The May Day staple Actually, I’m not sure if I’ve ever actually remembered to watch it on May 1st so this may actually be a first though it’s long been the plan. On this occasion I decided to watch the 15-minute-longer “director’s cut” – it took some deciding but in the end I remembered it’s really just the theatrical cut with deleted scenes spliced in so in a way you wind up watching both at the same time if you’re already familiar with the theatrical version.

I don’t think the extra scenes make a huge amount of difference – though it heightens our understanding of Howie to see him on the mainland at the start, the quality of the scenes (I’m not talking about the grainy nature of the print they had to use, I mean the general acting and production quality which dips below perfect more than a few times during the rest of the film) is the film at its most flawed and hokey. The sooner you get Edward Woodward in the same room as Britt Ekland or Christopher Lee here, the better, ‘cos that’s when all its failings go out of the window as it begins to soar into the ether.

It’s one of those films that can be taken many different ways depending on your outlook on all the fronts it addresses. Whether you’re religious or not, what religion that may be, what your moral views and more happen to be (and if you’re anything like me, all these things will tend to shift wildly over time), the movie will affect you differently, but every different interpretation will be just as extraordinary as the next.

Usually when I watch this movie, while I’m not exactly on the side of the Summerisle residents, I find myself just as against Howie as I am them: because of his stubbornness, it’s almost fun to watch him being made (literally, in the end) a fool of, that is, of course, until it all goes too far at the end. This time, I was struck at the end how everybody actually wins and I found his ending almost a triumph for his faith, a sacrifice as powerful as that of Karras at the end of The Exorcist, even though all control is out of Howie’s hands, he makes his own death into something grander … through his singing, his praying, his resoluteness to the end.

The way we see Howie almost wallowing in his religion throughout the movie, most particularly the struggle we see in him as Willow tempts him through the thin walls of the inn, his end here is almost inevitable and almost the only way he can resolve his devotion to that quite miserable form of religion. He wins because until the very end he insists on his own beliefs, he never gives into temptation; by the rules of his religion, not to mention the law, he’s done right.

Contrast that with, by law, the “murderers” of Summerisle, that horrifying image of Lee and others swinging from side to side joyously singing “Summertime is coming in,”: their end is happier, but it’s really no different from Howie’s. They’re just as trapped by the rules of their religion, and they win too.

It’s a stunningly simple set-up, and for me it works everytime, if sometimes a little differently than expected. As I said, it’s flawed, but there’s so much (I haven’t even mentioned the beautiful songs by Paul Giovanni, it’s one soundtrack I’ll never grow tired of) to make up for the dips in quality.

Wow, there are some pretty awful things said out there about this lol. It seemed like a perfect partner for the Streisand Star is Born and I wasn’t far wrong. I certainly wouldn’t go as far in damning this as some have – even in the area of Neil Diamond’s “performance” I found nothing to really despair over. People have called it bad acting. I’d say, thank god he didn’t act, because, it’s true, he clearly can’t. What he gives in front of the camera is importantly not acting, and I think compared to a lot of so-called “acting” over the years – even, dare I say, some of Streisand’s stuff in the aforementioned Star is Born, deserves the bad-mouthing more – I honestly have to say, he’s not that bad at all. This is one case where the Kermode “I’d rather an actor who can sort of sing than a singer who can sort of act” rule is well-broken in my eyes, maybe because I’d always rather the writer of the songs sang his own songs rather than anybody else … that this in itself is a whole part of the story here makes Diamond the only honest choice for the part.

The only real problem with this movie is, like A Star is Born, the way it feels so by the numbers over the story. The conflict is shattered the moment Diamond’s father gives him his blessing way too early in the game (I haven’t seen the original of this – yes, spank me – but I thought this familial conflict was like the whole point of the story? lol, here it’s like, “no, no, no … oh, okay …”) ... and as such, the great songs notwithstanding, I have to say I was probably moved more by the Krusty the Clown version on The Simpsons lol …

But the songs are great, and it’s great to see Diamond singing them. It deserves to be repeated how great a double bill this and A Star is Born are too. Despite how disappointed I was with both of them, there’s something about the very idea of their existence that makes me know I’ll still do it again one day, probably more than once. They certainly feel like great movies because of the giants behind them, and there are definitely glimmers of their genius that break through the iffy surface.

Nice long first review below so I don’t feel compelled to say too much here this time but to mention how surprised I was that it worked so well a second time. The ending here is probably seen as particularly corny to some, and when I first saw it though it really overwhelmed me I wasn’t sure if it’d just caught me at the right time. I think the reason it looks like it’s actually going to work for me any number of times I see it now comes down to two things: the line that precedes it from the boy, “But this is my story, and this is where I want it to end …”, and all that water. The movie comes down to a child’s hope and water: how beautifully simple can you get? I should also repeat the fact that I should really watch this movie before and after anything featuring James Nesbitt – I’ve really grown to dislike him recently, mostly over the casting of him in the BBC’s “Passion” as Pontius Pilate … but he really is quite amazing here.

September 6th, 2007:

Absolute genius. A quintessential children’s movie (okay, it’s a 12A in the UK, I don’t agree; it gets a little scary towards the end but this so fits the bill alongside old children’s classics that I think it should almost be a U) and a quintessential British movie – addressing poverty, class, religion, the ethnic minorities, all those lovely things – in one. Not to mention the fact it remains at all turns, absolutely, a Danny Boyle film. I’ve yet to see Sunshine, but on the evidence up to now, I’ve got to say, surely Boyle is one of the most consistently brilliant directors not only in the UK but in the whole field.

The basic story is that a few weeks before the UK switches from Pound Sterling to Euros, a young boy discovers a bag stuffed with hundreds of thousands (not millions, but hey, what’s the difference to a child?) and must therefore decide what to do with it before it becomes worthless. If movies like Brewster’s Millions and Blank Cheque come to mind with that set-up, you couldn’t be further off. While all around him seem obsessed to the point of stereotype with football, the kid in question here has this obsession with Catholic Saints reminiscent of Winona Ryder’s character in Mermaids ... he even thinks he can see and talk to them at times (leading to hilarious moments when one of said Saints drops into his cardboard house by the railway for a sneaky joint, lol; or the Geordie Saint Peter telling him, “For Christ’s sake don’t tick them little boxes,” as the kid attempts to send the money to various charities). Against all odds, this kid wants to do good with this money, and is amazed at how hard that is.

I was hooked on this from the moment the Danny Elfman-esque opening music (incidentally, wonderful score all the way through by John Murphy) – coupled with some CGI of a new housing estate being constructed, a bit reminiscent of a Barratt commercial actually, but bizarrely beautiful – struck up, and it only got better from there. It never took the directions I thought it would. At times it’s similar to child fantasy movies like Lawn Dogs or Paperhouse; at times, the influence of much older, earthier things like Whistle Down the Wind is more evident (I have in mind in particular the scenes where the kid and his brother are introducing their school peers to the money; and the long line of homeless people following them to Pizza Hut).

It’s a mesmerising, beautiful movie with much to say about childhood and the state of the world, perhaps best captured best in the abandoned way the hero says to his dad at the end, “Everyone gets robbed at Christmas, dad.” Incidentally, major kudos has to be given to James Nesbitt here. Though I think he’s really talented, he normally manages to do something to annoy me; here, he not only didn’t do that, but he manages to cover up his seemingly uncoverable accent; Daisy Donovan is a delight, too, I had no idea she could act. The kids, it has to be said, aren’t fantastic; but it’s clear that Boyle has almost used their weaknesses to his advantage; again, it’s almost like watching a much older production. This is really a gem, and possible Boyle’s best movie to date.

I don’t think I’ll have seen this since I was about 16 so maybe it makes sense just how much of it felt new to me this time around, not to mention how I couldn’t have hoped to understand it that first time watching. All I really recalled, and even that only partially, was the last 20 minutes or so, the “last temptation” itself – when the movie really deviates and, I guess, causes offense to some. But while this movie even opens with a scroll disclaiming any direct association with the Gospels (and, you’ve gotta give it kudos, warning that it will be more a discussion than a storytelling session), it’s pretty amazing how faithful it is to the big story, right down to details like the guard’s ear in Gethsemene, stuff that’s cut out of other retellings so often that I’d forgotten it entirely since whatever Sunday school type affair taught it to me lol Take that last temptation as a dream sequence, which is I think a perfectly valid interpretation of it, and I really don’t see the offense at all.

For a late Eighties production, it’s gotta be said up front, the production values are beyond astounding. One of the things that struck me most about it this time around is how for some unknown reason it never once feels like by rights it should – that is, not to sound condescending or anything, but, like a bunch of Americans doing the Crucifixion story, lol. It almost wouldn’t have felt out of place if Robert De Niro had shown up in a key role here. There’s just something about the way Scorsese pulls it all together, Peter Gabriel’s score over the top, I don’t know. I don’t know if the fact that even David Bowie makes a better Pontius Pilate here than James Nesbitt in the recent BBC production is indicative of just how awful that Beeb casting was (like we need more proof – I was thinking just this afternoon how the only way they could possibly have made their production original would be to finally have a black Jesus …) or again of how surprisingly well this production falls together considering the elements.

At the center of that “bunch of Americans” is Willem Dafoe, and I think in him I may have found my personal favourite movie Jesus. I believe him, to a frightening extent. I’ve always said that I’m more a fan of the musical versions of this story, but this version quite literally overwhelmed me at times. It’s the way in which it brings logic to the table with almost insane calculation – he was a carpenter, we’ve heard, but this suggests he may have built the very crosses he and his fellow Jews were crucified on; when he preaches to a crowd, this version gives him dissenters, not unanimous adulation; when he carries the cross, it’s only part of the cross, when he’s crucified, he’s bone naked; even when it comes to those last ethereal 20 minutes or so, the logic applied takes my breath away … that God would kill Mary, that Saul/Paul would invent the Jesus we know of even if he had fallen to that last temptation. This production has the kind of issues behind it that all religious movies should have – it’s the questioning we all have for it all. It shows what, perhaps, Jesus really sacrificed up there on the cross.

I know that last sentence makes me sound way too much like the kind of religious nut I can’t stand; the weird thing of all this is that I don’t consider myself religious in the slightest – like Jesus says here, “God is not an Israelite!” and too many people claim him for themselves, and that’s my problem so I just say there’s a Higher Power and that’s that, you don’t need to run around doing anything for it, just know that it’s there and try to work in its favour etc. That said, and I think I’ve said it before and will say it again, when the Jesus stories are done well, I can really get involved with it all. When he speaks of love here, for instance, I get it. When the people run from him to kill the people he has said are wrong and he yells after them, “Not death! I said love!” I get it. It really makes me wonder if we’re reaching a similar point now when so few people are willing to love in lieu of cynicism and suspicion. Is anyone gonna stand up at the 11th hour and risk making an ass of themselves to save us? It’s a movie I know that now it’s really in me – I almost don’t even count that first viewing as a teenager as really seeing it – is going to haunt me as long as my brain’s ticking.

“There are just so many stupid, annoying, worthless people on the planet. They just like, get in the way of what you want.”

The first thing this movie reminded me of was my most shameless personal fave, Slap Her … She’s French (especially considering that movie’s alternate title “She Gets What She Wants”) ... but it’s a lot more subtle, extreme and subversive than that. It’s funny I found myself watching it during the BBC’s “White” week, in a way. The moment Evan Rachel Wood starts her speech about how wonderful it is to be white being as she wants to be an actress, all of this told to a Muslim student, listing Asian as her second choice, then Afro-American, and finally Arab … it certainly makes you gasp if anything more than I remembered “Slap Her” did – and where that race line goes in the end … I still don’t know quite what to think of it except to compare it to the other stereotypes in the movie, like, yes, the male and female ones, and say that it is one of those movies where the stereotypes really never bother me quite as much as they should, basically because the script just oozes smarts and Wood delivers those smarts in a way I really think nobody else could. It seems like she gets better with every film I see her in, and the final shot of her here is just phenomenal. James Woods, Jane Krakowski and Selma Blair are the icing on the cake.

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.

This is a whole lot more fun than expected. I mean, it’s fun enough for around the first half hour with Heath Ledger – I think between this and Brokeback Mountain in 2005 we have another acting masterclass to match Russell Crowe’s turns in 2000 in The Insider and Gladiator, I mean you couldn’t ask an actor to play more different roles more differently. But here Ledger is practically just icing on the cake once Jeremy Irons and “is that really?!?” Oliver Platt arrive. I’ve always thought Platt a brilliant actor, Simon Birch and Pieces of April most immediately come to mind … but I’ve never seen nor did I ever expect to see him as he is here, practically doing Timothy Spall better than Timothy Spall. It’s very funny, very fast-paced, and with a lot of interesting things to say about religion, censorship, and gender: in the latter’s case, importantly to me, never in ways that annoy. Definitely one I’ll watch again – and there aren’t many recent period movies I can say that of.

I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that this would be the least interesting of the Boaz Yakin double bill tonight, but yikes … I appreciate Uptown Girls even more now, lol. This reminded me a little of the Barbra Streisand movie Up the Sandbox minus all the surreal stuff that made that movie so much fun. If this one had been made in the 70s and starred Streisand with say Mandy Patinkin in the Christopher Eccleston role – that said, the one positive I can give it is how startlingly convincing he is – then and only then might it have been anything worth recommending. One of the quotes on the DVD cover says, “Highly entertaining” ... I have no idea what movie they were watching.