Category: film

This film got a bad rap in reviews, and I suspect it’s because BULLET TRAIN is that rarity in action films: it’s for writers and actors.  It’s all about structure, in a very defined way.

Chekhov’s gun is a writing principle that states that everything in a story should be there for a reason. Chekhov’s famous example is that if we’re told a rifle is hanging on the wall in chapter one, then someone needs to fire it in chapter two, otherwise why tell us there’s a rifle there?  Chekhov tells us not to waste time with details that aren’t important.  Talk about only what is in service to the story, no matter how irrelevant it may seem at the start.

Pretty much everything we see (and hear) in BULLET TRAIN is there for a reason.  Every detail fairly quivers with potential energy after a while, when we start to realise what’s being done, and we wonder what’s next to explode.  

It’s based on a novel I haven’t read, MARIA BEETLE by Kotaro Isaka, so I can’t speak to how faithful the treatment by screenwriter Zak Olkewicz is.  Obviously, one assumes that almost all the original characters were Japanese, though Isaka himself contests that, and a big international adaptation means characters become international visitors to Japan.  My biggest takeaway was how odd it is, in a way we can usually only get away with in books or graphic novels.  If you came for a film by a JOHN WICK director (David Leitch) and got a mini-chapter about the adventures of a water bottle (!), you too might get a bit moody about it.

Brad Pitt has a whale of a time.  Aaron Taylor-Johnson is currently one of the best “supporting” actors of his generation – look how completely convincing he is in TENET – and Brian Tyree Henry pulls off a pretty good English accent as an assassin obsessed with Thomas The Tank Engine.  Nobody in this film looks like they’re not having fun.  Pretty much everything in the script slots together so neatly that every scene is its own set-piece., the bridges between them held up by Pitt as a hitman with anxiety puking his trauma out to Sandra Bullock over the phone.  Immensely enjoyable, and enjoyed, performances with a script that’s all about structure, revelation, surprise and clicking over a very carefully designed maze of dominoes. 

It’s really worth a watch, just to see how they do it.

BULLET TRAIN seems to be available on all formats.

The throat singing in this scene is performed by Michael Geiger, and I found a video interview with him, usefully chaptered in the notes under the video. It gets right into the technical stuff of both recording the piece and the operation of the vocal system in achieving it.

I actually sat forward, the first time I saw this bit, saying, “holy shit, that’s Tibetan throat singing.” I love this bit so much. Probably my favourite part of the film, both visually and sonically.

There’s an excellent BBC documentary about Hans Zimmer, who composed the DUNE soundtrack, saying of it: “I don’t think anybody’s ever won an Oscar for a score that blatantly is bagpipes, heavy metal guitars and a woman screaming at you.”

Proper fucking Cronenberg, mate.

As Lynch’s TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN seemed a summation of Lynch’s career, so too does CRIMES OF THE FUTURE appear to present Cronenberg returning to the scenes of his crimes. There is VIDEODROME in here, and EXISTENZ, CRASH, NAKED LUNCH, SHIVERS and RABID. Its very contained scenes suggest COSMOPOLIS and its capsule narratives. Indeed, Cronenberg has re-used the title of his own second film from 1970, and in this film Viggo Mortensen wears something reminiscent of the black cloak sported by the lead in Cronenberg’s very first film, STEREO. There’s even some head violence recalling SCANNERS, some reflections on “celebrity” that you could connect to MAPS OF THE STARS, considerations of mutation that echo THE FLY, and surgery and instruments that made me think of the very fine DEAD RINGERS.

I am, of course, probably reading a lot into what is in all likelihood just a nice story that Mr. Cronenberg wanted to tell. But, as a lifelong member of his audience, it carried all kinds of extra resonances for me.

Cronenberg had apparently been working on the script for a great many years. For some, the references may seem a little dated – Orlan, Stelarc, that whole old guard of bodymod pioneer artists. Many of the ideas herein have been in play for decades. But I enjoyed the innovation of the hub of the piece: a man who spontaneously grows rogue organs that he has removed in art performances. An art world celebrity and an accidental celebrity in the shadowy demimonde of body modification, couched within a future world where most people no longer experience physical pain and resist the majority of infections. A man being betrayed by his own body who distrusts the way the world is going. A man presented with the possibility that the path of human evolution is about to irrevocably change. He can collaborate, if he wants. All he and his partner have to do is perform the public post-mortem of a dead eight year old boy who ate a plastic bin.

The performances are generally wonderful: a measured Mortensen, Lea Seydoux as good as ever, Don McKellar and Kristen Stewart giving different flavours of secretive and horny. The blocking on McKellar’s scene with Mortensen was fascinating. Cronenberg hangs the whole thing on what is basically a crime story plot to give it attack and pace. It’s beautifully made, doesn’t drag for an instant, has delicate emotion to it, and leaves you with questions to consider. CRIMES OF THE FUTURE is, for me, a welcome return of Cronenberg the artist. He turns 80 this year, and, if this turns out to be his last major painting, it’s a fine piece to leave us with. Thank you for it.

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE on blu-ray and DVD Jan 31 in the US, right now in the UK, on Prime Video and probably elsewhere

Directed attractively by Mark Mylod, whose name I recognise from SUCCESSION, and written with energy and wit by Will Tracy and Seth Reiss, with a very nice score by Colin Stetson. Inspired by Tracy’s visit to a restaurant in Bergen, apparently in much the same way that FAWLTY TOWERS was inspired by John Cleese’s visit to a hotel in Torquay.

I have a passing interest in food innovation and art. I have read the Noma and Faviken books in much the same way I read science fiction or futurism. (Redzepi and Nilsson have the advantage of being good writers, and all their books are a pleasure to read.) One of my favourite episodes of Bourdain was his final visit to El Bulli, home of the mad scientist Ferran Adria. I’ve never eaten at that sort of place and will never get to, but the thinking and the level of invention is fascinating to read about. Hawthorne, the restaurant alone on an island in THE MENU, is that sort of place. And, like Bourdain at El Bulli, it is Hawthorn’s final night of service. But the twelve people who just paid two grand to eat there don’t know that. Yet.

Anya Taylor-Joy has become the kind of actor who can rivet the attention just by visibly thinking. There’s a moment where she sits and processes, extrapolates, tests and decides, that is completely convincing. Ralph Fiennes starts of as something of a caricature of the genius celebrity chef, and has fun as he descends into full movie villain. The script depends on him being able to pull off a tricky transition in the third act. This is why screenplays are part of a collaborative art, right? When you need exactly the right actor to pull off what the script requires in its crucial moment. Which is a real high-wire hold-your-breath moment. And Fiennes changes gears within the shape of the character as established to produce a human shift so delicate and gentle that it’s quite wonderful to watch.

THE MENU compares interestingly with GLASS ONION, another recent film about a group of people trapped on an island with death. THE MENU is earthier and nastier, and all its laughs are deep dark ones. The laughs are there, don’t get me wrong – it ends on two gags, too, one over the top and the other marvellously understated –but THE MENU is more strongly scorched by anger, regret and loathing. Its satire, sad and furious, is a bit of a sawn-off shotgun compares to GLASS ONION. But then, everyone’s a target.

THE MENU is a fable. A fable about stories and storytelling. And it operates like a fairy tale, which gives it a freedom to operate outside reality, but inside the truth of stories.

THE MENU – DVD and Blu-Ray released 17 January 2023.

Styled “Knives Out: Glass Onion,” but writer/director Rian Johnson prefers it to have the standalone title GLASS ONION. Quite rightly, too: the Poirot stories are not styled The Mysterious Affair At Styles: Murder On The Orient Express just because Styles was the first Poirot book. These are the Benoit Blanc stories, and GLASS ONION is a much more Poirot-like affair than KNIVES OUT, partly due to the set-up and partly due to Daniel Craig’s expanded portrayal of Blanc. Johnson and Craig add that note of infuriation: with himself, and with his suspects.

KNIVES OUT had tones of the Ustinov Poirot films – particularly the sense that most of the actors were having a great time – but the sheer exasperation with stupidity in ONION recalls the Suchet Poirots. And, this time, Daniel Craig seems to be having the most fun of all. With the stresses of Bond behind him, Craig has clearly entered his “fuck-it” years and visibly enjoys himself immensely in this neatly recursive and interconnected murder mystery.

Dave Bautista is putting together a really interesting CV, for an actor I’d originally considered limited. His bit in the BLADE RUNNER sequel turned me around – he’s on screen for five minutes, but what a careful, observed bit of work! The reserved breath! – and I’m looking forward to seeing what they give him in DUNE 2.

It is, of course, amusing to see the skewering of the Musk/Zuckerberg(/Brin?) analogue, and MuskZuck are definitely combined in Ed Norton’s Miles Bron, with the hydrogen fuel McGuffin as a combination of Musk’s businesses and Zuck betting the company on Meta. That was an elegant bit of synthesis.

And, equally obviously, the regal side-eye of Janelle Monae is a visual effect beyond price.

But the thing is worth studying for its nested structure. Layered like an onion, yes, sure, but also nested. An effect reminiscent of the way the third Bourne film is hidden within the ending of the second. In GLASS ONION, it completely supercharges the pace of the narrative.

The extension of “onion” as metaphor to the characters is entertaining, as layers get stripped away to reveal surprising interiors: some clever and unexpected character writing. This is the sort of film some people have been saying audiences have been crying out for in cinema, something fun that doesn’t insult the intelligence, and one hopes it would have made a killing at the auditoria. But it is the best new thing on Netflix right now. I can imagine it – and I imagine Johnson imagined it – as a great film to watch over Christmas, as we once did the Ustinov Poirot films. And that’s how I approached and viewed it. In that sense, maybe it’s a throwback? But it feels fresher in a great many ways. It invites us to play a game, while playing a different game with us, and it doesn’t punish us for guessing wrong. It’s a little gem. Not world-changing, just a bloody well-told story that doesn’t make me… infuriated.

(I’m going to note here that I enjoyed Kenneth Branagh’s first Poirot film and found his portrayal entertaining.)

This is me trying to start the habit of actually writing notes on the films I watch this year.

As noted, GLASS ONION is on Netflix, but I’ll see if I can remember to add a DVD link here when that happens.

The Oberhausen Manifesto of 1962, which I found a translation of here:

The decline of conventional German cinema has taken away the economic incentive that imposed a method that, to us, goes against the ideology of film. A new style of film gets the chance to come alive.

Short movies by young German screenwriters, directors, and producers have achieved a number of international festival awards in the last few years and have earned respect from the international critics.

Their accomplishment and success has shown that the future of German films are in the hands of people who speak a new language of film. In Germany, as already in other countries, short film has become an educational and experimental field for feature films. We’re announcing our aspiration to create this new style of film.

Film needs to be more independent. Free from all usual conventions by the industry. Free from control of commercial partners. Free from the dictation of stakeholders.

We have detailed spiritual, structural, and economic ideas about the production of new German cinema. Together we’re willing to take any risk. Conventional film is dead. We believe in the new film.”

The Dogme95 manifesto:

DOGMA 95 is a collection of film directors founded in Copenhagen in spring 1995.

DOGMA 95 has the expressed goal of countering “certain tendencies” in the cinema today.

DOGMA 95 is a rescue action!

In 1960 enough was enough! The movie was dead and called for resurrection. The goal was correct but the means were not! The new wave proved to be a ripple that washed ashore and turned to muck.

Slogans of individualism and freedom created works for a while, but no changes. The wave was up for grabs, like the directors themselves. The wave was never stronger than the men behind it. The anti-bourgeois cinema itself became bourgeois, because the foundations upon which its theories were based was the bourgeois perception of art. The auteur concept was bourgeois romanticism from the very start and thereby… false!

To DOGMA 95 cinema is not individual!

Today a technological storm is raging, the result of which will be the ultimate democratization of the cinema. For the first time, anyone can make movies. But the more accessible the medium becomes, the more important the avant-garde. It is no accident that the phrase “avant-garde” has military connotations. Discipline is the answer… we must put our films into uniform, because the individual film will be decadent by definition!

DOGMA 95 counters the individual film by the principle of presenting an indisputable set of rules known as THE VOW OF CHASTITY.

In 1960 enough was enough! The movie had been cosmeticized to death, they said; yet since then the use of cosmetics has exploded.

The “supreme” task of the decadent film-makers is to fool the audience. Is that what we are so proud of? Is that what the “100 years” have brought us? Illusions via which emotions can be communicated?… By the individual artist’s free choice of trickery?

Predictability (dramaturgy) has become the golden calf around which we dance. Having the characters’ inner lives justify the plot is too complicated, and not “high art”. As never before, the superficial action and the superficial movie are receiving all the praise.

The result is barren. An illusion of pathos and an illusion of love.

To DOGMA 95 the movie is not illusion!

Today a technological storm is raging of which the result is the elevation of cosmetics to God. By using new technology anyone at any time can wash the last grains of truth away in the deadly embrace of sensation. The illusions are everything the movie can hide behind.

DOGMA 95 counters the film of illusion by the presentation of an indisputable set of rules know as THE VOW OF CHASTITY.

I seem to return to this short film every few years. Guy Maddin made it for a Canadian film festival. Twenty-two years ago, now. It’s under seven minutes long, and acts as a perfect distillation of a sector of Maddin’s interests as well as being a wonderful thing in its own right.

I first heard of Guy Maddin – and this dates me – in PSYCHOTRONIC VIDEO MAGAZINE. PSYCHOTRONIC was the magazine we read to learn about the films we’d never get to see, and that’s where I learned of TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL, complete with still photos. I was mesmerised just by the idea of the thing, the ideas in the thing and the images stolen from it. It took me until 2020 to own a copy, I think.

There is now an archive of forty scanned issues of PSYCHOTRONIC available online, which I will be diving into soon.

I suspect I’m going to put Maddin’s THE FORBIDDEN ROOM up on the big screen later. A film that’s still hard to find on digital media, but Amazon Prime Video has it at the moment.

Apparently I started a text file in April 2021 about some films I watched that month, and then didn’t do anything with it, so I’m putting it up here so I can find it later:

Daïchi Saïto – earthearthearth (2021)

“The expansive mountainscapes of the Andes are the basis for this new, 35mm film by Daïchi Saïto, who won the 2016 Tiger Award for Short Films with Engram of Returning. Once again propelled by the free, pulsating improvisation of saxophonist Jason Sharp, in which his heartbeat and breathing play a prominent role, the series of images slowly becomes more abstract. The end result is a hypnotic, sensory meditation on ‘our’ earth.”

Matthew Barney – Drawing Restraint 9 (2005)

“Drawing Restraint 9, a film by Matthew Barney with a soundtrack composed by Björk, represents the first creative collaboration of two of the most protean, dynamic forces in music and fine art.

“It is an apt pairing. Refusing to choose between pop pleasure and restless experimentation, Björk’s musical vision weds technology and emotion, countering gut-level expression with an insistence upon formal modernity and innovation.

“Similarly poised, and celebrated, within the world of contemporary art as Björk is within her own field, Matthew Barney is a visual artist whose ambitious, rigorous multimedia work encodes esoteric meanings while providing lushly immediate aesthetic rewards. Best known for The Cremaster Cycle, the sprawling sequence of five films made over ten years which was the subject of a recent Guggenheim retrospective, Matthew Barney’s work is multimedia in execution but singularly focused in conception: tightly unified fusions of sculpture, performance, architecture, set design, music, computer generated effects and prosthetics, Barney’s films deploy the full range of cinematic resources in the service of a hermetic vision rich with densely layered networks of meaning drawn from mythology, history, sports, music, and biology.”

Johann Lurf – Star – 2018 assemblage

“A film that defies easy explanation, ★ is filmmaker Johann Lurf’s inventive examination of how outer space has been portrayed in movies.

“You don’t have to be a scientist to find space fascinating. Few things in the universe have enthralled, perplexed, and inspired such a diverse group of people, from astronomers and philosophers to artists and ordinary people walking at night. Artists were so inspired by the heavens that they created artwork of celestial objects — even when you see a “photo” of other planets and stars, it is often an artist’s rendering. Lurf playfully shows how cinema turned the stars into endless metaphors, dreams, and warm blankets. There is no story or characters — only movie scenes worked together outside of their contexts. We put our own thoughts into the stunning scenes while each clip’s sound design presents us with ambience, brief dialogue, or loud music. The editing enthralls us as space is not depicted the same in every clip. If you have a love affair with movies and the sky, ★ is the ultimate romantic art film.” (Sundance)