At least in Australia, Boxing Day 2011 saw two new Steven Spielberg blockbusters open on the very same day. And in typically Spielbergian fashion the two films would struggle to be more different. War Horse (2011) is a serious, ‘Oscar-bait’ drama, a WWI-set love story between a horse and a boy, whilst The Adventures of Tintin (2011) is the director’s first animated venture, a 3D mo-cap adaptation of Herge’s iconic series of adventure comics (and was awesome – featuring in my top 10 films for 2011). This sudden output would be a surprise were it to have come from any other director. But where Spielberg and big budget flicks are concerned, nothing is a surprise, or at least shouldn’t be after all these years.

When you talk about blockbusters, not just by Spielberg, you really cannot start off by not talking about Jaws (1975), which in many ways signalled the birth of the big-budget ‘event’ picture. This is for a couple of very important reasons. Traditionally, films opened gradually across the states. They would open in a big centre or two and then expand out. The major advantage of this is that it would slowly build hype as word of mouth spread. And by the time it opened in a particular city, people would be ravenous to see it because of all they had heard and read. Jaws broke with this tradition with a mass release, being simultaneously released on something like 450 screens. Although this is commonplace now, why make such a change? Well for starters it mitigates the effect of shit reviews because everyone (in theory) just rushes out and sees the film on the first weekend. Whilst there were concerns to the contrary, Jaws in the end had very few poor reviews to counter, going on to become a cinematic classic. But this approach works well when you have a modern day dog such as Clash of the Titans (2010) on your hands. This approach also shifts the timeframe in which you need to generate hype for the picture. So instead of post-release reviews hyping the picture, it is achieved through a pre-release advertising and merchandising blitz encompassing making-ofs, press tours, Happy Meals and a whole lot more. The other major point to make about the release of Spielberg’s killer shark thriller is timing. Summer in the states, had traditionally been a bit of a dead period for releases. Awards season was still many months away so there was no need to build any films for that (and this is I guess a bit more of a modern phenomenon anyways). And more importantly it was summer surely everyone had better things to do like lick ice creams on the beach rather than sit inside a dark cinema catching a flick (this logic is foreign to me, but apparently some people are into other things besides watching movies). But the summer release of Jaws started a tradition that lives on to the present day, with many massive flicks geared to capture the summer blockbuster market.

Now onto Spielberg’s film itself. I thought I had seen it before I sat down to watch it the other day, but I now suspect that I had just seen part of one of the sequels on T.V. Whilst I was expecting a thriller, Jaws is really a horror film par excellence. With a young child being one of the first to meet their maker at the hands of the man-eating shark, the film immediately establishes that no-one is safe. The scene is beachside holiday, with holidaymakers frolicking in the blue ocean under the bright shining sun. The enjoyment of these frolickers helps to build the tension, so when that music kicks in, the tension has been built to almost unbearable heights. The swift transformation from peaceful calm to the terror stricken atmosphere of a shark attack was for me reminiscent of a Nirvana song shifting gear from quiet to loud. As for that music in the film, even though you’ve heard the score 14 million times (surely one of cinema’s most iconic, up there with the James Bond and Halloween (1978) themes), it is still awesomely chilling. The film, whilst carrying this horror streak throughout, also evolves generically. It increasingly weaves in dramatic elements (Drahor? Horrama?), before finishing with a second half that is classic closed setting thriller. Is there a more isolated setting than three men, alone upon a boat, tiny against the comparative vastness of the ocean? Here also, the final hunt creates quite the emotional event out of a hunt that could have been in other hands played simply for action and machismo.

The film opens with a wonderful night-time scene which allows Spielberg to dazzle with his expert cinematography. The combination of light is managed perfectly so that the night is seemingly all-pervasive, yet you can still actually see what is occurring perfectly. A number of the characters in this film are much like archetypes of the Western genre. Roy Scheider’s Martin Brody for example is a lone cop, fighting for the people he is employed to protect, against the tyranny of bureaucracy and the tourism dollar. Surprising depth is lent to the film by the depth and nuance of the relationship between Brody and his wife Ellen played by Lorraine Gary. They have just moved from the big smoke to Amity Island, thinking they would find peace. But struggles await their relationship as the titular shark begins terrorising the town. Robert Shaw’s fisherman Quint starts out as a saltydog caricature, but his character too gradually builds depth. Before the final shark hunt, he prepares his fishing gear like a cowboy prepping his gun, getting ready for battle, with Spielberg showing this meticulous preparation in slow detail. He is a cowboy, getting ready to track his foe, and his caricature gains much nuance, most notably through an expertly delivered monologue aboard the boat recalling a famous wartime ordeal that establishes his connection to sharks. Probably the film’s best performance comes from Richard Dreyfuss as the young oceanographer Matt Hooper. The friendship that gradually grows between him and Scheider’s Brody is wonderfully drawn, being borne out of the mutual desire to get the powers that be to recognise the seriousness of the situation. And his verbal sparring with Quint on the final hunt has the dual effect of at times lightening the tension, and other times heightening it.

It says much for Spielberg’s highly evolved storytelling chops that in a film about a killer shark, the real villain is not the shark, but rather the mayor of Amity Island. The mayor ignores numerous warnings that there is a highly dangerous shark on the loose, preferring to put the almighty dollar above all else. There is also a fantastic plot twist where one shark is caught, but turns out not to be the one doing the killing. But the grubby mayor will not listen to reason in this regard either. This back and forth between the Mayor and Scheider’s Brody is reflective of current arguments over how to deal with sharks that start to kill, arguments that seem to erupt every summer in Australia. Should the shark, surely just doing what comes naturally, in its natural environ, be left to its own devices. Or should it be hunted down to protect swimmers? And what role does the tourism dollar’s importance to a coastal town’s economy have to do with the final decision? At the end of the day though, this is pulp horror/thriller, yet just like a Peter Temple or Cormac McCarthy novel, it is elevated above pulp by the excellence of its execution. In this vein, the discovery of Ben Gardner’s body is one of cinema’s great frights. I had seen a clip of this scene before, yet it still scared the snot out of me when it came.

There are numerous classic myths about the shark used in the film. That the first time it was put in the water it sunk straight to the bottom of the ocean, that they continually ballooned up, got caught in seaweed and so on; the veracity or otherwise of these myths has often been argued about. What is for certain though is that Spielberg is able to work brilliantly with what he has, which is a physically imposing model that looks clunky and fake as all hell, and I imagine would have to audiences in the mid-70s. The first shots of the beast are delivered from an extremely high angle as it cuts through the ocean, which makes the model look ok, and its size suitably intimidating. The issue with the shark is really not so much what it looks like but how it moves, and this comes out in the couple of close ups of the shark attacking which in some ways are a little comical given the clunkiness of the model’s attacks. Moviegoers can probably be thankful for the poor quality of the model though, as it served to make the director consider deeply how much to show the shark, and how much to just hint, however overtly at its presence. In the end, Spielberg nailing that balance is one of the great joys of the film.

This is a wonderful film, perhaps in my top 10-20 favourite of all time. This is big-budget, Hollywood at its best, and it shows that when this type of filmmaking is done well, it is as worthy as any style in cinematic history.  

Verdict: Longneck of Melbourne Bitter

The next blockbuster of Mr Spielberg’s that I am going to examine will always hold a special place in my heart. Jurassic Park (1993) was one of the first films I remember seeing in the cinema, and my Nan and Pop took me to see it with my sister. I remember everyone jumping when that motherfucking Velociraptor sticks its head through the wall (I still jump every time I see that). And I remember that, as a dinosaur nut at the time, I absolutely loved it. I also remember my grandparents not liking it, thinking it was a little too violent for my 7-year old sensibilities.

I’m a little surprised that Jurassic Park’s opening scene has not become more iconic. It immediately sets the tone for the whole film, establishing its sci-fi stylings and soaring, classic adventure film soundtrack. It also has the brilliant close-up of a mouth screaming “shoot her” as the dinosaur claims its victim uncontrollably. The film does not look back from there. There are self-referential (in a good way) nods to Indiana Jones, and I think in many ways Spielberg is here riffing on and expanding upon his entire preceding oeuvre. The other thing the film definitely does is create a wondrous world for the audience to lose themselves in. From the moment Richard Attenborough lovingly says “welcome to Jurassic Park” the audience is taken there, and the outside world is lost. The scenery is visually spectacular and it is populated by numerous, huge creatures rendered using effects that still expertly hold their quality today, 18 years of advance down the road.  They still look so real, and there are no Jaws-esque dodgy models on offer here.

Script wise Michael Crichton has helped craft something both more engaging and intelligent than the source novel he also wrote. It is great that in a blockbuster such as this, the script maintains a level of scientific enquiry, with guesses at how dinosaurs lived. What’s more the more scientific aspects of the dialogue are actually incorporated into the overall screenplay, rather than feeling like bits of a uni lecture which have been tacked on. Thematically, the attainment of and profit from scientific knowledge is specifically acknowledged in dialogue from Jeff Goldblum’s character, and the film explores this on a broader level – especially through the relationships between the characters and their underlying motives for finding themselves on this island off the coast of Costa Rica. The creation of this scientific and inquisitive tone to the film, results in the birth in a lab of a baby dinosaur being as exhilarating to witness as a T-Rex attack.

But enough of all that, how about all the dinosaurs going nuts and ripping people’s heads off? Well there is plenty of that going on here too. I mentioned my first viewing of this film as a youngster, and my two most memorable recollections of that screening fall into this category. The first is the ‘toilet’ scene which sees the first major attack of the film. A man is plucked from the toilet scene, and I have never forgotten that, or the Jeff Goldblum quip that follows it. The second scene is where the Velociraptor bursts through the wall just as Laura Dern’s character has restored the power. It’s the film’s big shock moment, and I remember afterward my pop joking about how hard my sister had dug her nails into his arm at this point. Just like in Jaws Spielberg uses calm as a counterpoint to courage. Most famously the first Tyrannosaur attack is preceded by a close-up of a glass of water, with the ripples in the liquid signalling what is to come. The end result of Spielberg’s ability to render chaos and destruction is a film that is really quite frightening and gruesome in parts.

Every so often there is a performance in a blockbuster film that will have people up in arms about the lack of recognition these types of films, and performances in them, get at awards time. Sam Neill’s turn in Jurassic Park is one such performance. It definitely deserves plaudits as he conveys the role of grumpy yet brilliant palaeontologist brilliantly. His character also evolves nicely into a morally upstanding dude of a father figure when required.  Whilst I am a fan of the sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), it definitely lacked something not having Neill on board. Richard Attenborough is terrific as the scientific ‘visionary’ behind the creation of Jurassic Park in the film. This character is part visionary, part mad scientist. Well he’s not mad, but Attenborough brings to life a man who struggles to reign in his obsessions and their illogicality. Then there is Jeff Goldbum’s chaos theorist, a man diagnosed in the film as suffering “from a deplorable excess of personality”. Goldblum really does bring that excess to life, playing a delightful nerd with fantastic glee. Actors must love these characters which allow them to play it up to excess but still be serving the purpose required by the film. And any film with Laura Dern yelling SHIT! SHIT! Over and over again is fine by me.

Even today, the best part of 20 years later this film still inspires me with a sense of awe. The same sense of awe I had for dinosaurs I had when I was a kid, collecting Dino mags. An intelligent film that is one of the supreme blockbusters ever made.  

Verdict: Longneck of Melbourne Bitter

Only one man could release a harrowing wartime blockbuster about WWII Jewish Genocide in the exact same year as a mammoth budget, thrills and spills dinosaur film. Schindler’s List (1993) is that film. I think that in many ways Holocaust films are easily dismissed these days as awards bait, and I think that in some circumstances that assertion holds merit. Films on this subject should never lose their impact, but I think that in some ways they have become a dime a dozen in recent years.

There is no such risk with Spielberg’s take on this horrendous moment in 20^th Century history though. The atypical storyline ensures that the film provides a different view of wartime. The narrative concerns Oskar Schindler, played by Liam Neeson. Schindler is a member of the Nazi party who arrives in Berlin, looking to make money from the War. One good way to increase profits is to employ in his enamelware factory Jews who are in detention nearby, given that there is no requirement for him to pay them. The film tracks the relationship between this money hungry businessman, and the oppressed people he employs. I have to say, I did not think that Neeson was capable of delivering a performance of this quality. He is mind bogglingly good. Schindler is an intriguing character, so he has much to work with. Knowing the vague outline of the plot before seeing this film, I assumed that he would be a somewhat one-dimension figure, a rogue Nazi white knight who was morally pure, upstanding, could do no wrong and the film would adulate him. Spielberg is too good a filmmaker to engage in that kind of glossing over of reality though and what we get is a flawed man. Initially his motives are quite unclear, and when they are finally revealed, they are not as idealistic as one would have assumed. He’s a man who is hungry for money, who happily swans around in bars and woos members of the Nazi establishment. A man who only gradually comes to realise exactly what it is that he is witnessing before him, and gradually summons the bravery and the means to do something about it at great personal risk.

The most prominent member of the Nazis that Schindler regular comes into contact with is Ralph Fiennes’ chillingly portrayed Amon Goeth. Goeth is one of the great supervillains of film history. At times, the character and performance threatens to veer into moustache twirling, arch villain territory. But in the end the character works, as a representation and ultra manifestation of the Nazi scourge. The film starts slowly, and I actually found it a little confusing in the early going as it struggles for flow. Early on, I think the film also grapples with how best to portray the atrocities committed – should it be done graphically or more subtly. Both approaches appear in the film, but I think the first such event which really hit me during the film belongs to the latter camp. It is a scene of luggage being emptied, luggage that belonged to Jews who had just been sent to the gas chambers. The luggage is emptied and then painstakingly sifted through to locate anything of value. Heartbreaking. Once the film settles, it is repeatedly horrifying, and still has a massive impact to this day, showing the unmitigated horror of what occurred. The most tense of these ‘horrors’ that is portrayed is the travel of a train containing female Schindler Jews. The audience can only watch in horror as the train takes them, not to the location of Oskar Schindler’s new factory, but instead to Auschwitz. The notion of their looming location starts as a seed of thought, and Spielberg slowly adds on layers, til it becomes shockingly apparent where they are headed. The scene that follows in the ‘gas’ chamber is the film’s most unbearable to watch. The black and white cinematography is stunningly good, sharp and deep. I don’t know if cinematography is inherently better when black and white or if it is just the fact that this particular art form is highlighted more by the nuance that comes from shooting without colour.

Whilst I found the film achingly emotive, I did not find it to be manipulative. The scenes of the Jewish people being rounded up are truly horrifying, and it is during these Nazi raids that Schindler starts down his eventual path. He spots a young girl, dressed in red (a bold splash of colour by Spielberg) who he sees moving through this chaos. It is not a cheapened, instant transformation but rather this moment triggers deep thought and soul searching on behalf of Schindler which permeates the rest of his journey. The pacing of this change is a good thing, helping to make it feel legitimate. A film like this is always going to be a difficult one to finish in a satisfying manner. Schindler’s evolution of sympathy is finely finalised. However some of the ending is perhaps a little po-faced and sentimental with an abundance of big speeches and a group hug. However the last shot of the real-life Schindler Jews and their descendents visiting the grave of Oskar Schindler provides a fittingly poignant end.

I have spoken above about the complex construction and characterisation of the character of Oskar Schindler. It is worth noting that there is a thoughtfulness of the representation of all those involved in the War here. Whilst it is there, the film goes further than Nazis=good, Jewish people=bad. One example are the scenes of young children throwing stones at the Jews as they are corralled into ghettos, or making throat-slitting gestures as they are transported by train. Spielberg is showing us the indoctrinated, multi-generational hatefulness that pervaded Nazi Germany. Perhaps pondering how you stop that hatred, or the transference of it from one person to another. Have no doubt though, the sheer fucking evil of the Nazi regime is made abundantly clear, especially through the character of Goeth.

The film does have its critics though. Perhaps the most notable of them is Claude Lanzmann, the director of the 9 hour Holocaust documentary Shoah (1985) who attacked the film as melodrama and a deformation of historical fact. Whilst I have commented on what I perceive to be the interesting and complex characterisation of Schindler, it has been claimed that Spielberg overtly glosses over aspects of his persona, namely that his womanising ways are minimised, as is the role of his wife in the eventual saving of the Schindler Jews. The criticism has also been made, reputedly originally by Stanley Kubrick, that the film is celebratory about the fact that 600 Jews were saved by Schindler, yet 6 million were exterminated by the Nazis and the film chooses supposedly neglects that fact. This is a difficult one. I don’t know that the tone is particularly celebratory, and despite the fact Schindler is lauded at the end of the film, I think the portrayal of him is a nuanced one. I would think that no film could accurately convey the true horror, and especially the true scope of the Holocaust; and I don’t think this should stop aspects of these events being portrayed, if it is done in a manner that is as respectful as this. I do not have the knowledge or the first-hand experience to draw definitive conclusions regarding the criticisms directed at the film. I just feel that I should let you all know that people with both the knowledge and first-hand experience have both praised, and attacked aspects of the film and its treatment of the Holocaust, and that you should do your own research on these things.

The film is as powerful as the subject matter deems it should be. Parts of the film left me crestfallen. It is difficult to think with any depth about the Holocaust without feeling unbearably oppressed at the state of the human race. Does the film provide hope? I’m not sure, and if it does, it is not undue hope.

Verdict: Pint of Kilkenny

Progress: 54/1001

Hitchcock is a rare breed of director and probably the most iconic of all time. He is one of the very few directors whose films are a genre unto themselves – you can watch a Hitchcock film in the same way you can watch a Gangster or Western flick. Add to that the fact he made over 50 films, ranging from the silent era to the 70s, and you have a man who can generate diverse views. Let’s check em out. 

Tim from Not Now I’m Drinking a Beer and Watching a Movie writes:

I have never seen a Hitchcock film I did not like, and oftentimes I feel as though my favourite is the one I have seen most recently. That is sort of the case at the moment, as I loved Sabotage (1936) a British era adaptation of Conrad’s “The Secret Agent” and could easily write this piece on that.

However if I ponder a little more deeply on which is indeed my favourite, I come up with the same answer as Hitch himself did. My favourite Hitchcock film is Shadow of a Doubt (1943), the film Hitch always maintained was his favourite of those he made. Why is it my favourite Hitchcock film? It doesn’t have the sheer visceral exhileration of Psycho (1960), my first introduction to Hitchcock. Nor does it have the brilliant high concept conceit of Rear Window (1954) or one of the greatest scripts of all time like North by Northwest (1959). Despite not having any of these, for me the film eclipses them all.

Teresa Wright gets top billing over Joseph Cotten in the opening credits. Who deserves it? Hard to say as they are both fantastic, playing a namesake Uncle and Niece both called Charlie. Cotten’s character is a delicious one, he is delightfully evil. The audience knows it from the start but it takes a fair while to pin down exactly why. Cotten is having fun, playing Charlie with manipulative glee. His niece Charlie is a different kind of Hitchcock woman. She is whip smart and onto her uncle from the start. And lets just say that her actions at the end of the film don’t leave you thinking she belongs to the weaker sex (personally I think that much, not all, of the general thoughts on women in Hitchcock films as weak or failures is simplistic). Wright more than holds her own, easily accomplishing the difficult task of playing a believable teenager.

Many of Hitch’s films are urban set tales, but Shadow of a Doubt sees most of the action take place in small town America suburbia. It reminds me a lot of the setting of Orson Welles’ The Stranger (1946) but perhaps more nuanced. And the setting allows Hitch to cultivate a great family dynamic with each of the family members being allowed to craft distinctive characters. In fact the film is full of perhaps the most beautifully crafted characters in Hitch’s canon who have the pleasure of enchanting the audience with perhaps the slickest dialogue in any of his films. The film also has a lot of nuance and rewards the viewer by slowly but surely revealing its psychological depth.

More than anything, the film just gets you in. I re-watched it late the other night while drinking a beer. For no reason at all at one point, I paused the film, hopped up and poured the rest of my beer into a glass. It just felt right. Upon restarting the film, I realised that a character onscreen was at that moment also pouring a beer into his glass. The film just sucks you in and makes you part of what is happening onscreen like only the very best of cinema. If you haven’t seen this somewhat lesser known Hitchcock film, then go out and track it down.

James from Film Blerg writes:

Having previously adapted Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1940) to triumphant acclaim, Alfred Hitchcock took on du Maurier’s 1953 short story The Birds (1963). Unlike the impressive Saul Bass designed openings seen in Psycho and Vertigo (1958), The Birds is much more understated. As the film opens, birds are heard fluttering back and forth. Already enough to send shivers down one’s spine, the birds then appear flying manically back and forth, forewarning of the terrors to come.

Having seen The Birds as an eight-year-old, I subsequently became anxious of overflying birds and their potential for ravenous depravity. Later screened in my first year cinema studies class at La Trobe University, the class continually laughed throughout the film’s entirety to my absolute and appalled shock. Susan Sontag wrote on the aesthetics of camp only a year after The Birds release, and much of the film’s retrospective humour can be derived from its references to camp.

Our lecturer Anna Dzenis warned us of the strange happenings that occur when she screened The Birds. True to her word, less than a week after the film was screened, I had an unfortunately incident with a bird on the golf course. It was true. When The Birds is screened, somewhere a bird will attack.

Hitchcock’s The Birds begins with prankster Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren). A young socialite coming from a wealthy and established family, Melanie is headstrong and intuitive. Upon meeting Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in San Francisco and sparking a playful conversation, Melanie secretly arrives in Bodega Bay where Mitch spends the weekend with his mother Lydia (Jessica Tandy) and much younger sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright). And then the birds attack…

Jessica Tandy is unsurprisingly the strongest performer of the ensemble, and details true fear with the utmost class and sophistication. Not to say that Hedren, Taylor or Suzanne Pleshette (who plays Mitch’s former flame Annie) give weak performances. Making her feature film debut, Tippi Hedren makes an indelible splash which never really reached the same heights.

An epic battle of man against nature, motionless child against pecking psychotic bird, Alfred Hitchcock creates pure terror with each horrific bird attack. Much of the horror is instilled through a lack of sound. The only thing that is audible as the birds attack is the sound of their attacking. The actors are left silent (sans the school children scene), striking up believable panic.

The following clip highlights the criminal mastermind nature of the birds. While detailed my distress during the screening, the clip does highlight a particular funny moment. Especially from 1:15 onwards.

James Madden is the editor of Film Blerg. He is currently undertaking a Master of Arts and Cultural Management at the University of Melbourne and is a Screen editor of Farrago magazine. He has also contributed to Portable,  T-Squat and Upstart.

Jon from The Film Brief writes:

Hitchcock’s Rear Window exemplifies all the talents and class of the great director in a way that few of his other films manage — the folksy, pragmatic presence of Jimmy Stewart, the fluidity of the photography, the perfectly-named Grace Kelly, and of course the voyeuristic undertones that Hitch knew to be the underpinning of all great cinema. We go to the movies to watch other people and Rear Window throws that concept back in our face repeatedly — sometimes it is nauseatingly perverse (in the case of the attractive blonde dancer that Stewart ogles), sometimes it is sad (the not-quite-good-enough pianist across the way), sometimes it is intriguing (the domestically-challenged couple that become so important to the film’s plot). Rarely, though, is it easy to turn away from, especially when we know we should.

Stewart plays LB. “Jeff” Jeffries a daring photographer, house-ridden due to injuries sustained on an assignment that turns to watching the other residents of his apartment complex through his rear window. He is resistant to the advances of his friend Lisa (Grace Kelly), preferring to obsess over the various characters of his daily real-life soap operas. As always with Hitchcock, the plot turns sinister, as Stewart witnesses what seems to be a clear-cut case of domestic tension turning into murder. The twist is something of a classic Hitchcock MacGuffin, though. This story may look to be a murder mystery on the face of things – and certainly the resolution of this aspect of the story is paramount to the film’s effect – but really it’s a movie about movies first and foremost, and a movie about a damaged man’s relationships second. Jeff’s neighbours and their foibles make for fascinating viewing, particularly considering the lovely seamless way that Hitchcock films them and Jeff’s observation of them. But the main delight, for me, is the dialogue, the patter between Jeff and the people in his life – the little touches of humour in Stewart’s delivery, the gentle breaking of Lisa’s heart in every glance Jeff-wards, the way that Lisa cleverly wins into Jeff’s affection by becoming interested in his obsession.  Matched with the brilliantly languid camerawork, this is a movie that can be enjoyed with the sound off and the picture on, and vice versa.

Of course, as always with Hitchcock, there is a regrettable undertone of slight misogyny, a sense that women just aren’t up to the task of pleasing men. Grace Kelly is one of Hitch’s classic tortured female characters – beautiful, intelligent, but still unable to justify herself to the men around her. In Rear Window, Jeff manifests his love of the flawed mundanity of everyday life by criticising Lisa for being ‘too perfect’ all the time! As usual in Hitch’s films, his women bear the brunt of his men’s shortcomings. This unfortunate perspective has always grated me about Hitch’s movies, but his brilliance in all technical realms of the film-making art trumps his sometimes questionable morals.

Rear Window is my favourite Hitchcock film. Something about it encapsulates everything about the old master that endears me to him. And I just love the fact that this is really a movie about movies and the voyeurism therein masquerading as a murder mystery.

Jon Fisher is the creator and editor of The Film Brief and host of The Film Brief podcast which you can find on iTunes.

Not Worth Watching:

If you only have time to watch one The Adventures of Tintin

Avoid at all costs Superman Returns

Some time ago, a friend of mine became aware of my blog on Facebook. The first thing he did after that was request that I review Back to the Future (1985). As it is on the 1001 I said I would ‘soon’ (this was somewhere between 6 and 12 months ago). So here are my thoughts on the film, unfortunately not quite as quick a turn around as I was hoping for.

I can understand why that was my friend’s first thought when seeing my blog. Zemeckis’ film is a really formative one for many people, me included. Even though I was born after the film was released, it is still a film that along with a very select group of others (James Bond films, Jurassic Park (1993)) helped to engender the love of film that still resides within me. What is it that makes it such a formative film? It is a combination of many elements and no doubt I cannot pin down them all. For starters it is a family film, so is able to be seen by anyone and it also has that perfect balance of aspects that appeal to young and old alike. It is also a phenomenally well made film, unsurprising given the filmmaking chops of the aforementioned Zemeckis and a producer you may have  heard by who goes by the name Steven Spielberg. Then there is the endlessly quotable dialogue, the adventure aspects of it and so on and so on. It also kicks off what I think is one of the better trilogies film has produced and you could easily build a claim that any of the three is the best. My personal favourite is Back to the Future II (1989) which incorporates a lot of sci-fi stylings, but I am also a big fan of the generically western Back to the Future III (1990).

And I am also a massive, massive fan of this, the first film. I love it dearly. Funnily enough, for a time travel film, this is a film about time. The film opens with a shot of a wall filled with a myriad of clocks. Old newspapers and photographs also populate this first scene. On paper it sounds clumsy and ham fisted, but in practice the referencing of time here works perfectly. It is an interesting way to approach the film, with the notion of time in the back of your mind as it shows how far the concept permeates deep into the film. All aspects of it, the passing of it, the ravages of it, the inescapability of it, our attempted manipulation of it, but also its positive aspects such as its healing qualities and its ability to bring us to new experiences and loves. The whole experience of the film is rendered with just the right amount of ‘tude. This is not a very precise or scientific term, but there is just a certain attitude that imbues all of it. Doc ripping the plutonium off from the Libyans, telling Marty that when the DeLorean hits 88 miles per hour he was going to “see some serious shit”, Marty fronting the band of Marvin Berry and delivering a rendition of “Johnny B. Goode; I could probably give you 50 similar examples. It is all of these little touches which help elevate this film from the realm of good family flick to something much more.

The film is expertly made. Spielberg is the greatest populist filmmaker of the modern era, and you could make the argument he is the best ever. You can see his producer’s touch all over the self-assuredness of this movie. I am a big fan of Robert Zemeckis as a director, and this admiration extends to his current focus as an innovator of motion-capture filmmaking. I know the plan is for Steven Spielberg to return to the director’s chair for the third Tintin feature in his and Peter Jackson’s current series, but I would love to see Zemeckis have a shot. That adventure style narrative is right up his alley, and A Christmas Carol (2009) showed what he could do in the mo-cap world he has been working so hard on. Aside from the two great filmmakers behind it, the film also benefits from an exceedingly good script and performances. The screenplay was written by Zemeckis and Bob Gale and they have crafted a real work of art in what they have achieved. The achievement is twofold in that they have crafted a great narrative and also filled it with memorable, quotable dialogue. The great danger in a time travel story is to have it get too convoluted and complicated. This film embraces that by having rectifying one of these complications the central narrative thrust of the 50s set part of the film. Michael J. Fox’s Marty McFly inadvertently interrupts the meeting of his parents, leading to the distinct possibility he will never be born. So he must put all his energy into ensuring that his nerd father, and flirtatious mother hit it off (not before a couple of awkward incest moments). What also develops through this section of the film is a really sweet reverse teacher father/son relationship between Marty and his teenage dad, with Marty shepherding and protecting him through this challenging stage of his life. Then of course there is the dialogue, from all parties but especially Christopher Lloyd’s peerless Emmet ‘Doc’ Brown. “This is heavy”, “Are you telling me this sucker is nuclear?”, “1.21 Gigawatts!” “Flux capacitor fluxing”, I could go on. The film also trades in that classic Hollywood technique of setting up for a sequel (or two). But this is not done in an annoying way; rather the film sets up multiple layers to be returned to later in the series. And it also ensures that the central narrative of the film is resolved at the end of the film rather than just leaving it half done.

The film in many ways was intended as a star vehicle for the (until then) T.V. star Michael J. Fox. You can see why there was such a desire from the studio to create some sort ideal role for him, because he gives such a wonderfully assured and joyful young performance in this film. The wrong actor in this role would have completely derailed the film, but Fox’s turn helps to ensure it is a classic. Of course Lloyd’s Emmett Brown is delightfully over the top, managing to be just unhinged enough to endear himself without grating. Lloyd’s physicality, the use of his facial expressions and entire body in his reaction to the events unfolding around him, are what manage to achieve this. Lea Thompson and especially Crispin Glover are also excellent as Marty’s parents. They manage to convince and engage when playing awkward (or promiscuous teenagers) and as middle-aged parents disappointed with the actions of their own teenagers. Glover’s is close to the best performance in the film, and one of those giving him a run for his money is Thomas F. Wilson as the bully Biff (Wilson is also phenomenal in the later films, managing to play Biff from a teenager to an old withered man excellently). He is equal parts intimidating hard man and bumbling buffoon, the latter seen when his car ends up covered in manure, setting up one of the series’ best recurring jokes. Shit, everyone is good in this film. Even the bit parts with only have couple of lines are really well acted.

Quite early on in the piece I was intending on using one of the film’s classic pieces of dialogue as the blog’s title. I settled on the one above after much conjecture, because I think it encompasses much of what the film achieves in my opinion. This is a mainstream, family adventure film, but it is quite possibly the best one ever made, and definitely one of my favourites. It literally transcends and is on a higher level, than most everything of a similar vein. 

Verdict: Longneck of Melbourne Bitter

Progress: 51/1001

Film history is so massive, that even if you devote a lot of time to journeying through it, it is hard to even scratch the surface. For me, like most other people, many films and directors slip under the radar. Inspired by not too long ago seeing my first Kurosawa film Derzu Uzala (1974), I thought it was time to check out a few films directed by legends who had completely passed me by. Here are my first encounters with three greats of cinema, which turn out to be more interesting that I had perhaps expected, but definitely not for the reasons I was expecting.

Of the three great names of American silent cinema that still reign today, only one traded in drama– D.W. Griffith. Griffith is probably best known for the infamous Civil War, Klu Klux Klan promoting, The Birth of a Nation (1915). Throughout the silent era his productions also pushed the boundaries of scope, in relation to length of films, cost and scale of sets. Broken Blossoms (1919) represents something of a departure from that, being essentially a small-scale tale. And this is the film I chose to be my first exposure to Griffith. As a fan of silent film, and having heard so much about the greatness of his work, to say I was super excited to see this would be an understatement. Similarly, to say that I was grossly underwhelmed would also be an understatement.

The film starts promisingly, with a prologue of sorts set in China. These scenes look excellent and authentic, they made me wonder for a while if they were actually shot on location. They are also promising in that they portray an un-judgemental portrayal of China, the Chinese and Buddhism. Of course, it is impossible to judge the racial standards of a film made 90 years ago using today’s standards. Even so, from this early beginning, unfortunately the caricaturing of the Asian characters is disappointing. The most prominent of them is Yellow Man (you never get told his name, although it is on his shopfront) played by Richard Barthelmess. Richard Barthelmess is not a very Chinese sounding name. Which is apt, because he is not Chinese. Having an American play the main Chinese character in the film is a massive let down. Not just because it is offensive these days, but because it does away with virtually all the authenticity that Griffith has built up in the opening scenes. Barthelmess’ Yellow Man sets out for England in an attempt to spread the peaceful message of Buddhism to that country, because they are essentially violent fiends who need it. But the next time we meet Yellow Man, he has apparently failed in that mission, with his “youthful dreams [having] come to wreck against the sordid realities of life”, and he now works as a disillusioned, opium smoking shopkeeper.

After introducing Yellow Man and his back-story, the film shifts focus to introduce the audience to young Lucy, played by Lillian Gish; and her father, the prize-fighter Battling Burrows played by Donald Crisp. These two provide the best performances in the film. Crisp is perfectly leering and expressive as the violent father, whilst Gish is truly fantastic in a difficult role. She is essentially a victim, and making it even more difficult, she is one of an indeterminable age. The father-daughter relationship is established, with Burrows being physically abusive toward his daughter. The scenes of him attacking Lucy are the film’s most affecting, clearly showing off Griffith’s ability. But the issue in this early part of the film is that not much happens. It meanders on and on. It is not until the film is half over that Yellow Man and Lucy finally meet, which is when the narrative finally actually kicks into gear (but even here not a whole lot happens) with Lucy taking refuge in the Yellow Man’s shop. This lopsided narrative is a fatal flaw of the film for me. It took so long for anything to really occur story wise that by the time it did, I didn’t care. And as mentioned, all the interesting authenticity Griffith builds up disappears. Even once Yellow Man has come to London, Griffith seems to be showing a genuine interest in Asian culture, with opium, musical instruments and dress adding detail. But after about 15 minutes this is all done away with, and all we are left with are generic London locales. For a moment it appears that Griffith is going to establish an interesting, Stephen Crane Maggie: A Girl of the Streets vibe, but this fades into blandness before too long.

I do not want to harp on about the racial aspects of the film. Firstly because I do not want to get bogged down in a discussion of whether or not I should take umbrage with it because of the context the film was made in; and secondly because my opinion of the film transcends this issue. Having said that the film is shrouded in racist terminology and stereotypes. According to the film Yellow Man is sensitive (read wussy) like all Chinese and is often called Chink. At the height of the endearment in their relationship, Lucy affectionately refers to him as “Chinky” You could counter these arguments about racism by pointing to the positive portrayal of Yellow Man, who there is no doubt is the closest thing to a hero that exists in the film. But there is also no doubting that he is still shown to be racially inferior and only looks good in contrast to the piece of scum that Burrows is. I’m not really sure what the critical consensus is to the depiction of race in the film. I think that Griffiths’ is attempting to get across an anti-racist message, the character of Battling Burrows does encompass the sheer illogicality of a racist standpoint. Overall though, for me, these themes were just presented unfortunately and not rammed home enough.

One of the reasons that Griffith is considered such a towering figure of film history is because of his technical proficiency. Much of this is on display in Broken Blossoms, and it is used to differing levels of success. Iris shots are utilised repeatedly, restricting what the audience is able to see. But rather than enhance the atmosphere of the film, the effect is unfortunately just disconcerting. Better employed are a couple of innovative close-ups late in the film which work excellently, building a sense of tension and fear. The editing and shot composition is at times intriguing, but more often than not unremarkable. It is disappointing that scenes where Griffiths’ skills gel are all too rare, such as the exciting boxing bout. Just like his technical skills, the performances that the director elicits are likewise up and down. As Yellow Man, Barthelmess is unimpressive not managing to convey anything other than a blank canvas and inspiring no interest in a character that should be ultra intriguing. Donald Crisp definitely takes the honours in the male acting stakes with his bullying Battling Burrows. But it is the iconic Lillian Gish who delivers the best performance. It is her brilliant performance that imbues the early abuse scenes with their terrifying quality. Given the quality of this performance, it is a shame that the film is so poorly done narratively that it is hard to even muster a sense of caring what happens to Gish’s Lucy. The best example of this is the film’s ending which should be utterly crushing, but is wholly unmoving. It is these two latter performances which provide probably the only highlight of the film for me.

I was so bored watching this, and became increasingly disillusioned whilst doing so. There is just nothing of interest here. No drama, no thematic depth to cling onto and no enjoyment. Griffith was a true cinema pioneer who achieved a great many ‘firsts’ throughout his career. Well, with this film he has just earned himself another one. The first film to earn one of these: 

Verdict: Schooner of Tooheys New 

If you want to check out the film to see if you agree with my summation, here it is:

Of the three films I was watching for this piece, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934) was the one I was expecting to enjoy the least. How wrong I was.

The film starts wonderfully with Claudette Colbert’s newly married daughter jumping off a yacht to escape her disapproving father. The problem, as it always is, is that she has married the wrong man. This escape pitches Colbert’s Ellie into a bus trip from Miami to New York, where her path crosses with Clark Gable’s Peter Warne. She is the woman on the run, racing back to her forbidden husband, he’s the out of work reporter wanting the exclusive (Ellie is a forever in the news socialite). The long haul bus trip provides the film’s central narrative thrust, and many of its best moments. Having toiled on the odd long haul bus ride (although nothing nearly as long as this one), I had empathy for the plight of these poor passengers. Capra cleverly displays the joys and more commonly the pains of these kinds of trips with the passengers ranging from kind, to loud, to annoyingly flirtatious. The one major advantage of this trip over my usual Murrays service from Canberra to Sydney is that at one point a live band busts out leading the masses in a sing-along whilst a hipflask is passed around for good measure. Yes! – that’s the kind of bus I wanna ride on.

The film is not about wowing you with the beauty of meticulously constructed scenes. The meticulous construction is instead devoted to the dialogue and jokes which derive from the central relationship. That said when Capra wants to wow you, he definitely can. This is evidenced by a number of the night time scenes including a stunning shot of a river, with the moonlight shimmering off the water. And there is no doubt in general that Capra is a technically proficient director. He nicely edits the film together, keeping it ticking along snappily. Wipe fades, the kind of which would come to populate T.V. sitcoms, are here employed nicely, making one scene flow seamlessly into the next. There is much discussion, predominately through dialogue, of the economic class divide which is the core theme explored in the film. At one point Gable’s Peter retorts that “I have never met a rich man who could piggyback.” For a lot of the film there is derision on his part towards Ellie, as he thinks she is nothing but a spoilt little rich girl. The acts and determinants of both snobbery and reverse-snobbery are also examined.

The two leads deliver fantastic performances (even more notable given the shoot was apparently an unhappy one).  Lillian Gish lookalike Claudette Colbert knocks it out of the park with her wonderful presence, more than matching her more esteemed male colleague. Clark Gable struggles early, mainly because his character is extremely strange tonally. He quite viciously snaps at Ellie with next to know provocation which gets him off on the wrong foot with the audience. But when Gable’s character settles, his acting ability really shines through and he aces both the dramatic and comedic aspects of his character with aplomb in a brilliant performance. The third excellent performance comes from Walter Connolly as Ellie’s Wall St bigwig father who is a crack-up. He delivers both a wonderful performance and encompasses a wonderful character, two very different things. The film benefits from a wonderful script bearing perfectly judged and written dialogue. The dialogue is funny and snappy, imbuing the film with the ‘screwball’ dynamic that Capra was so identifiable with. Every comedy writer should be made to sit and listen to the banter between the leads before writing a feature film script. The film features some pretty overt, forward sexuality in both dialogue and action. The two leads, one a single man, the other a married woman, share a bedroom on a number of overnight stays. The room is divided by the ‘Walls of Jericho’ a tactically hung sheet, but we all know what happened to those walls in the end. I seem to always be mentioning how forward old films are. Maybe movies were just more forward than I expect them to be. Narratively the film builds to an eventual, inevitable emotional confliction. Despite this though, even though you know it is coming, it manages not to feel stale. There is genuine tension as to just how the film will end and character’s true colours (both good ones and bad ones) are laid bare during the final sequences.

Dialogue wise, this is as good as films get. Many scenes rise to iconic status merely through the verbal banter going back and forth between the two leads. Notably these include an in-depth discussion of the art of dunking doughnuts, and another about the art of hitchhiking. This film was just the light, funny tonic I needed after the let down that was my first meeting with D.W. Griffiths. It’s a classic which you should hunt down. 

Verdict: Longneck of Melbourne Bitter 

Jumping further forward in time, and slightly to the east brought me to Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979). Unfortunately it also brought me back to the sheer, unmitigated boredom of Broken Blossoms, this time with pretension as an added bonus. I know I’m meant to like this Soviet art-film; Tarkovsky is a favourite of hardcore film buffs worldwide. But all this film brought about in me was the desire to sleep.

The film goes for almost 3 hours. Even the DVD menu on the copy I watched was bloody slow, taking forever for me to be able to select anything. Right from the start, you can see why it takes so long, with the credits announced at a snail’s pace.  There is no dialogue for the first 10 agonising, but beautiful, minutes (I know this because it took me this long to realise I was watching it dubbed and needed to change the settings to subtitled). And this first 10 minutes is symptomatic of the 150 or so that follow it. This is essentially an art film.

I would like to think that I am able to appreciate the merit and ‘art’ in all kinds of film, from Judd Apatow comedy to Marvel comic book flick, to Terrence Malick art house film. But for me, this just dragged. Nothing happened, and just as importantly, it was just not that impressive to look at. In relation to genre/narrative you could say that this is a very strange odd couple (actually threesome) road trip. The film concerns ‘The Zone’, a mysterious place where people who enter generally do not return from. The film’s protagonist is a Stalker, one of the few able to enter this place, and navigate his way out. He is accompanied by an ideologically confused, inspirationless, alcoholic writer and a professor looking to make his name based on what he can learn inside The Zone.

The film is meditative, but seemingly on meaningless or ordinary things, the painstaking preparations for entering the zone for example. Upon entering the zone both sound and cinematography are used to demarcate the zone from what lies outside. The cinematography shifts into colour Wings of Desire (1987) style and the soundtrack becomes filled with industrial buzzes and whistles. The Zone is a place that rumours swirl around, that there is a place in there where wishes come true being one example. Out of the overall blandness I was able to discern a cautionary environmental tale about man’s ability to destroy the zone and some sort of spiritual dimension to the Stalker because he was a Stalker… or something. I may have been asleep when I thought that. Because, even though as far as film reviewing points go it is about as unsubtle and nuanced as it gets, this movie bored the shit out of me. By about an hour in I couldn’t care less about what was happening onscreen and what may possibly happen to the characters populating it. All I could think about was the seemingly interminable amount of time I still had to trudge through. And I did trudge through it, despite the urgings of my girlfriend to just give up on one of my frequent, whining snack breaks. I kept thinking that surely it was going to get better, more engaging. Nope. 

I assume this film is a metaphor for life… probably. At least I assume that was what was with the endless philosophical mumbo-jumbo. I didn’t see any metaphor. All I saw was a film that was unable to hold my attention or interest like no other on this 1001 list with my mind wandering endlessly outside the world of the film. I will grant that the last shot is fucking cool though.  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. 

Verdict: Schooner of Tooheys New

Progress: 50/1001

Before I begin, a note on terminology. I use the terms ‘favourite’ and ‘least-favourite’ for very good reasons. These thoughts are just my personal reflections, that may (and almost certainly will) differ from yours. I really want to hear your thoughts on my selections this year, especially if you disagree. Just don’t tell me my list is wrong. There are no right and wrong with a list such as this.

Here we go with my favourite and least favourite 2011 releases (to be eligible films had to be released theatrically in Australia in 2011, festival screenings do not count): 

Bottom 5: Every year, when discussing the yearly output the issue of originality is discussed. This is reflected in both these lists. The not very coveted Scott Pilgrim award was actually sealed by that film’s shocking unoriginality, and also making the list are a threequel, a seven and a halfthful (I think) and a body swap comedy (what is this, 1983?). Having said that, lack of originality was not the only determinant for my ire. One film on this list I actually thought very original, and a bunch of the films that just missed out also tried to do something a little different. They just failed for me.  (Dis)honourable mentions for 2011 go to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Limitless, Attack the Block, The Lincoln Lawyer and Bridesmaids. 

5. Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon – Where do you even start with Bay and his Transformers films? This is better than the second, but that’s a legitimate top 5 contender on my list of least favourite films in history. Actually a good place to start, and one that sums up Bay’s philosophy is to mention that when he needed to replace Megan Fox, one of the shittiest actresses in the world, Bay chose a model instead of an actress. Not one of the thousands of talented young actresses itching for a break. But someone who stupid glossy magazines tell us is pretty. The franchise should ensure the visually spectacular at least. Bay cannot even manage that though, and you can’t even tell what is happening onscreen during the fights. No story to speak of and hijacking of historical footage that borders on the offensive, all contribute to the ‘experience’. Interminably long, borderline unwatchable, the only reason this isn’t higher up the list is because it is just not memorable enough. 

4. The Change-Up – I don’t want to sounds like a snob, cause I like a good lowbrow comedy as much as the next guy. But this film was a puerile piece of garbage. Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds should know so much better. For starters it utilises the ‘body swap’ plot device, one that has been done absolutely to death and is very rarely at all enjoyable. And this definitely is not. What’s worse than seeing a close-up of a baby’s arse farting and a man getting a torrent of shit in his mouth, is the film’s depiction of women. Olivia Wilde and Leslie Mann are two sassy, really excellent actresses, the latter an excellent comedic performer. Why either would agree to be in a film that treats them in such a demeaning manner is beyond me. Their characters are treated horribly by the men in the film, either as sex objects, whiny mothers or both. Actually I don’t know what anyone was thinking on this one. Don’t think anyone really was thinking, which is the issue. Crass & unfunny. 

3. Hanna – This was the blandest film of the year. An incredibly original idea that should have lent itself to a high octane, action packed fairytale just felt so tired. It’s hard to know where it went wrong with a solid director at the helm and a cracking cast. Eric Bana has moulded his daughter Saoirse Ronan into a weapon of a superspy since birth. So far so awesome. Great scenery from the snow covered to parched deserts. So far so awesome. But then, nothing. Just nothing. A film that should exhilarate, peters out. A story that should have been rollicking, just confused when it actually bothered to go anywhere. The whole thing feels so false, with none of the characters showing any emotion. None of them seem to even care what happens or whether they live or die. And if the characters onscreen don’t feel it, then you can bet the audience won’t. Possibly most infuriatingly of all, it continues a recent trend in holding twists back to the detriment of plot. As a result, by the time they are delivered, no one really cares. A good globetrotting adventure/action flick always (well almost) goes down smooth. But if that’s what you’re looking for, keep on walking all the way to Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin which was the standout in the genre this year. 

2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2– I mentioned to someone that I was considering putting this film in my bottom 5, they told me I shouldn’t because I’m “not a Harry Potter person”. And they are right, I’m not. I read the first book and had seen a couple of the films (can’t remember which). My dislike of the film does not stem from that though. I could easily enough understand the film because it is made quite clear, and also cause I got a 5 minute run down from a mate in the pub beforehand. The issue is that this is a film that cost hundreds upon hundreds of million dollars, and this dross is all they came up with. Going into it, I thought I was really in for a treat, some great big budget spectacle. But whilst the budget is there, the spectacle is sorely lacking. How can fights where the participants can use magic be so bland? Actually everything about this could be described as bland or at the very least decidedly average – the acting, the set design, the sense of wonder that should have been there but definitely wasn’t.   

The Second Ever Scott Pilgrim vs the World Award for Least Favourite Film of the Year:

The Hangover Part II – 2011 was a dire year for comedy, especially from the mainstream. Number 4 on this list which I have already chatted about; Bridesmaids which for me was the most overrated film of the year and the miserable Bad Teacher just to name a few. Actually for a while I was considering giving this award to ‘Every comedy in released in 2011’. However The Guard came along and it was one of my absolute favourites of the year and other films such as Horrible Bosses also helped the genre avert that fate. But the reason I selected The Hangover II as my least favourite of the year is, because in addition to being utter unfunny rubbish, it also encompasses much of what is wrong with the mainstream Hollywood system. Namely its sheer, unadulterated, overwhelming lack of originality. This movie uses basically the exact same script as the first film. Almost literally. It is just transplanted from Las Vegas to Bangkok. The plot points were just ticked off: Bucks celebrations before a wedding? Tick. Wake up to a strange animal? Tick. Mike Tyson cameo? Tick. Tick, Tick, Tick. Everyone’s going through the motions. Zack Galifinakis, whose character in the first one was downright annoying, takes up huge swathes of screen time. Not even the every-engaging Bradley Cooper (bad year for him with this & Limitless) can rise above the mire. I am often a defender of mainstream film. The disrespect this film shows to its audience though, by cheaply cashing in on a surprise success with minimal effort, is shameful. 

Top 5: Last year I spoke a lot about how many of my favourite films had the best scripts. Strangely, I don’t think any of this year’s films have one of the standout scripts of the year. If anything the unifying technical achievement is soundtracks. I think #5 and #2 had the best use of sound & music all year, with #4 not too far behind. More than that though, I think these films all share a certain boldness. They all challenge the viewer in some way, they all expand the viewer’s view of the world (or universe) and most importantly of all they are all really enjoyable. Go watch them all. Also go and watch my big, big honourable mentions for 2011: The Adventures of Tintin, Barney’s Version, The Reef, The Beaver, The Guard, Contagion, Midnight in Paris, Super 8, Pom Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold, Howl and The Tempest.   

5. Sucker Punch – I am going to guess that this will be the most controversial conclusion in this top 5 (although many will not agree with my #1 either). I thought this film divided opinion, but looking around over the last week I think I was wrong, and basically everyone hated it except for me. And I seem to love it for a lot of the same reasons people hate it. I love the fact that this plays out as an exhilarating, hyperkinetic combination of feature film, video game and music video.  What story there is, is basically an 80s adventure video game quest for objects interspersed with ‘boss fights’; whilst the music loudly reinforces what is happening onscreen.  I love the fact that Snyder has just gone totally over the top and ballistic with CGI. Something that I would despise in many films. But he is not using it here to mask deficiencies or replace traditional filmmaking, rather he is using it to create an entirely new experience. This is a most incredible, unashamedly style over substance watch. A quick note – some have attacked the film for being misogynist or titillating. This is not the place to deal with that point of view in detail, but I will say that I am bemused by that interpretation (neither do I think it is a feminist film, it is an action film with women as the protagonists). 

4. 127 Hours – I’m not a big fan of Danny Boyle. I loathed Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and have never been completely wowed by his other films that I have seen. But what he has done here is nothing short of genius, crafting a film that will engross the mainstream and also wow film nerds such as myself. He achieves this through his innovative use of snappy editing and music, an approach that could have been tacky but instead allows a window into a man’s mental state. You have to remember this is a 93 minute film about a man stuck under a rock, and also a story where everyone knows the ending and the two earlier dramatic highpoints. The way that Boyle builds the tension to these moments is great, continual close-ups of an arm you know will soon be  gone, and drawing the moments out before shocking you with the punchline. It is also great to see a real life ‘hero’ who is not whitewashed and perfectly likeable. He is a real smug, arrogant dude and it is this arrogance that ultimately leads to his ordeal. From the very first brilliant shot of a teeming crowd of people, to contrast with what follows, this excellent film is perhaps the year’s sheerest expression of creativity. 

3. Pina – This is a film I would not have suspected would be on here at the start of the year. I was intrigued to see it, even excited – Wim Wenders working in 3D of course. But what I was confronted with was a downright assault on the senses, a film that like Sucker Punch, was like nothing I had ever seen (but in very different ways). This is essentially an ode by Wenders to his old friend, dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. Much of the film is Braun’s work being performed by the dancers she worked with. I’m no fan of dancing, but these performances were like nothing I had ever seen. Each sequence was in a different, stunning locale, which was incorporated into the work fantastically. Dirt, chairs, a boulder, pools of water on the ground, were all utilised by these amazing performers to enhance the wonderful movement of their bodies. These performances are interspersed with the dancers recounting their memories of their teacher and guide. This is achieved by a voiceover over the top of a close-up of the person’s face not saying anything. This is a daring approach by Wenders and it somehow makes what is being said have more depth. What Wenders’ has crafted here is, for me, the first truly essential experience of this 3D age. Not one where 3D just makes it look slightly cooler, but one where the medium is integral to the spectacle. 

2. Drive – This starts with lurid, fluoro pink opening credits and features a protagonist who rocks a denim jacket and a toothpick in his mouth. So yeah, in part it’s a wonderful 80s genre throwback. As the story progresses it evolves into a crime film, far better than any you have seen this year with gangsters, shady dealings, getaway cars and a couple of bursts of ultra-violence. In yet another way, the film is meditative with Gosling’s unnamed protagonist moving through this world barely uttering a word. When he needs to make a point, he lets his actions do it. Yet despite this he builds up relationships, almost by osmosis with a young single mother (Carey Mulligan in one of the performances of the year), her son, her husband who is released from prison and the underworld figures who populate his everyday life. What I’m trying to get at is that this is a film of untold depth. It works on many levels and engages on all of them at the same time seamlessly. It is all delivered in a style that is intriguing, elliptical and original. The soundtrack is the best this year, and one of the best I can remember, with the music perfectly lifting the film up a notch whenever the director feels it needs to. This is the kind of audacious filmmaking that Hollywood should be looking to nurture and develop. 

The Second Ever Kick-Ass Award for Favourite Film of the Year:

The Tree of Life – Terrence Malick is a visual poet, and this may well be his finest hour. For me, it is my favourite of his films. It is a challenging work, I cannot remember a mainstream release that was so ambitious. But aside from all that it is also bloody enjoyable. It was my most anticipated film of the year, and it managed to both confound and exceed those expectations monumentally. The film transports you to not one but many places, daring to attempt to encompass the relationship between the personal and the universal that we all have to come to terms with. Sometimes joyful, sometimes heart wrenching, sometimes searing with passion is both this film and the life it reflects. The film has its detractors, and I can understand why. If I didn’t like the film I would label it pretentious. But I love it so it is ambitious. One of Malick’s great gifts is that he makes incredibly deep films, but they don’t seem to be straining to beat you over the head with just how deep they are. It sounds dramatic, but this film seeped deep into my very being and has stayed there. It is also great to see a filmmaker like Malick using special effects to pad out his vision, and he does so in a long sequence that essentially tells the story of the universe. Never have you seen dinosaurs onscreen like this. I could go on and write many thousands of words lauding this film and exploring its thematic depth, wondrous performances and the philosophy that underscores it. But instead I will simply close with this: not only is this my film of the year, it is one of my favourites ever and I genuinely believe that this is a film that will still be discussed, examined and enjoyed for decades to come.

Obviously I love my girlfriend for many reasons, some even totally unrelated to film. The reason in particular I am writing this piece is because of a simple gesture on behalf of her towards me which I found sweet and touching. When out shopping the other day she saw a DVD that she thought I would be interested in and bought it for me. It was a film that she had not heard of, but she grabbed it for me to watch. Someone buying a DVD may not sound that amazing, but it is nice to know that someone is thinking of you, and for her to buy me something for no real reason at all made me feel good.

But enough of all that, let’s talk about a movie. The film that my girlfriend bought for me was Closely Watched Trains (1967 – It appears there is conjecture over the title’s translation. This is how it is in the 1001 book, my DVD version supplants the word ‘observed’ for ‘watched’). The film is set in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia toward the end of WWII. Milos is a young man starting his first day at work at a train station. He is excited by this bureaucratic position, him putting his hat on is shot in a borderline lustful slow-mo shot. Throughout almost all of the film, his hat remains on at all times, as a physical symbol of his attachment to his job, a certain inescapability to his responsibilities. However Milos hopes to carry on the family tradition. Not one of hard work and success in the work place. Rather, Milos is the latest in a long line of slackers, who take pride in their ability to do very little work, collect an early pension and get through life with a minimum of effort. This is Milos’ aim in life. His other aim is to lose his virginity and much of the film is concerned with this sexual journey. The film is also a train movie. What is it about trains and film? Running the gamut from Buster Keaton’s The General (1926), to Tony Scott’s Unstoppable (2010) in both vintage and tone, train films have been an ever-present in cinema history. Perhaps there is a sense of the train being an iconic invention for a certain age, just as cinema is and trains also facilitated such dynamism in human movement, dynamism perhaps being a hallmark that film also possesses.

The film drew me in early on, the black and white photography is fresh, crisp and unembellished. It is really quite a joyous, funny film, especially early on in the piece, with humorous double entendres about “shaft bars’ etcetera abounding. I was not expecting a comedy. The cinematography overall seems very modern, encompassing techniques such as the editing together of still photographs to mesmerising effect. There is also a distinctly self-aware voiceover that accompanies the early parts of the film. Closely Observed Trains is a sharp yet subtle satire. It satirises institutions such as the transport system and the mindless minutiae of bureaucracy is also gently mocked. After my recent viewing of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), it appears that this exploration and satirical view of bureaucracy is another core concern of films throughout the ages, or it’s just that my professional life makes me more attuned to these pot-shots than others. In addition to bureaucracy, the other target of much of the film’s satire is the occupying Germans. The Germans, whilst partially menacing, are also hilariously deluded about their ‘masterful’ tactical withdrawals as they lose the war.

The atmosphere of the film is concocted by the ever-presence of two things – trains and sexually provocative women. In regard to the former, the film joins the tradition of train films already mentioned. They are also a constant reminder of the work that the men must still occasionally attend to and they also bear mysterious gifts each time they arrive at the station. A train arriving at the station could come bearing a hot work colleague, or equally as likely a carriage load of swaggering, sneering German soldiers. A train arriving in the station brings a sense of duty and wariness. On a technical level, the director Jiri Menzel also utilises trains as a linkage between shots. He often cuts from one shot, to a train, to another shot illustrating a change in the geographic or temporal location.

Sexually provocative women are another constant, and Milos revels in lusting after them and their alluring physical charms. He is egged on by a horny colleague who attempts to make Milos something of a sexual protégé in his own image. Despite this Milos, with his natural shyness, is somewhat more innocent in his sexual yearning than the older man who considers himself quit the stud. Vaclav Neckar who plays Milos, has the perfect physical presence to convey this innocent, youthful yearning. In some ways his look and mannerisms are a little reminiscent of Jacques Tati but with more of a forlorn, almost timid edge. There is depth here, as to why exactly Milos so wants to lose his virginity. Is it because he desires a deeper connection with the women who surround him? Or for the sheer reason of physical pleasure? Or is it just because that is what society has told him he should be endlessly attempting to do, in much the same way as contemporary society tells young men the same thing? Whilst a lot of this film is concerned with a quest of sexual enlightenment, American Pie (1999) it is not. The film is concerned with becoming a man, and exploring how intrinsic sex is to manhood. For some reason Milos’ sexual adventures are always interrupted, becoming sexual misadventures. One particular scene brilliantly articulates the awkwardness and hurt as well as the intimidation factor of youthful sexual encounters. The words “premature ejaculation” are repeated endlessly throughout the second half of the film, almost as a taunt to Milos and what he is striving desperately for. In a strange way I think that the film explores the theme of sex in a similar manner to David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986). Both consider the far too great importance placed upon sex both by individuals and society. Here, MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT, it leads to Milos attempting suicide in a heartbreaking and surprising scene. I was not expecting this plot twist at all, and it is beautifully rendered. It makes the film a whole lot more human, but this shift in narrative direction also causes the film to move away from the light touch that it had been so successfully trading in up until this point.

As the film shifts tonally, for me it also became increasingly incomprehensible. Whilst a lot of it is universal, I did get a sense that due to the film being made in both a different culture and era, that much of it was going over my head. Obviously, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Not every film should be sanitised in order to be better understood by the Western audience such as that I represent. But it did make the second half a little less enjoyable for me. The film though, does build to a crushing, tragic ending which was a closing reminder of the power of the film and the connection to the characters that the first, lighter half had engendered. 

Verdict: Stubby of Reschs

Progress: 47/1001

I am a blogger. I love being able to express myself through this forum. Someday I would like to work in the mainstream media. Not because I think there is something inherently better about traditional media forms, but because through that forum I would be able to make a living by doing the writing that I so love. But every so often, something is published that makes me question that aim. Something of such inexplicably poor quality and stupidity that it makes me wonder if I would like to work in the mainstream media. I present Exhibit A from today’s Sydney Morning Herald: ‘Eating their Words’ by Tim Elliott.

As you may, or may not know, I am a vegan. Veganism is a small but important part of what makes up who I am as a man, just like the fact I am a film blogger, I am an (amateur) athlete, a public servant, a music lover and a boyfriend to a woman I love very much. Elliott’s article “Eating their words” is subtitled “Tim Elliott meets the people who are defined by what they will – and won’t eat.” The article starts off mentioning that the author received an invite to the launch of the book Vegans are Cool. So maybe this is where Elliott meets the aforementioned people. But the article is so poorly written that it is unclear whether or not he attended the launch. I suspect he just launches into in ill-advised diatribe based on the title of the book. Essentially his target is not just vegans, but essentially anyone who subscribes to a diet that in any way restricts what they eat, for whatever reason. My diatribe in response is borne out of the fact that he is attacking something I hold dear. My response would be the same if he was writing this rubbish about film bloggers or any other facet of my being.

In the small part of Elliott’s article that he devotes to writing about the book (or its title at least) he states, “perhaps strangest of all is the assumption that anyone cares enough about vegans to bother finding out why they might be cool, uncool or roughly room temperature”. Besides the lame-beyond-belief attempt at punnery at the end, this statement is also wrong. Pretty much, without exception when I tell people I am vegan they take an interest. They may wish to convince me how wrong my choice is. They may want to challenge me with a hypothetical about a sheep and a desert island. They may simply be intrigued as to my choice, the reasons that I have made it and that question that has befuddled mankind for all time – where do I get my protein? Whatever their question, they are pretty much always interested. Elliott’s next task in enlightening his many readers is to engage in the type of stereotyping that I thought we were done and dusted with a decade ago (and even that was way overdue). Apparently the only people who have what the author refers to as “a special food-limited diet” are those “with a cardigan and a crocheted beanie”. Because in Tim Elliott land homosexual men all wear tight shirts, and blue collar workers all wear Bonds singlets and drink Bundy Rum. I’ve got a wicked crocheted beanie, but no cardigan. Can I still be vegan?

Elliott smugly writes that “notable fruitarians have included … Ben Klassen – the white supremacist and author of The White Man’s Bible – and Ugandan megalomaniac Idi Amin. But don’t let that put you off.” Oh Tim Elliott, you’re so clever, witty and funny. But what exactly is your point? Josef Stalin, Ivan Milat and George W. Bush were all meat eaters. What’s my point? I don’t have one. People do evil shit. Horrible things to their fellow man. These choices are not intrinsically connected to one’s choice of diet. Klassen may eat his fruit and go punch a black man. George W. Bush may eat his steak and go bomb an Iraqi school. Tim Elliott may eat whatever it is he eats and then go out and write a shit article. I just ate some hommus on Rivitas, and now I’m going to go and buy my girlfriend a Christmas present. Are these things connected? No.

Elliott writes that there is a “small, isolate tribe of grain eaters known as hegans – men who refuse to eat meat and animal products, yet somehow manage to hold on to their masculinity.” And please tell us, Mr Elliott, what your definition of masculinity is? Apparently it is intimately tied up with red meat. So perhaps it also involves traditional values you may be into like being able to beat people up and lift huge amounts of weight. Somehow vegans such as Mac Danzig, a UFC fighter, and Nick Diaz, the number one welterweight contender in the UFC, retain their ability to be ‘masculine’ despite their veganism. Diaz also talks a huge amount of smack, is this another of your measures of masculinity? Diaz, I suspect, doesn’t give a shit about posturing about saving the whales or wearing a crocheted hat. All he cares about is being the best athlete, finely tuned at beating up another man, and he has chosen a vegan diet solely for that reason. Pfft, what a pussy aye Elliott? And meet my friend Vegan Tank. The dude’s a tank. But hey, pretty unmasculine with all that animal activism work and caring for his animals. Would you prefer he punch a puppy rather than cuddle them? And then there is me. I have been vegan for approximately six months, but I have never really subscribed to, or cared about ‘masculinity’. I just care about being the best person and man I can. But even though I am vegan Mr Elliott I still “somehow manage to hold on to [my] masculinity” enough to grow a beard and make love to my girlfriend every so often. How do I do it?

You yourself may be wondering why people choose veganism. Don’t worry, our illuminating guide Tim Elliott can answer that too. It’s because this choice has “enabled thousands of inner-west arts students to send a powerful message that they, too, shop at Alfalfa house.” That’s it, thanks for reminding me. I had gotten so caught and brainwashed since I became vegan, that here I was thinking my personal choice was something to do with loving animals and believing it is wrong to kill them for food when I do not need to (a view that is mine alone and one that I don’t push onto anyone). But I’m in luck, because this choice also “enables the person to believe they are making a difference/reversing global warming/saving whales when all they are doing is eating a salad sandwich”. Could it not be possible that they are doing both?

Elliott finishes off his masterpiece with this: “And vegans are definitely not cool.” To make a blanket assumption of the worth of a group of people that they are not cool because of one facet of their being is stupid and hatemongering. Who else is fundamentally not cool? Cricket fans? Italians? Christians? I know many vegans who are cool. I know some who are not. I know many meat eaters who are cool. And hey, funnily enough, I know some who are not. But you, Tim Elliott are not cool based on the evidence before me. It’s not because you do not like veganism or vegans. That is your choice. It is because you are a narrow minded twat who gets published in one of our country’s biggest newspapers, and makes me question if I want to do the same. I think that in our country we should demand more than this garbage filling our sources of news and entertainment.

Also, SMH, if this is the quality of writing that gets a gig in your Saturday edition, surely you can hook me up with a job?