Kite Runner

My partner has been really looking forward to this film. She's already read the book. The film is Kite Runner and is the story of two boys being brought up in pre-Soviet Afghanistan. Amir is of a well off family, while Hassan is the Hazara son of Amir father's servant. They become best friends and the boys fly kites together in the skies over Kabul, competing against other kites and 'cutting' them down.



Hassan will do anything to protect Amir but when Hassan is raped by other older boys, Amir is unable to reciprocate and protect him. This results in Amir thinking he has committed what his father refers to as the greatest and only crime, theft. Hassan has had his innocence stolen from him. Amir now knows he must let his friend go and manufactures a situation over a 'stolen' watch.

After seeing the boys on screen for so long, it is quite a shock when the story moves to America, as Amir and his father flee the new Communist regime. There he grows up and gets married.

Then years later he gets a call, to return home to Kabul where he has to risk his own life to find Hassan's son after Hassan himself is murdered by the newly installed Taliban. Afghanistan was first shown as a beautiful country but it is now depicted as bereft of colour, all the trees cut down by the Russians, and buildings demolished during fighting with the Taliban. A country where adulterers are now stoned in the soccer stadiums by the Taliban, who have even banned kite flying. Amongst all this he seems to find himself, rescues Hassan's son and takes him back to America.



The film was compelling and the cast were excellent, in particular the children who played Amir and Hassan, but I would have liked to have gained more insight into Afghan culture, the political situation, and life under the Russians and the Taliban. It is much less graphic than it could have been. Both with the war and in the way the crucial scene involving Hassan's rape was depicted, which just didn't come across strongly enough. There is only a small amount of violence actually shown in the film but I think more would have added to the effect. The 12A certificate was perhaps too restrictive.

Also the escape from Afghanistan was extremely implausible and descended into a typical Americanised shoot up/car chase. Apparently, according to L, this was not true to the book. For me it distracted from what was a very good film and a moving story about where 'There is a way to be good again.'

I’m Not There

One way of making a biography different is to never mention the name of the subject. Another way I suppose is to cast six different people in the lead role. This is what Todd Haynes does with tonight's film 'I’m Not There', a portrait of sorts of Bob Dylan. This was a hard review to write because I am not a Bob Dylan expert, I'm not even a fan, but here goes.
Some of names of the leads come from the inspirations in Dylan's life, so we get the poet Arthur Rimbaud (Ben Whishaw) who links the film. We get the young 'black' folk singer Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin) indicating his early life where Dylan went around claiming to be different people, from different places and invented friendships.

Then we get his early folk career, Jack Rollins (Christian Bale), when Dylan first made his name and also became political. Julianne Moore plays Alice, who is possibly Joan Baez. Dylan though wants to move on, his band plays at a New England Jazz Festival and machine guns the audience. So Jack disappears and in his place we get Robbie Clark (Heath Ledger), Clark is an actor who played him in a film. He is the more homely face of Dylan and marries Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), aka Sara Dylan. When their turbulent marriage ends, we get the divorce settlement being mirrored with the signing of the Vietnam ceasefire.



Meanwhile Dylan the artist, re-emerges as Jude Quinn (Cate Blanchett) but his audience feels betrayed as he shifts his sound from folk to rock. This Dylan goes on to be even more famous but continues to be misunderstood, particularly by the British TV journalist Mr. Jones which evolves into a particularly brilliant scene.



Later Dylan is reborn as Pastor John and is now signing gospel.

Finally we get him as a recluse; Billy The Kid (Richard Gere) in a Western Town called Riddle, a nod to his 1973 album (Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid). The threatened destruction of the town causes him to meet his public again.

It's a surreal film, disjointed at times but towards the end, all the different characters begin to come together. There's some top acting and throughout the music is excellent, mainly Dylan originals but also including some covers by the likes of Iggy Pop and Sonic Youth.

The films called 'I'm Not There' and he isn't. The film itself is a jigsaw where the pieces never quite fit together but this I suppose was Dylan's life. It would be out of character for Dylan to let anyone try and define his life, so he hasn't.

L thought it portrayed Dylan in a bad light but I think it depends on your opinion of him in the first place. I started indifferent and came out the cinema still feeling indifferent but I thoroughly enjoyed the two and quarter hours in between. I assume his life was just this mishmash of lies, childishness, and arrogance, alongside his undoubted musical genius. The more I think about this film and the more I read up on it, the clever I think it was.

At the start and end there are images of Dylan 'dying' and scenes of his motorcycle accident in 1966 yet he is still very much alive, and still performing. Perhaps it is saying he would rather have died, which would have embellished the mystery of the man even more.

Enchanted

I've been tempted by the good reviews of what really isn't my type of film and we go see 'Enchanted'. At least it can't possibly be as bad as the 'Golden Compass'. Made by Disney studios, the film starts in animated form, that is proper animated not CGI, in 'Andalasia' where Giselle (Amy Adams) is desperate to be rescued by her Prince Charming. The animated sequence goes on a bit but eventually Edward (James Marsden) duly turns up and saves her from a troll and consequently they are set to be married. But Edward's wicked stepmother (Susan Sarandon) does not approve and throws Giselle into a portal that leads to hell.


Hell turns out to be New York, where she climbs out of a manhole cover in full princess regalia. A pessimistic divorce lawyer (Patrick Dempsey) gives her a room for the night where she makes herself clothes out of his curtains. While he introduces her to the 'real' world, he is intrigued by Giselle's attitude towards love and her belief in living 'Happily After Ever', usually in a huge castle, which contradicts his own real life experiences and the modern day notion of getting to know someone first.




When he walks in on her taking a shower and subsequently ends up in an embarrassing clinch on top of her, with her in just a towel, just as his fiancée walks in. He finds himself resolutely dumped. Giselle helps him out by sending round a few doves and flowers, which works a treat and his fiancée forgives him for having a half-naked girl in his apartment because she trusts him. I shall remember that one. Women are strange.


Her prince follows her down to 'hell'. Where he stabs a bus after mistaking it for a monster then gets run over by cyclists in the park. I can sympathise with the cyclists, bloody pedestrians.

As Giselle enjoys the New York experience she realises that her Prince Charming is not the right man for her and instead falls for her lawyer. Of course, it all ends happily ever after, albeit after an overblown scene with a dragon. Giselle is put in to a deep sleep only to be rescue by her lawyer's 'True Loves Kiss' and they all lived happily ever after...


HELLO? This rat you've just run off with has just dumped his long-term fiancée for you, a girl who he's only known for a day or two and who crawled out of a sewer. Love lasts forever? Clearly it doesn't. His ex gets the booby prize of the dopey Prince Edward.


I went into Enchanted not expecting too much and therefore was not disappointed. It was actually better than I had expected, although very cheesy and full of clichés. Timothy Spall does a good turn as the henchman Nathaniel, and an animated chipmunk called Pip puts in a star performance. Another fluffy bunny of a movie.

Notes On A Scandal

Based on Zoe Heller's novel 'Notes On A Scandal' is the tale of two seemingly sophisticated women who's lives become entwined but then dramatically unravel, proving themselves to be anything but sophisticated.


Judi Dench plays Barbara Covett (note the name), who is a well respected schoolmarm but also a lonely spinster. Cate Blanchett plays Sheba Hart, the raw new totty in the art room. Sheba proves herself not to just be inexperienced as a teacher but also in life. She is a teacher, a wife, and a mother, who is out of her depth in all three and for someone her age, thirty-something, she is astonishingly naïve. She is just begging for someone to take her under their wing. Barbara is eager to oblige and quickly moves into the flighty newcomers life.


Dench voice-overs the film as her character scribbles in her diary, adds gold stars, and makes bitter observations about the world. The film moves at a fast pace and doesn't keep you hanging around while it builds the scene. Sheba starts giving a young pupil after school art tuition but he quickly makes it obvious to her that he can think of better things to do with her after hours. Her attempts to repel him are not convincing and he senses that Ms Hart could be putty in his hands. Of this, he is not wrong.


She seems cast under his spell, caught like a rabbit-in-the-headlights and falls for the youthful passion that he dangles before her. Although even he must have been surprised at just how free and easy she is. So they embark on a tawdry and adulterous affair, generally carried out down by the railway line. Yes I know, here we go again, another film about married women who can’t keep their loins in check.




When they upgrade from the railway line to the art room, Barbara stumbles upon what's going down, but promises not to tell for the sake of all, as long as she ends the relationship. Sheba though is weak and fails to give up her toy boy. She finds herself addicted and simply can't stop herself digging a deeper hole to throw herself in to.

Meanwhile Barbara installs herself as a regular feature in Sheba's life and family, who consist of her much older husband, played by the excellent Bill Nighy, who left his wife and children for the younger Sheba and her two children who are of similar ages to her lover, a son with Down's syndrome and a daughter with her own love troubles.

Barbara herself has skeletons in the closet and they slowly come out to play. We come to understand that Barbara has designs on Sheba, after another teacher spurned her and fled her job the previous year. Both characters at times get your sympathy but equally you start to feel pissed off with them but before you get too one-way or the other, something else happens and the story moves on.

When Sheba is torn impossibly between her family and her friendship with Barbara, she chooses her family. So Barbara betrays her secret to the school and everything in Sheba's life falls spectacularly apart as the police and the media get involved.


It's a gripping, intelligent film with a raw nastiness to it and which has so many layers to it. You simply hang on every scene and every word. It's a film about predatory behaviour but who exactly is preying upon whom. It's short but packs more into it’s running time than most films of twice the length. Excellent script by Patrick Marber of Closer fame. Another great English film with superb performances all round.

Golden Compass

In the evening we go for our weekly film. You can tell it's getting near XXXXXmas as there's not a lot on, so we see the Golden Compass. I'm really not sure I can bear (that's almost a pun by the way) to review this. I did see a review on the internet entitled the 'Golden Turd' and nearly just put up a link to that but here goes...

The story surrounds a very uncharismatic young girl called Lyra, not Lycra as I first thought, who is given a golden compass to help her find a kidnapped friend. This leads to her ending up in an airship with Nicole Kidman, which is traumatic enough for starters, but Kidman is a weirdo who hates it when girls wear their handbags in the house? Then we get 'introduced; to loads of other characters, who mutter about 'dust' and 'intercision' without really convincing even themselves that they know what they're taking about. The only cool bit is that all the characters have daemons, which are animals that are attached to them which represent their souls. These daemons are CGI generated cats, birds, dogs or even tigers. Kidman gets a monkey, enough said. Is it only me that thinks CGI is now so last century? Let's get back to real animals, much cuter.

The funniest bit of the film was when a dog daemon fell off a rooftop but no one else laughed. Although plenty of people laughed at other random points and I couldn't really see why, or was it just because of the bad acting or senseless plot.

Daniel Craig turns up, does a touch of James Bond, for all of about ten minutes, and then disappears again. He isn't the only one; several characters turn up, do a one scene, and vanish. This, unfortunately, isn't true of Kidman, who receives far too much screen time.

Then suddenly they're all tramping off to North Pole because the compass tells them to, to look for the ring, or is that another story? The movie also borrows all the bad bits from Harry Potter, Narnia etc too. There our heroine befriends a giant polar bear, who I think is drunk. I'm trying to get to sleep at this point but for some reason it's not working, it was probably the armoured polar beer fight that disturbed me.



The film is adapted from the Phillip Pullman novel, which I haven't read but seemingly most people who have are appalled at the butchering of the book, apparently the film even ends four chapters back from the end of the book. It was also supposed to be story for teenagers but it appears to have been blatantly dumbed down and aimed at younger kids, which even insults their intelligence. The books have been criticized for being a bit controversial on some religious topics but that must have been dropped from the film or else I dozed through that bit.

Overall a confusing, poorly acted, badly directed mish-mash of a film. Apparently two sequels are due. Oh dear.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Tonight’s film is long in title and long in length ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford’. Which actually 'does what is says on the tin' and gives away the plot in its title.

I think part of the idea of the film is to get us better acquainted with Jesse James. The legend suggests he was a Robin Hood type character targeting the rich banks and railroads. The film says otherwise and paints him more as a moody ruffian. The story opens with what proved to be his last train robbery at Blue Cut. After the robbery, he attempts to retire. James is sick of being on the run with his family, even his children don't know his real name, for fear of capture.



Most of James's usual gang are no longer with him, all either jailed or dead, so for this job he has recruited a new one. One of which is Robert Ford. Ford idolises James but is also in fear of him as he quickly learns that the murderous train-robbers are no Robin Hood's. After helping James move his family to their latest new safe location, Ford stays on as a house guest.



Meanwhile the rest of the gang grow restless waiting for word of their next job. James begins to fear them turning him in or killing him in exchange for their own safety and the reward money. So he decides to get rid of those that may be conspiring against him. Unfortunately the film doesn't quite let you a feel for who these characters are before they disappear. After a while he seems to give up and begins to act like a man who knows the end is coming but no longer has the will to try and avoid it.

When the Sheriff enlists Ford to help him get James, Ford assumes that this will lead to him becoming a hero. So Ford cowardly shoots James in the back. When it happens, it's all a bit of a surprise because after waiting so long for it to happen, it is all over so quickly.

Ford though is mistaken about becoming a hero instead he is met with disrespect and called the biggest coward in history whilst James's star just grows brighter. Then another man gets the idea that Robert had; to murder someone famous to be remembered and this second murder ends Robert Ford's life too.

I wasn't sure what to make of the film. The word ‘epic’ springs to mind. There's some unforgettable imagery, stunning shots of floating clouds, desolate landscapes, smoke, snow, rain. It’s more art than movie.

The story itself, is a complex tale of betrayal, paranoia, suspicion, and often-disturbing acts of violence. It works in that respect because you do get a sense of the fear that they all feel, knowing that around any corner they could get shot.

Then there are the intense performances, some superb acting. Brad Pitt is excellent as the brooding, tortured mess that is Jessie James. Casey Affleck too is good as Robert Ford.

Unfortunately everything unfolds at a slow, methodical almost snails' pace in what is a very long film. Although apparently the directors original cut was near on four hours but the studio thankfully made him trim it a bit. It is a western without action. An oldish couple in front of us leave early although his wife clearly nagged him into it.

I am tired before we arrive and I rest my eyes a little during the adverts but yes I do doze off at some of the slower parts of the film.

Brick Lane

This week's film is Brick Lane which is based on a novel by Monica Ali.
After the suicide of her month, Nazneen, a young seventeen-year-old Bangladeshi girl, is sent to England for an arranged marriage to Chanu, a supposedly ‘educated man’. The film then picks up sixteen years later. It is now 2001 and we find Nazneen living in a council flat on Brick Lane. Her existence appears to be miserable, her 'educated' husband is nothing of the sort and means nothing to her, her only joy her children, her only escape is writing to her sister back home.

Her first step on the road to escape from this life is when she starts a job sewing clothes from her flat. This brings her into contact with the westernised Karim, at which point married women's syndrome kicks in and she's on her back almost before she's finished sewing the seams on her first batch of jeans.

Then 9/11 happens and everything changes, Karim changes and surprisingly her husband seems to change too. Originally he appeared to be an immensely dislikeable character but he turns out to be slightly misunderstood and in the end rather likeable. He wants to take the family back to Bangladesh but Nazeen realises that it's time to deal with her life and make her own decisions. He returns alone.



The film has been criticised for ducking the issues on what is a sensitive subject. However despite trying hard not to offend anyone it has still been seen as a controversial film by the Bangladeshi community and has even been met with protests. It's difficult to comment as I have not read the book, so I don't know if the book takes a softer or a harder stance than the film but if you're making the film of the book then you can't really come to conclusions that the book doesn't.

It is though a very enjoyable film, an insight into a life with very little freedom but it's perhaps telling that it didn't provoke much debate from L and I, unlike some of the films we've seen recently.

Into the Wild

'Into the Wild' is a road movie of sorts. It is written and directed by Sean Penn, based on a real-life novel. The main character, Christopher McCandless, has just graduated from college. Despite getting good grades, he is unhappy with his life. He resents his parents and their marriage, though perhaps for good reason and he dislikes our hollow, materialist world (who doesn't?) and decides to do 'something' about it. So without a word, he donates his $24,000 savings to Oxfam and goes off in his old Datsun.

Calling himself 'Alexander Supertramp', he hits the road, possibly to find a meaning for his life or perhaps simply to hide from it. His goal is to get to Alaska, but on his way there, he hits many other states and at one point ends up in Mexico, which is totally the wrong direction. We know he gets to Alaska because the film cuts between his days there living in the abandoned 'Magic' bus, where he keeps a diary of sorts, and his two-year road trip that preceded it. On the way he makes several foolish decisions but gets away with most of them, such as illegally running the Colorado rapids in a kayak, other times he is not so lucky, like when he is caught riding the railways and is beaten for his troubles.

For someone who appears to want to leave the bad old world behind and live a life of solitude, he meets and befriends an awful lot of people, people who are slightly oddball like himself. They are almost all very good to him but he avoids getting too close to anyone. He believes that this is not necessary for happiness. It is this rejection of human contact that strikes you the most, without these people he could not have survived. He bonds with the kind old Mr. Franz, a lonely widower and also a very genuine ageing hippie couple. He touches these people but then just walks away. He develops a 'friendship' with a 16-year-old female singer, who fancies him so much that in the end she offers herself to him on a plate and again he simply walks away.

He is also very inconsiderate of his family; he appears to love his sister, who voice-overs the film, but even keeps her in the dark about his whereabouts and safety, as if a single phone call would spoil his rebellion. He is certainly cocky and self-assured but often he just comes across as a pretentious and arrogant young man.

The ending is dramatic although you can see it coming because the build up to it is slow. Alone in Alaska, he realises that he is out of his depth, cut off by the river so he can no longer leave, he struggles to kill the animals he needs for food and falls victim to poisonous plants. You still kind of hope for the cavalry to arrive and rescue him but somehow you know this isn't going to happen.

The movie itself is gorgeously shot; there are fantastic scenes of Alaska and other parts of America. Great tracking shots of mountains, plains, rivers, and the wild animals. The film, though, is too long at around two and a half hours.

In the end, the power of the film is in its final scenes, when he realises that he has made a dreadful mistake. Not just in his misguided adventure into Alaska alone but in his misconception of what constitutes happiness. You could say that in the end he reaps the consequences of his naivety and stupidity. What he learns in the end, and scribbles in his diary, is that 'Happiness is only real if shared'. If only he had realised it sooner.

Ratatouille

Daughter and I go see Ratatouille. We’re at the Savoy which certainly isn’t Broadway; this is fidget central and the venue for the 'who can make the most noise with a carton of popcorn competition'. The two girls next to me, both well into their teens, easily out do the five year olds with their eating habits. Far messier than Doggo and Daughter put together. When one of the girls stands up at the end of the film the two rows in front of her are almost swept away in an avalanche of popcorn crumbs.


The film itself is your everyday tale of boy meets rat, becomes world-renowned chef, as you do. The boy, Linguini, inherits the restaurant of the famous Gusteau, whose motto was ‘anyone can cook’ but the boy can't. Luckily for him the rat can.


The boy/rat combination impresses everyone, especially the kitchen's sole female chef, the scary knife wielding Colette, who whisks him away on her motorcycle. Fair enough, you're not going to resist a leather clad leggy French babe astride a motorcycle now are you but this doesn't impress the rat and it nearly all goes pear shaped. Particularly when Peter O'Toole shows up as the restaurant critic from the Grim Eater but the rat and his friends save the day and impress him with the rat’s signature dish of, yep you guessed it, Ratatouille. Although I wouldn't have been terribly impressed if they'd made we wait as long for the food as they did the critic.


The film is entertaining but spoilt by the usual American moralising, don’t steal, don’t do that, don’t do this etc. That apart the film is occasionally funny, occasionally clever, and anything that sees a character voiced by Jamie Oliver getting bound, gagged, and chucked in a storeroom, must have something going for it.

Eastern Promises

Tonight we see David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises which was shot exclusively in London. A pregnant 14-year old Russian girl arrives in A&E, haemorrhaging badly and with needle marks on her arms. The girl dies but the baby survives, Nurse Anna (Naomi Watts) is left holding the baby along with the girl's diary, which contains some very sensitive information, and a business card for a Russian restaurant. Anna attempts to have the diary translated in order to identify the girl's family. Watts, my second babe on a motorcycle in the space of just a few hours, and in a nice pair of boots, also goes to the restaurant but in doing so, she becomes embroiled in the dark world of the Russian Mafia, who want the diary back.



Viggo Mortensen, who plays Nikolai, the 'driver' to the mob, is outstanding. Nikolai is seemingly the cool, calculating part of the 'family' compared with the blundering son Kirill.


Cronenberg's mixes in his usual dollop of violence and treats us to two cut throats and an eye gouging, that oddly left most of the cinema in raptures of laughter. Mortensen performs the fight screen that leads to the eye gouging in a steam bath completely nude.

An excellent film with a good twist at the end.

Fälscher, Die (The Counterfeiters)

Tonight we see is called Fälscher, Die or The Counterfeiters, a German film. It's a true story based on a book by Adolf Burger, who is one of the members of the counterfeiting team and is featured in the film.
Salomon is a master criminal, a counterfeiter, and a Jew, living the life of Riley in 1930's Berlin, until he finally gets busted by the German police. He is imprisoned and sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp. Having been to Mauthausen, I can vouch that the film was actually filmed there. The place is exactly how I remember it. He manages to secure a few privileges for himself by showing off his skills as an artist. When he is transferred to Sachsenhausen, (also been there, sorry to name drop) he is reunited with the detective who arrested him, who is now in the SS. He is put to work supervising a team of artists, forgers and printers, who have been assembled to produce counterfeit pounds and dollars to undermine the enemy's economies. If they fail, they will almost certainly be put to death but if they succeed the result could well be the same, as once the currencies have been reproduced, they will be surplus to requirements.



Only one man, Berger, seems to see the wider picture. He struggles with his conscience, concerned that while they are keeping themselves alive they are condemning others to death as they aid the German war effort.



The entire film was gripping from the start. It cleverly portrays concentration camp life without resorting to the usual horrific scenes, which have been done so many times before. Instead, it is all shown from the angle of the privileged lifestyle enjoyed by the counterfeiters. Excellent camera-work, excellent acting. Totally engaging. Thoroughly recommend it.

Control

'Control' is a biopic of Ian Curtis, the lead singer of Joy Division. It is made by Anton Corbijn, the man who photographed and worked with the band. So presumably the project was very personal to him. It was also presumably very personal to his widow Deborah, as the film is based on her biography of her husband, 'Touching From a Distance'. The fact that it is all through his wife's eyes is quite thought provoking in itself. Deborah Curtis, who is played by Samantha Morton, is also involved in the production of the film, which Corbijn shot entirely in black and white, which seems very appropriate. Ian Curtis never really sang in colour, the band were all about dark brooding guitars and deep, doom-laden lyrics.
I was only 13 when he died and I didn't discover Joy Division until a few years later via the early New Order stiff. It is also true that the band were never that popular until his death made them so.

The film starts with Curtis still at school and takes us through to his death in 1980 at the age of only 23. Surprisingly he comes across as quite a likeable chap, more so than I ever though he was. He worked in the social security office and did a great job finding work for people with disabilities.

The film shows his struggle with epilepsy for which doctors give him a cocktail of pills to take, from which he suffers from the side effects. The doctors don't come out of it very well but then again he never went back to get his dosage reviewed. They also tell him to have early nights and stay off the booze, which is a tad difficult when you're trying to be a rock star.

The film also details his disastrous personal life. He married his childhood sweetheart way too soon, and then compounded his error by adding a child into the mix, again way too soon. You can't do the whole touring thing where the girls are throwing themselves at you, with a wife and kids back home. Consequently he gets off with a Belgian reporter and he's not strong enough to choose between the two women.



Curtis quickly reaches a point where juggling his home life, love life and life on the road is too much for him. Add into this his illness and the fact that he couldn't cope with the pressures brought on by the band starting to become popular; it all becomes an accident waiting to happen. Unfortunately we all know how's its going to end and it's partly a case of waiting for that to happen. The people around him don't seem to realise how bad his growing sense of despair is. When the band record the song 'Isolation', no one seems to notice that the lyrics are effectively his suicide note.



A matter of days before the bank were due to leave on their first ever tour of the USA, Curtis hanged himself from a rope in his kitchen.

The film is excellent, another great British film that deserves all the praise it will hopefully get. Sam Riley deserves enormous credit for mimicking Curtis. He has his singing style down to a tee, hunched over the mic one moment, dancing badly the next, epileptic fit the next. Also credit to all the other actors who played the band members. Although the portrayal of Peter Hook doesn't do him any favours. They also played all the songs, there's no miming to the originals here. Riley's performances of tracks like 'She's lost control', 'Transmission' and of course 'Isolation' are all excellent.

The choice of music can perhaps be a bit cliché at times. For instance the use of 'Love will tear us apart' when his marriage is falling apart and I suppose it was always going to end with 'Atmosphere' accompanying his death.

There are plenty of other great performances in the film, motor-mouth manager Rob Gretton has some of the best lines and the late Tony Wilson is also played well.

An excellent film and an excellent night, oh and we win the rugby too but a warning, if someone you love starts singing lines such as,

'In the shadowplay, acting out your own death, knowing no more'.

Be worried.

Deathproof

Tonight's film is Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino's answer to 1970's B-movies. Filmed in a grainy 70's style with poorly cut reels, screen flicker, scratches and burns but with mobile phones and mp3 players thrown in just to confuse. Then halfway through he gives up on this style and goes all black and white, then finally into glorious colour, where we stay all the way to the finale.
The film is about a psychopath called Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who enjoys killing women but his weapon of choice is his virtually indestructible 'death proof' stunt car. There isn't really any story as such and what there is isn't very original and has stolen ideas from all sorts of places but that's our Quentin.



The film consists of two pretty random scenes. The first is of a group of girls in a bar who are talking tedious girl talk about boyfriends and making out. Tarantino himself plays the barman in the bar. The girls may be good looking but listening to them is like sitting near a group of teenage girls using their mobiles on the Red Arrow to Derby. I suppose it's a typical Tarantino scene that has nothing much to do with anything. The problem is, the talk goes on way too long. If he was trying to build up tension then it doesn't quite work. It made me not want to sympathise with the characters but then perhaps that was the idea.



Did he decide to make a Tarantino movie with girls instead of guys. Hence we get the usual long dialogues but with girls talking girl topics rather than guys talking guy stuff. Is he sending up men or women here?

Perhaps all the talk pissed Stuntman Mike off too, because after he befriends them, he decides to kill them. We get a great crash scene and some excellent decapitations. They are replayed, Ian McEwen style, from the perspective of each of the girls as they meet their gory end.



Then we get the second random scene. Another group of tedious girls who seem to re-enact the opening diner scene from Reservoir Dogs. A girl version that is. Again the talking goes on a bit. These girls like cars and get hold of one on a test drive. One of them, dressed in a cheerleaders outfit, stays behind as collateral with the dodgy looking chap who is selling the car.

Whereas the first group were completely passive and were an easy target, Mike has bitten off more than he could chew with this lot. They are much tougher and fight back when he attacks them. We get a good car chase, if somewhat repetitive, with stuntwoman Zoe Bell looking great writhing around on the bonnet. In the end the girls win out and do Mike over but I'm a bit disappointed she didn't put that pole to better use. Whereas you feel kind of appalled by the first slaughter, you really feel quite elated by the second.

It's the kind of movie you either love or hate but then you either, get Quentin or you don't or you just watch the movie. I thought Death Proof was pure unadulterated fun. Loud, silly, quite artistic, and brutally violent. It put a smile on my face. The whole movie goes nowhere, brilliantly. Very Tarantino. Russell is excellent as the utterly deranged Stuntman Mike and the soundtrack too is a well worth a listen.

Apparently Death Proof was originally released as a 75-minute short film in the States as part of a 70's style double bill with fake trailers in between. If that version involved less dialogue then that might cure the faults in this film.



However I'd like to know what happened when the girls took what was left of the car back and what happened to the girl in the cheerleader outfit.

La Vie En Rose

Tonight's cultural experience is La vie en rose, which is about the life of Edith Piaf. Now I know very little about Piaf and I thought this film would be an excellent way of finding out about her and her life. Big mistake. The film does not deal with her life story in the form of a proper biography with a beginning and an end. In fact it starts with her final days, when she looked like a 70-year old woman, despite only being 47. Then the film shifts back and forth in time. Yep, it's another of my favourite backwards films. Except it's not even as simple as that. The film jumps haphazardly through her life, from childhood to adulthood to the end of her life, continually, back and forth. People appear and disappear from the film with very little explanation.
Perhaps this is deliberate, because Piaf was a woman of such high emotions and had such dramatic upheavals in her life. Perhaps her life receives the framework it deserves but for someone like me, who knew little about her, this lack of continuity just leaves me very confused and doesn't give me any clear sense of the shape of the life.

What I do discover is that she was abandoned by her mother, raised by a surrogate mother in a brothel, goes blind for a while, then is taken away from her surrogate mother to live with her father, who works in the circus and then she becomes a street singer. Then a cabaret owner discovers her and whisks her off the street and onto the stage. She is accused of murder but is eventually discovered by a composer and a radio impresario. By then she's already a heavy drinker and struggles with a drug addiction, although there are no specifics of this.

There is little mention of her successful career. The film focuses mainly on her tragedies, of which there are many. There are very few high points and happy moments in the film. Surely at some stage she must have been famous, healthy, and happy all at the same time?

Instead tragedy follows her around. Her love affair with a French boxing champion ends when he dies in a plane crash while heading to see her. On that night, we see him enter her bedroom and she prepares him coffee but we are given to understand that this is a figment of her imagination.

Also I'm not expert but I understand key points like her participation in WWII resistance activities were omitted, as well as her marriage late in life to a Greek singer twenty years her junior, who appears to give her a child.

At the end, a composer plays a new song for her, "Je ne regrette rien". This strikes a chord with her and inspires her to go ahead with a concert at the Paris Olympia, despite the fact that she has to be led to the stage, because she can hardly walk.



It's a good film, I think, but I'm afraid because of being unable to get fully involved in the film; I feel none of the emotion that I'm told this film would make me feel. You have to be a fan to get full benefit. By the end, I couldn't tell if she was in Paris, New York, on her deathbed or getting ready for her last concert.

I have 'no regrets' about seeing this film, but it was hard work.

Atonement

Before we went my partner told me of her dilemma, whether to read the bloody book first or not because generally life's too short to read Ian McEwan. Personally after hearing what she has said about the ones she has read and after having seen Enduring Love, I have no plans to read any of them but will happily see the films.

In this case, DO NOT under any circumstances read the book first because it will totally ruin the film for you. You really do not want to know how it finishes in advance.

I had my reservations about going because of the casting of Keira Knightly and James McAvoy. Surely so much wet in one place will cause us all to drown under the sentimentality of the generic costume-drama formula. I was wrong; I should have had more faith in Mr McEwan and the director Joe Wright.

The McEvanisms are great, scenes are replayed from different perspectives, there's a touch of running the film backwards, and then huge time jumps forwards, even perhaps a touch of sideways. You'll either love it or hate it; strangely I kept up and loved it.

The first hour is brilliant. 13-year-old Briony Tallis misunderstands what she sees from her bedroom window when she sees her sister Cecilia (Knightly) dive into a fountain, a very deep one, as their housekeeper's son Robbie (McAvoy) watches.



Then when Robbie writes a letter to Cecilia, he gives it Briony to give to her sister but he gives her the wrong draft. Briony reads the rather 'direct' letter before delivering it.

Here we get a tip on how to pick up women. There's a key word in this letter and the film dramatically repeats it several times, letter by letter, just in case you missed it or in case anyone has covertly snuck their 14-year-old Daughter in to see the film. It's wonderfully shocking because the film had been so prim and proper up to that point.

However it seems that with our Keira the direct approach works best and Robbie must have been glad he didn't send her the intended traditional softly softly romantic letter after all. I was just disappointed that when she led him into the library and leant back against the desk she didn't just lie back and say 'go on then Robbie'. Actions speak louder than words and all that but sadly no. Mind you before you could say 'kiss my ...' he had her climbing the bookcase in ecstasy. I am taking notes. Worryingly Daughter probably was too. Unfortunately Briony witnesses this rather strange love scene, which confirms her belief that her sister is the victim of a mad sexual predator.



Keira reckons she may become famous for the earlier fountain scene where you can see her bush through her wet clothes. Strangely this is noticeable when viewed from the sister's window but not when the scene is repeated close-up. Lost your bottle eh Mr Wright? Anyhow Keira is wrong; the scene she will be famous for is the one where the housekeeper's son did it with conviction in the library.

Then when Briony's friend and cousin, Lola is attacked and presumably raped, as a childish act of revenge, she lies to the police and wrongly accuses Robbie. The police believe her, and Robbie is imprisoned and thus separated from Cecilia.

After such a whirlwind of a start, the film then falls a bit flat. We move on four years and Robbie is in the army to attain early release from prison. He pines to get back to Cecilia, who is now working as a nurse in London. Meanwhile Briony, who has now realised her mistake, is trying to atone for it.



Some of the scenes in France and particularly at Dunkirk (shot in Redcar), are overlong and did not appear to add much to the film. It would have been better to have spent more time wallowing in Briony's guilt and on the relationship between Robbie and Cecilia and how this affected the family etc but I don't know if the book deals with this or not.



It picks up again towards the end. Robbie confronts Briony about what she's done, his anger causes her to cower in the corner, terrified he will strike her. I almost stand up and for the second time I want Keira to say to McAvoy 'Go on then Robbie', lets see you put her through that window but sadly no he doesn't.

At the end Vanessa Redgrave appears as an elderly Briony and tidies up all the loose ends. Not. Instead she delivers an unexpected twist that had all the girls in the audience reaching for the Kleenex and all the boys muttering 'Cool' under their breath. It's all so Ian McEwan. Ultimately she finds a way of telling a second lie to try and atone for the first, if only in her own mind.

Overall, a mostly riveting film full of young British talent with a very clever story. Even old Keira Flat Chest was not as wooden as usual and didn't do anything wrong but then all she had to do was smoke, look wistful and shag McAvoy. Not terribly taxing and her accent seemed all Middlesex girl pretending to be an American actress playing an English girl.

McAvoy was actually rather good, although he did seem to leave his accent somewhere in the French countryside. Although for me he'll never top being strung up by his nipples in The Last King Of Scotland. His finest moment.

The star though was Saoirse Ronan who was outstanding as the young Briony.

I don't like a happy ending and this one spoilt the film a touch for me. Having them frolicking by their dream cottage that they never shared in real life was over the top. As were scenes like seeing Cecilia floating artistically beneath the underground.

The film will surely pick up Oscar nominations:- best film, director Joe Wright, actor (James McAvoy), supporting actress (Saoirse Ronan), editing, cinematography, the haunting score, which reverberates throughout the film with the rhythmic tapping of typewriter keys... blimey they might even give Keira a mention.

Obviously Knightly/McAvoy fans will like this film no matter what. For everyone else it'll depends on whether you 'get' Ian McEwan or not. I rather liked it. What's next Ian?

Hallam Foe

Hallam Foe is a bit of a weirdo, played by Jamie Bell, who is obsessed with his dead mother. He lives with his dad, played by Ciaran Hinds, and his stepmother who he suspects of having murdered his mother. He seems to spend a lot of time pretending to be a badger, watching and spying on people from a distance. Told you it was odd.
When his step-mother comes up to his tree-house and confronts him with his diary, in which he's recorded his spying missions, he tries to strangle her but she grabs his crotch and they end up having sex on the floor. I was going to say you would wouldn’t you but even I’m not sure about that one. All very bizarre. A very odd way of handling the situation.

After that incident he leaves home and heads for Edinburgh, where he sees a complete stranger who eerily resembles his mother. He smooth talks her into giving him a job as a kitchen porter in the hotel where she is manageress. Then he starts to stalk her by taking to the rooftops and begins to regard the girl, Kate, played by Sophia Myles, as a potential shag. Well, in this case, you most certainly would, wouldn’t you.



He spies on her sex sessions, with her married lover, which she doesn't seem to enjoy very much.

So the film is a weird voyeuristic, eccentric drama come slightly incestuous love story with a bit of humour. Hallam gets away with things that would land most people in jail or get them institutionalised but he is also clever. When Kate’s thoroughly dislikeable lover rumbles him, he manages to track down the guy's apartment and smooth talk his wife and therefore blackmail him.



In the end Kate seduces Hallam but she too is a totally gaga. Typical girl I suppose. When she discovers his secrets, she is a tad pissed off but is she pissed off because he spied on her getting a rough seeing-to or because he's shagging her because she resembles his mother? She has him stood naked in front of her while she interrogates him about his behaviour. Quite how or why this happens, we’re not sure, the film doesn’t tell us. It seems however that his voyeurism doesn’t bother her; perhaps women find that sort of thing a big turn on. Is this where I’ve been going wrong?

There are far too many odd moments to mention and there's no happy ending, which is a bonus. It’s all complemented by a lively soundtrack provided by Domino records. I went straight out and bought the CD.

Well directed and acted. Jamie Bell has got all the credit but the whole cast puts in great performances. The film is quite plainly mad but don't hold that against it.

Lady Chatterley

Today a French version of Lady Chatterley.
Something I didn’t know was that DH Lawrence wrote three versions of Lady Chatterley, of which only the third is widely published and filmed. The books are 'The First Lady Chatterley', 'John Thomas and Lady Jane', and 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'. In the third version, the gamekeeper embarks on a purely physical relationship with Lady Chatterley but the second version is supposed to be more romantic. It is this version that the French have filmed.

The film takes its time to get going, and even longer to get into my consciousness, due to the French language and subtitles. It is also not far off three hours long.

I don’t quite see the film as romantic but my partner does, so perhaps it is. I also don’t see the gamekeeper as particularly fancible but she does. Shows what I know. I just had Lady C down as another married woman, who isn’t getting it and fancied a bit of rough.



I don’t think it’s romantic because there’s no sexual tension in the relationship. Lady C is attractive, the gamekeeper fancies his chances, and he isn't afraid to go for it. So one day he puts his hand on Lady C’s chest and asks her if she’d like to join him inside his hut. She does and seconds later he's trying to find out whether there's a real person under all those clothes. Before you know it they're at it regularly on the wooden floor of his hut.

The sex starts out a bit dull, possibly because she's probably never had it, her husband is disabled, and his wife has left him, so presumably he's no good at it. Seems a gamekeeper wasn't rough enough for his wife because she ran off with a miner.

Eventually they get the hang of it and it livens up, as does Lady C.



They have sex against a tree but fully clothed and in a position that is near on impossible to achieve. I will check this at some stage. Then later, they frolic in the rain and do it in the mud.



All in all, I quite enjoyed. I even care about the characters and what happens to them.

Flying Scotsman

The Flying Scotsman is a film about the cyclist Graeme Obree. We have some beers and a meal first. The meal is excellent value when taken with a film ticket and we even get cut price drinks, although I think this is more to do with bar staff error rather than any special offer. I have two very nice Elsie Mo’s.
Sporting films are not usually very good but the Flying Scotsman was very entertaining. Graeme Obree is the amateur cyclist who built his own bike, partly using washing machine parts (he has a very understanding wife) but not only could he build a decent bike but he was an excellent and drug-free athlete as well. He went on to win two world titles and twice hold the world one hour record despite being under-funded and seemingly having the cycling authorities against both his bike designs and his cycling methods. I think the film simplifies events a little, as cinema usually does, but it was still an excellent film. I hope Graeme, who never really made much money from his cycling, benefits from its release.




My only criticism would be that Jonny Lee Miller didn’t look totally convincing during some of the close-ups of Obree on the track. A fact confirmed by watching footage of the real Obree on YouTube but generally Jonny Lee Miller was superb as are Bill Boyd and Brian Cox. Now I'm very much looking forward to reading Obree’s book.

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

I don't feel qualified to review Harry Potter. Having not read any of the books, I found it all very confusing and got very lost at times, even though I have seen all the other films. This wasn't helped by dozing off occasionally. Not really the fault of the film, I'd had a hard day. Still enjoyed it though. I asked my partner whether it was backwards but she said it wasn't. Visually it was as impressive as ever and the acting from Daniel Radcliffe seems to be getting better, just don't ask me about the plot. I'm just a mere Muggle.



(I've always liked fiery women)

Scott Walker: 30 Century Man

Tonight we see a film with my partner's parents. The film we see is 'Scott Walker: 30 Century Man', as her folks are big Scott Walker fans. The film tells the story of his transformation from teen idol Scott Engel, through his time with The Walker Brothers and then into his solo career. His records gradually got weirder and weirder and sales declined. Save for a brief Walkers reunion he disappeared until a record label finally let him do things his way. Even then his output was less than prolific, averaging about one record every ten years. His way turned out to be very avant-garde. It is described as exploring the boundaries between chord and dis-chord. I have to say that, although the programme probably overdid his later stuff, I found myself rather taken with the pretentious experimentalism of his material. Particularly with a song about the hanging of Mussolini, which for the recording required a percussionist to punch a slab of meat with his fists.



There are many gushing contributions from celebrity fans who you feel are courtesy of David Bowie's address book, he is credited as being as executive producer - Damon Albarn, Johnny Marr (yes him again), Julian Cope (no idea my favourite poet was a fan and even compiled an album of Scott's stuff), Marc Almond, Radiohead, Simon Raymonde, Jarvis Cocker and many more. Quite a cult following.

His songs are dark, depressing, daunting, discomforting and even disturbing, all the d's. My kind of stuff. I'm intrigued. I can feel a CD purchase or two coming on.

Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation is a bit of a disappointment. Even if you discount the short role that Avril Lavigne has in it, she is as bad as you would expect but at least she didn't sing and hers isn't the only bad acting in it. The dark side (is there any other side?) of the fast food industry is an interesting idea for a film but here it's very badly done. As soon as you think they’re going to get their teeth into a particular topic they abandon it and move on to something else.
It tells a number of stories that are linked but then doesn’t seem to connect them together. Instead the film jumps around and nothing is explored enough to become interesting. The film fails to add anything to what I already know about fast food. Although I admit I probably know more than your average fast food eater does, so it's perhaps an education for some.



Overall, it's a wasted opportunity. It is no Super Size Me. Most of the stuff in the film, immigrant workers, artificial flavourings, bad working conditions, animals being killed for meat etc are all common knowledge. The only two shocking parts of it were the fact that faeces makes it into burgers and that workers lose limbs in the factories but in the end both disclosures were brushed under the carpet. Disappointing stuff.

Last King Of Scotland

Tonight a night with Idi Amin and James McAvoy aka The Last King of Scotland.


It's a good film, although a little improbable. Yet again the plot catches me out, I'm not good with plots as you may have gathered, as I keep expecting Gillian Anderson to reappear as his love interest but she doesn't.

The ending is rather good. There is something rather beautiful about seeing Mr McAvoy strung up by his nipples, serves him right for the soppy ending in Starter For Ten. I turn to L to point that out but she has her eyes closed, hands over her face and her head buried in the seat. How women can take the cringe worthy mushy bits but not the gore I'll never know. All in all a nice romantic night out.

Volver

We actually watched this over three nights on DVD, which perhaps shows we weren't terribly enthusiastic about it..

Penelope Cruz plays Raimunda, who, finds herself husbandless, thanks to her own daughter. He came on to her and she stabbed him. Little is made of the attempted rape or the subsequent murder, by mother or Daughter; they just shrug their shoulders 'oh well' and get on with life. This sets the tone for the film as other things happen, everyone's dirty washing falls out of the cupboard and the plot gets weirder and more convoluted. Raimunda's sister, Sole thinks she's seeing the ghost of their dead mother, and... well there's just too much to go into.



I suppose it's a kind of film noir but it’s also like a soap opera, I can't really see why it got all the plaudits. It’s well shot, well made, Penelope Cruz is passable but hardly sensational. I suppose compared with her previous efforts she's a revelation but she still has to mime when she's asked to perform a flamenco number.

It all left me cold. It's a story about women sticking together with an almost all female cast. It's a film for girls but then I don't think L was that fussed by it either. Volver means 'to return'. Hmmm, not in this case.

Stranger Than Fiction

'Stranger Than Fiction' is about a novelist (Emma Thompson) struggling to complete her latest book. As the finale to her book she is trying to find a way to kill off her main character, a chap called Harold Crick. The thing is he exists in real life and can hear her words being narrated to him. So he tries to find a way to change her ending and so save his life. It's all a little too far fetched for me and, I think, rather silly but L and Daughter seem to like it.