Category Archives: Film

May 17 2020
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Art, Cinema, Film, Germany, Movie, Movies, Soviet Union, Uncategorized, USSR, World War Two, WWII

Good Bye, Lenin! (2003) revisited.

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I saw this movie many years ago and thought it rather great, but time distorts things. Goodbye Lenin! (2003) is an occasionally semi-funny insight into global changes impacting on the small scale; here, day-to-day life as experienced by an East German family going to increasingly elaborate lengths in maintaining the illusion of the GDR’s omniscience. The director’s stance as to reunification is a bit too ambiguous for me, the movie more concerned with a broad view of how the personal and political interweave, assessing the extent to which the society we live within affects us.

Why bother with such a contentious subject if you sit on the fence? This happens again and again.

It is at times a nauseating watch, almost an apologia for state tyranny. The film’s premise, pure Ostalgie, is that the economic and social constructs of the GDR, because of its restrictions on private wealth and public expression, harnessed a deep sense of togetherness felt by families. Wow. I won’t be watching it again. And all the Kubrick stylistic homages in it irritated me immensely.

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If Lenin! refrains from showing the horror of life in East Germany in vivid detail by opting to examine why in recent years it has been de-emphasised, it has paved the way for a more meticulous and exacting probing of the Stasi state in contemporary cinema through devastating films such as The Lives of Others (2007), with all the GDR’s greed, hypocrisy, paranoia, and corruption laid bare.

It is 2020 and some folk (I call them “social spastics”) identify as communists.

They are the walking demonstration of why society is forever crumbling.

Anyway, I fucking despised this movie. HATED it. Stay away.

Further reading/viewing:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2003/jul/25/artsfeatures.dvdreviews 

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/goodbye-lenin-2004

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/apr/13/worldcinema.drama

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Apr 30 2020
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Cinema, Film, Germany, Movie, Uncategorized, World War Two, WWII

Jojo Rabbit (2019) has the lol factor.

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Third Reich satire has at its apex the twin OTT delights of The Great Dictator (1940) and The Producers (1967), two films so unabashedly barmy it’s easy to overlook the human element beside (or within) the bawdy farce. Jojo Rabbit (2019) is made, I presume, in the vein of these crackers.

It is a riot at times, taking the piss out of the ludicrous ideology and its glaring contradictions yet outlining its attractions for subscribers. Among the things most difficult to attain in cinema is the seamless veering between comedy and drama and this is the picture’s most impressive achievement, a mastery of tone.

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And an imaginary der Führer karate-kicked through a window in rather cathartic fashion by a 10-year-old member of his own Hitler Youth is quite the enduring image.

Further reading/viewing:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jan/05/jojo-rabbit-review-taika-waititi-hitler-scarlett-johansson-sam-rockwell

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/jojo-rabbit-review-taika-waititi-nazi-hitler-comedy-cast-director-scarlett-johansson-a9264151.html

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/jojo-rabbit-between-daring-and-bad-taste-in-nazi-germany-1.4115985

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Apr 04 2020
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Cinema, Film, Movie, Music, Uncategorized

Just dropped in (to see what condition my condition was in).

The recently departed Kenny Rogers will for me always be synonymous with The Big Lebowski (1998) and that triumphant dream sequence.

Yeah, yeah, oh-yeah, what condition my condition was in ….

Rock on, Kenny.

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Mar 18 2020
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Cinema, Film, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

Corona has unleashed the creatures.

 

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There’s this line in The Departed (2006) uttered eloquently and menacingly by Jack Nicholson’s Frank Costello: “You learn a lot – watching things eat.”

I can’t help but think of it every time I venture into a supermarket (or pop on Facebook to have a butcher’s at human antics) in this nauseating Corona epoch we now reside in – folk hoarding bog roll and pasta, literally slathering and screeching about the venue, peasants resembling something rage-like out of 28 Days Later (2002).

I feel sorry for the checkout staff. That’s a tough gig.

You learn a lot – watching things shop.

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Mar 02 2020
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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Knives Out (2019) is splendid.

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This is one terrifically entertaining whodunnit with an unexpected political undercurrent that comes to the surface in the third act. The time flew by, mainly due to Daniel Craig’s outrageous PI southern shtick. His voice is so uncannily like that of House of Cards’ Frank Underwood, I closed my eyes and pictured Kevin Spacey and all the resultant grisly news following the accusations about the bloke. It didn’t ruin the movie, only giving it a creepier edge.

Most films of this ilk hark back to Agatha Christie and are mere pale imitations of those superior yarns; Knives Out (2019) is something more than that, with its contemporary setting and subtly subversive reworking of the genre. You also believe these characters.

Even Chris Evans failed to vex me.

Further reading/viewing:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/01/knives-out-review-rian-johnson-superior-whodunnit-agatha-christie

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/knives-out-2019

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Feb 24 2020
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Art, Austria, Cinema, Film, Germany, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized, World War Two, WWII

A Hidden Life (2019) – quintessential Malick.

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August Diehl holds one of those physiognomies of the Klaus Kinski variety, instantly recognisable and very creepy, more suited to playing the villain or the unhinged than the innocent. Diehl almost stole Inglorious Basterds (2009) from Christoph Waltz with his tavern-set scariness (in full Hugo Boss clobber). Here he pulls off the Jesus role with aplomb, a performance very much devoid of … dare-I-say-it – pretension. The worst performances by actors are the posturing sort which embarrassingly scream for an Oscar; none of that bombast here. And to give the movie more of a deathly air, Michael Nyqvist and Bruno Ganz both star in their final roles.

22 years after the release of The Thin Red Line (1998), Malick casts his spiritual magic once again on WWII, this time not on the soldiers at Guadalcanal but the German home front. Malick ticks all the Malick boxes = sweeping cinematography, incessant voice over, melancholic score, metaphysical monologues, and lots of nature and all that. It is a long sesh but with reason, and in no way a ‘slog’. The story of Franz Jägerstätter is one worth telling.

Further reading/viewing:

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/story-austrian-catholic-resister-franz-jagerstatter

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jan/19/a-hidden-life-terrence-malick-review

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/a-hidden-life/

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-hidden-life-movie-review-2019

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Feb 13 2020
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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Trains, Transport, Travel, Uncategorized

The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station (1895) … in 4K.

The terrified audience bolted from the theatre, so the apocryphal story goes. Why anyone would flee from a black-and-white moving image with no sound didn’t appear to come into the mythmakers’ thinking.

YouTube user Denis Shiryaev has given the Lumières’ slice of early cinema a 2020 makeover (4K and 60 FPS) and it has the effect of amplifying the nostalgia factor and the strange serenity of the ‘narrative’. The frame’s occupants always looked too nonchalant to me, this a time when the presence of the camera was meant to turn folk into a frenzy. A mere few minutes of research reveals the extras in the shot were asked to ignore the filmmakers, the subjects ‘directed’ so to speak.

This is the upgrading of vintage visuals done right, none of this Ted Turned colorization pish.

Further reading:

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/02/lumiere-brothers-arrival-of-a-train-4k-update-1202208955/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-51360644/lumiere-s-train-gets-4k-treatment-and-other-news

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/did-a-silent-film-about-a-train-really-cause-audiences-to-stampede

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Feb 05 2020
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Edinburgh, Film, Movies, Photography, Scotland, Tourism, Uncategorized

Fountainbridge, Edinburgh.

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Famous for being the birthplace of Sir Sean Connery, and that’s about it as far as historical significance goes. The area has gone through such transformations over the past decade or so it’s unrecognisable from the Noughties. The pub ‘The Fountain’, for example, was in recent times popularly compared to Vietnam in the age of Presidents Johnson and Nixon; today it is thoroughly hipster and you need to venture elsewhere to witness a glassing.

Tragedy.

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Jan 15 2020
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Britain, Cinema, Edinburgh, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Film Noir Gorgie.

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Perhaps one day it will happen but I very much doubt it – a lauded director decides to use Gorgie Road as a seedy backdrop for a modern noir. I imagine a jaded Bogartesque PI stopping off at Aldi for a few cheap beers after a draining day spent with myriads of local scum.

In fact, I’m going to have to make this motion picture, the drama shot on a battered HTC, Gorgie City Farm the site of the climactic shootout.

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Jan 12 2020
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Cinema, Film, Movie, Movies, Uncategorized

Great scenes in otherwise forgettable/bad movies.

Most films are rather terrible, either your average generic copycat picture (sequel, superhero, franchise) or a total disaster zone. A very small elite of films are incredible, and then we have a hefty batch of escapist fare which feature a sublime scene deserving to live within a better movie.

Blade (1998).

Operation Blade (Bass in the Place), a song so synonymous with late ’90s techno it defines it. And that is the essence of the scene. Ropey CGI, Wesley Snipes struggling to make the choreography work, but the 100% chav tune papers over it all. It is a ghastly movie and the sequels likewise. Incredible music, though.

Deep Blue Sea (1999).

This film was dire, but Samuel L. Jackson’s stirring speech interrupted by extreme-close up bite-action was something else, totally unexpected, utilising the Hitchcock technique to perfection. If it happened later on in the movie it would have been wiser, as after this scene of madness there is no point in watching the remainder of it.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003).

An unabashed muddle, a shambolic mess as coherent as The Architect’s monologue. The highway chase, though. That’s what a short movie should be. And that’s what sequels should have been – short snippets.

Hannibal (2001).

I think the first hour of Hannibal (2001) is a mightily classy affair. You’ve got Florence and vistas and art chat and Hannibal running the show. If they kept the movie there it could have approached masterwork status. But they didn’t and it descends into calamity as soon as Italy is discarded. Sad.

 

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