Cinephilia

Bang on schedule

It's not easy being a movie distributor. Or a TV scheduler. The former spend most of their time jostling with rival studios to bag those all-important release dates for their tentpole movies, while the latter put heart and soul into creating the perfect night in for their viewers. And then what happens? Real life kicks their best laid plans into touch.

Scheduled months ago, indie drama He Was A Quiet Man finally make its way into cinemas today. The film stars Christian Slater as an office worker who plans to gun down his colleagues, only to be beaten to the outrage by someone else. Unfortunately, its release comes a mere two days after a teenage gunman killed eight Christmas shoppers in Omaha, Nebraska before - as the media invariably put it - "turning the gun on himself".

So what to do for poor old Echo Bridge Entertainment? With the projectors already whirring, they're wedged firmly between a rock and a hard place. Pull the movie and lose a fortune; let it roll and face public indignation at their terrible insensitivity.

In 2001, the John Travolta thriller Swordfish suffered a similar fate. Beginning with a bomb-blast in a crowded bank and featuring a helicopter crashing into a skyscraper,it was in the middle of its theatrical run when the Twin Towers came down. Its subsequent appearance on DVD was sold more on Halle Berry's topless scene than any action content. (Interestingly, the only screenplay writer Skip Woods has seen produced since then is Hitman, released last week.)

September 11 also wreaked havoc on TV movie schedules. If it showed trouble in the air, it was quickly taken off air.  Months, even years, passed before the likes of Die Hard 2, Airplane! and Speed found their way back to the small screen.

It's not uncommon. Show us a catastrophe and we'll show you a movie whose themes are too close for comfort. Boxing Day tsunami? So long The Day After Tomorrow. Columbine massacre? Killing Mrs Tingle becomes Teaching Mrs Tingle. Kursk submarine disaster? No more hunts for Red October.

And with the Madeleine McCann story still running, should we be seeing - let alone laughing at - Raising Arizona, the Coen brothers' much-loved comedy about child abduction?

Where do we draw the line? Following a tragedy, how long is long enough? Everyone has a different idea of respect, and taste is a highly personal matter.

Ultimately, though, nobody is forcing us to watch anything (unless you're living in A Clockwork Orange). The movies will always be there. When we watch them should be left entirely up to us.

Kinda funny lookin'

The London Film Festival always brings a few stars to town, and when they’re not cluttering up Leicester Square or giving room service the runaround at The Dorchester, some of them even find time to do something constructive.

Take Steve Buscemi. He’s here to big up Interview, an offbeat dramatic duet in which he takes the triple role of co-writer, director and – in front of the camera - as a sniffy political journalist forced to write a “fluff piece” on America’s hottest new screen star, played by our very own Sienna Miller.

It’s a remake of a 2003 film by Theo van Gogh, the promising Dutch filmmaker whose career was tragically cut short by a murderous religious zealot a year after the movie’s release.

Approached by the original producers, Buscemi agreed to direct the English-language adaptation, the first of van Gogh’s three features to be remade in his memory (fellow actor-director Stanley Tucci’ Blind Date will be the second).

An uneven but watchable dramedy about the shattering of preconceptions, it marks Buscemi’s fourth feature as director after Trees Lounge, Animal Factory and Lonesome Jim - not to mention his superb small-screen work on The Sopranos.

The LFF duly signed up the versatile ex-fireman (Buscemi was one of the first volunteers on scene at Ground Zero on September 12, 2001) to give a ‘masterclass’ at the National Film Theatre.

Looking much younger than he does on screen, Buscemi came across as a laid-back, honest and thoroughly decent bloke in the face of some mystifying and occasionally stupid questions from interviewer Briony Hanson.

For example, a clip from prison drama Animal Factory prompted the query: “Those aerial shots… did they come from the book?” Because, of course, books are full of aerial shots.

Incredulous but ever the gent, Buscemi was thankfully able to fashion sensible responses to Ms Hanson’s blithering. Sadly, insight and enlightenment were also in short supply when questions were opened up to the floor.

The only masterclass here was one of inanity from interviewer and audience. Buscemi is clearly no raconteur, but he tossed out enough snippets of interest to make the hour worthwhile.

He admits to having a temper though tries his best to keep it in check whenever he’s directing. Of Interview, he says that scenes were shot with several cameras to allow more dynamic editing and thus prevent the two-handed drama from appearing stagey.

Directing a long-running TV show like The Sopranos would is not as much of a breeze as you might think. Actors still need to be told what to do and the week-per-episode shooting schedules leave little time for directorial flourishes.

Starting his stage career as a stand-up comedian, he felt he lacked the originality that separates the good from the great. But after taking up acting, he soon found the instinctive approach more productive than all that ‘Method’ malarkey.

As an actor, he chooses an eclectic array of roles to keep the job fun. But having done five movies with the Coen brothers, he’s anything but unconventional.

Surprisingly – given that it’s the role most people remember him for - not once did anyone mention the name Mr Pink.

Of course, taking parts in big-budget nonsense like Con Air and Armageddon allows him to get his personal projects off the ground. Performance-wise, his work in the 1986 AIDS drama Parting Glances is still his personal favourite.

Likeable and unassuming, Steve Buscemi is what you’d call a stand-up guy. And yeah, he is kinda funny looking…

Jossy's Giants

Moving away from film briefly, I would like to turn your attentions to this.

It's an online petition. But we're not talking about cars, taxes or travel. We're not discussing racism on reality TV, and we're not petitioning to release a member of ETA. What I want, and what lots of other people want, is to see Jossy's Giants on DVD.

So click here and register your disgust at the show's current unavailability! Even if you don't like the show, I do. So you'd be doing me a favour. Go on. You know it makes sense.

Baffled by BAFTA

So let's get this straight - according to BAFTA, The Queen was the Best Film of 2006... but it wasn't Best British Film. No, that was The Last King Of Scotland. So presumably The Queen is the better film, only not in terms of Britishness.

If that wasn't ridiculous enough, they plonked Last King's James McAvoy in the Best Supporting Actor category despite the fact that he had about 50% more screen time than Best Actor Forest Whitaker. Throw in the constant thud of compere Jonathan Ross's embarrassment of a script (someone at the BBC should have their crayons taken away) and we already have a winner for the most excruciating and nonsensical awards ceremony of the year.

I'm a cinema-lover, get me out of here!

As if the very existence of Celebrity Big Brother wasn’t depressing enough, it seems that director Ken Russell’s appearance in the house of viewing hell has resurrected interest in his work.

Movie rental service Lovefilm reports a rush on the florid fruitcake’s back catalogue with the likes of Women In Love (highlight: a nude wrestling match between Alan Bates and Olly Reed) and Tommy (highlight: Tina Turner writhing in baked beans) being ordered by thousands of misguided souls who have no idea who the old fart is.

For the sake of all that is good and pure in this world, promise us that Michael Winner won't be next.

craignotbondnotveryconvincing

So what with Casino Royale being such a colossal hit with audiences and critics, and Daniel Craig being universally acclaimed as the best Bond since Big Sean (and many rate him even more highly), how are the masterminds behind online gobs of vitriol like danielcraigisnotbond.com feeling right now?

Providing the perfect punchline to the execrably executed joke that was Die Another Day, CR restores 007’s credibility and stays true to Fleming’s philosophy – no gadgets, gimmicks or ZX Spectrum-standard CGI. "But they’ve picked a blond Bond!" blubbered fans of his smug, Irish predecessor and his increasingly two-dimensional outings. These people obviously see Bond as a cartoon, which explains why Happy Feet edged Casino Royale out of top spot at the US box office. (More enlightened UK audiences have, however, made it the highest-grossing Bond film at this side of the pond – and it’s still earning more per screen than Happy Feet.)

Presumably, most visitors to craignotbond.com added their names to the ‘Boycott Casino Royale’ petition. Which begs the question as to how so many are able to give such detailed opinions on a film they have never seen? Looking at the pitiful recent entries to the anti-Craig site (“Casino Royale fails to live up to its potential in Latin America!”), I suggest the webmasters add a link to churlishhypocrites.com.

Elliott Noble

"Is this in the game, Wayne?"

Occasionaly you're sent something really good at 5pm on a work day and you don't mind sticking it up on the blog before you leave for home even if you know it means missing the 17:24 from Brentford.

In this instance that "something really good" is a clip of the nation's most talented footballer showing off a variety of other (rather impressive) skills during a motion capture session for EA Sports.

hahahahaha. Brilliant

Little Change

When something dark happens in America's public eye, conspiracy theories are an inevitability. And while they may be theories, some deserve your attention, if only to discount them using all the available information.

I hadn't come across many 9/11 theories, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the magnitude of the event. It turned out, i simply hadn't been looking hard enough. You won't find them in the mainstream press over here, which is why I was so surprised to find coverage on Fox News.

Michael Moore claimed Bush knew more about 9/11 than he let on, or even that he was simply too lazy to do anything about it. The guys behind Loose Change, however, go a bit further and imply that Bush is more guilty than Bin Laden himself. 

Loose Change, was put together on a household laptop using mediocre editing software. While you may be offended by the implications - or perhaps those inacurracies that undermine many of the stronger points - there's no doubting that Dylan Avery has pieced together an alarmingly compelling film.

The film made it's mark on Google Video and YouTube, and you can see it right now (in two parts). It's worth noting that the words 'fair and balanced' only spring to mind in the most Fox Newsish sense, such are Dylan's shortcomings as a documentarian (the equally ambiguous Wikipedia counters a number of points here, as does another YouTube poster here.... and then there's Screw Loose Change).

But even Charlie Sheen is asking questions. Lots of questions. Just like this respected expert as he explains how it's impossible for the buildings to have fallen as they did, without explosives (and you have got to love how he deals with those Fox news assholes).

Loose Change clearly suffers at the hands of the director's lack of experience, but it is a great introduction to the hidden world in which 49% of New Yorkers felt they were lied to by the 9/11 Commission Report. You can see a very straight forward summary of the inconsistencies in the official version of events here.

Consider the following - WTC Building 7 wasn't hit, but fell to the ground? A white plane was spotted by numerous eyewitnesses behind Flight 93, which almost completely disappeared from the crash site? Explosions coming from well below the impact areas of the towers before they fell? Not a single piece of Boeing discovered at the Pentagon, with only 5 frames of footage released by the US government to prove it was a plane (with not a single frame containing any hint of an aircraft) ? Eye witnesses that saw a rocket hit the building!? Seven black boxes completely destroyed while the hijacker's passport floated out of the fire, undamaged, to the ground?

It may all be rubbish, but what if just one point is on the money?

What if indeed...

Rich Phippen

The Latest YouTube Hits

I've been trawling through YouTube so that you don't have to!

Adam and Joe did the best movie scenes recreated with Star Wars figures ever. You can see one of the best here, as Leia, Threepio and Jabba The Hut attempt to take on The Crystal Maze.

The world of Scientology could be a tragically misunderstood religion. For all we know there's eternal happiness lying behind what we think is nothing more than a money-grabbing cult. However, if you DO take the time to truly understand this popular belief system, you will learn that you were right all along.

While on the Scientology theme, In this disturbing tale of a man vs. a cult, one man (with some Scientology history, it seems) takes on a Scientology street fair, and meets the real life incarnations of the Lone Gunmen (or the guys that stood behind Biff Tannen in the first 2 Back to The Future movies). 

It's the short guy around 2m30s that appears as if from nowhere and repeatedly asks; "What are you afraid of? huh?" that scared me -  the answer clearly lies within his diminuitive frame (if you want to know about the girl our intrepid reporter was referring to as 'murdered by scientology', click here).

Meanwhile, THIS CNN anchor really should have turned her mic off. Anyone remember the Naked Gun?

Rich Phippen

Is it a Turd? Should you refrain? I think it's Super, man!

He's strong like Marmite and has as many admirers as he does nay-sayers... he's almost impossible to mistake for a bird or a plane... he says "no" to drugs... he is Superman.

In case you didn't already know, Big Blue is set to make his triumphant return to the big screen in Superman Returns this weekend.

Advanced word is varied though I'm yet to hear a complaint from a fan of the iconic character. But why listen to me ramble on when you could be reading the reviews for yourself?

Can't get enough of the Super stuff.

Already had enough of Kryptonian guff.


Still, no matter what you think, the people in Metropolis, Illinois know they have a hero to be proud of.