Midnight in Paris

'Midnight in Paris' is Woody Allen's latest, so there is no real need to summarise it. It has a group of rich people playing straight man to an Allen-esque neurotic artist in a beautiful city. Hhhhmmmm. Is it any good?
There is a genuine sense of warmth about the whole enterprise that has been lost from Allen's movies in latter years. You feel like he really cares about his subject matter, ie. Paris of the Twenties. It probably helps for me that I share his affection, but there is a nice thrill seeing Hemingway, Stein, the Fitzgeralds, etc. brought to life. For a while at any rate. Pretty soon, with no real belly laughs to distract you, it can all seem like name dropping ('Oh, look there's Djuna Barnes!'). I mean will anyone really split a side at Owen Wilson giving Bunuel the plot of 'The Exterminating Angel'? On the plus side, Owen Wilson makes one of the best Woody surrogates in a long time, Cotillard draws the camera, and Adrian Brody makes a memorable Dali. The rest of the cast spout their lines as needed, but with little real conviction or dimension.
Just an observation, but Allen does not use many close ups, at least not to convey real emotion. There is one of Wilson as his predicament dawns on him, but this is too broad to convey any subtlety. Another is of Cotillard, but really only to show how pretty she is. In fact when I think of Allen's movies, even the serious ones, this is almost a trademark and probably explains why I see him as rarely emotionally intense. He flits across the surface using quips and farce to distract us from the basic shallowness of his people games. Even 'Hannah and Her Sisters' features a man (Caine) in lust, not love, and the really serious films play, well, like plays. Which is not to say plays are without emotion, just that they are performed at a distance. Allen plays at a distance.
Yes, this is a glib analysis, but I think it says something that the most emotional close shot I can remember is also in one of Allen's more successful films, 'Manhattan', as he sees his 'true' love for who she is just as he must let her go.
Anyhow 'Midnight in Paris' has no real emotional depth and no real, deep insight, but it does ring more authentically than many another Allen film when you sound it for emotion. Granted it is the love of the director not any of the characters, but it is a feeling I can appreciate nevertheless. Guess he's just good with cities.

A Taster

Oh, and 'Troll Hunter' opens this weekend. Well worth watching. The comment has been made that there is probably a few too many shots of the Norwegian landscape, but it's lots of fun. Again to be reviewed later.

The Idiots are Winning....

It's five years after the fact, but I've only just finished watching "Nathan Barley". As befits a series written by Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker, and featuring The Mighty Boosh, it has some wonderfully funny moments (the cat with the scissors in the head will live with me forever). However, it reminds me somehow of some Roadrunner or Tom and Jerry cartoons I experienced in my youth. You know, the ones where you're really rooting for Wile E. Coyote or Tom, but you know they'll never really win. It gets to depress you after a while. The pain of poor Dan Ashcroft (Julian Barratt) facing a world where the idiots are winning is just too, too close to the bone. Roadrunners are all around. The smarmy, beeping shits are everywhere!

Micmacs

Micmacs


As polished and fluid as anything Jeunet has previously done, 'Micmacs' looks lovely, is full of eccentrics, brimming with invention and so light that if you put it next to a fan it might end up in North Africa!
The hero of this tall tale, Bazil, is made an orphan when his father is blown up by a landmine. Later in life, after accidentally being shot in the head during a shootout, he loses everything and becomes homeless. This being a Jeunet movie though there is always a loose family of eccentrics willing to take him in, and, when he decides to exact revenge on the arms companies who ruined his life, help him.
There is a serious topic behind this film, and it could be argued that in treating the subject so humourously Jeunet ensures that it reaches the widest possible audience. However, it could be also argued that it ends up trivialising that issue. After all, should arms dealing really be a subject for caper movies?
Of course, nothing in this film can be taken too seriously. Everyone from the hero down is a one concept pantomime character. There is a human calculator, a human cannonball, a strong skinny man and an extreme contortionist, not to mention the bullet-in-the-head brains of the operation, Bazil. It plays like an Ealing heist movie, or a relatively harmless update of the Vincent Price vengence movies (eg. 'Theatre of Blood', 'The Abominable Dr Phibes') with Dany Boon, playing Bazil, in the Vincent Price role (albeit a more tic-ridden, more tongue-tied version). The set-up is pantomime too. Not only are the arms companies run by two stereotypical villains (as opposed to less identifiable corporate boards), their companies face each other on the same street. Bombs explode without fatalities, distractions are achieved by means of wasps, hookers and doped sugar cubes. It's all very cosy. Hollywood might inject a 'serious' moment into their 'critical but funny' films (you know the moment - the music rises, the villains go teary-eyed as they understand their crimes, or else we do), and 'Micmacs' comes perilously close to doing the same thing, with a few briefly glimpsed photographs reminding us what this is all really about. That moment though is too brief and too at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie to be taken seriously. (Thankfully the villains remain unrepentant.) This is probably more honest than American hypocrisy, but it means the film really has very little to say.
All in all then, 'Micmacs' is a fun film when it probably shouldn't be, and far, far from what Jeunet is really capable of. You won't need a bullet in the head to forget it.

The Invention of Lying

The Invention of Lying - Is that product placement?
In a world where everyone tells the truth, one man learns how to lie; 'The Invention of Lying'.
You can't get more high concept than that, though Ricky Gervais, writer, director and star tries to make things a little more complex. For one he attempts to explore the usefulness of fiction in maintaining a happy, and indeed sane, life. Not only does religion, his biggest lie, bring comfort to a world ill at ease with death, it also brings about some sort of justification for a morality that nevertheless didn't seem to be a problem till his lie exposed it as one. This could be a weighty theme, and indeed I'm surprised America's religious right did not pick up on the full implications of this Gervais's argument. Strangely his humanism seems to have been the bedrock of the very society he corrupts.
Even more challengingly, particularly given Hollywood and it's bread and butter fare, he tries to strike a blow for us short, fat, ugly chaps. You see there's much more to us than unpleasant contributors to an otherwise beautiful genepool. The fact that this argument is made in the service of trying to woo and win self-acknowledged babe Jennifer Garner does not seem to strike Gervais as contradictory (compare this to Jack Black's love in 'Shallow Hal'). (This 'having-your-cake-and-eating-it' approach also extends to some nauseating product placement. A famous fast food box doubling as a Moses-style tablet is only funny if you forget you're being force-fed the fast food chain.) Nevertheless it is always refreshing to see a non-sparklingly beautiful actor starring in a big-budget flick, quite apart from his making the case for its value. Long may it continue.
So after its initial confrontational beginning, Gervais's film descends into standard romcom fare, as was probably inevitable. However, its few pungent points are bitter enough to remain in the memory. If their development says more about Gervais than society, it's still stimulating to see them stated at all.

Michael Lehmann

Just noticed Michael Lehmann, director of 'Heathers' and his nutty follow-up, 'Meet the Applegates', has become a TV director. Shame. I thought there was real potential there. Still that's what 'Hudson Hawk' and '40 Days and 40 Nights' will do for you.

Heathers

Those were the days! Heathers
In a burst of nostalgia I watched Michael Lehmann's 'Heathers' again. A 1988 black comedy that I remembered fondly, it features Christian Slater doing his finest Jack Nicholson impression and Winona Ryder back when you could be mistaken for thinking her cool. The pair get involved in killing high school 'popular' people and masking their crimes as suicides. But can you really get rid of adolescent headaches just by killing them?
There's actually a lot going on beneath the shock value - issues of responsibility and the moral approach to society (this is the 'high school that is society' Slater claims at one point) - and in light of what came after with Columbine and other teenage massacres, it is tempting to read even more into it. However, this might be a mistake; it is as much a satire on the many high school movies that peppered the 80s as it is a forecast of things to come. And it is very 80s!
On rewatching it's not nearly as slickly directed as I thought it was then. It's also not nearly as immediate, but then I was a teenager when I first watched it and it held a lot of resonances for me at that age. Now it works, but lacks that heart-tugging urgency. Having said that, that says as much about the society we have become as the person I've grown into.
Well worth revisiting if you never saw it first time around.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Nothing Lasts Forever - Let's make forever never!


Released in 1984, 'Nothing Lasts Forever' is an obscure pastiche of classic Hollywood schmaltz, and in a roundabout way, everything else that happened in the Twentieth Century. It follows Zach Galligan's quest to become an 'artist', a quest which brings him to a New York ruled by a Communist-style Port Authority; an underground society of secret rulers who also happen to be tramps; a consumer-oriented Moon populated by moon girls and... well, other stuff just as weird. All of this would be 'so Indie' were it not for the off-putting presence of stars like Dan Ackroyd and Bill Murray and a score by heavyweight composer, Howard Shore ('Lord of the Rings').
I first saw this way back on Moviedrome, a film slot on BBC2 hosted by Alex Cox in the '80s. Somehow it stuck with me and I have kept my eyes open for it ever since. I came across it the other day and had to watch it one more time.
It's still weird. Ostensibly set in the 1930's, and using stock footage beautifully, the film flippantly refers to the '50s, video and other anachronistic bits and pieces that confound this general feel. Though shot in black and white, the film bursts into colour 'Wizard of Oz'-style when Galligan enters the underground kingdom of the tramps or lands on the Moon, and all this evokes fantasy films of the '40s where colour was still a novel way of indicating a change of world (done in a typically idiosyncratic way by Powell and Pressburger in 'A Matter of Life and Death'). The story, which is more a string of episodes than a solid tale, doesn't make an awful lot of sense, but instead follows a dream logic that seems to remind us of early Hollywood too. It's totally bonkers, yet oddly coherent. All in all it reminds me of another film that mixes up its Twentieth Century elements willynilly; 'Brazil'. While being nowhere near the masterpiece that film was, it's just as successful in creating that sense of a Twentieth Century that never was.
A writer from Saturday Night Live, writer/director Tom Schiller somehow gives an authentically 'nostalgic' feel to the whole enterprise. The cast play it beautifully straight too with Gremlin's Zach Galligan in particular being stunningly naive throughout. Again this is no masterpiece, and I half suspect this kind of thing appeals only to very odd souls like me. However, it deserves a DVD reissue at the very least. As the fetching lunar maiden sings, 'Nothing lasts forever, If this must be, Let's make forever never.' Ahem, yes, quite.

Wide Open Spaces

Don't go there.

Contenders

After wanting to see it for such a long time, I finally got to see 'Series Seven: The Contenders' the other night. While not as funny or as sophisticated as I hoped, it wasn't bad at all. Great how they made easy target right-winger, Connie, so abhorrent and reigning champion, Dawn, so sympathetic, even with that classic 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' 'art' video. We all know them! Fun.

The comedy night was a lot less funny than "The Best of Scotland" one the other night. There were some drunken hecklers and rather than use comedy (you know, like comedians do) to diffuse the situation, one of the comperes got aggressive and kept the aggression going. Some of the other comedians behaved the same way, particularly an American, Sean Collins, who was particularly nasty. I cringed a little. Eventually the bouncers kicked the guys out, but way to late in the day (I mean night). Still some comedians were actually funny and one, Phil Kay, born an Aussie, had a strong line in political humour I for one appreciated. Besides all that I bumped into a cute female London animation producer with aspirations to comic writing. Well, we chatted. C'est la vie.

I forced myself out of bed at 9.40 to benefit from some breakfast. I'm ashamed to say I'm proud of that.

At 12.30 I took a visit to the Cameo cinema for another Korean movie, this time, "The Red Shoes". On the negative side it draws heavily on Hideo Nakata's "Dark Water", with all the same tricks as almost every other Asian horror flick at this stage; the long haired female ghosts, the sudden noises, the elevator scene, the image on the video screen and the child with her back turned (which was of course taken from "Don't Look Now" in the first place). The story too is a little muddled. However, for all that you
know exactly what's coming it still scares the life out of you. There's even an Argento style killing with a broken sheet of glass. (Red shoes, Argento, Elaine are you listening!) Worth seeing for all that it's cliched.

Chiara had recommended the Ron Mueck exhibition, and there's also a lot of buzz about it here in the press, so I wandered along. Mueck makes intensely lifelike figures, realistic in every way save one; their size. They might be tiny (as in one infant figure) or huge (as in another, a baby measuring maybe 20 feet long). It's all very impressive and everyone was oohing and ahhing. Apparently Mueck puts each strand of body hair (they're usually nude figures) in by hand. Anyhow I suddenly realised I'd already seen one of his pieces ("Pregnant Woman") in Canberra (he's Australian). Whatever his effect on everyone else, I have my doubts about it all. The choice of subject and their stance (a wild man gripping a chair, for instance) is for me the main artistic aspect of these pieces. The extreme realism is for me a bit of a gimmick, especially when you learn he's coming from a special effects background. I'd much rather they were more obviously not flesh and blood and their size too is just off-putting. A bronze by Degas presents itself as an aesthetic object by it's very artificiality. Size is not enough to distance the viewer from the object in order to appreciate it as a presented artifact.

That's Gabriel Byrne, honest, it is!
There is more than one Dubliner in Edinburgh. At 5.30 I had my next screening, "Jindabyne", an adaptation of a story by Raymond Carver by the Australian director of "Lantana", Ray Lawrence. The star, Gabriel Byrne, put in an appearance to introduce the film. I felt like asking if he wanted to go for a pint; us Dubliners should stick together, you know.. As it happens the movie features one of his best ever performances; very understated, very real. The film is very powerful too. I think I've read the story (I certainly recognised it), but it expands it in a very broad, rich way.

I hadn't eaten much, but no time for such trivialities, there was a jazz quartet to see! The Antonio Forcione Quartet are comprised of a drummer, double bassist/flautist, cellist and Antonio, a pretty accomplished quitarist (apparently "probably the best acoustic guitar player in the world" according to Wikipedia). I am not a great jazz buff, but it was an excellent performance and I, getting there late, still managed to get a front row seat, granted right at the end, but fine by me.

By the way, Phil, Belle and Sebastian play here next week. According to the programme it's a four and a half hour set. Yeesh!

Anyhow thought I'd go home early tonight. The problem with all this is finding the time to plan what to do and then get the tickets etc.. I'm under no illusions, tomorrow will be the same, but for now I'll pretend I'm having an early night in preparation.

I come to you now at the turning of the tide.

I have found the fatal flaw in "Mac in a Sac"; it's in a sac! Who in hell would be bothered taking it out? Yes, it rained earlier today. Still stayed reasonably warm, but it rained.

I got to the animation programme and it was better than yesterday. A very non-CGI, rather affecting though simple piece called "Printed Rainbow" got right back to the Canadian Film Board stuff and to end it all there was an animated biography of Norman McClaren. Very good stuff.

Even better, I bumped into a rather lovely Italian artist, Chiara. Unfortunately Spanish boyfriends are de rigeur for Italian ladies living in Edinburgh, but such is life. Anyhow she knew her Svankmajer from her Quay Brothers and we had a rather pleasant coffee. Coincidence upon coincidence she was my waitress last night.

I was going to say that the restaurants follow the example of the stage during festival time; always leave them hungry! But I think now I'd better not. One way or the other I definitely did have haggis today, and it was the dish i had had at breakfast and yes, i did like it. The tats and neeps were good too, but I could do with more of them next time, thank you very much Bad Ass Cafe! Lovely though, i will confess. Anyhow that was later, first I went to Beethoven.

Yes, I skipped the Vaughan Williams and tried Sir Charles MacKerras conducting Beethoven instead. Symphony Number Two! Let's face it folks, it's what we're on this planet to do, listen to Beethoven, that is (surely not, old chap!). Once upon a time I went to Boulez in Chicago unwisely eating a large meal beforehand. I nearly dozed unforgiveably off during Mahler's Ninth! This time around I was starving! And MacKerras did deliver. I thought he was a little on the romantic side, particularly on the second movement, reminding me of Schumann a little (but then Schumann symphonies were always wannabe Beethoven symphonies and none the worst for that). Anyhow it was great. Warm though! Didn't doze, but t'was warm. Also an ignorant philistine sneezed twice prompting me to want to throw myself over the balcony. I refrained. By the way, Mr MacKerras, next time when we clap enough to get you out three times, we want an encore!

I had dumped the mini monster, so was free. Dining on my haggis, starved still i went briefly to the Book Festival, after dinner lolly pop in mouth. Had a pleasant chat with home (good news) then went in search of entertainment. With a wealth of shows around me, I couldn't find anything until luckily I located one of the Fringe Festival offices on the Royal Mile. They put me wise to a daily guide published by The Guardian, so I booked "The Best of Scottish Comedy" in The Stand.

One should always be wary of "Best of's", but this time I was fortunate. I fell in with a motley crew from the Royal Bank of Scotland (well, they took my seat!) and got a hankering for Deuchars. Hell, if Hemingway, O'Hara and Fitzgerald can all write drunk why shouldn't I (and why do they always say Irish writers drink, they're all American!). Well, so I write now. Many Deuchars make Jack a happy camper. Anyhow to return to the comedy show! T'was brillig! A lesbian midget (her words, not mine, well some of them), was compere (Susan Calman; and you were great, girl!). The first guy from Dundee, Paul Pirie, was not bad at all ("You've a lovely head of blonde hair. Why do you dye your roots brown?" or "How long do London girls take to have a shit? 9 months." His words, not mine!) But the next guy, David Kay, was simply terrific. I don't know how far he'd travel as he is very Scottish, but as he said himself "We were under his spell! I could talk all night and you'd listen." I still don't quite understand why he was so funny (well, I could break it down if I wanted to, but i don't want to), but without any profanity, innuendo, in fact any of the standard arsenal, he was just hilarious. I could talk about the space shuttle and blue tack or the drummer from New Model Army hosting golf programmes, but unless he says it it won't make sense. Fabulous! The last guy, Bruce Morton, was quite good too, in a more traditional way. The rodeo position was excellent! (No, there are children present).

Anyhow I was ready for more and knew from the Fringe guide there was more comedy nearby. However, I left my guide behind so couldn't find it. I asked a bar girl clearing tables. I knew after her first answer she was Irish, but twice more enquiring I could only manage a "Good Luck". She didn't know where the place was. Anyhow as things began earlier, so it rained once more. So I thought I'd come back here and write this. Ain't you all lucky!