The Cat Concerto

Posted on August 5, 2011 by jaycluitt

I had a revelation watching this 1946 Tom and Jerry short on Youtube. For years, watching these cartons as a child, I had always thought of Jerry, the mouse, as the hero, and Tom, the cat, as the bad guy. I think this is largely to do more with my own personal deep hatred of cats (I won’t go into it) than any context of the cartoons, but watching this (and subsequently Mice Follies, a personal favourite), my groundbreaking, life changing epiphany is this: Jerry’s a jerk. Seriously, the mouse is a dick. Think about it, Tom is playing a piano solo in a large, important concert, but his playing awakens Jerry, who has chosen the piano as an optimal sleeping venue. Yes, that’s right; he’s sleeping in a piano. You know; a musical instrument? Something designed to make noise and do nothing else? And upon being woken up he has the audacity to be pissed off, and sets out to sabotage the rest of Tom’s performance.

Utilising physical comedy, slapstick (the troublesome cummerbund) and surreal inflections (Tom’s extendable finger able to reach the extra high notes), this is beautifully choreographed, tightly controlled comic perfection that never misses a note.

Choose film 8/10

Heat

Posted on August 5, 2011 by jaycluitt

Most crime films tend to pick a side early on, focusing on a ‘means to an end’ band of criminals thieving because they have to, or a team of patriotic, all-American supercops able to match their never-ending machine gun clips with a limitless supply of one liners, but Michael Mann’s Heat, a remake of his own 1989 made for TV movie L.A. Takedown, takes a different path, giving Robert De Niro’s gang of seasoned thieved and Al Pacino’s police squad equal screen time, equal motivation and similar levels of compassion, so you get to decide who you want to win. Though the two main characters; De Niro’s master thief Neil McCauley and Pacino’s dogged detective Vincent Hanna are sworn enemies, they are still two sides of the same coin, separated by their own opinions of the law, but brought together by a deep mutual respect. Neither one is the villain of the film, there are more than enough scumbags among the supporting player to take that role, yet neither is necessarily the hero, although in the end it’s Pacino who grabs the most heroic moments.

Surrounded by an incredible ensemble cast (deep breath: Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Danny Trejo, Dennis Haysbert, Natalie Portman, Xander Berkeley, Hank Azaria, Jon Voight, Jeremy Piven, Mykelti Williamson, William Fichtner, Tom Noonan, Ted Levine, Ashley Judd), some perfectly choreographed set pieces (the opening truck heist and mid film bank robbery/street shootout) and ability to show the effect their chosen lifestyles has had on these characters and their personal lives, or lack thereof, this is a tremendous film, even if it does give in to the occasional cliché, but these can be forgiven for the fact that they use weapons that actually, from time to time, need reloading.

Choose film 9/10

Tokyo Story

Posted on August 3, 2011 by jaycluitt

Unlike this film, life is nothing but disappointment. This is the discovery made by an elderly middle class Japanese couple as they visit Tokyo for the first time to see their children and grandchildren, only to find they do not have room in their busy lives to send time with their parents.

Shot with an unmoving camera set at sitting height from the floor, this largely encompasses the family’s conversations, discussing everyday life, but it is often the occasional periods without dialogue that are more moving, and say more than any could.

There is a sense of finality throughout, as though the couple know they are unlikely to see their children again, and it is difficult after watching this film not to pick up the phone and call your own parents. Surely a film that makes us want to at least try to be better people, and live up to the expectations of others cannot be a bad thing?

Choose life 9/10

Into the Wild

Posted on August 2, 2011 by jaycluitt

Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch) has a very promising future ahead of him. Considering Harvard Law school after graduating from college, with a healthy savings fund and parents willing to buy him a new car, he’s set to make a name for himself in middle class middle America.

But alas, this is not the life he wishes to lead, refusing to make the same mistakes his parents made – marrying the high school sweetheart, living in an unhappy, abusive marriage for the sake of appearances – he gives his savings to charity, dumps his car, burns his ID and cash and changes his name to Alexander Supertramp, pledging to live life alone, “no watch, no maps, in the wild.”

Told through letters to his sister, accounts from those he met along the way and excerpts from his own diary, this true story, directed by Sean Penn, is at times joyous, tense and heartbreaking. There isn’t a weak link in the cast, but the standouts are easily William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden as the confused parents left behind as their ideal son wanders for years with no communication, not even a letter goodbye.

Penn at times drifts too far into Terrence Malick territory (Malick previously directed Penn in the Thin Red Line), with elegiacal shots of admittedly beautiful scenery, poetic, philosophical pontificating and a meandering style, flitting between Alex’s journey across America and his time spent living in an abandoned ‘Magic’ bus he finds in Alaska, but the story and performances pull it through. You get the feeling the journey is exactly how Alex had hoped, finding the people he would have preferred knowing when growing up; the parental fellow travellers Jan and Rainey (Catherine Keener & Brian Dierker), girlfriend (Kristen Stewart), boss (Vince Vaughn), friends (the semi-nudist random Swedes) and kind hearted, lovably cantankerous grandfather (Hal Holbrook). The soundtrack is amazing too.

Choose film 8/10

Dances with Wolves

Posted on August 1, 2011 by jaycluitt

After unintentionally becoming a hero when his suicide attempt becomes a mass charge against the enemy, Lt. John J. Dunbar (a be-whiskered Kevin Costner) is given his choice of location in the Union army, opting for a small, broken down post miles from anywhere, in order to “see the frontier before it’s gone.” When he saves a white woman adopted by their tribe as a girl, the local Native Americans take a shine to him, as he attempts to educate them of a civilised world, whilst they in turn teach him of their ways.

The plotting is formulaic and the pace is stodgy. There are some good performances (Graham Greene and Rodney A. Grant as the two most forthcoming members of the Sioux tribe), but this feels too bogged down in a history and culture more important to the American people than anyone else. Unforgivably, Costner beat Scorsese to the Best Director Oscar for Goodfellas, and it is extremely difficult to understand why.

Choose life 4/10

The Bourne Trilogy

Posted on July 31, 2011 by jaycluitt

Back in 2002, the espionage genre must have felt a little like Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne at the start of this trilogy, floating unconscious in the Mediterranean Sea with a bullet in the back after the abysmal CGI tsunami of Die Another Day and the shallow, clichéd hotchpotch of Mission Impossible 2, although they may have envied Bourne’s lack of memory. Thank the heavens then for the metaphorical fishing vessel of star Damon, director Doug Liman and writer Tony Gilroy for bringing this energetic affair to the screen, both setting up Damon as a bona fide action star and throwing the gauntlet at the feet of Bond and Ethan Hunt to step it up a gear (both of whom willingly accepting the challenge with Casino Royale’s gritty realism and MI3’s intelligent action).

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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage

Posted on July 28, 2011 by jaycluitt

With my pre-existing knowledge of Italian horror auteur Dario Argento – admittedly mostly garnered from watching Juno – I watched this apprehensively, ensuring the girlfriend – who scares easily – was out of the flat, and a sick bucket and towels were close to hand, lest the television begin leaking the copious flow of blood that would soon inevitably be filling up the screen. It is with a relieved sense of disappointment that I can confirm this is not a horror, more a suspense thriller, following a down on his luck American writer seeking inspiration in Italy, who witnesses an attempted murder whilst he is trapped between two sheets of glass. Discovering the attack was the handiwork of an active serial killer, he becomes obsessed with the case, up to the point where he is hunted by those who’d rather the killer remain unknown. Mostly following the standard crime whodunit formula, this effectively cranks up the suspense, but the goriness and brutality of the occasional murder jars with the largely sedate tone of the rest of the film. There are nice comedic touches – tracking down the man in the yellow jacket – and a collection of memorable oddball supporting characters including a stuttering pimp and a reclusive cat eating art collector, but this is little more than a sporadically bloodier version of A Touch of Frost.

Choose life 5/10

All That Jazz

Posted on July 28, 2011 by jaycluitt

Anyone seeking a straightforward musical, like Grease or Chicago, as was expected by this reviewer, would do well to seek elsewhere. A semi-autobiographical tale from director/writer/choreographer Bob Fosse, this shows musical director/writer/choreographer/everything else Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider) as he discusses his life with angel of death Jessica Lange. There are occasional songs and dance numbers, and parts of his life are exaggerated and dramatised on stage. To use the description given to one of Gideon’s own performances (a very surprising sequence referred to as Erotic-Air), this film is “interesting, very interesting…unusual, very unusual.” It is difficult to decipher which parts are really from Gideon’s life and which are distorted and rewritten via his own limitless, unburdened imagination, from his own growing up in a burlesque house, being teased by barely clad women from an early age, to becoming a pill-popping, heavy smoking, heavy drinking perfectionist self-proclaimed liar who is “generous with his cock,” through to ruthlessly directing himself on his death bed. This ambitious, and possibly achieves what it set out to do, yet you leave the film unsatisfied, unsure of what you’ve seen and what to make of it.

Choose life 4/10

Batman Begins

Posted on July 27, 2011 by jaycluitt

As the title suggests, this predominantly covers Batman’s origin story, from the death of his parents after he becomes scared at the theatre, through his training by Liam Neeson’s Ducard, his development of a crime-fighting persona and his confrontation with his former mentor in a city ridden with toxin-crazed criminals and madmen. This is arguably the most realistic, or at least vaguely plausible comic book movie ever made, with the only real superpowers on display being a gas that makes people insane and a ridiculously vast fortune to funs Bruce Wayne’s double lifestyle. Granted, the secret passage in Wayne Manor is operated by hitting a coded sequence of piano keys, but this can be forgiven, and is at least a variation from the classic sliding of a secret book on a shelf.
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Spiderman 1 & 2

Posted on July 26, 2011 by jaycluitt

Never has a film been more squarely aimed at the nerds and outsiders of the world (OK, maybe Revenge of the Nerds), the guys with the smarts but not the brawn, good looks, athletic bodies and hot girlfriends. Fortunately, this description neatly encapsulates the majority of the superhero genre’s existing fanbase.

Tobey Maguire is Peter Parker, the afore-mentioned science nerd with a prolonged crush on Kirsten Dunst’s girl-next-door MJ, but lacking the confidence, wealth, strength and social standing required to do anything about it. After being bitten by a radioactive spider during a class field trip, he acquires some of the spider’s abilities, including wall crawling, mild precognition, shooting webs from his wrists, a vastly improved body and the ability to dangle from the ceiling into your mouth while you sleep. In real life, spider’s shoot the webs from an aperture closer to their posterior. This would have made for a much stranger film, I feel. Unfortunately, Parker’s transformation occurs around the same time as Parker’s lazy rich kid best friend Harry’s businessman father trials a new super serum on himself, with predictably disastrous results, transforming him into a suped-up madman, terrorising the city in the form of fan favourite villain the Green Goblin.

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