Saturday 11 December 2010
Friday 10 December 2010
I've been putting off discussing my next film choice as it's a film so dear to my heart and one that has had such a huge effect on me that I've had to build up to it really. It's Ghost World... I've seen it so many times I know the dialogue off by heart. Not hard as it has some of the best lines going, which I will get on to later. This film is a complete revelation, an oddball, a curiosity completely out of leftfield. The structure is pretty ordinary - two teenage girls hang out and annoy people. It's been done in other films, but its usually male characters. The fact that Enid (the main character, played brilliantly by Thora Birch) is a somewhat geeky yet clued up music and comic book nut further makes this film so extraordinary. In most teen comedies the girls are cheerleaders without much substance. Enid is a heroine. I've pretty much based my whole life on her to a certain extent. I even tried to dress like her at one point so taken with her was I.
The other reason for watching this film is Steve Buscemi. He plays lonely, middle aged "loser" Seymour who Enid and her friend Rebecca (a sarcastic Scarlett Johansson) meet through dubious circumstances. They notice an ad in the lonely hearts placed by Seymour and respond jokingly to the add by leaving a fake message on his answerphone pretending to be an older woman. They set up a date and go and wait for him to show up. When he arrives, Enid immediately feels guilty. They decide to follow him and a few days later go back to his house, where he and his flatmate are having a "yard" sale. Seymour is selling records, which Enid finds interesting. She buys one from him and this kick starts a friendship based on mutual cynicism and feeling like an outcast. Rebecca, meanwhile, drifts apart from Enid as she pursues a more conventional route of work and moving out her parents and into her own apartment. Enid continues to live with her Dad and, because she failed her high school tests, has to take a remedial summer art class. Some of the best scenes in the film take place in the art room. Illeana Douglas plays the stereotypical art teacher to perfection and some of the other students attempts at art are frankly, hilarious. Enid submits her comic book diary which is dismissed by the teacher as "amusing" but not real art.
It's one of those films that celebrates absurdity and finding respite in the obscure. It is very similar in its themes to the equally fantastic American Splendor. I completely identify with that whole urge to seek out non-mainstream culture. Seymour collects original jazz and blues 78s, but this obsession has cost him a meaningful relationship. He finds it hard to connect with ordinary people. This is most apparent when he and Enid go to a local bar to see an original blues guitarist play. Drunken idiots play pool and watch football and Seymour has to leave. On the way home, he tells Enid:
"I'm not even on the same planet as those creatures back there. It's easy for everyone else - you give 'em a pair of Nikes and a Big mac and they're happy. I can't relate to 99.9 per cent of humanity!"
Again, it's the details in this film that make it so wonderful to watch. It's a whole intricate universe. The side characters, like Enid's dad, the comic book shopowner, Josh (the boy that both Enid and Rebecca fantasize about), the crazy guy who hangs around the shop where Josh works. Then there's all the other details like the history of Cook's Chicken, music by Skip James, Memphis Minnie and Lionel Belasco, the 50s diner Wowsville, Enid's clothes, the opening sequence with the Indian dancers from the 60s etc etc, it's a gold mine of curiosities.
I could quote it all day long, some of the best lines
"This is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again"
"I'm taking a remedial high school art class for fuck ups and retards"
"I just hate all these extroverted, obnoxious pseudo-bohemian losers"
"I think only stupid people have good relationships"
Enid: "I would kill to have stuff like this"
Seymour: "Please go ahead and kill me"
"Let the machine get it. I have no desire to talk to anyone who might be calling me"
The whole movie is a comment on the decline of American culture I guess. This is best typified by a scene in which a man in a video rental store asks the clerk if they have the film 8 1/2. The clerk looks puzzled, types in the name and comes up with 9 1/2 weeks. The man explains that's not the film, he's after 8 1/2, the Fellini classic. The clerk just looks at him baffled. This film is a celebration of all things weird and obscure and lost. It's a complete attack on conformity and commercialism and you don't often get that in films today.
The other reason for watching this film is Steve Buscemi. He plays lonely, middle aged "loser" Seymour who Enid and her friend Rebecca (a sarcastic Scarlett Johansson) meet through dubious circumstances. They notice an ad in the lonely hearts placed by Seymour and respond jokingly to the add by leaving a fake message on his answerphone pretending to be an older woman. They set up a date and go and wait for him to show up. When he arrives, Enid immediately feels guilty. They decide to follow him and a few days later go back to his house, where he and his flatmate are having a "yard" sale. Seymour is selling records, which Enid finds interesting. She buys one from him and this kick starts a friendship based on mutual cynicism and feeling like an outcast. Rebecca, meanwhile, drifts apart from Enid as she pursues a more conventional route of work and moving out her parents and into her own apartment. Enid continues to live with her Dad and, because she failed her high school tests, has to take a remedial summer art class. Some of the best scenes in the film take place in the art room. Illeana Douglas plays the stereotypical art teacher to perfection and some of the other students attempts at art are frankly, hilarious. Enid submits her comic book diary which is dismissed by the teacher as "amusing" but not real art.
It's one of those films that celebrates absurdity and finding respite in the obscure. It is very similar in its themes to the equally fantastic American Splendor. I completely identify with that whole urge to seek out non-mainstream culture. Seymour collects original jazz and blues 78s, but this obsession has cost him a meaningful relationship. He finds it hard to connect with ordinary people. This is most apparent when he and Enid go to a local bar to see an original blues guitarist play. Drunken idiots play pool and watch football and Seymour has to leave. On the way home, he tells Enid:
"I'm not even on the same planet as those creatures back there. It's easy for everyone else - you give 'em a pair of Nikes and a Big mac and they're happy. I can't relate to 99.9 per cent of humanity!"
Again, it's the details in this film that make it so wonderful to watch. It's a whole intricate universe. The side characters, like Enid's dad, the comic book shopowner, Josh (the boy that both Enid and Rebecca fantasize about), the crazy guy who hangs around the shop where Josh works. Then there's all the other details like the history of Cook's Chicken, music by Skip James, Memphis Minnie and Lionel Belasco, the 50s diner Wowsville, Enid's clothes, the opening sequence with the Indian dancers from the 60s etc etc, it's a gold mine of curiosities.
I could quote it all day long, some of the best lines
"This is so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again"
"I'm taking a remedial high school art class for fuck ups and retards"
"I just hate all these extroverted, obnoxious pseudo-bohemian losers"
"I think only stupid people have good relationships"
Enid: "I would kill to have stuff like this"
Seymour: "Please go ahead and kill me"
"Let the machine get it. I have no desire to talk to anyone who might be calling me"
The whole movie is a comment on the decline of American culture I guess. This is best typified by a scene in which a man in a video rental store asks the clerk if they have the film 8 1/2. The clerk looks puzzled, types in the name and comes up with 9 1/2 weeks. The man explains that's not the film, he's after 8 1/2, the Fellini classic. The clerk just looks at him baffled. This film is a celebration of all things weird and obscure and lost. It's a complete attack on conformity and commercialism and you don't often get that in films today.
Monday 6 December 2010
Sunday night at the movies...
Ok, my favourite movie blog is going to morph slightly into a film review for this post. Last night I watched The Killer Inside Me. I read the original novel by Jim Thompson a few years ago and found it compelling . However, the film is something else. And I don't mean in a good way. If you are not familiar with the story, here goes: In the West Texas of the early 50s, a young deputy sherriff named Lou Ford is a pillar of the small community he serves. His father was a well respected doctor and the local townspeople (bar tenders, newspapermen and construction workers) all treat him with respect and admiration. But little do they know he is, in fact, a violent schizophrenic psychopath who manages to conceal this beneath a veneer of respectability. It all starts when he encounters a prostitute named Joyce who he falls into a complicated, violent affair with. Between them they come up with a plan to blackmail the son of a local construction magnate called Chester Conway who was responsible for Lou's brothers death a few years earlier. Joyce is also sleeping with Conway's son. They bribe him but when he arrives, Lou kills both him and Joyce and takes the money. Anyway, things escalate further, more murders are carried out and eventually Lou is found out.
The book is a gripping, suspenseful, tightly coiled work of pulp fiction. The reason it works is because you are never sure whether what Lou is describing has actually happened. The chapters flit between his normal, exterior personality and his deranged one. It's similar to both Psycho and American Psycho - you're never completely sure if the protagonist is actually committing the murders. The film does away with all that mystery and shows Lou (a steely, calculated performance by Casey Affleck) killing his victims so you know that it's him. Toward the end of the film, when he finally gets arrested, there's no sense of shock or surprise. It's a bit of an anti-climax.
The film is also mysogynistic beyond words. I've never seen a film show such gruesome, horrific violence towards women. The scene where Lou beats Joyce to a pulp is unwatchable. It goes on for what seems an eternity, he just keeps repeatedly punching her until her face no longer looks human. Similarly, when he kills his wife Amy, the violence is shocking. He kicks her in the stomach twice and then leaves her in agony on the floor. He covers her face with her dress so he doesn't have to see her pained expression. It's truely distressing, yet there doesn't seem to be any explanation behind any of it. The scenes showing violence against women last longer than any of the scenes where men are killed or beaten. The men are shot once and are dead. The women are beaten cruelly and lengthily. I've never seen a film like it and nor should I wish to.
If you take away the violence, there's still nothing in it that would make you want to watch it again. It is so bleak, so empty of any kind of direction or meaning. If I were going to make a film out of this book, I would have made it as if it had been made in the '50s, when the book was written. The whole contemporary, modern atmosphere does it no favours at all.
It's also bizarre to me that the two women are played by Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson - who are both most well known for starring in mainstream romantic comedies. I understand that Reese Witherspoon and Maggie Gyllenhaal were pencilled in originally. I can understand why they refused - they are both intelligent and fine actresses who I can't imagine would have agreed to star in such submissive roles. Neither of the women in the film are ever shown outside of the bedroom. They exist purely as Lou's sexual slaves. When Lou beats Joyce before making love to her, she enjoys it. Even at the end, after surviving the beating, she still tells him she loves him. The representation of women in this film is abhorrent.
The only good thing about this film is the music - a great hillbilly soundtrack featuring Shame on You by Spade Cooley, which plays during the closing scene. Everything else is utterly forgettable.
The book is a gripping, suspenseful, tightly coiled work of pulp fiction. The reason it works is because you are never sure whether what Lou is describing has actually happened. The chapters flit between his normal, exterior personality and his deranged one. It's similar to both Psycho and American Psycho - you're never completely sure if the protagonist is actually committing the murders. The film does away with all that mystery and shows Lou (a steely, calculated performance by Casey Affleck) killing his victims so you know that it's him. Toward the end of the film, when he finally gets arrested, there's no sense of shock or surprise. It's a bit of an anti-climax.
The film is also mysogynistic beyond words. I've never seen a film show such gruesome, horrific violence towards women. The scene where Lou beats Joyce to a pulp is unwatchable. It goes on for what seems an eternity, he just keeps repeatedly punching her until her face no longer looks human. Similarly, when he kills his wife Amy, the violence is shocking. He kicks her in the stomach twice and then leaves her in agony on the floor. He covers her face with her dress so he doesn't have to see her pained expression. It's truely distressing, yet there doesn't seem to be any explanation behind any of it. The scenes showing violence against women last longer than any of the scenes where men are killed or beaten. The men are shot once and are dead. The women are beaten cruelly and lengthily. I've never seen a film like it and nor should I wish to.
If you take away the violence, there's still nothing in it that would make you want to watch it again. It is so bleak, so empty of any kind of direction or meaning. If I were going to make a film out of this book, I would have made it as if it had been made in the '50s, when the book was written. The whole contemporary, modern atmosphere does it no favours at all.
It's also bizarre to me that the two women are played by Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson - who are both most well known for starring in mainstream romantic comedies. I understand that Reese Witherspoon and Maggie Gyllenhaal were pencilled in originally. I can understand why they refused - they are both intelligent and fine actresses who I can't imagine would have agreed to star in such submissive roles. Neither of the women in the film are ever shown outside of the bedroom. They exist purely as Lou's sexual slaves. When Lou beats Joyce before making love to her, she enjoys it. Even at the end, after surviving the beating, she still tells him she loves him. The representation of women in this film is abhorrent.
The only good thing about this film is the music - a great hillbilly soundtrack featuring Shame on You by Spade Cooley, which plays during the closing scene. Everything else is utterly forgettable.
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