Even with what I was talking about in the previous post - which was, yes, about forty-five seconds ago in real time, but still - I have managed to actually sit the finagle down and watch the occasional film.
And, because... Well, because it appeals to me, I like to get my DVDs from CEX because, frankly, their pricing policy is even stranger than HMV's used to be. (And I know that I've talked about that at some vague point in the past, but I'm doohickeyed if I can find it to link it. And linking previous entries twice in the same entry seems... Less recursive, and more idiotic.)
So today let's have entry one (in, most likely, a series of one) of Things You Can Get For £7.
Today brings us:
- Die Hard
- Die Hard 2
- Die Hard With A Vengeance
- Die Hard 4.0
- Disturbia
- Mallrats
- and O.
Now, there's not a Die Hard fetish going on so much as having recently read this article, and watching this video:
And, yes, you can buy the quadrilogy for - Ctrl-T - £12 new or £5 used on Amazon. Or buy the quadrilogy -
No, wait. Let's take a pedantic moment. Quadrilogy isn't even a word. Seriously; spellcheck hates it almost as much as I do, and spellcheck hates spellcheck as a single word, so it must be consumed with self-loathing.
If you wanted to be right - and to have people mock you for being right, most likely, what with your book-learning and stuff - it's Tetralogy. But no-one wants to use tetralogy because it sounds like a mixture of flying dinosaurs and Russian block-games, so instead marketing brings us Quadrilogy. Because Quad = square = four corners = FOUR, you see?
And breath.
Anyway. So I managed to score all four films for - and this is me checking again even though I added it up a minute ago, because my concentrations pan is shot to pieces at the moment - £3.50. Used, yes, but when you can get the Die Hard TETRALOGY - ahem - for 87.5p per film, what's not to love?
This is the world we live in, kids, where films can be made for millions of dollars and end up sold for 75p. Long tail, my ass.
Wait, I'll rephrase that.
So the Die Hard series-of-four-films is there because it's been stuck at the back of my mind to see them for a long time. I saw Die Hard on TV once, about... Ten years ago? And I'm sure I've seen With a Vengeance, but I've not seen all four films, well, ever. Which is kind of a shameful gap in my film knowledge, recently, considering that they're the epitome of high concept.
Also, I find it entertaining that Bruce Willis is always looking to the right on every DVD cover other than 4.0 (which should, really, have stuck to Live Free Or Die Hard, even though us English folks with our genteel sensibilities might not have got it).
Now, Disturbia is only really there because one of the starts of Nothing Strange Happens in Colbourn recommended it to me, and I have no idea why he did, because he's the biggest cineaste I know (even more than Michael Bolton) so when you get it for £1, well, why not, I guess. Plus, well, actual cannibal Shia Labeouf.
O was also £1, and, weirdly, I've been going through an odd Mekhi Phifer phase recently, what with watching the final eight seasons (7 through 15 - don't ask) of ER, and then ended up watching Clockers, which has a really... Strange feel to it, especially in a post The Wire world. Plus, it's a part of the whole Miramax history (and speaking as someone who's read Down and Dirty Pictures somewhat obsessively over the last few years, I'm prone to interest in Miramax history.)
Which brings us to potentially the most difficult of the purchases; Mallrats.
I have kind of a complicated relationship with Kevin Smith. Not in the sexual sense - that's an image no-one needs - but that... You know, that's probably best tackled in a different post. Because that's a whole mess of weird, really.
But hey. Not bad for £7, no?
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
I could yawn and be withdrawn and watch the world go by
Um... Wow.
So I haven't been here since... Wait, let me check again.
Ctrl-T
The end of June.
That's kind of saddening, in a way. But also not, because hey, time, distance, perspective, talking like Buffy again, these things, you have to reclaim.
In theory, this marks the end of something, too. Because the whole Diary of a Mature Student thing technically ended a week before the most recent posting, and your insert-deity-of-choice here above only knows that the whole Each Day, A Film format was, if not totally unsustainable, then overly difficult to keep running.
Sorry 'bout that.
The thing is; something's changed. And not in the fun sense.
Work this out, because I certainly can't; studying film has destroyed my ability to watch films.
In one sense it's to be expected; once you're taught how to view something in a different way, it's difficult - if not impossible - to turn those eyes off. So now, whenever I'm watching - and that's the wrong word, but we'll come back to that shortly - anything, from television to film to whatever, I'm watching it with - at minimum - two sets of eyes.
It's like designer schizophrenia in cinematic terms - if the Barefoot Doctor wasn't quite as sleazy after the whole 'sexing your patients' thing, I'd borrow his quite lovely term, 'Polyphrenia'. Electively having multiple selves that you can dip into and access rather than a singular ego, effectively - Grant Morrison hints at the concept in the final volume of The Invisibles with the whole MeMeplex thing (playing off Dawkins' The Selfish Gene).
Um. Hold on. My background reading is showing.
But let's take an example; I've been watching Hunted recently on BBC 1, and a better example of all the overlays I've been taught coming into play is difficult to find at the moment.
At any given time watching Hunted, I'm trying - desperately - to just watch it as a viewer, but at the same time I am - in theory, and sometimes in practice - 'engaging' with the 'text' as someone who's been trained - to a certain level, and certainly not to mastery, but trained nonetheless - to 'engage' on the level of the script, the production, the technical aspects, and a few other sundry bits and bobs (colour grading, I'm looking at you).
And let me tell you, Hunted is not a great experience if you can't turn the overlays off.
In the week before last's episode, I actually stopped, rewinded and counted the setups in one scene. A simple conversation between two people stood at a window - bread and butter, really, in filmmaking terms - ended up having eight different setups.
For anyone thinking 'oh, well, la-di-da, he studies films and suddenly he's using all the slang and whatnot', a setup is - to my mind, at least - a single camera position. Inside that position, you can pan, track, zoom, change heights, whatever. It's fairly versatile, especially with the new cameras and such.
So to have eight setups in one two-person conversation isn't simply over-the-top, or flashy, or different - it's bizarre.
And it's not the only time it happens, either. There's a thing - and it's not my favourite thing ever, but it works - called the 180 Degree rule.
Like so.
And it's boring, and staid, and simple, but it works. It's part of the visual grammar of how people are brought up to understand television and film. And because if this, if you violate this rule, it should be for a good reason - disorientation, jumps, etc - to shock the audience, or to get them to pay attention.
Hunted doesn't so much break the rule as violate it in every single possible way. It's not even funny; in a conversation between the Boss and his Second-In-Command, the line may as well not exist, which is bizarre in a normal conversation, let alone in a tense situation. So it's like starting a nuclear exchange with your neighbour country because they forgot to send a Christmas card; unnecessary, messy, and everyone's going to be looking at you funny at the UN from now on and not sending baskets of regional cheeses.
The strange thing is that Hunted is actually getting tense. The perennial problem is that you have first-season-hump - you have one episode to set up the world, one episode to dive into the season-long arc, then you just have... stuff happening right up until the final episodes of the season. If the show is well-written, the stuff advances the plot without it being obvious that it's doing so.
Otherwise, you just have A-plot and B-plot for an hour a week, with Season Arc going on in the background.
This is not a bad thing, because it's how we like our TV shows, and, again, it's part of the grammar of how things work; event follows event follows event because there's always a reason for narrative causality, and then suddenly the season is ending and you end with the following programming loop:
10: QUERY: IS SHOW CONTINUING TO NEXT SEASON
20: IF YES, INSERT CLIFFHANGER THEN GOTO 10 AT END OF SEASON
30: IF NO, INSERT WRAP-UP SEGMENT THEN GOTO NEXT TV SHOW
So Hunted is finally tense, but as far as I can tell, no-one actually knows if it's being renewed for another season or not.
If it is, perhaps they could decide if they want to give the viewer motion sickness or not? Because it'd be nice to know in advance.
So I haven't been here since... Wait, let me check again.
Ctrl-T
The end of June.
That's kind of saddening, in a way. But also not, because hey, time, distance, perspective, talking like Buffy again, these things, you have to reclaim.
In theory, this marks the end of something, too. Because the whole Diary of a Mature Student thing technically ended a week before the most recent posting, and your insert-deity-of-choice here above only knows that the whole Each Day, A Film format was, if not totally unsustainable, then overly difficult to keep running.
Sorry 'bout that.
The thing is; something's changed. And not in the fun sense.
Work this out, because I certainly can't; studying film has destroyed my ability to watch films.
In one sense it's to be expected; once you're taught how to view something in a different way, it's difficult - if not impossible - to turn those eyes off. So now, whenever I'm watching - and that's the wrong word, but we'll come back to that shortly - anything, from television to film to whatever, I'm watching it with - at minimum - two sets of eyes.
It's like designer schizophrenia in cinematic terms - if the Barefoot Doctor wasn't quite as sleazy after the whole 'sexing your patients' thing, I'd borrow his quite lovely term, 'Polyphrenia'. Electively having multiple selves that you can dip into and access rather than a singular ego, effectively - Grant Morrison hints at the concept in the final volume of The Invisibles with the whole MeMeplex thing (playing off Dawkins' The Selfish Gene).
Um. Hold on. My background reading is showing.
But let's take an example; I've been watching Hunted recently on BBC 1, and a better example of all the overlays I've been taught coming into play is difficult to find at the moment.
At any given time watching Hunted, I'm trying - desperately - to just watch it as a viewer, but at the same time I am - in theory, and sometimes in practice - 'engaging' with the 'text' as someone who's been trained - to a certain level, and certainly not to mastery, but trained nonetheless - to 'engage' on the level of the script, the production, the technical aspects, and a few other sundry bits and bobs (colour grading, I'm looking at you).
And let me tell you, Hunted is not a great experience if you can't turn the overlays off.
In the week before last's episode, I actually stopped, rewinded and counted the setups in one scene. A simple conversation between two people stood at a window - bread and butter, really, in filmmaking terms - ended up having eight different setups.
For anyone thinking 'oh, well, la-di-da, he studies films and suddenly he's using all the slang and whatnot', a setup is - to my mind, at least - a single camera position. Inside that position, you can pan, track, zoom, change heights, whatever. It's fairly versatile, especially with the new cameras and such.
So to have eight setups in one two-person conversation isn't simply over-the-top, or flashy, or different - it's bizarre.
And it's not the only time it happens, either. There's a thing - and it's not my favourite thing ever, but it works - called the 180 Degree rule.
Like so.
And it's boring, and staid, and simple, but it works. It's part of the visual grammar of how people are brought up to understand television and film. And because if this, if you violate this rule, it should be for a good reason - disorientation, jumps, etc - to shock the audience, or to get them to pay attention.
Hunted doesn't so much break the rule as violate it in every single possible way. It's not even funny; in a conversation between the Boss and his Second-In-Command, the line may as well not exist, which is bizarre in a normal conversation, let alone in a tense situation. So it's like starting a nuclear exchange with your neighbour country because they forgot to send a Christmas card; unnecessary, messy, and everyone's going to be looking at you funny at the UN from now on and not sending baskets of regional cheeses.
The strange thing is that Hunted is actually getting tense. The perennial problem is that you have first-season-hump - you have one episode to set up the world, one episode to dive into the season-long arc, then you just have... stuff happening right up until the final episodes of the season. If the show is well-written, the stuff advances the plot without it being obvious that it's doing so.
Otherwise, you just have A-plot and B-plot for an hour a week, with Season Arc going on in the background.
This is not a bad thing, because it's how we like our TV shows, and, again, it's part of the grammar of how things work; event follows event follows event because there's always a reason for narrative causality, and then suddenly the season is ending and you end with the following programming loop:
10: QUERY: IS SHOW CONTINUING TO NEXT SEASON
20: IF YES, INSERT CLIFFHANGER THEN GOTO 10 AT END OF SEASON
30: IF NO, INSERT WRAP-UP SEGMENT THEN GOTO NEXT TV SHOW
So Hunted is finally tense, but as far as I can tell, no-one actually knows if it's being renewed for another season or not.
If it is, perhaps they could decide if they want to give the viewer motion sickness or not? Because it'd be nice to know in advance.
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
Director's Commentary Season: Explanation
More accurately, explanation and apologies.
The Each Day, A Film section got wrapped around the lamp-post of time management at high speed about a month ago, and was already out-of-date by then. This isn't to say that I don't want to restart that (and do catchup), but there's something else I'd like to present to you first: Nothing Strange Happens in Colbourn.
Colbourn is my final year film project, which concluded my studying time as a mature student (and go back to the start of this blog if you want to see what being a mature student was like, in my case; if you don't fancy that, let me summarise it like this: interesting, interesting, fun, fun, fun, litany of complaints, closure.
But anyway.
Nothing Strange Happens in Colbourn was difficult from start to finish, but that's filmmaking, really. You may as well say that fish are wet from birth to batter; filmmaking is compromise.
The interesting thing is that I actually learnt a great deal from relentlessly compromising for eight months, from script to screen.
So now for you, dear viewers - and the beautiful people who were my investors - I'd like to present the film, with this blog acting as Directors Commentary on the side. It won't always be relevant, it won't always be funny, but I hope it might just give you some insight into all the myriad processes that went into getting this film made.
Here's how it'll work: the film is split up into five parts (yes, really). I'll post each part along with a link to this - let's be charitable - commentary. There'll also be a post for preproduction and postproduction, just so you get the full picture.
Without further ado;
The Each Day, A Film section got wrapped around the lamp-post of time management at high speed about a month ago, and was already out-of-date by then. This isn't to say that I don't want to restart that (and do catchup), but there's something else I'd like to present to you first: Nothing Strange Happens in Colbourn.
Colbourn is my final year film project, which concluded my studying time as a mature student (and go back to the start of this blog if you want to see what being a mature student was like, in my case; if you don't fancy that, let me summarise it like this: interesting, interesting, fun, fun, fun, litany of complaints, closure.
But anyway.
Nothing Strange Happens in Colbourn was difficult from start to finish, but that's filmmaking, really. You may as well say that fish are wet from birth to batter; filmmaking is compromise.
The interesting thing is that I actually learnt a great deal from relentlessly compromising for eight months, from script to screen.
So now for you, dear viewers - and the beautiful people who were my investors - I'd like to present the film, with this blog acting as Directors Commentary on the side. It won't always be relevant, it won't always be funny, but I hope it might just give you some insight into all the myriad processes that went into getting this film made.
Here's how it'll work: the film is split up into five parts (yes, really). I'll post each part along with a link to this - let's be charitable - commentary. There'll also be a post for preproduction and postproduction, just so you get the full picture.
Without further ado;
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
One goodbye for everyone
Each Day, A Film
February 14th 2012 (Retrospective)
Yes, fact fans, I'm persisting with this one. Even a promise lately kept is a promise worth keeping.
However, let's finally - finally - get around to talking about The Guard.
In a weird kind of a way, I actually went out of my way to see The Guard when it first came out on DVD. See, at the time, I had this fun illness - no details, naturally, because this is the internet - and as part of that I had to actually physically drag my damn carcass to the local GP for an assessment, then, because I'm pants-on-head stupid (and more likely because I hadn't been able to leave the house for five days by this point) I decided to go and do some shopping.
This was, at the time, a mistake.
But I did pick up a copy of The Guard, so all's well that ends up more or less well, I suppose.
Now, there's an easy argument to make about Brendan Gleeson, in that post In Bruges, his career has become a little... Odd. Typecast, but odd. It's possible to see Gerry - the titular Guard - as a kind of alternate universe Ken, in that if he'd become a policeman instead of a contract killer, maybe he'd have ended up in a tiny police station with not much going on.
Then I did the littlest bit of research, and, well, Brendan Gleeson's career is kind of epic, really. Put it this way; anyone who goes from 28 Days Later to The Smurfs 2 (rumoured) in the space of just over a decade has to be, in some ways, admired.
But to lump The Guard in with In Bruges feels a little lazy, somehow.
I confess to only having been to Ireland twice - and both times, to the same place - but I like to think that, however briefly I was there, I got a little bit of a feel for the place, especially the concept of a different feeling of time passing (and the air being that much cleaner).
So when I was watching this over the weekend with a couple of friends, and one of them asked me whether this was what Ireland was really like, I demurred through lack of experience, but, thinking about it now; isn't the Ireland of The Guard basically the same kind of decayed world we're taught that we're living in now, just with the weirdest kind of antihero there to take on all-comers after he's got rid of the milkshake headache?
Put it this way; the police are corrupt in their entirety (or, at least, "as many of them as matters"); the marshes are hiding places for gun stashes; the hero is willing to sell said gun stashes on to the IRA; the drug smugglers are portrayed as the most overtly erudite people around (with arguments about philosophy and deconstruction of popular crime tropes abounding) and the American law enforcement representative is a quiet, cultured, inward-looking person who's not, as people keep asking, from the Behavioural Sciences Unit.
It's as if in one film someone - another McDonagh, brother to the In Bruges McDonagh - decided to simultaneously lampshade every possible trope about Irish culture while equally inverting every other trope about crime films and westerns.
And with that, there's really not that much else to say about The Guard, other than to mention that even after three years of studying film, I can still watch this one without the Analysis Dial in my head turning too far towards "stop enjoying this and start criticising it".
Yes, it's quite a big dial to have that written on it. Thank you for asking.
February 14th 2012 (Retrospective)
Yes, fact fans, I'm persisting with this one. Even a promise lately kept is a promise worth keeping.
However, let's finally - finally - get around to talking about The Guard.
In a weird kind of a way, I actually went out of my way to see The Guard when it first came out on DVD. See, at the time, I had this fun illness - no details, naturally, because this is the internet - and as part of that I had to actually physically drag my damn carcass to the local GP for an assessment, then, because I'm pants-on-head stupid (and more likely because I hadn't been able to leave the house for five days by this point) I decided to go and do some shopping.
This was, at the time, a mistake.
But I did pick up a copy of The Guard, so all's well that ends up more or less well, I suppose.
Now, there's an easy argument to make about Brendan Gleeson, in that post In Bruges, his career has become a little... Odd. Typecast, but odd. It's possible to see Gerry - the titular Guard - as a kind of alternate universe Ken, in that if he'd become a policeman instead of a contract killer, maybe he'd have ended up in a tiny police station with not much going on.
Then I did the littlest bit of research, and, well, Brendan Gleeson's career is kind of epic, really. Put it this way; anyone who goes from 28 Days Later to The Smurfs 2 (rumoured) in the space of just over a decade has to be, in some ways, admired.
But to lump The Guard in with In Bruges feels a little lazy, somehow.
I confess to only having been to Ireland twice - and both times, to the same place - but I like to think that, however briefly I was there, I got a little bit of a feel for the place, especially the concept of a different feeling of time passing (and the air being that much cleaner).
So when I was watching this over the weekend with a couple of friends, and one of them asked me whether this was what Ireland was really like, I demurred through lack of experience, but, thinking about it now; isn't the Ireland of The Guard basically the same kind of decayed world we're taught that we're living in now, just with the weirdest kind of antihero there to take on all-comers after he's got rid of the milkshake headache?
Put it this way; the police are corrupt in their entirety (or, at least, "as many of them as matters"); the marshes are hiding places for gun stashes; the hero is willing to sell said gun stashes on to the IRA; the drug smugglers are portrayed as the most overtly erudite people around (with arguments about philosophy and deconstruction of popular crime tropes abounding) and the American law enforcement representative is a quiet, cultured, inward-looking person who's not, as people keep asking, from the Behavioural Sciences Unit.
It's as if in one film someone - another McDonagh, brother to the In Bruges McDonagh - decided to simultaneously lampshade every possible trope about Irish culture while equally inverting every other trope about crime films and westerns.
And with that, there's really not that much else to say about The Guard, other than to mention that even after three years of studying film, I can still watch this one without the Analysis Dial in my head turning too far towards "stop enjoying this and start criticising it".
Yes, it's quite a big dial to have that written on it. Thank you for asking.
And the girls love me and I shall never grow old and it's this I say
Each Day, A Film:
Intermission
I know. A long old intermission, right?
But... It's all done with now, the whole mature student shebang, from soup to nuts. More accurately, it was all done eight days ago, but just because you submit your final assignment it doesn't mean it's finished, right?
Well, not in my case, considering I went back twice to tweak the final resulting film project (because what was actually submitted was, in the most literal sense of the word, a submission - to deadlines, to completing the course, to graduating (eventually), to the course leader, to... Everything, really. Eight days ago I spent twelve hours trying to burn half an hour of footage onto a DVD.
Kind of ridiculous.
And now, I'm having one of those odd times when lyrics from a song completely encapsulate how I'm feeling about my soon-to-be alma mater and a few of the people I met therein; see, it's like this:
And I'm sorry that you happened to me,
Sorry that you happened to me
Sorry that you happened to me,
But
They say one man is the accident
The other is a hand to stop the blood
And I'm waiting for the other one
For a hand to stop the blood.
Melodramatic, no? But accurate.
Intermission
I know. A long old intermission, right?
But... It's all done with now, the whole mature student shebang, from soup to nuts. More accurately, it was all done eight days ago, but just because you submit your final assignment it doesn't mean it's finished, right?
Well, not in my case, considering I went back twice to tweak the final resulting film project (because what was actually submitted was, in the most literal sense of the word, a submission - to deadlines, to completing the course, to graduating (eventually), to the course leader, to... Everything, really. Eight days ago I spent twelve hours trying to burn half an hour of footage onto a DVD.
Kind of ridiculous.
And now, I'm having one of those odd times when lyrics from a song completely encapsulate how I'm feeling about my soon-to-be alma mater and a few of the people I met therein; see, it's like this:
And I'm sorry that you happened to me,
Sorry that you happened to me
Sorry that you happened to me,
But
They say one man is the accident
The other is a hand to stop the blood
And I'm waiting for the other one
For a hand to stop the blood.
Melodramatic, no? But accurate.
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Bless your soul you've made a fool out of me
Each Day, A Film
January 25th, 2012
I note that the recent updates have been fairly short and getting shorter, so I think it's probably time to halt this catchup session before I dry up.
Sticking with the theme of films I actually hauled my posterior to the cinema to watch, though, let's talk about Once Upon A Time In Mexico.
Now, let's not fuck about; Once... is a strange movie, which comes across as just a little confused. This isn't a bad thing - it's the result of a mass of differing storylines attempting to culminate in a coup d'etat in Mexico, and in turn all these differing storylines are the result of the fact that the majority of characters within the film do get decent character development.
Now, Mexico is another film I developed a mild obsession about, because, frankly, as much as I'm a sucker for visual effects, I'm even more of a sucker for trailers. Less so now, but back in the day I could be bought and sold and sold again second hand by a decent trailer. At the same time, it came out in my post-graduation haze, where the degree I'd just finished meant nothing compared to film, film, film, and Robert Rodriguez - as previously mentioned - was a personal minor deity of the time because he was empowering; apparently you shouldn't say "I'm going to be a filmmaker", you should say "I am a filmmaker!", as if the affirmation will magically transform you.
Let's make an attempt to unpick the storyline - an attempt during which I make no apology for referring to characters by the actors' names, by the way.
Now, Johnny Depp is tasked with keeping Mexico from being either too good or too bad - in his terms, maintaining the balance, which occasionally involves shooting chefs to make a point. However, Willem DaFoe is planning a military coup against the government, aided by Eva Mendes' corrupt agent - who Johnny Depp seems to have had a prior relationship with. To combat a coup being undertaken by a sizable military force, Johnny Depp hires three musicians - one mariachi still grieving for the loss of his family, another reduced to singing for kisses, and the third a drunk in need of drying out. At the same time, Johnny Depp asks Ruben Blades to investigate the coup for no real reason other than he needs something to do and has a personal revenge to undertake.
At the same time, Danny Trejo works for - but doesn't like - Johnny Depp, instead deciding to sell Antonio Banderas out to their opponents. Whether this is before or after Johnny Depp probes Cheech Marin's corpse's anal cavity with a rubber-gloved finger then throws him into a lake is best left unworried about. Johnny Depp ends up the best blind gunfighter in Mexico, aided by a chewing-gum selling boy, the musicians thwart the coup, and almost nobody lives happily ever after.
Isn't it easy when you break it down?
Then again, if you're watching it for the plot, you're probably already not onto a winner.
When I saw this in the local cinema, I was one of twelve people, two of which were clearly only there because they received an over-65s discount, it was something to do, and they were assuming it might be like one of those fancy Spaghetti Westerns they used to like back in the day. All credit to them, however, they stayed throughout the entire experience - graphic shotgun kneecapping and all.
The film is - in Empire's words - "a custard-pie fight of a movie", which I always thought was a nice phrase; messy, annoying, but at least there's custard involved. I don't love it, but I will always have a place in my movie loving heart for the strange overplayed stylistically violent end to the Mariachi trilogy, if only for the
January 25th, 2012
I note that the recent updates have been fairly short and getting shorter, so I think it's probably time to halt this catchup session before I dry up.
Sticking with the theme of films I actually hauled my posterior to the cinema to watch, though, let's talk about Once Upon A Time In Mexico.
Now, let's not fuck about; Once... is a strange movie, which comes across as just a little confused. This isn't a bad thing - it's the result of a mass of differing storylines attempting to culminate in a coup d'etat in Mexico, and in turn all these differing storylines are the result of the fact that the majority of characters within the film do get decent character development.
Now, Mexico is another film I developed a mild obsession about, because, frankly, as much as I'm a sucker for visual effects, I'm even more of a sucker for trailers. Less so now, but back in the day I could be bought and sold and sold again second hand by a decent trailer. At the same time, it came out in my post-graduation haze, where the degree I'd just finished meant nothing compared to film, film, film, and Robert Rodriguez - as previously mentioned - was a personal minor deity of the time because he was empowering; apparently you shouldn't say "I'm going to be a filmmaker", you should say "I am a filmmaker!", as if the affirmation will magically transform you.
Let's make an attempt to unpick the storyline - an attempt during which I make no apology for referring to characters by the actors' names, by the way.
Now, Johnny Depp is tasked with keeping Mexico from being either too good or too bad - in his terms, maintaining the balance, which occasionally involves shooting chefs to make a point. However, Willem DaFoe is planning a military coup against the government, aided by Eva Mendes' corrupt agent - who Johnny Depp seems to have had a prior relationship with. To combat a coup being undertaken by a sizable military force, Johnny Depp hires three musicians - one mariachi still grieving for the loss of his family, another reduced to singing for kisses, and the third a drunk in need of drying out. At the same time, Johnny Depp asks Ruben Blades to investigate the coup for no real reason other than he needs something to do and has a personal revenge to undertake.
At the same time, Danny Trejo works for - but doesn't like - Johnny Depp, instead deciding to sell Antonio Banderas out to their opponents. Whether this is before or after Johnny Depp probes Cheech Marin's corpse's anal cavity with a rubber-gloved finger then throws him into a lake is best left unworried about. Johnny Depp ends up the best blind gunfighter in Mexico, aided by a chewing-gum selling boy, the musicians thwart the coup, and almost nobody lives happily ever after.
Isn't it easy when you break it down?
Then again, if you're watching it for the plot, you're probably already not onto a winner.
When I saw this in the local cinema, I was one of twelve people, two of which were clearly only there because they received an over-65s discount, it was something to do, and they were assuming it might be like one of those fancy Spaghetti Westerns they used to like back in the day. All credit to them, however, they stayed throughout the entire experience - graphic shotgun kneecapping and all.
The film is - in Empire's words - "a custard-pie fight of a movie", which I always thought was a nice phrase; messy, annoying, but at least there's custard involved. I don't love it, but I will always have a place in my movie loving heart for the strange overplayed stylistically violent end to the Mariachi trilogy, if only for the
Grab your things, I'm gonna take you home.
Each Day, A Film:
February 13th 2012 (Retrospective)
I know, I know, the retrospective thing is getting a little insane in terms of backlog. I'm doggedly determined, however.
Let's talk about The Avengers.
Not because we should, or because we could, but because we have to.
Seriously.
I invite you to look at it this way. For the last three years and change, I've been studying film academically - for a given value of academically, certainly, but I try to be as academic as possible. At the same time, I've been surrounded by tweenagers - people making that fun progression from 18 to 21, from teenage to twenty, from young to youth.
At times, they've been a fucking nightmare. Now, having been through the wringer for over a thousand days, there are a handful that I would willingly do anything for - primarily because they've done so much for me - along with a handful that embody the nadir of the human race in so many ways, from covetousness to mendaciousness to capriciousness. I know, that's a lot of ness, but it's true; some of them make me want to spit.
Then I remember that in a few weeks they go out into the real world which will, make no mistake, not tolerate their bullshit, and I smile, because I've already had to do that and was able to make the decision to go back afterwards to study something I was passionate about.
Emphasis on was.
The reason I started the new Each Day A Film format was because this blog had become a hilarious litany of complaint about the people who made my life either difficult or hellish. For sure, it's all petty bullshit that nobody should fixate about, but when it's your life, fixation tends to happen.
So having had the joy of film and filmmaking systematically cut out of my system over the past eighteen months, I made the executive decision to tell all of my work - the stuff I care about, the stuff I don't care about but have to do, and all the ancillary stuff - to go and take a long walk off a short pier, because, Goddammit, I'm Going To See The Avengers.
Now, the fun thing is that, for no apparent reason, because I live in England, we get the film a full eight days before our American cousins, which must drive them loco, to be honest.
But when I emerged from the cinema - even having to wear those bloody 3-D goggles (and to be fair the only reason I even saw the film in 3-D was because it was showing an hour before the 2-D version) - two and a half plus hours later, I had a goofy grin plastered on my face and the world, for a few hours, felt like a much better place.
I'm going to try not to do much in the way of spoilers, but just in case I do, consider this:
SPOILER WARNING
To be, well, your spoiler warning. Especially you, America.
The thing about The Avengers - or, thanks to being English, Avengers Assemble - is that everything about it is big, big, big, but even though sometimes you can kind of feel the occasional budget scrimping (how did Thor get back to the world other than it being explained in a line of dialogue by Loki? Why do the Chitauri soldiers just switch off after the link to their home dimension is severed? It felt like that could maybe have been done just that little bit better, with an expanded sequence, instead of wrapping things up in under...
Wait...
Two and a half hours.
See what I mean about big? With superhero films you're lucky if they can reach out and tickle the two hour mark these days, what with everything clocking in at 90 minutes with or without credits...
The other thing was that there's no pandering to people who haven't been following continuity that closely. If you haven't seen either of the Iron Man films, then you might not know that there's a reason Tony Stark plays the colossal entitled jerk, and if you haven't seen the Captain America film you get nothing other than some punching-bag flashbacks. Similarly, Bruce Banner is introduced without much reference to the Lee or Leterrier Hulk films, and Loki and Thor just turn up as if Thor only finished a few weeks ago.
Don't know what's going on? Tough. And, to be an asshole, that's how I like it, because I'm the most colossal Marvel film nerd there is. Oh, for sure there are more nerdy people on the subject out there, but the difference between me and them is that they might believe, but I Believe with a capital B that this weird superhero film wave we're riding at the moment is a sign that we, as a species, are finally starting to hit a more positive headspace after 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so many natural disasters. Take a look at the weird evolution of the superhero film if you don't believe me; the X-Men films go through comic-book to death, death, death in the space of two films only to be rebooted with First Class. Spider-Man's being rebooted, although that's more to do with rights issues and the fact that Tobey Maguire is not, sadly, perpetually young. Shit, even Daredevil's getting rebooted, and he was the poster boy for the weird Justice/Kicking Alleged Rapists Onto The Train Tracks dyad.
And now, when the world is threatened - or, at least, New York, which is the world in miniature - we can actually rely on this weird little coalition of superpowered beings - from the demigod to the irradiated scientist and the poster-child for arms merchant irony to the super-spies and the archers and the patriotic experiment subjects. All that, and Samuel L Jackson in an eyepatch.
I'd been looking forward to this film for a few years now, believe it or not, and I was actually prepared to be disappointed.
But no. A big, goofy grin.
I believed - and still do - that The Avengers represents a turning point. It's too early to judge whether it'll be the end of an era and the beginning of a new one or simply the bridge that allows for a continuation, but I can pretty much certainly say that it won't kill off the superhero movie forever, which is pretty much what people were worrying about, myself included.
Right up until this point it was kill or cure, and my analysis lies with cure.
That and the big goofy grin.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the thing, though; I do want to nitpick, and I do want to talk about one or two little plot holes and issues, but I'm not going to because - and this is a little odd for me, but let's press on - I'm not going to do what, oh, say, everyone else is doing and post spoilers and whatnot.
I'm going to wait for that and rethink my analysis and maybe, just maybe, we'll get back to it next week. But until then, consider superhero season restarted for reals.
February 13th 2012 (Retrospective)
I know, I know, the retrospective thing is getting a little insane in terms of backlog. I'm doggedly determined, however.
Let's talk about The Avengers.
Not because we should, or because we could, but because we have to.
Seriously.
I invite you to look at it this way. For the last three years and change, I've been studying film academically - for a given value of academically, certainly, but I try to be as academic as possible. At the same time, I've been surrounded by tweenagers - people making that fun progression from 18 to 21, from teenage to twenty, from young to youth.
At times, they've been a fucking nightmare. Now, having been through the wringer for over a thousand days, there are a handful that I would willingly do anything for - primarily because they've done so much for me - along with a handful that embody the nadir of the human race in so many ways, from covetousness to mendaciousness to capriciousness. I know, that's a lot of ness, but it's true; some of them make me want to spit.
Then I remember that in a few weeks they go out into the real world which will, make no mistake, not tolerate their bullshit, and I smile, because I've already had to do that and was able to make the decision to go back afterwards to study something I was passionate about.
Emphasis on was.
The reason I started the new Each Day A Film format was because this blog had become a hilarious litany of complaint about the people who made my life either difficult or hellish. For sure, it's all petty bullshit that nobody should fixate about, but when it's your life, fixation tends to happen.
So having had the joy of film and filmmaking systematically cut out of my system over the past eighteen months, I made the executive decision to tell all of my work - the stuff I care about, the stuff I don't care about but have to do, and all the ancillary stuff - to go and take a long walk off a short pier, because, Goddammit, I'm Going To See The Avengers.
Now, the fun thing is that, for no apparent reason, because I live in England, we get the film a full eight days before our American cousins, which must drive them loco, to be honest.
But when I emerged from the cinema - even having to wear those bloody 3-D goggles (and to be fair the only reason I even saw the film in 3-D was because it was showing an hour before the 2-D version) - two and a half plus hours later, I had a goofy grin plastered on my face and the world, for a few hours, felt like a much better place.
I'm going to try not to do much in the way of spoilers, but just in case I do, consider this:
SPOILER WARNING
To be, well, your spoiler warning. Especially you, America.
The thing about The Avengers - or, thanks to being English, Avengers Assemble - is that everything about it is big, big, big, but even though sometimes you can kind of feel the occasional budget scrimping (how did Thor get back to the world other than it being explained in a line of dialogue by Loki? Why do the Chitauri soldiers just switch off after the link to their home dimension is severed? It felt like that could maybe have been done just that little bit better, with an expanded sequence, instead of wrapping things up in under...
Wait...
Two and a half hours.
See what I mean about big? With superhero films you're lucky if they can reach out and tickle the two hour mark these days, what with everything clocking in at 90 minutes with or without credits...
The other thing was that there's no pandering to people who haven't been following continuity that closely. If you haven't seen either of the Iron Man films, then you might not know that there's a reason Tony Stark plays the colossal entitled jerk, and if you haven't seen the Captain America film you get nothing other than some punching-bag flashbacks. Similarly, Bruce Banner is introduced without much reference to the Lee or Leterrier Hulk films, and Loki and Thor just turn up as if Thor only finished a few weeks ago.
Don't know what's going on? Tough. And, to be an asshole, that's how I like it, because I'm the most colossal Marvel film nerd there is. Oh, for sure there are more nerdy people on the subject out there, but the difference between me and them is that they might believe, but I Believe with a capital B that this weird superhero film wave we're riding at the moment is a sign that we, as a species, are finally starting to hit a more positive headspace after 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so many natural disasters. Take a look at the weird evolution of the superhero film if you don't believe me; the X-Men films go through comic-book to death, death, death in the space of two films only to be rebooted with First Class. Spider-Man's being rebooted, although that's more to do with rights issues and the fact that Tobey Maguire is not, sadly, perpetually young. Shit, even Daredevil's getting rebooted, and he was the poster boy for the weird Justice/Kicking Alleged Rapists Onto The Train Tracks dyad.
And now, when the world is threatened - or, at least, New York, which is the world in miniature - we can actually rely on this weird little coalition of superpowered beings - from the demigod to the irradiated scientist and the poster-child for arms merchant irony to the super-spies and the archers and the patriotic experiment subjects. All that, and Samuel L Jackson in an eyepatch.
I'd been looking forward to this film for a few years now, believe it or not, and I was actually prepared to be disappointed.
But no. A big, goofy grin.
I believed - and still do - that The Avengers represents a turning point. It's too early to judge whether it'll be the end of an era and the beginning of a new one or simply the bridge that allows for a continuation, but I can pretty much certainly say that it won't kill off the superhero movie forever, which is pretty much what people were worrying about, myself included.
Right up until this point it was kill or cure, and my analysis lies with cure.
That and the big goofy grin.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the thing, though; I do want to nitpick, and I do want to talk about one or two little plot holes and issues, but I'm not going to because - and this is a little odd for me, but let's press on - I'm not going to do what, oh, say, everyone else is doing and post spoilers and whatnot.
I'm going to wait for that and rethink my analysis and maybe, just maybe, we'll get back to it next week. But until then, consider superhero season restarted for reals.
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