Can’t help but mention Kermode yet again on this movie, but what can say, his review was probably his best since whenever it was he last spoke at length on The Exorcist, lol. Three times really is the charm on this movie, and I’m glad I didn’t feel compelled to try and write anything on the second viewing on Oscar day.

The second or third time is the time you’ll watch this movie and actually start to realise how packed with potential interpretations it is. There’s the look between Day-Lewis and his son after first encountering Paul Dano’s Eli. The first time I saw this look, I hadn’t really cottoned on to the fact that it was a separate character to Paul at the start (that realisation alone could save you a whole viewing, so pay attention). This time I saw it entirely from Day-Lewis’ side; in relation to his powerful stance on family matters; he simply realises how much Eli looks like his brother … something he’ll never see in his son, just as later when duped by an imposter, it’s the kind of thing that crushes the seemingly uncrushable Daniel Plainview. Well, that and religion. Who knows what I’ll see in that look the next time I see it.

There’s the sweeping shot of the barebones railroad town following the scene with Paul, that beautifully minimal Jonny Greenwood loop playing over as the camera pans from an empty railroad, past the empty platform, all the while following Plainview’s little motorcar that seemingly appears out of nowhere, completely selling us the space in which the rest of the movie will play out.

Someone criticised me in my review of Sunshine for calling Danny Boyle the new Kubrick. Though I still stand by that statement in terms of the quality of that movie, repeat viewing notwithstanding – and even though apparently the movie Paul Thomas Anderson watched most during the creation of this marvel was actually a John Huston movie, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – I have to say, if it’d been shown to me at random without credits, I could have been fooled more easily into believing this was somehow Kubrick’s lost last masterpiece before believing it was made by the Paul Thomas Anderson that made Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Punch-Drunk Love. Just the 2001-like opening, that oil-slicked rod completely reminding me of the monolith with all the eerie primal meanderings that preceed it, and the symmetrical, theatrical finale in the bowling alley, nevermind what falls in between. It’s pure perfection. But watch it 3 times – the first time with as little interruption as humanly or even inhumanly possible.

Addendum: I almost forgot the one thing I really wanted to say in this review what with my mood of late. I noticed reading the old review how even I got fooled into following the herd and describing this as a very masculine movie below, for which I can only apologise. Do not assume that because it’s mainly populated by penis-bearers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that this means it’s necessarily a “man’s movie”. As far as I understood it this time around, I can’t imagine a more anti-male film. It’s all about the destructive nature of greed, self-righteousness, pride … that is, of being that horrendous stereotype associated with the Y chromosome. Even I won’t deny the unfortunate truth of gender stereotypes in history ... I only ask that people don’t let them influence their expectations of the future. I guess if you view everything in terms of sex and gender you won’t be able to help seeing it so; but you’d do a lot better to view it simply as cinema that’s true to its world. (Addendum addendum?: I hope she doesn’t mind me mentioning it if she reads this but I was really buoyed by my sister saying she never once considered the lack of female characters in the movie.)

February 19th 2008:

I was lucky enough to (through no effort on my part, honest, it just kinda happened; I’m not that much of a nut lol) pretty much follow Mark Kermode’s advice on how to watch this movie verbatim – that is, almost empty cinema (about 3 other people in there with me I think, lol), decent sized screen, central seat (five rows back – can’t believe I used to obsessively want to be as close to the screen as possible, it’s a wonder I didn’t break my neck) ... and believe me, I’m glad I saw it like this. It does demand, at the least, your full attention. Usually I’d shun such advice – I always say a great film will grab my attention despite the attention I give it, the screen size, etc – but for Paul Thomas Anderson following his last hat trick of masterpieces? I’ll pretty much do anything.

I’ve said a few times since the nominations that this would probably be the film I ended up rooting for at the Oscars. That this film makes No Country for Old Men look positively mainstream pretty much ends any real hope I had that it had a chance, lol – I’m actually inclined now to think it’ll be Juno or Clayton that takes the gold, so similar and difficult are this troublesome pair.

This film and No Country for Old Men (Assassination of Jesse James perhaps completing the threefer) are like a characteristically perverse inversion of the old “waiting for a bus” thing – you’re waiting around for hours and then three show up at once. I don’t think anyone was particularly “waiting around for” these movies last year – except in that vague, ongoing way we’re always wanting something to blow us away and change the way we look at film. Yet show up they did anyway, and demanded to be seen. I’d love to know if the film makers concerned were aware that what they were doing wasn’t so unique – the whole thing’s like a mini New Wave to me.

If you noticed I’m babbling, it’s ‘cos I know it will take another viewing for me to feel like I know what I’m talking about on this one – it was churning around in my mind and slotting itself together even as I was walking home, and I think there are still a few things I surely missed. What I can say is, from the moment Daniel Day Lewis’ pickaxe first thwacks into that rock, it’s like Paul Thomas Anderson was doing the same thing to my skull – it’s really a movie that gets inside your skin … in fact, more than that, in this case you almost get inside its skin. And I guess I do now understand why this movie has unfortunately been seemingly reduced to nothing but Day Lewis’ performance in critics’ and awards circles. You come away from the movie almost feeling like some of him has rubbed off on you in some strange cinematic transference. He’s almost the ultimate anti-hero: almost in that by the time the movie’s over, though you know exactly why he did the things he did, you’d really be forgiven for not having a shred of forgiveness for him.

But it’s not just Day Lewis’ movie. Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier and all the supporting cast are perfect; Jonny Greenwood’s score, like Nick Cave’s for Jesse James in fact, is no iPod material in its dissonance but perfect support for Anderson’s imagery (No Country of course had no music so there’s another thing that ties these films together), and the sound ... I thought No Country’s sound was good, but, again that pickaxe, just wow … if it wins any Oscar outside of Day Lewis, and I hope it does, then I hope at least it’s that one.

Like I said, it’s gonna take at least another viewing for me to truly put it all together – and I’ve never been more excited about seeing a film a second time in my life … could even be the first time I see a movie more than once on the big screen in a long time if my multiplex still has it next week. BTW I can also understand how some people will absolutely hate the movie – as a PTA fan even I felt twinges of disappoint over how it lacks the slickness particularly of Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Kermode compared it most to Punch-Drunk Love and I’d agree – the scene around the son’s accident, score and all, reminded me completely of that movie’s most chaotic moments, particularly in the music department. It’s still a very different Paul Thomas Anderson though – I’d almost not even know it was his movie if I weren’t told … a few themes carry through, but visually it’s much grittier. It’s incredibly, almost repulsively masculine, too – which, if you know me, make the fact that (I think – that 5th heart is still pending) I love it even more of a testament to how good this film is.

“Take this sinking boat and point it home, we’ve still got time …”

Spoiler Warning I guess – not that you could possibly spoil this one.

Y’know, call me dumb just one more time but even at the Oscars after seeing the movie 3 times, I didn’t fully listen to that lyric until now. As the last couple of reviews might’ve shown, I’m still bobbing up and down a little off the ripples left by the wave of depression Enchanted left me with, and I couldn’t help but notice that this movie ends quite the same way as that one with the “lovers” at the outset not ending up together; but, I don’t know, here I bought it with tears in my eyes, perhaps because I believed they made the right choice … perhaps because I believed they knew there was still some work ahead … perhaps because in the end, it’s a matter of consistency, and this movie is 100% so.

While so many things now tell you, “if it’s f*cked, move on or replace it,” this movie presents us with a character who brings a lowly hoover for a busker to fix rather than simply buy a new one because all she can even afford to give him for his songs is 10 cents. It simply asks people to make an effort, all the while telling the inspiring story of someone far too old by society’s standards to be still living with his pa finally taking the steps to making a name for himself as a singer-songwriter in tandem with fixing an old and clearly dear relationship.

Again I find myself commenting on the thing I should find annoying about this movie that proves the movie’s brilliance by the sheer fact that it doesn’t annoy me. There’s a whole sequence that basically shows how everyone is trying to be a musician; from the trying to get the loan and the bank guy breaking into song, cutting to the street and a random busker drumming, to the party where it’s a requirement that you sing. I hate this kind of thing normally not because it’s false – on the contrary, it’s the truest and mostly most beautiful thing there is – but it’s very demoralising to anyone (in which case I guess, lol, everyone) wanting to get their songs heard. But like I say, it’s amazing that this really never gets to me like I’d think it would in this one.

Then there are the peripheral characters. The man in the clothes shop telling Guy, “You’re gorgeous,” the aforementioned bank guy, and my god, the studio guy – that in itself is the series of shots I’d personally say define this movie, him going from “these bunch of f*ckin …” to the total childlike enthusiasm at the mixing desk when he realises how good they are … it’s just an astonishing few pieces of film.

I’m just amazed by how much more I got out of this movie this viewing after seeing it at least 3 times already … you get this initial feeling like it’s that typical variety of indie movie where they just point the camera at two people and improvise or something, in this case perhaps buoyed by the quality of the songs … but, simply that whole thing about the hoover, I’d just never realised the significance of it as it compares to the big picture, the whole idea of fixing something that, in general, in today’s world, is more often just slung out for a new model, it just really shows how beautifully written and considered it is. It’s such an important message for the world right now.

December 3rd, 2007:

I’m slightly annoyed I didn’t get to see this a lot earlier than I ultimately have, because as soon as it began I realised that no matter what it did, it would be a miracle if it lived up to the expectations I’ve built up for it over the months and months of hype and general gushing of those who had seen it. It sounded perfect – in a nutshell, as a more recent review I read put it, it’s the Irish, musical, Before Sunset. The songs are beautiful even if, like me, you’ve heard them dozens of times before the movie begins.

For almost the whole first 85 minutes, I had that feeling. It’s not living up to what I psyched myself into expecting, etc, all the while cursing the destructive power of hype. “It’s good,” I thought – the music’s great of course, the story well-paced, the performances perfect – “but it’s not overwhelming me.”

But it’s all in the ending. When it all comes together, in at most 3 little shots. And it was literally like one second I was dry and the next my face was streaked with tears, and they didn’t stop till the last credit rolled off the screen. This movie is just too beautiful for words.

“We take to the breeze! We go as we please!”

Yeh … in that older review I had a severe case of the rambles, hehe. But I think I know what I was saying. I finally just actually got this on DVD since it came down to the price I was willing to pay for it since I thought it didn’t have too many extras on it, but actually they’re just not well-detailed on the packaging. There are actually two commentaries (not listened to yet) and almost an hour of other behind-the-scenes stuff featuring lots and lots of Dakota being her incredible self I would totally have paid double what I ultimately paid had I known this (yes I could easily have found out online; I just didn’t :P)

As to the movie – as below, there are parts that I still find unnecessary … like just watching the behind-the-scenes stuff beforehand, I was cringing because I’d forgotten all the little crowd-pleasing modernisations and stuff. I don’t broadly object to such a thing, don’t get me wrong; but y’know, there’s just a right and a wrong way to do it, and here it every so often comes across as purely crowd-pleasing and nothing more (not to say, I’ve gotta admit, that it didn’t even please me more on this viewing than the last …).

But most of my objections to the movie that first time really only stemmed from the fact it was the first time – because I really didn’t know the full story. Yeh, sue me, I’ve still not read the book even despite buying the tie-in edition with beautiful Dakota on the cover over a year ago lol. Anyway, I had none of my problems with Dakota’s portrayal of Fern this time around. Like I said before, I’d just assumed the character was younger – like physically and mentally – when I first heard of the story.

I guess it’s also a mark of how good the movie is – and I’m amazed I only just noticed this, I’m guessing it’s ‘cos whenever Dakota’s concerned I tend to put myself squarely in her shoes without a second thought – that I don’t mind the multitude of stereotypical clumsy, dumb, or generally boyish males that are in the story; at least, that’s the way it’s done here. I guess this also breezes past me because of the 50s Americana look and feel of the whole thing that if anything makes it more ‘acceptable’. For what it’s worth from someone like me, I think the whole gender thing, even like Fern’s slight tomboyishness developing into a full-fledged desire to wear the yellow dress and be with boys, is perfectly beautiful here.

I guess one thing I would say – and I’m about to babble about innocence again so be warned – is about the U certificate in the UK. I was aware I was taking a risk in watching this while still pretty wracked by the depression Enchanted left me with, ‘cos the whole “Fern growing up” thread will always upset me more than anything in the movie: not, I stress, in the same way as Enchanted did … I find the whole process of little girls growing up just as beautiful as I find it sad; but, like, I don’t know, I don’t know how to finish that thought but to say the sadness kind of always prevails for me.

Anyway, my mum commented during the movie about the “mild language” that’s referred to in the only comment on the BBFC’s official info on the movie. But that doesn’t bother me, ‘cos it’s truly mild, so mild I wouldn’t even have noticed if it weren’t pointed out. What bothers me is: U is meant to mean “anybody over 4” – and if I had a very young child and took them to see this (okay, I know I should’ve read the book or whatever beforehand but still – it’s what ‘U’ means that I’m talking about), I’d be pretty freaked by simply the father pulling out the axe so early in the movie, and the constant referral to what we do to pigs and other animals, not to mention the frank talk of death, throughout the movie.

I know: it’s the truth, and I know, they’re “just animals”. And I know some people would like if we just forgot about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and things like that and admitted that our line between imaginary creations and lies is pretty disturbing (something touched on beautifully, of course, by the movie Galaxy Quest) and that we should just confront our babies with reality from the off for the better – I get that argument, I promise. But I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with shielding very young children from this kind of thing. Innocence, or even its simple cousin naivety – believing in a stupid thing like Santa or just plain having a bacon sandwich without thinking of where it came from and just of how delicious it is – is something beautiful even grownups are capable of enjoying from time to time. You can turn off the bullsh*t and be a kid again; but, and this is the important part, only if you were one once. It’s a minor thing in this movie, and what I say here might’ve been better said in my already overlong review of Enchanted, which crosses the line for me a lot worse than this one. I guess to me it’s more a matter of consistency than anything else. Like I said, it’s a beautiful movie – nowhere near as depressing as Enchanted – but I would really think twice before letting very young children watch it … Babe is a safer bet.

January 24th 2007:

SPOILERS HEREIN, not to mention rambling, plus if I’ve read the book I don’t remember it so if I say anything stupid like blaming/crediting the movie for/with something that’s in the book, don’t yell at me, I’ll correct it next time around. In other words, don’t read this if you aren’t forgiving, I’d half the mind to save this until I’d read the book and seen the movie a second time but I’ve been doing pretty good writing about every movie I’ve seen recently and I don’t want to break the flow.

I wanted to love this so much, and honestly not just because of Dakota Fanning, about whom I’ve said more than enough elsewhere. Though I haven’t read the book (or don’t remember it, which seems unlikely), I was familiar with the story, and there was just something about that story being given the Walden Media treatment, now, with Dakota, with Danny Elfman music, just, everything … I was just really excited to see this movie – honestly, over the past few months I actually began to think it might be even another Casper for me … but as the first 20 minutes went by, my heart just sank and sank.

First it was Dakota. As much as I love her – even after what I’ll say later – I still have to say, she’s too old for this role, not just in mind as she always has been, but now in body too, she just really does not look right. She delivers her lines in that soulful old soul way that’s served her infallibly in the past but is just not right in this storybook world, and it is a storybook world, moreso than I expected, and that’s another thing it took me too long to adjust to. Then the animals spoke, and over a decade since Babe, I wonder, how have the visual effects gotten worse? Does Charlotte really need to have such a stupidly obvious face?

BUT, and that BUT couldn’t be bigger, makes me wish I had the guts to podcast so I could do a microphone popping Mark Kermode-ish plosive, LOL – SOMEHOW, and I can only put it down to the strength of the story, it eventually all falls into place. Fern is an older character than I initially thought – and though I still think Dakota is not right for this movie, I’ll admit, the “oh dear, she’s with a boy” scenes work amazingly well, really giving (to me, at least) the heartbreaky feeling dads probably get everyday, that “she’s not a little girl anymore,”-ness and most heartbreakingly when you realise, and it’s done so subtly, that like most of the baby spiders at the end, she too will leave Wilbur behind, not unlike Emily left Jessie in Toy Story 2 (stupid comparison, but I’ll admit, I’m really reaching for ways to put my feelings on this movie into words, lol), emphasising even more how important his true friends in the barn will be, and how it’s like the spiders who stick around that count, not that those just passing through can’t be as important. God, I hate when a kids’ movie makes me feel like I should’ve learned something when I was like 6 lol.

And then there’s Julia Roberts. If the following sounds stupid to you you can just leave, lol. I don’t like Julia Roberts, in fact on bad days I’d make a rare use of the word hate. Almost all her movies annoy me in some way or another. But second only to Hook (wow, don’t read that review, it must’ve been a bad day), this is my all-time favourite performance of hers. Her voice at the end as Charlotte is dying immediately opens the tear ducts, it’s just some of the most incredible voice work I’ve ever heard.

I don’t know if I’m overrating this with 4 stars … I don’t think I can be when there were those 20 minutes where I really began to hate it and it still managed to pull me back as hard as it did. When it comes to animal/little girl movies, give me Fly Away Home, give me Because of Winn-Dixie, heck give me Dakota in Dreamer, or the Velvet movies, long before I come to this. I’ve already said in at least one of those reviews how much I love this combo anyway, so obviously I’m biased here to begin with. But I have a feeling this one will grow on me with extra viewings. All the subtle stuff with Fern “growing up” really touched me and was the last thing I was expecting in this movie. Time will really have to tell on this one. I’ll definitely be buying the DVD.

“Hearts will never be made practical until they are made unbreakable.”

It truly is the happiest film ever made. And perfect to boot, like, literally, perfect, so much so that I don’t feel I need to say a lot more than that. I was really drawn to the sheer number of immediately identifiable icons in the movie this zillionth time watching it – it’s something I’ve really started to be interested in in a lot of movies recently: like just those props and simple images you can remove entirely from their context in the movie and yet their association is so indelible that pretty much anyone will know the movie from them. The gingham dress, the ruby slippers, the green-faced witch, a witch in a bubble, another under a house, the poppy field, the Emerald City, the yellow brick road, the red sand hourglass – and of course the scarecrow, tin man and lion. Any one of these things captures the imagination enough in itself. To put them altogether in one ninety minute swoop with the songs and the simply perfectly cast Judy Garland tying it all together is for me to practically bottle everything it means to dream.

For me it mostly comes down to those last scenes; the wizard declaring, “No I’m not a bad man – just a bad wizard,” bestowing the gifts upon Dorothy’s friends at the same time really highlighting the worthlessness of the societal things that package us like diplomas, medals and testimonials, in turn proffering the slightly cheesy but no less truthful notion that it really is just who we are that counts; and of course, “Oh Auntie Em … There’s No Place Like Home,” that swell of music that never fails to make me cry my eyes out.

Yes, I guess it comes to the same almost dreary happiness in its close that I hated in Enchanted – “But that’s so easy!” the Tin Man even declares when Glinda reveals to Dorothy the means to get home – but it’s the way it elevates that normality to something fantastic, never dismissing the wonder of imaginary Oz (if it is imaginary at all, I feel the urge to add) in the process. I was reminded of that wonderful line at the end of the last Harry Potter book, “Of course it’s all happening in your head … but why on earth should that mean it isn’t real?” I’m babbling and I’ve done too much of that lately. It’s just a perfect movie, okay?

“The Dude abides …”

Just how cool can a movie be? The Big Lebowski after 10 years still never fails to make me laugh, nearly make me cry, and generally leave me with a warm fuzzy feeling and a resting heartbeat to slowdance to. I seem to have kept the gaps between viewings each time just about long enough that there are still surprises, scenes I adore but always forget about; it feels so fresh like only last week I was watching it for the first time, not nearly a decade.

I’m sure I must’ve written about it before in all that time, and maybe I wrote this too, but though it’s been squeezed through a hash-smoke filled funnel, the story is very “Big Sleep” and the like, the title of course reflecting that. Roger Deakins’ photography is so shiny, I don’t even know if you hear a single bowling shoe squeak on the alley floor but somehow you hear it anyway. The slo-mo, the music, the dream sequence and porno, there’s just so much here to enjoy for at least another 10 years and beyond. Absolutely one of my favourite Coen movies, and the perfect post-Oscar chillout movie, particularly of course this year.

The most extraordinary thing about this movie to me is the humanity in it – the kind of humanity that it would be so easy to think insensitive and to exclude from such a story. Almost from the very moment “Jean-Do” realises his condition, we’re laughing with him at the strangest things even while sharing his most private despair. It’s often said when tragedy strikes how, “it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” or words to that effect. There’s a weird sense in which, here – and this can’t help but come out the wrong way – it couldn’t have happened to a more perfect guy, a fashionista who didn’t know what life was; and there couldn’t be a more perfect director than Julian Schnabel with his background and style to find this odd tone in the story.

It’s impossible to be insensitive about locked-in syndrome; the hard thing is in building the life and reality around it. I don’t know if that makes sense; I wish I had more time to write this review, I guess, but this weekend’s busy. In any case, that’s why I only just made one final adjustment in my Oscar predix and I’m rooting for Schnabel in the directing category; and not just in retrospect for Basquiat (which I for one loved) as I’d expected.

I was really surprised by just how much of the movie is seen through Jean-Do’s one eye – it’s really amazing how consistently interesting the whole thing is in the visual department despite this. It’s just a unique, compelling, and surprisingly funny movie I can’t wait to watch again in less hurried a fashion than “must watch before the Oscars!” lol.

“You’re playing with your life.”
“So? You’ve got to play with something.”

I remember seeing the trailer for this, seems like ages ago now, before anyone was really talking about it much at all, and I was really excited despite, I realise even more now having seen it, not really being such a huge fan of Edith Piaf, and not really knowing all that much about her life. And though I’d seen Marion Cotillard in a lot of stuff, like Innocence and more recently A Good Year, she’d never struck me either as a particularly outstanding actress nor, as here, as knock-out beautiful as she is.

It’s a beautiful film that kind of closes in on the sorrow in Piaf’s life, cutting in between her close to death and at two stages of her childhood (played by two absolutely wonderful girls both rightly given more screentime than I expected), with her in her prime scattered in between. At the end, an interviewer asks her about each phase we’ve seen: “What advice would you give a woman/a young girl/a child?” to which her every answer is “Love.” The structure first strikes one as jumpy, but the more I think about it now, the more phenomenally coherent I find it. To someone who knew so little about, basically, “what was she so sad about?”, the delivery of information is perfect.

Marion Cotillard is as perfect as “they” say. I really didn’t expect it, and much as I’ll love it if Julie Christie gets the Oscar, Cotillard’s performance is simply so much more. It’s in the later scenes of Piaf’s life that my heart simply drops out of my chest at how much Cotillard vanishes in the role. The make-up, of course, helps; but it’s a two-way effort of make-up, Cotillard working with it as much as it works with her. It’s truly astonishing.

I was sure I already had a review of this so this might end up a little on the short side. I’m pretty sure I’ve said something about Erzsebet Foldi before, that’s why I thought I’d reviewed it already … ‘cos what I thought I’d written was, how is this movie the only thing she was ever in?! An amazing dancer, beautiful to behold, so natural before the camera, and perfectly cast as Scheider’s loving, precious, brotherless, generous (“underlined 3 times” lol) daughter … yet this is her only film credit, it’s incredible.

Anyway, clearly the reason I watched this this weekend is due to the sad passing of Roy Scheider this past week. Of course, at 76, he had a great innings – certainly better than Bob Fosse, who he basically portrays here – but it still saddened me to hear of it. This movie already had resonance outside of its surface appearance due to just how much Fosse put himself into it. Now – at least, this week, I find it serves as a perfect farewell to Scheider. It struck me during the last scene how it might strike some as a tad tasteless to watch it at such a time, ‘cos I know there are a lot of people who prefer death be confined to grave grief, black suits, hearses and mourning; but I think it’s perfect in its attitude to death … that celebration scene of “Bye Bye Life” countered so slapfaced by the snapback to “the only reality” at the end, the body bag being zipped up.

You can see Scheider’s Gideon so many ways – ego is always mentioned in reviews of the movie; it’s easy to sense he has no self-awareness, doesn’t know what he’s doing or who he’s hurting etc. I think he has total self-awareness; he just doesn’t care. And to me the film’s biggest comment is: why should he, when death is so inevitable? It’s a kind of Fight Club / American Beauty type message, as dangerous as it is profound. I still don’t know what to make of these movies entirely, some days I love them and some days I realise what an ass I am to love them so; I know that when I’m watching they are fun though; that Scheider’s performance is incredible; that the song and dance numbers start brilliant and only get better as the movie goes on; that we’re lucky to even have one movie featuring Erzsebet Foldi; and that anything that can make me get in such a twist reviewing is pretty much always worthy of 5 hearts.