Something Borrowed, d. Luke Greenfield, USA, 2011.

This, I have to admit, is another film I watched on a flight. It was - I thought - the best of a bad bunch on offer, since I'm no huge fan of childrens' animated films or much else that was available! I secretly (well, apparently not that secretly) quite like romantic dramas of this ilk (think Bed of Roses, My Best Friend's Wedding and that dreadful one with Derek from Grey's Anatomy - erm, I will have to resort to looking it up...), so I though it might be all right.

Call me shallow, but the biggest problem I had with the entire film was one that's not all that unusual, I find, for US films based around a premise that requires the viewer to go along with their assumptions and assertions about what constitutes attractive, and what does not. In this particular film, we're expected to accept that the protagonist - played by Ginnifer Goodwin - is plain/ordinary-looking, while Kate Hudson is held up in contrast as gorgeous, and - most problematic for me - the man of their affections, Dex (played by one Colin Egglesfield), is repeatedly told how handsome he is: in essence, there's a lot of the whole 'Women who look me don't attract men who look like you' dialogue... the problem being, Goodwin is attractive, and Egglesfiled is nothing special! (Don't get me wrong, he's an attarctive guy and all. But seriously, he's NOT devestatingly gorgeous or owt... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1148573/ )

This doesn't make the film bad, in itself, but it doesn't help. 

In general, it's just not a film that does or says anything very exciting, at all. Its visually plain, narratively uninspiring, and relies too heavily on bizarre romantic drama/comedy conventions to have any worthwhile comment to make about relationships. The one interesting aspect of it, for me anyway, was its use of flashback - actually not that common in the genre; more the stuff of fabulous B-action movies starring Jean-Claude! - to show Goodwin's character, Rachel's realization of how her conformist, unchallenging behaviour has put her, Dex and Darcy in the situation they face in the film, and how given that she can't change her past actions, she needs to change the way she acts now. Of course, Dex is equally incapable of radical change - equally beholden to convention (with the mildly perceptive addition of observations about the role of his Father and/as social convention in all this) - and this either adds some complexity to the plot or drags the film out longer, depending on your take on it as it passes the 90-minute mark!


What the film fails to do - as most do, to be fair - is to move beyond painting the protagonist and her friend as horribly unsuited to each other as friends, which is a shame and makes no sense, given the premise of the film, of course (that Darcy and Rachel are very close, very best friends). It also fails to make the "happy ending" for the protagonist genuinely morally difficult: the narrative makes her hard decision easy, retrospectively. Annoying stuff!


Worth it for romantic drama fans, though. And for anyone who thinks Hudson and Egglesfield are gorgeous, while Goodwin is plain, perhaps?

Red Riding Hood, d. Catherine Hardwicke, UK, 2011.

I watched this nearly two months ago on an Emirates flight, so my review's hardly fresh! But I did think it was worth listing, as it was much more entertaining and interesting than I'd anticipated, and of course I always love re-tellings of fairy tales (as you'll know if you ever had the misfortune to be taught narrative theory by me, lol).

Frankly, the first part of the film - at least the first quarter, if not a little more - is a bit plodding, and not very inspiring. It's a bit TV movie, and not in a good way. However, once it becomes evident that it will in fact be more than a regular re-telling of the tale with an all-too-filmic romantic emphasis - prefaced by the appearance of the flamboyant Gary Oldman character, perhaps unsurprisingly - things definitely start to pick up. From then on, the film has some genunely interesting twists and turns, and its commentary on Europe's rich history of demonising so-called witches, and the wider but complex dangers of making assumptions about people based on appearance, are worth watching. I also really enjoyed the way in which it used language as a tool - the notion that werewolves can communicate with certain humans was a nice addition to the tale, and works well to further the plot if you're paying attention (which I'm not sure I was!).

In particular, the film's approach to familial, sexual and friendship relations is refreshing and often midly surprising. This helps make the plot twists less expected, and works towards what I, at least, found quite a pleasing ending.

Just as importantly, perhaps, is that this film looks good, and I think it would be real fun to watch on a big screen, in a darkened room. It did lose something on the back of an airline seat in cattle class!

THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES, wr. & d. Juan José Campanella, Argentina/Spain, 2009.

The Secret In Their Eyes sounded interesting to me, but I wasn’t convinced its sexual politics would be up to much. However, I was wrong: the film is incredible, and sets out some genuinely thoughtful and well articulated ideas and problems about the nature of relationships (of all types) and morality in a society in which oppression comes in a variety of forms, and, over the years, from a variety of sources.

The moment where the protagonist, Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin), sees the victim of the crime that is to haunt him for a quarter of a century is, frankly, one of the most immediately moving and affective moments in film, for me: the change from his irritable and crude banter to being hit by the shock of the body is remarkable, not least because it actually work. It doesn’t just communicate to you that his normally brash persona is shocked, it makes you feel that along with him – at least, it made me feel it.   

Much of the film packs this sort of punch. Its impact is remarkable – especially as it is in so many ways “just” a film about everyday life under the Argemtinian military regime. Usually, I find films that attempt to personalise greater social ills and conflicts of this type – including those that deal with war as well as life under military regimes by representing an individual’s story (so I’m thinking anything from Sophie’s Choice to Saving Private Ryan, I suppose) – painful; this is largely because, in general terms, in personalising such huge tragedies, in trying to “represent” them or even comment on them via the device of one individual’s experience in and of them, I feel that such films have a tendency to trivialise the greater picture, and to really lose sight of what is (or was) at stake, historically. But some films – and I’d include writer-director Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book amongst them – manage to make it work: and when it works, it’s powerful stuff indeed: when the story and character details in a “personal” tale manage not just to work on their own, but to resonate effectively and emotionally – and convincingly – with the wider, unspoken story of their historical context, then that is, to my mind, amazing filmmaking. And this film is amazing: to work so brilliantly as both a story about individuals and about the context in which they live, and also to work in commenting on that context and its affect on so many, is remarkable – and deeply affecting. I might revisit this film and write more about the details, but for now am anxious not to, as I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone who’s not yet seen it. But if you have, then I think that the story’s major “twist” works exceptionally well as (and only as) a reflection of what life under the regime has done to people; I also think that the way in which Benjamin and Irene (Soledad Villamil) fail to live their lives – and their love – makes sense only when they are understood as individuals in the socio-political context in which we see them; and is so much more powerful because of that. This is an amazing film – about individuals, and about the regimes in Argentina that shaped the lives of so many individuals.

Dogtooth (Kynodontas) d. Giorgos Lanthimos, Greece 2009.

This is a very peculiar film, in that while it has a fascinatingly disturbing premise, it seems to be full of unlikely outcomes and unexplained parts... but then, it's weird, so this is not necessarily a bad thing!

Telling the story of a few weeks in the life of a family headed by a patriarch so alarming (not that he seems it, especially) that he keeps his wife and grown-up children locked up at home and (the children at least) under the impression that the world outside isn't safe to go into because of cats(!), the film focuses on some of the psyhco-sexual affects of this bizarre set-up.

We see how the father decides that his son - though not, of course, his daughters - needs a woman from the world outside to satisfy his sexual needs. Inevitably, this doesn't turn out for the best, and her presence as well as the way in which one of the daughters manipulates her ends up contributing to some rather catostrophic events...

What IS weird is that this was billed as a comedy drama. There are certainly some amusing moments - but most of them are at the very least tinged with a slight horror at what's happening, and at the whole context of even the funny parts. Certainly I don't find the premise of keeping people entirely isolated from the outside world and, findamentally, fucking with their minds to ensure they stay that way, even remotely funny. 

One thing I found odd, too, is the notion that the three children (and presumably the fourth - if he ever existed - who's run away and been devoured by cats before the film starts) would look so squeaky clean and also have a vague sense of style. The girls also, it seems, shave their legs and armpits - and I dunno, it just really undermined the whole thing for me, as I'm just NOT convinced that even with their parents as role models, people would turn out like that if they lived in complete isolation. 

Also intrigued me that while they're not allowed to see TV or movies (just home movies), the older daughter seems to refer to at least three different ones... even though there's only ever any indication she's seen two. This added to the impression that we were seeing only part of the story - which, again, isn't necessarily a bad thing, but was a little confusing.

In many ways, while interesting, I wouldn't rush out to watch this: it's not really vry enjoyable - instead, it's a bit like the uneasy feeling you get from watching something like Funny Games, but less intelelctually rewarding, I think!

Winter's Bone (d. Debra Granik, USA 2010)

I saw this a couple of weeks ago, so my thoughts are hardly fresh... but it was one heck of a powerful film, so I thought it worth posting a few thoughts about, to encourage people to see it!

One aspect of it I really enjoyed was that while its subject matter and, to a great extent, also its setting is pretty depressing and relentlessly miserable, I felt it had quite a positive underbelly, and actually did see some hope and positivity in the limited but genuine choices people living in poverty (in the US, that is) get to make - if they embrace them as choices, and act decisively.

In essence, the film follows the struggles of a young woman already looking after her two younger siblings and sick mother; when her father skips bail, their home is under threat and she has to make some very hard decisions, and chooses to put her life at risk to help her family, and to try to figure out what has happened and how she can prevent her entire family's life from being torn apart.

It presents some really interesting and insightful representations of wider family relations, has some genuinely frightening moments, and, to my mind, in what it doesn't show - and in the brutish realism of its story - is far more unpleasant at times than slly nonsense of the Saw variety.

Particularly interesting is the way in which different ways in which women in the family units are shown: the setting of the film is a poor community that makes much of its money from manufacturing crystal meth - and has strictly hierarchical ways in which it defends its senior members from the long arm of the law.  It's hard to blog about it without ruining it for people who might want to watch it - but, in essence, it's worth watching, as its grimness is nicely countered, to my mind, by some beautiful filming, a not entirely gloomy outlook on what is, really, a rather gloomy life, and an impressive performance from its lead, Jennifer Lawrence.

I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE remake?!

A friend gave me this link: http://jezebel.com/5594817/the-return-of-i-spit-on-your-graves-rape-and-revenge-fantasies#ixzz11Q9xj000

It's well worth a read... is about the remake of I Spit On Your Grave, the 1978 US rape-revenge flick written and directed by Meir Zarchi and starring Camille Keaton as Jennifer. As the article mentions, Carol J Clover's written about the film as more redeemable than many, but in general, the film's not really thought to promote a particularly pro-women, anti-rape agenda, as it titillates as much as it does anything else. I have a copy of it on my shelf, but haven't watched it for maybe a decade... but will watch it again some time soon, to see what I think of it now.

My gut reaction to the remake is that it will be a million times worse: the original is interesting, and is at best ambivalent in terms of its narrative (ifnot its imagery). I dread to think what the remake has done with any redeeming qualities it might have had. 

SURVEILLANCE, d. Jennifer Lynch, USA 2008

Directed and co-written by David Lynch's daughter, this is an unsurprisingly dark thriller with nice touches of comedy - especially in the first part of the film. Some of the characters are nicely drawn in a Twin Peaks like way, with the use of lighting and atmosphere adding substantially to dialogue and physical acting to give a sense of the weirdness in these "everyday" people. The Twin Peaks reference (or influence on) the film is furthered, too, by a plot which sets the action in a remote part of the US where the FBI have been sent to help out the local yokel police force with investigations into a homicidal duo who've appeared on their patch.

From the start of the movie, nothing feels quite right - there's an uneasy atmosphere which is again reminiscent of Lynch Senior's work, and a number of lines and ocurrences make viewers uncomfortable. On the downside, I too quickly figured out from whence this unease stems - as did the person who was watching the film with me. But despite getting it so early on, it was worth watching, and some of the performances were pretty good. (Pullman is great, although perhaps overdoes it a little at times. The young girl, Ryan Simpkins, who plays Stephanie, performs extremely well; she's measured and compelling to watch, which is especially impressive at the age of 7 or 8! Many of the cops are fun to watch, too...)

The film is promoted as being about FBI agents attempting to get the "real story" about an incident, faced with three witnesses who have radically different stories to tell, sort of a la Rashomon.  Weirdly, this is far from what the film actually is: the three witnesses's stories do differ in key ways from "the truth" (insofar as "the truth" is what we see in images that accompany and/or illustrate their words, foregrounding the dissonances between what they say and what actuall happened), but their stories do not massively from each other's versions of what happened - despite what the hype suggests. And in fact the way the film does play with those dissonances is far more interesting than a simple three-versions-of-the-same-story approach might be. It certainly allows for some genuinely comic moments (especially in respect of Bobbi (Pell James)'s recollections about her "job interview") - as well as at least one genuinely affecting moment of pathos (when we learn what truth Officer Jack Bennet (Kent Harper) is hiding).

But, disappointingly, the film goes down the all too well trodden road of - guess what - having female victims run screaming, while male victims get disposed of far more quickly, and without close-ups dwelling on their fear. This is disappointing not just because Lynch is a female writer-director from whom it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect a bit more thought and originality, but also because you'd hope her father might have warned her againt it - or at least to explore rather than simply replicate such filmic norms.

As it is, even in the opening sequence before the narrative proper begins, we're treated to a man being macheted in his bed, and then a lengthy sequence in which the camera chases a blood-covered, scantily-clad woman around her bedroom, out of the house, and along a road. Lovely. Later in the film, a similar dynamic recurs - as when male victims are granted a super-speedy demise, while females are given notice of their imminent murder, and the camera shows us their terror, accordingly. Dull dull dull. And just not very nice.

Moreover, doing something different - really different - might well have made this otherwise rather run-of-the-mill thriller more engaging, more interesting, and morenoteworthy. As it is, a twist and some good acting can't really make it more than what it is - a decent thriller with nice comic touches and plenty of atmosphere, but not a whole lot more.