Category: Thoughts

Casino Royale opens worldwide today. If you see it tonight or over the weekend let me know what you think in the comments section below.

> Get showtimes for Casino Royale via Google
> Read reviews for the latest Bond film at Metacritic

I was one of those at the London screening of Casino Royale last Friday and can confirm that Daniel Craig does indeed prove the sceptics wrong. Credit to the filmmakers for going back to basics with the Bond character whilst crafting an entertaining action thriller.

I’ll hold off writing more about it until nearer the release date but given the curiosity factor of a new Bond and the enduring popularity of cinema’s longest running franchise, it seems almost certain to do massive numbers when it opens in the UK and US on November 16th.

> Official site for Casino Royale
> Some early reviews of Casino Royale from various UK critics at MI6 (a very impressive Bond fansite)
> A BBC News profile of Daniel Craig when he first got the role last year

Mark Kermode has written an excellent feature on Pan’s Labyrinth for the latest issue of Sight and Sound. Frustratingly it doesn’t seem to be on their website yet but an edited version is in today’s Observer.

For those unfamiliar, it is the new film from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro and is a dark fantasy set during the Spanish Civil War. The “Good Doctor” explains:

Set against the backdrop of fascist Spain in 1944, Pan’s Labyrinth is a dark fairy tale that distils his distinctive mix of fact and fantasy, poetry and politics, pain and pleasure. It’s an epic, poetic vision in which the grim realities of war are matched and mirrored by a descent into an underworld populated by fearsomely beautiful monsters – a transformative, life-affirming nightmare which is, for my money, the very best film of the year.

He is not wrong. It is one of the most remarkable films in recent memory – a truly stunning blend of horror, history and magic. Since I saw it last month it has left a strong impression on me and one can only admire how Del Toro juggles commercial projects like Hellboy and Blade 2 with more personal films like The Devil’s Backbone and this. On the surface it may look like a gothic fantasy but it is so much more than that.

I’ll post a longer review nearer the release date, which in the UK is November 24th and December 29th in the US.

> Kermode’s (edited) feature in The Observer
> Andrew Hehir of Salon likes it too
> IMDb entry for Pan’s Labyrinth
> Watch the trailer at Apple
> The All Movie Guide on Del Toro

I had a feeling the Borat movie was going to cause a stir but now it’s become official. Erlan Idrissov is Kazakhstan’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and he has penned an attack on the film for The Guardian at Comment is Free:

Humour can be used to defuse tensions and heal divisions – as Tony Blair demonstrated to brilliant effect at the Labour party conference. But if it exploits ignorance and prejudice it can have quite the reverse effect.

I fear that the British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of Borat Sagdiyev, whose new movie opens here next month, does not understand this. Baron Cohen possesses a great comic talent and remarkable inventive powers. So inventive, in fact, that in creating Borat he has also created an imaginary country – a violent, primitive and oppressive place which he calls “Kazakhstan”, but which bears no resemblance to the real Kazakhstan.

An “imaginary country” that bears no resemblance to the real one? May be that’s because it is imaginary. But wait, there’s more:

Why has Baron Cohen chosen Kazakhstan as the vehicle for his comic talents? Kazakhstan is the size of western Europe. Far from being a backwater, it is set to become one of the top five oil producers in the next decade; in the past six years it has had an annual growth rate of about 10% and, over the past three years, the proportion of those living below the poverty line has fallen from 25% to 16%. There is growing appreciation of Kazakhstan’s importance in the fight against terrorism and of its role as regional economic and political pace-setter.

But, sadly, it is still the case that few people in Britain or America know anything about Kazakhstan or can even locate it on a map. They are in no position to judge whether Borat or his movie is remotely credible or fair. Baron Cohen exploits this ignorance to the full.

We are an easy target. Borat could have been made the citizen of a country with a truly awful record on human rights – say Afghanistan in the days of the Taliban. But that would have been risky for Baron Cohen. Many Kazakhs who have seen Borat on television have been offended and incredulous. But the critics of my country, including Baron Cohen, are more likely to receive an invitation to address their concerns at an expenses-paid conference in Kazakhstan than they are to receive a fatwa.

I don’t actually think Sacha Baron Cohen is a critic of Kazakhstan. He is merely making a joke at the expense of it. It is an important distinction to make, as only a total and utter moron would actually take the Borat movie as a genuine depiction of the country. It is deliberately outrageous for comic effect in how it presents the country and its citizens. It is also worth noting that for much of the film Americans are the butt of most of the jokes as the main action takes place there. Will they be complaining in this manner once the film is released next month?

But Mr. Idrissov goes on:

Some British friends who know Kazakhstan tell me that the misrepresentation is on such on absurd level that I should not be concerned. I am tempted to reply: if the only things that millions of people knew about your country originated in the anarchic and slanderous imagination of a TV comedian, wouldn’t you want to see the record put right?

British caricatures have been a staple of many Hollywood movies, often popping up as sneering villains like Charles Dance in The Last Action Hero or Jason Isaacs in The Patriot. As a Brit, do I think or care that people will take these characters to be representative of Britain as a whole? No, I don’t.

But let’s leave Sacha Baron Cohen aside for one moment. The ambassador is clearly unimpressed with his comedy and his new movie (even though it isn’t clear whether he’s actually seen it). What does he make of the UK’s biggest media outlet, the BBC? They have this to say about Kazakhstan in a BBC News profile:

…poverty is still widespread and Kazakhstan continues to face major economic challenges, particularly with unemployment and inflation. At the same time, an elite group of people have grown very rich since independence through privatization and other business deals which opposition figures allege to have been corrupt.

The same profile discusses recent elections:

Elections in December 2005 returned Mr Nazarbayev for a further seven-year term with more than 90% of the votes. The opposition protested that the ballot had been rigged and OSCE observers declared it to have been seriously flawed.

And the media:

Press freedom is enshrined in Kazakhstan’s constitution, but media rights monitors say the privately-owned and opposition media are subject to harassment and censorship. In 2004 the Brussels-based International Federation of Journalists identified a “growing pattern” of intimidation of the media.

Insulting the president and officials is a criminal offence; the private life, health and financial affairs of the president are classified as state secrets. The government controls the printing presses and most radio and TV transmission facilities. It operates the country’s national radio and TV networks.

The president’s close associates, including his eldest daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, and son-in-law, have benefitted from the privatisation of the former state media. Dariga heads the influential Khabar Agency which runs several TV channels.

I certainly wouldn’t claim to be an expert on Kazakhstan but the BBC are making some serious points here. Are they being as “slanderous” as Sacha Baron Cohen? Or are they discussing a state which has a serious problem with the dissent and free speech that is the life blood of any comedy?

> Erlan Idrissov’s article at Comment is Free
> BBC News profile of Kazakhstan
> The Economist with a fact sheet on Kazakhstan
> Matt Deegan with his thoughts on Borat (like me he has actually seen the film)
> Borat on Myspace

I was flicking through The Observer yesterday afternoon and my mind went back to an arts column I read two weeks ago in the same newspaper by Rachel Cooke, entitled “Who’s to judge? Better an eminent critic than a daft blogger”.

It was a lazy opinion piece about critics not being allowed to see The Wicker Man remake and how we should be suspicious about “daft bloggers” and trust more established print critics like David Denby of the New Yorker.

She also writes about a “battle” between old and new media:

It seems to me, though, that the real battle is not between studios and critics (Hollywood is about egos, so criticism will always have its place because its big names will always long for approval), but between critics and bloggers.

Which bloggers? Are we talking about Anne Thompson at The Hollywood Reporter? Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere? David Poland at Movie City News & The Hot Blog? All are well informed and publish a lot of great news and opinion on a daily basis. Plus, unlike Rachel at The Observer, they have things like email addresses and comment sections where readers can offer feedback.

I would also wager that these bloggers (and maybe even some of her readers) know a great deal more about the film business and would resent being referred to as “daft”. They far from the faceless stereotype put forward in her column.

She pursues her theme with a phrase so dusty it could have been cut and pasted from a chatroom circa 1997:

Thanks to the internet, everyone is a critic now, every opinion as valid as the next.

Is this really the case? Surely it is up to readers and the public to decide whose opinion is valid or not. Whilst the internet still provides us with some bad and lazy opinions it has overwhelmingly been a good thing for film reviews.

We can now read critics overseas like Roger Ebert, compare different reviews at sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes and (heaven forbid!) contribute our own opinions via blogs and message boards.

But wait, there is still more Rachel is upset about:

The general tone of the movie bloggers, who review with such liberated abandon, is: we have taste, too, and who are you to tell us that it is inferior to yours? Which is fair enough on one level. Some people like watching George Lucas films, and some don’t. But critics are not there to tell you what is right and wrong (though they might do along the way – alone in New York last weekend, David Denby’s potted reviews in the New Yorker’s Talk of the Town felt to me like a life raft); they do so much more than that, and it is dumb – and arrogant – of people to pretend otherwise.

Is there a “general tone” to “the movie bloggers”? To assess such a thing we would have to engage in a lengthy look at people who blog about movies, which I’m guessing would run into a lot of people. But she doesn’t name one blogger or cite one example to prove her point. To say they have a “general tone” is just a silly generalisation in itself.

Telling someone that you enjoyed something (or hated it) isn’t criticism; it’s conversation.

What is so wrong with conversation? Is she saying that print journalists or “established critics” should be immune to feedback or other opinions? This is all rather ironic as The Observer has two film critics I respect a great deal in Philip French and Mark Kermode.

Both have a deep knowledge of the world of film and manage to write intelligently about new cinema releases, issues in the world of film such as censorship and classic DVDs we should own. I value their take on films even when I don’t agree with it and I certainly don’t see them in “opposition” to opinions I read on blogs.

They are just part of my regular movie digest which can range from newspaper articles, radio shows, magazines, podcasts and “movie bloggers”. The Guardian and The Observer are two newspapers who generally have an intelligent and progressive approach to things like websites and blogs.

Some articles by Rachel do appear on The Observer Blog, like her piece on British libraries or a “shameless promotion” (their words!) of her interview with Tana Ramsay in the Observer Woman magazine.

But why not make all the articles (especially opinion pieces) incorporated into a website where people can leave opinions and debate the issue at hand instead of the rather unsatisfactory blog they have at the moment. Comment Is Free is clearly a bold step in that direction but it is separate from the main Guardian and Observer pieces.

Why not make the whole paper like that? If Rachel’s piece was posted in such an environment I’m sure she would find that all movie bloggers are not the same. She might even find that on some occasions an eminent blogger is better than a daft critic.

> Rachel Cooke’s original article
> Different movie reviews from a range of critics at Metacritic

If you read this blog quite often then you will see that I regularly link to articles on Wikipedia. For those in the dark, it is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Whilst that may sound like a recipe for disaster, since its birth in 2001 it has become one of the most useful and biggest websites on the internet.

You can find so much information on so many different subjects that it is truly mind boggling. Even better, the content is full of links that contextualize and help give you a deeper understanding of related issues and topics. But many people still seem to find misgivings about the whole Wikipedia approach.

The Wall Street Journal today has a conversation between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Editor-in-chief of Encyclopedia Britannica, Dale Hoiberg, about this very subject. The tone is a little “us vs them” but it gives an interesting insight into both of their approaches to gathering and disseminating information. I’ve been a fan of encyclopedias from a young age but I really think Hoiberg is clinging to a model that is becoming out dated:

…we don’t publish rough drafts. We want our articles to be correct before they are published. We stand behind our process, based on trained editors and fact-checkers, more than 4,000 experts, and soundwriting. Our model works well. Wikipedia is very different, but nothing in their model suggests we should change what we do.

Part of this sounds reasonable but one of the reasons Wikipedia has achieved such explosive growth is because of its open source approach. Whilst there is vandalism and articles that are not up to scratch, I’m consistently impressed both with the speed and quality of the content on there.

If you are a film lover it is a fantastic tool. A conventional encyclopedia will almost certainly contain information on the 1949 classic film The Third Man, but at Wikipedia (even though the entry could be beefed up) there are plenty of links to film noir, Orson Welles, expressionistic cinematography and who was in it.

It is also a fantastic resource for TV shows that are currrently ongoing like Lost or 24. There are detailed episode guides and entries for everything from characters to thematic motifs that appear in the show. I can’t think of another resource outside of official or devoted fan sites where this information would be available.

One example I find myself quoting to people a lot is the entry for the 1982 sci-fi classic Blade Runner. It is quite simply one of the most useful introductions you can find on the film. Not only does it contain a lot of information about it but also has references to books, documentaries and other websites about it.

If you look at the top right hand corner of the Blade Runner entry, you’ll see there is a small gold star. This means that it is “featured content“. In other words it is what Wikipedia editors believe to be the best of Wikipedia. Have a look at the entries for other featured content like Dog Day Afternoon, Lindsay Lohan, Hong Kong action cinema, Jaws or Sunset Boulevard.

> Wikipedia featured content on media (which includes Film and TV)
> The Jimmy Wales & Dale Hoiberg debate at the Wall Street Journal
> Jeff Jarvis at Buzzmachine with his thoughts on the debate

technorati tags:wikipedia

As you may have noticed it is 5 years since 9/11. The release this year of United 93 and World Trade Center was perhaps a sign that audiences were ready to experience recreations of that day on a movie screen. Fortunately both were well made and repectful films.

But ever since 9/11 I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve seen the Twin Towers in various TV shows and movies made before the attacks. Since their construction they were an indelible part of the New York skyline and as such featured in many, many films.

Wikipedia has a very comprehensive list of the World Trade Center in films and TV shows which features all manner of films  from Superman, Escape from New York, Trading Places and The Siege (an eerily prescient film in retrospect).

Apart from United 93 and World Trade Centre, possibly the most affecting programme about the attacks was the Channel 4 documentary 9/11: The Falling Man. It was screened in the UK back in March but it deserves a DVD release. Not only did it manage to convey the horror of the attacks, but it also served as a moving tribute to the lives lost on that day.

> Wikipedia on the World Trade Center in TV and Movies
> Esquire article on The Falling Man
> Times article on The Falling Man documentary

OK, I admit it. I too was swayed by the by the biased media coverage in favour of The Constant Gardener in my BAFTA predictions. Listening to radio bulletins and reading newspaper stories it was easy to think that its ten nominations would count for something other than the 1 award it got for Best Editing. In particular, I thought that Rachel Weisz was a shoe-in for Best Actress but there is an important distinction between her BAFTA and Oscar nominations. Last night’s was for Best Actress whilst next month she is in the easier Best Supporting category. A win still looks likely for her there, although after last night chickens should not be counted.

In some ways I still think Reese Witherspoon was the more deserving recipient, but it is sad that a film as good as Fernando Meirelles’ adaptation of John Le Carre’s novel was not honoured more. Although I’m a huge Wallace and Gromit fan I’m perplexed that it trumped The Constant Gardener for Best British Film. Did voters ignore it in that category because they thought it would win Best Picture? But let’s not get carried away with the “British” disappointment. Previous years have seen BAFTA award clearly inferior British candidates for reasons that one can only assume amounted to little more than jingoistic backslapping.

Last year was a good one and one of the unfortunate side effects of having such a strong list of award contenders is that films and performances that would have been winners in past years will go unrewarded. Good Night, and Good Luck also suffered and you have to feel sorry for George Clooney. Having two nominations in the Best Supporting Actor category could well have split the vote. He deserved his gracious tribute from David Puttnam at the climax of the ceremony.

Speaking of which, it was refreshing to see the veteran producer of The Killing Fields and Midnight Express (perhaps his two finest films) acknowledge the good work going on now and admit that his pessimism seven years ago was misplaced. Although the director of the TV ceremony was obsessed with cutting away to a teary Thandie Newton, Puttnam’s speech was actually pretty moving and eloquent. Not only did his memories of his father and Ed Murrow have an incredibly serendipitous connection with his praise of Clooney but his quoting of a line from The Sixth Sense was as surprising as it was touching.

What did all of this mean for the Oscars? Brokeback still looks unstoppable in the Best Picture and Best Director categories. The great Philip Seymour Hoffman now looks certain to win Best Actor. Ditto Reese Witherspoon for Best Actress. Best Supporting Actor is tricky. I don’t think Jake Gyllennhaal is going to win despite his award last night. Instead it’s a three horse race between Clooney, Paul Giamatti and Matt Dillon. At the moment I favour Clooney but that could change. Best Supporting Actress should go to Weisz, although Michelle Williams can’t be ruled out. On a different note I hope Oscar voters have more sense than BAFTA did in awarding Memoirs of a Geisha a staggering three technical awards. The one it got for cinematography was perhaps the lowest point of the evening given the quality of the other candidates.

> Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian on the BAFTAs
> Pictures of the ceremony at BAFTA’s official site
> David Poland at The Hot Blog with his take
> Movie City News Oscar prediction chart (aka “Gurus of Gold”)
> Yahoo News on the winners and losers

The AP movie writer David Germain has joined the merry band of speculators that think that Crash may pull off a surprise Oscar win.

Whilst Brokeback Mountain has been the clear frontrunner for most of the awards season it isn’t too outlandish to suggest that Paul Haggis’ LA set drama could score an upset. I’m still sceptical that it will walk off with the Best Picture Oscar on March 5^th but if it does, here may be a few reasons why:

• The SAG Awards Win: The recent triumph at the SAG awards would seem to indicate that it has a lot of support from the largest voting block in the academy.

• Lionsgate’s DVD blitz: Unlike the other Best Picture nominees Crash has been out sine May in the States and is already on DVD. Without any DVD screener/piracy issues to worry about Lionsgate – the studio releasing the film – have bombarded voters with DVDs. Last month Variety reported that:

  "While most studios consider the mailing of 12,000-15,000 screeners to be a major push, the indie distrib is sending out north of 130,000 — including the unprecedented move of including all members of the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild”.

  It remains to be seen whether this ‘unprecedented’ move has any effect but it is hard to see it doing any harm.

• The LA Factor: In a recent Q&A with readers, Manohla Dargis of the New York Times hit on some simple but telling points about the film:

  “There are a few obvious reasons why “Crash” connected with the Academy. First, Los Angeles, where most of Academy members live, is a profoundly segregated city, so any movie that makes it seem like its white, black, Asian and Latino inhabitants are constantly tripping over one another has appeal. If nothing else it makes

  Los Angeles seem as cosmopolitan as, well, New York or at least the Upper West Side. Second, no matter how many times the camera picks out Oprah Winfrey on Oscar night, the Academy is super white. Third, the Academy is, at least in general terms, socially liberal. You see where I’m going, right? What could better soothe the troubled brow of the Academy’s collective white conscious than a movie that says sometimes black men really are muggers (so don’t worry if you engage in racial profiling); your Latina maid really, really loves you (so don’t worry about paying her less than minimum wage); even white racists (even white racist cops) can love their black brothers or at least their hot black sisters; and all answers are basically simple, so don’t even think about politics, policy, the lingering effects of Proposition 13 and Governor Arnold. This is a consummate Hollywood fantasy, no matter how nominally independent the financing and release.”

  The last point is a little harsh but the LA aspect to the film is well made. Although a film set in the present rarely wins Best Picture (the only two I can think of in recent years were American Beauty and The Silence of the Lambs) a film about big, important issues is always going to go down well, especially if they are issues on your own Californian doorstep.

• The Critical Reaction: Although it would be fair to say critical reaction to the film has been mixed-to-favourable, it is a film people that people tend to have strong opinions about. Roger Ebert named it as his film of the year. Scott Foundas of the LA Weekly hated it. People agree, disagree and word of mouth about people’s reactions just raises its profile further. 

• The Brokeback Backlash: Maybe because it has been frontrunner for so long, potential voters have become sick of Brokeback Mountain. Perhaps they will vote for Crash – or another of the nominees – just to be different. Nikki Finke of the LA Weekly speculated last month that Crash could emerge triumphant due to liberal hypocrisy and “Hollywood homophobia”. That notion seems a little too fanciful to me but if the clear favourite doesn’t win then expect the phrase “peaked too early” to be all over the awards blogs like a rash come the morning of March 6^th.

So, who will win? For me, it still has to be Ang Lee’s film. Despite the reasons listed above it is surely too far ahead to be caught. That said, the idea of a Crash win seems more plausible by the day.

> The latest Oscar odds from Oddschecker
> The Awards Scoreboard at Movie City News
> Wikipedia on the 78^th Academy Awards