blahblahblahloves Swingers (1996)

Earlier this week I was drinking a turkish delight mocha at Perth's finest dispensary of coffee, Cabin Fever, taking a much needed break from everything else when my companion for the afternoon made a small age based slip that nearly made my brain explode. She had no idea what I was talking about when I mentioned the movie Swingers.

Perhaps being an impressionable teenager in 1996 means it seemed like a bigger event than it was, but there was a time when it seemed like everyone had heard of this movie. But then also that was back in England. I thought this would be a nice excuse to have a little blahblahblah moment about another of my all time faves and a film that i've watched nearly as many times as The Big Lebowski.

For those not in the know Swingers was written by a then unknown Jon Favreau to showcase his friends' talents, it was directed by a similarly unknown Doug Liman back when he was still making quirky films that didn't feature explosions quite a lot of the time and co-starring a really tall skinny guy named Vince Vaughn. He's not very skinny anymore.


These were the only two posters I could find. In an era when photoshop wasn't readiy available I guess indie films had to make do with just a few images and word of mouth buzz. I've always had a soft spot for the orange one which I have seen so many times on my VHS cover and then DVD sleeve to the point where I skip over Swingers on my shelves because I now have the special edition with the black sleeve and I don't recognise it.



I hate cheesy voice overs on trailers. It's painful and they never tell the story as it happens, they shoehorn the movie into their idea of what people want to know and knowing this movie as well as I do this trailer is particularly badly shoehorned.

To synopsisise for you, Mike and Trent are struggling actors (art imitating life,) their friends are struggling actors. They live for the parties and the girls and the distant hope that they'll get a callback. Loosely the story revolves around Trent helping Mike to get over a girl and there's a whole bunch of shenaniganising throughout.

This is film very funny, and the humour comes from the performances of the two leads. Yes it had comedy potential when written but delivered by other actors it would lose it's charm. The cameraderie and obvious affection for each other shines through and provides a strong platform to build great comedic moments off of. The story goes that Spielberg cast Vaughn in Jurassic Park 2 off the back of this film and I think he steals the film with his performance, the success they've both had off the back of Swingers is more than deserved.

The scenarios may be a little enhanced or exaggerated and we may not all be struggling actors but they are still true to the humanity of the situation. That humanity gives this film heart and helps it to stand out from the crowd when it could easily have been just another obnoxious comedy about overgrown boys trying to get laid.

The friendship of Trent and Mike are what makes this film for me. Above the fuckups, the film geek moments, the drama and the one-liners this is about friendship. And I totally identify. I know what it's like to be that guy in the PG-13 movie who hasn't really got a clue, merely treading water and making up the numbers, sitting quietly whilst your R rated buddies take centre stage and completely identify with Mike. Finding yourself amongst all that craziness is no easy business. And who hasn't wished they could behave like Trent in this movie? He's so sure of himself, gets all the women he wants and has the adoration of a group of friends.

There's so much gold contained in this 90 minute film that it's hard to narrow it down to a few points, Mikes answering machine adventure is horrifying and hilarious at the same time, getting caught out lying to a girl in a bar has a similar effect, the homage to Reservoir Dogs and Goodfellas directly after a conversation about how good those movies were is a film geek's wet dream, the reality of a road trip to Vegas, baby, and the conversation that brought it about feels completely true, the harsh light of the bright desert sun stumbling hungover out of a trailer on the side of a highway after a disappointing sexual adventure, is this the real Vegas experience?

All these things stand so vivid in my mind 15 years later and it has clearly influenced so many films that have come and gone since, most notably the recent blockbuster Hangover, so why haven't you all seen it yet?

It's an enjoyable ride and if you don't refer to yourself as money at least once after watching I'll be shocked. Leave some blah below. 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. I'm looking at you Uwe Boll.

Swingers (1996) DivX - icefilms.info

The Week In Movies 27/6/11 - 3/7/11

Another week of not much happening with me and film. But at least I did get some films watched. And they were actually better than last week. Progress is being made.

If I'd had time this week I was going to write a comparison of the two versions of Arthur, but as you can see, I didn't. Arthur (2011) stars everyone's favourite reformed junkie and comedian Russell Brand alongside Dame Helen Mirren (unlike Sir Ben Kingsley she does not advertise this fact on movie posters) in a remake of a very very funny Dudley Moore comedy from 1981. As a fan of the original and especially the performances of Liza Minelli, Dudley Moore and John Gielgud I was extremely hesitant about this version but I'll watch Russell Brand in anything, at least until I know it's awful, Helen Mirren is almost always excellent and I've had a soft spot for Jennifer Garner ever since 13 Going On 30 so it didn't take much to get me to watch it. And what I found was a film that was extremely funny in parts with strong comedic performances from the three leads. There are so many laugh out loud moments from dialogue between Brand and Mirren delivered so quickly that you end up missing some of it. But surely nothing important.

The ending was overtly preaching that Arthur's behaviour is actually a bad thing despite the fact that you've spent an hour enjoying watching him behave like Bruce Wayne with a sense of humour. Whether this was the studio's doing or the influence of rehab on Russell Brand's output I do not know but it seriously brings the mood down and feels like you're being spanked for thinking drinking and womanising and wasting money is funny. The other negative point I must make about this film is the casting of Greta Gerwig in the Liza Minelli role. She stands out as some kind of substandard version of Zooey Deschanel, all fake quirky and cutesy which detracts from the impact of the movie. Liza in the original was so strong a character and so strong a performance that she threatened to steal the limelight from Dudley Moore whereas you can hardly believe that anyone would actually find this try hard hipster interesting enough to throw away $1billion.

I caught up on a recent Woody Allen film that seems to have gone over my head in the last few years, Whatever Works, and I can see why no real fuss was made of it. I like Allen, obviously, and I like Larry David in small doses so this actually appealed to me and I didn't just see it because it was another Woody Allen. I quite enjoyed it but it was incredibly flawed. It felt like some small indie movie about New Yorkers, to use an Americanism they're a dime a dozen and this one really doesn't stand out from the crowd. Larry David is funny, in this he's a blend of the standard Woody Allen replacement and his character from Curb Your Enthusiasm and the rest of the casting, as always with Allen, is great but none of them are really likable and you don't really care what happens in the end. I don't think it helped that the content is primarily about an old man dating a very young girl and the first thing that springs to mind is that it's autobiographical.

When you're in need of something fun and violent Arnie always works. As mentioned in the Sci-Fi chapter of the blahblahblah Family DVD Guide, Running Man is incredibly intelligent and raises many interesting questions about society that are still relevant today. Poor Captain Freedom.

Leah's choice of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher was an average TV movie and easily the worst film of the week. Based on the book by Kate Summerscale this looked like it would impress but let down badly. The book is about the true story of a murder in England in 1860 and the effects of the media coverage on British society and the detecting skills of Mr Whicher. Starring the always excellent Paddy Considine and having had a pretty large budget I had high hopes but as Leah said afterwards if it was a story that would work as a movie a Hollywood studio would have optioned it instead of a British TV channel. As a Victorian period piece it was OK, I didn't notice anything out of place such as a jet in the sky or an ipod on an extra. It looked nice. It was well filmed if a bit obvious in it's camera movement and the acting was not noticeably soap opera level as I generally expect from British TV. And you may all throw countless examples of quality acting back at me here but on the whole it is my experience that the majority is poor. What lets it down is the adaptation. It's just not possible to show the effect that the murder and the subsequent invasion of privacy had on Victorian society in a 90 minute film and so they didn't even attempt it. There was no real detecting and no real story arc either, leaving almost a documentary like structure. A happens, B happens, C happens. That's a little harsh on documentaries actually, the really good ones tell a story much better than Mr Whicher did.

Don't forget to leave a blah about your views

Unpacking is Hard blahblahblahloves Peter Biskind

As I've been so incapable of finding time to write reviews or even lists this week due to last week's move I grabbed some time to write a little something about Peter Biskind and more specifically his books on film history.

I never even considered that I would still be half unpacked a week after moving. It's no fun at all trying to fit it all in around work and all those other things that just have to get done, like cooking and sleep. I really should have booked some time off to just get it all done but it didn't even occur to me. Today I put my growing noir collection in chronological order in preparation for the (hopefully) forthcoming noirathon which only leaves me with one packing box filled with DVDs. Progress. But last night we went out for coffee and cake in Mt. Lawley and stopped in at Planet Books, I really wanted the Peter Biskind biography of Warren Beatty, Star, but it was only in hardcover and that's no fun to read on public transport.

Leah asked me why I was so interested in reading it and to be fair to her it's a legitimate question. Warren Beatty is not a name that gets mentioned very often around here, I can't even remember the last time I saw a movie that he was in (Bonnie & Clyde was at least 2 years ago and hopefully I've seen his face since then) but he is a very interesting figure from Hollywood history based on what I've read of him so far. That alone shouldn't really make me choose a Beatty bio over The Encyclopedia of Film Noir for example. The other factor is the focus of this piece, Peter Biskind, a man who has written countless essays and had 6 books on film published.


As a film student we had a lot of reading to get through on film history; essays, books, articles, technical, personal, interesting, tedious, enjoyable to read and pieces on niche aspects of the history of film that only middle-aged lesbian tutors had any interest in. I don't say that to be mean or exclusionary or anything like that but there are some subjects that aren't fit for a general course on genres at bachelor level in which you have to keep 80 students interested and those specialist areas should be saved post graduate work. I would have had the same reaction if we'd been forced to study superhero movies for 3 months and then write 5000 words on it.

But I digress, my point is that some of the things you read on a course like the one I took stay with you for differing reasons, the work of Peter Biskind stayed with me for all the right reasons.

His subject matter is always incredibly interesting, it's film after all and that's why we're here, but it is the way he writes that keeps you turning page after page. His knowledge and research is phenomenal, he adds so many first hand anecdotes and asides that you get the impression that you were living through the time yourself. What at first seems overly detailed and maybe even bloated quickly turns into "why didn't he include more information?" because you're hooked on the story of how Dennis Hopper nearly blew it when editing Easy Rider or absolutely any story of Bob and Harvey Weinstein doing absolutely anything. And he refers to everyone by their first name after they're introduced which lends what is essentially a complex study on a specific piece of modern history a real casual air and increases readability tenfold.

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls was the first of his books that I read, it was about a period in Hollywood that I didn't have too much interest in at the time, a fresh faced kid who desperately wanted to be a Rebel Without a Crew filling his films with pop culture references, this stuff was old school and about dull old films right? Yeah I really was that person once. It amazes me. And yet it was the power of this book that really made me pay attention to so many more film makers and actors than I'd ever considered. To me Cybill Shepherd was just that brassy old woman from that sitcom and Jack Nicholson was merely The Joker and that rude guy in As Good As It Gets. Spielberg was just a guy that made mostly averagely enjoyable movies and was really famous. But Peter Biskind changed all that.

He paints a vivid picture of Hollywood not having a clue how to make money anymore and jumping on the break out success of Easy Rider by throwing money at a bunch of kids just out of film school filled with ideas on how to make movies that people would actually want to watch, no questions asked. This is how Zach Snyder gets his movies made now, "oh yeah 300 made a ton of money, go away and do something else," except do people really want to see those films? Yeah he's my new pinup boy: Michael Bay, you've been replaced. It was inspiring to read about the collaborations and the ingenuity of these new film makers, the camaraderie and success that came with it. The way Biskind describes things you feel like it was possible to achieve anything and it sparked a little dream inside me, I too can achieve anything!

But as things slowly go sour things get even more interesting, you're in the deep end with Scorsese and De Niro as they fight to get Raging Bulls made, you read in horror as Spielberg invents modern blockbuster movies and Michael Cimino presents United Artists with the straw that breaks the camels back. Everyone loves to read about disasters and failures, check out the latest issue of Heat or whatever it is. But by this point you feel as invested in these careers and movies as the artists were themselves and it hurts to find these things out.

Bullet point the same facts for example and you really wouldn't care but it is the quality of Peter Biskind that makes all the difference. Down and Dirty Pictures is about another generation of young film makers bucking the norm but really it's about Miramax. Again the quality of research and storytelling from Peter Biskind turns what could be a pretty dull book attempting to sell copies off the back of "tell all" anecdotes about two of the most powerful men in Hollywood in to a fascinating behind the scenes read.

I don't think I'm wrong in assuming that Bob and Harvey Weinstein are generally considered to be assholes around Hollywood. There are enough stories and lawsuits to paint that picture but despite their behaviour towards film makers you can't help but like them after reading Biskind's history. He takes you on this journey in a very similar way to the telling of Easy Riders, they are the plucky underdogs fighting against the Hollywood beast and along the way they are somehow corrupted by power. Conversely the story of likable guy Robert Redford and Sundance Festival makes you really dislike him despite his obvious attempts to do the right thing.

Wow I can't stop writing, no time for love Dr Jones, I had better end this now with a rather hurried final paragraph. Peter Biskind has been on the jury at Sundance, he edited Premiere magazine for 9 years, he spent 6 years putting together a biography of Warren Beatty, he made me love much more about film than I had even imagined existed and more importantly his books inspire me. This is not a "go out and buy his books" article (but you should) by the way, just a (intended at least) quick note about a film writer that it's possible you haven't read yet. And maybe a great book about film is even more important than films themselves. Sometimes.

Reading is Believing: How Peter Biskind Made Me Stop Troublemaking and Love Cinema (A list of things learned from reading Peter Biskind)

• Steven Spielberg comes across as such a little bitch in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. The guy I blame for bringing Hollywood to the state it's currently in. Sure he denies it but wouldn't you if you realised how other people see you?
  
• Bob and Harvey Weinstein are crazy and love to cut and threaten to cut finished films before distribution.
• Facts are not always reported accurately in Hollywood stories.
• Passion comes across so clearly in the interviews with film makers that it's hard to stop day dreaming about what it will be like when you finally make your first film.
• There are countless films mentioned that I would never have heard of, lost in a vacuum reserved for those films that weren't successful and found only by dedicated movie hunters.
• A film's success may be down to things like distribution and marketing rather than mere quality or budget. Some pretty poor indie flicks get wide releases and others that are very good get ignored because the producers signed the deal with the wrong company.
• For every film and fim maker you've heard of there are 10 out there you haven't and even so they are quite succesful.
  

Any of you readers read Biskind? Are you in the other camp to me, accusing him of tabloid reporting? Anyone actually gonna read his books now? I promise to review a film soon.