Fightville
Like it or loathe it, MMA is a sport that is exploding all over the world. The documentary Fightville (2011) takes a look at a side of the sport far removed from the bright lights and big money of the UFC.
The film takes a very focused approach, honing in on two fighters – Dustin Poirier and Albert Stainback as well as their coach, UFC veteran Tim Credeur. The other most prominent character featured is that of local promoter Gil Guillory. I think this narrow focus of the film is its greatest strength. This is no history of the sport or state of the nation. Rather it is a glimpse of small time MMA and the kind of people who participate in it. Fightville does a really good job of capturing the journeys of those involved in a pretty short period of time. You get a sense of the background of the fighters, why they are involved, the desperation and desire that rests within them. It also shows the scope of people who fight MMA, from dudes who just love to punch face, those who do it because they need the money and they are good at it, all the way through to those who pray before the fight that no-one, their opponent included, is hurt. Many of the fighters are actually a combination of more than one of those things.
It is interesting to see the redemptive power of fighting for many of those involved in the sport. Particularly as on the surface to fight appears to be the opposite of redemptive. It seems to be about tearing down, not redeeming. But it is the training, the sweat and the sacrifice that are the redemptive aspects of it. Indeed many docos are about the redemptive power of something and Fightville is no different. The film is also really good at exploring the creativity that is inherent in jiu-jitsu and all of MMA more broadly. On that note it succeeds in bringing to life a different aspect of the sport that many people would not be familiar with. It is nice to see a documentary like this not take itself too seriously as this well made film exhibits a light touch the whole way through.
I can only really comment on the film from my perspective, which is that of a MMA fan, but Fightville is a really interesting and well made doco. I think it is one which will hold interest to those who are not fight fans as well, giving a glimpse of a really interesting aspect of this sport and more specifically the yearning and work of those who are trying to make their way in it.
Verdict: Pint of Kilkenny
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Worth Watching June 2013
A little late with the Worth Watching roundup for June thanks to The House of Caine kicking things off here on the blog for the month. Not the busiest month of viewings, but some good stuff and a contender for my least favourite of the year. Take a read and share your thoughts.
Worth Watching:
- The Great Gatsby (2013), Baz Luhrmann – Just because the visuals on display here are so incredible, doesn’t mean this film is all style over substance as many have claimed. Indeed the film brings to life the disillusionment and vapidity of life better than the book did for me. Awesomely acted, I thought all four leads were excellent and I was also a big fan of the pretty divisive soundtrack.
- Premium Rush (2012), David Koepp – This is perfect Saturday night with a beer fodder. I had a lot of fun with this film. I mean how can you go wrong with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a bike messenger and Michael Shannon as the bad guy. He is soo delightfully Michael Shannony in this film. It does some quite interesting things visually and also has some really fun bike versus car chase sequences. I loved this film.
- Tabu (2012), Miguel Gomes – Ambitious (perhaps even pretentious) but unfortunately not as successful as I would have hoped. It is too slow, especially the first half, which is essentially an hour long prologue for the incredible love story of the second half. A tale of adultery in mid 20th century colonial Africa. This second half is wondrous, with incredible acting (with no dialogue!) and lovingly brought to life in 4:3 black and white.
- Weeds Season 1 (2005), Jenji Kohan – It takes a little while to settle on a tone, but when it does, this is really original stuff. Mary Louise Parker is utterly fantastic. Her character is a really bloody good one and has such a good arc as the season progresses. The whole thing feels really authentic. Parker’s character in particular does not always have her shit together which is refreshing.
Not Worth Watching:
- After Earth (2013), M. Night Shyamalan – What an utter toilet of a movie. Will Smith’s kid has the most annoying presence on screen. As for Will, his laconic screen charm has disappeared. This is a film that is mind numbingly stupid and at times so cliché it is literally laughable. Arouses no emotion or feeling, even when straining incredibly hard to do so. Doesn’t even look particularly good.
- World War Z (2013), Marc Foster – Whilst this has some upsides, I was disappointed. The early action sequences are just shaky cam – if you want to convey highly kinetic danger, you need to do it more intelligently than that. The globe-hopping structure, clearly yearning for the book, feels half cocked. Adventure film-lite if you will. Plus the whole conclusion is a let down, leaves you feeling pretty hollow. Despite a reasonable running time and a couple of good performances, this really dragged for me.
If you only have time to watch one The Great Gatsby
Avoid at all costs After Earth
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The House of Caine: The Ipcress File
When I reviewed Cars 2 (2011) a couple of days ago, I pondered how Michael Caine would have gone if he had ever gotten the role of James Bond. The role of Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965), as well as four later films, was probably the closest Caine ever got.
The book this film is based on and the one I am giving away this week.
There is a lot of shared DNA between the Bond films and The Ipcress File. Both were based on spy fiction by British authors, this film on the work of Len Deighton. This film also came out of a lot of the same production minds behind the Bond series – Harry Saltzman, Charles Kasher, Peter R. Hunt, Ken Adam and even composer John Barry. These folks were clearly trying to replicate the success that they were having with the Bond films. Just like the early James Bond films (and more overtly the novels), The Ipcress File has a very Cold War focused sensibility about it, with the main plot focused on the defection or suspected defection of top British scientists to the bad guys. It also has a great sense of humour running through it, which thankfully is a little more underplayed than a Bond punfest.
You can definitely sense the influence of the Bond films and production crew on this feature. John Barry’s score in particular is very reminiscent of his work on the Bond films. Which is no shame, because his work on that most iconic of film series’ is no doubt the strongest in its 50 year history. But in other ways, The Ipcress File is almost an anti-Bond film. For starters, rather than jumping all over the world, the film is basically all set in an extremely tense London. The feel of the setting is established very early and it doesn’t really let up the whole time, every shadow and corner seems to be hiding something. The focus here is on the gritty ‘reality’ of the espionage world rather than totally over the top fantasy. The character of Harry himself is also quite distinct from Bond. Whilst a hit with the ladies, Harry woos them wearing very thick glasses which he requires for his terrible eyesight. Bond’s physical imperfections are not exactly focused on. Palmer also has to deal suffer a number of idiotic bosses and is expected to do paperwork – can you imagine James Bond doing fucking paperwork? As for the question of how Caine would have cut it as Bond, the answer is pretty well… probably. As I have pointed out, they are very different characters. Caine definitely has the charisma but probably not the raw physicality of someone like a Sean Connery. Don’t get me wrong though, Caine really delivers the goods in this film, as he has in all of the films featured this week. He really is one of the greats.
The Ipcress File is a pretty fantastic piece of spy filmmaking with plenty of intrigue. It gets the balance right between obviously taking its cue from the James Bond films and also providing a whole heap of points of difference. It’s also not afraid to chuck in a pretty big and quite satisfying twist toward the end as well.
Verdict: Pint of Kilkenny
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Don’t forget that you can win a copy of the book that this film is based on all this week on the blog. Details are here.
Trailer for your Weekend: Getaway
So I tried to find a trailer for an upcoming Michael Caine film for this week’s trailer. But the only thing going around was a trailer for Now You See Me, a film that I have already featured in this segment and that has already opened in a lot of places. So The House of Caine will need to be briefly interrupted, because the trailer for The Getaway has absolutely with the great man.
I wasn’t the hugest fan of Spring Breakers, but I was really surprised by how good Selena Gomez was in it. I am quite the Ethan Hawke fan as well. So despite this film looking like it could definitely go either way, I am pretty psyched to see it. I am hoping it can be a real slice of high concept genre fun. Gnarly poster too Any thoughts?
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Don’t forget there is a competition all this week on the blog and all the details are here.
The House of Caine: The Dark Knight Rises
A couple of days ago, I did a live tweet review of The Dark Knight Rises (2012). As always, I thought I would share the results with you all here on the blog. Enjoy.
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Don’t forget there is a competition all this week on the blog and all the details are here.
The House of Caine Guest Post: Dressed to Kill
In today’s House of Caine guest post Melbourne based writer Chris Smith takes a look at the Brian De Palma directed Dressed to Kill.
In some ways, the end of the seventies into the late eighties was for Michael Caine the decade of the paycheck. After twenty years of establishing himself as a versatile leading man in first class roles; ranging from the overtly serious, such as Zulu (1964), to the charming womanizer of Alfie (1966); Caine made a host of clearly commercially geared movies, from two Irwin Allen disaster movies (the b-grade extravaganza The Swarm (1978) and the belated cash-in sequel Beyond The Poseidon Adventure(1979)), through to the infamous Jaws: The Revenge (1987). The highlights of the decade though include an Oscar-Winning turn in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and as a psychiatrist and murder suspect in one of writer/director Brian De Palma’s best Hitchcockian thrillers: Dressed To Kill (1980).
From the first moments of Pino Donaggio’s beautifully and subtly evocative orchestral score that accompany the credits, and into the first controversial scene of Angie Dickinson touching herself in the shower, the tone is set for an exploitative and explicit psycho-sexual journey that’s handled with an impeccably intense seriousness and the utmost class by its film maker. Very much modeled on The Master’s Psycho (1960), the film follows rich-housewife Dickinson who sees psychiatrist Caine before embarking on an impromptu affair with a mysterious man she meets in a museum. They wind up back at the man’s apartment where, post-coital, the man falls asleep and Dickinson sneaks out. Then, in the films signature set piece in a mid-way Psycho twist; she is brutally murdered with a straight-razor in an elevator by a barely seen female assailant. When the killer leaves she is witnessed by an enterprising young prostitute (Nancy Allen) who becomes caught up in the case. The second half follows Allen and Dickinson’s son, Keith Gordon, as they investigate the murder, all the while hassled by De Palma regular Dennis Franz. The film ends with another insane Psycho styled twist that, as in that film, requires the following lengthy scene of explaining the killer’s motivation to make any kind of sense. And then, this having the artifice of an eighties slasher movie (De Palma’s Carrie (1976) debatably pioneered the unexpected final jump scene) there’s a ridiculously big-scale epilogue inside an insane asylum.
Just as some critics would often react negatively to some of Hitchcock’s more sequence driven films – think North by Northwest (1959) hurtling from one set piece to the next – in contextualizing De Palma’s thrillers Sisters (1973), Obsession (1976), Body Double (1984), Raising Cain (1992) and Femme Fatale (2002) also fit the mold which he fashioned over his career in-between big budget studio films like Scarface (1983) and Mission: Impossible (1996)), it’s important to remember that his work is essentially style driven and the narrative is ultimately little more than part of the artifice in the ultimate style that he’s driving towards. Subsequently, the at times ridiculous story seems little more than an excuse to execute his ambitious and beautifully staged set pieces. From the vivid sensuality of the aforementioned opening scene with Dickinson, the lengthy wordless sequence in the museum where she meets her lover, to the stunningly arranged slices of imagery that make up her inevitable death – all set to the rising crescendo of Donaggio’s hauntingly beautiful score – De Palma is not only a master of the individual set piece, but of keeping the rest of the film as engaging and consistent to them.
Perhaps not remembered for Caine’s presence (although anyone who watches it will never forget his role), Dressed To Kill is still one the veteran’s great films, and one of the most flamboyantly watchable, over the top Hitchcock tributes ever made.
Verdict: Pint Of Kilkenny
Chris Smith is a Melbourne based freelance writer who is passionate about film, books and music. His work is often featured on Film Blerg and various other places.
The House of Caine: Cars 2
If you are after another review utterly panning Pixar’s Cars 2 (2011) then it is perhaps best to keep looking, because I really like the film. As a lifelong James Bond fan, I think this film is a really well judged Bond spoof, as well as just being a lot of fun to watch.
The action of the film is a good balance of car race sequences (which I actually found really exciting) and the spy narrative. Mater’s prominence in the latter sees that character feature much more prominently in this film than he did in the first. No doubt some people hate the character, but to be honest I actually find him, even if he is utterly idiotic, really quite hilarious. The narrative is a really fun globetrotting romp, which serves the purpose of setting up some lovely action set pieces and giving these at times absurd characters the chance to riff of Bond archetypes. There are a few too many coincidences in the third act of the plot but aside from that, the story is fun and serviceable. It is worth noting that just like pretty much all Pixar films, there is a definite note of darkness in Cars 2. A number of cars die in the film in pretty full on ways. Furthermore, it is not just the baddies that are killed in the film, at least one of the goodies is also killed. This is actually a refreshing approach from films that, despite their love from adult audiences, are geared toward kids.
Like any Pixar film, Cars 2 looks absolutely incredible, even if the company’s talents are being put toward a much more ‘kiddy’ aesthetic than in some of their other outings. The film is just so incredibly designed and it is the little things that make all of the difference – the logo in the bottom corner of the screen during the broadcast of the races for example. One thing that I was not so fond of is some of the cultural clichés that the film trades in. The Japan-set portion of the film in particular made me cringe a bunch of times. As for Michael Caine’s work, I love the character that he voices in the film. He plays the expertly named superspy Finn McMissile and the look of his character, a silver Bentley with a pencil thin ‘moustache’ is fantastic. It is amazing how great Caine and this design work as a Bondesque master agent. Makes you wonder how Caine would have done in the iconic role himself.
Cars 2 is not one of Pixar’s best films, but that’s ok because they have an almost uniformly incredible output. I just find this film to be totally satisfying. It is a really clever flick and manages to satisfy both my inner James Bond fan and my inner Pixar fan.
Verdict: Pint of Kilkenny
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Don’t forget there is a competition all this week on the blog and all the details are here.
The House of Caine: Get Carter
The titular role in Get Carter (1971) is one of Michael Caine’s most iconic turns. When I watched the film for the first time recently, I did not exactly get what I was expecting.
For starters, the film is exceedingly dark in a way that most films of that vintage were not. It is essentially Caine’s gangster on a 110 minute reign of vengeance with no real thoughts of morality or notions of justice. The opening act of the film is relatively light on the plot details, the nature of Carter’s mission kept deliberately vague. It is a technique that is at times intriguing, at others frustrating. This is a strictly local gangster level tale, despite the labyrinthine plot at times recalling a globetrotting espionage film. Throughout the film, Carter is forced (or chooses) to shoot his way violently through a web of confusing familial relations and porno films, until he feels justice has been served. Or I guess until everyone is dead, whichever happens to come first. You get the sense that Caine’s cold-hearted Jack Carter does not particularly give a shit which of these eventualities comes to pass.
As for our guest of honour on the blog this week, put simply, young Michael Caine is such a dude. As an actor he is very adept at creating a real sense of character in his roles, easily slipping into a role and becoming someone completely different. All the things you hanker for in a 70s gangster flick are here – snappy dialogue and a very funky soundtrack, as well as plenty of sex and violence (those last two are dished out a little more gratuitously than was probably the norm back in the day). However whilst the film is definitely well made and on the whole I would say I enjoyed it, there is just something missing for me that keeps it being utterly essential viewing. Perhaps it is the fact that the film and the character of Carter take themselves so seriously. Who knows, perhaps it was because it was a pretty downcast flick and it was not something that I was in the mood for the night I watched it. All that said though, Caine is at his magnetic best here, so if you are a fan of the great man’s work, that fact makes it worth checking out.
The book “1001 Films to See Before you Die” in which this film features, describes it as “blunt and forceful” and I don’t know that I can put it any better than that. It lacks a bit in narrative and what is there is frankly a little confusing and unsatisfying. But Caine is well worth seeing in this as he gives a really good performance in what is a pretty downbeat flick.
Verdict: Stubby of Reschs
Progress: 87/1001
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Don’t forget there is a competition all this week on the blog and all the details are here.
The House of Caine Guest Post: Blood and Wine
The awesome guest posting for The House of Caine continues with the man of mystery behind Isaacs Picture Conclusions, possibly called Isaac, possibly Eric, more likely it’s Chris Isaak, giving you the lowdown on Blood and Wine. Whatever you do, check out his site… after reading this review.
I remember watching Blood and Wine (1996) when it came out on cable – I had just graduated from college and was still living in my mum’s house getting ready to move in to a rental with my buddies. I had just gone through about ten years of not really watching movies – I spent most of that decade chasing chicks around – and the only reason I really watched this was because Jennifer Lopez was “new” and I hoped she was going to strip naked and slink around all over the place (it doesn’t happen, boys). I knew who Jack Nicholson was, sure, but this really had no other draw for me other than J Lo.
Looking at this the other week, for this project, as this started and that zen-ish 90s synthesizer fired up as Stephen Dorff paddled out into the ocean on a surfboard I thought, “oh man, what have I got myself into?” Then he and Harold Perrineau haul a freaking shark out of the ocean and I was prepared for something terrible. In the next scene Judy Davis (remember her) rolls off a couch in a hungover stupor and Dorff sasses his step-dad (Nicholson) and things still weren’t looking very good.
Shortly after that we are introduced to J Lo’s Mexican-Nanny-To-Rich-Assholes and her “Choo think I look like a nanny?” accent blah, blah, blah. And – in all honesty I have never been that interested in Michael Caine (I have no idea why) but about 15 minutes in we meet his character and things really changed for this movie. Shame on me, I suppose, but I really only know him as Alfred in The Dark Knight trilogy but he is EXCELLENT in this, doing his character act bit, as a chain smoking, coughing up blood safe cracker who’s not afraid to beat the crap out of anyone if he’s not getting his way.
I’m no professional but in my opinion when we talk about Film Noir, from what I’ve seen, they usually revolve around a hopeless sap who’s being manipulated by a woman into doing something nefarious and things get worse and worse and worse up until the end. This is similar to that style (even billed as Noir on the Netflix envelope) as things continue to get more hopeless, but there’s not really that particular feel of darkness to this. Caine and Nicholson character act all over the place, J Lo “Choos” her way around the joint and Stephen Dorff acts like a dude from the 90s (if that makes sense) as we watch an expensive diamond necklace robbery fencing go wrong.
This movie is very good, but it’s also kind of dated with it’s fashion and music and Jack Nicholson and his infamous Ray Bans (and Caine sports one of those veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery thin moustaches) but if you look past that type of thing, this is a pretty, pretty good little thriller.
Verdict: Stubby of Reschs
Thanks so much to Mr Pictures Conclusions for taking part. Please head on over to Isaacs Picture Conclusions and get involved with some of the fantastic stuff he has going on over there.
The House of Caine: The Dark Knight
When The Dark Knight (2008) opened, it was an unstoppable behemoth, demolishing box office records whilst simultaneously garnering critical praise rarely seen for any film, let alone a comic book based major studio release. As time has passed, it has been slightly fashionable to put the film down, even if only a little. To say that the hype over Heath Ledger’s passing and posthumous Oscar skewed perception of the film.
I think that is a little unfair. Sure you can quibble with some aspects of the film, pick tiny plot holes or discuss the occasional pacing issues. But this is an incredible piece of mainstream filmmaking, that from the excellent opening set piece bank robbery never really lets you go. And yes, Heath Ledger as the Joker delivers one of the best performances that I have ever seen on screen. I don’t know that it is possible to exaggerate just how good he is in the film. Plot wise, the film is focused on Christian Bale’s Batman going up against the Joker, whilst dealing with both his place in the city of Gotham and in particular his relationship with his beloved Rachael (Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes in this second film) who is now dating the dreamy new District Attorney Harvey Dent. Obviously that is a rather simplistic rendering of the story, but the film is predominately driven by all the incredible work that surrounds this basic plot.
Plenty of analysis of the film focuses on Ledger’s performance, which is understandable because it would be criminal not to highlight it in any examination of the film. But there is plenty more that makes this film so good. There are some great subtleties to the script, including some lighter moments. Comic book films tend to either be totally dark or totally light and fluffy. The Dark Knight definitely leans to the former, but is never too onerous and the occasional lightening of proceedings definitely helps in that regard. In terms of the shooting, Nolan is fantastic at getting the relatively epic scale just right. You can definitely feel that it was shot for the IMAX format and even just on blu-ray on my average sized TV, the cityscapes that paint out Gotham look amazing. There is a real sense as the film progresses that it is close to a perfect merging of craft and art. A couple of times throughout I found myself tearing up watching this film, at points where I had not in other viewings, such was the power of what was on screen.
Out of the three Nolan Batman films, this is the one in which Michael Caine’s Alfred plays the most integral role. For a minor supporting role, this character is really well fleshed out. Alfred is simultaneously Bruce Wayne’s best (and only) friend, as well as his confidante. They have a wonderfully light patter between them but Alfred is also the one looking out for him, the mother waiting up worried sick when he has been out all night. Quite importantly too, Alfred is the only person who is willing to remind Batman (well at least Bruce) that he has limits. In fact Alfred is probably the most well written character in the film, perfectly combining narrative function with great dialogue. Now back to Ledger. His Joker is an incredibly evil creation, ‘a man who just wants to watch the world burn’. Indeed I cannot think of a truly mainstream film with a more evil character at its core. The performance is staggeringly good. Ledger will make you stare at the screen, jaw dropped in astonishment. He will make you feel chilled to the core. And yes, there is no denying that watching the performance will make you lament that Ledger is no longer with us but also rejoice that he was able to reach these heights before he died. Ledger leads a pretty amazing ensemble cast, the equal of any film of the last 20 years – Bale, Ledger, Caine, Eckhart and Oldman, all at the top of their game, really rams the film home. Only Maggie Gyllenhaal is a slight letdown for me. I can’t help feeling that Katie Holmes did a slightly better job with the same role in the first film.
I have no doubt that the iconic status that The Dark Knight has gained is going nowhere. This is one of those films that will still be viewed and admired in 50 years time. Either as a stand along work or for the changes it brought about to mainstream filmmaking. On any list I make of the greatest mainstream films of all time, this film belongs near to the top.
Verdict: Longneck of Melbourne Bitter
Progress: 86/1001
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Don’t forget there is a competition all this week on the blog, details here. Also, I will be live tweeting the sequel to this film The Dark Knight Rises tomorrow afternoon, so be sure to check that out if you can.
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