Posts Tagged ‘suicide’

The Skin Game

The Skin Game

Friday, October 1st, 2010

“What’s gentility worth, if it can’t stand fire?”

Once more I’d been led to believe this was far worse than I personally found it. It’s another play adaptation by Hitchcock about which he himself had very little to say. It pretty much had me very early on with a stunning dissolve between the two extremes of society it paints a picture of the conflict between: a girl on a horseback riding down a tree-lined road, and a rich man driving towards his expensive house in noisy motor car, both in perfect symmetry to further draw the eye:

Juxtaposition in The Skin Game

These two images pretty much say everything the movie wants to say in just a few seconds. The French critic who introduces the film on the DVD I have sounds perfectly baffled as to why Hitch would have chosen to direct this movie but to me it seems perfectly clear. The Farmer’s Wife had shown his love of the English countryside and here we see the threat of its disappearance at the hands of money men (the very last shot, even, following a tragic climax, is that of a single tree being felled). Juno & the Paycock showed his concern for class issues, and that too comes through here. I don’t know, I still wouldn’t call this one of his best works, but I do believe it feels a lot more like a Hitchcock movie somehow than his other “non-Hitchcockian” works of the time.



Odd Girl Out

Odd Girl Out

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Again, I wanted to watch this for a long time (a very long time, in fact) not only for Alexa Vega’s role, but also a rare post-Annie appearance by Alicia Morton, shortly after which she seems to have quit acting completely. I’d also heard seriously good things about the movie in general, and there aren’t many movies like this which I don’t find at least marginally more interesting than most others.

The problem initially for me was pretty much related to that… there have been so many other good movies on this subject – and this one seemed immediately to fall bang in between two of the best, Mean Girls and Thirteen, the former for its extreme bullying (albeit here with the humour stripped away) and the latter for its rawness, here found in Alexa Vega’s performance. It was interesting to watch this straight after Remember the Daze where she’s older and glossier. The only way I can describe Alexa’s face in this movie is, it’s like a Carpenters song… you know that empty, lonely, drained and sad but still beautiful quality their sound had? Something like that. You utterly believe her loneliness in this movie and that helps a ton in understanding a lot of her decisions.

What I wanted and hoped for from this movie, and it was a big ask, was some kind of answer to the behaviour it presents. Alexa Vega’s character here ultimately finds herself cornered with literally nobody that she can go to for help because all her trust circles collapse for various reasons and the bullying she is subjected to is not easily explained to anyone who isn’t involved. I understand that place well, and I kind of still find myself there sometimes, but like the mother here explains to her daughter at one point, I never really figured out how to deal with it.

Astonishingly, I felt like the movie kind of gave me such closure. Something far more satisfying than I expected, at least. This movie gets so sad and this girl’s situation so impossible that I really feared that it was simply that kind of movie, that merely presents the seeming unconquerable nature of these situations and leaves it hanging there. There’s a really excruciating moment following the girl’s attempt at suicide when she returns to school and once again accepts her “best friend”‘s apology with open arms and part of me was just hoping she was finally leading them on, setting up some kind of revenge. I kind of lost all sympathy for her once I realised nope, she was just that naïve (there are a lot of moments like this, it must be said, when the whole thing is a little too extreme to be believable). But then the truth comes out, and it’s the final straw, and she confronts the one person who hurt her most and says something simple but perfect,

“You have nothing that I want.”

It worked for me, anyway. I don’t know about the state of bullying in schools today, there are a lot of people over on this movie’s IMDb board claiming this kind of thing never happens and certainly not these days: but I believe that it could happen, anywhere; that these situations don’t just occur in school; and that for anybody who finds themselves in such a situation, or anything even close, would find a light at the end of the tunnel in this movie. It’s the best performance I’ve seen yet from Alexa Vega, truly haunting, and the rest of the cast aren’t too bad either (Alicia Morton is particularly frightening, about as far removed from her button-nosed Annie as you could get). Really worth looking for.



Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008

I’m determined to find my movie-writing brain before the year is out so I can dive into 2009 and make something better of this place than I admit it’s been the past 6 months or so – but again, there just seems to be so little to write about what I’m watching lately. I looked forward to this one, a lot; but I’ve gotta admit, I kinda don’t know exactly why. There’s a cool to Hunter S. Thompson I really can’t claim to fully know as well as I’d like. Even though it’s now 10 years since Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing movie – which I watched at the time predominantly for Christina Ricci’s tiny role, that got me to read Thompson’s book, that in turn made me put his entire output in my mental “to read” list – I’ve still not got around to reading another word by the man.

Luckily, this is a doc that seems set on catering to the “Fear and Loathing only” types like me, and Johnny Depp’s Raoul Duke voice is all over these two hours. It’s not a particularly sweeping doc, picking the most iconic chunks of Thompson’s life, namely the Hell’s Angels, “Fear and Loathing”, politics, and his suicide. It’s an interesting documentary, as well made as they all are now; but aside from the suicide stuff at the end and footage of his glorious funeral concept being made real, I didn’t feel like it told me anything I didn’t already know or that I wouldn’t learn in a richer way by finally getting round to those books of his. Perhaps that’s the film maker’s goal here, to get us to read. Can’t argue with that.



Roman

Roman

Monday, November 3rd, 2008

I’ve been longing to see this ever since I first heard about it seeing as I loved the previous Lucky McKee / Angela Bettis partnership May (where he directed and she starred; here those roles reversed) but I kind of feared disappointment, particularly in lining it up this Halloween to finally view – first because I love “May” so much that’s its practically impossible to top, and more importantly for the Halloween viewing, because I wasn’t all too sure of how much of a “horror” movie it really was.

Anyway, I needn’t have worried. Bettis seems perfectly at home behind the camera just as McKee delivers a strong performance in front, particularly in the closing reel. I didn’t fall in love with Roman as I did May, perhaps because his ‘malfunction’ doesn’t come over as particularly quirky or understandable. Where May really just seemed misunderstood and misunderstanding of her appreciation of beauty to me, Roman seems to just crack under physical lust and then get caught in a repetitive spiral. Maybe again we’re just talking those gender traits that everyone seems so agreed upon, [[shrugs]], I don’t know. One thing’s for sure, I really didn’t see the ending coming, and the truth in that last line, “I killed her,” really leaves you haunted just like May’s “See me!” They certainly make a terrific double bill. If only they could’ve just met one another, perhaps nobody would’ve had to die, lol.



The Apartment

The Apartment

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

Hmm … I had a feeling this would leave me with little to say and I’m sad to say I was right. While Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine are perfectly fine here and the script gave me a few through the nose sniggers, I couldn’t help but find myself wondering where the classic status comes from. It seems to me the movie is 2 hours of a man finally telling a bunch of bullies to step off, with a little suicide in the last third. I’d seen the champagne scene before, of course, and again, though it’s clever, I never before saw it as heartstoppingly powerful as others seemed to, and I can’t say having seen the whole production that I’m any wiser. I guess it’s one of those that’s simply not for me.



Pretty Persuasion

Pretty Persuasion

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

“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.



Harold and Maude

Harold and Maude

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Well, finally, I loved this one so much it went over A Clockwork Orange in my 1971 list and thus shot straight to the top of my favourite movies of all time … kinda knew that’d happen sooner or later. Again, there’s little to say that I haven’t said below or that others haven’t said before, but I noticed a couple of cute things this time around worth mentioning, both of them costume related; the way Harold is dressed exactly the same as the psychiatrist in their first meeting, and the way Maude is dressed almost exactly the same as a little girl walking in the same way as her behind her at one of the early funerals … Maude, though, carrying that bright yellow umbrella that makes her look more like the little girl, lol. It’s just an absolutely beautiful movie I could quote or talk about scenes from for hours. “For me, they will always be glorious birds …” – “Most of life’s sorrow comes from people who are this – but allow themselves to be treated like that …” I probably should’ve saved it for Valentine’s Day … though that’s reserved for Hannibal still this year :) One day I’ll write a much longer review … for now, just consider it an even higher recommendation, if you’ve not seen it yet, than I gave for Beautiful Girls a few weeks ago.

January 5th, 2006:

I’m surprised by how much I said in my first review of this (below). I really can’t think of much to say about it right now, I need to watch it so many more times. I want to know ths movie by heart. Everything about it is perfect. Its offbeat take on life, death, and love is beyond compare. Maude is one of the greatest movie characters ever.

18th October 2004:

Someone recommended this movie to me a while ago and I already knew about it and knew it was a movie I wanted to see, and after that recommendation, I wanted to see it even more. I don’t know why it took me till now to finally see it.

I was barely even in the right frame of mind to watch it, nevertheless it belongs forever in my top 100 movies of all time. It’s only just at 100 after a first viewing but I just know it’s going to rise and rise. These two characters are people I want to hang with forever. Harold and Maude belongs in that group of movies that just tell you to grab life by the balls. It’s almost terrifying in that aspect, Maude is so free-spirited she would make almost anyone on earth feel somewhat lifeless.

And the soundtrack by Cat Stevens … well, it’s awesome, but more than anything makes me want to hear more Cat Stevens. Why is this soundtrack never uttered in the same breath as Simon and Garfunkel’s The Graduate and Aimee Mann’s Magnolia? I see something of Cameron Crowe’s influence coming from this movie too, I wonder if he’s ever mentioned it on a commentary anywhere – I’m going to have to watch Almost Famous again.

Definitely one of the most romantic movies of all time.



Control [2007]

Control [2007]

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Little to add to the first review here but on BAFTA night to single out Sam Riley. I was shocked by his exclusion from most of the awards, let alone the whole movie in other categories, when nominations were first announced; after watching his performance a second time, my mind simply boggles. I honestly think this whole movie belongs up there with the likes of There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men this year, and his performance up with Day Lewis and Depp, not to mention the cinematography … it of course baffles me even more that it’s excluded from so many categories at the BAFTAs, and I hope it wins all that it’s up for.

November 27th, 2007:

I really didn’t know how I’d fare with this one, not really being a huge fan of Joy Division nor really even knowing much of their story or music except for what was touched on by the brilliant 24 hour Party People … to illustrate how little, I didn’t know anything about Ian Curtis’ epilepsy. And I’ll admit, in light of 24 hour Party People, I did find myself wondering about the need for this movie.

It didn’t take long for me to realise this was one of the best movies of the year, though. I can be pretty picky about movies like this if they don’t feel like they gel as a whole from the start – the ensemble, the design, the authenticity, especially these days when it’s so much more possible, everything has to be right about these movies – and if nothing else, this one is certainly the best “period” movie of the year technical-wise up with Zodiac and American Gangster. This one betters both those by far though with the other less technical stuff – the stuff that makes cinema get inside you. The performances are all perfect, believable – I think it says it all that even Craig Parkinson’s turn as Tony Wilson works following Steve Coogan’s, at the time, seemingly irrepeatable take on the guy.

The soundtrack, of course, is perfect. Mark Kermode has said all that needs to be said about how right the decision to have Sam Riley do his own singing was – the cool thing I think he didn’t mention though is how the band sounds too. Like I said, I’m not a Joy Division fan – I’m one of those people who know the songs but wouldn’t immediately name the artist … at best I’d be, like, “ummm … someone from the Manchester thing?” lol. But in addition to being a portrait of a doomed young artist to rank up there with The Doors, to a lesser extent Last Days, etc, this actually made me for the first time want to listen to the music too. The black and white photography is simply beautiful, it’s the kind of movie where almost every frame is an art print, and it’s far from being all misery like it could’ve been. It’s one of the best British films in ages, and I haven’t done my double bill recommendation thing in ages … even if it’s obvious, I can’t think of a better pair than this and the aforementioned Party People.