0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z - €5
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Har har, avast there me hearty's. Actually this isn't a pirate movie, but any excuse to don the mantle of itinerant west country boy washed up on the deck of a major Hollywood movie and I'm there. Or rather here:
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
[Peter Weir, 138', 2003]. 12A - 1Dec03
Based on the Aubrey/Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian, this is a grand sea-ferring epic the likes of which we have not seen upon these shores for many a year. Set aboard a ship of the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars, Weir's film mix and matches elements of O'Brian's series to produce a fine feature. Russel Crowe and his windswept locks put in as sturdy a performance as we witnessed in Gladiator. Here he does manly stuff as the ships captain, think: bass tone exclamations; a man amongst men; firm but fair; the necessity of command and very much more of these anachronistic but strangely moving representations of the masculine. Crowe firmly secures his place in the winter women's mag as totty of the month. But alas for our Russ he ain't quite gorgeous George, there being no knowing, no cool air of conciousness.
MAC:TFSOTW (and doesn't that title just plain semaphore 'nerd') is a finely drawn picture of another time. A much less complex time when the doing got done and moral ambiguity was held at bay. I learnt some handy nautical and botanical knowledge and it was a plesure to witness cannon shot without the usual explosion. That's not to say there is not a questioning onboard ship. The ship's Doc provides a fine foil for the Captain's clarity of purpose, a part time botanist, a rational creature of the Enlightenment given to engaging Crowe with matters philosophical and moral, their intellectual banter levens the tone of the movie, keping the barnacles and ship of west country lads at bay. In fact the crew, a Central cast of yokels and scars seem pretty patient apart from a spell in the doldrums, their unspoken and submerged love for Russ as the man who will take them close to each small death and back clear.
I liked this film a lot. I was all set to sit and clench my teeth through this swashing of buckles but the plot (there is one): Frenchie super ship nearly sinks Russ's boys, they set out to claim vengence, have a bunch of nautical adventures as befits an early 18th century on ship movie and, scientific investigation aside, triumph over their nefarious enemy, works very nicely! Its definetely a boy's film though, all those fab opportunities of projecting ones idealised dreams of doing onto the Cap'n and the Doc, not to speak of the sublimated homo-erotic pleasure to be taken from all that rending of flesh. It was a lovely trip back to easier times when we could pretend that being a man really did mean the doing of stuff, a time of clarity and obvious enemies, no ambiguity and plenty of repression and ne'er a woman in site cap'n. This is a piece of escapist tosh, but the finest tosh I can assure you. . . and I gather there's host of literary source material awaiting those LA script doctors.
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Way back when I used to work as a bicycle messenger, a hard job, my masochistic capacity saw me pushing my own little envelope as often as possible. The onset of winter always witnessed a serious week of work. Not the namby pampy two days sniffling of your office worker, despatch riding demanded everything, and took all, one's ill health often bordering on pneumonia. All those miles compromising the immune system, leaving me capable of nothing much but a sad haul to the cafe for food and then the flics for an afternoon movie. The idea of cinema as part of my rest cure was born. Ever since then I've always associated being ill with crawling into the movies, overdressed and padded out with a bunch of tissues. Likewise this afternoon, the weepfest of MLWM sucked me down.
My Life Without Me
[106', 15], 11Nov03Potential maudalin tear-jerker pulls off surprisingly uplifting feature about terminal case mother of two and loving wife secretly preparing her world for imminent departure. Some humour, some sniffling but all in all a nice little feature. Nothing to overly recommend it, though that (apparently) dishy Mark Ruffalo gets a look in as the bloke who comes along and gives soon to be deceased a quick taste of forbidden fruit,debbie Harry plays mom with an air of wearisome exhasution. It's a nice film but can you be bothered?
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The makings of a crap cold and the willingness to sit very still for a long time born of a weekend of hopping around loving everybody allowed me to sit through the xyz minutes that is
Mystic River
[Clint Eastwood, xyz, 15], 10Nov03A protracted MORE
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It's gonna be crap, it's gonna be crap, it's gonna be crap. . . my mantra the night before as I prepare to view the third in this most hyped of trilogies. Lets be frank, the second one was totally shite, a seething cauldron of plot fragments in search of a movie, the direction sacrificed to the CGI bombast and the script left to the Wachowski's pretentious younger brother. The Matrix was on telly the other night. Considering how much whiz bang and net nerd activity there is around it I was surprised at how coherent the script was. But then the second one came along and all those dollar symbols translate into what, giga? tera? peta? byte computations. The trilogy had transmogrified from movie to game. Matrix 2 was wish fulfillment writ large, video game as adolescent projection made real. What are we to expect from a couple of comic book nerds? And now Matrix 3. It's gonna be crap, but I don't care. I buy into the hype, the glory of Hollywood. LA is the end of the rainbow, the apotheosis of wish-fulfillment. There you can be anything you want to be!
Matrix Revolutions, The
[Larry and Andy Wachowski, xyz', 15], 5Nov03
Essentially this is CRAP but bwoy, the special FX are the best I've ever seen. I was 'Stars Wars First Viewing at 14' gobsmacked! That good. There's a lot of dull shite sandwiching the blat blat blat shoot 'em up, but its worth it. It's not a film, it's a video game, think projection!!! You are that gunner. . .
That veneer of pretension the Bros put on the first, well its a sham. Matrix 3 means nothing. Those glib references to Baudrillard mean squat. But all those sentinels storming the citadel. Shit I want to see it again!!!! I dislike the film, but two hours after seeing it, I was bubbling on the excitement. This really is film-making as something else. it's a theme park ride, a meaningless experience totally suited to our times. And its on at an IMAX screens near me. Book me a ticket!
And yet, I got to thinking. . . this may be crap, and trust me the Bros have not got the faintest clue what to do with an actor. Fortunately they employed Keanu, and, severely scarred by a stab at the Gibson short story Johnny Mneumonic, I have learnt to expect nothing from Reeves. HIs sun has long set, the passing into the west of teh Bill and Ted franchise a shortly mourned but acceptable loss to our civilisation. No Keanu is ideal as Neo, teh man who would be Christ or A N Other figure culled from a quick scan of Campbell's Hero with Ten Thousand Faces. So actng is unecessary within the context of the triogy, a pre-requisite that rewards most of the cast well, lost in the matrix that is the movie, as it were! It may be crqp but somehitng about it niggles. The trilogy is not without redemption. I couldn't help drawing comparison with Tarantino's recent exercise in teenage boy fantasy 'Kill Bill'. His nihilistic piece of wish fulfillment is exquisetely executed, and I use the word with caution, but morally bankrupt. How should we compare this with Matrix 3? The Matrix asks questions about our society. And offers a particularly harsh critique. It seems as if it's original energy has been subsumed to the dynamic of corporatised film making; inevitably! The huge box office returns on the original, intelligent, if quirky original have been translated into the best use of FX movie of our time. Undoubtedly the Brothers energy has also been sapped, their years in comic nerd book wilderness sketching out teh original narrative have ben replaced by a substition of intellect for action. There are shards of insight in teh second and thrid movies but for teh most part they are bombastic and meaningless. The interplay of ideas from teh first has disappeared, The Brothers have disappeared within The Spectacle, to cite the Situationist theorising they gleefully plunder. Not a surprise, I applaud them for getting so far!
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We are situated at the nexus of a society of consumption, our every move precipitated by longling and desire. We have truly all consumed the blue pill. Indeed Matrix 3 is one more pill it is a littel tricky to swallow
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0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z - €5
