The Good Thief (2002)

OK, so it's a remake but its a good remake, in many ways better than the original perhaps. BUT it is one of those remakes where it's set in France but everyone speaks English. Loses points for this. Neil Jordan's The Good Thief is at times an almost exact re-telling of Jean-Pierre Melville's Bob le Flambeur (1956) but it adds a little extra spice and seediness to the story, perfect for a modern film with noir tendencies.

Nick Nolte is Bob, he's our main character, Tcheky Karyo is his close friend and nemesis Roger. Georgian actress Nutsa Kukhianidze is the beautiful young prostitute Anne and amongst the fine ensemble cast of European actors you will find the Polish brothers, Mark and Michael, makers of the extraordinarily atmospheric Northfork. For those of you not familiar with the name Neil Jordan you may know his more mainstream successes Interview With The Vampire and The Brave One or if like me you care little for vampires or revenge thrillers starring that girl from Taxi Driver you may also know his work in Breakfast on Pluto, The Crying Game or the Graham Greene adaptation The End of the Affair.



The similarities between original and remake in the main body of the poster was enough to make me want to compare and contrast those two images instead of my usual multiple image for the same movie breakdown. The femme fatale foregrounded with our antihero in shadow. Or is it the other way round? Interesting that both creative teams opted for the same iconography don't you think? Bob le Flambeur probably gives away a little more of the plot than The Good Thief but only marginally. For more on how these posters are really a pretty standard noir image check out the awesome rundown of noir posters over at Where Danger Lives. The sheer volume of work that's gone in to that post is overwhelming.



I saw this trailer when it was initially released and didn't really have much interest in watching the movie to be honest but having seen the film and then watched the trailer again I think I have a different appreciation for it. Offers some hints as to the content, shows off the beautiful cinematography and the song at the end evokes a strong feeling of days gone by, that time when going to a casino had some class associated with it and tourists in shorts and thongs (flip-flops) were not allowed entrance.

My synopsis of this would probably be something along the lines of Bob has run out of money because he's a crook and a junkie, Roger is the local cop who knows Bob's history, Bob wants to make one last score and Roger is torn between stopping him and letting it slide. There's some twists, some turns, some laughs and some drama as we work our way to a Monte Carlo casino-based climax.

Nick Nolte, who seems to be superb in everything he's done in my recent memory, see Paul Schrader's Affliction for proof, puts in a high quality performance that drifts from subtle to in your face obvious as required, sure he's the antihero with a damaged past (see Jack L's recent dissection of modern action movies for why this is a bad thing) but he shakes that cliche about a bit (if not off) with a performance that threatens to boil over into crazed straight villain at any point, add to that Neil Jordan's direction which brings an extra energy and atmosphere to proceedings and you have a thoroughly enjoyable film that on any other day with a different pairing could have been quite awful.

It's almost a less polished yet classier version of Soderbergh's Oceans movies with scenes reminiscent of the Norton/De Niro heist movie The Score, a plot reminiscent of great ill-fated heist noirs of the past like The Killing and Rififi (the same era the original material came from) and probably a dozen other recent heist movies but it's sheer quality steers it past being a simple clone.

Sure there are twists and turns like any good heist caper flick should posess and at times you can probably see them coming from a mile away but it's not like there's much room left for imaginative double crosses in cinema these days.

And at times it looks simply amazing too, beauty and style combining with the jazz soundtrack to make for a sumptuously cool picture. Isn't that always the way with jazz scores? You'd think we'd all stop getting suckered in by it by now wouldn't you.

As the credits roll you're left with a feeling that the film is questioning the nature of existence (an existential heist movie?) with that long forgotten (but recently rediscovered) myth of the honest crook, that is a staple of the classic noir, running the show. And what a show! He has a ball with all his plotting and planning, playing one person off on another and the audience can't help but get swept up in the journey with him.

The other aspects of the film are also of high quality, the fine performances from the ensemble cast, the questionable motives of everyone involved bring a nice intrigue to proceedings, a near perfect musical accompaniment and a story told at just the right pace.

Breaking down why you should see this movie I would say
a) class
b) Nick Nolte
c) so much dross has been made in this genre you should probably watch a good one to compare them to.

If you like the sound of the movie from my review and actually watch it, let me know. If you don't agree with me, let me know. Film is an art form and art is open to interpretation in any number of ways. The discussion of art and individual interpretation is encouraged around here. And if you enjoy the movie head down to your local independent movie store and buy it, it's only through us actually paying for films that these film makers will get to work again. At least in an ideal world that will be the case.

The Good Thief (2002) DivX - icefilms.info

Bright Young Things (2003)

I'm not entirely sure if a piece of media that has anything at all to do with the popular and funny genius Stephen Fry can be considered even remotely obscure enough to feature on blahblahblahgay but this film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's delightful book of early 20th century excess, Vile Bodies, was his debut as director and because he is not seen at any point during the movie it may have passed quite a lot of people by.

But not I, seen when it first appeared on DVD, purchased for the miserly sum of £3 as an ex rental and promptly added to a stack of movies I may have never watched again. Until, that is, I met Leah who I knew would also love this film. And love it she did. I am not sure how many times she has put the DVD on but when we left the UK it was one of very few movies she couldn't part with. Yes, in a world where we can replace things in digital form so easily we kept some actual discs.

Fry managed to put together an absolutely incredible cast of household names and up and comers, Jim Broadbent, Dan Aykroyd, Stockard Channing, and Peter O'Toole in the former and Emily Mortimer (who, by the way, I have a little crush on) James McAvoy (a few years before Inside I'm Dancing, Last King of Scotland and Atonement,) Michael Sheen (three years before The Queen made him a household name and more before he was every modern English historical figure in film) and Dr Who himself David Tennant in the latter. A man with an eye for talent that Mr Fry.



Not a huge amount to discuss with the posters for this film. I don't think there was a huge budget involved but at least the image on the right doesn't look overly trashy despite the attempt to modernise the content with gossip magazine fonts and that awful burning typewriter image they must've picked up free online from the websites that previously offered free clipart.



Voice over guy! His voice belongs on a Bruce Willis movie, not a whimsical piece of satire made by an intellectual but despite him saying everything the title cards said the trailer covers quite a lot of the subject matter giving you a good feel about what is to come. These people are either so terribly bored, terribly clueless or trying terribly hard.



To synopsise for you; it's 1929, Adam is an aspiring writer who wants to marry Nina, Nina is part of a group of rich and largely vapid friends, concerned with material objects and their partying lifestyle unaware of the changes to be brought about by an impending war. Throughout there are countless moments of shenaniganising, drink and drug fuelled parties, lies, blackmail, poverty, slapstick, gossip, scandal and lime green bowler hats. It's a comedic drama with a splash of romance.

Filled with wonderful moments of humour and a particular attention to detail with regards to the wardrobe of the period, this is an enjoyable movie that could quite easily be told about modern society. They're all so fabulous, these bright young things, it brings to mind the current hipster trend and the one before it, I have spent many nights in bars and clubs with people far too bored for their own good, whose image is based on being seen to not enjoy the things they're doing and of finding everyone beneath them. I enjoyed seeing the absurdities of it all played out in front of me, at once both highlighting the glamour and satirising the attitudes.

This choice not to demonise or judge the characters is what makes the movie work for me, I think we all see aspects of our own personality in Adam, Nina, Miles and Agatha and our enjoyment would be severely dented if Fry then judged negatively. William Goldman said of that other film about the vile bodies and bright young things, The Great Gatsby, in his 1983 book Adventures in the Screen Trade that the director was both totally obsessed and incensed by the excesses of high society that he made an empty movie about unlikeable people but happily that was not the case with Bright Young Things.

With a cast as mentioned above you are guaranteed to enjoy this film for their performances alone, Peter O'Toole especially, but the adventures are told in a whirlwind manner that takes you from party to party, dilemma to denouement to crisis without pausing for a long slow shot of somebody crying with a long orchestral piece of music in the background.

Fry has no real discernible style based on one film but he dives headfirst in to this one. Allowing the film to move along at a frenetic pace that differentiates itself from other films set in that period, with their tendency to stop the action to allow a knowledgeable modern audience time to reflect on the forthcoming change that WWII brings, underpinning all of the fun with a sense of maudlin. Here you have no time for those thoughts, right up until they all go off to war.

The epilogue of the film is a creation of the director, an attempt to provide a satisfying ending to the paying public, one which Waugh chose not to dwell on in the original source material and as such for me it is the weakest part of the film. It is not just the dramatic change in tone it is an unbelievable change of personality in the characters and this always leaves me feeling a bit blah about the whole thing. It's not for a few days that the memories of those wonderful characters and their crazy antics start popping back in to my mind.

Bright Young Things (2003) DivX - icefilms.info

Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

I was totally emo back in 2008 when i saw this film in the new release section of my DVD store. It was the awesome art work combined with the titles obvious use of conflicting images that drew me to it but what I found when I sat down to watch it was something quite fabulous. I've told countless people to watch it and forcibly left copies in peoples homes so I think it is right that it gets the blahblahblah treatment.

Goran Dukic's debut feature is based on the short story "Kneller's Happy Campers" by Israeli writer Etgar Keret and stars Patrick Fugit who made his debut in Almost Famous and has since become a greasy slacker in almost all of his movies (Spun, White Oleander, Cirque Du Freak,) Shea Whigham, a name that i seem to see all of the time recently but would be hard pushed to recognise him or any of his roles and Shannyn Sossamon, great in Rules of Attraction and her tiny little role in the spectacularly fun Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Backing them up amongst others are Tom Waits and Will Arnett.



I really love sharing the artwork on this blog. It's not something I have any education in or anything I just find the comparisons extremely appealing and interesting. The comparisons here are especially fun I think. Clockwise from top left we have the original cinematic poster which was also the main sleeve on the DVD i first saw, there's a soft spot for this art in my memory. It fits lots of key information in to that one small relatively simple print. Road signs are obviously simple devices to tell you whats coming (that's why the people of Perth choose to drive so badly, they can't understand an obvious road sign, but I digress) black on yellow forearm, red cut on the wrist and blood drops in the shape of hearts. Come on! It doesn't get much more emo than that. Second one is more of an arthouse design, very trendy don't you think, I would definitely have thought about watching the film based on that. Third one is merely so-so and is in fact the sleeve of my dvd but my absolute favourite is item number 4. How incredibly tasteless is that? It's like a third rate American teen comedy. Sure the producers needed to raise some funds by selling the dvd or something but WOW! it's appalling.



3 minutes for a trailer seems a little much but other than the beginning I don't feel like it's gratuitous with it's use of time and it's one of those seemingly rare trailers that doesn't tell you every last detail of plot before it's done. Thumbs up trailer editor.

So still here after my opening and the trailer? How about some synopsisisation? Patrick Fugit kills himself after a bad breakup and wakes up in an afterlife reserved for suicides (purgatory basically?) Everyone has jobs and nobody can smile (sounds like the town I grew up in, well the smiling part anyway) he finds out that his ex girlfriend is also a suicide and a road trip ensues as he attempts to find her. Hijinks follow, including a stop at a travelers camp where miracles happen, meeting Shannyn Sossamon who is a wild thing hunting for a way out of purgatory and a black hole under the seat of a car. Oh yeah and Will Arnett.

So it's a rom-com with a difference, a road trip movie of sorts, a black comedy about purgatory, I've never seen anything like it before or since. The closest I can remember is Defending Your Life with Albert Brooks but that doesn't really compare either. This afterlife is an odd odd place, and the adventures of the three main characters are much more interesting for it.

The character played by Shea Whigham, Eugene, is so similar to Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello and Everything is Illuminated fame it's scary, I think I spent half of the movie wondering if it was actually him. I later found out that the part was written for Hutz which would account for the likeness. Patrick Fugit is pretty much stuck in the same way Michael Cera is stuck, playing that one character again and again to the point where you question whether he is just playing himself. As the main character, Zia, he is melancholy and has given up on (after)life in a way that almost makes you forget about William in Almost Famous. I personally love watching Shannyn Sossamon and find that she has been criminally underused in movies. Whether it's her band taking up all of her time or casting directors just don't like her I don't know but in this she is wonderful, the breath of fresh air that Patrick Fugit needs to pick himself up and the spark around which the whole movie evolves.

Beautifully shot from the moment we arrive in purgatory the film is filled with muted colours and a washed out look to the landscapes, a great choice from the director and is enhanced by all the characters looking slightly grey. The film is filled with magical moments but these are not just the miracles, finding beauty and magic in the more mundane aspects of their journey also. The tone is pretty much perfect, very funny yet not taking its humour from the dark subject matter, there are not really any suicide jokes like some less intelligent movies might use, whimsical yet melancholy with moments of great laughter mixed with truly affecting scenes and several wtf moments.

As a road trip movie it works, the characters grow with each other and because of each other, they experience wondrous and unexplainable events, there's a montage sequence which is obviously essential. As a black comedy, it's funny, so it works here also. As a rom-com, as discussed there is humour and there is different relationships between male and female characters which involves romance, this works also. Basic requirements for the genre aside this is a beautiful and funny film with interesting characters and pretty much faultless direction. If i gave scores it'd get 5/5 or 10/10 or 2 thumbs up. It's really quite a special piece of indie film making.

Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006) DivX - icefilms.info