The Woman In Black

The Shadows Know...

The Woman In Black 2012

UK/Canada/Sweden

Directed by James Watkins

Screening at UK cinemas.

Warning: There are some spoilers hidden in

the muddy text of this review, just waiting to be

unearthed from their brown, sludgy resting place...

Okay... there are some pretty heavy caveats before I start on this review properly... and I might as well get the rant over with from the start. I primarily was treating this screening of The Woman In Black as kind of a “window shopping” expedition to see if it’s worth picking up the US Region 1 edition when it comes out. Why? Because Hammer, a company who I have an interest in, have totally copped out and gone for the money on this one in the UK. The BBFC were willing to allow the release of The Woman In Black completely uncut with a 15 rating on it... instead, Hammer have chosen to shear the film of some 6 seconds worth of shots (a huge amount considering I find the slashing of even a single frame an abomination to any piece of finished art) so that they could gain a 12A rating on it and catch the children’s market who are going to go out and see this film for the central star, Daniel Radcliffe (he’s the guy who plays Harry Potter in the movie adaptations of those books).

Now there’s been some criticism of this decision around the net, as the film is quite (well kinda) scary in places and there is a fear that children seeing this kind of old-school ghost story will be traumatised by viewing this. Good for them, I say. This is not the reason why I personally think Hammer’s decision is an appalling move. On the contrary, I remember the Hammer films which used to scare me as a 6 or 7 year old and kept me up all night before school with cold sweats and I see grown men and women now who are just not able to watch a simple horror film out of fear and I realise that seeing really scary movies at a young age very much arms a person to cope with real life horrors should they occur in later life... and also allows them another artistic channel from which to receive art (i.e. the horror movie). So hoorah for a culture that allows kids to be frightened and learn how to face up to their fears... I’m all for that.

However... you should never cut a movie and you should certainly never cut a movie on the flimsy attraction of financial gain. Now I know Hammer have had a long history of cutting their films pre-release due to damnable interference from the censors but in those days it was make the cuts or don’t release the movie... simple as that. Here, though, it’s a different kettle of piranha fish we're dealing with. Hammer stand to make much more money from the childrens market on this one than if they’d have released the film with a 15 rating... it’s that simple and that reprehensible in practice. Since I know I wouldn’t blind buy an uncut Region 1 US edition of the film from overseas given Hammer’s recent track record, this was the only way I could find out if the film was worth picking up on its DVD release overseas (in its hopefully unmolested and unraped original cut)... by going to the shop window/highlights screenings in cinemas over here. Because this really isn’t the film you’re watching in cinemas in the UK, so you know, just a highlights compilation version of it missing 6 whole seconds. That’s 144 frames missing people!

Ok... secondly, I should probably tell you that I am not familiar with Susan Hill’s 1983 novel on which this film is based and nor am I familiar with the various radio, TV and stage adaptations which have done the rounds since then... if I was then I’d probably be much more critical of this new Hammer version because, from what I’ve heard, it messes with the original quite a lot, taking liberties with the material left, right and centre and ultimately completely changing the end to something that, in some people’s interpretation, could be seen as a rainbow sky, happy ending to the story. It’s an ending which solves a couple of plot details and ties them up in a nice bow to make them more palatable for an audience as opposed to leaving things worse and much darker for the main protagonist at the end. I’d particularly like to have seen the TV version though, because it was adapted by Nigel Kneale, creator of one of my fictional heroes Professor Quatermass.

But I digress here... I’m getting ahead of myself and making The Woman In Black sound like it’s a bad movie... it’s really not and I think a lot of the credit for this can be laid at the door of Jane Goldman, the crimson haired, chesty wife of Jonathan Ross who wrote the screenplay to this and a few other films in recent years which have proved to be well written. She’s really on top of things again with the writing of this one and, aided by some not half bad performances, the film shines... in its own way.

Now there’s no getting away from the fact that The Woman In Black is very much an old school ghost story and, as such, it relies on every tired shock and horror trick in the book to frighten you... shadows in corridors, screams and nursery time twinkle tunes, large shifts in sound volumes as innocent creatures or objects become wrought embodiments of living peril for a few seconds before... you know... you get your breath back. However, although this movie does, as I said, make use of every horror movie trick in the book, it does so with impeccable timing and a true sense of how to edit this kind of film exactly right to milk the scares and build tension in the audience. It’s very, very well done and, as such, the director should be applauded for his efforts here. Especially when one of those fright sequences is extended out for what must be twenty minutes... just before you start getting bored of seeing suspenseful supernatural shock after shock as Radcliffe’s character wanders the house and grounds a second night... he finally gives you a breather to start setting up the slow burn tension again for a later, similar sequence.

The performances are all fine too, even from the former Harry Potter star, who I’m sure will develop into a fine and much loved character actor by the time he reaches his twilight years. And there’s some beautiful camerawork throughout with a particularly good series of sequential establishing shots in the early stages of the film involving a car journey which makes strong use on cutting on motion and dovetailing these shots in a way which is risky but is edited skillfully enough to pull off the intent beautifully... as the shots work together to pull the audience into the mindset and proximity of the characters in the car as placed in their surrounding environment.

The end, as I’ve said earlier, is much different from the source material and is largely open to audience interpretation... not for the finality or closure of the main protagonists, you are left in absolutely no doubt as to their final fate, but in terms of whether you would interpret this movie as a happy or sad ending to events. The choice is yours and it’s very much an ending that tries to have its cake and eat it at the same time. If I was being unkind I might call it almost a cop out... but it’s not such a blunt instrument of an ending to a movie and it could have been worse. Fortunately, the movie ends with a small shot which is very much an iconic, classic hammer moment... and I think it’s a moment that’s going to haunt some of the younger audience members for a while.

So should you see it? Well yeah, why not? As long as you realise that this is not the final cut as originally delivered by the director... although I’m sure the subsequent tampering probably has his blessing and he may have even made the cuts himself for all I know. If you like ghost stories then you’ll probably like this one... there’s been a lot of variants of this around at the movie houses over the past few years but this is a more than competent effort in the genre and deserves to be seen by people, like myself, who enjoy a good ghost yarn... or, you know, wait for an uncut version from foreign shores with the DVD release... it’s all good.

A Dangerous Method

Jung At Heart

A Dangerous Method 2011

UK/Germany/Canada/Switzerland

Directed by David Cronenberg

Screening at UK cinemas.

Warning: This review will certainly contain some dangerously

heavy spoilers... and probably a few Freudian Gym Slips too!

I’ve mostly enjoyed the movies of David Cronenberg and have followed his work with great interest. Although marginalised, perhaps rightly for a while, as a horror movie director and, on top of that, a “body-horror” director (a marginalisation of a marginalisation), he has come to be a little more well respected over the last few years with releases of movies which are not obsessed with the disintegration, metamorphosis or derangement of the human body but which fall into more “popular” concerns. As this happened, the mainstream audiences and critics seemed to have been happy to have embraced him almost instantly... it’s as if they needed an excuse to let him into their club.

I’ve never thought any less of Cronenberg for being a horror director. Frankly I’ve never thought of him as anything other than an auteur... a man holding a genuine artistic vision which he uses as his goal posts to plug in various talents such as Carol Spier (who’s not with him on this production), Denise Cronenberg and Howard Shore to help him to realise his vision on celluloid (or whatever today’s nasty digital equivalent of celluloid is called). As someone trying to talk about him (or write about him and his work) here, I find it problematic that he’s moved away from horror films because his stylistic traits are much easier to tag on something like eXistenZ or Videodrome where I can lazily just point out the obvious similarities in the amorphous, fleshy environments his characters populate. Take away little “critic crutches” like this and I really need to go back and watch his movies again and dig deeper than what seem to have become merely surface details... or maybe just another phase of his career as an artist. I don’t have time to do that here though so, don’t expect much insight into his leanings from me here on this one.

One thing, however, that I did realise about Cronenberg's output while watching this one in particular, which perhaps should have been obvious to me before now (and perhaps it was and I just forget... I’m in my forties now, I do that) is that, although he certainly has a very sharp eye for the details and look of his movies, he is very focussed on performance. He wants to take the actors away from their own comfort zone and to strip away their body props and trade tricks and force them to explore the depths that his characters are reaching... and his characters do usually go right into the depths of their own dark psyches, more often than not, with the obvious luxury (seeing as he’s done so many horror movies where such conclusions are not necessarily considered box office poison by the producers) of being able to leave his characters wallowing in their own darkness, or often dead from it, at the end of the movie.

A Dangerous Method is a case in point. Keira Knightley’s performance, especially at the start of the film, is phenomenal. Yeah, yeah, okay... it could be considered oscar bait posturing (play a character with a physical or mental impairment and they’ll love you for it and awards will be falling on you out of trees) but, frankly, I found her absolute paroxyms of “out of control” emotional outrages to be really quite naturalistic and, in some instances, almost disturbing to watch... which is all good. I honestly haven’t seen Knightley attempt anything half as hard as this kind of role in the past and I think it’s a credit to both Cronenberg and his actors that they will push themselves and dive into these depths for him.

The film tells the real life story of Jung (Michael Fassbender) and one of his patients, Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), and also his relationship with Sigmund Freud (played by Viggo Mortensen). Once Jung has ascertained the true nature of Sabina’s debilitating mental abberation, and pretty much cured her of this, the two embark on a sado-masochistic affair before Jung calls it off due to feelings of guilt about his wife. However, by the end of the movie and after his split with both Sabina and Freud, Jung is left alone and regretting ever leaving the woman he loved to this infinitely passionate degree for the rest of his life. Confronted by a married and pregnant Sabina towards the end of the movie, after having left her twice, he refers to her bump and says that “that should have been mine”. This movie proves without a shadow of a doubt that when it comes to the person you come alive for, whether you are already married or in a relationship or not, you choose to ignore the obvious passion of the person you are destined to be with at your peril.

It’s a very talky movie (which is fair enough since it’s based on both the play called The Talking Cure, as well as the book A Very Dangerous Method) but this is really not a problem... the screenplay is well written and interestingly, indeed, devastatingly (in Keira Knightley’s case) performed and will hold your attention if you are aware of the nature of the subject matter beforehand (I even found Vincent Kassel watchable in this... which is something that never really happens to me... maybe he’s an entertaining actor after all, I’m thinking). Basically, if you like pipes, sex, lots of smouldering (and that’s just in the male leads!) and a bit of “original” BDSM, then you are in for a treat with this one... and Keira Knightley goes topless too which is another good thing (and I’m guessing Mr. Freud might have applauded me for pointing that important fact out). Catch it while you can!

My 400th Blog Post

You know, I still find it amazing that, a little under two years since I started writing this blog, I’ve already made it to 400 posts and, surprisingly, the majority of the reviews on here are quite sizeable at that. When I began this, I didn’t realise just how many “virtual friends” my blog would bring me, especially on Twitter where I promote each and every post... this means a lot to me. I’m not all that happy in my “day job” and my private life has been a bit shaky of late... but this blog is something I’m fairly invested in and I hope to be able to continue writing it as regularly as I have been doing over the last couple of years.

One of the more incredible things to happen to me over the last year was when I posted some cartoon artwork I did of Caroline Munro for my 300th post and she liked it enough to mention it on the front of her own official fan page for quite a while. That really gave me a lift and cheered me up no end for a long time. I’ve met Caroline in the flesh three times now, at her stall she sometimes sets up to do signings at various film fairs. In fact it wasn’t that long before I started this blog that I met her for the first time and I believe I even mentioned her in my very first post. Her website is here http://www.carolinemunro.org/ and it’s always worth checking out to see what she’s getting up to next.

The last time I met her was last month at the January Westminster Film Fair and, since she’d been so nice about the artwork I’d posted, I decided to go to a shop with some slightly modified (to suit the required aspect ratio) version of that artwork and get a canvass print done to give to her. I thought, at the very worst, she could hide it in the back of a shed or sell it to some mad crackpot like me and make some cash off of it. Secretly I hoped she’d hang it somewhere but I’m not known for my optimism (the older I get). So I got the artwork sorted and transferred and presented it to her in January and to my amazement, she seemed really happy to receive it... which made me happy (obviously). It’s amazing how little moments like this can sometimes cheer you on and keep you going when life sometimes gets a little harder.

Caroline also signed the page of her as “Miss November” in the recently produced Hammer Glamour calendar I was given by a friend at Christmas... was pretty thrilled by that. There’s a picture of her above holding my artwork... I still marvel at how young the “first lady of fantasy” still looks. I got a shot of myself with her too but... well, you lot won’t want to see my ugly mug plastered on this page, you’ll have to trust me on that one. The cartoon drawing top right is exposure enough. ;-)

I’ve had a few directors, producers, actors and company executives give me a few things to look at over the last couple of years and that’s been very rewarding too. I don’t always get around to doing everything I do in the timescale that I originally tell people I will... but I generally get there in the end and muddle through somehow. Still waiting for somebody to offer me cold, hard cash you can scratch a window with for something I’ve written but, maybe if I’m lucky, that may get thrown onto the table one day too... you never know.

If anyone’s got any “positive” ideas on how I can improve this blog (no, really, I mean positive ones!) then please feel free to either leave me a comment here or jump onto twitter and DM me. I’d like to do more film related design and artwork for the blog but, well I’m a designer in my day job so sometimes it’s a less than relaxing end to my day to carry on making all those tiny, detailed design decisions when my bed is waiting for me... will do my best though. And some more genuine exploratory articles which I have wrapped up in my head, as opposed to just reviews... although, to be fair to myself, I always have too many reviews to write up to ever really get around to sketching any article ideas out these days. I’ll have to se what i can come up with.

Ooh... and T-Shirts. What about T-Shirts? I had a fair amount of people looking at that artwork of Caroline Munro on my blog and was wondering if this is the kind of thing which people would like to buy on a T-Shirt. What do you reckon? Is this something you would like to see produced? Again, let me know... or, you know, head over to Caroline’s site and let her know. Maybe she could sell them from her website.

Anyway... that’s my 400th blog post done then. I seem to be watching a lot less movies these days (and barely repeat watching anything) because it takes me a while to write about each one... but “them’s the breaks” I guess. If you’re still reading this post here at the bitter end I’d like to thank you for your continued support and interest and say that, even though you’re probably an anonymous reader... I appreciate it each and every time you read one of my reviews or articles. Thanks for spending some of your valuable moments here from time to time. It makes doing the thing worthwhile.

All the best,

NUTS4R2

Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse

Verbal Mabuse

Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse

(aka The Testament of Dr. Mabuse)
Germany 1933
Directed by Fritz Lang
Eureka Masters Of Cinema Region 2

Warning: Spoilers beamed directly

into your mind if you read any further!

Fritz Lang made Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse as a sequel to his silent classic, Dr. Mabuse Der Spieler (reviewed here), 11 years after the original film was released. It again “stars” Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Mabuse but to say this actor is the main lead of this second film would be pushing it a bit. I don’t know if the actor was actually incapacitated during filming but he is barely glimpsed and doesn’t really move from his bed in the few shots he’s in.

The character also, kind of, dies not very far into the movie... although he lives on in two guises... one as a ghostly version of himself with a brain that is visible above his grotesque, popping eyes... all done via crude but effective special effects. Thus, anyone who’s ever watched this movie without having had the benefit of seeing the original movie before-hand will be left unimpressed, I suspect, with Klein-Rogge. The absolute masterful power and strength of will of this actor, that pierced the screen of the original movie and pierced the audience with a wake up call burnt directly on to the retina is really not present in this one. Mabuse is just an inmate of an asylum where he was deposited after he went mad at the end of the first movie.

Even though the character dies, Mabuse is not dead in spirit... he uses his ghostly presence after death to invade the mind of the head of the sanitarium and uses his body to continue his crimes which, in this movie, consist of bringing down the entire government by himself...

Or, you could also take the tack that the head of the sanitarium has gone completely mad after reading Mabuse’s crazed and obsessive, compulsive scribblings and the ghostly presence of Mabuse is merely his own mind playing tricks on him... that he has gone completely insane and been inadvertently “inspired” by Mabuse and his writings of how to pull off “perfect” crimes... stepping into his shoes full-time after Mabuse has breathed his last.

There are still lingering shades of the German Expressionist style throughout this movie but, then again, I’m beginning to think it’s partially what defined Lang’s personal style at that particular period of his life. I remember taking a look at the Lang movie Rancho Notorious (1952) a couple o’ decades back and thinking that, although it was shot and released in colour... it all looked wrong or, to repeat my exact comment, it looked like it was a colour movie which had been lit for black and white. Perhaps it was the very striking areas of light and dark that were prevalent when I made that comment. Either way, long after German Expression is thought to have died off (or, in my opinion, fled Nazi Germany to find a new home in the 1940s Hollywood Film Noir style), here is Lang with some very interesting and almost surreal compositions... but supporting a movie which has a more naturalistic acting style and which, in some ways, continues the themes of the film he made directly before it, the Peter Lorre starrer M!

That is to say, that while the notorious criminal deeds and cliffhanger traps, such as two lovers locked in a room waiting for a time bomb to explode in an hour’s time, are reminiscent again and in some ways a toned down version of the antics of such characters as Fantômas and Irma Vep, the interest in police procedures and the science of detection is very much in evidence in this film (as it was in M).

The heroic figure of Inspector Lohmann, as played by Otto Wernicke, is an enjoyable performance but it’s been quite some time (over twenty years maybe) since I last watched M and I didn’t realise until I looked him up that the character of Inspector Lohmann, again as played by Otto Wernicke, is also in M... no wonder both movies look at the science of detection with an almost obsessive (for the time) bent... the film is a sequel to both Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler AND M. So I’m going to have to grab a DVD copy of M now and watch that again. I do, in fact, have a painted comic book mini-series adaptation of M with a free flexi-disc (remember those) of Fritz Lang whistling In The Hall Of The Mountain King on it but... somehow I don’t think that’s going to quite cut it. I guess Criterion must do a decent version of it.... right?

Anyway, I have to say that, although the character of Mabuse himself was a bit of a cop-out in this one, the movie itself is an enjoyable romp through 1930s Germany and I was really quite into it. Definitely looking forward to the final installment of the Lang directed trilogy (other directors have tackled Mabuse since) entitled The Thousand Eyes of Doctor Mabuse (aka Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse) which was made 27 years after this one... especially since I know it has a pre-Goldfinger Gert Fröbe in it. I’ll let you know how that one goes down with me as soon as I can. Thanks for reading.

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D

Death In Menace

Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D

1999-2012 US

Directed by George Lucas

Screening at UK cinemas.

It’d be pretty impossible to relay to you my almost lifelong relationship with the Star Wars saga, which began when I saw the very first movie on its initial cinema run at the age of 9, way back in 1977. I could easily write a series of novel length reviews on the subject... which wouldn’t include the hundreds of drawings and articles I did for fun as a kid, and based on the first three films in the series (which I guess now has become, chronologically within the timelines of the story at least, the second trilogy) and which I collected in ring binders, one (or sometimes two) for each film.

It’s hard to explain how much of a cultural phenomenon Star Wars was back then to youngsters these days. They’ve never experienced it themselves... sure there have been huge blockbuster movies with bigger openings but their shelf life and the way in which they are consumed by the home video marketplace changes the impact of these films. When Star Wars came out it was in the days before home video and there was nothing like it at the cinema! Sure, there was a whole slew of bandwagon rip-off films that we all saw and enjoyed, including films which weren’t rip offs but needed the success of Star Wars to open up the marketplace to be able to make these films possible. So yeah, we had stuff like Battle Beyond The Stars, Star Trek The Motion Picture, The Black Hole and other similar films which either sought to recreate the thrills found in Lucas’ original movie or do their own thing in the zeitgeist created in its wake. But you have to understand that... until The Empire Strikes Back came out three years later... well, as I said... there was nothing like it.

What that meant to kids at school is... you went out on your playground breaks and lunch hours and you talked about Star Wars. You went home and maybe played in the street with the other kids... and you talked about Star Wars. You went on visits with your parents to family homes dotted around the country... and you talked about Star Wars. And you kept talking about Star Wars for 6 years solid (until the ewoks and the hammy acting in the third movie kind of put a crimp in it). Okay, so maybe some of the girls were talking about Grease but, trust me, when they weren’t talking about Grease they were talking about Star Wars.

When The Phantom Menace first came out in 1999, I remember staying up until four o’clock in the morning the first night the tickets went on sale in London because the demand for tickets was so great that within 5 seconds the computers overloaded and went down at the various box offices for the phone bookings... it took several days for them to get back up and for people to find out if they were successful in getting a ticket or whether they’d have to try and rebook. This was, of course, after Lucas had released those dreadfully dumbed down cuts for the 20th anniversary of the original trilogy... and gutted the heart of that original trilogy as you would a dead fish (I was so happy when the original prints were made available in a limited edition DVD as an “extra” for six months or so... finally the real movies had resurfaced).

So I’ve heard and read a lot of crap about The Phantom Menace over the years... including the criticisms of just the title when that was revealed while it was still being made. Frankly, people who don’t like The Phantom Menace must be half crazed to not realise what a great triumph it was. This was easily the best and the darkest of the prequel trilogy... but I remember a lot of the people who went to see it at the time were just not well versed enough in Star Wars lore to realise just how subtly dark it was. It’s right up their with my favourite Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back, a film which I find has a similar tone, and I couldn’t believe the criticisms people were hurling about at the time. Had these people just not seen the original trilogy, I asked myself at the time.

Let me set the record straight because, although George Lucas has let me down a lot over the years with both his treatment of the Star Wars and Young Indiana Jones franchises (the initial masterpiece episodes of which have been similarly recut to buggery), The Phantom Menace was not one of the problems. If you want to level criticism at a movie in the Star Wars canon which did let the side down appallingly it was the next chapter, Attack Of The Clones... but I’ll save that article until the 3D version of that turns up at the cinema (sometime next year I believe?).

Okay... despite the multitude of whining complaints at the time of the announcement, The Phantom Menace is a perfect title for a Star Wars film. Sure, it didn’t sound “cool” at first but, you know what? It’s a perfect title for a movie series which aspires to be the old Universal Flash Gordon serials (something the movies give away in almost every scene)... and if George Lucas had been able to afford to buy the rights to Flash Gordon when he was trying to get them in the mid-70s, there never would have been a Star Wars movie made. Typical Flash Gordon serial chapters include such awesome titling as: The Planet Of Peril, The Tunnel Of Terror, The Destroying Ray, The Black Sapphire Of Kalu, The Symbol Of Death, The Purple Death, Doom Of The Dictator... the list goes on. The Phantom Menace does not look out of place in that context does it? It was a big deal at the time though and I couldn’t figure out why people just couldn’t see the appropriateness of such a title.

Then, when the film came out... I was blown away. It was dark... really dark. Why then, were people coming out of the movie thinking it was an uplifting experience? This is where the bad stuff starts... you know, right from the outset, that Senator Palpatine is the bad guy right? I mean, ever since 1977 every kid who had read an article on the Star Wars stories knew the background story... from Emporer Palpatine (the clue is in the name guys... you know... Palpatine?) to Darth Vader’s fight with Obi Wan against a volcanic back drop where Darth fell in the lava... every kid knew that since 1977. And seriously... any kid who’d read Alan Dean Foster’s Splinter Of A Minds Eye back in 1978 had probably figured out by the time that Empire came out in 1980, that Yoda was referring to Princess Leia when he said... “No, there is another...” Since she had kinda Jedi powers in the 1978 novel (I understand the novel has been rewritten to conform for it’s reprints in later years... but I still have my original knocking about somewhere... can’t fool me!).

The Phantom Menace is all about politics (not a subject I understand myself) and it basically is all just about the way Palpatine (who is already a Sith) brings about the collapse of the Old Republic and manipulates Queen Amidala to move him into a position of power to rule the galaxy by bringing in a vote of no confidence against Terrance Stamp’s character. This was serious stuff and it hurt to watch it! I couldn’t believe some people only suspected Palpatine at the end of this movie. Seriously people? It’s that much of a jump from Senator Palpatine to Emporer Palpatine in people’s eyes? Holy moley. I hope people take time to re-evaluate this dark little corner of the Star Wars saga now it’s back in cinemas. I once saw a Steve Martin sketch where Paul Simon asked Steve Martin if he thought a downbeat song was more effective in an upbeat tempo and arrangement and that’s basically what The Phantom Menace is, to be sure... a very downbeat movie with an upbeat tempo and arrangement. Like I said... it was so dark it was almost painful to watch.

What wasn’t painful was... everything else asides from the politics. Jar Jar was maybe a little too "full on" but basically he performs the same function as someone like Mantan Moreland used to serve in the Sidney Toler Charlie Chan films... you either accept it or you don’t. If you can’t accept it... don’t rant about it and give everybody else a hard time. Not a fan of the character but not a hater of him either... and I do enjoy doing the odd Jar Jar Binks impression still... so bear that in mind if you ever find yourself in the pub with me.

My two favourite things in the movie, and thankfully Lucas has left them in tact, are as follows... Queen Amidala and the way she carries herself when she is in full Naboo Royalty make up really does, in this film, feel like an homage to the princess in Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress. Maybe not in intent... well yeah, certainly not in intent, she’s by no means a spoiled brat... but the way she moves and kinda intones her lines is amazing. Great job.

But the thing that really had me jumping out of my seat the first time I saw it... and it’s still (thankfully) in there... or the tone of this article would be a lot more negative, was the look and sound of the viewscreen communicator with which Amidala talks to the Viceroy on the Trade Federation ship at the start of the movie. It’s basically the dead spit in both visual and audio content of the ones used in at least one of the original Flash Gordon serials (which are also homaged in other ways such as screen wipes... which Kurosawa also used to use... and art deco “ray gun” designs). It absolutely knocked me for six when I first saw the movie and I wanted to leap up and shout at the audience... “Did you see/hear what he just did? Did you? It’s amazing!”... but I didn’t. I’m a shy retiring type of person... and wouldn’t do that in a cinema... possibly.

Okay... seeing this movie in converted 3D for the first time was... okay. It’s pretty much like every other converted for 3D movie you see... it’s just like looking through and old view master toy with moving bits (used to love that toy)... it’s totally unnecessary and, quite surprisingly in the case of this particular movie... really doesn’t add anything to the experience I’m sad (very sad) to say. I was so looking forward to this... and I really wasn’t disappointed because, hey, it’s The Phantom Menace on a bigger screen than usual... but honestly... bits of it are just not working in 3D. I was particularly unimpressed with the pod race, for example, which seemed to me to be playing more like it was just in 2D for pretty much the whole sequence.

Also... purists note... this version is not the same cut as the original theatrical release... it’s closer to the subsequent home video VHS and DVD releases in that it has that 5 or 6 seconds where Annakin stops dead and glares hard at Terrance Stamp. I’d always assumed that bit had been put in on the home video versions because Stamp's character was going to return as a villain in a later episode. The fact that he doesn’t makes this little moment a bit of an oddity and I don’t know why Lucas didn’t just take it back out. It’s become a bit of a red herring and nobody usually remembers it anyway.

And anyway... the audience is all too busy listening to John William’s kick ass score to be noticing subtleties like that. Talking of which... Williams’ style had changed by the time he’d come to write the score for the second trilogy. It didn’t quite sound like the original stuff... fortunately though, the score was still brilliant and does kind of still slot in place with the Star Wars sound... so you won’t hear anything bad about it from me (until we get to Attack Of The Clones and the electric guitar moment... shudder). If memory serves me correctly, Annakin’s theme is an inverted, slowed down version of The Imperial March... so it’s a nice score to get to grips with if you can and it still retains enough Korngoldian homage in it’s make-up to keep the magic going. Oddly enough, his new score to Spielberg’s TinTin movie sounds much more like an “old-school” Star Wars soundtrack than his stuff on the prequel trilogy does... but it’s Wiliams and it’s brilliant and it’s good enough for most Star Wars fans... I’m certainly not complaining.

Well... I’d like to be writing another 6 or 7 pages on this stuff but I really shouldn’t. It’s getting late, I’m getting tired and by now you’ve probably got the general gist of where I’m coming from. But just in case you haven’t... here’s a short summary...

Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace 3D... great film, underrated, 3Ds a bit rubbish but at least you get to see it at a cinema... don’t heistate for goodness sake... it’s The Phantom Menace! Go see it today!

Elisabeth Sladen - The Autobiography

Good Bye Sarah Jane...

Elisabeth Sladen - The Autobiography

Aurum Press. ISBN: 978-1845134884

You know, from when I was a young ‘un, my earliest memories of Doctor Who are from the first Jon Pertwee serial Spearhead From Space. I was two years old.

His assistant in that story was Liz Shaw (played by Caroline John) but it wasn’t too long before Jo Grant (as played by Katy Manning) came into the series and I’d have to say that, with all my earliest memories of Doctor Who, come the ones of getting a Jo Grant badge from Selfridges at the time and assembling jigsaw puzzles with The Doctor, Jo and the Daleks on them. I was very little and this stuff used to keep my mind agog.

I remember when Lis Sladen started in the show during Jon Pertwee’s last haul and I remember her being there when he regenerated into Tom Baker and continuing her adventures and, in some ways, Sarah Jane never really left me over the years as one of those companions you just remember and who sticks in your mind as one the anchor points of the show. One of the things you’d look forward to while having to hear Basil Brush sing that damned Bulldog Basil song for the umpteenth time before the show started.

And when you think about it, it’s really not that surprising that Lis Sladen is one of those companions who endures the most, almost becoming a national treasure in the process. Since leaving the show she’s made loads of returns as the character. First there was the pilot film spin off for a TV show that never got picked up, K9 And Company, which I remember loving and I was always cross that they didn’t make any more of them at the time. This was where The Doctor sent her a new model of the Leeson voiced robotic dog and Sarah Jane and K9 go around solving mysteries together.

Then there was her reappearance opposite Pertwee’s Doctor in the anniversary special The Five Doctors, which carried on the continuity established in K9 And Company and also, briefly, reunited her with Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart from her UNIT days again. There was a long gap after that when anyone who is right and proper in the head would have assumed that this particular assistant would never see the light of day again but, when the new reincarnation of the series had hit its stride, spearheaded by Russel T. Davies, he brought Sarah Jane (and K9) back for the David Tennant episode School Reunion... and it was a big hit with audiences. This paved the way for more appearances in Doctor Who (the last two episodes of Catherine Tate’s regular run on the programme and, of course, a brief scene in the final David Tennant story... but more importantly, it spawned her own regular show, The Sarah Jane Adventures, some of the episodes of which are reviewed on this site (check out the index by title in the top right hand corner and scroll down to the TV section).

This show was a really great childrens TV programme (especially for us so-called adult children) and in some ways was more similar to the way the old Doctor Who stories were put together “back in the day”. It was a roaring success too, so when the news came that Elisabeth Sladen had died from cancer without a heck of a lot of warning during the shooting of Series Five, the fans (including myself) were somewhat shocked to say the least. It was like another link from my childhood had died for me... even though I’d never met her.

When her autobiography came out shortly after her death, it was a chance for me to find out more about the Doctor Who assistant that I’d always just relied on being there without really stopping to catch my breath and take a proper interest in her while she was alive. Having read her book now, I have to say that I wish I’d gotten in line just once at one of those fan signings because, frankly, she seems to have been quite a special lady.

The book is well written and fleshes out little bits of her life without ever really straying too far in the text from Doctor Who. Although her early life before Doctor Who, acting alongside her husband in various “actorly” engagements is certainly recounted, quite a lot of the book is given over to her time in the original TV shows. I guess this is what she thought most people would be interested in reading? But, to be honest, the whole lot will hold your attention once you make a start on it.

The lack of faith, or perhaps that should be financial and creative support, from the BBC in the show in the early days comes through clearly enough and it’s no real surprise (a lot of ex-Doctor’s have shared similar viewpoints), but there’s loads of interesting snippets of information here to keep most fans of her work and her most famous character engrossed. Her working relationship with Jon Pertwee was less bubbly than I’d expected (I have heard a few things about Pertwee over the years) but also not unfair and certainly she had some good times with him and his wife in later years. Her brilliant relationship with Tom Baker is also recounted and there’s some real nuggets of information about her time on the show which I suspect some people at the BBC in the old days may not have expected (or wanted) to come out... but I’m not going to tell you what those things are, you’ll have to read it yourself to find out.

I was glad to hear that she got on so well with Russel T. Davies... enough to email him about choices on what to wear for awards shows and the like... but I was a bit surprised at how little there is of her time working on The Sarah Jane Adventures in the book. I suspect there would have been more to come by way of interesting anecdotes if she’d have lived longer. The end of the book where she speculated as to where the show might be going in the future is poignant and sad to read when one realises that she had no idea she was dying. By the time I read the last little end piece by her husband and daughter, I was pretty much crying too many tears onto the page to be able to read the text properly. I must be getting old.

This was a much more emotional read than I’d expected and Elisabeth Sladen comes off as nothing but an absolute professional when it comes to her working life. An absolute gem of a book and something any longtime fan of Doctor Who, and of Sladen, will not want to miss out on. Definitely pick this one up if you want to be entertained and moved.

Sleepy Eyes of Death 2: Sword of Adventure

Sworded Past

Sleepy Eyes of Death 2: Sword of Adventure

aka Nemuri Kyoshiro 2: Shôbu Japan 1964

Directed by Kenji Misumi

Anime Eigo Region 1

Wow... what a great little film. Kenji Misumi, who is perhaps better known for his work on some of the Zatoichi movies and also for a significant chunk of the original six movie Lone Wolf & Cub film series, takes the reigns for this, the second entry in Daiei’s series of Sleepy Eyes Of Death films... and I have to say that, in many (but perhaps not all) ways this second entry surpasses the first.

Nemuri Kyoshiro may be a self proclaimed nihilist (see my review of the first movie here), but I have to say that the deeds and actions of the character point to a much more honourable outlook on life in this one, as he’s often making choices based on a moral highground rather than letting everything go to hell in a handbasket, so to speak. One character even refers to him as being a “noble” person in this one and it would be hard to disagree with this observation.

For instance, Nemuri starts the film by trying to do a kind deed which backfires when an old man, who turns out to be the wandering fnancial adviser to the shogun, highlights Nemuri’s intention to the young boy he is trying to help. This all leads to a duel with the recent killer of the young boy's father (who now posesses the father’s dojo as an outcome), who Nemuri quickly dispatches, and hence the young lad, who was a poor boy seeking money on the streets, becomes the dojo owner... and all this within the first ten minutes of the movie.

Nemuri’s relationship with the old financial adviser blossoms and deepens as he finds himself defending the adviser against paid assassins seeking to “permanently overturn” the advice the old man has given to his shogun master. The chemistry between Nemuri and the old man is quite electrical, it has to be said... and this really helps the viewer accept the character as much more of a heroic figure as opposed to him just going through the motions somewhat, as I feel he kinda did in the last movie.

Which is strange actually because, no matter how much the audience is in sympathy with the plight of Nemuri in this one, we still learn next to nothing about his origins as a character or see anything (of significance to anything other than this specific story) relating to his past and the burden he carries with him. He patently refuses to answer any questions leading to what can only be described as an orphaned past and although you may feel that this stuff really ought to be getting tackled at this point, this in no way derogatises or makes meaningless the richness of the character or deflects audience sympathies away from him. Which is odd and also highlights the differences in the way in which the same story might be handled if, for instance, a European or American director was making this.

The film is not nearly as colourful as the previous entry in the series and there’s no extra depth designed into the shots... but this is not to say that there isn’t some interesting cinematography happening on this one... there is. A shot where Nemuri lowers himself simultaneous with a camera dolly in, for instance, so his head becomes framed within a smaller frame within the shot is quite interesting (pictured above at the end of the shot). And a scene towards the end of the film where Nemuri faces down a sizeable amount of samurai opponents has a nice moment where everybody is poised for 5 or 10 seconds waiting for the carnage to happen. The sequence takes place in a forest and in this calm before the storm the director has a thin vertical tree trunk splitting the action quite rigidly into two different sections... nice stuff.

I’m really getting into this series now and I can’t wait to kick back and watch the third DVD in the package... I just hope that Anime Eigo see fit to release a boxed set of the 9th to 12th films in the series soon. Talking of which, the subtitling options on these releases are superb. They’re basically following the titling styes of the old UK Artsmagic label... the difference being that the Artsmagic DVDs were really poor and muddy transfers from old video transfers by the looks of it (seriously, if you’ve got their UK Zatoichi editions or their slightly cut Lone Wolf and Cub films... upgrade to the superb Anime Eigo Region 1 editions... the difference is like apples and oranges). So on these ones, for example, you can have yellow or white subtitling for the dialogue, but you can also choose to have subtitling for little explanatory glossary notes which appear at the top of the screen to explain Japanese cultural phenomena as they come up in the conversation. Very cool (although maddeningly hard to follow sometimes as you’re trying to read both sets of subtitles before they clear again). These releases are well worth having for every fan of chambara cinema... grab them now so the sales are such that a third box set is on the cards!

Womble

Class Action

Womble 2011 UK

Directed by Robert Pirouet

Womble, the latest short movie from Organised Chaos TV & FIlm (and produced by Michael Beddoes and Emily Smith) is a ten minute slice of classroom bound cat and mouse taking the form of an interview for a position at the school in which it is set. The film, directed by Robert Pirouet, features Ben Willibond and Will Smith (no, not that one!) as two men in an extended sequence of thrust and riposte as Smith asks a series of increasingly ridiculous questions with the intent of embarrassing and humiliating his interviewee as payback for what the former did to him at school many years before.

I was invited along to see the premiere of this but, at the last minute, had to decline the offer. Thankfully, I was given access to this movie via the internet so I could feed back my reactions to one of the producers.

Well, it’s certainly got a strong sense of humour about it and the writing is very direct and cuts to the jugular... it’s a ten minute short so it really needs to do this. Thankfully, the writing by both John Henry Falle and the director is artful enough in plotting a course through what could be seen as a bit of a tightrope walk between being too rapid for credibility and too slow for the way the short as a whole is paced.

The camera work is very clean and linear and the opening preamble, which is a rapidfire introduction to the general demeanour of Will Smith’s character, is followed by a couple of establishing shots which effectively get you into a position to digest a second and longer round of rapid fire with one or two more pauses to help you to recover your breath... before once again plummeting into a shot/cut/shot/cut rhythm focussing on the two lead actors as they perform a fun-filled battle of wits, Smith pouring on the questions and requests until it gets to a point where things take a refreshingly ridiculous turn.

The performances are all very good (there’s actually a cast of six players although most of the action of the film focusses on these two main players) with the two leads really giving their all to entertain and make credible the premise of the script. It’s not played in a naturalistic manner, to be sure, since it’s a comedy... but nor would you want it to be either. Comic timing is obviously something that these two guys know about and it’s a rare pleasure to see this duet going at it with a ferociousness that leaves the audience hanging on every word... very rare for me, in fact, because I rarely bother with comedies (if it’s not The Marx Brothers or Woody Allen then I’m afraid I’m a bit of an amateur in knowing how best to review this stuff... I wish I’d been able to see it with an audience, in fact).

The score, too, by Stephen Tait, is an extraordinary piece of composition considering its function within the overall scheme of things. Comedy is probably one of the easiest genres to screw up in terms of musical accompaniment, but Tait’s piece here is quite deftly handled... both supporting and lifting the emotional tone when required and then standing back a little and giving the dialogue and performance room to breathe when necessary. Nice job sir!

It has to be said that the “punchline” of the film, or pretty much the last word spoken, is a little obvious and can be seen coming from quite a way. However, this is all fine because, like a lot of films where this is also the case, it’s always a pleasure to see how the script and the performances are going to bring about this kind of ending and it does nothing to detract from the fact that the tone with which the last word is said (and, yeah, I’m so not going to reveal that here) could go either way... or, to put it another way, who out of these two characters is going to finish the movie with the upper hand.

Not totally my cup of tea in regards content and tone, this one but, with that caveat, I’d have to say that I did quite enjoy it and the obvious talent and skill both in front of and behind the camera really shows in such little details as the posters on the wall of the classroom and the design of the end credits. If you’re in to either short films or comedy... and definitely if you’re in to both, then it might be a good idea to check out this little gem if you can get some access to it. Remember the names on the cast list folks... I reckon they’re all going to go far.

Carnage (2011)

Roman Quartet

Carnage 2011 UK

Directed by Roman Polanski

Screening at UK cinemas.

Okay... so here we have yet another movie called Carnage. As though we didn't already have enough movies called exactly the same thing. This one’s directed by Roman Polanski and co-written with him together with Yasmina Reza, who wrote the original play on which this movie is based, Le Dieu Du Carnage... which is possibly the title they should have gone for here (or at least an English translation of it, since it’s shot in the English language) instead of giving us a movie called the same name as many other movies called... well, you know... Carnage.

Now Roman Polanski has always been a director I’ve found a bit hit and miss. When he’s good he’s great, churning out some cool movies like Repulsion and The Ninth Gate. However... when he’s bad... you get junk like Frantic.

Roman Polanski isn’t much of a draw to get me into a movie these days, I have to say, but the four lead actors in Carnage are all particularly good at their craft with one name in particular, that of Christoph Waltz... who has been largely wasted in Hollywood roles like the lead villain in the recent disaster that was The Green Hornet since his stand out performance (a long way into a very long and distinguished career as an actor) in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.

Waltz is one of those actors who pretty much lights up the screen with his presence whenever he’s around. On top of this his three co-stars are Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly and Kate Winslet... so you know that no mater how bad the script is... you’re going to get some seriously interesting performances out of this people sharing the same scenes.

Luckily, in terms of dialogue at least, the writing fairly crackles, giving these four stalwart actors something really great to get their teeth into. It has to be pointed out though that, like a lot of movies based on plays, the piece does not greatly benefit from being translated into a work on film. Apart from an opening and closing sequence shot from the same angle, more or less, of a park, the whole movie is set in two rooms and two hallways from the same apartment, which is fine but, you really feel the confines of the camera trapped in the same sets in this one.

The four actors play parents of two children, one of whom has lost two teeth due to being hit in the mouth with a stick... which you see at the start in a small sequence that I expect was absent from the original play, which runs during the credits to Alexandre Desplat’s powerhouse score (which is only present in the opening and closing credits... there’s no room for music in the rest of the movie). The tone changes from pleasant and mannered to hostile and aggressive and lots of other things through the course of the play as one of the couples, played by Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz, keep trying to leave but constantly encounter excuses and distractions which force them to stay in the building... much like the darkly magical curse of social manners which force the inhabitants of the house in Bunuel’s The Exterminating Angel to remain when they are desperate to depart... just not quite as much fun.

The film could best be described as a comedy of manners perhaps, rather than an exploration of the psychology of the four people trapped in the artistic space of the movie/play, but there is a certain level of fakery going on due to the confines of the environment and the plastic way in which every individual character gets their moment in the spotlight... which I found a little more distracting than I might normally find in something which has started off as a theatre piece. To be fair to Polanski, there are not that many “theatre into movie adaptations” which really escape the confines of their original setting and I’m not for the moment saying that there neccessarily should be. This artifice presented in this kind of way may be exactly the tone Polanski was after... I just feel that movies like Educating Rita did the whole stage to screen relocation a heck of a lot better than this particular movie did.

I’m not knocking the film though... it’s short and sweet and there are some laughs to be had from it. It’s not something I’d recommend that many people to see, to be sure, but it’s not a bad movie either and, frankly, when you get four actors who are this good trapped in a series of rooms together... well... you almost owe it to yourself to go and see what they come up with. And, to be fair to all involved, there were some nice shot compositions towards the end, on occasion, where the perspective was deliberately screwed by the juxtaposition of large and small elements sharing the same horizontal space... just not enough of that stuff to really hold my interest in it... at least not as much as the acting.

So Roman Polanski’s latest is not as great as, perhaps, it could have been but, honestly, I don’t know what kind of tone he was after so bringing up the artifice of the basic building blocks of the source material may not be the fairest way to go. A slight film but a fairly pleasant way to spend 80 mins... and Christoph Waltz is always worth watching.

Shame

Shame and Fortune

Shame 2011 UK

Directed by Steve McQueen

Screening at UK cinemas.

Warning: I don’t think there’s really much of anything to spoil in this one but t/read cautiously, just in case! The only spoilers will be the things I tell you which don't happen... as opposed to the things which do.

I guess it’s to be expected that a UK movie, made with UK actors and director, but shot in New York, should wait all this time to get released in its own country. It’s finally out over here, but this movie, which I wanted to see for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, was only playing late night performances at my local... and then only for a week. Way to get behind British movies Cineworld! Not!

Luckily, it’s still playing in London, so I took the trip in to see it.

Now... there were a couple of possible hooks to seeing this movie, but neither of the obvious ones were why I was in the audience for this particular shared experience.

Hook 1 would be the director, Steve McQueen. My only exposure to his work has been a short film which I’ve already forgotten the title of, which I saw playing as part of an art exhibition either at the Tate or the Hayward or the Royal Academy, probably over a decade ago. This is my first real exposure to his work though.

Hook 2 would be, for most people I guess, Michael Fassbender, who I would have to say is a hugely brilliant actor and who has been in a lot off stuff the last few years. He’s a stand up kind of guy (at least that’s how he seems from what I foolishly extrapolate from the myriad of screen roles he’s had) and it’s always a pleasure to see him on screen... however, that’s not why I was here either.

I was here because of my love for the Doctor Who episode Blink and the lead actress of that episode, Carey Mulligan, who has since gone on to conquer Hollywood in roles which I was mostly unaware of, largely because the Marketing campaigns for those movies failed to mention the one thing which was guaranteed to get those movies an audience... SALLY SPARROW FROM BLINK IS IN IT!

Ok... that’s done with. Now you know why I was there for the movie... so let’s get to the confusingly misleading publicity blurb and what the movie is really about.

The publicity blurb would have you believe that this movie is about some kind of voracious sexual addict. Not true. Maybe he seems like he’s got some kind of sexual addiction for audiences who, I don’t know... don’t have much of an interest in sex maybe? Honestly people, if this film is about a sexual addict then I must personally be a Sodom and Gomorrah resurrected upon the earth. Don’t believe the hype. This guy basically just has a healthy sex drive.

This film is more about, I believe, the isolation that this guy suffers from in terms of anything long term in his life. About the only proper relationship this guy has is a non-sexual, pals thing going with his boss at work... a married man who likes to go “on the pull” with Fassbender’s character, Brandon. You know the term “alone in a crowd”? Well, that’s what Brandon’s character is. He seems to be irresistible to the female sex and so he spends most nights in meaningless sexual escapades with multiple partners. Brandon is so isolated from the accoutrements of interpersonal relationships, in fact, that he won’t even take phone calls from his sister, Sissy (played by Carey Mulligan).

Sissy turns up at his apartment unannounced and moves in with him temporarily... which throws a spanner into the ordered workings of his day-to-day routine, especially when his boss ends up doing something/somebody at his apartment which “throws” Brandon emotionally. The film explores the way emotional context starts to screw up Brandons normal working week and it’s interesting to see that the only sexual encounter in which he can’t properly perform is one in which he’s spent a little time on a first date with a woman who starts to give him an emotional hit.

I’d like to tell you more about this movie but... it’s a movie where nothing much happens. This is not to any detriment of the film, I must add. I like movies where nothing much happens and this film in particular is both skillfully directed and uses the highest calibre of actors who turn in quite wonderful and raw performances. I always admire a film that can contain a slow, deliberate and specific atmosphere over a length of time without pushing at the edges of your credibility... and this film maintains that atmosphere in spades. It’s not exactly an intense film, as had been suggested to me by others, but it’s certainly puttering along at its own pace and it’s got some really nice framing in the shots... the visual space sliced up into sections quite often with only a small part of the widescreen being used for any action (if there is any action, like walking from one room to another, at all in a sequence). This is a very European style of filming (at least that’s how I perceive it) going back to Bergman and the like... the most leading proponent of modern US cinema I can think of who still uses that style of direction is Woody Allen, especially in his Bergman-heavy, referential seventies movies. In fact, I would go as far as to say that Shame is very much like an aurally muffled Woody Allen movie... but without the laughs. I hope McQueen himself would be okay with that analogy.

Ultimately though, for the kind of intensity the film hints at trying to play with (it really isn’t in any way a harrowing movie, people) it never really reaches the heights... or should that be depths... that it seems to be initially aiming for and the expected incest scene with Brandon’s sister, which is what I am assuming everyone else was also expecting to happen, never actually rears its head as a possibility in the film. This left me a bit perplexed and in the end I have to conclude that nothing much happens in this movie.

It’s a pleasant and competently made piece of nothing though... with a sure-footed and delicate sensibility from cast and crew and a nicely, almost clinically, melancholic soundtrack culled from a variety of sources and... woohoo, Carey Mulligan, fine actress that she is, gets her kit off! Bonus! Did you hear that Doctor Who fans? SALLY SPARROW IN THE NUDE! DON’T... BLINK!

Ultimately, though, this wouldn’t be a blind recommendation from me. It’s a solitude film for a Sunday afternoon and doesn’t really push any buttons which would go that extra mile into something truly astonishing... but maybe to assume it would want to is just me kind of missing the point. It’s a well crafted, well presented, delightfully performed examination of a man alone who finds solace in the explorations of his own sexuality. You’re either going to love it or just not be moved by it... I don’t think it has enough power in its frames to make anyone truly hate it... and what would be the point?

So there you go. Shame... a nice little film and definitely something you can put on the DVD player as a backdrop to your own thoughts. To see or not to see? That is the question... and I can’t answer it for you. It’s a film which is more about subjective response than ticking off objective boxes... and that’s not a bad thing either.

Sleepy Eyes of Death 1: The Chinese Jade

Jade In China

Sleepy Eyes of Death 1: The Chinese Jade

aka Nemuri Kyoshiro 1: Sappocho Japan 1963

Directed by Tokuzô Tanaka

Anime Eigo Region 1

Okay, so Sleepy Eyes of Death is Japanese samurai character taken from a popular series of novels written by Renzaburô Shibata, some of which were originally published in serialised form like the old US pulps. The novels and short stories were so popular that already, in the 50s and not long after the stories first started appearing, a series of films were made by the famous Toho Studios which starred Koji Tsuruta as the main character, although that particular series only lasted for three movies before being cancelled, from 1956 to 1958.

However, Daiei Studios started off their own film series based on this character starting in 1963 with this one, The Chinese Jade and starring Ichikawa Raizo as Nemuri Kyoshiro for the first twelve films. Ichikawa Raizo was thought of as the Japanese James Dean but after dying at an appallingly early age, halfway through making the twelfth installment in the series in 1969 (he had to be replaced by a stand in for some of the shots), the appeal and high box office take of the series seemed to die with him. He was replaced by another actor for just two more installments and, from what I understand, Daiei Studios went bankrupt a couple of years after their young star's death.

A further series of four related TV movies were made about the character from 1989 to 1998, but I really don’t know enough about these to elaborate if these were any good.

This is my first exposure to the character right here with this first movie in the Ichikawa Raizo series as the label Anime Eigo, who are a really good US label for crisp and clear transfers of samurai movies with a reputation for thorough subtitling, have released the first 8 films in the series so far in two boxed editions. I’m well looking forward to wading into the rest of these in the coming weeks. I especially like the warning to potential viewers on the back of the box... “WARNING: Contains violence, nudity and nihilism.” The ronin* anti-hero of these films is, in fact, a self proclaimed nihilist... and he won’t be letting you forget that in a hurry, if this first movie in the series is anything to judge by.

The Chinese Jade starts off really well with the title character Nemuri Kyoshiro, The Sleepy Eyes of Death, walking in the night and being attacked by ninjas throwing shurikens at him which embed in the wall behind and let out fizzing, bright colours as fireworks attached to them go off. A colourful entrance which gives a nod to the bright lighting scheme later in the movie but which also demonstrates, as it is shown all the way through the film, that these must be the lamest ninjas in cinema history. I mean, c’mon! What group of ninjas herald their approach with brightly lit, sparkly weapons, all of which fail to hit “our hero” even though he’s not even trying to dodge them? Nemuri Kyoshiro further demonstrates how rubbish these particular ninjas are by, after giving them fair warning to not make him draw his sword, cutting all but one of them down with ease.

It soon becomes clear that, while Nemuri Kyoshiro usually hangs out in his “nest”, he also, as in this film, spends time living with various brothel girls who have all fallen for his charms. He makes his home with prostitutes and a loyal pickpocket who is kinda, it seems to me from this first one, being set up as his comic-relief side-kick. Affer a short while he becomes embroiled in a plot between two rival clans to gain possession of the stolen Chinese Jade statuette which contains a sensitive piece of paper which means the end of one of the clan's yearly stipend if it falls into the wrong hands.

Fans of the original Baby Cart (aka Lone Wolf and Cub) series of films from the next decade will recognise Ogami Itto himself, Tomisaburô Wakayama (credited here as Jyo Kenzaburo) playing the primary “heavy” who, with his bald head, looks like nothing less than a live action equivalent of The Hood from the original Thunderbirds TV show. Seriously, you’ll just be waiting for the guys eyes to light up!. He uses no weapons in battle, only his hand to hand combat skills which (obviously) allows him to be able to catch swords aimed at him in mid flight and remove them from his opponents hands before hitting them so hard that his punch sends them to their death, blood dribbling from their mouths. Hilarious!

The violence to gore ratio is interesting in this one because, although this director was used to directing some of the Zatoichi movies and then, later, some of the Lone Wolf and Cub TV show episodes, there is very little blood on screen here. We are about a year after the release of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo sequel Sanjuro, where the first noted instance of a spurting geyser of blood in relation to a samurai sword cut occurred in Japanese cinema. It’s not quite caught on in this movie but I’m sure that some of the later entries into this series of films will up the ante and feature all manner of highly inappropriate but lively and fun blood effects... just like the Zatoichi series of films did by the end of their run with Shintarô Katsu.

So yeah, there’s a bit of action in here, not least of which is continual “lame-ninja ass kicking” but the bold compositions of the shots and the way in which the camera holds and pans on those is what makes the film interesting. Striking diagonal plains split into three, for example, and the constant projection of depth in the shots by masking areas out with various supports and screens make for some stunning environments... not least of which is one of the villains' “under-river” lair (it's not exactly Ken Adam but it could have been a contender) which is lit with some beautiful and almost psychedelic colour schemes pitching great areas of green up against the odd patch of purple etc. This is the kind of stuff which just about predates the proliferation of these kinds of colour schemes in various giallo movies at the end of the decade and which may, or may not, have been influenced by Mario Bava’s early “credited” directing work. It’s powerful stuff and the lighting schemes employed in these kinds of movies are the things that will keep me coming back to these kinds of films in the future.

The film ends with Nemuri Kyoshiro, naturally, saving the day but the end sequences are quite restrained in that, instead of meeting a bloody death at the hands of the Sleepy Eyes Of Death’s “Full Moon Cut Technique”, one of the primary villains instead is beaten in combat and agrees to keep out of this particular affair in future... which makes me wonder if this was not directly inspired by a story from one of the novels as it’s not a traditional cinematic ending for this kind of movie... or maybe I’m looking at it from jaded Gaijin's eyes. I do know that the character will return in at least one more film in the series so I’m guessing this is taken directly from one of the books.

The only thing I would note as a particularly annoying element of the movie is the musical score by Taichirô Kosugi which, while occasionally wandering into the more appropriate realms of something Masaru Satô might score for a similar kind of movie, with a strong percussion and fast tempo, is actually a real hotchpotch of different styles, the most infuriatingly distracting of which is a slow sub-par, romantic Hollywood melodrama of the 50 theme which kinda grates against the incidents on screen and does nothing to enhance the mood of the imagery. Not a great, or in any way very consistent score, I must say.

Either way, if you’re into your chambera** and you enjoy the likes of the Zatoichi, Hanzo The Razor, Ogami Itto and Lady Snowblood series', then this one is probably something you should check out too. There’s a little less bloodletting in this one, but I suspect that will pick up later in the series. The character is thinly sketched also, with little of his past or explanation of his current position to be gleaned from the movie in anything more than half hinted fragments. That should hopefully get taken care of more as the series progresses, methinks.

*A ronin is the term for a masterless samurai.

** Chambara (also chanbara) is the Japanese term for sword

fighting movies and the term is often associated with samurai movies.

Chronicle

Teenage Wasteland

Chronicle 2012 UK/USA

Directed by Josh Trant

Screening at UK cinemas.

Warning: It’s almost impossible for me to be able to talk about certain of the more interesting aspects of Chronicle without at least including some spoilers, which can’t be gleaned from the trailer. That being said, I will at least try not to give the ending away... although most people will be able to predict how this movie is going to end anyway... at least in the broad strokes.

Well then... it seems like every 1 in 10 new movie releases I go to these days is another hand-held, found footage, 1st person “shooter” and, yes, Chronicle is certainly and wholeheartedly another one of these. However, there are also some differences in the way that the format and presentation have been made more flexible, which are notable and worth giving credit for... this movie surprised me quite a bit, it has to be said.

The first time I saw the trailer about a bunch of teenage friends who accidentally acquire “super powers” with one of them filming their “stunts”, it looked kinda interesting but, subsequent viewings made me realise how irritating these teenage kids are in those particular clips they showed in the trailer. I’d almost changed my mind about going to see it at all but my cousin who, to be fair, had only seen the trailer the once, wanted to check it out and I certainly didn’t mind taking a look either... although I was fully intending to have to name this review “Chronic”.

However, as it turns out, Chronicle is a fairly well-crafted, pseudo-reality movie which follows the path of three teenagers thrown together under strange circumstances. These teenagers, while admittedly irritating for a while, kind of grow on you the more they bond with each other and grow in strength as they practice and hone their newly acquired mental abilities. There’s a definite sense of characters changing/progressing as their story transpires but, the more interesting stuff about this one, is the fact that although it’s fairly obvious (even from the trailer) that one of the characters goes a bit “dark side” on everybody, the background given to that character right from the outset means it’s really not a clear cut question of good versus evil here. It’s all very charcoal grey when it comes to pitching the tone of these kids and the movie certainly builds up the audience sympathy with the focus of the darker elements in the movie and, although the film isn’t exactly subtle in the way it goes about things, it gets a bit of respect from me here because it’s a little harder to do this with the “real footage” format than it would be in a more distanced form of shooting. I can’t, for instance, help but compare it to the film I saw last week, The Darkest Hour, which Chronicle walks all over in the character building stakes.

What’s more interesting, though, as I mentioned earlier, are the differences in the first person technique within this movie as opposed to pretty much everything else that has gone before it, starting with Cannibal Holocaust in 1980 and then right through the wave of these movies popping up at the cinema in the wake of the popularisation of the genre with The Blair Witch Project. They’re coming thick and fast now with two new REC movies coming up (at least one of which will retain this style of the original shooting I expect) and at least three movies I remember from the end of last year... Apollo 18, The Troll Hunter and Paranormal Activity 3, joining in the “audience as camera eye” fun.

The first difference between the use of hand held on this one is that there is absolutely no justification or explanation as to why you are watching what effectively amounts to somebody’s home movies. It just jumps you straight in at the deep end and after a while you realise that any camera’s views in any scenes, whether they belong to the main protagonists or not, are all artificially “mixed in” to the final edit to open up the total viewpoint of the storytelling when it’s needed. So a guy taking movies out his apartment window, security camera footage and so on, is all just edited together to give the audience a deeper and more easy to understand picture of what’s going on. Since the camera recording the earlier footage in the movie gets trashed, you may like to assume that either the police or the CIA or whoever, are collecting evidence as to what happened and have edited it into an understandable form... but there’s absolutely no indication or not as to whether this is the case and so, I feel, the lack of context is a bold move which will allow other film makers to play around without worrying too much about the “collective viewpoint” the audience is looking back from.

Another thing which is interesting is the fact that the kid who is really strong in his psychokinetic powers is able to use the camera as a free flying recording device which floats about on its own and can swoop and catch things almost without the kid trying to do anything. This is interesting because, what it means is that, in a “real footage” film we have a director who is able to take back the camera from the actor and give the shots some dynamism without actually breaking the rules of the movie, which are admittedly far from realistic but certainly “fair play” when it comes to pushing this particular brand of the art form forward. The story makes possible the more lax limitations on what the director can do with the camera... a perfect solution. Of course, there’s naturally a feeling of movie makers trying to have their cake and eat it here but, since this is a very rare exception to the limitations of the visual syntax without breaking the rules of engagement, so to speak, then I think it’s probably fair game and to be applauded in its own right.

Another great thing about this movie is its total lack of interest in providing any real closure on the reason these three friends have started to develop these “special powers” in the first place. Near the start of the film, after setting up two of the characters for a bit, the three main protagonists come together and investigate a mysterious, noisy hole in the ground which opens up into a cavern which contains this movies equivalent of Hitchcock’s MacGuffin... an alien-like structure which seems to house some kind of intelligence which attracts blood from “our heroes” noses and causes them all to pass out in pain. When they awaken, they are out of the hole and it’s a day or so later in terms of when we rejoin them. They have no idea how they got out of the hole and they have all inherited special powers which they are slowly getting used to. They return to the hole, only to find that it has been filled in and the area made off limits by the government... you never find out what the thing in the whole was. Not in this movie, anyway. The rest of the story deals with the way these three teens try to deal with the great power which has been thrust upon them and shows the wedge which drives them apart and leads to the wholesale slaughter and destruction of many innocents towards the end of the movie.

Getting to that predictable but chilling last battle is pretty cool though. First person shooter movies are usually shot on a small budget, by their nature, but examples like this and Cloverfield show that there’s room for big budget movies in this arena too... although in some ways that kinda scotches the chance of having a proportionally extra large profit returned on your original budget. There are some really great flying sequences in this movie and the scene from the end of the trailer where good guy/bad guy Andrew demonstrably crushes a car while talking directly into the camera is every bit as worrisome within the context of the movie as you would imagine it could be.

I do, of course, have a couple of minor quibbles too...

While the writers and director have felt under no obligation to tell you about the origins of the edited together version of the footage, they certainly get very heavy handed when they introduce the reasons for Andrew to be filming everything wherever he goes in the first place. Basically, he’s bullied at school and has a very abusive father who continually knocks the crap out of him... so he’s started filming these incidents and everything else, putting a layer between the real world and his camera eye. The point is long laboured but the movie makers really want you to invest in the concept that it’s a perfectly natural thing for a teenage boy to take his video camera with him wherever he goes. I can understand the reasons for this hard sell approach... without this basic concept being accepted/believed in by the audience, you just don’t have a movie... but I did feel like the point was being rammed down my throat a little bit in places.

The other thing which is a bit tired for me is that it’s exactly the character who is set up as being bullied and shy who goes bad and strikes out at the human race after he’s convinced himself of his God-like status. It all feels a little too clichéd after the negative lifestyle of the lad in question has been poured on that thick. It seems ot me it would have been more interesting if one of the other characters had turned into the bad guy, totally out of the blue and with an added shock value thrown in to boot. But I have to say, this really is just a minor quibble and in no way detracts from the sheer spectacle of what happens as the film progresses.

I don’t want to give away too much about the ending but it’s clear to see that the possibility of a franchise is in the works. The “hole in the ground” plot factor is mentioned again at the end to remind the audience of the, as yet, unsolved status of the initial cause of all this blood and thunder on screen. It’s a thread which is left deliberately dangling so future screenwriters can give it a yank if they feel they need that to be the way they go with any sequels. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but it did kinda smack of being a Hollywood, keep-the-kiddies-happy kind of ploy rather than a satisfying conclusion to the film in its own right.

This again, though, is a minor point.

Chronicle is a really interesting study of that old 1962 Spider-Man declaration... “with great power comes great responsibility” although, to be fair, in this movie it tends to read more as “with great power comes the inevitable ability to try to exploit it, use it for criminal purposes and just generally screw your own life up.”

Nevertheless, I’d have to give Chronicle a hard recommendation because it’s rare that these hand-held dramas turn out to also be big budget special effects extravaganzas... but mostly because, when all is said an done, Chronicle is an entertaining piece of movie making, that is if you can get past the vaguely aggravating teen-speak that keeps cropping up in abundance whenever any two characters are seen on screen at the same time. Catch it now before it flies out of your local cinema.