lose her mother. The Queens of Light and Shadows could represent Helena's adolescent confusion over her love of her parents and her resentment about being trapped in their dream life with the circus. That there are many possible interpretations of what appears onscreen is not a weakness in the film's narrative but rather a reflection of the ambiguity of real life.

Mirrormask is a beautiful, layered film that can be enjoyed by both children and adults and deserves to be widely seen. And the last line of dialogue is perfect.

I'm a film writer

Apparently, I am some kind of film correspondent and vital source of information for movie makers and film industry types...

Cinema Minima - CASINO ROYALE by Martin Campbell, starring Daniel Craig

It turns out that my comments were plucked from the ether by a friend of Suw Charman. Damn, she's a useful person to know.

The name's Blah... James Blah

So, Daniel Craig is the new James Bond (or James Blond as some quarters of the press have hilariously dubbed him). A good choice; Craig is a fine actor who should be able to pull off the balance between sophistication and grit the role requires.

But honestly, who gives a fuck?

The last f