World War Z

An impressive amount of extras were required.  Oh, unless they used some kind of computer trickery - those film boffins.

Having read the reviews of WWZ, I am surprised nobody mentioned the film it most closely resembles.  Pretty obvious really.  That film is Aliens.

I think the comparison works well, because WWZ is certainly not a 'horror' film.  But, like James Cameron's 1980s gore fest, it does have strong horror elements.  Make no mistake though, we are in action thriller territory here.

The reviewers are also singing from the same hymn sheet about the film's third act which, they sing in close harmony, is rather too quiet and low budget compared to the sweeping hordes, plane crashes and city wide destructions which make up the first two thirds of the film.

Not fair really - if there had been more bangs and bucks thrown at the third act they might just as easily have said the whole thing was a one note move with no changes of pace.  It doesn't help that the whole thing was a bit of a bodge job script wise, and we all know that, so these criticisms are invited.

I liked the WHOLE film though, as you can probably tell.  It really is great Saturday night popcorn munching entertainment with a few slightly more intelligent points to be made about humans and viruses and mother nature (she's a bitch, apparently).

I was on the edge of my sofa, although maybe I was just trying to hear.  It's quite hard to pick out the dialogue in these films with all the explosions and running about - but then I am a bit mutton.

The zombies (the fast kind) are scary with memorable transformations (also deadly fast, with arched backs and violent twerking) and interesting mannerisms like chattering their teeth together when they smell flesh in the air.  Because of the terrifyingly short time it takes to 'turn', the speed with which the epidemic rages through the cities is really effective and frightening - and it's part of the ubiquitous zombie apocalypse we rarely see.  Basically, it's the expensive bit.

This concept is most effectively put to use when Brad Pitt gets some blood in his mouth and immediately runs to the edge of a building and counts, ready to throw himself off if, after ten seconds, his family start to look appetising.  It's a great scene.

So, I liked it.  It's not the like the book though - I am a fan of that and the zombies, and the story telling pace, is much slower and ultimately more effective.  One of the best innovations of the book is the uninfected humans who go bonkers and pretend to be zombies.  Might have been nice to see that in the film, but there probably wasn't time what with all the explosions and that.

Apparently human flesh tastes like chicken.  And this film was finger lickin' good. 

Sorry about that.  That really was horrific.

Velvet Goldmine

Maxwell Demon aka Brian Slade.  He's tried of wasting gas living above the planet, apparently.

You've got to love a film that starts with Oscar Wilde as a baby being left on a doorstep by aliens.

I mean, if we're going to rate films that's got to be worth a couple of stars right from the get-go.

Velvet Goldmine is a film that starts in just such a way.  In fact, the first twenty minutes or so is really just a delirious dream of music, disconnected scenes, strange images.  A twenty minute window to ask yourself 'what is this crap?' and walk out of the cinema.

Or you can stay and be corrupted.

What you will see, if you do stay, is a fictionalised account of David Bowie's 70's and 80's career featuring other figures from the period in what we might call a 'film a clef'.  Todd Haynes, the director, pulled off the same trick with 'Im Not There' - his non-biography of not Bob Dylan.

How you feel about Velvet Goldmine may depend on how much you can buy into this concept. It can be disconcerting to see Brian Slade (Bowie) singing songs by Roxy Music and Cockney Rebel, songs which are framed as 'by him' in the film - but you know they're not... er... so disbelief has to be suspended.  But so what - this is, essentially, a musical after all.

If you love the music of this period then you are likely to love this film.  And if you grew up sexually and genderly confused, as I did, than you are basically a platform shoe-in.  But there's much more to it than tunes, references and fellow feeling.

The performances make it.  Ewan Mcgregor as Curt Wild (Iggy) is dangerous, sexy, debauched.  I mean, he gets his cock out.  He literally does.  Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Brian Slade is beautiful, assured, tearful, pouting.  A diva.

Eddie Izzard is wonderful as the Epstein like manager, Toni Collette takes the Angie Bowie type role of Brian's wife and collaborator in sin - she does the cod English accent, the tantrums, the glamour, including the faded glamour...

And Christian Bale depicts with painful accuracy the teenage fan - skinny and fawning and so, so embarrassed.  You remember that blushing, cringing agony you felt every second through years 13 to 19?  It hurts to watch.  Then we see him later on as an investigative journo trying to find out what happened to Brian Slade after his faked death...   but that's to drag (no pun intended)  the whole thing  down into such mundane matters as plot.

The plot is, probably, silly.  I am too much in love to know.  The whole film may be rejected by macho lads like the ones we see depicted in a record shop...  'Brian Slade?  He's a poof that one'. My own macho chums certainly didn't take a shine to it.  They saw the bisexuality of the glam rock scene as a sideshow.  That's the thing with glam - you can see whatever you want in glittery reflected backgrounds.

It will be anathema to some - and a work of genius to others.  What more could we ask from any work of art?  

Nothing - except to get a peek at Ewan's winkie - and we've even been given that.

Behind the Candelabra

awww...

When I was a pup I used to enjoy looking through my Dad's records.  For those of you who are under 35 :  a 'record' was a black vinyl disc that played music, kind of like a big CD you had to turn over halfway through.  Among such luminaries as Des O'Connor and David Whitfield there was a Liberace record. 

On the cover of this record the lovely big old poof himself was sitting at a big gold piano in a gold room, on a gold stool surrounded by other gold stuff.  Now I actually used to like listening to the track 'Boogie Woogie' on this record, on which Lee (to his friends) played a, well, boogie woogie tune and encouraged the audience to shout 'hey!'.

So, it was with an air of familiarity that I watched Lee's introduction to the film 'Behind the Candelabra' - in which Michael Douglas as the piano tinkling 'fruit flavoured' (Lee sued someone for calling him that) superstar performed that particular number.  I'm pretty sure he was the kind of guy who would call songs 'numbers'.

Scott Thorson (played by Matt Damon) enters a Las Vegas club and approaches his table... and there is Liberace in the background, out of focus, doing his thing... before coming very much into focus... and then going very much out of focus again as plastic surgical procedures take effect.

Basically this is a film about their relationship - and it is portrayed very touchingly, with all the familiar aspects of long term relationships which some of us will recognise - gay or straight.  It's just two people who love each other and get on each other's nerves - but one of them happens to be hugely famous.

And it's a lot more than that.  Michael Douglas is amazing and shows Liberace's ego, his vanity, his love and ultimately his humanity.  Taking him out of the lights and showing us his bald head, wrinkles (till he has them yanked over the back of his bald head) and surprising sexual appetite doesn't do the man a disservice at all.  I am kind of a Liberace fan now.

It's a really special little film - oddly domestic and intimate.  And, really, really funny.

- 'This isn't exactly the life I had planned for myself.  I wanted to be a veterinarian.'
- 'You wanna help the animals?  Go pick up the dogshit.'

And Rob Lowe as Lee's plastic faced plastic surgeon just has to be seen to believed.  That is, if you can open your eyes at all.  Or close them...

Kill Bill (vols 1 & 2)

HI-FUCKING-YAH!
 

Even though Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction defined my Nineties, I'd somehow managed to never see Kill Bill.  Having recorded it on my tellybox I still managed to not watch it for months on end - till the other day when there was literally nothing else to watch and I simply couldn't put it off any longer.

The reason for this procrastination is not clear to me.  I love Tarantino's oeuvre, but don't particularly want to watch his films.  I am currently not particularly wanting to watch the Django one, and I've not seen Jackie Brown yet.  But every film I've seen that he's directed, written, been in or walked past in the video shop - I have loved.  Inglorious... True Romance ... etc...

Who understands the complex beast that is human motivation?  Not I, dear reader, not I.

Anyway, enough of this horsepoop - the fact is I loved Kill Bill (volumes 1 and...yada yada) so much I am actually a little bit embarrassed about it. 

The violence is balletic, beautiful, satisfying and hilarious.  Daryl Hannah whistles the theme from Twisted Nerve and it's all, like, reference-y.  The Bride works as a character - I cared about her and liked her, she was magically realistic.  David Carradine as Bill is deadly charming and seductive.  

You come away with scenes though don't you - when you watch a film?   They're like dreams.  The scene that's really sticking with me was when The Bride is buried alive.  That's it.  Surely she can't get out of that.  She's been buried alive - and Quentin made damned sure we saw the substantial nails hammered down into the lid - great big brass ones with chips of wood flying...

Then we go back to her training  (the Yoda training schtick) - masterfully done with a cruel teacher kicking her arse to an unbearably funky seventies kung-fu groove. And, oh, part of her training involves touching a piece of wood with her fingertips, then learning to punch a hole in the wood with that hand without drawing it back. 

The set up is all there.  Quent just has to wait before paying it off.  As long as he likes, we'll all be waiting.  A delicious dance of anticipation.  Of course, he's the ultimate film fan director - and everything he does he does because it's what the movie lover loves.

Yes, I loved it.  I can't wait to see which Tarantino film I won't watch next.