Category Archives: Empire Top 500

The Shining

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Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is a writer suffering from writer’s block. He takes a job as an off-season caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, deep in the Colorado Rockies, where he will stay for five months with just his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and their son, Jake (Danny Lloyd). Whilst at the hotel, all three members of the Torrance family experience otherworldly visions that slowly send Jack insane. Meanwhile, Danny’s ‘gift’ of the shining – the ability to see and hear things that haven’t happened yet or that happened a long time ago – grows stronger.

The Shining is widely regarded as a terrifying film, one of the best horror films made in the past 40 years, but to me it holds a deeper terror, not just because it’s the first truly scary film I can remember watching (and being far too young to watch it when I did). You see, I’ve seen The Shining twice, and both times I’ve watched it have been shrouded in a very real death of someone I know. The first time I saw it my best friend’s brother’s best friend was found dead the next morning. This time, I was interrupted about halfway through the film with a phone call from a friend, informing me that a mutual friend of ours, who neither of us had seen for a while, had been killed in a motorcycle crash. Basically, this is possibly the scariest film I know of, because I can never watch it again for fear of someone I know dying. This adds a whole new dimension to a film that’s scary enough to begin with.

On the surface, there isn’t a lot of traditionally scary elements to The Shining, especially not by modern horror standards. Instead, there’s more of an increasing sense of unease and mental disturbance as Jack descends into the horrors of his own mind, assisted by the various terrifying images thrown up by the hotel. Like the young twin girls Danny sees around the hotel, the elevator erupting with an ocean of blood, or the beautiful naked woman in room 237, who becomes a scabbed and putrid hag in Jack’s arms. And of course there’s the questionable shot of the man in a business suit, probably receiving a favour from a man dressed as a bear, that I’m sure his wife and kids would not be too happy to find out about.

As horror films go, this is impressively effective without having to resort to cheap jump-scares or a monstrous killer on the loose. I’m not often scared by films, but this one has left me a little off ever since, and not just for the personal reasons mentioned earlier. I’m a big fan of how the original protagonist – Jack – eventually becomes the antagonist once perspective focuses more on Jake and Wendy. If I were to pick a fault though, it might be that there’s a few too many elements taking place simultaneously. Firstly, the hotel was apparently built on an Indian burial ground, thereby adding an explanation to the ghostly goings on. This should have been enough, but there’s also Danny’s psychic abilities, which he shares with the hotel’s chef, Dick Hallorann (Scatman Cruthers), who has the most absurd pictures on his bedroom wall. Then there’s the mysterious suicide of the former caretaker, who killed himself with a shotgun after axing his family in the winter of 1970. And Danny’s finger is his imaginary friend, Tony, who talks to him and tells him what to do. Personally, I think Jack would have gone insane with just the intense writer’s block and having to be locked up with Shelley Duvall and an insane child for 5 months.

The film is pretty much perfectly cast, and Nicholson gives one of the most defining performances of his career. He shows real potential here for his future role as the Joker in Batman, especially once the madness sets in and his maniacal grin and eyebrows take over his face. Elsewhere his prominent brow and bright, glaring eyes are well used to strike fear into all who watch. Duvall is well cast too, though this isn’t a compliment as I think her character is supposed to be supremely annoying, and she succeeds in spades. It’s not often that you root for the axe-wielding psychopath over the innocent damsel in distress in a film, but I have absolutely no qualms about doing so here. 

This being a Kubrick film, it’s a given that a certain amount of flair has been utilised in the cinematography. The most famous example, and my personal favourite, is the long tracking shot following Danny as he wheels around the hotel on his tricycle. Infamously the camera was turned upside down to get it closer to the ground, offering a lower-than-child’s-eye perspective that really adds to the sense of dread, as does the incessant squeaking of the wheels as Danny follows an impossibly labyrinthine path around the hotel, a theme that recurs throughout the film.

The film is rife with too many unanswered questions and unquestioned answers, but due to Kubrick’s meticulous nature these can be assumed as being deliberate, present not only to infuriate the audience, but to keep them discussing the film forever more. Add to this some great quotable lines (“I’m not gonna hurt you, I’m just gonna bash your brains in.”), some of the most famous scenes in cinema (“Heeeeeeere’s Johnny!”), stellar performances, stunning visuals and a truly haunting score, and you’ve got not just a great horror film, but a great film in any genre. It’s just a shame I can’t watch it ever again.

Choose film 9/10

North By Northwest

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This is the last review I’ve got left unposted from the recent reviewing competition at the Lamb, I hope you enjoy it.Is it really possible for North by Northwest to live up to its hype? It’s rare to find a Top Films list deprived of its inclusion, it features scenes that have become the stuff of legend, that also tend to top Best Scene lists, and it’s one of the greatest movies ever made by one of the greatest directors who ever lived.

If you haven’t seen it yet, then I strongly advise you to stop reading anything about it and go and watch it now, for North by Northwest is truly a tremendous film that is best enjoyed with as little outside knowledge as possible. When Cary Grant’s Roger O. Thornhill quips shortly after being kidnapped into the back of a car, “Don’t tell me where we’re going, surprise me,” this is not merely Hitchcock’s intentions for Thornhill, but for all of us watching as well.

There’s really no weak link in the film. From the opening Saul Bass title sequence, utilising the receding parallel lines of a Madison Avenue skyscraper’s windows to perch the credits atop as they rush off into the distance, down to the ever so cheeky closing train tunnel metaphor, every second oozes entertainment. Alfred Hitchcock’s longest film, and his fourth and final with fellow English-born collaborator Cary Grant, is also his most unashamedly fun. There are many people who have an issue with some of the more fantastical elements of the plot – to be fair, a cropduster is hardly the most effective method of assassination – but these people are preventing themselves from what is a truly thrilling experience. And after all, who is watching Hitchcock for realism? The master has always admitted that, whilst some films are a slice of life, his tend to be a slice of cake, and this one has the richest, creamiest filling, not to mention icing, a cherry and some rainbow-coloured sprinkles to boot.
Cary Grant is on his finest, suavest form as New York ad man Roger O. Thornhill, stepping straight from Mad Men into a classic Hitchcock mistaken identity caper. Thornhill is an egotistical chauvinist, totally in control of his superficial advertising world, yet within Grant’s capable hands he remains not simply likable, but enviable. Who wouldn’t want to fill out a suit like that, and have such a wide and successful array of quips and zingers at their disposal? For though he is constantly befuddled and bemused by the adventure he has innocently become swept along in, there is no circumstance that leaves him wanting for a one-liner. Here, Grant perfects the art of the stern expression and the furrowed brow, eternally caught between confusion and frustration, with merely a hint of excitement as his journey takes him across America in the effort to clear his name of a wrongfully accused murder. The role was originally offered to Hitch’s other great collaborator, James Stewart, after the two did such sterling work on Vertigo together, but as soon as Grant became available Stewart was dropped, in favour of a man Hitch believed would not be dwarfed by the extraordinary events going on around him. Whilst Stewart has often been remarkable in his everyman roles, it’s fair to say that Thornhill would not have been the right fit for him.
Such a masculine protagonist would be lost without a suitably feminine love interest, and Eva Marie Saint fits that job nicely as Eve Kendall, a typically beautiful Hitchcock blonde whose porcelain doll exterior hides her ability to use sex like some people do a flyswatter, and she holds her own against the likes of Psycho’s Janet Leigh, Rear Window’s Grace Kelly and Vertigo’s Kim Novak as she dabbles in some of the most forward repartee since Bacall taught Bogart how to whistle. Hitch always preferred the more beautiful but subtly sexy female leads, as he took great pleasure in uncovering their more alluring qualities than he would have with the more self-promoting individuals like Monroe. As with all of Hitchcock’s birds (pun intended) Saint is meticulously and beautifully dressed in every scene. Legend has it that the great director paid her wardrobe so much attention that Grant petulantly demanded advice on what he should be wearing, and was simply told to “Dress like Cary Grant.”
Released three years before Dr. No, this film clearly set the template for almost every Bond movie. With its dashing, smooth talking hero with an easily recognisable voice, the woman who falls for him within seconds of meeting, a villain’s lair in an impressive yet remote location (here James Mason’s Vandamm lives in a condo atop Mount Rushmore), an evil sidekick (Martin Landau, with a severe case of Henchman’s Eyebrow) and a fast-paced, stunt-riddled adventure taking in major cities around the world (or at least central and north-east USA). Thornhill even has the ability to make perfect strangers throw themselves at him; just wait for the reaction from the woman in his neighbouring hospital room. It’s no surprise to learn that Grant himself was an original candidate for what was to eventually become Sean Connery’s Bond.
Even from the trailer, this is one of the most comical of Hitchcock’s endeavours. Speaking directly to the audience, Hitch himself appears, advising the viewers on how to take the perfect vacation without leaving the cinema, keeping his tongue firmly planted in his cheek throughout (“You don’t find a tasteful murder on every guided tour, do you?”). It’s on Youtube, go check it out. Ernest Lehman’s Oscar-nominated script (tragically losing out to Pillow Talk) is full of far too many quotable lines to give justice to here, but it contains more than enough for even three films. My personal favourite? Saint declaring she’s a big girl, followed by Grant’s perfectly timed, effortless rebuttal of “and in all the right places.” The police station phone call is yet another example of solid gold. Occasionally the steady slew of insinuations and double entendres becomes a little cringeworthy, especially when Grant tells Saint he likes her flavour, but that’s a rare misstep for a script that otherwise never puts a foot wrong. There’s far too much excellence on hand to make you forget these, and the film will never fail to raise a smile with every viewing.
It isn’t just the dialogue though; the scenes without any discussions are often just as amazing, if not more so. Early on, after being forcibly imbibed with the best part of a bottle of bourbon, Thornhill is unleashed behind the wheel of a car, in an attempt to instigate his demise. Upon realising what’s going on he awakes in a drunken stupor and does his utmost to keep his car on the increasingly blurred and merging roads in front of him. Grant makes for an amusingly intense drunk, persistently blinking, squinting and staring bug-eyed at the cars he races past, made all the more dramatic by Bernard Herrmann’s  stupendously engaging score. Of course, there’s also the hallowed cropduster chase, as Thornhill, having been lured to the middle of nowhere to meet the man he’s been accused of being, finds himself battling the more painful end of a plane’s propeller. One of the few scenes not set to music – to better emphasise the relentless whirring of the plane and the lack of assistance Thornhill is likely to receive with the matter at hand – the scene is worth watching as a standalone segment. Equal parts exhilarating, terrifying and fun, it’s made all the more hilarious for the entire time Grant dives through dirt and hides amongst crops he is wearing his increasingly worn yet perfectly tailored grey flannel suit, clean shaven and with immaculate hair.
Hitchcock’s regular cinematographer, Robert Burks, excels himself in a manner that by this film is surely only to be expected. The shot of Thornhill fleeing the UN building to a waiting cab is stunning, captured from high above and angled down the side of a skyscraper, a shot I’d happily have framed on my wall, and the revealing shot of a gun hidden in a purse is sly enough to almost go unnoticed, but is sure to pay off later. Hitch ticks off almost all of his standard tropes – a wrongfully accused man on the run, maternal issues (Jessie Royce Landis, who plays Thornhill’s mother, was in real life only 8 years older than Grant), spies, deception, train journeys, height-based peril, an all-but-unnecessary MacGuffin (a statue full of microfilm), bumbling policemen, a tense finale set atop a famous landmark and, of course, an icy blonde. All that’s missing is a self-deprecating scene in a cinema.
When compared to modern day blockbusters, this picture more than holds up. Its unstoppable, kinetic nature will keep fans of both classic cinema and present day fare glued to the screen and on the edge of their seats for the entire 136 minute runtime. Filled with glamour, wit, excitement and big scenes on a large canvas, there’s something here to please everyone, as long as they like really great films. Does it live up to the hype? Yes, and more so.
Choose film 10/10

Top Gun

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There are some films out there that seem to be universally adored, so much so that were someone to come along and start slagging them off they’d automatically be written off as hipsterring, pretending not to like something incredibly popular to appear cool or ironic. Now, I’m fairly sure I’m not a hipster, even though I ride a bike and own a scarf (that I very rarely wear, and even then when its freezing), but I just can’t get behind Top Gun, a film that as far as I can tell everyone else seems to generally love.
It does have some very enjoyable aspects, most notably the score, with Kenny Loggins’ Danger Zone being a clear favourite, the script is full of zingers (“Your ego is writing cheques your body can’t cash.”) and a brilliant cast all on top form, but it can’t get around just how boring most of the film is. Now, this may have something to do with my opinion on aircraft. Every year for at least the past four years, Bournemouth (the town I live in) has held an air festival down on the beach. I live less than ten minutes walk away from said beach, yet I do not join the literally thousands of people who flock to this event on an annual basis. That doesn’t sound too surprising, until you discover that other patrons to this event include many of my close friends, colleagues, and of course my parents. This year was the second time I’ve actually headed away from the city during the long weekend, just to escape the planes and their incessant noise. I’m fine flying in planes, and generally find the flights to be one of the more enjoyable aspects of holidays (I get to sit and watch films for six hours straight!?!?!?!), but I really don’t care about watching planes fly, how they work, what model they are etc. And unfortunately, that plays a large part in Top Gun, a film about the top 1% of Navy pilots being trained to be the best that they can be.
It’s clear during the making of the film that two different markets were established – men and women – and a very broad sense of their tastes was estimated. Two different films were then thrown together to attempt to please both groups, and so it is that we have a film about jet fighter pilots in which half the time is spent on an insipid romance plot between Tom Cruise’s cocky pilot Lt. Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell and one of his civilian teachers, Kelly McGillis’ Charlie. It doesn’t really help that both halves of the film don’t fit together well, and are for the most part dull. The flying scenes, especially the training exercises, are devoid of either tension or excitement, and the romance is surprisingly more cheesey than the half-naked, oiled up volleyball scene set to Playing With The Boys. Each scene type goes on far too long as well. I can’t imagine the plane-heads remaining fully engaged through the love scenes, and likewise the romance junkies are unlikely to really care about the flying bits.

So why does it have such a reputation? Well, there’s enough to keep your attention on a Friday night post-pub outing, full of kebabs and an impending hangover, and of course there’s Tom Cruise. After sliding across the floor in a shirt and socks in Risky Business, this is probably the early defining movie for Cruise, and none more so than his seducing of Charlie by serenading her, with the help of an entire bar, to The Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling. I’ve always questioned the choice of this song, as it’s supposed to be a song everyone in the bar knows the words to, yet I’ve never heard it outside of this film. Maybe it’s more popular in the States. This could also be the film that turned a lot of the public opinion against Cruise (not me personally, I’ve got no issues with the guy), as Maverick is an immensely arrogant, cocky dick, but he plays it so well. Anthony Edwards is also great as Maverick’s married-with-kids partner Goose (he’s married to Meg Ryan?!?), but the film is completely stolen by Val Kilmer, who manages to out-cockiness Cruise as rival pilot Iceman.

This is one of the few films that I think could be possibly improved with the use of 3D, normally something I’m deeply opposed to, but I think an added sense of depth perception could help clarify and enliven the aerial combat scenes, which otherwise feel flat and lifeless. I hate to say it, but this feels almost more like a Michael Bay film than a Tony Scott one, and if it wasn’t for the acting and the soundtrack, there’d be no reason to watch it whatsoever.

Choose life 5/10

The Magnificent Seven

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A small farming community is being terrorised by a band of thieves and murderers, led by the charismatic but ruthless Calvera (Eli Wallach, previously only known to my girlfriend as the elderly neighbour in The Holiday). He and his gang steal almost everything worth taking from the villagers, leaving them just enough to carry on farming for another year, at which point Calvera will return and repeat the process over again. Sick of this injustice, three villagers head to the nearest saloon and recruit someone to either train or protect them, finding Yul Brynner’s Chris as the perfect fit for the role after he volunteers for something that could get him killed, and offers no reward – a situation very similar to that of defending the village. Chris then goes about assembling a team – you can probably guess how many – of similarly minded men based on Chris’ previous dealings with them or their reputations. 

The line-up has since become a member of the great pantheon of Pub Quiz Questions – I can never remember Brad Dexter or Horst Buchholz, but I’ve won a DVD by naming James Coburn before. The remaining members are Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn and, of course, Steve McQueen, who all have various reasons for signing up, be it running from the law, spotting a money-making opportunity or just plain boredom.

This is one of those films that I remembered through a rose-tinted haze as being a far greater film than it turned out to be. It’s not a bad film, not at all, it’s just not the stone-cold classic I had remembered. My main problem was in the amount of time it took for the Seven to assemble, and the attempts to shed doubt on whether certain members will join or not. It’s clear from the very title of the film that there will be a group of seven defending the village, but the group isn’t together until about halfway through the film! Also, I felt that for the most part enough screentime was given to each of the seven, except for Buchholz’s Chico being given far too much time as the young rookie looking to prove himself, and Coburn’s stoic knife-throwing Britt barely getting a look in after receiving the best introduction of the guys. I’m especially sore about Coburn because he’s my favourite character (and accent) in The Great Escape (coming soon), and he voiced Waternoose in Monsters, Inc. Most of the seven are given some kind of arc of character trait, but Britt’s appears to be just falling asleep under any available tree, and being completely unable to hide behind cover whilst shooting.

Based on The Seven Samurai, I had hoped to watch Akira Kurosawa’s classic epic before seeing The Magnificent Seven again, but alas my Steve McQueen adventures and requests from my weekly movie night made this impossible, but hopefully I’ll get to it soon. What I hadn’t realised is that this film was also remade (not as Battle Beyond The Stars, I haven’t seen that yet), but as A Bug’s Life. Granted, the plots aren’t identical, but there are some startling similarities. I’m not entirely sure how happy Charles Bronson would be to know he’d been recast as a ladybird.

There are some gloriously over the top death sequences, and the finale is a great shoot out, though it doesn’t compare to some other classic ones. It’s a very enjoyable film, but alas it’s not the one I remembered. Still the best Steve McQueen film I’ve seen so far on this journey.


Choose film 7/10

Songs From The Second Floor

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I never knew there were quite so many films out there without plots, and how highly regarded some of them were. I’d heard of Bunuel’s surrealist so-called ‘masterpieces’, though I’m not a fan of them myself, and given their notoriety it was no surprise to find them on the List, but this cine-poem, based on the works of Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo and directed by Swede Roy Andersson, is a film of which I’ve never heard, and finding it voted the 213th greatest film of all time by Empire readers came as something of a surprise.

Opening on an overweight businessman addressing a pair of feet with a hacking cough inside the iridescent electric blue light of a tanning bed, we are taken on a journey encountering opera-singing commuters, an endless, near-stationery traffic jam, crucifix salesmen, a moving building and a platoon of marching office drones casting telephone receivers like fishing lines.
The focal point is an obese fellow called Kalle (Lars Nordh). His oldest son is in the hospital, having gone insane from writing poetry, and Kalle cannot visit him without descending into a raving torrent against his offspring. Kalle has other problems – he burns down his business in an attempt to claim the insurance – and is being stalked by a man who killed himself, and still has the blood and cuts on his wrists to prove it. 

I’m not a fan of this kind of film. To me, the one essential ingredient required for a film is a plot, preferably a coherent and well-paced one, but here it’s more a collection of nonsensical scenes that happen to feature either Kalle, someone he knows or someone random. I understand that the purpose of such films is not to tell a story or to entertain, but to evoke a mood, and here I mainly felt despair and sadness. None of the characters are living anything close to a happy existence, many are overweight and all of them are either a sickly grey or deathly white in colour, covered in dust or ash, and becoming increasingly more pallid as the film progresses. The rooms and buildings are similarly shaded, with only the occasionally shock of colour – one man’s bright ginger hair or the aforementioned tanning bed light.

There were some scenes that were genuinely unpleasant to watch – a young girl, perhaps 8 years old, is blindfolded and led before a procession of dignitaries and up to a cliff, where she is left to wander blindly until she falls to her death, and the scream, thud and distant sobbing and crying were almost enough to make me turn the film off. Elsewhere, there was some uncomfortable humour in a man celebrating his 100th birthday by urinating in front of the men who have come to praise him, and by offering a Nazi salute and sending his best to Goerring, having become so far advanced in years he no longer sees the need to hide such tendencies.

So what does it all mean? Well, I’m sorry, but I haven’t a clue. Why are all the corpses walking around and following Kalle? Why was he stroking a golf club whilst a friend of his stared out a hotel window, naked from the waist down? And where was everyone heading at the end, with the endless row of vacant airport check-in desks awaiting the potential passengers and their skyscraping luggage trolleys? No idea, don’t care, didn’t enjoy it.

Choose life 3/10

Casino Royale

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With the imminent release of Daniel Craig’s third outing as James Bond, Sam Mendes’ Skyfall (UK release October 26th), it seems like the perfect time to cross the film ranked 56th greatest film of all time by Empire readers a few years ago, Craig’s first Bond outing, Casino Royale.

Now, if you ask me, #56 is pretty high up, especially when you consider that Goldfinger, my favourite Bond movie, is 110 places lower at #166, and no other Bond movies made it onto that list (You Only Live Twice appears in the Empire 5-star 500). Even if you take into account Casino Royale’s proximity to the release of the list, made just two years later, it’s still pretty damn high. Apparently, it’s better than Lawrence of Arabia, Annie Hall, 12 Angry Men, The Great Escape and literally hundreds of other films that, in my opinion, are far superior. But then I didn’t compile the list (though I did vote on it, and not for this film), so who am I to voice the opinions of others?

Before I continue my now-trademark tirade of negative comments, I should probably point out that this is a very good film. It served as a much needed shot in the arm for a franchise left face down and drowning on a CGI-wave of Pierce Brosnan’s swarm and Madonna’s atrocious Die Another Day theme song. In a post-Bourne world it established itself as a gritty reboot, taking Bond away from the ludicrous gadgets and back to the basics of hand-to-hand scrapping in a public bathroom, whilst still retaining the sheer spectacle of fighting on top of not one crane but two. Every aspect of classic Bond is present, from the impossibly slinky and easily-bedded women to a nefarious villain with a silly name and mild physical deformity (Mads Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre, with a scarred eye that weeps bloody, and asthma to boot). Yet everything feels a bit more real, a bit dirtier and scuffed around the edges. And this description is none more fitting than of Craig’s Bond himself. Yes, he looks impeccable whether wearing an immaculately tailored dinner jacket or a pair of swimming trunks that apparently make my girlfriend’s mother go all weak at every possible joint, and he’s always got a quip ready in his back pocket, but this is a Bond with flaws and imperfections, all to aware that the men he is up against may be more than his match.

Take the early scene in Uganda, for example. Here, Bond must chase down and apprehend a suspect to obtain the passcode on his mobile phone, yet unfortunately said miscreant (Sebastien Foucan) is rather adept at long-distance sprinting, free-running and jumping off things that are ridiculously high up. Whilst he bounds around without a care in the world, remaining relatively scratch free, Bond is always a fair way behind, getting progressively beaten up and always opting for the easier route – hopping into a JCB digger or shoulder-barging through a wall rather than leaping through an uncomfortably small window. Here is a Bond who doesn’t need to show off when no-one is looking, he just wants to get the job done, and at whatever cost.

I’ve always had a bit of an issue with Bond films. I’ll gladly watch any of them, even Quantum of Solace if there’s nothing else on, but the plots are usually a bit labyrinthine for me, which is only to be expected if they want to make each film different. I’m not quite sure of the main motivations in Casino Royale, but I’m fairly sure it’s got something to do with the stock market, although the basic point is that Bond infiltrates an extremely high stakes poker game with a $150,000,000 pot, in order to prevent Le Chiffre from winning it and doing something bad with the proceeds. Everything else is fairly superfluous. I’ve read elsewhere that setting most of a Bond film around a poker table is nothing short of sacrilege, but I found those parts to be fraught with tension and often interspersed with enough action to suffice, even if the film made poker out to be a game that only deals in the most improbable card hands ever. There’s a nice running commentary provided by Bond’s accomplices, Vesper Lynd and Mathis (Eva Green & Giancarlo Giannini), but I didn’t think it was that necessary to have so much exposition, considering how dumbed-down the game was.

There were some very memorable set pieces, with the cold open of Bond achieving his double-0 status and the parkour escapade being particular high-lights, though I also enjoyed the stairway scuffle later in the film, showing how Bond had improved his jumping-and-punching skills from earlier. The testicular-torture scene may have gone a little too far, but it was well-handled and didn’t make me feel as squeamish as it could have done, and it’s more than compensated for by the various little moments of humour, and the record number of car rolls a little earlier. 

I approved of the expansion upon the relationship between Bond and M (Judi Dench), whose involvement in this franchise has cemented her presence as something of a British icon, and the rumours that this repartee has been increased ever further in Skyfall excites me no end. Bond is always at his best when bouncing off a superior – best seen with Desmond Llewelyn’s Q, and his utter, barefaced cheek clashes perfectly with Dench’s no-nonsense style. 

Though the last act may drag a little – the film clocks in at 138 minutes – the pace is fairly consistent throughout. There’s a lot here for Bond fans – more in-jokes than I remembered – and plenty for newcomers too. It may not be my favourite Bond film, but it definitely breaks the top 10, and maybe even the top 5.

Choose film 7/10

Battle Royale

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There are some films where you hear about the concept and think “Yes, this will be a truly amazing film.” Battle Royale is such a film, with the premise being a class of 42 schoolkids are kidnapped, dropped onto an island and given weaponry and basic provisions. They are told that they have three days to kill all of their fellow classmates until only one survives, and if they fail, they’ll all be killed. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Well that’s what I thought the first time I watched it too, about 5 years ago, and since then I’d kind of forgotten a lot of it, and thought to myself that surely that film but have been amazing, because how can you go wrong with a concept like that? There’s endless possibility for inventive deaths and character drama, what with these kids now having to kill their best friends or even their boyfriends and girlfriends, but unfortunately there were perhaps some reasons as to why I’d forgotten it.

For you see, Battle Royale is nowhere near as much fun as it should be. No, wait, that’s an unfair statement. The premise is excellent, far better than most other films, and it is handled well, but it fails to deliver on the promise of a gruesome kill-fest that I’d not necessarily been hoping for, but had at least thought I’d be delivered. So basically my problem is that though I didn’t want an incredibly gory film, I thought I was going to get one, but didn’t. I think the problem here may well lie within me, and not the film. Oh, and don’t expect many comparisons to The Hunger Games – a film with a similar yet far from identical conceit – as I’ve neither seen the film nor read the book.
The film’s scope is very ambitious, especially when you consider there are essentially 44 ‘main’ characters – the 42 school children (including two ‘exchange students’ – we’ll get to them later), their teacher and the man in charge of running the program. Obviously, quite a few of these people don’t make it very far into the film, and even fewer are left at the end, but even so I felt there was possibly too much going on than could be comfortably contained within a 2-hour film. I understand that the book goes into far more detail – as books tend to do – so I’ve added it to my Amazon wishlist, and if someone were to get it for me for Christmas, that would be fine. I felt that an adaptation may have been better suited to a television series, or by cutting down the cast considerably – as I understand it, The Hunger Games only has 24 participants – as that would have allowed far greater depth for most of the characters. As it stands, only a handful are given much in the way of any history, and only perhaps three or four could have something generously described as a character.The film is peppered with flashbacks to the kids’ lives before being selected for the battle, but rarely did this add very much, especially when said flashback consists almost entirely of a slow motion basketball game, presumably the only time when all of the characters were ever in the same room, considering the amount of truancy apparently on display. The only person who benefits from a little history is Mitsuko (Ko Shibasaki), a ruthless, determined killer whose hatred for people – and a certain area of men in particular – pays off in a particularly brutal and wince-inducing scene late on.Too many subplots with great potential fizzled out without really going anywhere, in particular those regarding the tech-nerds attempting to bring the system down, the inclusion of never-used death zones and the motivation behind one of the ‘exchange students’, the deranged, suit-wearing Kazuo (Masanobu Ando). Kazuo appears to be something of an interesting character – I don’t think he utters a word throughout the film – yet no reasons are provided for even why he volunteered to take part. I can understand this though, as he is one of the three predominant ‘bad guys’ (along with Mitsuko and Kitano (Takeshi Kitano), the former teacher running the game), and sometimes not providing an antagonist’s back story can make them a more powerful presence in a film. For example, Hannibal Lecter was far more imposing when his past was only hinted at in The Silence of the Lambs etc, but less so after everything was more or less explained in Hannibal Rising.

The ending felt in parts rushed and glossed over – some areas aren’t really explained – and drawn out in others. There’s also a moment of farce and ridiculousness when a character just gets up and walks around after being shot which is never even partially explained, and as to the reasoning behind the inclusion of several flashback sequences after the film has ended, most of which had already been seen anyway, is beyond me. The two main leads, Shuya and Noriko (Tatsuya Fujiwara and Aki Maeda) felt bland and underdeveloped, especially in the case of Noriko, who doesn’t really get to do anything in the film other than be protected by those around her.

There were some great moments, especially the lighthouse scene, showing the real consequences of friends turning on one another in an environment of complete guilt and paranoia, and the initial briefing scene, in which the over enthusiastic instructional video offers some brilliant comedy, but overall this felt far too rushed, which is a real shame, as this could have been truly amazing.

Choose life 6/10

Yojimbo

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Another film I reviewed for the recent So You Think You Can Review tournament over at the Lamb that’s also on the List.

Akira Kurosawa has never denied the fact that he was heavily influenced by the western genre, citing John Ford, amongst others, as something of an idol. It’s fitting then that at least two of the Japanese director’s most prominent works, this and Seven Samurai, would go on to be remade, unofficially yet almost shot-for-shot in Yojimbo’s case, as two of the definitive classics of the western genre. Though I’ve seen Seven Samurai once before, and The Magnificent Seven and Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy a fistful of times each, this was my first viewing of Kurosawa’s classic. Yojimbo sees a lone, nameless samurai wander into a town divided by two warring gangs. Seeing an opportunity to rectify the situation, and possibly pocket a little something along the way, the ronin stays in town and pits the two rival factions against one another.

The solitary sword swinger is Toshiro Mifune, with whom Kurosawa had a similar relationship as Ford did with John Wayne, working together on 16 pictures in total. Upon his arrival into the one-road town, the samurai – who later calls himself Kuwabatake Sanjiro (meaning Mulberry Thirty), though he freely admits this is a sudonym – hires himself out to both gang lords. Neither the henpecked, frustrated Seibei nor his foe and former right hand man Ushi-tora outright trust this professional blade-for-hire, yet his opponent accepting the fighter’s offer would guarantee their victory. When everything seems to be going according to Sanjiro’s plans, with the two tribes threatening to wipe one another out, complications arise with the arrival of Ushi-tora’s brother Unosuke, brandishing a pistol.
The gun clearly poses quite a threat to our heroic samurai, as now the skill has been removed from the kill. Previously, Sanjiro had no great challenge within the town – other than maybe the lumbering giant with the comically oversized mallet – but now Unosuke, despite his arrogance, ridiculous posturing and insistence on carrying the gun inside his kimono – looking like he’s wearing a sling and hiding a pot belly – has taken the upper hand. No longer is the killer simply the smarter, faster, more skilled competitor; now it is the man with his finger on the trigger.
Throughout the film, Sanjiro’s motives are never clarified. Is he out for payment? Justice? Peace? Or is he simply seeking entertainment, something he clearly achieves as the two clans fight for his allegiance and to pay for his sake. His allegiance changes as often as the direction of the wind, and one of the most memorable scenes occurs as Sanjiro opts out of a confrontation he himself instigated, yet had no intention of taking part in. Instead, he heads atop a vantage point to watch as the two gangs reluctantly face off against one another, faux-lunging and backing away until only a few feet apart. Were it not for the arrival of a town inspector checking up on them, it’s likely this stalemate could have lasted forever.
Inspired by two of Dashiell Hammett’s film noirs, Red Harvest and The Glass Key, the film has a far greater comedic tone than I was expecting. Be it the odd-couple relationship between the tavern keeper and the persistently noisy coffin maker next door (the only townsperson making a profit from the constant fighting), the boorish stupidity of Ushi-tora’s other brother Inokichi as he struggles to work out that four dead enemies is better than two dead allies, or the belittling wife of his rival, there is much here to gain amusement from. Even serious moments, such as Sanjiro overhearing a plot to double cross and murder him, are juxtaposed by the man waggling both tongue and eyebrow at the young harem girls eavesdropping with him.
The film’s western influence isn’t merely seen in its lone ‘gun’-man story. From wide shots with a character stood alone in the distance, to high noon showdowns with gangs positioned at either end of a one-road town, it seems every shot, character and plot point is a loving homage to the director’s favourite genre. The wind even rustles leaves around in place of rolling tumbleweeds. Exposition is handled swiftly and elegantly via the tavern keeper who takes the samurai in and feeds him, regardless of his lack of funds. Sliding screen panels transform what would otherwise be a static, uneventful dialogue scene into an almost comic-book like affair, with each window shifting aside to reveal the disparate groups at either end of the town. The sliding panel is a recurring theme throughout the film, with many shots taking place inside buildings looking out, and later using the more traditional screen-wipe edit.
If I had to pick some minor flaws with the film, I’d mention that the all-too-brief combat scenes don’t quite live up to their pulse-quickening build ups, and that some of the more minor characters come off as little more than caricatures, instead of fully rounded individuals, but this is nit-picking more than anything else. I’d also heard that there were some intense and gory bursts of violence, and although there are certainly small explosions of slice’n’dice fury, fortunately they weren’t as gruesome as I was led to believe – and of course my expectations are no fault of the film’s.
For the most part the acting is stellar, particularly from Mifune, who plays the wandering samurai with a confident swagger, a sly smirk and an imposing stance. Every inch the typical lone ‘gunslinger’, Mifune is incomparable as the professional killer, his only master the fate that led him to the village; via the direction a falling stick pointed towards. Like a coiled spring, he is able to dish out far more than you might expect, and though it is clearly signposted by the rousing score and natural progression of the scenes, his swordsmanship often comes as much of a shock to us as those on the more uncomfortable end of his blade. Upon first entering the town, the man is greeted by a small dog scampering past, clutching a severed human hand in its mouth. At a sight like this, any other man would have had the sense to turn tail and flee, but Sanjiro – with a look of hilarious incredulity creeping across his face – nonetheless ventures on, possibly in search of the one-armed man this appendage-gnawing mutt has left behind.
The final showdown – because it’s a western, so there has to be a final showdown – has a setup shot of such simple elegance it’d be beautiful, were it not for the haggard, near-dead old man trussed up and dangling at the front of the frame. The ability to pan the camera around the decrepit victim, always keeping him in frame whilst progressing the scene, is a masterful stroke, assisted by Mifune’s Sanjiro stalking ever-closer towards the finale – a ten against one fight to the death – as a tornado of dust swirls up around him. What follows, alas, fails to match that establishing shot for artistry and effect, and also features an almost ridiculously drawn out death, but is nonetheless riveting and satisfying.
Whilst it’s not quite as good as Kurosawa’s other great remade eastern-western, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo is at least shorter, making it the perfect choice for a samurai fix if you’ve got two hours rather than three and a half.
Choose film 8/10

Mother and Son

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This is another of those films that I knew absolutely nothing about before watching – even the language or year it was made (Russian, 1997). Sometimes, this strategy works – see Silver Lode – but other times, like now for example, I wind up confused and ill at ease with my surroundings. I think this is the kind of film you need to be in a specific mood for watching, where you’re more open and receptive to what is a deeply emotional and solemn journey taken by two people who barely speak to one another because there’s just nothing to say, and when they do it doesn’t always make a lot of sense. Not, as was the case with me, fitting it in early on a Saturday morning before heading out for a picnic and a day of shopping.


Mother and Son, somewhat bluntly, is about a mother and, you guessed it, her son (Gudrun Geyer and Aleksei Ananishnov). She is evidently not well, and he spends his days looking after her in a secluded, ramshackle cottage. They are the only two people who appear on the screen throughout the film (other than a distant hiker walking up a hill at one point that I’m fairly sure was missed in the edit), and it is clear that they are the only person in each others life. The story doesn’t have much of a plot, although there is an ending, it simply details  the son caring for, and carrying around, his mother, and the hardships they go through. She is unable to walk, with even being carried for a short period wearing her out enough to fall asleep on a park bench. The most energetic action available to her is straining to raise a handle to tousle her son’s hair whilst he reads postcards to her.

The cinematography choices in the film are bold, in that the picture is often skewed, stretched and distorted, which often makes the backgrounds difficult to establish. A storm that builds whilst the mother’s condition worsens is clearly a smudge on the camera lens, and the soundtrack is predominantly howling winds and inaudible whispers, with the occasional quiet hymn or subtle orchestra to fill the void. On several occasions I though the DVD had stopped, as the actors will freeze in place, not making a sound for what seems like hours (but is probably only a few seconds). One such example is the aforementioned park nap, when the son heads back to the house to retrieve the postcards, the camera remains with the mother, in real time, whilst she lays there sleeping, for a good few minutes. It felt very much like an experimental student film where they hadn’t quite worked out how to use the camera or edit properly, let alone use a script.

A couple of moments lost me completely in terms of making sense. At one point, the mother’s pain becomes too much for her and she feebly repeats “Get me out” to her son, who replies with the mantra “Yourself” over and over again, until she finally announces “You got me out.” Later, when the mother is particularly depressed, the son simply tells her “Don’t die then. Who’s making you die?” Her reply? A passionate “You! You!” This made me think that, seeing as the son is the predominant instigator in all the travelling that occurs in the movie (“Well, let’s go” he says at least twice), that perhaps he was trying to aid his mother in her shuffle from the mortal coil, so he could be free of the burden and move on with his life, though I fear this gives a deeper insight into my own relationship than perhaps I intended.

 The reversal of the parent/child characters and relationship was an interesting dynamic, up to the point where when he prepared a drink for her I was expecting him to test the liquid’s temperature on his forearm before giving it to her. The notion that the son will have to go through all the hardship the mother has, as we discover late into the film (I don’t mind giving spoilers for films where nothing much really happens) leads me to believe that whatever it is that ails her is most likely to be genetic, but that perhaps the son will have no-one to care for him as he does for his mother.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that director Aleksandr Sokurov was not aiming to make a film that could be described as entertaining, but those are the kinds of films I prefer watching, so I can’t really recommend watching this film. Even at a scant 68 minutes long I found myself willing the mother to pass away – peacefully, of course, I don’t want any further suffering – and if possible could she find a way to take her son with her? 

Choose life 3/10

Guaranteed Happiness: Amelie

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As I mentioned recently, I came 2nd in the Lamb’s So You Think You Can Review tournament. This was one of the films I reviewed for that competition, but as it was on the List as well I figureed I’d use it here too. All praise recycling!In 1997, after having made two successful, distinctly stylised French films with his co-director Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet popped over to Hollywood to make Alien: Resurrection, a film widely regarded as one of the worst sequels ever to appear on the big screen. You’d have to go a long way to find someone who liked it, and I’d suggest you don’t start with me. Upon returning to his home town of Paris, Jeunet found himself seeing the once-familiar city with fresh eyes, and set out to make a film that would reflect the magic and beauty he had rediscovered. That film is Amélie.

Telling the story of Amélie Poulain (Audrey Tautou), a girl with an overactive imagination but an undernourished heart who develops a taste for bringing happiness into the lives of the people around her, this isa delightful, light-hearted chocolate-box fantasy romance that only occasionally threatens to choke you on its saccharine sweetness. Amélie herself is a wonderful creation, despite her less-than-wonderful upbringing. She was raised by a military physician father (Rufus) and schoolmistress mother (Lorella Cravotta). Her only physical contact with another life form was the annual check-up provided by her father. Such unaccustomed moments of intimacy caused her heart to beat faster, which her Dad diagnosed as being a heart defect, so kept his daughter at home, away from the other children. This, along with a suicidal goldfish and a childhood tragedy, gave Amélie a unique perspective on life that she would carry on into adulthood, where she works as a waitress in a corner cafe in Montmartre alongside its rogues’ gallery of eccentric staff and clientele.
A chance reaction to the death of Princess Diana leads Amélie to discover a treasure trove left by her apartment’s previous inhabitants, so she sets about planning to return the childhood trinkets. She revels in the feeling of harmony she gets from helping others, be they strangers or regular players within her life – though she isn’t close enough to anyone to really call them a friend. Along the way she crosses paths with Nino Quincampoix (Mattieu Kassovitz, director of the seminal La Haine), and finds herself falling in love with this fellow outcast who skips in time to her own offbeat pace, yet her life so far – devoid of affection, interaction and intimacy – ensures that theirs will not be the smoothest of romantic relationships.
From the opening credits – featuring a young Amélie (Flora Guiet) engaging in a variety of nostalgia-inducing childhood antics including peeling dried glue from her fingers and making her hand into a puppet – it is clear this film is a genuine heart-warmer, yet imbued with a tinge of sadness. For all of Amélie’s boundless levels of enjoyment, you can’t help but notice that as a child she was always alone. The film delights in making the ordinary extraordinary, for example by looking at the events occurring simultaneously with Amélie’s birth – a fly being run over, two wine glasses dancing on a wind-buoying tablecloth, a man erasing his deceased friend’s name from his phonebook. Alone, these individual events are almost mundane, but together they contain every aspect of life, from the tender to the tragic.
Though it was released six years before the term was coined, this film displays a unique perspective on the manic pixie dream girl mythology, as we see the film almost entirely from the point of view of said fantastical creature. In more traditional films, the character of Amélie would be the love interest in Nino’s story, and not the other way around, and she’d be played by Zooey Deschanel. If anything, he is a typical leading man archetype, an eccentric loner, working a job he hates to fund an obscure passion project, just waiting for the girl of his dreams to stumble into his life and turn it upside down, yet thankfully this is not his story, he is the supporting player and it is with his influence that Amélie finds her life being disrupted, just as she disrupts those around her.
Tautou is absolutely perfect as the eponymous mirth-maker. Gifted with the role of a title character and appearing in almost every scene yet with barely any dialogue, Tautou manages to express every emotion going through her exceptionally beautiful brown eyes, body language and face framed with a Louise Brooks bob. Interestingly, the role was originally written with Emily Watson in mind, but I think even she would have struggled to match Tautou’s blend of purity, yearning and a rare, beguiling charm. Be it when she is skimming stones, cracking a crème brulee or suppressing laughter during an early attempt at intercourse, Tautou is exquisite in the role she will probably always be best known for. Her delivery of the line “I am nobody’s little weasel” almost brings me to tears.
As usual with any Jeunet picture, the cinematography is beautiful. The colour scheme is heavily influenced by Brazilian artist Juarez Machado, particularly the use of rich browns, oranges and reds for the interior shots. A glowing orange outline will reveal a hidden key, or a glowing heart, and Jeunet’s elaborate camerawork lovingly follows faces, feet and hands as they go about their day, picking up stones and placing them in pockets for future skimming sessions. Some have shunned Jeunet’s debris-free vision of Paris, devoid of litter, ethnic diversity and graffiti, but at heart this is a whimsical fairytale, seen through the filter of its titular pixie’s naive, twee imagination, within which the harshest crimes are committed verbally, and easily remedied with Amélie’s own brand of karmic vengeance. In this world, garden gnomes can travel the world, lamps have nocturnal discussions with photographs of dogs and beggars refuse to accept money on a Sunday, as they are taking the day off.
Though the overarching narrative is one of romance, it is the comedy of the film that really shines through, predominantly from the cast of quirky characters that litter the screen, most of whom are played by actors from other Jeunet works. Be it the bathroom encounter of the hypochondriac Georgette (Isabelle Nanty) and the embittered Joseph (Dominique Pinon), the comeuppance of the bullish greengrocer Collignon (Urbain Cancelier) or a mistaken phonecall to an adult store during which our heroine is informed that “Fur pie doesn’t sell,” the comedic moments are many and varied. Yann Tiersen’s accordion-rich score is ever-so-French (I’m listening to it as I write, my feet have yet to stop tapping) and the occasional use of offbeat instrumentation such as a typewriter and bicycle chains further increases the levels of whimsy, as if that were even possible.
In my opinion, the best kind of film is one that leaves the viewer wanting to be a better person, and that is certainly the case here. The morals of Amélie are clear: be kind to others, be yourself, and enjoy the little things.
Choose film 10/10