Current Watching

[Rumpus]

Current Watching

White as Snow, part of French Film Festival UK, is directed by Christophe Blanc. That's pretty much the only bit of the movie that my memory isn't trying to white out.

There's a nice thriller set up with a rich car dealer suddenly finding his life gone violent and stupid. Trouble is the movie is itself stupidly pretentious.

François Cluzet and the actors playing his brothers do well to make anything of it but the few interesting storylines come to a sudden stop in the middle of nowhere. Silly really.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

Not sure what to make of the first couple of episodes of HBO's Carnivale. It seems to be constructed of equal parts Ray Bradbury, David Lynch and John Steinbeck. A travelling carnival in dustbowl America. A dirt poor protaganist who can heal the sick and make the lame walk. A hallucinating Elmer Gantry-like preacher who controls the minds of others. A comatose fortune teller who communicates through psychokinesis, bearded ladies, Siamese twins, lizard men and so on, the full Todd Browning in fact. It could all be a bit much, but there's obviously a structure at work and the freak-show elements are marginal rather than crucial. I'll keep watching for now.

[Guest]

Current Watching

Ooh I quite loved Carnivale by the end. I think you should keep going, yes.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

Right-oh. I read that it was canceled after two seasons when six were planned. So I assume I'll be left with a feeling of cinematicus interruptus eventually?

[Guest]

Current Watching

well, certainly, there is that, but in a fairly terrific way.

[ian.64]

Current Watching

Inception.

It's a weird creature. It's wonderfully made, and so well dressed it should have the Armani label in every frame. So smooth, so full of technical and directorial class.

It also exerts a psychological power all its own to match those challenging De Caprio and Co. in its labyrinthine machinations, in that it's so wonderfully made it may actually disguise the fact that it could be complete bollocks.

To slate it for being a teensy bit confusing may consign a dumb-nuts like me to the Thickie Step (the one above the Naughty one), seeing as how Christopher Nolan's epic has been heralded as a think-piece that needs a doofus like me to arrive to it with a pad and pen to note down at what point De Caprio enters the dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream, or discuss the significance of the spinning top or to withstand the endless, seeming exposition whereby a million rules and hints on how to handle the dream world are continuously spelled out, even one-and-a-quarter hours into the frigging movie (if the film were about a bank heist, the audience would be wondering when anybody would bother to case the fucking joint yet). This addition of detail reminds me of the fascinating Death Note movies, where your enjoyment of the whole saga is reliant on how much you're prepared to note and remember the almost conveyor-belt trundle of 'rules' about the titular book.

But Inception rolls along with this painstaking attention to dreamland detail, but in all this - for me - it loses any feeling about De Caprio's relationship with his late wife (and the dream version), even if it does touch upon a haunting vibe about her being a prisoner in his dreamscape. I was too busy going 'so was that the point when he was in that cellar in India when he was in a dream-within-a-dream-within-etc.' to really bother, so insistent is the film that a slavish attention must be applied to the proceedings. By the end, it was tough to care when - spoiler - de Caprio was seemingly re-united with his kids. Was he? Was it real? Is it still a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a-bread-roll-within-a-baguette? Did I remember to put the bins out?

This isn't to slag the film off outright. It's a sterling example of how much quality can be applied to film in its making. Such images as Joseph Gordon-Levitt's astounding fight in the corridors of a dream-world hotel (as if such conflict were being held under water. Without the water) have the power to make the jaw drop in its 'how the fuck did they do that' mystery. And the acting is fine, although the best role is Tom Hardy's casual, diffident character, the only 'real' person to hang onto in this whirlwind of turns and swerves. His louche (if that's the word) manner almost seems as though he's taking the piss in some small, understated way, a contrast to every other character's icy, 'cool' reactions. He also reminded me, very much, of how Oliver Reed would play it.

It's a good movie, although I'm a little perplexed on how the superlatives are being flung its way with supreme force. Only time will tell if it's a classic or a beautifully-dressed folly. Christopher Nolan is building up a reputation of great potential, but he can be easily overrated too, if heads are just as easily lost.

A good film, then, but I'd baulk at seeing it again so soon, even if it was to go over the minutiae to find out where I got lost. It was a slog the first time and although films should challenge, they also shouldn't feel like some sort of cinematic school exam.

I'll be over there on the Thickie Step if you need me.

[Crusoe]

Current Watching

Nah, there's a lot in what you say, I reckon. It has the conceit of a much more intelligent movie than it is, but at heart it's a very, very stylish and well crafted heist/action film. The hotel fight sequence was excellent, but others (the chase in Mombasa, the snowy fortress missing only Roger Moore) could have been in any Bourne or Bond effort. That said, I loved it as just that, an action film with a far more interesting plot than any other recently. And the sequencing and pacing of the multiple layers of drops to bring them out of the different levels of dream was just superb.

[Sean of the Shed]

Current Watching

ian.64 wrote:

Was it real? Is it still a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a-bread-roll-within-a-baguette? Did I remember to put the bins out?

To bwe honest, this was done much better by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and it made a lot more sense.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Current Watching

Thread within a thread

[Guest]

Current Watching

I'm watching Deadwood at the moment, still on the first season. Early impressions are that it's gonna be worth sticking with. The dialouge is fantastic and Al Swearengen steals the show as the saloon keeper who has absolutely no morals whatsoever!

[hobbes]

Current Watching

Boo. Fringe gone until next year.

[ian.64]

Current Watching

A studio head walks into a gloomy room where four young geeks, all thin in frame and grey of pallor, are crowded around the telly while watching Independence Day, part of a DVDathon of sci-fi movies they've been looking at all weekend – every weekend, as it turns out - whilst drinking beer and eating pizza.

'Say,' he says, 'if I gave you guys the chance to write an alien-invasion movie full of visual effects, but with a leading man with all the chrisma of a gerbil who's having his head repeatedly thumped with a toffee hammer, and a woman whose only high profile work is a 3-second appearance as a hologram in Star Trek, would you do it?’

‘Would we?’ cry the geeky collective as small pieces of their Meatapalooza Special fly out of their mouths. With zeal unmatched they set to work, employing all the enthusiasm and yet none of the skill or talent needed to craft a solid, confident screenplay, stealing the bits they enjoyed from other sci-fi movies yet never applying them in any original or even enjoyable context.

Which is how Skyline came about. Or rather it didn’t, it just happens to feel that way.

The Brothers Strause complained that Alien vs Predator: Requiem happened to turn out to be the complete load of cack everybody dreaded due to studio pressures and demands. Skyline proved that the answer, ‘no, it wasn’t, you’re just as adept at directing as June Whitfield was at cage fighting ’ was the real one.

[Lucia Lanigan]

Current Watching

The Love Life of the Octopus
This is awesome: octopi mooching about and rutting violently, in a dance as old as time. Sinister electronic flotsam and jetsom courtesy of Pierre Henry (or space rock by Yo La Tengo, as on the link above). Some gorgeous colour footage of these alien freaks gestating and being born. Jean Painleve was ace.

Attack the Block
Brilliant, see it. A cartoon, but a cartoon of people that exist, rather than your standard filmmaker's idea of urban kids. Great casting for the lead mugger and middle class stoner characters.

Le Quattro Volte
Bold, beautiful and boring. Some goats happen, slowly.

[Edie St Pierre]

Current Watching

The Seventh Seal

I liked this. It's everything everyone has ever said about it. What's odd about it is it makes you realise that the Scott Walker song that was written about, basically tells the story of the film from beginning to end. Maybe he should have put SPOILER in brackets or some-such.

Max Von Sydow is great as the knight though, one of the most instantly likeable and engaging film characters ever, which is odd as the only other things I have ever seen him in is as playing Alan Rickman style rent-a-villains in big Hollywood flicks.

Plague of Zombies

Hammer. From 1966. Set in 19th Century Cornwall. In a village beset by zombies. Obviously. It's fucking brilliant. The main baddies in it are all posh local huntsmen, and are almost permanently on horseback. And there's some odd shenanigans involving a disused tin mine. Titanic, first-class, stellar stuff that everyone should watch.

The London That Nobody Knows

A James Mason introduced documentary from 1967. It's not just a voice-over, it's the man talking straight to camera, and add-libbing a lot. The idea is to catch places or parts of London that were in disrepair and about to be demolished. A lot of them are old music halls. James Mason seems especially sad to see them go. And old squares, docks, parks and what-have you. I like it a lot. The boy Mason goes off on tangents a fair bit too.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

Which reminds me...

People on Sunday was this year's freebie in The Believer's February film issue. Not exactly a documentary — there's the thinnest of narratives — but the actors are all non-professional and the co-stars are the streets and parks of Weimar Berlin through which, over a single summer weekend, a group of young working people basically hang-out. They organise a picnic, go swimming, have casual sex, laugh, argue and go their separate ways after agreeing to meet again. And that's about it. But it's a fascinating, almost cinema verité, look at a time and place that's will shortly vanish. "Wolf, how about next Sunday?" Brigitte asks at the film's conclusion. Sure, we think, but it's 1930 and there won't be many more Sundays like this for either of them.

Other interesting facts about People on Sunday concern the credits. Screenplay: Billy Wilder; Co-Directors: Robert Siodmak & Edgar Ulmer; Assistant Cinematographer: Fred Zinnemann. Then in their twenties, the backbone of Hollywood a decade or so later.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Current Watching

Am watching outnumbered at the moment.

karen nearly made my mother swallow her tongue with laughter. I think she may be one of the great comic creations up there alongside homer simpson, eric cartman and frank stapleton, and she's more terrifying than stalin.

imagine living with something like that.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Current Watching

I don't tend to watch it very often but Outnumbered is increasingly my life. If my children didn't make such demands on me I'd have time to watch it rather more often. And it's gentle comedy. I like gentle comedy from time to time.

I flicked between Nil By Mouth and The Scheme a couple of nights ago. Depressing viewing that I won't be repeating in a hurry.

[erwin]

Current Watching

Caught a couple of episodes of The League on cable, about a group of friends in a fantasy American Football league.

Very silly and great fun.

[Reed John]

Current Watching

I caught on to Intelligence on Netflix streaming. It was on CBC a few years ago. It's like a Canadian version of The Wire set in Vancouver, but much more about the complexities of intelligence gathering and what not, and not about urban blight. It's very well done and thick with complexities. I've been watching almost non stop for the last few days.

It's interesting to see a show that makes the Americans sort of the bad guys and Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer a total dick.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

An excellent series and a tragedy that the CBC axed it. If you liked it try a find the earlier Da Vinci's Inquest and Da Vinci's City Hall, same writer and producer, many of the same actors and a similar mood and style.

[Reed John]

Current Watching

I read it was killed for political reasons, but I don't understand why.

I'm troubled that it's just going to end abruptly.

I wouldn't picture Vancouver as a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but it appears to be.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

I thought it was killed because of a change in programming policy at CBC. The Corp has been faced with declining revenues since the Mulroney years. In a (failing) attempt to appeal to a broader audience they've basically brought in a shows that imitate those on US Networks. Edgier stuff, like Intelligence, was dumped because, though widely respected, it's ratings were never large enough to please the bean counters.

I wouldn't picture Vancouver as a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but it appears to be.

Depending on who you believe, the illegal drug trade is this Province's first or second largest resource industry, with all that implies. Consequently gang shootings are, sporadically, commonplace enough to make you reconsider eating out. Also underclass poverty and it's by-products, addiction, prostitution, etc., are highly concentrated within a few downtown blocks. This tends to be the area Chris Haddock sets his shows in.

Edit: It does end kind of abruptly — and surprisingly — but doesn't leave you in mid-air exactly either.

[Reed John]

Current Watching

Oh, I thought it was maybe the other way - that it was such a huge hit that politicians saw it as evidence the CBC could survive as a purely commercial venture.

Port cities tend to have a lot of trafficking, I imagine, especially one on the border.

It seems like there's an especially huge amount of pot in BC. Is tha just because there's a lot of wilderness in which to grow it?
Is pot semi-legal in BC?

I find it interesting that they talk about loads of pot in pounds, but coke is always in kilos.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Current Watching

Yes, being a port is part of it, the Hells Angels have heavily infiltrated the local teamsters — which both Intelligence and the Da Vinci shows reference I recall. Lots of wilderness that's difficult to police is also a factor. As are reasonable sized towns in the interior of the province who's economy depends on local growers. The cops would make themselves very unpopular with their neighbours if they tried to stop it.

Drug offences still dominate local court dockets but the authorities have never invested — financially, politically or psychologically — in the US war on drugs, especially when it comes to marijuana. They do clamp down on grow-ups occasionally, largely because they're in residential areas and drive down property values. But other than that unless you blow smoke directly in a policeman's face, or decide — as one coffee shop owner did a few years back — that it should be legal so what the hell and started selling freely across the counter, you'll most likely be left alone. There's also the long history of smuggling across the line too. Fortunes were made up here during prohibition remember

[Reed John]

Current Watching

Yeah, at one point Mary Spalding's says that they consider dope to be a lost cause, but it's better for them that they keep it illegal just so they have some leverage against guys like Reardon. Very sensible.

Reminds me...I recall an episode of Holmes on Homes where a very naive landlord discovered that one of her properties had been ruined by remnants running a massive grow op. They'd done all kinds of dangerous and damaging things with the heat and ventilation and had stolen about $100k worth of power from the power company. Really, she should have just dozed it, but they fixed it all up.

In the show, they refer to The Disciples as bikers, but none of them look like bikers or seem to ride motorcycles. Perhaps they are single-speed hipsters?

I dont really know why the CIA would feel the need to infiltrate CSIS. It would seem that the CIA has so many more resources that they could trade intel from whatever they wanted to know from Canada. But perhaps there are a handful of low-profile perpetual negotiations where the two sides want an edge over the other.

I've noticed that people on the show say "yeah?" at the end of sentences where we might say "right?" or "OK?"( or "ya dig?) That might be a BC thing. I've noticed my boss (from Vancouver, now Kelowna) does that. My other Canadian colleague, from Toronto, says "eh?"