Rumble Fish (1983)

****

It’s an odd film. I can’t really think of anything quite like it and hey, that is never a bad thing. I first saw this as part of director, Alex Cox’s Moviedrome season on BBC2. It was in a double bill with its companion piece from that same year, The Outsiders - also from an SE Hinton book. While The Outsiders is rich in colour and, conversely, realistic in its feel, Rumble Fish is steely black and white and overtly stylised. It’s a superb double, by the way (probably best with The Outsiders first) most obviously due to the street gang subject matter but it’s also a real Venn diagram of talent involved: Hinton, Coppola, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Tom Waits.

It is set in a not-too-distant urban future. We are told “the gangs aren’t around” any longer although the threat of violence is still very much in the air. Rusty James (Matt Dillon) is a young buck always looking for a drink/fight/screw (in no particular) order and is the younger brother of legendary renegade, Motorcycle Boy (Mickey Rourke). Rusty James is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Big brother got the brains and is also quite the philosopher. Motorcycle Boy is colour blind and experiences intermittent deafness. He lives in a bubble but, contradictorily, experiences “acute perception” of the world. Dennis Hopper is perfect as their boozehound father.

It’s all cloaked in hallucinatory weirdness. Stewart Copeland’s debut score provides a perfect, otherworldly tone. First The Police, then this, then The Equalizer theme tune… is there no limit to this man’s talent? The soundtrack is pretty much wall-to-wall sound – something I’m not usually fond of but here, God bless you Mr Coppola, it works a treat.

You might be interested to know that this formed part of the inspiration – in terms of shooting gangs – for Joe Cornish when making Attack the Block. It’s very apparent when you watch Rumble Fish. Said shots of the gangs strutting their stuff are insanely cool and very beautiful.

Little White Lies

*** 

A change of tack here for writer/director Guillame Canet who has scored one of the biggest hits in French history with this dramedy. Once more Canet hires gifted actors, Francois Cluzet and Gilles Loulleche from his previous film, the effective thriller Tell No One. Marion Cotillard is also part of a convincing ensemble cast. 

Max (Cluzet), a successful Parisian hotelier is significantly older than the gang of thirty-somethings he has invited to his holiday home. He is also comically uptight. He and his guests eat, drink, make merry, (and sometimes miserable) on the very attractive southwest coast. All the while a good friend of theirs languishes in hospital. While amusing and vaguely charming, the group are self-absorbed and have the scruples of hyenas.

The comedy is broad but undeniably funny, and the drama is quite touching. The influence of Hollywood is fairly obvious. Sad really because it would have been so much better were it a little more ‘French’. The use of music laid over comedy montages, for example, is heavy-handed. Generally, it is skilfully directed and there is one moment in particular that is pure bravura filmmaking.

There are few lessons learned by the characters so I’m not exactly sure what the film is saying. Perhaps simply, ‘humans aren’t perfect so don’t expect us to be’. Not the best message for personal growth but hey, it’s one that can make us feel better about ourselves. Well, at least all of those French people that went to see it.

Do find myself saying this a lot these days, but the film is overlong. Might be worth noting that The Big Chill, similar in subject and a film held dear to this reviewer, told a superior story in 49 minutes less (49 minutes!) than the running time of Little White Lies.   

City Island

*** 

This is one of those indie flicks where some slightly messed-up stuff goes on but to you the viewer: a) it is funny b) not that offensive and c) the behaviour is easily forgivable. Cinematically, I feel it’s a kind of European sensibility. Think Gerard Depardieu and his buddy throwing that girl into the river in Les Valseuses, unashamedly played for laughs (and boy, was it funny.) 

Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia) is a prison officer with secrets, one of which is that he’s been taking acting lessons. He’s not the only one hiding something - his son has an unsavoury penchant for obese women and his daughter is a stripper. All the secrets are revealed with darkly comic results. The titular City Island is a quirky area in The Bronx and a sort of well kept secret. It’s a pretty community noted for its boating and seafood restaurants but still very much a part of New York City.

The film is totally watchable if a little forgettable. Writer and director Raymond de Felitta shows promise, capturing real pathos (with the blue collar Vince trying to tap his potential) and there are many comic moments. Garcia is funny, as is Julianna Margulies (she of ER fame) who we don’t often see in feature films. Now, why is that? Oh yeah, it’s because she’s just turned 45. C’mon Hollywood, can we please start giving some better roles to women who are old enough to remember at least the eighties? It’s criminal to ignore such talent and the likes of Margulies are a damn sight more interesting and sexy than a lot of younger women currently seen on our screens. 

Senna

**

When did this start to happen? When did it become acceptable to pay to see documentaries? (I think Michael Moore may have something to do with it). There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with Senna. It just belongs on BBC2 at 9pm on a Tuesday. It is nothing of an event and certainly not a reason to leave your home for. If you pay cinema admission for this film you are being conned. It is an ugly piece of crap made up from cruddy video footage that should not be forced upon anyone on a large screen. Don’t get me wrong, I love documentary and more specifically, the feature length documentary format. But not all documentaries belong in cinemas.

The film is an exercise in editing from director Asif Kapadian who didn’t shoot anything but simply pieced together archive clips. Kapadia eschews talking heads, instead laying audio interviews over the footage. The style does work and he tells the story coherently. Be that as it may, it’s a wearisome tale. Ayrton Senna was a talented driver from Brazil who, for much of his career, engaged in a rivalry with Alan Prost. Prost was a smarmy Frenchman who I think we – the audience - are supposed to want to crash and die. Senna himself was tragically killed in a race, aged 34. He also seems to have been an all-round decent guy. It is a very attractive portrait of a man who lived fast, died young and left a good-looking corpse.

One of the problems is that as with so many “sports personalities” (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one) the man was a charisma vacuum. The film attempts to accord him iconic status but I doubt Mohammed Ali will be losing any sleep. The postscript implies a kind of martyrdom which simply doesn’t wash with this reviewer. The guy was a walking billboard. (I should have mentioned Senna is brought to you by Shell, Marlboro, Rothmans and JPS to mention just a few of the swathes of companies you are visually assaulted by.) It’s pitiful to see grown men plastered in so much advertising. They have less integrity than Julius Francis who – in anticipation of being knocked out by Tyson - sold advertising space on the soles of his feet. At least Francis – unlike Senna et al - spent some of the time not looking like a complete whore.

The Departed

****

It’s not Goodfellas or Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, but it’s still a superior film. And if I saw Marty’s little face drop one more time at the Academy Awards - as someone else’s name is read out - I might have to have blown my brains out. If Scorsese had won the Oscar for directing Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure I would still have heartily joined in the celebrations and wished him well because at last, justice had been done. Thankfully though, he won it for making something decent.

It’s an exemplary thriller. Having seen it initially when it came out, on the second viewing it was even better. Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is Bostonian undercover cop looking constantly as if he’s about to implode. Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) is the big boss he’s trying to take down with Mr French (Ray Winstone) as his henchman. Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) is bullshit artiste extraordinaire and rotten apple in the police department. And Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg almost steal the film even though they are barely in it.

It’s not the sexiest of crime flicks. Here Jack Nicholson must be the worst dressed gangster ever committed to celluloid. Look, I know this is a taught thriller with the emphasis on plot and tension but in the name of the fashion police, it is painfully apparent that the styling of everyone involved is, frankly, appalling. This appears to be the price you have to pay for authenticity, which I’m sure is faultless.

Scorsese and Nicholson is a marriage made in heaven but the film is distinctly lacking a killer Nicholson scene. If you’ve seen the film, think about it – what’s the classic Nicholson scene? Answer: there isn’t one. Which is a damn shame and the blame has to lie with writer, William Monahan. While we’re quibbling, the inescapable soundtrack is quite a distraction. There are a number of scenes where the drama is completely sucked out due to wall-to-wall music. Blimey, this is what it’s come to. This narcissistic blogger is now offering advice to Scorsese. In my defence, we all have to start somewhere. (By the way if anyone in the industry is reading, I have just polished my spec script for Christmas Vacation 3D: Cousin Eddie’s Revenge.)

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World

**

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a daft 22-year-old who plays in a daft band. If there’s one thing the film does do well, it captures the lack of maturity we possess in our twenties, while seemingly all grown-up and independent. He meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) who, we are unsubtly and repeatedly told, is really cool. When Scott starts to date her it is revealed that he must fight her seven evil exes. “Juvenile” doesn’t even begin to describe the film.

While I know it is much-loved by fans, for me the tone, the subject matter, the characters, the references you can safely say all did nothing for me. (Other than make my hand edge towards the remote to make it stop.) The constant sledgehammering of special effects is truly horrible. Phones will literally RING RING RING in big letters across the screen and doorbells will DING DONG. Every moment of this film is annoying.

The likes of Spaced and Shaun… are fine celebrations of geekdom. Their characters were likeable but never cool (at least not in the traditional sense) and it made them all the more entertaining. Scott Pilgrim’s dizzying fight skills attempt to sell him as cool. Michael Cera – ironically, at his most pathetic - apropos of nothing has superhuman fighting ability. In a nutshell, it’s all a bit try-hard. Even the most fantastic of fantasies has to be grounded by some kind of reality for it to create any sense of drama. This has no such thing.

Technically, there is much to admire here. Edgar Wright flexes some serious directorial muscle making something quite ground-breaking. It is is quite a spectacle and has great flair. And the editing is brilliant. [Great work Amos but sorry, I told you it wasn’t for me.]

Sometimes the public get it right. This was a bona fide box office disaster. At cinemas it failed to recoup its $60milion (estimated) production budget. It will no doubt have some effect, but I sincerely hope it doesn’t damage the career of the talent that is Edgar Wright.

Easy A

***

This is an ably directed and well written teen comedy. I just shouldn’t have watched it. I’m not saying I’m entirely against teen flicks. They just have to be really good for this 38-year-old male to join in. (I know, I’m not exactly the target audience.)  But here I took the advice of my esteemed colleagues - the ones with erm, actual paid, reviewing jobs - and added Easy A to my Lovefilm list. Whereas they were pleasantly surprised by a film they expected nothing from, I sought it out for my viewing pleasure and actually paid to see it. (Not bitterness, I assure you. Just a simple fact, Jack.) Basically, it’s good but not that good and it’s just not for me.

Olive (Emma Stone) is a teenager who tells a tall tale about losing her virginity. The lie escalates into rumour at her high school and suddenly everything changes for her. Initially, for the better.

The film supplies some good laughs. Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson are particularly comical as her way-liberal parents. Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow also feature, albeit in more dramatic mode but to good effect. Nice to see all these distinguished actors unafraid to put in a performance in a minor role. Of course, it may actually be down to necessity (except for Lisa Kudrow who I imagine still has gazillions for her work on Friends), who knows. Their presence also makes up for the hit-and-miss performances of the younger cast.

The main trouble with the film is Olive’s self-aggrandising voice-over, which is told to webcam. For a young woman going through a turbulent emotional time she is a little too cocksure. While there are occasional glimpses of vulnerability, it’s mostly about her savvy social nous – which has only ever been witnessed before in teenagers in Dawson’s Creek. As a result, it’s rather grating.