12 June 2007

Ketel One

Ketel One
An advert by Ketel One, the vodka company, features an alphabetical list of "the 50 best films of all time", as follows:
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • A Clockwork Orange
  • American Graffiti
  • Annie Hall
  • Apocalypse Now
  • Battleship Potemkin
  • Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ
  • The Bridge On The River Kwai
  • Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
  • Casablanca
  • Chinatown
  • Citizen Kane
  • Dances With Wolves
  • The Deer Hunter
  • Dr Zhivago
  • Dr Strangelove
  • ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
  • Easy Rider
  • The French Connection
  • Giant
  • The Godfather II
  • Gone With The Wind
  • GoodFellas
  • The Graduate
  • High Noon
  • It's A Wonderful Life
  • Jaws
  • Lawrence Of Arabia
  • Midnight Cowboy
  • My Fair Lady
  • On The Waterfront
  • One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
  • Platoon
  • Psycho
  • Pulp Fiction
  • Raging Bull
  • Raiders Of The Lost Ark
  • Rocky
  • Schindler's List
  • The Searchers
  • The Silence Of The Lambs
  • Singin' In The Rain
  • Some Like It Hot
  • Star Wars IV: A New Hope
  • The Sound Of Music
  • Taxi Driver
  • To Kill A Mockingbird
  • Vertigo
  • West Side Story
  • The Wizard Of Oz
It's populist and weighted towards Hollywood classics, so a few more foreign-language films would be nice (The Seventh Seal and Seven Samurai, at least), but otherwise this is quite a decent list. Note that Ben-Hur is the William Wyler remake rather than the Fred Niblo version. Also, Some Like It Hot is the 1959 comic masterpiece, not the obscure 1939 comedy.

Coincidence

Coincidence
Bean
Coincidence is a small exhibition of observational photographs by Thai director Pen-ek Rattanarueng, taken while he was filming on location in various countries. Many of the images capture incongruous advertising images, such as a poster for the film Mr Bean's Holiday. The exhibition is running from 16th May until 17th June at Siam Paragon.

31 May 2007

The Hollywood Studio System

The Hollywood Studio System
Douglas Gomery's book The Hollywood Studio System was first published over twenty years ago, and has been republished in an expanded version. The first edition dealt only with the golden age of the Hollywood studio system (the 1930s and 1940s), though Gomery has now supplemented this with sections on the system's origins (1915-1930) and its death and rebirth (1950 onwards).

The Genius Of The System, by Thomas Schatz, also presents a studio-by-studio history of Hollywood. Gomery's book is drier than Schatz's, though; reading all the economic and corporate detail, you sometimes forget that the studios produced entertainment and art. Gomery takes the 'show' out of 'show business', though Schatz strikes a better balance. However, Schatz discusses only the major studios whereas Gomery finds room for them all.

30 May 2007

“Not a genuine party...”


Democracy Monument

The Constitutional Tribunal, a body established after the coup as a substitute for the Constitutional Court, has ruled that Thaksin Shinawatra’s Thai Rak Thai party must be dissolved. TRT executives were found to have paid smaller parties to contest last year’s general election, and to falsify the party registration forms of some party candidates. (If a party campaigns unopposed, a higher threshold of votes is required to win, and candidates must have been party members for at least ninety days before they can stand for parliament. TRT colluded to ensure that minor parties had enough candidates to stand against them, paradoxically making it easier for TRT to win.)

111 TRT executives, including Thaksin, have been banned from active politics for the next five years, and no candidates can contest any future election under the TRT banner. The Democrats, on the other hand, have been acquitted of all charges. The judges’ verdict reads: “The Thai Rak Thai Party acted to advance the personal fortune of its leader and tampered with the electoral process in order to grab and cling to power—this not a genuine party with any ideology”.

27 May 2007

The Way Hollywood Tells It

The Way Hollywood Tells It
The Way Hollywood Tells It, by David Bordwell, analyses the continuation of the narrative and stylistic trends established by classical Hollywood. It rejects the notion of a post-classical cinema, arguing that the new distribution techniques of blockbuster films (Star Wars, etc.) do not affect the classical construction of the films themselves, that post-modern self-referentiality (in Toy Story, etc.) has precedents from the studio era, and that narrative experimentation (Memento, etc.) is accompanied by classical principles to avoid alienating the audience.

Bordwell, one of the most respected American film writers (whose Film Art is perhaps the most popular film studies textbook), has written this as a sequel to The Classical Hollywood Cinema, his groundbreaking analysis of Hollywood modes of production from 1917-1960. Contemporary American Cinema, the only other book devoted to post-1960 American cinema, goes into more depth than Bordwell's, though its analysis is less impressive.

13 May 2007

What Is Design?

What Is Design?
Thailand Creative & Design Center's permanent exhibition, What Is Design?, features a VW Beetle and other modern icons, a great opportunity to see 20th century industrial design in Bangkok. It's only a small exhibition, though it's the kind of permanent showcase for design classics that's missing from London's Design Museum.

10 May 2007

"The memo is explosive..."

Daily Mirror
Two men were jailed today for leaking a classified memo detailing a conversation between UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush that took place on 16th April 2004. Civil servant David Keogh, who copied the memo, was sentenced to six months in jail. Keogh had given the memo to Leo O'Connor, who received a three-month sentence for passing it on to MP Anthony Clarke. Keogh and O'Connor were arrested in 2004, when Clarke called the police after finding the memo in his office.

Details of the memo were first revealed by the Daily Mirror on 22nd November 2005, under the front-page headline "BUSH PLOT TO BOMB HIS ARAB ALLY". The report began: "Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals. But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash." The newspaper quoted a source saying: "The memo is explosive and hugely damaging to Bush."

After the story was published, the Attorney General threatened the UK media with prosecution under the Official Secrets Act if any further details of the memo were revealed. This marked the first and only time that the Act - rather than a conventional injunction - had been used to censor the media. Also, Keogh and O'Connor's trial was held in camera, and the judge ruled that it would be a contempt of court to report Keogh's three-word response when he was asked about his initial reaction to the memo.

Due to the reporting ban, and the closed trial, there has been some confusion surrounding the charges against Keogh and O'Connor. Their arrest was not reported until they were formally charged on 17th November 2005, more than a year after the event. The case was originally linked to another leaked memo, titled Iraq: The Medium Term, published by The Sunday Times on 23rd May 2004, though subsequent media reports have linked the case only to the "BUSH PLOT" memo.

PDF

08 May 2007

1,000 Films To Change Your Life

1,000 Films To Change Your Life
1,000 Films To Change Your Life, edited by Simon Cropper, is a book of film recommendations categorised not chronologically but (a la Tate Modern) by emotional impact. There are chapters on Joy, Anger, Food For Thought (i.e. contemplation), Desire, Fear, Sadness, Exhilaration, Regret, Contempt, and Wonder. As a guide to films you might enjoy depending on your mood, it won't really teach you anything new, but it does give useful viewing suggestions.

An appendix titled 100 To Watch lists "100 reviews of key titles mentioned in this book", arranged alphabetically:
  • After Life
  • L'Age d'Or
  • Aguirre: The Wrath Of God
  • Alphaville
  • L'Atalante
  • An Autumn Afternoon
  • L'Avventura
  • Beau Travail
  • Berlin Alexanderplatz
  • La Bete Humaine
  • Bicycle Thieves
  • Branded To Kill
  • Cat People
  • Le Cercle Rouge
  • Chinatown
  • Citizen Kane
  • Come & See
  • The Conversation
  • Crimes & Misdemeanors
  • Le jour se leve
  • Days Of Being Wild
  • The Deer Hunter
  • Dr Strangelove
  • Dog Day Afternoon
  • Double Indemnity
  • Dracula
  • The Elephant Man
  • Eraserhead
  • Far From Heaven
  • The Five Obstructions
  • Frankenstein
  • The General
  • Gloria
  • The Godfather
  • Godzilla
  • Grand Illusion
  • The Green Ray
  • La Haine
  • Hana-Bi
  • Heat
  • Imitation Of Life
  • In A Lonely Place
  • In Praise Of Love
  • Insignificance
  • In The Company Of Men
  • In The Mood For Love
  • Irma Vep
  • The Killers
  • Kind Hearts & Coronets
  • King Kong
  • Kiss Me Deadly
  • Knife In The Water
  • Land & Freedom
  • Letter From An Unknown Woman
  • The Limey
  • The Magnificent Seven
  • The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
  • The Man Without A Past
  • A Matter Of Life & Death
  • Metropolis
  • Mon Oncle D'Amerique
  • My Neighbour Totoro
  • Night & Fog
  • The Night Of The Hunter
  • Ninotchka
  • North By Northwest
  • Once Upon A Time In America
  • A One & A Two
  • Ordet
  • Pickpocket
  • The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes
  • Rashomon
  • Ratcatcher
  • Read My Lips
  • Sans Soleil
  • The Scent Of Green Papaya
  • The Searchers
  • Seven Samurai
  • Sherlock Jr
  • Short Cuts
  • Singin' In The Rain
  • Some Like It Hot
  • The Son
  • Sonatine
  • The Story Of The Late Chrysanthemums
  • Sullivan's Travels
  • Taboo
  • Taxi Driver
  • Things To Come
  • Time Out
  • Touch Of Evil
  • 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • 2046
  • The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg
  • Vertigo
  • The Wild Bunch
  • The Wind Will Carry Us
  • Witchfinder General
  • Woman Of The Dunes
  • Z
The book also has many short essays, including Emilie Bickerton on films that "chastise the viewer for daring to enter the auditorium", Christopher Frayling on "how films can scare us", and Jonathan Rosenbaum on films that generate "open-mouthed awe". In the second of his essays, Geoff Andrews suggests that the best film directors have surnames starting with 'K', and I heartily agree. Speaking of which, there's also a brief analysis of Kubrick's oeuvre by Ben Walters. Note that Frankenstein is the 1931 James Whale version, not the silent Thomas Edison film. Also, Some Like It Hot is the 1959 comic masterpiece, not the obscure 1939 comedy.

02 May 2007

Hello!

Hello!
OK! magazine has partially won its appeal against rival Hello! magazine over publication of the wedding photographs of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones. The long-running case dates from the couple's marriage seven years ago, when they signed an exclusive deal with OK! for pictures of the wedding ceremony. Hello! magazine published unauthorised photos of the wedding (on 28th November 2000), resulting in a breach-of-confidentiality lawsuit.

OK! was awarded damages by the High Court in 2003, though the verdict was overturned by the Court of Appeal in 2005. OK! appealed that decision to the House of Lords, which ruled today that Hello! had breached OK!'s confidentiality by publishing the surreptitious photographs, though the Lords did not find that Hello!'s actions had been commercially damaging.

PDF

01 May 2007

100 Years Of Magazine Covers

100 Years Of Magazine Covers
Steve Taylor's 100 Years Of Magazine Covers is an international survey of a century of magazine covers, from the first issue of Punch to the latest issue of Modern Toss. The book is divided into five thematic chapters.

The first chapter discusses the magazine cover as celebrity portraiture. An Andy Warhol self-portrait for his own magazine Interview is included, alongside Annie Leibovitz's iconic image of John Lennon and Yoko Ono for Rolling Stone.

Chapter two covers reportage and politics, from the reverential (Picture Post's dignified image of Winston Churchill) to the satirical (a savage Richard Nixon caricature by Ralph Steadman for Rolling Stone, and Harold Wilson on the cover of Private Eye). The scope of this chapter is far too large, though, and although it covers (American) politics quite well, there is very little room for war reportage.

The next chapter is devoted to fashion magazines, including Elle, Vogue, i-D, and Dazed & Confused. Fashion magazines from the 1960s dominate this chapter, alongside a survey of contemporary style titles such as Another Magazine. There are only a few Vogue covers represented, though the magazine deserves much more extensive coverage.

The penultimate chapter concerns cultural movements (such as feminism, civil rights, and gay rights) and youth subcultures (including punks and hippies). This chapter's main focus is underground and fanzine titles like Oz and Sniffin' Glue.

Finally, the last chapter looks at magazine covers as graphic design objects, including some wonderful 1980s typography from The Face and bold 1970s covers from Time Out. Four pages devoted to eleven cover reproductions of Fast Company in this chapter seems highly excessive.

The only previous book to present a history of magazine covers is David Crowley's Magazine Covers. Crowley's book has 100 fewer pages than Taylor's, though it does have an index whereas Taylor's doesn't. Crowley presents double-page spreads on each magazine, organised into the same chapter themes as Taylor. Taylor has more of a pedigree (he has worked for The Face and Arena; his book is introduced by The Face's art director, Neville Brody), though Crowley's book has more historical scope. Both books are dominated by superb illustrations, with minimal text, though Crowley's writing is more detailed.

20 April 2007

Flesh For Frankenstein (2D)

Flesh For Frankenstein
Flesh For Frankenstein was filmed back-to-back with Blood For Dracula, and both were directed by Paul Morrissey, who made all of Andy Warhol's Factory films from Chelsea Girls onwards. Morrissey steadily increased the production values, narrative conventions, and cinematic techniques of the Factory films, gradually shedding the 'underground' aesthetic Warhol had initially established.

Warhol's Factory star Joe Dallesandro appears in Flesh For Frankenstein, and, although he is the film's most naturalistic performer (because he was one of the few native English speakers in the cast), he is also the most out of place. He has the attitude of a New York hustler, which, although perfect for his earlier roles in Morrissey's Lonesome Cowboys, Flesh, Trash, and Heat, seems incongruous in the European Gothic context of Frankenstein. The other cast-members, led by Udo Kier as Baron Frankenstein, speak with thick German accents, consequently appearing stilted and artificial.

The film was made in 3D, so there are numerous shots of organs and implements thrust at the camera. I've seen only the 'flat' version, which loses the stereoscopic effects though adds more nudity from Dallesandro. There are decapitations and disembowelings aplenty, though the campy atmosphere removes any vestige of real horror. The tone is set by the film's most famous line, though it's been quoted so often in reviews that repeating it here is hardly necessary.

There is some dispute regarding directorial credit, as, in the film's Italian prints, Morrissey is listed only as a supervising director. It was filmed in Italy (using the same sets as Blood For Dracula), with uncredited second-unit direction by Italian horror director Antonio Margheriti, though rumour has it that Margheriti actually directed the whole film. This rumour has been convincingly denied by Morrissey and the leading actors, though the nature of Margheriti's contribution remains unclear.

16 April 2007

Free Thai Cinema Movement


Free Thai Cinema Movement

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, one of the leading New Thai Cinema directors, has withdrawn his film Syndromes and a Century from distribution in Thailand. Thai censors had asked him to cut innocuous scenes such as a monk playing guitar and doctors drinking liquor.

Apichatpong refused to censor the film and he has now started a Free Thai Cinema Movement, calling for drastic changes in the Thai censorship system. The campaign will be officially launched at a press conference at the House Rama cinema in Bangkok on 23rd April, which will be attended by Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Nonzee Nimibutr, and other prominent directors.

09 April 2007

The Fountain

The Fountain
The Fountain is Darren Aronofsky's third film. His previous works, Pi and Requiem For A Dream, were both staggeringly original, hallucinogenic pieces of cinema.

The film, starring Hugh Jackman and Aronofsky's partner Rachel Weisz, is an exploration of the eternal pursuit of love, death, and immortality, in the past, present, and future. But it's impossible to put all this into a film lasting barely ninety minutes, especially as the short running time includes numerous repetitions of key scenes.

It begins with a quote from Genesis, though its narrative is explicitly derived from Mayan creation mythology and its future sequences seem inspired by Buddhism. The result is a conventional tragic love story with added 2001-style cosmic exploration and narrative ambiguity.

100 Greatest Movies Of All Time

Empire
The current issue of Empire magazine's Australian edition has published the results of their reader survey of the 100 greatest films ever made:

1. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
2. Pulp Fiction
3. The Shawshank Redemption
4. Aliens
5. A Clockwork Orange
6. Donnie Darko
7. The Lord Of The Rings III: The Return Of The King
8. Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
9. Amelie
10. GoodFellas
11. The Matrix
12. American Beauty
13. Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
14. The Lord Of The Rings I: The Fellowship Of The Ring
15. The Godfather
16. Grease
17. Braveheart
18. A Nightmare On Elm Street
19. Fight Club
20. Back To The Future
21. Alien
22. Apocalypse Now
23. Gone With The Wind
24. Titanic
25. Forrest Gump
26. Raiders of the Lost Ark
27. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
28. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
29. The Rocky Horror Picture Show
30. Schindler's List
31. Kill Bill I
32. Scarface
33. The Princess Bride
34. Top Gun
35. Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery
36. Rocky
37. Casino Royale
38. An American Werewolf In London
39. The Wizard Of Oz
40. Casablanca
41. Zoolander
42. Gallipoli
43. The Lord Of The Rings II: The Two Towers
44. 2001: A Space Odyssey
45. Heat
46. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
47. Gladiator
48. Terminator II: Judgment Day
49. The Sound Of Music
50. Seven
51. Die Hard
52. Star Wars VI: Return Of The Jedi
53. Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan
54. The Usual Suspects
55. Jaws
56. Memento
57. The Godfather II
58. The Big Lebowski
59. Taxi Driver
60. The Shining
61. Stand By Me
62. Clerks
63. The Silence Of The Lambs
64. Spider-Man
65. The Lion King
66. Chopper
67. Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ
68. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
69. Superman
70. Picnic At Hanging Rock
71. Batman
72. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
73. Platoon
74. To Kill A Mockingbird
75. Blade Runner
76. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
77. Mad Max
78. Brokeback Mountain
79. Chicago
80. Psycho
81. Moulin Rouge!
82. The Breakfast Club
83. Citizen Kane
84. Reservoir Dogs
85. The Crow
86. Mad Max II
87. Babel
88. Annie Hall
89. All About Eve
90. Animal House
91. Rear Window
92. Crocodile Dundee
93. Seven Samurai
94. The Blues Brothers
95. Romeo & Juliet
96. Monty Python's Life Of Brian
97. Flying High
98. X-Men
99. The Terminator
100. It's A Wonderful Life

Empire Australia's previous poll was in 2002, and was also won by Star Wars IV.

Some people still need to realise that 'greatest film of all time' is not the same as 'movie you saw recently that you liked'; what other explanation can there be for Casino Royale (the Martin Campbell remake) and Borat on the new list? Also, Scarface is the Brian de Palma remake rather than the superior Howard Hawks original, Ben-Hur is the William Wyler remake, Romeo & Juliet is the Baz Luhrmann version, Titanic is the James Cameron version, and Psycho is the original version.

03 April 2007

Taxidermia

Taxidermia
Taxidermia, directed by Gyorgy Palfi, is visually and thematically grotesque. It's full of startling, transgressive images. (Even the poster had to be censored.) It has the potential to be a midnight movie classic in the tradition of the similarly surreal Eraserhead and the equally transgressive/grotesque Pink Flamingos.

There are three sections, about three generations of men from the same family. Vendel is a soldier during World War II, a compulsive voyeur and fantasist. Vendel's son Kalman, an obese professional speed-eater, is the subject of the middle segment. Kalman's son Lajoska, the taxidermist of the film's title, is the final subject.

The initial segment, concerning Vendel, is sensational. The tone is dark and unsettling, and the concepts (Vendel's unique pyromania in the film's opening scene, his corruption of the Little Matchstick Girl, and his lust for a dead pig) are original and provocative. This segment also begins with a diatribe on the phonology and usage of my favourite word (or rather, its Hungarian equivalent), and contains the film's most transgressive images (real sex and death, and ingenious frontal nudity, though the latter is CGI).

Unfortunately, the disturbingly surreal atmosphere of the opening section is not sustained in the second section. The story of Kalman relies too much on pure abjection, with copious vomiting and mastication during eating competitions.

In the final section, Kalman has become a man-mountain resembling Jabba the Hutt (Star Wars) or Mr Creosote (Life Of Brian). Like the speed-eaters of the middle segment, Kalman is ultimately more comical than shocking. However, at the very end, in the film's most disturbing scene, Lajoska disembowels himself with surgical precision and constructs a self-decapitation machine.

31 March 2007

The Departed

The Departed
Martin Scorsese's latest film, The Departed, won 'best picture' at this year's Oscars (and Scorsese finally won 'best director'). Leonardo DiCaprio plays Costigan, an undercover cop who infiltrates the crew of gangster Frank Costello (played with enormous relish by Jack Nicholson). Matt Damon is Sullivan, Costello's protege, a mole in the Boston police department. The film is a remake of the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs.

Scorsese has directed some of the most acclaimed (Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), and most controversial (The Last Temptation Of Christ) films of the past thirty years. He is primarily associated with gangster films such as Mean Streets, GoodFellas, and Casino. His Hollywood biopic The Aviator was unusually glamorous for a Scorsese film, though The Departed takes him back to gritty crime territory.

There are parallels with GoodFellas - both films begin with a young boy initiated into gangsterhood, then cut to him as a man (Ray Liotta in GoodFellas, and Matt Damon in The Departed). There are also references to the classic Warner gangster film Scarface, with an 'X' appearing as a backdrop whenever a character dies. The Third Man is also referenced, by the shadows on the wall as Costigan is chasing Sullivan and when Sullivan's girlfriend walks past him after a funeral.

The Departed is DiCaprio's third Scorsese film, after Gangs Of New York and The Aviator. This is his best performance for Scorsese thus far, certainly better than his cherubic, unconvincing role as Howard Hughes in The Aviator. In The Departed, DiCaprio's character has the widest emotional range, from psycho violence to paranoia to vulnerability, all of which he pulls off successfully. In contrast, Damon's character is simply required to look smug most of the time.

Scorsese was apparently happy to indulge Nicholson's wild improvisations. So, Costello grins that trademark Nicholson grin and takes coke by the handful. (Nicholson's most famous addition, a rubber prosthesis, was censored in Thai cinema prints.) This performance, in which, at one point, he is up to his elbows in blood, is the direct opposite of About Schmidt.

The supporting cast is equally impressive. Martin Sheen is totally convincing as middle-aged detective Queenan. Mark Wahlberg is Queenan's abrasive deputy, Dignam. Costello and Dignam both swear more explicitly, more profusely, and more inventively, than characters in any other American studio film.

20 March 2007

Dial M For Murder (2D)

Dial M For Murder
Dial M For Murder is a fascinating, though not premiere league, Alfred Hitchcock film. It was adapted from a play of the same name, and is classic Hitchcock material: the suave villain (played by Ray Milland) has hints of Charlie in Shadow Of A Doubt and Vandamm in North By Northwest, and the plot, involving a pact to murder a man's wife, is similar to Strangers On A Train.

The wife in question is Grace Kelly, the archetypal 'Hitchcock blonde'. Kelly worked with Hitchcock three times, on Dial M For Murder, Rear Window, and To Catch A Thief, and, of these, only Rear Window is truly outstanding, yet she has since become synonymous with the director's preferred female character: a blonde woman with a cool exterior and passion beneath the surface. It could be argued that, with his subsequent moulding of actresses (such as his total control over Tippi Hedren), he was attempting to recreate the Grace Kelly look (in the manner of Scottie in the quasi-autobiographical Vertigo).

In Dial M, Kelly wears pure white with her husband and bright red with her lover - a literal scarlet woman. As the film progresses and her plight increases, her clothes become increasingly plain. This choice of symbolic costumes was later echoed in Psycho, as Marion first appears in a white bra, though after she steals $40,000 she is seen in a black bra representing her loss of innocence.

Like Rope and Rear Window, Dial M's action is confined almost exclusively to a single apartment. It is one of Hitchcock's most theatrical films, with little attempt at innovative camera movement or montage. This style was dictated by the cumbersome 3D cameras used for the film. Hitchcock had no interest in 3D, though after the success of Bwana Devil, and with TV reducing cinema audiences, the studio requested that Dial M be a 3D film. Perhaps they wanted to lend credibility to the gimmicky format, which had previously been utilised only for cheap exploitation films.

Certainly, Dial M was one of the few prestige 3D productions. (I have only seen the 2D version, however.) Hitchcock framed the actors behind props such as lampshades and railings, to give a stereoscopic illusion of depth, and, during the murder scene, Kelly's hand reaches out into the audience in a dramatic 3D shock effect.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

This Film Is Not Yet Rated
Kirby Dick's documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated is a critical examination of the MPAA, the organisation that controls America's film rating system. Ironically, it was submitted to the MPAA and rated 'NC-17', though the version in current circulation is longer than the original (with additional material concerning the director's reaction to his 'NC-17' rating), and is unrated

The MPAA (previously MPPDAA, whose founding president Will Hays instigated the prohibitive Hays Code in the 1930s) classifies films both at the cinema and on video (VHS, DVD, etc.). The organisation was established by the major Hollywood studios to self-regulate the film industry. Its current rating system dates from 1968, when increasing realism in studio films rendered the old Production Code obsolete.

MPAA film ratings are not a legal requirement, though in practice it is almost impossible for an unrated film to attract advertising or theatrical distribution. On video, unrated titles are not stocked by the largest chain stores, Blockbuster and Wal-Mart, as a matter of policy. So an MPAA rating is a commercial necessity.

The documentary concentrates almost exclusively on the 'NC-17' rating, which was introduced in 1990 as an alternative to the previous porn-tainted 'X' certificate. The problem with 'NC-17' films is the same as that of unrated films: mainstream media will not advertise them, and retailers will not sell them. Thus, 'NC-17' is a substantial commercial liability.

In the documentary, several filmmakers recount their frustrating experiences of receiving 'NC-17' ratings, unsuccessfully appealing against the decision, and cutting their films to reduce the rating from 'NC-17' to 'R'. (This was also the case with Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and brief clips from the film are included in this documentary.) They contend that the MPAA operates a series of double standards regarding independent versus studio films and 'normal' versus 'unusual' sex scenes.

Matt Stone, co-creator of South Park, discusses his involvement with the MPAA both inside and outside the studio system. He submitted the independent film Team America and received an 'NC-17', and when he asked why, he was told that specific details could not be provided. However, when he later submitted South Park as a studio production, and again received an 'NC-17', he was given a specific list of cuts required to achieve an 'R'. This kind of preferential treatment for studio films has always been (unconvincingly) denied by the MPAA.

Less persuasive is a series of juxtaposed gay and straight sex scenes of roughly equal explicitness, the gay scenes being rated 'NC-17' and the straight scenes 'R'. The MPAA may well be homophobic and sexist, as the juxtaposition suggests, though the sex scenes included in the documentary are decontextualised, so we have no idea what specifically necessitated the 'NC-17' ratings. (Partly, of course, this is because the MPAA does not disclose specific rating criteria.)

Generally, the MPAA tolerates graphic violence yet forbids sex and nudity. In contrast, the BBFC (Britain's classification board) takes the opposite approach. The MPAA is also more secretive than the BBFC. Jack Valenti, MPAA president from 1966-2004, was the public face of the organisation, defending its decisions though refusing to open it up to scrutiny. James Ferman, BBFC president from 1975-1999, similarly personally courted the media yet maintained the privacy of the BBFC itself. Now, however, the BBFC is a much more open organisation, while the MPAA still refuses to let down its guard.

Kirby Dick challenges the secrecy of the MPAA by hiring a private investigator to uncover the names of the raters who decide each film's classification. The investigator stakes out the MPAA headquarters, following raters and filming them surreptitiously, even going through their rubbish bins in the middle of the night. No laws are broken during the investigation, though when the same tactics were used by the Daily Mail on the BBFC in 1996 (after Crash was passed for UK exhibition), they were strongly condemned.

An 'NC-17' is box-office poison in America, though the reason for this (as A Dirty Shame director John Waters points out in the documentary) is not the rating itself but the stigma attached to the rating (the same stigma associated with the previous 'X' rating), with distributors bowing to conservative/religious pressure-groups. If retailers stocked 'NC-17' films, the rating would be largely unproblematic. The alternative, to rate every adult film 'R', is unsatisfactory, as children can see 'R'-rated films if accompanied by adult guardians. Adding an extra classification, to denote explicit art films, is un-necessary, as that was the purpose of the 'NC-17' classification in the first place.

15 March 2007

Jerry Maguire

Jerry Maguire
Tom Cruise is Jerry Maguire, a ruthless sports agent who has an epiphany. He writes a long "mission statement", accusing his company of chasing profits at the expense of quality service. Naturally, he's fired soon after, and sets himself up as an independent agent. After his dismissal, he calls his old clients to reassure them that he is still in business, though only Rod Tidwell (played by Cuba Gooding Jnr) sticks with him. (This is the scene with "Show me the money!", one of the most famous lines in contemporary cinema.)

With a single client (Tidwell) and a single assistant (Dorothy Boyd, played by Renee Zellweger), Maguire seems washed up, but all 3 of them are determined to make it work. And, of course, they do. But this is more than the usual love-against-the-odds, anti-corporate-greed story. Renee Zellweger is genuinely moving as Dorothy, Jonathan Lipnicki is great (and never annoying, unlike many child actors) as her young son, and Cruise's familiar cocky smiles are at least in keeping with his character. (He has plenty to be cocky about, of course, being the world's most popular actor. But generally he's better in serious films like Magnolia.)

Cameron Crowe, who hasn't directed anything else this good since, has produced a long (but not over-long) and emotionally rich romantic comedy.

About Schmidt

About Schmidt
About Schmidt (directed by Alexander Payne) stars Jack Nicholson as Walter Schmidt, an insurance actuary who reassesses his life following his retirement and the death of his wife.

Nicholson is almost unrecognisable as Schmidt. His trademark grin and wild mannerisms are gone, and his body language is totally transformed. If The Departed showed how manically excessive he can be, About Schmidt demonstrates that he can also be subtle and subdued. It must be one of his best performances since Chinatown and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. (When he orders a drink, the framing is the same as Nicholson's hotel bar scene in The Shining.)

Schmidt is a man who keeps his feelings to himself. It's a completely believeable against-type performance, capturing the frustration, bewilderment, and loneliness of late-middle-age. Only at the very end of the film is Schmidt given an emotional release, making this final scene incredibly moving.

The bland suburban locations (Colorado, Kansas, and Nebraska) and slow pacing add to the film's realism, as do the naturalistic performances of the supporting cast. Numerous tiny observations (such as Schmidt's wife holding his hand at his retirement party, and the answerphone cutting out before he can finish recording a message) combine to create a wonderful, sad, funny, character-driven film.

13 March 2007

Scoop

Scoop
Scoop is Woody Allen's second film set and filmed in London, after Match Point. Both films star Scarlett Johansson; in Scoop, she plays Sondra Pransky, a slightly nerdy journalism student.

Pransky volunteers to take part in a magic act and, when she is alone in the magician's cabinet, the ghost of a dead journalist (Joe Strombel, played by Ian McShane) appears to her. Strombel passes on a scoop that he was unable to follow up before he died: that aristocrat Peter Lyman (played by Hugh Jackman) may be the 'tarot card killer'.

With the magician (Splendini, played by Allen) in tow, Pransky tracks Lyman down and ingratiates herself with him, searching for clues to prove his guilt. There is, of course, incriminating circumstantial evidence, though as Pransky and Lyman fall for each other she becomes convinced that he is actually innocent.

Scoop is much lighter than Match Point, and this helps the film enormously. Whereas Match Point tried and failed to make serious moral observations, Scoop is content with one-liners and a Manhattan Murder Mystery-style plot. Also, the Londoners of Scoop are more authentic than those of Match Point - there are no unintentional laughs here, unlike the earlier film (though there are still a couple of clunky lines).

Magic has been a regular motif in Allen's films. In Oedipus Wrecks (part of New York Stories), a magician makes Allen's mother-in-law disappear, only for her to reappear as a vision in the sky. In The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion, a fraudulent magician hypnotises Allen and Helen Hunt. In his interview with Stig Bjorkman (Woody Allen On Woody Allen), Allen discusses his childhood interest in magic tricks and cites But We Need The Eggs, a book by Diane Jacobs about the magic in his films.

The Grim Reaper, who appeared in Allen's earlier Love & Death and his acerbic Deconstructing Harry, turns up again here, though this time in a silent role. As the Reaper carries the dead along the River Styx, Strombel swims away to warn Pransky and Splendini. McShane gives a great performance in this bit-part. It's a shame that several excellent actors, such as McShane and Anthony Head (as a police inspector at the end of the film), have such small roles.

The film is generally a lot of fun. There are some great one-liners: Allen says "I was born of the Hebrew persuasion, but I converted to narcissism". Allen's character at times seems like a mouthpiece for Allen himself (as in many of his other films): Splendini explains how much he likes staying in London, and how nice Londoners are, but how he couldn't live there permanently.

The only problem comes at the end, when a series of implausible events takes place: Allen's character dies in almost the same (ridiculous) manner as Bela Lugosi's character in Plan Nine From Outer Space, and it transpires (unconvincingly) that Lyman is a killer but isn't the tarot card killer.

The Aviator

The Aviator
The Aviator is one of Martin Scorsese's most unashamedly mainstream films. (Luckily, his long-awaited Oscar was for a grittier production, The Departed.) It's not traditional Scorsese territory, though neither were Kundun or The Age Of Innocence. Leonardo DiCaprio (who also starred in Scorsese's The Departed and Gangs Of New York) plays Howard Hughes in this biopic of the aviator/filmmaker.

Scorsese recreates the glitz of 1930s Hollywood, just as he did for 1970s Las Vegas in Casino. DiCaprio captures Hughes's determination and frustration, though you never quite forget that it's DiCaprio. Cate Blanchett is better, as the tomboyish, headstrong Katharine Hepburn.

The Last Temptation Of Christ

The Last Temptation Of Christ
Director Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation Of Christ begins with a written disclaimer that it is based on the fictional events in Nikos Kazantzakis's novel, and not on the Gospels.

The last temptation of the title refers to the devil's temptation of Jesus on the cross, offering him the chance to live a normal life with a wife and children, renouncing the burden of redeption. Jesus is deceived by Satan, and we see him having sex with Mary Magdalene. This image caused fierce protests around the world when the film was originally released, though the film makes clear that it's only a dream.

Jesus has been represented as sexually active in a 19th Century illustration of a naked Theresa embracing Christ on the cross by Felicien Rops, the engraving Nuptials Of God (the church symbolised by a naked bride, kissing Christ on the cross; 1923) by Eric Gill, the novel The Escaped Cock (describing Christ's sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene, 1929) by DH Lawrence, and the film Jesus Vender Tilbage by Jens Jorgen Thorsen (1992). Bill Zebub's films Into Thy Hands (advertised as Jesus Christ: Serial Rapist, 2004) and The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made (2005) both feature Jesus as a rapist.

Meet The Parents

Meet The Parents
Meet The Parents was directed by Jay Roach, whose career consists almost entirely of Austin Powers films. But fortunately the main attraction here isn't the director, it's Robert De Niro, playing retired CIA agent Jack Byrnes.

Robert De Niro is one of the greatest American actors since Marlon Brando. His performances in The Godfather II, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and GoodFellas are incredible. He parodied his gangster image in the comedy Analyse This (as did Brando, in The Freshman), leading to a series of comedic roles in Meet The Parents and others.

Much of the comedy in Meet The Parents derives from De Niro's intimidation of Ben Stiller, who plays his prospective son-in-law. (Stiller's co-starring role, coupled with a cameo by Luke Wilson, makes this a Frat Pack film, and it's not unlike Wedding Crashers.) Stiller is great as the world's unluckiest man, and De Niro (clearly enjoying himself in the role) is hilarious.

A Dirty Shame

A Dirty Shame
I'm a John Waters fan. I love his hilarious autobiography Shock Value, his no-holds-barred early films such as Pink Flamingos, and even his mainstream yet outrageous later films. But I just don't get the joke in A Dirty Shame.

After a perceived shift into tamer, conventional cinema ever since Hairspray (which has now become a Broadway musical, with Waters, like Warhol and Dali, turning himself into a brand), A Dirty Shame represents a reversion to the transgressive themes of his earliest work. The action takes place in suburban Baltimore (the director's home town), where residents alternate between repression and nymphomania whenever they are concussed. The nymphos are led by Ray-Ray, a Christ-like figure with healing powers (remember L'Age d'Or, with Jesus as a libertine?).

Waters seems to think that, by simply including terms such as 'sploshing' in the dialogue, he is somehow creating a scandal. (Anyway, the grossest terms have already been defined in The Aristocrats.) When he was promoting the film, he gave countless interviews in which he discussed all the naughty new practices he discovered on the internet. But I don't buy his faux naivete, and I can't imagine why he considers name-checking these terms even remotely taboo-breaking or daring.

11 March 2007

รัฐประหาร 19 กันยา

รัฐประหาร 19 กันยา
รัฐประหาร 19 กันยา: รัฐประหารเพื่อระบอบประชาธิปไตยอันมีพระมหากษัตริย์ทรงเป็นประมุข, edited by Thanapol Eawsakul, is a new anthology of essays critical of last year's coup. It is published by Same Sky, publisher of a magazine that was banned last year.

09 March 2007

The Queen

The Queen
Helen Mirren plays Elizabeth II, and Michael Sheen plays Tony Blair, in The Queen, an account of the aftermath of Princess Diana's death. (Sheen has played Blair before, in the Channel 4 UK TV drama The Deal, from the same director and writer as The Queen.)

Director Stephen Frears takes us inside Balmoral and Downing Street to show us the private reactions of the Windsor and Blair families. Plausibility is maintained throughout, and the script was reputedly based on interviews with people closely connected to the real events. The Queen is stoical (maintaining the traditional British stiff upper lip), whereas Blair recognises that an emotional connection with the public is necessary. Against the advice of his wife and press secretary, Blair persuades the Queen to bow to tabloid pressure and pay tribute to Diana.

Living in Thailand gives a new perspective on royalty. Thai people are proud of their King and royal family, and public criticism of them is perhaps Thai society's greatest taboo. It would be impossible to make a film like this in Thailand about the Thai monarch, and I am even slightly surprised that it was made in England so soon after Diana's death, with Elizabeth II and Blair both still in power.

The Devil Wears Prada

The Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada is based on the novel of the same name by Lauren Weisberger, a thinly fictionalised account of her former boss, Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

Wintour is known for her impossible demands, glacial demeanor, and dark glasses, all of which are adopted by Meryl Streep in the lead role, Miranda Priestly, editor of the Vogue-esque magazine Runway. The film's central pleasure is Meryl Streep's performance - she's clearly having fun playing such an icy character

It's the basic fish-out-of-water plot: innocent girl moves to the big city and tries to fit in, then it starts to change her, and finally she realises she doesn't want to fit in after all. A similar tale of working for a bitchy Vogue editor was the basis of the Sex & The City episode A Vogue Idea, and it's no surprise that the director of The Devil Wears Prada, David Frankel, also directed several Sex & The City episodes.

08 March 2007

Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang

Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang
Jonathon Green is probably the world's foremost authority on slang. His first comprehensive lexicon, The Cassell Dictionary Of Slang, was published in 1998. This new book is a revised and expanded second edition, with a slightly tweaked title.

The new title is subtly though surprisingly different. The first edition was published by Cassell, so the title made perfect sense, though this new edition is published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson, an imprint of Orion (Cassell's parent company). The name Cassell doesn't appear anywhere except in the title. Also, "Cassell's" implies that the book was written by Cassell, not published by them. (Compare The Oxford English Dictionary - it would never appear as Oxford's English Dictionary.)

The text has been thoroughly revised, with many words being dated more specifically, including substantial antedating. The entries and definitions have also been dramatically expanded, from 70,000 headwords in the first edition to 85,000 in the second. A typical example is the phrase 'done up like a kipper'. In the first edition, it was broadly dated to "20C" [20th century], and had only two definitions: "beaten up" and "caught red-handed". However, in the second edition, it has been dated more specifically as "1980s+", and an extra definition has been added: "utterly defeated".

There are, though, some inexplicable omissions. While there are thousands of new headwords, some old ones have gone. Turning to my favourite word, for example, an incredible forty-three new variants have been added to the second edition, though four have been mysteriously removed. Also, the (albeit limited) bibliography from the 1st edition has been deleted completely, replaced by a concise history of slang lexicography. (Green wrote a longer history of the subject in his excellent Chasing The Sun.)

JE Lighter's Historical Dictionary Of American Slang, a multi-volume work-in-progress, expects to define 35,000 headwords upon completion - less than half the number in Green's single volume. Green's work is also more geographically inclusive, covering English-language slang from all English-speaking nations, rather than limiting its scope only to America. The only other heavyweight modern slang lexicographer, the late Eric Partridge, died in 1979, though a new, two-volume edition of his Dictionary Of Slang & Unconventional English has recently been published (retitled the New Partridge Dictionary). This ninth edition runs to 65,000 headwords, though it concentrates solely on post-1945 vocabulary. Green, on the other hand, documents 500 years of slang.

Lighter's dictionary, and the two-volume edition of Partridge, are both based on historical principles - that is, they illustrate their definitions with citations, literary quotations to indicate usage in context. Green's single-volume dictionary does not include citations, for reasons of space, though the good news is that he is currently preparing his own multi-volume slang dictionary, on historical principles, with at least 100,000 headwords, to be published (hopefully) later this year.

28 February 2007

Volver

Volver
Pedro Almodovar's latest film, Volver, features Penelope Cruz as a strong, determined woman coping in defiance of her circumstances. The Spanish verb 'volver' translates as 'to return', and what returns here is a cycle of male abuse and female retaliation passed from one generation to the next.

I wonder if it was really necessary for the events to be so completely circular. We already accept Cruz's character as empowered and resilient without the slightly cliched final revelation. Chinatown presented a similar plot point in a much more dramatic manner.

If not as profound as the devastating Talk To Her, Volver is still a moving portrait of female bonding, with a genuine sense of community spirit replacing the sexual comedy of much of Almodovar's earlier work.

Love & Death

Love & Death
Love & Death is one of Woody Allen's "early, funny" films (the ones his fans prefer in the introspective fantasy Stardust Memories). Allen's films are often stereotyped as contemporary New York stories, though Love & Death couldn't be more different: it's set in Russia during the Napoleonic invasion.

Allen plays Boris, a pacifist forcibly dispatched to the front line. His trademark existential angst is present, in endless debates on theology and moral philosophy. Much of the comedy comes from Allen's anachronisms - he mishears "takes lovers" as 'takes uppers', for example. The film works as a parody of Russian literature and cinema, notably a quick montage of lethargic lion statues in an echo of Battleship Potemkin.

The Love of the title is represented by Diane Keaton, and her and Allen's scenes together are a joy to watch. I've always thought she was much warmer and more emotional than Allen's later partner/co-star Mia Farrow.

Death is personified by the Grim Reaper himself, in an extended reference to The Seventh Seal culminating in a 'dance of death' at the end of the film. In Bergman's film, the Reaper has a rather refined voice, though Allen's Reaper has a much deeper intonation, a characteristic later borrowed by Monty Python for the booming Reaper in The Meaning Of Life. In a further Bergman reference, Allen frames intersecting female faces in a recollection of Persona.

22 February 2007

Imagine The Sky

Imagine The Sky
Kathmandu photography gallery is currently showing an exhibition by Kraisak Choonhavan titled Imagine The Sky (from 3rd February to 28th March).

Kraisak was a senator in the Thaksin government, and these images represent his frustration at the red tape which prevented him from generating any real changes. They were a private, stress-relieving Photoshop experiment until Kathmandu suggesting exhibiting them publicly.

Bangkok, like any city, is full of advertising billboards. Kraisak has used Photoshop to digitally remove some of this clutter and present idyllic images of an advertising-free Bangkok cityscape. He juxtaposes 'before' (real) and 'after' (Photoshopped) photographs, and the contrast is startling.

If you look up close at the 'after' images, imperfections in the digital manipulation are revealed, though the immediate effect is highly impressive. (Like Pop Art, these works should be seen from a reasonable distance, generating a sudden impact.)

06 February 2007

The Confessions Tour

The Confessions Tour
Madonna's Confessions Tour was released in a dual-format edition (CD and DVD) last month. Like I'm Going To Tell You A Secret, it features a CD with selected live tracks, though this time the DVD includes the complete concert (last year's Confessions Tour, filmed in London) with only minimal backstage rehearsal footage.

After the heavily re-edited Reinvention Tour extracts in the I'm Going To Tell You A Secret documentary, it's great to see the full Confessions Tour show on this new DVD. Madonna's voice sounds amazing (better than some of her previous tours), and, as in Reinvention, she is surrounded by dazzling video walls.

The show begins with the mediocre Future Lovers, though her performance is so good it makes you forget that the lyrics are nonsensical. Like A Virgin still sounds amazing after all these years (and was the only true classic missing from the Reinvention Tour).

The DVD set list is: Future Lovers, I Feel Love, Get Together, Like A Virgin, Jump, Confessions, Live To Tell, Forbidden Love, Isaac, Sorry, Like It Or Not, I Love New York, Ray Of Light, Let It Will Be, Drowned World/Substitute For Love, Paradise (Not For Me), Music Inferno, Erotica, La Isla Bonita, Lucky Star, and Hung Up. The concert was previously broadcast by NBC on 22nd November last year.

The CD track list is: Future Lovers, I Feel Love, Like A Virgin, Jump, Confessions, Isaac, Sorry, I Love New York, Let It Will Be, Music Inferno, Erotica, Lucky Star, and Hung Up.

05 February 2007

Curse of the Golden Flower


Curse of the Golden Flower

Fifth Generation director Zhang Yimou’s latest film, Curse of the Golden Flower (满城尽带黄金甲), is the most expensive production in the history of the Chinese film industry. The budget, reportedly $45 million ($10 million more than the previous Chinese record-breaker, though less than half the cost of Titanic), was spent on recreating the opulence of 10th century China. Every surface of the imperial palace shimmers with iridescent decorations. The splendor of the film’s production design is matched by the gravitas of its superb cast, led by Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li, two superstars of Asian cinema.

Emperor Ping is slowly poisoning his consort Phoenix, the Empress, whom he married not for love but for power (as she is the previous Emperor’s daughter). The Empress seeks solace in the arms of her stepson Wan, the Crown Prince, and plots to avenge her husband’s cruelty. She confides in Wan’s brother, Prince Jai, who promises to lead an army of 10,000 soldiers in a coup against the Emperor.

Exactly why the Emperor is poisoning his consort’s medication is never made clear, though we can infer that it’s a punishment for her (almost) incestuous infidelity. Though the Empress is aware of the poisoning, she is unable to stop it, as her medication is administered with clockwork regularity and scrutinised meticulously. We may marvel at the formal precision of decadent, ritualised palace life, though the stifling constraints of protocol are also self-evident.

The plotting and counter-plotting within the palace walls are Shakespearean in their machinations and repercussions, while the ensuing battle (between troops loyal to the Empress, led by Prince Yai, versus those of the Emperor) is operatic in scale. In these aspects, the film has echoes of Ran (乱), Akira Kurosawa’s samurai interpretation of King Lear.

The Emperor is portrayed as a power-crazed, cruel, and heartless man, though his consort’s is rather more complex. Restrained and symbolically imprisoned by her imperial position, she is a sympathetic character. However, her affair with her stepson and her relish at a devastating revelation she orchestrates suggest that she is not completely innocent herself. Their youngest son, Prince Yu, demonstrates a selfish ambition beneath his placid exterior, and eldest son Prince Wan’s actions are ruled by his loins rather than his head. In contrast, the principled middle son, Prince Yai, is the film’s hero.

The outcomes of the Emperor’s and Empress’s actions culminate in bloodshed on both an epic and intimate scale. Yet, despite a series of personal tragedies, the dynasty does not unravel, and imperial power is unassailable; the blood from the battle is (literally and metaphorically) swept under the carpet.

Despite a sword-fighting scene and the aforementioned battle sequence, this is not a martial-arts film in the same vein as Zhang’s earlier mega-budget (dapian) productions Hero (英雄) or House of Flying Daggers (十面埋伏). It marks a reunion between the director and his muse, Gong Li: she starred in several of his early films, and they had a long-lasting affair, though they separated personally and professionally in 1995.

05 January 2007

Sweet & Savage

Sweet & Savage
Sweet & Savage by Mark Goodall is the first book-length study of mondo cinema. Mondo films, starting with Mondo Cane in 1962, are sensationalist documentaries, often featuring exotic tribal rituals and/or Reality TV clips of bizarre/violent imagery.

This book discusses mondo thematically, with chapters devoted to shock scenes, sex, animals, and rituals. Each chapter begins with a short introductory essay, followed by detailed critiques of selected mondo films.

The book's main asset is its in-depth film reviews. Mondo milestones such as Mondo Cane and Africa Addio receive extensive and original discussion. However, while the key films are covered in-depth, there are many films given only cursory mentions or even omitted altogether.

Before Sweet & Savage, the only previous book to present a detailed account of mondo cinema was Killing For Culture. This earlier title [which is one of my all-time favourite film books] included a chapter giving a chronological history of mondo cinema and another chapter concentrating on death in mondo films.

Killing For Culture has almost 100 pages devoted to mondo, approximately one third of the book's total length. Sweet & Savage has only 160 pages in total. Sweet & Savage provides original insights into the most successful mondo films, though it does not have the sheer density of research displayed by Killing For Culture.

30 December 2006

Mother India

Mother India
Indian artist MF Husain has gone into self-imposed exile in Dubai, after a ruling that his painting Mother India was sacrilegious. The painting, a nude portrait of India's mother-goddess Bharat Mata, provoked criticism when it was published by India Today on 6th February. (Husain previously caused controversy by quoting from the Koran in his song Noor-Un-Ala, from the soundtrack to his film Meenaxi.)

25 December 2006

Art & Obscenity

Art & Obscenity
This book is so new that its copyright page says "Published in 2007". It's a short though dense overview of transgression, abjection, violence, and death in the arts. The author, Kerstin Mey, discusses obscenity in art photography and performance art, and her study is valuable as it's the first of its kind. She covers all the main bases - Julia Kristeva, Georges Bataille, Hermann Nitsch, Carolee Schneemann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, Ron Athey - and it's exciting to see them all discussed together.

19 December 2006

Idomeneo

Idomeneo
Idomeneo, the previously banned opera directed by Hans Neuenfels, was performed yesterday at Deutsche Oper Berlin. It will be performed again on 29th December. A triumph for freedom of expression!

Performances of the opera (written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1781) opera originally scheduled for November were cancelled following advice from the German police, as the Neuenfels production includes a scene featuring the decapitated heads of Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and Poseidon. The production was performed in 2003, though it was initially felt that a revival this year may incite Muslim protests and thus put the safety of the performers and audience at risk. There were no reports of disturbances yesterday, however.

17 December 2006

Women In A Society Of Double-Sexuality

Women In A Society Of Double-Sexuality
Twelve Flower Months
Tang, Bangkok's gallery of contemporary Chinese art, is currently showing an exhibition titled Women In A Society Of Double-Sexuality. The exhibition features paintings, photographs, sculptures, and videos by thirteen female Chinese artists, most notably Chen Lingyang's photographic series Twelve Flower Months (2000).

Twelve Flower Months is a collection of a dozen images, each depicting a different flower. Each photograph was taken as the artist was menstruating, and her menstrual blood is visible in each image, as it trickles down her leg or stains her crotch. The age-old fear of menstrual blood, perhaps the most potent cultural taboo, is directly challenged.

Chen was interviewed for the fascinating Channel 4 programme Beijing Swings in 2003 and she discussed the deeply personal nature of Twelve Flower Months. The exhibition runs from yesterday until 20th January 2007.

07 December 2006

1001 Movies
You Must See Before You Die

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Jay Schneider, has been revised again. A handful of films have been removed from the last edition, published in 2005, replaced by new entries in this 2006 edition.

Again the deleted films and their replacements are all very recent. Casualties this time include important films such as City Of God, Hero, Russian Ark, and Kill Bill I. Also, many of the new entries added to the 2005 edition have been deleted from this 2006 edition! Personally, I prefer the 2005 version.

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06 December 2006

Colour Me Kubrick

Colour Me Kubrick
The film Colour Me Kubrick is a comedy about Alan Conway (played by John Malkovich), a conman who spent several years in the 1990s pretending to be Stanley Kubrick. It was surprisingly easy for Conway to use Kubrick's name whenever he wanted a free meal or a sexual favour. He met men in bars, introduced himself as Kubrick, promised them acting roles, and seduced them.

Alan Conway died in 1999 (as did Kubrick), and this film is based on a newspaper interview he gave after his con was discovered. The credits call it "A true...ish story", and with such limited source material it's not surprising that they invented much of the plot themselves.

The poster tagline is clumsy: "They wanted something for nothing. He gave them nothing for something". The only original music is an overly literal song by Bryan Adams: "I'm not the man you think I am...". The cast-list reads like a roll-call of mediocre 1980s British TV: Honor Blackman, Peter Bowles, Leslie Phillips, Robert Powell, and the appalling 'comedian' Jim Davidson.

The running-time is less than ninety minutes. The repetitive plot features Conway meeting people, schmoozing them, then moving on to someone else. The film relies entirely on John Malkovich's performance, though it gives him nothing to work with as there's no depth to the character.

The script was written by Anthony Frewin, one of Kubrick's personal assistants (who also wrote the book Are We Alone?). The director, Brian W Cook, was Kubrick's assistant director. Maybe they think that, by portraying Conway as a sleazy opportunist, they are avenging Conway on Kubrick's behalf, but the result is simply exploitative.

Alan Conway's story is a fascinating one. It's amazing that he could pass himself off as Kubrick for so long, and although he was motivated by financial and sexual gain, there are presumably also some psychological reasons for his actions. Whatever they may be, there are no insights into them in this film, only cheap laughs. It's pretty tasteless to make a comedy about Conway - the man was mentally unbalanced, after all.

Colour Me Kubrick currently has no theatrical or video distribution in either the US or UK. It's hard to see it, but it's not hard to see why. Conway was interviewed by Channel 4 for a short documentary called The Man Who Would Be Kubrick (1999) - it lasts for less than fifteen minutes, but it tells us more about Conway than Colour Me Kubrick does.

02 December 2006

Le Cinema En 100 Films

Le Cinema En 100 Films
Les 100 Films De L'Histoire Du Cinema
Le Cinema En 100 Films, by Thomas Leroux, is a guide to 100 classic films. The book was published last year, and has now been republished and retitled Les 100 Films De L'Histoire Du Cinema. Leroux previously compiled a list of 120 classic films, L'Indispensable Du Cinema En 120 Films, in 2002. (The 100 films are listed alphabetically, according to their French-language titles.)

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21 November 2006

Ayodhya

Ayodhya
Following the banning of Idomeneo in Berlin, another opera has been censored, this time here in Bangkok. Ayodhya, Somtow Sucharitkul's operatic interpretation of the epic poem Ramayana, was performed in Bangkok on three nights last week. Each of the performances was censored following intense pressure from the Ministry of Culture.

The opera's final scene, as originally staged, included one character, the demon Thotsakan, being fatally wounded. However, the Thai Ministry declared that, according to the tradition of 'khon' dance-drama, it is bad luck to depict Thotsakan's death, therefore they would not permit it in Ayodhya (even though Ayodhya is an opera, not a khon performance). Somtow, who has an extremely high reputation in Thailand and internationally, did initially fight the decision, though he later reluctantly caved in.