Bridesmaids

(A Few Words)

Here's a fact: last year, Universal Studios, responsible for distributing Bridesmaids, had its best ever year, raking in nearly $1.4 billion in revenue.

Here's another 'fact': I've never seen Girls, I despised the whole concept of SatC and I quite fancied New Girl but didn't watch any in the end.

Here's a (rhetorical) question based on the two statements above: am I contributing to the continuing fusion of capitalism and conservative patriarchy?

 

TV and film matters. Maybe not as much as literature, or at a push music. History and technology are continually playing a large part here. But it is influential, it's trendsetting, and it's become a stimulator for conversation between dozens of interlinking social groups.

A small exercise: try to remember the last time you started a conversation with 'Have you seen' or 'Did you see'. Pretty easy isn't it? No surprise then, based on all of the above, that film makes a massive, massive amount of money through its central position in our daily existences. We don't need a number to tell us that's undeniably true.

It's not a small jump to suggest that an industry with that much traction gets a say in shaping what others think of each other. That's also a given - and that's mainly why I felt a bit guilty about Bridesmaids. I loved it - and then realised why. I'd never seen anything else like it.

Watching a film is supposed to be fun, so no one considers the implications when they buy  their ticket for whatever they're watching. And why should they? I don't want someone scrutinising my viewing choices (unless it's on here of course).

But going back to that last question: am  I, alongside a broad percentage of the male population, reinforcing a certain 'oeuvre', thereby eschewing a different set of films entirely, by 'opting out'? The $64,000 dollar question here, however, is of a chicken-egg nature: does audience influence output, or visa versa?

 

Take directors - the executors of 'Hollywood's' creations. A 2013 Neilson report highlighted the more or less even gender split in moviegoers in the US over three years. But the top ten highest grossing films in 2013 were all made by men. In 2012, only Kathryn Bigelow made the financial cut.

 

Whilst I'm not suggesting directors like David O. Russell or Steve McQueen are perpetuating a male capitalist hegemony (first and last outing for that phrase) it is coming from somewhere. Women are watching as many movies as men - so what are the reasons for the dramatic imbalance?

 

It could be something to do with genre. Neilson also notes that the most popular genre of film in 2012 was action/adventure, with 61% of moviegoers seeing at least one within the year. Discounting arthouse, musical and re-releases, the three genres least viewed by moviegoers was romances, kids/family films and romantic comedies with less than 25% people watching in each case. It's not unreasonable to suggest two out of three of these genres appeal to women more than men, although it is mighty difficult to prove.

 

Nonetheless there seems to be a correlative relationship there of sorts. Of course it's ridiculous to suggest women don't enjoy action films or comedies and there's obvious perils when matching men and women to film genres. So here's the part that can't be measured - at least accurately, or with any degree of impartiality: is there a top-down assumption on what men and women find funny?

I don't believe that marketing bods in Universal et al are out to reverse women's suffrage through the form of cinema. That was a joke. But budgets and spending constitute risk by necessity - and there are some huge budgets for films out there. And risk is only really assessed based on two composites. The first is unassailable knowledge - that is, empirical fact. Not even 'it is raining'. That's ultimately subjective, based on language, geography. I mean granular, like 'water is wet'. 

The other is effectively educated guesswork, increasingly done through algorithms, increasingly placed in the hands of the customer. That's obvious and everywhere. And that's where the really knotty question lies. We have almost no empirical truths left, beyond those that are irrelevant due to their mundane nature. Another day of existence invariably means progress of some sort in a particular field on inquiry.

So when people watch a film like Bridesmaids and argue over the reasons for its success, much of it does boil down to the fact it is an apparently honest appraisal of women in the real world, behaving normally. But how did Universal reach the decision that that was all it took for an economically successful film?

Tick a couple of obvious questions off: how many films are there like Bridesmaids? Of that pretty small pot, how many were successful and translated well culturally? How many of the actresses have a big following in media? Who was the director? Do they have cultural traction? Are you any closer to a definitive answer? Speaking objectively, it's a miracle this film actually got made, because none of those questions are definitive in any sense.  

The question is pretty obvious: how do you change a setup that's almost entirely based on perspective? Here's a more provocative question: when your best, most accurate consumer research is completed for you every day by consumers, with the author as such making almost no autonomous decisions based on the above, is the industry really the issue here? In a nutshell: is your audience unconsciously preserving a male-dominated industry through its economic decisions?

 

Of course that's all pretty obvious. So here's my solution: formative years are the most important. We should get as many kids watching women screaming about bleaching private orifices as they can. Want to see more films like Bridesmaids? Get films like Bridesmaids into schools. I'm only being a tiny bit flippant.

 

Thanks to artsclash for that awesome comic pic

 

 

 

OSCAR CHAT

 

TWENTY EIGHT OUT OF SIX HUNDRED is less than 5%. Other things that are less than 5%:

• The number of voting members of AMPAS that are black.

Steve McQueen stands a great chance of becoming just the 29th black man or woman to win an Academy Award, and the first to win a Best Director award. Since the inaugural awards, there have been 600 Oscars handed out. Having suggested a nomination for handsome Hollywood hero Robert Redford here last week I now feel a bit embarrassed to have overlooked this weirdly archaic statistic. It seems difficult to believe that not a single black director has won an Oscar - in the entire history of the Academy Awards, only four films made by a black director have been nominated.

There are two ways to look at this. The first concerns the above numbers; whilst no one (i.e. me) is suggesting the Academy is institutionally racist, another statistic on their makeup is pertinent: more than half of the makeup are sixty or older. America has changed dramatically since 1953, when Sarah Keys became the first African American to challenge the 'separate but equal' race law in Carolina. That's important. From a demographic perspective it's hard to suggest America's rewarding it's film-making talent. Incidentally, McQueen is British.

The second is a knottier question and therefore a little more difficult to answer. How many films made by black directors deserved to win an Oscar? And, one step back, how many black film directors are there working in the industry? It's knottier because there are smaller considerations that flow into bigger subjects like national politics and macroeconomic policy, and those considerations are much harder to quantify.

For example: the age old debate on equality of opportunity and how that affects career trajectories. The US Social Security Administration (SSA) recently released data showing more than half of Americans earn below $30,000 pa, which is about $3,000 above the 'federal poverty line' (the line delineates who is in living in poverty and who isn't). That was for 2012. As this heat map shows, many Americans in the South live below the poverty line. The US Census Bureau suggests the majority of African Americans live in cities and suburbs within the South (although the suburbs are undoubtedly more affluent than they once were). CNN Money thinks the average public college education (i.e. open to all) is $8,200 pa per student. So allowing for a reasonable margin of error, a good percentage of African Americans will never get to college, and therefore find a door to film-making closed. And that's just part of the question - why are they in that position in the first place?

Demographics do make a huge difference - the most recent American census put the African American population of the US around 12%, so naturally more white Americans will be getting the opportunity to make an Oscar-winning film. But 12% of 381 million people is just under 45 million people - that's the equivalent of Ukraine or South Africa. It also doesn't answer the much more subjective question of quality - how many black directors are making Oscar-worthy films?

So in short, there does seem to be something wrong with the current set-up - but how much of that is in the Academy's hands is difficult to say. One final and interesting thing: the four previously nominated films made by black directors/ producers are The Color Purple, Precious, Django Unchained and The Blind Side. For anybody who's seen those films, there's a certain underdog theme to each, and three explicitly concern slavery. I think the Academy's right to promote these films as great social commentaries but they should be broadening the net more - it does ask an awkward question of what the voters are interested in watching.

Pic from Shetland Arts

 

ALL IS LOST

 **A FEW THOUGHTS**

This was the second of two films I saw last week which focused on imperilled humans at the mercy of their environment. The other film was Gravity, which I posted about below.

Sarah and I discussed both films whilst eating delicious (healthy) Malaysian food at Ning NQ, in Manchester. She hasn't seen either film and does not want to, which I think is a pragmatic reaction to two scenarios which I found very unpleasant to watch.

Sarah said she felt like being adrift in the ocean was much more preferable to space and I am inclined to agree, but on reflection, it seems the defining factors have an air of irrelevance about them. I found myself thinking again that most of the universe, including the planet Earth, is totally intolerant to human life.

I really admired the way JC Chandor set his tale up - with (what may be) the ending at the start of the tale. Throughout this, I kept returning to:

~How do people understand and process a tragedy in their lives?~

As the viewer, did I pity Redford's character because I (thought I) knew of his fate? If I'm under no illusions as to the ending, is the emotional journey more or less satisfying? The main reason I loved this is down to Redford. He invests so much into the character and creates connections with an audience through a full appreciation of, and reaction to, his environment. Another thing I unconsciously noted about All Is Lost is how out of touch almost all American cinema is with its surroundings. You could probably do World War Z in a music hall in the Caribbean, it's that focused in on itself.

Robert Redford should win Best Actor at the Oscars, no doubt. I also think JC Chandor should win Best Director, but with him, McQueen and Cuaron all up for the same thing I don't think the Academy people will make the 'right' choice. History is heavy. Now I have said that Scorsese will win again.

One award I do feel the film will walk away with is the cinematography and sound. It is gloriously expansive, and approaches its human subject in an almost alien manner - the wide underwater lenses observe Redford's plight impassively, almost benignly, from below the ocean surface. It looks and sounds like the world is watching itself.

I did feel the practical attentions of Redford really upped the ante emotionally. Lots of people have come out and claimed the science is bogus in Gravity but what mattered for me there was the fragility and the expertly unravelled storyline, as Ryan's paradox regarding her loneliness is revealed. Just watching Redford pack away glassware and wash items before the coming storm created a tangible, scary foreboding that many directors could learn from. And that's not mentioning the ordeal suffered in his lifeboat following the storm.

This is a great film and, I feel, ought to be remembered in years to come. It is lean, subtle, beautifully shot and will reduce you to an emotional wreck. A must see.

Pic thanks to Athena Cinema, Athens.

 

G     R     A     V     I     T     Y

It was as good as everyone said. I saw Gravity once everyone had come back down to Earth (yes I did that) about the astonishing special effects, the knuckle-shredding tension, the superlative performance from Sandra Bullock (I know!) which will probably see her up for another Oscar.

The biggest draw for me, though, was the 3D element. I have seen four films (I think) in 3D. Gravity is the fourth and so far it's the only one to do anything interesting with the format. And interesting is probably putting it lightly. It was great to feel so directly involved with something, watching a film that made superior use of its environment, much like All Is Lost in fact.

Leaving aside the physics and the chemical side of things, I feel like Cuaron handled the 'space is the ultimate metaphor for the human condition' thing adroitly. Ryan's loneliness is the mirror image of Matt's; but Cuaron riffs on the same sensation through both of them in smart, character-building ways. Matt bounces around the vast nothingness as he tells his story about floating, alone, through the crowded streets of Mardi Gras trying to find his lost love; Ryan stays attached to the dock, focusing down on the one thing in front of her, in the same way that she does with her daughter.

Cuaron finds ways to create drama in a lean, clinical fashion. He has excellent manners when creating drama. He also employs action at strategic intervals like he is conducting an orchestra. The crash sequence is astonishing and has to be seen on a big screen; nothing else will do it justice. This might be the best film I never buy on DVD.

I don't know why Cuaron has been called out for bogus science by those in the know: this seems stupid and self-effacing by those who've said so. Of significantly more interest were the remarks made by overtly Christian writers who suggested a belief in (a) God in the film. Ryan's numerous monologues do appear to be referring to an unconscious belief in someone/thing that's not present: but as the admirably brief intro makes clear, an inhospitable environment's the natural catalyst for humans to reconnect with their absent brethren too. I felt like Cuaron took the humanist route in his treatment of Ryan's grief and both sides should probably feel there's some merit in the others perspectives. Which I suppose is pretty much humanism in a nutshell.

Besides those elements the running time was a pleasant and effective surprise, lending some urgency to the whole enterprise and giving a 'real time' element to the story.

This is also the first time I've loved watching Sandra Bullock in something - her Ryan was full of faults, imprecise in the most unforgiving of environments, and blinded by emotion for her colleague and daughter, both absent to some extent. But getting mad somehow seemed brutally careless - as Peter Bradshaw said, this is the first space film happening now, with real live humans, rather than the past or future, with a faceless android, or a Vulcan. As such empathy was a much more direct sensation - easy, familiar, and it gave the film a powerful directness.

The best expression of Gravity's effects? Afterwards I craved familiarity. Much as Ryan squeezes wet soil between her fingers following re-entry, I wandered around Manchester in the rain, glasses in my bag. You'll never want to go into space again. 

(Pic from Alt Film Guide)

Twenty fourteen (2014) will be EXCITING. If you want it to be. I want it to be. Here's what I'm excited about.

Lord of the Flies - in ballet

 

That's right. Matthew Bourne, him of the winningly solid pudgeface (not a word but it ought to be) and sixth form gelled fringe brings Golding's societal piece to the stage. I know almost nothing about ballet, besides watching a very impressive Natalie Portman performance in the very impressive Black Swan back in 2011, but I've caught snippets of Bourne's version of that (check out the trailer here) which I wish I'd seen live as it looks excellent.

Equally LotF was never one of the books I got to read at school but I've since atoned for that criminal gap in my formal education and am 'intrigued' to say the least what he will do with characters like Piggy. Extra incentive, if needed: it starts round the corner from me at the Lowry Theatre in Salford.

The Premier League

 

Being a Manchester City fan, I've enormously enjoyed the first half of this English season, watching a renascent side destroy opposition defences (my highlights, since you asked, were the 6-3 v Arsenal, the 3-2 v Bayern away, and of course that first Davey Moyes derby) at home.

But it's no real wonder the Premier League managed to blow even its own astonishing rights deals out of the water when there is finally some sporting drama on Saturdays again. Who's going down? Who will win the league? Will Levy keep Sherwood? What is going on with Mata? Will Thud go to the World Cup? And will Luis Suarez ever just bundle one in off his arse? The quality's great, but the stories are many, varied and seemingly endless. We might not see another one like it for a bit, so catch it if you can.

Dave Eggers does Bill Bryson

One of my favourite ever books a historical collection of food writing, in all of its literary forms, in The New Yorker magazine. Composed of pieces by writers, not cooks or chefs, I quickly realised that you don't need to know your subject as much as needing to know how to write - but some subject knowledge is important.

I'm guessing 'some' is precisely the right amount for Dave Eggers. The novelist formally collects his memoirs of his trips to Thailand, the Sudan and the northeastern states of America amongst many, many others into Visitations, a piece of work I will presume to contain more than its fair share of breezy metaphysical rhetoric slung around  'some' interesting perspectives on, say, mini shrines on the street corners of Bangkok.

Obviously Eggers is known for his forays into parts of the world untouched by much of the professional writing class, and his sharp eye and goofy wit will undoubtedly bring to life much of a planet still perused through the 'World' section of broadsheet newspapers.

Visitations is out in November 2014

The Men Are Back In Town

 

To misquote Thin Lizzy, but it sort of feels like they never left. The hardest woikin' band 'n sho'bidness has got to be these guys right now, who are on for their fifth album in as many years in between tours. Anybody can knock an album together in under a fortnight - several bands made it sound like a skill in the early noughties - but The Men's range has broadened in parallel with their ever-longer tours, and New Moon is a soulful echo of Neil Young's early years, without losing their belt and braces steely punk sound around the fringes. For a band that appears hellbent on challenging normal concepts of time, the record's title - Tomorrow's Hits - feels entirely appropriate.

*!* Tomorrow's Hits is released on Sacred Bones Records *!*

An Oscars Worthy of an Academy Award

 

For those complaining that the Academy Awards is getting carried away with populism, the decision to drop the aforementioned name last year and replace it with the catchier and more vacuous 'Oscars' was the proverbial red rag. OK so: I enjoyed Silver Linings and Bradley Cooper is deceptively good at this acting stuff. I admit it.

Anyone still out there?

Anyway, onto the American mantel goes Oscar next to buddies Tony and Emmy (what's up with a Golden Lion guy?) and does the debate over whether this is an awards or an entertainment product intensify? Who knows and it's probably a silly argument anyway - the irony won't be lost on anyone when the inevitable drama ensues from some no-hoper claiming the Oscars 'has lost its allure'. All except the Americans of course, who we all know have never understood irony, as long as Woody Allen and Jerry Seinfeld have lived. 

But! What is this garbage, I hear you mumble. Fair point. And now I'll come to it: this year, more than any I can ever remember, I'm sort of excited. Alright, another David O. Russell film (see above for my swooning heart). BUT. What about Steve McQueen, riding into the postmodern American West, hat not on head, cardie round shoulders, shorts above knees, with a film so deserving of superlatives that you can actually use them without fear of unintentional hilarity. Tremendous. Magnificent. Etc. 12 Years A Slave looks rich with promise - and who doesn't want to hear a Steve McQueen acceptance speech?

Elsewhere another of my favourite guys - Alfonso Cuaron - might win something for Gravity (and Sandra Bullock could win another Oscar. Yeah.) And what of films like Blue Is The Warmest Colour, Blue Jasmine, and All Is Lost? Not to mention interesting curios like Upstream Color and Only God Forgives. You can probably count the last two out, sadly. Nevertheless there is - finally - justification for that furious Monday morning scowl and four espressos from your local café after an all nighter getting passionate, alone, with Mr Oscar. About damn time.

Pix thanx to Douban, Style Weekly, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and Sky Sports.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Upon seeing The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, here and forever known as Mitty, It seems as though I broadly disagreed with my favourite source of film trivia and news. But I don't think I'm in the minority here, although I do feel like Peter Bradshaw was excessively mean-spirited towards my birthday - sorry, the film. Which I saw on my birthday.

And of course that explains the general hurt anyone feels when someone or something they respect and have faith in turns on them, however misplaced those sensations are. For Walter Mitty, the titular protagonist, this represents a moment to get on a skateboard and walk out of an office to Arcade Fire. A touch harsh? Well maybe.

This Mitty, the second on screen following Danny Kaye's 1947 version, is played by a Ben Stiller who I will describe as handsome and mild-mannered, neither of which are qualities that particularly stand out in films I really enjoy watching over again.

Mitty is a 21st century version of the character from writer James Thurber's whimsical, sentiment-free short story. He is the sad and logical end of the man who began the start of the 20th century dreaming of conquering the Nazis (as the original Mitty does) and begins the 21st agonising over whether to wink at a pretty lady on a dating site; eHarmony, which is a real thing. The film's got more where that came from - Papa John's also play a big role as Mitty's employer in an earlier, more miserable life. Kickstarter's not for everyone it seems.

The lady, Cheryl, is played by Bridesmaids' Kristen Wiig, and prompts numerous fantasy elements to be introduced to the viewer as Mitty dives into buildings, rescues kittens, walks out of the Antarctic with a weird Latin accent and a parrot and various other bemusing moments.

But the really interesting parts are not the humorous bits. Adam Scott plays Ted, a brand junkie, management-speak-extraordinaire who exudes horrible from every pore as the man come to wreck Mitty's life following the closure of Life the magazine and the opening of Life the website, with the commensurate number of jobs to be shed in the name of 'cost effectiveness'.

Scott is a disgusting guy and the scenes he is in are a delight to watch - for me it also included the best fantasy as Mitty beats the crap out of Ted whilst both are waiting in the lift. The bone of contention? A Stretch Armstrong toy. It betrayed a goofiness in Stiller's direction that I always liked about his other films and just because it is something he has excelled in previously, I don't think it's a good enough reason to try something else.

Other highlights include the floor huddle where the unfortunate Life staff are informed of their doom - think The Office with added awkward as hand signals and weird emphasis on stuff make for richly satisfying viewing and a charming short scene where Mitty demonstrates incredible skills with a skateboard in the background as the woman he dreams of chats to her ex-husband. I think the stunt double for that scene is Rodney Mullen, incidentally.

The rest of the film follows Mitty as he traverses around northern Europe and the Middle East in search of the aptly named Sean O'Connell, a Life freelance photographer who kicked the whole shebang off back in America with a missing photo, the last to ever grace the Life cover and one that each party within the film is quite interested in. Ted's interested because he'll get shouted at if he doesn't get it. Cheryl is because she needs something to keep talking to Mitty about, and Mitty - well, Mitty because he hasn't really been anywhere but Phoenix, as he tells eHarmony's customer services team, and he basically needs to get the hell on with his life.

The cinematography is absolutely great, there's a lovely scene where Stiller skateboards down the side of a volcano, a very well filmed oceangoing scene with what may be a porpoise or a shark, and a moment with Sean Penn, a good fit for the rugged photographer who Mitty sets out to reach for the accursed photo number 25, which is totally predictable and so easy for Penn he practically sleepwalks his way through, but it's nice to watch two actors doing their own thing.

The film's moments of naturalism blow away the more absurd, intricately concocted elements and I particularly enjoyed the scenes that are not really integral to the story. There's truth in Stiller's work when he does not force the pace, and a lot of this bears the look of a guy forcing it as a fairly green director.

That might feel a little unfair, but it seems as though much of the heart of the original is held up to a clever-clever 21st century perspective that just doesn't possess the same throwaway intellect as its predecessor. A shame, particularly as I'm only 29 once.

Photo: The Guardian

Review: Only God Forgives

Pouts, prostitutes and 'pornographic violence' abound in Ryan Gosling's vaguely interesting new film

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a favourite of film director Nicolas Winding Refn. In an interview with the Director's Guild of America, he described it as the definitive formative moment of his career, when he decided on his choice of role in the film industry. He describes the film itself as 'not a normal movie.'

As far as the 1970s go, it can be considered the great show-off movie. From the title right through to the brain-splattered ending, there's an almost tangible relish in it's unrelenting attitude, never more visible than in the shocking violence done to other people.

As the director of the Pusher trilogy, Bronson and Valhalla Rising, it's not really surprising to hear Refn's such a fan. In the same interview he describes how he railed against his parents love of French nouvelle vague. It seems he's been railing against that ever since by directing films that are heavy on violence of both the physical and emotional kind.

All those years of Street Fighter 2 were finally justified

Only God Forgives assumes a similarly unambiguous intent. The title calls on big themes: redemption, errors past and present and perhaps some sort of collision between good and evil. Say it out loud - it needs a movie trailer voice behind it. It belongs in the oeuvre of the western or samurai film. It is another example of Refn's very conspicuous sense of style.

And broadly it does trade on those themes, but this is a film heavy on atmosphere but little in the way of story, and even less character. It appears Refn wants to challenge himself first, then his audience, in making a film with no discernible development, only intimated through the above. It also appears there's a funny joke to be had about the rebellious son unconsciously turning into his parents.

Some of it works spectacularly well; the opening, a sweaty, pugilistic scene of intensely violent Muay Thai boxing, is set to thrumming percussion and a swelling bass which brings the heat and pressure to life better than any spoken word. Cliff Martinez, responsible for scoring the superior Drive, deserves lots of credit for an immersive auditory experience.

And Refn's use of colour and place is also exceptional. Ryan Gosling, playing Julian, one half of a drug-smuggling-sibling duo, resides in an apartment saturated in a hellish red with gods carven into grand furniture. Gosling's almost catatonic passivity throughout the majority of the film is amplified by this looming, macho environment.

The fun (my term) starts when Julian's brother Billy rapes and murders a young prostitute and is then murdered himself by the deceased's vengeful father. What follows is a domino-effect tale of revenge as characters are savagely disposed of to get to the film's rock-hard nub of a core.

The film teems with fascinating elements; Kristin Scott Thomas repulses as Crystal, a grief-stricken mother whose relationship with Julian's brother appears Oedipal. In one deeply surreal scene, Crystal infers to his partner that Julian has an inferiority complex based on the size of his brother's penis. Julian's one-man mission to avenge a brother he felt deserved to die suggests a similar Oedipal feeling in the younger brother.

The mainstay of Only God Forgives, and the reason it doesn't completely collapse in a mess of half-explored psychodramas, comes in the form of the 'Angel of Death' Lt Chang, played with insuperable hardness by Vithaya Pansringam. A looming, vaguely atavistic presence, Chang expounds brutal and clinical retribution on those he deems as sinners, regardless of guilt in the eyes of the law, which appears to be a useful enabler for his police officer role.

As is Refn's objective wont, there are no real good and bad guys throughout, only those who have forgotten their morals through violent compromise. Cops are blasted near in half; in one memorably unpleasant scene, an ally of Julian's is staked to his armchair by tongs, then has his eye and ear removed with unflinching efficacy.

And of course Julian himself is nearly pounded into mincemeat by Chang in a scene that, once it gets going, is thrillingly good to watch. Timeliness is a major issue with Only God Forgives; almost 50% of the film is completely silent and no one moves or indeed does anything at all.

As others better qualified have pointed out, there's a good chance that if David Lynch, say, had directed this, we may all be saying something quite different (but this would probably be a radically different film in execution too). And it has prompted some histrionic adjectives; 'sadistic and voyeuristic' from the Mail, 'pornographically violent, neon-dunked nightmare' from the Telegraph. Anything described so loudly is surely worth a look.

But when you can leave a newspaper open to suggesting 'that being a star means you don't have to act anymore, you can just stand there looking moody,' it doesn't really matter what anyone else says. You probably don't have a very good film on your hands. Perhaps they should have brought a chainsaw.

Picture courtesy of  The Daily Telegraph

Frances Ha: Review

Greta Gerwig is wonderful in a film that's tantalising and frustrating in equal measure

There's a great rolling scene in Frances Ha that offers a crystal clear insight into the ethos of both the character and by extension her film. It's the one where Frances, played by Baumbach's wife Greta Gerwig, careens down a New York street ahead of an approaching bus as David Bowie's Modern Love plays over everything.

Frances is smiling and certainly not running; that would imply an exertion that lacks from her existence, but neither is she lazy; rather, like Bowie's lonely, self-sufficient character, her determination to succeed on her own terms makes hers a lonely furrow to plough.

Greta Gerwig gives a standout performances in Frances Ha

The eponymous focal point of this chewy and slightly gooey film, Frances and her spunky backing group of young, hip New Yorkers chatter, eat, drink and are never discontent, despite her stasis in the ballet company she can't get into, her lack of living space and her spiky, loving friendship with publisher Sophie, a performance par excellence by Mickey Sumner.

The film is divided into a series of scenes framed by Frances' living space of choice; she begins by not moving in with her boyfriend and then leaving him, living with Sophie before Sophie moves in with boyf Patch, moving on to Lev and Benji, a charming pair of New York bohos with aspirations they can't quite catch hold of (Benji and Frances are a particularly cute fit as a result) and then, in moves increasingly forced by lack of income, into shared accommodation with a more successful colleague and finally returning to the school she studied at to complete a homecoming of sorts.

That vignette quality never quite goes away and as much as Gerwig creates a wonderfully deep character over the course of the film it's therefore quite difficult to escape from Baumbach's bittersweet concocted world. More so as the whole thing is shot in black and white.

Superficial it ain't but the film's stylistic qualities ironically make it harder for it to seep into the viewer's conscience - whilst there's an immediately obvious Woody Allen reference in the monochrome style, it does very consciously turn in on itself, with the consequence of judging on a lesser set of characteristics.

I hugely enjoyed the performances, particularly Greta Gerwig who's able to convey a thousand disappointments in one brash defensive gesture. At a post-Christmas meal back in New York when, sat with a group of settled, successful lawyers and bankers, Frances quickly gets drunk and starts making the sort of jokes she enjoyed with her now-absent friend Sophie, you quickly and easily empathise with her gloom. Later Frances tries to capture the group's existence - a group she had not met before that night - with a rambling, woozy yet almost poetic speech. Baumbach conveys the audience's sense of pity and wonder perfectly.

Despite the actor and her husband director's best efforts though, this struggles to shake off the weight of the films it harks to. You'll enjoy it, but you might, as Frances does, want to dawdle and watch, rather than keep on running.

Picture courtesy of Mockingbird.com

This Film Is Brought To You By DHL.

World War Z offers more evidence Hollywood should leave the project managers to Barclays and Coca-Cola

Vanity Fair recently ran a piece on tortured zombie thriller World War Z. Refreshingly free of tabloid metaphor, it shone the light on a movie which had turned out to be spectacularly difficult to create, which resulted in some high up people decided meant that it would arrive at cinemas much like its subject. Cue rewrites, a recut ending and a meeting between actor/backer Brad Pitt and scriptwriter/gun-for-hire Damon Lindelof in a faintly Lynchian sequence.

The main thrust of the article gave precedence to 'budget', 'location' and 'different motivations' as explanatory reasons for the failure of WWZ to successfully coalesce as one piece. A rationale that seems a little out of place for a film and more in keeping with, say, a logistics company, or a multinational media conglomerate.

'Wales? No way am I shooting in Wales!'

Not to be trusted with money by themselves it seems, directors are handed consultant-type figures to refer to in monetary matters. Because of the new 'virgin' talent walking into the industry, often directing films with massive budgets after one or two successful (much smaller) films, their effective handlers keep an eye on times, finances and other such things. One such figures was touted as the man 'who brought Michael Bay in on time and under budget.' You have to wonder what Bay's job is if it isn't splashing enormous sums of cash on special effects (I thought that was his raison d'etre, to be honest) because he's certainly pretty negligent at the directing stuff based on films like Transformers 2.

Why does a film require a project manager? Why do 'budget and logistics' hobble a movie before it has got going? It's pretty much one thing: perception of what its audience wants.

Attempts to create an Eiffel Tower out of people were going well.

It seems that boredom is the ever-present core of movies like World War Z. You can hear marketing, cinematographers and special effects co-ordinators triangulating in on the oversaturated consciousness of the moviegoer. Bored? Look at this! Still bored? We've got more of it, in a different country. Ah, that's perked you up. How about this?

None of this solves a terrible script, and guess what? World War Z hasn't fared well, critically.
Like the 'Z' of the title, it shambles into areas it has no previous experience of and feels patched up - probably because it was written by at least two different people.

But commercially it's done fine - well done to all you second-line departments who came together when the script turned out to be a turkey. And WWZ won't be the last big-budget film ($210-$250 million according to Slate's sources) to swim on its less artistic merits.

Demand v supply is a chicken and egg argument at its heart, but the effect of thousands of extras running up a hill like ants attacking a dead animal in Malta (above) is not necessarily rabid demand for more of the same. But it does involve some difficult decisions being made about who's really making a movie.

Pictures courtesy of io9.com and justjared.com

Picture Perfect

The success of Rear Window hinges on the everyman qualities of Jimmy Stewart

When questioned once about his approach to acting, Jimmy Stewart suggested one of the most important things was 'to try not to make the acting show.' At first glance the prosaic nature of the remark's only unusual when considering the undoubted depth of the man who said it.

But it's misleading to take at face value. A man who nearly avoided movies altogether to complete a masters in architecture at Princeton would have understood the importance of form and structure, and why an edifice owes as much to the ground it was founded upon as the more subtler aspects.

For a long time I thought this guy represented the quintessential icon of American popular culture; a post war icon, encapsulating family, small town patriotism and conservatism with a small c that was conscientious enough to listen to the liberal voice in its ear. I've been pleasantly surprised to find the evidence to this superficial perspective has sat on my rapidly crumbling shelf (never buy MDF folks. Life lesson right there).

Stewart, kind of appalled, kind of fascinated at once

Although I've owned his films for over a decade, it's fair to say I've only recently become a Jimmy Stewart fan. When I say recently, I really mean in the last week. The film that did the trick was Hitchcock's Rear Window, one of numerous films I own by the rotund Essex gentleman who by everyone's estimate was decades ahead of his contemporaries in understanding the psychology of film (more there shortly). I'm not the first nor best qualified to claim it as a masterpiece, but there you go - there's no sense in disputing it, certainly from these quarters.

Stewart seems an interesting guy full stop. He did Frank Capra's films - many of which I also own (including that one) but before dismissing his work as dreamy sentimentalism, watch them again. Anyone who's a bit of a Capra enthusiast understands the inferences - he knows, as well as his audience, that something fundamental is being lost as the film is being watched; that it's impossible to exist in the nigh-blissful scenes that his characters do and consequently that these films will remain films forever more. I don't believe Frank Capra wasn't really interested in capturing reality - his sniffier supporters might suggest he was better than that. I prefer to think he saw enough reality in real life.

Back to the subject. Stewart is the archetypal Capra protagonist - not naïve but big-hearted, straightforward yet not cruel towards men, and seeming to exist within a moral code miraculously unspoken throughout. These elements are almost believable in his acting, amongst the best I've seen. But Hitchcock made him into something a little different.

Rear Window's a clever piece of work and a more cynical perspective of community life within a major city - witness the emotional outpouring in the dead dog scene for confirmation of Hitchcock's rejection of the Capra code. But Stewart really nails the picture as an everyman with an eye for the narrative thanks to a time and life-consuming job as a magazine photographer. Slowly Stewart sloughs off the shell of disinterested citizen, becoming the recorder and narrator of blithe and unassuming community existing together in a steamy apartment block. Fascination's the seed of the carapace that grows apparently organically over the mundaneness of his lonely wheelchair-bound existence.

Between takes in Stewart's Greenwich apartment

But what prompted the fascination to grow? David Thomson writes really engagingly about a subconscious awakening in American pop culture upon the release of Psycho, the undertones of sexuality, gender and violence providing nourishment to a blooming voyeurism planted by an increasingly pervasive media, mainly thanks to TV. That film was released six years after Rear Window, but you can see the tendrils slowly yet inexorably enfeebling Stewart's perspective to be replaced by one which is created, prescribed and received as gospel.

In spite of that I guess what I most enjoy about this is the general vibe of relentlessness with which Stewart sets Jefferies up in every aspect of his confined life. There's a real element of self-preservation inherent in Stewart which naturally comes from his day job (nb as you'd expect the attention to detail in every aspect of Vertigo is fantastic) but he too is a product of his environment; his class-dominated perspective is a metaphorical straitjacket for him to both defend himself with and attack from. That broken leg is more than broken bones - a literal symbol of L.B's postwar attitude to life, both comfortable with and railing against a society fracturing with every passing world event (detail!)

Grace Kelly, the syrupy-voiced faux-celebrity girlfriend is absolutely brilliant at adapting to his stoic attitude and puncturing holes in his bullish demeanour - more than once it seems there's a boxing match going on between a heavyweight fighter and a quicker, nimbler counterpart who weaves in between the crushing blows. Her opening scene recounting her 'working day' - and Stewart's bored reaction - is hilarious. Both parties seek to concoct stories for L.B's neighbours, L.B in particular appearing almost pathologically addicted to narrative and coherence.

Of course the interest lies in whether his stories bear out the truth or crumble, and it's interesting to observe the camera watch its protagonists. And therein lies the second point, neatly wrapped up by Kelly just when it appears (spoiler!) the villain of the piece will escape unpunished. "Whatever happened to that old saying, 'Love thy neighbour'?" she quips as the corpse of L.B's neighbour's dog is ceremoniously withdrawn into the apartment amid wailing and recriminations. Hitchcock couldn't have guessed how television would make fleeting stars out of the everyday people in his flats and apartments but the draping of fictitious narrative over a real life is amazing to watch - this film is nearly 60 years old but feels as contemporary as ever.

A brief word on the camerawork- it's been covered in more expansive and frankly better detail elsewhere but this is one of the only films I've ever seen that makes it explicitly clear that everything you are watching is being manipulated. The protagonist is a photographer. Many of the film's scenes include views from his binoculars/ camera lens.

But even outside that, Hitchcock achieves a sort of free indirect style with his camerawork, strongly inferring that the visuals reflect Stewart's own interests rather than his. For me that's the distinguishing mark of a masterpiece over merely very good. But even more, it's a demonstration of the talents of a man who understood - whether it was in film or architecture - never let the joins show. Maybe I'll take that on board when I buy my next shelving unit.

Pictures courtesy of The Lightning Bug's Lair and HHHHound.com

The Rise and Rise of the Living Dead

Why an empty vessel makes a brilliant metaphor. Too blasé?

Hordes of people are mindlessly grazing all over the planet. In New York, in the Midwest, in fictional towns in the north of England. And those hordes of people are being watched by other hordes of people, mindlessly grazing, all over the planet.

Zombies (of course!) have always had a particularly strong bond with their human brethren. In the age of phablets, multi-purpose televisions and '3D' films (now you don't have to use your eyes' ability to perceive depth!) we're arguably closer than ever to becoming the walking dead.

But that's enough Romero chat. Why the popularity? The Walking Dead, one of the most successful non-cable shows ever in the US, attracts so many viewers Barack Obama's electoral boffs placed ads before, during and after it (could be a very tongue-in-cheek statement by Democrats but I doubt that). World War Z, Hollywood's filming of the exceptionally popular Max Brooks novel has almost twenty million views on YouTube. And in the space recently vacated by Being Human BBC3 recently aired In The Flesh, a rather creepy bit of work examining a small northern town's reaction to the homecoming of a 'cured' zombie teenager to his doting parents and sort-of militant, mostly confused sister.

Steve Ovett: great in everything. Watch him everyone!

The last of these shows presented an interesting picture of a town suffering under the indifference of a London government predominantly concerned with the nation's towns and cities, with its citizens clubbing together to form poorly-armed bands of guerrilla fighters in an effort to protect them from the undead.

For anybody that saw it, there was plenty of interesting 'metaphorical action' here but my favourite part was the more social element. Roarton was obviously based on towns in the north of Britain and readers of the likes of John Harris will be particularly interested in the clear allusion to towns and cities like Bradford, Burnley and Sunderland, who have been on the receiving end of, essentially, experiments in cuts in public sector employment alongside private regeneration, as well as new migrants coming to work (or occasionally not) from mainland Europe in recent years.
But the bigger efforts gnawed a different nerve - fears that many are understandably afraid to confront. Romero's Living Dead series was mainly concerned with (hold your breath, long archaic terms ahead) globalised capitalist society, able to get whatever it wanted whenever and subsequently falling into a dazed stupor (breathe).
World War Z is much more interested in more everyday concerns that tap into deep, unrealised fears about government complacency and general competency to do the right things well for their populations. Relationships between nations on lots of levels - diplomatic, economic and military are examples of things that author Max Brooks chews over. It feels contemporary and the zombie saturation provides a great conduit for terrible dangers through relentless demonstrations of mindless and chaotic behaviour.

It's obvious why World War Z is attracting so much interest when you look at the underlying themes and compare to real life. Looking at political engagement for example tells a story. In the UK voting habits have changed dramatically as many voters from all walks of life become disengaged from a crust of society that is perceived as both self-interested and satisfied. There's also less votes recorded year on year relative to population growth. That's the sort of comment Brooks etched deeply into Z.



One of the scariest endings you'll ever see on film.

But that's enough of the boring stuff. It's unsurprising that it's sold almost a million copies but the satisfaction's derived from an inquisitive tone that's dare I say... sensible. Which is weird really, when every other zombie effort falls into straight horror/gore or non-too-subtle grabs for an intellectualism for saps. Sadly, the film looks like being a Brad Pitt disaster movie. Take some sunglasses - messages concerning themes of the above are likely to be delivered 'with bombast'. 

I'm sure many other genre buffs lament over similar points, but the sheer puerility of much of what's delivered in contemporary horror is dispiriting. Which is why I'm (tentatively) excited about the recent streak of entertainment based around zombies. OK so prosthetics have got better, but that's not really why it's so exciting. The original Rec (above right), although now nearly five years old, presents a brilliant dissection of a bitter, isolated group of people in contemporary Spanish society who rely on hearsay and gossip all delivered through the medium of reality TV. A lovely piece of work and subtly smart.
Of course there's a great chance I'll be making the same point in another five years, except this time with... what? Meyer has successfully eviscerated vampirism, presenting their fractured selves in public as ancient versions of contemporary society. And we had ghosts for a bit (oh hi Takashi Shimizu, got any re-remakes coming up?) which were very scary when done in a particular way (Japanese, poorly conditioned hair, female) Forget their tiresome supernatural forebears - I want zombies to take over the world. You might enjoy it.

 

McCONAUGHEY?

How Dazed and Confused taught me to appreciate the talents of Matthew McConaughey, actor and bongo extraordinaire

To think it started with a house arrest, bongo drums and nudity. And, inevitably, Wikipedia. My gradual reappraisal of Matthew McConaughey finally completed a full 180 last night upon witnessing his glorious turn in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, but I remember a more cynical time.

A time, admittedly, when I wore gym vests beneath polo shirts because I saw a guy do it in a hip-hop video and a time when I spent 45 minutes in video shops looking at their new releases and smirking knowingly at the film playing (Blockbuster Sidcup I mourn your passing. If I'd had money I'd have helped you out).

The film was the sports-betting sort-of-thriller Two For The Money, involving a very buff McConaughey outgruffing ultimate gruff-voiced shouty guy Al Pacino over American football stats. This was following on from SJP fronted rom-com Failure To Launch (which exec took a punt on that title, I hear you ask). The year was 2007, I was a peaky graduate and owned an armchair, a bed, a laptop, a cardboard box of homeware and a carload of books and music. Life was terrible.

McConaughey staring down Weird Al in less cool times

Naturally McConaughey was gonna get it. Classic Southern gentleman I thought - smouldering looks, a linebacker's physique and hair from a Vidal Sassoon ad. And that voice. Was he weaned on Bullett Bourbon? And just look at those films he was in. The two above were enough for me to convict in the court of cool. I was judge, jury and executioner. Young men are terrible people. But was McConaughey actually a douche? In 2007, in my Bench track jacket, gym vest and polo shirt combo (you could see the gym vest underneath hanging over my jeans - I was that bad) my unwavering response would be a smirking 'Are you serious?'

As you might have noticed I have a thing for re-evaluating my preconceptions. It's the price you pay for what I  like to think of as compassion and what my friends, family and workmates appreciate as an almost childlike naivety about life. There's a famous quote about adults preferring themselves as children that I can't be bothered Googling, but it's there and it's no doubt true.

Case in point: I recently saw Ben Affleck win a Best Picture for his 1970s set hostage art/reality thriller Argo (and suggested he was a shoo-in 24 hours earlier here) which capped my reappraisal of a guy I used to assume was also classic Hollywood douche, whatever that is. A lot of my preconceptions are based on what I read on blogs and in magazines. Do you get that?

Anyway, that opening line. Good isn't it? And it's true - my preconceptions did change once I read of McConaughey getting busted for being blazed to his eyeballs on pot hammering the hell out of bongos in the middle of the night. In the buff. I loved every aspect of his story, and what had led me to reconsider his talents? The trailer for Killer Joe of course.

I never saw Friedkin's deep-fried slice of queasy Americana, starring a distinctly creepy-eyed M.M as a hitman with unholy desires for his client's sister, but it interested me. What was a guy like this doing in a film like that?

So watching Dazed and Confused last night was akin to discovering a priest's hole in a stately home that led back to a chapel in the middle of nowhere. I suddenly understood how the man responsible for toecurlers like Ghost of Girlfriends Past and We Are Marshall had got to Killer Joe - a connection not immediately visible but definitely a permanent part of the architecture.

Beat that bowl cut/ moustache combo. Fact: you can't.

Of course there's a broader point here of recognising change in yourself and a natural broadening of perspective as you're exposed to more of the world blah blah etc etc but you all knew that anyway. The important element is the blonde mop the man sports (right) whilst wearing rolled up t-shirt, red trousers and a frankly excellent pair of boots that need to make a comeback in 2013, never mind 1976.

This guy's a revelation. I've no idea who Marjorie Baumgarten is but her take on his performance is spot on: "He is a character we're all too familiar with in the movies but McConaughey nails this guy without a hint of condescension or whimsy, claiming this character for all time as his own." As succinct an appraisal as you'll find, but a perfect description of the sincerity of his performance.

Condescension, I guess, is an emotion an actor can't feel if they want to know success (there's a clear parallel with the intro I constructed up there if you're interested) and his portrait of a jock delighted with his lot and a tangible sense of hedonism is brilliant. Incidentally Affleck also shows up, but as the bullying senior who flunked, he's still a bit of a loser at that stage. Different career arc for him, clearly.

Pictures courtesy of www.scoutlondon.com and screenrush.co.uk

I Don't Know Much About Celebrities But I Do Know I Like Watching Films About Moonshine And Weird Americans

Its landmarks, presidents and holiday destinations are well known to many. But increasingly -some would say equally - well known are its transient pop stars, craggy chat show hosts, Perez Hilton, cult religions. America makes a point of keeping people interested in it, for seemingly any reason it can find. Lots of people are interested in it for lots of reasons. Commerce, media, culture - some academics have made careers out of being professionally interested in it.

Andy Warhol for example. This guy changed the culture that they worked in in a big way - the 15 minutes, Campbell's soup - clever-clever conceits that shot a sly look at its ever-evolving visage, brought about by its postwar cultural influence. Film directors have tried to assemble some sort of construct of what the idea/brand/nation it is, looks like, how it feels to be there.

Point being of course that - there IS no definitive image, there are only the images of interest, which have done their own work in moving things around, bringing different aspects of an intense melting pot of ideas, an album of snaps showing the huge variety of focus.. There's been interest in:

• Great citizens (Kennedy, Lincoln, Malcolm X)
• Great historical events (countless WW2 films, Vietnam films, films about the civil rights movement, even - in Short Cuts - a film about the film industry in Hollywood)
• Films about the country's geography (Terrence Malick is king here)
• Thousands of marketing adverts masquerading as films (hi Jerry Bruckheimer, welcome to my blog)
• The anti-establishment (essentially the Coens and Malick but Payne, Russell to an extent - even Stillman) 

But few directors have made a critical and financial hit of filming its underbelly - the most powerful elements in the society today which no one can really remember not being there. They just sort of happened. Scorsese's the big fish in that pond, but he's mostly done the great mafia films, with their focus on old-world faiths married with new-world economics and materialism.

The other guy is Paul Thomas Anderson. During his career so far he's turned his lens towards various parts of the unwashed American anatomy; the porn industry got the close up in Boogie Nights (with a career-defining performance in lots of ways from Burt Reynolds), a coruscating document of the country's relationship with religion, the oil industry and free market economics in There Will Be Blood and now his most contemporary - and trippiest fantasia yet - The Master, which deals with celebrity, cults and the post-religious Western world.

I actually saw this last week but it's hard to put into words how I feel about a lot of this film. Having said that, I am aware this is a really long post. To begin I guess I should say I'm weirded out by stuff like Scientology and I am a pretty open minded guy - I'll generally listen to anyone's point of view in the hope they have a semblance of something interesting to add to that bubbling sea of opinion and rhetoric. Sometimes I'm disappointed. Especially when I listen to Nigel Farage. But watching Philip Seymour Hoffman's depiction of pseudo-scientific religio-extraordinaire (his full working title) Lancaster Dodd made me think of Tom Cruise (not going where you think it is) and his depiction of another bombastic nutcase Frank 'T.J' Mackey in Anderson's Magnolia. Only instead of 'RESPECT THE COCK' (you can't not capitalise that ejection of testosterone) you get 'PIG FUCK' when Dodd is challenged on his spaced-out worldview. Anderson certainly does explosive emotions very, very well. Particularly in men.

The reason a Lancaster Dodd is interesting in a way a Nigel Farage is not is not just that one doesn't exist. Dodd has that all-conquering personality trait; watchability. That's a very 21st century phrase (i.e. it's not a real word and it's basically a Big Brother thing) and it's also the great silent statement throughout the film. Anderson makes a special point of never telling the viewer how this quack worldview originated - and there is a compelling reason for it. By ignoring and never mentioning Dodd's history, you simply get the finished article - in contemporary terms, a celebrity. It's a clever trick, and you're constantly aware that by watching the film you're engaging with the conceit and consequently validating it, and therefore Dodd.

Anderson deliberately provides history and context to the other half of the central duo, Freddie Quell. A zigzagging dog of a man who dry-humps sand-ladies and harasses well-to-do gentlemen with his photography instruments, he is immediately cast as both lonely and unusual through his sexually charged analyses of Rorschach tests which he completes upon leaving national service after WW2. Dodd's relationship with Quell is thickened through the murderous cocktails the latter works on; the former's alcoholism serves to strengthen his 'cogence' (or at least makes him write a hell of a lot more).

(A sort-of coda of Quell's existence is inserted midway through the film when he's forced to leave a shelter he has been staying in after poisoning an alcoholic with his home-brew. The camera in this scene shakily tracks Quell's gasping progress across the hewn fields and encapsulates the escapee's demented lifestyle perfectly.)

There's something of a dramatic crescendo halfway through the film when Dodd stays with his 'followers' at a well-to-do home in Philadelphia state. The preceding longshot here showing the travelling circus greeting and hugging their devotees in front of a grand country home is obliquely idyllic. One of the things I particularly enjoy about all of Anderson's films is captured nicely here - the chance to introduce satire or smugness into a scene which dramatically must end badly - yet he never does. He pulled a similar trick with the fantastic baptism scene in There Will Be Blood and many, many times over (almost all involving a buxom lady asking Burt Reynolds if she could do something more and more disgusting and Reynolds's blithe reply - 'Yeah sure!') in Boogie Nights. Instead, he simply lets the camera watch and record.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman stars as the charismatic
and intellectually dubious Lancaster Dodd in The Master

This is followed by a grimly compelling scene involving fraud and the police, souring the sugar-coated joie de vivre in the house, and, in one very woozy scene observed through a blind drunk Quell's eyes (the jauntiness combined with the décolletage on show gives the scene something of a sinister edge), an intimacy that's strangely lacking from the film once the two men's temporary incarceration is complete.

Joaquin Phoenix then; although there's too much to extrapolate upon here he's a super talent and I've always enjoyed whatever he's been in. Quell is a difficult man to like and even understand in some ways - his violent capabilities seem to belong to a primal past and in one memorable scene involving paint-thinner, faux-psychiatry and a total lack of blinking, shocking revelations reveal the potential roots of his torment. A man unloved and unsure of his own capability to love, he becomes a loyal follower to his Master, their dependence on each other refracted through the prism of the whisky tumbler. Of paint thinner. And, y'know, other stuff.

The film's conclusion lands both characters in England in the late postwar years following an unsuccessful bout of rehabilitating Quell back into a 'normative' state. The resulting split has taken its toll on master and follower; Quell returns to the moody, aimless drifter who shows up at a former beau's residence and, unable to focus following the news she has married and left town, mutters an inanity about her having a famous surname as a result of her marriage.

Dodd, meanwhile, sits impotent behind a huge oaken desk, unable to engage again with his work following the completion of his second book (in which the primary focus of his original work is completely reversed - Anderson again dead-bats the obvious but does skew the perspective with another fiery, borderline-insane outburst from Dodd).

I can't leave this without mentioning the incredible Lady Macbeth-esque performance from Amy Adams as Dodd's wife; my friend Alun remarked on leaving that she reminded him of Laura Linney's wife to Sean Penn in Clint Eastwood's Mystic River and so she does perform a similar, bloodcurdling role here, embodying the ideas of the moment in sharp crystalline form. Her mastery of Dodd adds a different dynamic to the film and allows the relationship between Dodd and Quell crucial room to breathe and develop. It's a long way from Cruel Intentions 2 and well deserved - she is great fun to watch and upstages the central pairing with her icy demeanour and brutal use of her sex to get her way (again kudos to Anderson for actually allowing a woman to do something like that in a film - good to see some controversy in there!)

The Master ends and returns to its opening theme of clear, blue waves parting as a boat sails over the ocean on a glorious summer's day. Quell is present in both opening and closing scenes and I'd guess it's instructive to note Dodd's tale ends in ruminative darkness, in striking contrast to his counterpart who ends on a so-so happy note. Good times are there for the honest, was my inference of this conclusion - but I could be wrong. I would love to see a Paul Thomas Anderson film about something like surfing or a family ice cream business. I just don't think it's going to happen, and I guess based on this evidence I don't mind too much.