The Week In Movies 11/7/11 - 17/7/11

This week I once more found some time for movies. Which is GREAT! As I love movies. You may have noticed that I have also not turned a movie off recently. This is a by-product of not having much time, I'm less likely to take a chance on something I think has the potential to be a bit meh. It does not mean I have more patience however as aside from my trip to the RPIFF I only saw 2 films that I had never seen before. When in need of easy viewing I go the films I know best (and haven't seen a billion times or recently.)


New viewings first this week, Gene Hackman in Night Moves is an enjoyable film with many great things going for it overshadowed by so many plot holes and a lack of explanation that it's hard to say whether it is actually any good. Just as in Altman's The Long Goodbye the hard boiled gumshoe character is brought in to the 1970's and shown as a bumbling, weak fool who stumbles around getting lucky as evidence literally falls in to his lap; the same is true of Gene Hackman in Night Moves but with less charisma and likability than Elliot Gould as Philip Marlowe. A Lot of the dialogue was fun as the supporting cast take turns to mock the "hero" and a young Melanie Griffiths is naked quite a lot for no discernible reason other than to get a young girl to take her clothes off onscreen, neither of these facts can make up for the unexplainable plot or the fact that to get the story moving we're suddenly transported to a boat, at sea, in the middle of the night so that a naked Melanie Griffiths can swim in to a crashed plane and discover somebody who looks like Michael Myers on board.

And then comes The Man On The Eiffel Tower, a quite poor piece of cinema all round. Based on the Simenon novels, this is an Inspector Maigret investigation in to a serial killer. Aside from the fun aspect of seeing Burgess Meredith as Jack Lemon's dad in Grumpier Old Men and then going back 50 years to see him running around post-war Paris this one has to be for die hard fans of Maigret only. The original director was replaced and Burgess Meredith and Charles Laughton took turns to direct it, there are some pretty poor performances (especially from Meredith) and there's an interminable chase scene up the Eiffel Tower as we wait for the death of the antagonist which was foreshadowed halfway through the movie, by him asking "have you ever wondered what it would be like to fall off of the Eiffel Tower?"


Repeat viewings this week for Grumpier Old Men, the sequel to Grumpy Old Men has almost the same laugh content as the original but features a lot more of Burgess Meredith as the very old father of Jack Lemon who still has raging hormones. Just as enjoyable as the first film and the outtakes at the end are worth the price of admission alone. However I'm thinking that it was The Odd Couple 2 that was the funniest of all the Lemon/Matthau movies from the mid 90's so I'm going to try tracking that down.

Keven Smith's fourth feature, Dogma, was the first one I saw at the cinema and I've loved it ever since. It's a very funny self aware movie with excellent performances from the ensemble cast, most notably Alan Rickman as the Metatron. It represents a growth in the work of Smith as a writer/director, it retains some of that immature humour that Smith fans (including myself) love but adds some solid story and plot, looking at the films he has made since Dogma I would suggest that this was his high point and despite how much I enjoyed Clerks 2 and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back neither of them are the complete film that Dogma is.

Final rewatching is technically not a film but it is feature length TV and was written/directed by the second most famous film maker in the world Quentin Tarantino. Grave Danger. Having been looking forward to this episode for 5 seasons of rewatching CSI as I fall asleep when we finally got to it we actually wanted more. That speaks volumes for the quality of QT's story and direction. If you're not a fan of CSI you may still enjoy this episode, it's got quite a few of the Tarantino trademarks: the main characters reference old TV shows and change their speech patterns, close ups on feet and somebody is buried alive. I think Tarantino must have been a fan already as he puts the words of the fans in to the mouths of the characters at times and he probably understood the nature of each character more than most of the shows writers. I'm no longer a massive Tarantino fan but if there was ever any doubt as to his talent I think the dramatic increase in the quality of this show would prove otherwise.


And following up from my review this week, some more words about Ben Wheatley's Kill List to quickly wrap this up. It's so nice to leave a cinema knowing you've just thoroughly enjoyed something. It gave me a buzz the whole of the next day, whilst film has become something of a time filler or something to relax with, it is moments like this that remind me why it is that I loved film in the first place. If you get a chance to see this movie, do. For those in the UK it has a release date set of 2 September. Here's hoping the rest of the screenings will encourage that same feeling. Charlie Casanova tonight, will hopefully have a review for you by Wednesday.

You know the drill, leave me some blah, it's good to feel loved, especially when half my hits have been for a picture of Emma Thompson in Harry Potter this week!

RPIFF: Kill List (2011)

Welcome to the first blablahblahgay review from the Revelation Perth International Film Festival. 11pm is a ridiculous time to start watching a movie for me. Back when I was 16 you'd find me and my friend Owen wandering the dangerous streets of Stevenage waiting for the late night showing of whatever terrible movie we'd decided to see that weekend but now I can't remember the last time I was awake at 11pm let alone settling down to watch a film.

As already mentioned this week Kill List is Ben Wheatley's second film, following up the fantastic Down Terrace (reviewed recently here on blahblahblahgay,) with another piece of great cinema that highlights his maturing as a storyteller and growth as a film maker. This film is an enigma, it's difficult to categorise; for Ben Wheatley, genres are simply a guide, he lets his films go wherever they need to ignoring conventions and disregarding cliche. What starts out as a kitchen sink drama moves in to hitman territory quite quickly before evolving in to a serious what the fuck ending filled with mysticism and gore.

Jay is a former hitman, retired after he screwed up a previous job in Kiev (this fact pops up quite a bit throughout but is never explained) and living with his ex-Swedish military wife, Shel, in suburban England. The couple are broke and the wife, who subtly dominates the relationship, is pressuring him to go back to work. His former partner Gal (on orders from Shel) offers another job, killing 3 people, and Jay, reluctant at first, agrees.

What ensues is a mysterious journey focusing on the psychological changes in Jay and Gal, punctuated with gore filled scenes and a never ceasing increase in the nameless, shapeless dread that permeates the film. With an ending you know the less about the better before seeing.

It seems to be a major advertising point so I'm not spoiling anything here but the ending is truly horrifying, not in a modern torture porn way or in a lets make use of really loud noises to make you jump way but in a truly psychologically challenging manner. You may watch this film or hear about some of the violence contained within and think me crazy but Ben Wheatley makes very subtle movies and this mind-bending finale borders on ambiguous, there is blood and there is gore and there are shocking realisations but that all takes a back seat to the psychological study of the man. Not to mention trying to piece together exactly what the ending means.

At 2am I was thinking about this movie, all the way home we were trying to understand what happened, neither of us could actually state with 100% confidence what the ending was about. This is a film that not only deserves a second viewing but may need one so you can divorce yourself from the WTF factor and piece together the puzzle. Because hints are left throughout, religious undertones, a sigil carved in to the back of a mirror, victims happy to die, repeated requests for Jay to wake up, dead animals left in their garden, what are the red herrings and what is the explanation? You may even be watching again and again to clarify your own thoughts and you will be thoroughly entertained every time I'm sure.

At times this is a funny movie, with the comedy taken from the human interaction, not from the violence like some other movies. At other times it's deeply unsettling, the use of sound really helping to increase the tension; using strings and whistles, moans and backwards played speech and even the moments of silence to ratchet things up step by step. But mainly this movie is enjoyable as a fantastically well crafted film that utilises the handheld camera aesthetic to it's full claustrophobic best to unsettle before unleashing an ending that will impact on your daily life for weeks to come. Guaranteed.

Well that's a departure for blahblahblahgay. Anyone else seen this yet? I'd love to get some other opinions, leave some blah below. Next up Charlie Casanova.