Seriously? Potter? On the list? We live in a world where a Harry Potter film is voted onto a top 500 list and Hitchcock’s masterful Dial M For Murder isn’t? This is considered more essential viewing than Eastwood’s Mystic River? Doug Jones’ Moon? Adaptation? Motorcycle Diaries? Planes, Trains and Automobiles? No? Anybody? Fine.
Apparently it’s strange that I’ve never seen this before, though to be fair I don’t really think you need to, so formulaic is the plot of the boy striving to defy his father’s wishes and become a ballet dancer. Initially, the boy will accidentally experience the disapproved of skill, and show an unexpected (at least for him and the rest of the cast) flair and enjoyment for it. Knowing his family will disapprove, he’ll hide it from them, only confiding in a couple of friends and his maternal-love replacing new mentor. Inevitably, his family will discover the truth and be horrified, until they see that he is actually good at it, and more importantly it makes him happy. Begrudgingly, they will accept the path he has chosen and assist him on his way as he struggles to overcome the prejudice that comes with his working class background, until finally he is accepted by everyone. It’s this sense of by-the-numbers plotting that has maintained my distance from Billy Elliot in the past. That, and that it’s about dancing. And Northerners. The cast perform well, especially Jamie Bell as the eponymous Elliot, Julie Walters as his new mentor and Gary Lewis as his disapproving Dad, but its hard to ignore just how clichéd the whole affair is. 
I’ve previously mentioned that I’m not overly squeamish about violence and mutilation in films, but I’m afraid this was more than I really wanted to take. This is a story of a movie producer (James Spader) who, after surviving a car crash, discovers a cult of car crash enthusiasts and proceeds to have as much sex as possible with every member of the cast, predominantly in cars. The sex is far more graphic than it needs to be, and involves, if not is stimulated by, the wounds and scars of the crash victims. Other than joining the club, there is no real narrative drive of the film, as the characters move from one orgy to another. Elias Koteas however is hypnotic as crash club leader Vaughan, but I’m not a big fan of nudity in general, and this film is little short of needlessly pornographic.
I’ve read before that this is supposedly Martin Scorsese’s favourite film. I can’t remember why, and I’m still not sure now, but if he likes it then fair enough. The Red Shoes tells the story of Julian Craster and Victoria Page. He is a music student, given a job at the ballet orchestra after his professor steals his work for a show, and she is a promising ballerina, given a shot at the big time when a professional dancer leaves to get married. Predictably, the two end up working on the same show, the Ballet of the Red Shoes, he as composer and she as the star. I’ve never been overly keen on dance, and I’ve never attended a ballet recital, so I can’t say I was necessarily engrossed in the backstage goings on, as the Machiavellian show director forbids the leading couple from seeing one another, but there was an interesting 20-minute wordless dream/dance sequence involving fairytale backgrounds and characters, and I liked the implication of a train passing using puffs of smoke, lights, sounds and actors following the ‘train’ with their eyes, but overall found the film was largely dull. 
Who could resist a film featuring Alan Rickman singing about marrying his adopted daughter! Me, it turns out. Many have criticised the picture for being too gory, although its hard to see how Tim Burton could have avoided the flood of viscera required to depict the story of Sweeney Todd, a barber who murders his clientele by slitting their throats in a specially designed barber’s chair (That I must say did appeal to the mechanical engineer in me), only for their innards to be baked into pies served in the shop below the barber’s. So, instead of toning down the gore, Burton embraces it, commencing the show following a trickle of blood, luminous red against an almost monochrome London, as it drips, seeps and oozes through cracks, down gutters and into the sewers. It is clear from this opening that those of a weaker disposition should stick to a more family-friendly film, such as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
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It’s never a good sign when the first joke from a so-called comedy film is a throwaway gag stolen from Clueless, two friends talking on the phone, the conversation ending seconds before one collects the other on the way to school. This kind of base level unoriginal humour, along with a very immature, puerile level of swearing and obsession with alcohol, girls and sex may well be indicative of teenage boys, but doesn’t make for entertaining viewing to those of us older than 15. Apparently Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen wrote the script whilst still in school, and it shows.
I’ll be honest, I lost track of this film. It seems to involve a man investigating the death of his father, but I really don’t know what happened after that. Every character seems to be contradictory, saying one thing then immediately changing their mind or acting oppositely, and the plot seemed to move backwards and forwards without warning, notification, explanation or reason. There was some lovely dialogue though (“I’m 74, and I’ll buy a drink for anyone who pisses further than me.”)
I can’t say I’m surprised that this film is unavailable for rental from Lovefilm. It’s essentially a collection of interviews with various Parisians in 1960, being asked whether they are happy, and discussing topics including life, success, wealth and race. As an insight into life there and then it is interesting, but only in how it highlights the differences and similarities between the inhabitants of the same city. It all gets bit meta later on, when the directors, an anthropologist and a sociologist, discuss how the film has been limited up to that point, before showing the film to the people interviewed within it. Their reaction to the documentary is included as part of the film, as is the directors subsequent discussion of the reaction of the film, and the difficulties they have had making it. Many years before commentaries and behind the scene footage was popular, these two were self-analysing and critiquing the film they were making, whilst they were making it, and filming it as they went, to be included in the very film they were analysing. It’s the kind of moebius-strip film-making that could good on forever, but thankfully doesn’t.
Famous for the pram rolling down a staircase, famously ‘homaged’ (stolen?) by Brian de Palma in the Untouchables and parodied in the Naked Gun series, Battleship Potemkin is a silent film about the crew of a Russian battleship who mutiny over the poor food, ultimately causing a mass revolution. There are certain images from the film that are more well known than the film itself – the meat crawling with maggots, the hordes of people mourning the death of a man “killed for a plate of soup” and of course the Odessa staircase scene, that the rest of the film is lost between these set pieces. I think that there are supposed to be parallels between the plot and the Russian revolution, but I’m afraid I don’t know my Russian history as well as is required to appreciate these, so this went over my head a little.
Alas, another Luis Bunuel film, however this time thankfully much shorter than L’Age d’Or.
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Life Vs Film 