I actually originally wanted to watch this not because I loved Interview with the Vampire but ‘cos it features Marnie Reece-Wilmore – Debbie Martin from “Neighbours” at a time when a) I used to watch it and b) I swear, just the greatest period of soaps ever, ever lol. I’d kind of convinced myself her role was pretty minor, though, and I doubted that a Vampire Chronicles movie that involved none of the talent of Interview could even come close to being as mesmerising.

I was right on the Marnie front – her appearance is recognisable in a “Keisha Castle-Hughes in Revenge of the Sith” kinda way, and for a fan clutching at straws (she’s really not done a lot since Neighbours), it’s worth waiting for. And overall, though like I said it couldn’t touch Interview, and I haven’t read the book yet so I can’t comment on the adaptation quality, it’s still a much better movie than I expected. Stuart Townsend is just about as perfect as the rock star Lestat as Cruise was originally, and Aaliyah is a pleasant surprise as the queen. I really can’t imagine who else could’ve played her. The music is mercifully decent too.

I was a little baffled to say the least when this documentary didn’t make it to the shortlist for this year’s Best Documentary Feature Oscar; even though I hadn’t seen it yet, it just seemed like it couldn’t fail to convey something more than the average music doc. 90 minutes later, and I kinda see why the Academy ignored it. Though this compilation of conversations with Kurt himself laid over seemingly random shots of moody locales naturally stumbles upon its share of profound moments, it’s not a lot more than the sum of its parts, and I’d sooner watch Gus Van Sant’s Last Days again, or finally get around to reading the man’s journals (if the movie accomplished anything, it’s putting that very task back up on my to-do list).

Unlike the Scott Walker doc I watched before this, which was awash with the work of the artist, there’s nary a note of his own music to be heard. The film makers clearly made a conscious decision to distance the artist from the art – you don’t even see his face until the very end – and succeeded so well that ultimately the movie feels as distant as Kurt ever did at his most cryptic and defensive … or worse, like Courtney. His “narration” often feels a little like Malcolm McLaren’s stuff in The Great Rock ‘n’ Roll Swindle (“Terrorise, threaten, and insult your own useless generation…”), just a great eff-ewe to anyone who feels an artist “owes” something to the public. Though I realise there’s something in that argument, it’s really not something I like to hear an artist whine about; especially not this artist, and especially not for 90 minutes. It’s intriguing as anything about Kurt would be by default; but absolutely nothing more.

It’s the Kermode working again – I pretty much ran to hear all I could of Scott Walker after Mark Kermode’s review of this doc, astonished that I’d never heard of the man prior to it, even more astonished after I listened. I pretty much knew that I’d like Scott Walker the minute I heard about him, kinda like Nick Drake, Donovan, and others; and in the same way, having heard him, I kinda knew I’d like this documentary, since I even liked his latest work, “The Drift”. I think the BBC show “Imagine” broadcast a shortened version of this very film, too, ‘cos I recognised a lot of it from somewhere. So it could’ve been a dual influence that brought me to fandom.

On one level I guess this is a very flat telling of Walker’s story – an artist who worked in the confines of pop just so he could write, who finally broke free, who reached a pinnacle only to be inexplicably tossed aside by the public, but who kept on working in exile to make some of the most extraordinary, difficult, unique music of the last 30 years. It’s at its best in the cool stretches where we see Walker fans simply listening to his and the “Brothers” records – their own arranger commenting on one, “I must listen to some of these … and you’re sure I did this one?” ... everyone, even Bowie, still visibly overwhelmed by the sounds he brought into the world.

One issue I have, and it’s something I guess I’ve kind of been itching to talk about overall here or elsewhere so I might protest too strong here, but it’s the narration that speaks of the past in the present tense (”... they begin to record their last album ever …”) ... I hate when historians do that more than anything in the world, and it’s even worse when it’s inter-cut with the onscreen interviewees who, naturally, speak of the past in the past tense. Just a silly grr, I guess most people are fine with this lol.

In any case, it’s a gorgeous documentary about a gorgeous artist. To go back to the Mark Kermode connection, I think this unlike Heart of Gold really could bring Walker new fans – you’ve only to hear a bar of his early work to fall in love, and even though there’s a part of me that’s naturally repelled by his more recent stuff including “The Drift”, it’s impossible to ignore and irresistible not to delve further. And if you’ve any artistic inclinations whatsoever, you’ll be inspired more than you thought possible.

This was supposed to be my first movie of this year but I had technical problems. I can’t not mention Mark Kermode on this review, I’m afraid (so it’s a good thing I didn’t make a resolution to mention him less, I guess, lol), ‘cos this was one of the first movies I heard him review on his podcast towards the end of 2006, and he’s mentioned it many times since (not to mention interviewing Young early last year on The Culture Show). This was the movie that “converted” him to a Young fan having pretty much despised him previously.

I was never so passionate about my basic apathy towards him and his work – when I was starting to really get back into music a few years ago, I tried listening to most of his stuff and I later listened to “Prairie Wind” (the album that forms most of this concert) and “Living With War” but didn’t get a lot out of them. For me, it was his most recent album, “Chrome Dreams II” – which I thought was by leaps and bounds the best album of last year – that finally made me “get” Neil Young. I don’t know, maybe it’s just ‘cos Kermode told me to like him, lol. But anyway, what I’m saying is, I came to this show already primed to love it.

I wasn’t quite “moved to tears” as Kermode has repeatedly said he was; but I can see where it touched him, I think. This was a very philosophical album, with lines like, “this old guitar ain’t mine to keep, it’s mine to play for a while,” and “when god made me, did he just make me in his image, or every living thing?” and the whole matter and God thing is clearly big on Kermode’s mind. Then there’s the whole age thing that pervades the whole concert, and I’ll admit even got me; though I have to say, I was pleased by the anecdote about writing “Old Man” (”... look at my life, Twenty four and there’s so much more, Live alone in a paradise …”).

One thing I was worried about in watching this was the sound sync problems I’d heard about. Things like that can really make me hate a movie. I don’t know if they fixed this when it went to DVD, but I barely noticed any such problems. If there are any, it’s down to the fact that they shot over 2 nights and obviously picked the better shots at times, sync be damned. It really didn’t bug me at all, and those who are whining oughta pick up a copy of The Phantom of the Opera.

In the end, it’s a filmed concert of Neil Young – you kind of know what you’re gonna get, especially if you’ve fleetingly touched on his music at some point; and I wouldn’t expect it to have the “conversion” effect on many people other than Kermode. It has a really nice “pre-concert” sequence with a few mini-interviews and even a cute little POV shot of someone handing in their ticket at the door. It really would’ve made a good start to a new year, it’s a shame … but there are plenty more years to follow that plan, and I’ll probably relax to this on many late nights / early mornings to come.

“Never look at yourself.”

At first I thought this might just be like the cinematic equivalent of Tori Amos’ “American Doll Posse” – a great concept but, by its very nature, doomed to be scatterbrained. Either that or something as surprisingly coherent as Palindromes. Certainly this is yet another 2007 movie – like Zodiac, American Gangster, 3:10 to Yuma – whose technical perfection far outweighs any real level of connection, at least for most of its duration … and while some seem quite capable of excusing such an absence, it’s a huge problem in my eyes if a film that should get inside you fails completely to do so.

I was kind of “raised”, and I think with good reason, to believe that if the first thing you find yourself mentioning of a movie is how good it looks, then it’s really not a good movie (for the record, I’m sure I’m guilty elsewhere on this site of exceptions to that rule, but it’s still a good rule). I just don’t think I got anything out of this that I haven’t got already, and couldn’t get again more easily, out of the music itself, the poetry in “Tarantula”, the “Chronicles” book, the Scorsese doc ... sure, they recreate the “Judas” moment and other stuff flawlessly … but is it essential as I find the other works? I’m not so sure.

There’s something about it that’s pretty much inherent in the title – it’s a portrait of an artist that, like that guy at the end of Citizen Kane, just about shrugs its shoulders and admits that it really can’t put a finger on him, that no man can be contained within a word, a soundbite, even a 2 hour ode such as this. I’ll admit that in the last 30 minutes I was completely captivated – in the end it does finally start to merge into something resembling a whole … so it’s also yet another movie for which a second viewing will be essential and could easily change everything I’ve written above. Cate Blanchett is as good as everybody is saying; I really liked Christian Bale’s portrayal, too; and the rest of the cast are about as appealing. Of course, the music rocks. But at this point, I’m almost afraid to say, it’s the visuals that stand out above all else.

I guess this can sort of double as a mini-review of Kylie Minogue’s new album, X, since I’m still not really up to writing about the music I’m listening to as much as I’d like to. I listened to the new album this past weekend and loved it – and not just for the reason I expected to love it, which is that Karen Poole, Shelly’s sister, ex-Alisha’s Attic, wrote a few songs on it.

From the first post credits shot here – of Kylie looking, well, normal for the first time, to me, in ages – this documentary really pulled me in. I used to be a massive fan of Kylie. She’s one of the celebrities I could count on the fingers of one hand who I’ve been so obsessed with when I was little that I literally covered walls with the tiniest magazine cuttings related to her. Those little shots here where she’s completely unhindered by the publicity, the make-up, the image of herself, they reminded me of that love I used to have for her. It’s in those moments that the subtitle “A Personal Portrait” strays far from the lie I thought the film makers could easily get away with considering the name. It reminded me very much of the Molly Dineen documentary about Geri Halliwell ... except – and here’s where the negative starts – I hate to say it, but outside of these fleeting glimpses it ultimately doesn’t get anywhere near as close as it clearly wants to.

The problem I have with “the new” Kylie, that is to say, pretty-much post-Eighties and Neighbours and Stock, Aitken, Waterman (actually, having written that I now realise how much that Kylie fits what I’m about to say too …) – and the problem I have with the album (though I wouldn’t call it a problem since, like I said, I love the album) – is that she’s almost literally become nothing more than a puppet for other people’s concerns.

There’s a moment here where we see her in concert doing Madonna’s “Vogue”; it closes with her as Marilyn Monroe singing “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”. Midway you see her giving Christmas presents to sick kids with “Santa Claus” and it appears to them (and the intercut black and white interview shows her pretty much agreeing) that she might as well be the fairy on the Christmas Tree so much does she continue the democratic, impersonal, careful performance – even when offstage. In one scene she’s unable to do anything onstage because the whole concert is being controlled by “two superhuman computers,” we hear, which have gone awry. She’s tellingly credited as “The Showgirl” in the end credits, as if the whole film had been some kind of a fiction. I was amazed while checking the credits of the film on the IMDb that the director, William Baker, is apparently a close friend of Kylie’s – so much does he seem … to me, at least … to be always indirectly commenting on ‘what’s wrong with this picture’, not just with Kylie but with the Whole Fame Thing. I guess he’s just the really good kind of friend that actually points things like that out.

Like I said, the album X is fantastic – but it’s got nothing to do with Kylie. It’s a songwriters’ and producers’ showcase, and the characters of Karen Poole, Guy Chambers, Cathy Dennis, etc, even the ghost of Serge Gainsbourg, come through 1000 times more than anything the mere image of Kylie on the cover has to offer. What the man behind the camera says at the start of “White Diamond” really turns out to be all too succinct – “They think Neighbours + Michael Hutchence + gold hot pants + cancer = Kylie, and you’re scared to let them any closer,” to which her response is a faux-cool, “Right! 10 points.” The scariest thing to me is that perhaps the real reason she’s scared is that there’s literally nothing beyond that crude equation.

There are glimpses here of a normal girl screaming to be herself, and those for me make it well worth the look – it’s the little things, head in hands over a meal for one, dancing down the hall to the stage, asking the cameraman if the thing on her head looks ridiculous, giggling over Photobooth on her MacBook (“Hours of entertainment”), her too-cute warm-up routine, messing around on the beach with 2 random younger fans – but in the end it’s an immensely sad portrait, even sadder than Geri was all alone in that big house.

I don’t know, I could be just reading too much of myself into her, which I guess is the appeal of such impersonality in celebrity, we all see something of ourselves in someone like Kylie. “So much to say, and I just don’t know how to say it,” she says at the point that moved me the most. The film has beautiful moments like that, no question. It’s the way it makes you realise how much personality is burned away to make these big faceless Vegas-style productions, these megastars. I kinda knew it already … but to see it happening before your eyes is almost too much. The weird part for me is when they bring in Bono of all people – and he makes Kylie’s performance look positively humble by his playing to the camera – and then they unite onstage to sing “Kids”, and all doubt collapses under you as you just can’t help warming to them both even despite having had the whole thing deconstructed before your face just seconds previously.

I guess, if nothing else, it’s some kind of masterclass in fame. The biggest question it asks is how much of yourself are you willing to sacrifice? And it’s a question that’s been asked plenty before – but to those of us who care, it really can’t be asked enough. There’s another moment where she sings about, “living the dream,” and she shouts, “this is one of my dreams,” all dolled up in a sparkling red dress to a cheering crowd, and again, it’s presented in such a questioning way that all you can think is: if there’s a reason to hold her up and congratulate her, it’s ‘cos she’s living that soul-destroying dream so nobody else has to.

As I’ve said before, when a film makes me babble this much it can’t possibly be bad. But this one’s too sad to come back to in a hurry, it fails to get close to its subject, and I find it slightly bizarre how little it touched on her fight against cancer.

I’m sure my opinion will lose a lot of respect when I say this (lol like it has a lot to lose) ... but this is now one of my ten favourite movies ever, and it damn near tops the bunch. There’s just so much in this movie that hits me in the places I want movies to hit me. The Dakota tea-cup ride scenes hit me in a really personal place so hard, that look on her face that’s just like, typical, one week early to ride, pulling the glasses down over her eyes so Brittany Murphy can’t see her tearing up; and later when they finally ride it, both of them working out years of frustration on the wheel and each other; and like, I guess I can’t deny that where I am in life right now makes the whole “grow up” theme resonate deeper too, Murphy’s response to somebody telling her, “But this isn’t you!” – “I can’t afford ‘me’ anymore …”.

I can understand why a lot of people will put this movie down before they even see it, and I can understand why not a lot of people will consider it anything more than a bit of fluff to pass the time – but I can’t understand how anyone could see it and say the amount of bad things that have been said about it … I mean, I can’t believe how I gave it only 3 stars on my first viewing, I can’t believe it didn’t get me in the way it got me today. And the finale … it just doesn’t get better than Dakota letting her hair down and leading a ballet troupe armed with electric guitars.

April 2nd, 2005:

I love how nearly all Dakota Fanning movies seem to have come from some kind of story meeting where someone goes, “Okay, she’s an amazing actress… but she’s 11… who’re we gonna put with her? I know, she’s gonna need some-one to look after her – she’s a kid, afterall… but who?” So we have a giant talking cat, a psychotic killer, a hitman, a mentally retarded man, and here, a spoiled bitch. I may just steal this system when I run dry of ideas for my own screenplays, lol…

Once again Brittany Murphy makes her character 800x more sympathetic than she probably deserves (see last year’s Little Black Book, which I loved), and once again Dakota Fanning steals the movie.

Watching it reminded me of last year’s Raising Helen. Boaz Yakin is an interesting director, lots of visual ideas à la Bronwyn Hughes (Forces of Nature, Harriet the Spy). There’s a neat continuing idea about the spinning tea-cup ride at Coney Island, one beautiful image where Dakota is just staring at it; and in the final ballet recital scene, loads of little ballerinas carrying electric guitars.

I say it so often but it’s always worth repeating – sometimes, you just watch a movie at exactly the right time, and this was one of those for me, hitting me on every emotional level. I wasn’t even sure if I’d count this documentary as a “real” movie and write anything about it, but for all the love, joy, energy, beauty and sorrow that is Geri Halliwell that it captures, I think perhaps it should at least have an IMDb page? (Seriously, I can’t find one – someone let me know if I’m being an idiot – it’s directed by Molly Dineen and no, it’s not VH1’s “Behind the Music”)

I just submitted an additions form for the title to the IMDb, we’ll see what happens. Update: Oh well – IMDb says it’s this but I’m pretty frickin’ sure it isn’t. I even sent this link along with the additions form, where, btw, omg, I just realised you can actually watch the whole movie online (didn’t have the latest flash last time I visited it, I’m guessing that’s why I didn’t see it). Update 2: The IMDb finally has acknowledged the movie’s existence lol

I’ve actually found myself wondering frequently over the past year what it is I love so much about Geri. I loved her last album and I felt downright hurt by her appearance in the abominable Fat Slags. But outside of watching Spiceworld: The Movie at the end of last year, I’ve barely even thought of her at all, aside from, as I said, why it was there was a time I used to love her so much. This documentary really captures that conflicted feeling – ‘cos for all the energy she is able to exude, it’s evident on almost every frame how lonely and sad and longing to be loved she is, how she’s able to ‘play’ confident and ‘play’ outgoing but she retreats so easily into herself at the drop of a hat. In short, I fell in love with her all over again and – I’m sure I’m not alone – by the end of the movie all I wanted to do was hug her (shut up, I’m being serious here – not to say she isn’t stunning to look at). That after-movie activity being unavailable to me, I might just stick some Spice Girls and Geri stuff on my iPod this weekend.

The last image is particularly haunting – shots of Geri sitting with a puppy on the stairs, or roller skating through the halls of her new, big, ridiculously spacious (considering she seems only to have a handful of friends and a small family) house are juxtaposed with shots of a Sindy doll dressed as Ginger Spice in a similar doll’s house … Geri herself points out that a dressing table she has in her bedroom is exactly like one she had in her doll’s house as a little girl. An earlier scene shows her in a big FAO Schwartz/ Hamley’s type toy store, where she explains her fascination for toys by the fact she never really had many. It’s like she’s recreating the dreams she had as a kid as if that’s what reality should be. It’s kinda creepy and odd, but also sad … but somewhere there seems to be hope too. Kinda leaves you not knowing what to think, I guess.