It’s of course even harder to write a level-headed review of this movie following Heath Ledger’s death than it was in the fog of Oscar buzz on its original release, and these are the only two ways I’ve yet seen it, so time will still tell as to whether it’s as good as I’ve found it both times around. Sky Movies had it scheduled to screen the night following Heath’s death, I think purely out of coincidence – they did a triple bill of his movies on Saturday in a specific tribute – and I kinda felt like I wanted to do something, like anything, as the news just hit me in a way I’d never have expected and it seems it hit a lot of people the same way too.

The first time I saw the movie, I kind of missed the 1963 date at the start and it took me until the late 70s/early 80s styles came in to actual realise exactly when it was all set, and it seems to me this kind of highlights why it’s so much better than the surface story would suggest. So many movies do the whole society against the minority thing, and this could’ve easily gone exactly the same way. What makes this one special is the deep-seated conflict at the very heart of the relationship – Ennis’ absolute conviction that what they’re doing is just abhorrent, and where that notion comes from. This story could happen right now – though society has just about changed for the better when it comes to accepting sexuality, it doesn’t make it any easier for those with a certain upbringing to accept who they are let alone act on it. The sixties setting here really only heightens an already tough piece of drama.

I was upset at the time when Ledger didn’t get the Oscar – though I was glad to see checking the IMDb while watching that he was nominated … I’d forgotten if it was he or Jake Gyllenhaal who got recognised (they both did – Gyllenhaal in the supporting category) – of course, I’m even more upset now. It’s probably been said all over the place especially in the past week, I’ve read it myself a dozen times, but it’s one of those things that deserves to be said so often – it’s an amazing performance. The key scene in the tent, from his half-pushing Gyllenhaal away, half-pulling him back; his long-coming emotional outburst after Gyllenhaal’s “I wish I knew how to quit you!” line; to that last line, “Jack I swear”; the one word that comes to mind about every second of this character is “beauty”. And it’s a beautiful film he lives in.

24th January, 2006:

I was one of the first people to snigger at the gay cowboy thing, I confess … I’m a South Park fan, I watch Letterman, what can I say? Add to that, I really didn’t like the hype that this movie was getting. Much as I respect Ang Lee as a film maker – even in the recent shadow of Hulk, The Ice Storm at least was a masterpiece – and good as the movie looked, it still felt a little to me like all the last remaining homophobes on the planet were finally coming out to beg redemption by praising it. I mean, didn’t Far From Heaven kinda tread this territory before without such a hue and cry?

So I began the movie looking for reasons to hate it – it’s a little obvious here, a little clichéd there, etc, etc. But, I’m glad (relieved?) to report, my prejudices are not set in stone. This movie is even more beautiful and deep than I’d been led to expect. And when I say deep, I mean I’m seriously, as Cartman would say :p The photography is gorgeous, the pacing precise and never dull, the performances, eek, I’m gonna say it, braver than anything in recent memory. Heath Ledger is going to get the Oscar, I hope Michelle Williams too. As movies go, 2005 just looks better and better the more I see – why couldn’t all these movies be scattered throughout instead of all clumped in the end???

As a sports movie, this was obviously gonna be a hard sell for me – its sole achievement threatening to be that it makes Friday Night Lights seem even more pointless. But when I love a movie as much as I love Uptown Girls, I don’t let the subject matter get in the way of catching up on the director’s other work.

The complete lack of any conflict or drama in the movie’s first half hour doesn’t help. This is a movie about a mixed race school football team, and the set-up is that they put this team together and everyone is pretty much fine about it. Luckily there’s an “ah-ha” moment around 35-40 minutes, though, where they enter “the real world” and things get tough – but it’s Disney, so, not that tough.

It’s watchable. But knowing me I’m probably only being nice ‘cos Hayden Panettiere (who it took me a while to recognise but I got there eventually – I guess I just always figured she was older than she is in Heroes lol) is cleverly planted in just about every other scene – her football crazy daughter of one of the coaches is about as funky as the rock ballerina girls in Uptown Girls and a little of a lot of cuteness like that (especially when it’s unexpected as it was to me here) goes a long way in a movie like this, lol. I’m sorry but I laughed my ass off at the “nanana, hey hey hey, goodbye” ending That tops Shrek the 3rd’s use of “Live and Let Die” for most inappropriate funeral scene ever, lol.

There isn’t a lot to say that’s unique about this documentary though I’d heartily recommend it to anyone just developing an interest in the subject it covers – that is Seventies cinema – ie, if you’ve not yet read the many better books etc that cover it already. “Easy Riders, Raging Bulls”, which I’ve not read nor have I seen the documentary adaptation, comes to mind. The Kid Stays in the Picture, too – a movie I’d much sooner watch than this again. This is mostly talking heads and clips. Not that it’s not a fun watch if you’re into the period; and I’m glad I finally saw it as it was the last production Ted Demme was involved with (his death is touched on lightly at the close, which I kinda take uncomfortable issue with – a post-credits thing maybe, but sad an occurrence as it was, it had nothing to do with the documentary subject). With him fresh off Blow, though, and with the title it has, I kinda expected a little more on the drugs side of things. Like the horror doc Going to Pieces from a couple of years ago, it’s really only useful as a perfect introduction or fun refresher on the subject.

I’m gonna come clean here and say, I actually watched this last week but I really couldn’t bring myself to review it because my response was so utterly non-existent compared to what I’d heard about it over the years. It’s directed by Bob Clark, who made A Christmas Story years later, a movie I was similarly underwhelmed by compared to its reputation.

So, I’ve seen it twice now. I get that it was 1974, it preceded all the slashers we all think defined the genre etc, like it even has the POV thing 4 years before Halloween. But, y’know, I’d always pegged Psycho and Night of the Living Dead and Peeping Tom for doing many of these things anyway. It’s better than the remake, I’ll give it that, but, having given it the second chance I give few movies that disappoint me, I’m really still just as I was after the first watch. It gets a little creepy just as they’re realising the killer is in the house, etc, but really, I was close to falling asleep both times. Very disappointing indeed.

Just when you think the well’s dry, another great director comes out with another great Vietnam movie. It’s amazing how different this one is from what’s come before. There are elements here and there of The Deer Hunter; of The Thin Red Line (not Vietnam, I know, but close enough – Klaus Bedelt’s wonderful score very like Hans Zimmer’s there, too); but this thing’s far more raw and animal, even beastly. Just when I began to think, “oh, that’s it? I kinda expected him to go through worse,” ... boy, did it give me worse.

Christian Bale’s performance is perfect – it begins so innocently that you almost start to wonder what everyone’s been getting so excited about, but boy does it build and by the end you truly feel he’s gone through it all. Steve Zahn, too, who I was looking forward to seeing almost more than I was to seeing Bale, starts out much as he has been in other movies, but it becomes something much more. The ending’s uber-corny, it can’t be overstated, but apart from that, it’s definitely well worth the watch.

This really fell for me into the same place as 3:10 to Yuma. Combine 3:10 with Zodiac, in fact, and you get almost exactly how this one made me feel. It’s perfectly well put together, but it’s procedural to the point of distraction and completely, unnecessarily, overlong.

Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe are mostly fine, but at times they allow the most annoying aspects of their respective personas to slip in in the most annoying ways imaginable – and Crowe’s accent is appalling. They’re both really phoning it in in my opinion compared with past glories.

It has some effective jolts, but honestly, the list of movies I’d recommend over this is endless. But to continue the connection to my Yuma review – I’m again left sorely longing for a Leone movie, Once Upon a Time in America, which covered everything a gangster movie needs to cover, and at nearly 4 hours isn’t remotely unnecessary. The similar story of Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables of course comes to mind too. Failing that, Blow comes to mind. And if you just want another 2007 movie that did the 70s period thing as if not more flawlessly, like I say, look no further than the meticulous David Fincher’s Zodiac ... which I want to see a second time even more after this.

I tried to write a review of this at the ass-end of my marathon last year but I couldn’t seem to help sounding a little disappointed. I think part of it is that I watched this movie a lot when I was younger and I’m just … sort of done with it – not that overviewing should ever taint a truly great movie; and also that, though it’d be a crazy person who didn’t recognise this movie as a classic, not just of the genre but of all cinema, this is a genre where the classics aren’t always the best.

Watching Rob Zombie’s remake earlier in the year, unlike others I was sure coming to it that there was room for a remake; watching the original now, I couldn’t be more certain. Zombie’s remake is at least as good as Carpenter’s original – making up for what is missing with stuff all its own – and in my mind honestly better for what it adds to Michael’s childhood (even over the short institution scene here, which had totally slipped my mind).

This was the “extended” version I watched this time, and the additions really leapt out at me so rare have I seen it compared to the original cut. Gotta love that pumpkin-like hearing room, and the “sister” scrawling on the wall – I like that there’s suddenly now at least a hint at the relationship between Michael and Laurie here. I think another reason Zombie’s version works better is that we’re more aware of what originally amounted to a twist in Halloween II.

Like I said, it is a classic. The steadicam camera work was not only groundbreaking (I know, it wasn’t the first, so don’t correct me – but it’s in my mind the most notable of the few firsts) but it actually looks as good as any steadicam work done today. John Carpenter’s score, also, is superb – I’d rank that higher in a list of great movie scores than I do the movie in my list of great movies. Donald Pleasance’s Loomis is almost as iconic a figure in horror as Michael Myers, and it’s all down to his performance (one element, I’m quick to add though, which they couldn’t have done better in substituting in the remake with Malcolm McDowell). Then there’s the breathing at the end. The one thing that still actually sends shivers through me. It’d be really great if they released it to the big screen again next year for its 30th anniversary – that could really give it power again. It is a classic. I’m just, I don’t know, always kinda tired of it.

The most tragically beautiful horror movie ever made? I think so. That said, I find the more I watch it, the less it even feels like a horror movie and more like the saddest, most painful high school movie that just happens to be punctuated by blood and the supernatural. The only part that always really chills me is Piper Laurie’s eerily joyous performance, and the piano theme that plays at the White house (currently on the playlist on my front page radio thing), most particularly when Carrie falls down the stairs. That music cue just feels completely like death – or rather, the draining of life.

Piper Laurie and Sissy Spacek were deservedly (if bizarrely – would it happen today, one wonders?) nominated for Oscars for their roles. I’m always just as taken by other performances, though: Amy Irving and Betty Buckley are particularly noteworthy. I love the way Buckley imbues Miss Collins with this real bug up her ass – I forget if her backstory is detailed in the novel, and I know she tells the story toward the end about taking the leader of the basketball team to her prom but I’m always torn between whether she was the Sue Snell of her time – a reluctant “popular girl” who sympathised with the Carrie Whites – or even worse the Carrie White of her time. There’s a real sense of triumph as she watches Carrie crowned as prom queen; of hope when she talks to Carrie about Tommy’s invitation; an instant confrontational attitude when she talks to the “popular” girls; instant doubt when asking Tommy and Sue about the illfated invitation. Intended or not, she does the all-grown-up bullied girl very well.

Then there’s the music. Pino Donaggio’s themes (far-too-obvious Psycho references notwithstanding, lol) – in addition to the two beautiful songs at the prom (“I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me” probably the best love song ever) are almost if not more than half the movie for me here. They carry you with Carrie to the depths with her mother at home and the horror of school to the tentative acceptance of the dream of having that final prom dance – and then the nightmare aftermath of even that seemingly impervious dream being shattered like all the rest.

BTW, the DVD of this is much better than I originally thought whenever it first came out. There are no commentaries or anything and the features list reads like just a bunch of promotional featurettes – but the “Acting Carrie” thing combined with “Visualising Carrie: From Words to Images” is really more like a decent behind-the-scenes documentary. Unfortunately it doesn’t actually contain the screentests they talk about … but it’s still really good hearing from most of the cast members years later.