Punch-Drunk Love

Punch-Drunk Love

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson. 

Written By: Paul Thomas Anderson. 

Photography: Robert Elswit.

Starring: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson and Philip Seymour Hoffman. 

Year: 2002.  

County: USA.

 Punch-Drunk Love is the fourth film from my man-crush Paul Thomas Anderson. Or PT, as he lets me call him (in my mind).  

 Lets get this straight to star with: Adam Sandler movies suck, in general anyway. And nobody likeable likes Adam Sandler. But Punch-Drunk Love is an exception, as is Funny People and as I understand, although I haven't seen it, Reign Over Me. Surprisingly, he gives a good performance in this, too. Sandler does actually have the capability of being a good actor, but much like Nicolas Cage, has a tendency to overplay his characters.

 The rule of thumb for Adam Sandler movies: If he wrote/directed/produced - avoid. Just acted - probably terrible, small chance it might be good. 

 Philip Seymour Hoffman, who's one of my favourite actors, also stars, although one of my major disappointments with Punch-Drunk Love is that he's not in it nearly enough. I'm really exited to see him and PT Anderson working together again later this year in The Master. 

 As well Phillip Seymour Hoffman it also stars Emily Watson, who I don't always like, but do in this. 

 Paul Thomas Anderson's direction is masterful, he's often crowned as the new Kubrick or new Altman, which are defiantly fair statements. Every part of its direction is fantastic, from stage direction to sound design. 

 Anderson worked on the sound for the movie with composer Jon Brion from pre-production to post to created a fantastic track. There's a drum beat that plays continually for about 10+ minutes that makes you feel like you've been doing half an hour of a treadmill (I imagine, I've never exercised In my life). Near the end I was literally screaming at the screen for it to stop. 

 There's also a interesting use colour in the film. For example Adam Sandler's famous blue suit that he wears throughout represents sadness, red represents danger and white isolation.  

 Romantic-Comedy is a sub-genre that's been tarnished by many terrible rom-coms in a post-There's Something About Mary world. With the abundances of Katherine Heigl movies in cinemas it's sometimes hard to forget that romantic comedies have to potential to be When Harry Met Sally-great (Now is a good time to give thought to the late Nora Ephron). Punch-Drunk Love isn't great, but it's good, and worthy of many laughs and multiple viewings.   

   

George Washington

George Washington

 

Director: David Gordon Green 

Written By: David Gordon Green 

Photography: Tim Orr 

Starring: Paul Schneider and Eddie Rouse

Year: 2000

Country: USA   

 George Washington is a tale of friendship and tragedy that matches that of Stand By Me.  

 This is the first feature from director David Gordon Green, known more recently for films like Pineapple Express and The Sitter. How he went from directing movies of this caliber, to making Your Highness I will never understand. 

 A drama set in a sparsely populated town in North Carolina that was opened to limited release in 2000. It follows a group of friends as they try to cover up and forget a tragic accident that happened to them. 

 There are no professional actors in the film, they're all locals or people who David Gordon Green knew personally. Some of the actors like Paul Schneider and Eddie Rouse went on to do other things, but for most it was their first and only acting experience, which shouldn't come as a surprise, a lot of the dialogue in the film does feel mannered. This doesn't ruin the film, once you're captivated by its story, you don't even notice. 

 The screenplay is really strong, especially in dialogue. It does have that pretentiousness that you get with all indie movies, but it's a good type pretentiousness. 

The films characters, although idiosyncratic,all feel completely real and relateable. 

 For a movie set in the American South that has a mix of Caucasian and African-American characters, you're waiting for it at any minutes to turn into Do The Right Thing, but it never does.  In fact, race is never brought up at all. It makes for a pleasant change to see a movie that has such a multiracial cast that doesn't feel the need to make a comment on race relations. Also a movie that shows the South in a positive light.

 George Washington made me smile and it nearly brought me to tears. It's masterly made and touchingly sentimental. It's a gem in independent cinema.   

Score 5/5

   

Sex, Lies, and Videotape

Sex, Lies, And Videotape. 

Director: Steven Soderbergh.
Written by: Steven Soderbergh.
Photography: Walt Lloyd
Starring: James Spader, Andie McDowell, Peter Gallagher and Laura San Giacomo. 
Year: 1989.
Country: USA.



Sex, Lies, and Videotape is the feature début from writer/director/cinematographer Steven Soderbergh. It's also one of the films that kick-started the boom in production of /interest in American Independent Cinema in the '90s.


 It won the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1989, even beating Cinema Paradiso, as well it picked up a Best Actor award for James Spader. It didn't have the same success at the Oscars, it was nominated for best original screenplay, but lost to Dead Poets Society. 
  
 The story of SLAV (as I'll call it from now on) is the following: Anne, played by Andie McDowell is a prude Christian housewife. She's extremely self-conscious and paranoid. Her husband, who's played by Peter Gallagher and very similar to his character in American Beauty , is a lawyer and real piece of shit and is having an affair with with Anne's sister, Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). He invites an old college friend, Graham (James Spader), to stay at his house while he looks for an apartment. 


 Graham instantly sparks a friendship with Anne, before long he tells her his secret, that he's effectively impotent and he can't have sex. What he doesn't tell her is that he has his own method of 'getting off'. He uses his videocamera to interview women about their sex lives, and then watch them back to himself. 


 You could be put off by something on this nature, assuming something verging on pornography, but you mustn't. There's actually no sex or nudity in it at all, lots of sex is implied and sex is talked about explicitly through-out, but it never feels vulgar. However this is a film ONLY for adults and older teens.

 Stephen Soderbergh's direction is phenomenal, I would say that he's one of the best actor's directors working today. It's a great film aesthetically, too. When Graham watches his tapes back we don't seem that footage edited in the film, Soderbergh instead films the TV screen and due to the shutter speed of the camera and low quality of '89's TVs it produces a flickering effect that's truly hypnotic. 


 The performances in SLAV are great, too. James Spader does the quiet diffident type that he does really well and plays a lot. We also get the best performance of Andie McDowell's career. She's fabulous in this, which is surprising, as she's terrible in everything else. And as an added treat, she uses her beautiful natural Southern accent that's always been her saving grace. 


 SLAV's atmospheric soundtrack fits perfectly. It was produced by Cliff Martinez who works frequently with Soderbergh and also did the original score for Drive.  


My one grievance is that it feels too quick to end. It's going at a nice steady pace in the first two acts and then suddenly takes a nose dive into an ending. 


SLAV is an excellent character piece and a staple in American and Independent cinema history.



Score: 4.5/5

Paranormal Activity 2

Paranormal Activity 2

Director: Tod Williams

Written By: Michael R. Perry, Christopher Landon, Tom Pabst. 

Photography: Micheal Simmonds 

Starring: Brain Boland, Molly Ephraim, Sprague Greyden.

Year: 2010.

Country: USA. 

I hated the first Paranormal Activity movie, I thought it was boring, self-inflated, unintelligent and unimaginative. I feel like Oren Peli is the guy who only studied film because he thought it would be easy and not out of genuine interest. And don't go giving me shit about it only having a tiny budget, go watch a Belgian movie called Man Bites Dog, It has the exact same budget and that's a masterpiece. 

 Paranormal Activity 2, I thought, might be worth giving a chance. Different director, different writers, different actors, bigger budget. Every potential to be a better film than the original. I was wrong, it's worse! 

The entire fist act of the film is handheld footage of a couple (Brain Boland and Sprague Greydey) documenting the first year of their baby's life. This is a nice way to introduce the characters, but it goes on way too long and it feels like you're being forced to sit through home videos of someone you don't know's ugly kid. 

 One day the family of four and one dog come home from a day out to discover their home has been broken into; nothing is stolen, but the place is turned upside down. The dad pays to have top of the range home security-cameras installed all throughout their house in case whoever it was decides to come back. The  not at all racially stereotyped Latin housemaid, however, seems to think it's something else; she thinks it may be a daemon and starts trotting around the house praying with her swinging incense burner.

 The rest of the film is a slow montage of banality; feeding the baby, swimming in the pool, making dinner and every now and then they'll fit in a scary falling high-chair. Most of the 'paranormal activity' that happens is so stupid and dull that it feels like satire. You have to wait exactly one hour and six minutes before something remotely jump-worthy happens. All this leading up to an absolutely absurd ending. 

 The only good thing I can come up with about Paranormal Activity 2 is that the farther character is quite likeable, but that's it. 

 Paranormal Activity 2 is more tiresome and pretentious than the original. How these films have built up such a fan base, I will never understand. Just watch Poltergeist instead, it's scarier and you'll have more fun.

Score: 1.5/5

Up In The Air

Up In The Air 

Director: Jason Reitman 
Written By: Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner
Photography: Eric Steelberg 
Starring: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. 
Year: 2009
Country: USA

 Up In The Air takes American Smart Cinema to a whole new level of class and sophistication. 

 The film starts with a soul/funk cover of Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land by Sharon Jones, which is a song I like, but in the contexts of the opening credits it felt really dreary, so I sat back in my seat expecting a dreadful flight. The first joke of the film is a stewardess saying to George Clooney's character, Jake "Can, Sir?" which he hears as 'Cancer'. 'Oh, God' I thought 'If all the jokes are this bad, I'm going to really hate this film' 

 Fortunately, all the bad jokes were declared at arrival and Up In The Air turns out to be a sweet, enjoyable treat with just that right measurements of comedy and romance. 

 Ryan Bingham is what's know as a Downsizer; he is someone hired by big companies to fire their employees. This profession requires him to fly all across the States and spends most of his life travelling first-class via plane and sleeping alone in five-star hotel rooms - A life he enjoys very much. As well as this he's also a motivational speaker of the Tony Robbins variety. His shtick is that in life you should keep moving, any attachments or possessions you acquire along the way only weigh you down. Ryan's ideal life is in trouble when his company wants to introduce a new GLOCAL strategy, doing the same job, but via webcam in their offices.   

 Jason Bateman plays Ryan's boss in the film. I always enjoy watching Bateman, he's not a great actor but I get some good Arrested Development nostalgia from seeing him. Anna Kendrick fits the role perfectly as a determined post-feminist newbie under Jake's wing. And Vera Farmiga is great too as the love interest, who's basically a female-jake.     

 Zach Galifianakis also makes a small memorable appearance. But the most minor role and possible best performance of the film comes from J.K. Simons. Really makes you question why there isn't an Oscar category for best minor role. 

 Based on a book by the same name by Walter Kim, Up In The Air was co-written and directed by Jason Reitman, son of Ghostbusters' director Ivan Reitman.  Up In The Air isn't as indie or pretentious as Reitman's previous film Juno (Which contrary to what i just said, I did enjoy) it's closer to his début feature, Thank You For Smoking. 

 The film loses its nihilistic persona about half way through the second act and starts to grow a heart, which may leave cynics feeling a little cheated.   

With most of the film taking place in Airports, the film looks stylish, clean and modern. Up In The Air is  timely piece that makes for a pleasant flight. Some occasional strong language and some explicit sexting may meet the disapproval of George Clooney  fan club members who have an mean age of 70, but Up In The Air should have something for everyone over the certificated age.    

  Score: 4/5

Crash

Crash

Director: David Cronenberg.

Written by: David Cronenberg.

Photography: Peter Suschitzky.

Staring: James Spader, Holly Hunter and Elias Koteas.

Year: 1996.

Country: Canada. 

 There's a lot of fuss right now over a book called 50 Shades of Grey which came out last year. It's an erotic novel that's caused controversy over it's use of BDSM. 


  In 1996 a movie called Crash caused similar controversy. (I'm not talking about the Sandra Bullock/Matt Dillon film by the way).


  The film was written and directed by ex-body horror auteur David Cronenberg. I admit with some embarrassment that In my younger cinephile days I wasn't a fan of Cronenberg, but now I'm older and smarter and I see his true genius.


 Crash explores the connection between sex and car crashes. James Ballard (played by James Spader) is in an open marriage and has an experimental sex life. On the way home from work one night he crashes into Helen Remington (Holly Hunter) and her husband. Helen's husband is killed but James and Helen survive and end up in hospital. After a few accidental encounter, James and Helen begin to have an affair begotten from the thrill of crashing. As the delve in hey discover a sub-culture of people with a car crash fetish.


 This secretive collective stages recreations of infamous Hollywood deaths like James Dean and Jayne Mansfield. Although I enjoyed these scenes, they could be taken as insulting to the memory of these stars. In the original novel this was a comment on the contemporary obsession with celebrities. Cronenberg decided not to delve into this idea which is a shame, I would have liked him to. Though Cronenberg isn't someone who likes to preach, he prefers to let the audience decide for themselves, which he does with Crash.    


 The head of this group is a man named Vaughn played brilliantly by Elias Koteas. He explains to James how a car crash is a "fertilising rather than a destructive event, mediating the sexuality of those who have died with an intensity that's impossible in any other form."


 As you could imagine, there was a lot of negative uproar about the movie. Here in the UK, The Daily Mail ran a hate campaign trying to get it banned, when that didn't work they ran smear campaigns against members of the BBFC calming them unfit for position as one was divorced and one had a child out of wedlock (Yes, in 1996). To this day the film in still banned in Westminster. 


 I honestly didn't find it that shocking, I've seen much worse films like Lars Von Trier's Antichrist for example. I think the disgust steamed from a misunderstanding of the film: I was taken at face value and people were angry because they were feared the film was saying that car crashes were an aphrodisiac and easily influenced audience members would go out after seeing it and deliberately collide with others.


 Cronenberg's direction is masterful The film could have so easily have felt like an adult-movie. But with the exception of the opening scene it never does. The crashes are all factual, too. There's no slow motion, re-play or big explosions. The cinematography is also great, especially in it's use of lighting. 


 The only thing that let the movie down for me was that I found James Spader's character to be really dull and sometimes it felt as though he was just a fly on the wall.


 Crash is an an interesting film that you won't get through unaffected. Students of film will love it as they can peruse over Cronenberg's incredible and intelligent direction as well as all the symbolism embedded into the narrative. It's just not one for prudes. 

Score: 4/5   

Jaws

Jaws

Director: Steven Spielberg.

Written By: Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. 

Photography: Bill Butler.

Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss. 

Year: 1975.

Country: USA.      

 Jaws is back in cinemas this month so I wanted to talk about. I really love this movie. Jaws is to me what The Exorcist is to Mark Kermode. As I'm writing this I'm drinking black coffee out of a Jaws mug and I have  John Williams' score open in a YouTube tab.  

 There are three important things I want to point to start with. 

 Firstly, Jaws is movie about a shark. Exactly that, It's not a metaphor for the Vietnam War or Adultery or anything else. It's about a shark. 

 Secondly, Jaws is the name of the movie, not the Shark. I'm just saving you from sounding like a moron. (Though the mechanical shark was actually named Bruce by the cast and crew) 

 Thirdly, Jaws is very very much a horror movie. There's a lot of dispute over weather Jaws is a horror, or merely a thriller. A strong argument is because the film only has a PG certificate (although my copy says 12) and we're used to horror films having a R/18 rating. But the old Universal Horror classics like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolfman are all Us, and you can't deny they're horrors. The other common, stupider, argument is that Jaws is just plain 'not scary'. I've heard this argument from lots of people for lots of different movies including The Exorcist and The Shining. Fist off being scary is not the definition of horror; George A. Romeo's Dawn of the Dead is nothing but fun and gore, there are no scares in there, but still, unarguably, horror. Secondly, fear is subjective. Many people found Paranormal Activity unwatchably horrifying, I found it unwatchably boring. Anyway, I digress. Jaws is not only a horror, it's a special type of horror; we've all heard the stories of people not being able to go in the sea that summer, failing their swimming lessons or some not even being able to take a bath after watching Jaws. Great horror plays on people's fear, Jaws creates fears.  


 Jaws is from the 70s, the golden age of American cinema. This was the decade where we were gifted with movies like The Godfather, Easy Rider, The French Connection, and Star Wars. The 70s also brought us some of the greatest directors like Coppola, Scorsese and the director of Jaws; Steven Spielberg. Spielberg is possibly the most famous man in cinema (Only  person arguably more famous would be Hitchcock) but at the time of Jaws this was only his third movie. Duel and Sugarland Express were the only films under his belt. Robert Shaw even considered turning down his role because he'd never heard of the director. 


Jaws is set on the small fictional Island of Amity, a tourist trap in the summer. It's approaching the 4th of July, the biggest day for commerce on the island from all the visitors from the mainland. But when the remains of a young girl turn up on the beach, it looks like the town's summer may be ruined by something that's lurking in the water... (Do sharks lurk? Or is lurking something exclusive to crocodiles?)


 The lead role of Chief Brody is played by Roy Scheider, an ex-New York City cop who has a phobia of the water. The catalyst of this phobia is never properly explained.  You've also got Richard Dreyfuss playing a brilliant role as oceanographer and shark expert, Matt Hooper. It's entertaining when both of these characters exchange in discourse; Hooper is overenthusiastic about the sea and Brody is petrified by the very mention of it.  


 When we first see the character Quint, played by classic movie actor Robert Shaw he seems like a bit of a cliché and he starts to make Jaws feel more like a B-Movie. If you haven't seen Jaws, imagine crossing Herman and the Sea Captain from The Simpsons. However in a incredible scene about three-quarters through where Quint and Hooper are showing each other their scars, we learn learn about his back story and that his persona is really just a suit of armour that he wears. When we lean this is makes the character more interesting. If it wasn't for this scene his (spoiler) death wouldn't have been as effective. 


 For me the most interesting character is the Mayor of the Island who refuses to close the beaches. He's an original kind of protagonist, he's not driven by personal gain or just plain insidious. He actually has the island's interests in mind, he doesn't want to put local businesses in danger. He's not evil, he's just ignorant. And also cowardly, when the Mother accuses Brody of not closing the beaches, the Mayor just stands their and doesn't take responsibility.       


I'm not trying to show off, but I'm pretty much never scared by movies, mostly because I know the difference between reality and fiction. Jaws is the only movie I can remember that properly scared me when I watched it for the first time at a young age. The scene where Brody and Hooper are out at sea for the first time in Hooper's boat and they find a wrecked fishing boat. Hooper dives down to inspect the boat, while he's doing so the head of the fisherman floats out a hole in the keel. Nothing has ever made me jump as much as that scene. I think this is an important scene in the film, because it's here that you realise that Brody, Hooper and Quint are not safe, just because they are in a boat.

 Jaws is filled with treasureable moments, like the shooting stars that you see, which according to Spielberg are unauthentic and captured by accident, and not an effect. Also the memorable lines like 'You're going to need a bigger boat' and 'It's only an island when you look at it from the water'

 Two things that really make the film are the editing from the amazing Verna Fields (Jaws was her final movie) and the theme from John Williams which is up there with Star Wars in most recognisable themes. As the stories go, Spielberg was really down about Jaws, he wasn't getting the support he needed from Universal,  the mechanical shark wasn't working and plethora of other problems. He went to John Williams and demanded 'What have you got for me?'  John played him the infamous track 'DUN DUN...DUN DUN...' Spielberg was astonished; he knew right away that this music could save the film.  With the combination of editing and the music, he could avoid showing the shark as much as possible. When you do see the shark it does look fake, but I'm always having too much fun to care.

 Jaws is also a staple in movie history. Originally, films were released regionally. You would get a big premier in Hollywood, then a couple of weeks later in New York and then maybe a month later in some small cinema or drive-in in a Ohio town before eventually moving on worldwide. Jaws was the first movie to get a nationwide release It was released in every cinema on the same day, like it's done now. To afford this, Universal had to lunch a massive marketing campaign. Bringing out Jaws themed lunchboxes, t-shirts, toys and the a paperback of the original book were all released. Jaws was one of the first movies to do this (If my cinema knowledge is as good as I think it is, Planet of the Apes was the first ) but this seems common place now. Walk in to any Toys 'R' Us Today and it will be filled with Avengers swag. Jaws also rocketed Spielberg's directing career, after this Columbia gave him $20 million to make Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 


 Jaws is one of the greatest American and the best film from a director with a phenomenal career. It's both great fun and brilliantly made. For your money you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing!      


Score: 5/5   

  

Prometheus

Prometheus 

Director: Ridley Scott.

Written By: Jon Spaihts & Damon Lindelof. 

Photography: Dariusz Wolski.

Staring: Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce. 

Year: 2012.

Country: USA.   

 30 years after the release of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott makes a return to Science Fiction, and to a familiar franchise. Prometheus is set in the Alien universe about 40 years before the events of the first movie. And is in many ways, a prequel. But it's not an Alien movie. There are no Xenomorphs in this fim regrettably. 

  Instead we get a new humanoid race, only referred to as The Engineers. Who the crew of the Prometheus believe may be able to tell us something about our past.      

  Ridley Scott, the director of the first Alien movie back in '79 returns for Prometheus, although there are some scenes that feel like the reins have been handed back to Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Damon Lindelof, of Lost fame, is one of two writers and we're also treated to an all-star cast. Man of the year, Michael Fassbender adds another sterling performance to his CV, channelling Peter O'Toole as a synthetic. Though as good as he is, he hasn't got shit on Lance Henriksen. Guy Pearce is in there, unrecognisably, as a ninety-something Peter Weyland. Not much can be said for Charlize Theron, she gives a sturdy performance, nothing spectacular. For me the show was stolen by Noomi Rapace. A lot of buzz was generated around her for 'The Girl Who...'  trilogy which I haven't seen yet. This is the first I've seen of her, I was impressed. Even if her accent did occasionally slip through.             

  I appreciate the boldness of Prometheus, it takes of big themes and questions especially around the origin of life and faith. I also picked up what I thought were warnings about climate change and nuclear armament. But that may have been me looking in to deep. Of course Sci-Fi has never shy about topics like such. Prometheus doesn't really explore anything that 2001, Solyaris or Star Trek V don't. Even way back in 1951, The Day The Earth Stood Still is a film warning against the disasters The Cold War could bring.   

 Some of the things in Prometheus, to put it bluntly, don't make sense. And I'm not talking about deliberate ambiguity, the screenplay is just incoherent at points. But it is a Ridley Scott film, so it will have a director's cut or three, which hopefully will make things a bit clearer.    

  If you were hoping Prometheus would be lots of  grand setpieces, then you're in luck, because there are plenty. And great ones too.  The scares are there, but they are few and far between, and you don't get the claustrophobic feel you got with the first film. This is New Ridley Scott - the directer of historical epics. 

 The cinematography in Prometheus is breathtaking. So is some of the CGI, but I'm old-school and no computer generated image can live up to the model Nostromo from Alien. 

  The Prometheus holds a crew of 17, having this many characters and having the movie start with them waking from cryo-gen having not met means you don't get any banter between the crew. You can also tell that these members are marked for death as most of them are typical horror movie morons straight out of a Friday the 13th Sequel.     

 Prometheus has a lot of flaws,but it's a big movie that asks big questions. Anything that big doomed to have flaws. Overall it's an enjoyable movie filled with thrills and subtle references for sci-fi die-hards to spot. It's a good films, but I think I;ll wait for the Director's Cut before I buy the Blu-Ray.   
  

Biutiful

Biutiful

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Written By: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Armando Bo & Nicolás Giacobone.
Photography: Rodrigo Prieto.
Starring: Javier Bardem & Maricel Alvarez.
Year: 2010
Country: Spain, Mexico.

 

Biutiful is one of those odd movies that somehow creates something so sublime from subjects so harrowing. 

 Uxbal is the centre of the movie, A father of two fighting for custody with their bipolar mother. He's entangled in illegal immigration and cheap labour... and he's dying from cancer.

 He can also make contacts with the dead from being half dead, or... something. I'm not sure, the film has a lot of sub-plots that aren't really delved into. 

  Uxbal is played by the infallible Javier Bardem who was awarded with best actor at the Cannes Film Awards for this role. And you can completely understand that from his first line of dialogue. If Javier Bardem isn't a name you know despite winning an Oscar for  No Country For Old Men, he soon will be, as he's playing the villain in upcoming Sam Mendes directed James Bond flick, Skyfall. And no, he wasn't in Watchmen, that was Jeffrey Dean Morgan.  

  The director is also something of a big name. Most famously for his début film, Amores Perros and then following them up with films like 21 Grams and Babel. This is the first of his movies I've seen and I'm eager to check out his others now. I'm also going to check out some John Cassavetes, who was apparently was a big influence on the film stylistically. Although I know off a lot of his films; Shadows, A Woman Under The Influence and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Cassavetes is someone I'm familiar with only as an actor.

 I was surprised by how cold and dark this film felt. I'm used to Spanish films having lots of bright colours and flare. This certainly ain't no Almodóvar film. Even The Skin I Live In had an OCD cleanness to it and this just feels gritty. Which isn't a criticism, obviously this style matches the narrative  

 There are two scenes in the movie; the first being a scene where Javier Bardem is walking across a bridge and one of those political campaign vans drives past with speakers on top. It really reminded me of 'The safety zone will be eliminated' scene from Paris, Texas. It does it again where, it almost recreates the scene where Henry Dean Stanton and Hunter Carson are walking on opposite sides of the road. I don't know if they were deliberate or not, but Paris, Texas is my favourite movie  of all time, and anything that reminds me of it gets extra brownie points. It's like how a Star Wars reference can make any film better. 

The film does have faults though. It's quite long, at two and twenty-one minutes, and you wil feel the drag towards the end. It has sub-plots that don't go anywhere. Javier Bardem's character is the only one how really gets any attention. I really would to have liked to have known  some more about his kids, or his ex-wife. 

Score: 3.5/5

My Dinner With Andre

 My Dinner With Andre

Director: Louis Malle 

Screenplay: Andre Gregory & Wallace Shawn

Photography: Jeri Sopanen 

Staring: Andre Gregory & Wallace Shawn

Year: 1981

Country: USA

The concept of two guys just sitting and talking isn't something new to me. I had seen Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes, though that's a kids' film compared to My Dinner with Andre. If this should be compared to any other film it should be Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men. 

 An intellectual show-piece, Wallace Shawn (playing a version of himself) gets an invite to have dinner with an old friend and fellow playwright, Andre Gregory (also a shadow of his true self) to one of New York's finest restaurants. Shawn is reluctant, we learn from narration as he travels on the Subway, to take the invitation, but does so because Gregory has been out of the country for a few years travelling in the far-east. He hears from mutual friends that upon his return, Andre has become an odd and an ambiguous character.  


 After some confusion over the restaurant's French menu, they eventually sit down for a meal of quails. Andre recounts the tales of his travels. These tales are primary allegories of philosophical questions about the human condition, science and superstition.


 It would be dreadfully easy for a movie like this to be pretentious, or just plain nonsense. But it's completely sincere and completely intelligent and will definitely  make you question yourself or your views during some point it it's 110 minute run-time. As good philosophy should.


 The acting in this movie is phenomenal.  Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory both have personas that don't make their character's wit or articulation feel contrived. Louis Malle hardly feels like he has a presence in the movie because it all seems so natural.


 Somewhat like Hitchcock's Rope, the film gives the impression of being one continuous take. Obviously it's not, no film reel is that long. And I doubt any actor could remember this script of by heart. Even two men of the theatre such as Gregory and Shawn.


My Dinner With Andre is a one of a kind film that should satisfy anyone who doesn't feel they get enough intellectual stimulation from cinema in general.


Score: 4.5/5