Cinephilia

Phillipe Francais combs Hairspray for cultural relevance

As you will no doubt have deduced, Hairspray is a common household aqueous solution that is used to keep hair stiff or in a certain style thanks to the active ingredient of a suitable polymer or chemical elastasse.

Some sprays are scented or have colour, no doubt inspiring director Adam Shankman to embark on his adaptation of the stage musical which, in turn, was based on the 1988 cinematic entertainment by John Waters.

What is significant - as any fool would know - is the film's knowing reference to the derivative of non-art aspects of history that were influenced by Postmodernism. It is often understood as an effect of, or reaction to, postmodernity – a historical and cultural period that many believe has succeeded modernity.

So, no it's not - as lesser mortals would have it - a simple anti-racism fable featuring John Travolta in a fat suit.

In fact, Postmodernist ideas in the arts have influenced philosophy and the analysis of culture and society, expanded the importance of critical theory, and been the point of departure for works of literature, architecture, and design, most notably Norman Foster's glass and steel allotment shed just outside Rotherham.

Where Shankman scores highly is...(shut it - ed)

Film de la Semaine: Phillippe Francais on La Vie en Rose

Zut alors! Dining with literary chums from Cahiers du Cinema (Eric Rohmer is a dear old friend) the subject of our exalted conversation ranged from modern plasma screens and their place in the films of Godard to the poser Kelly's Heroes - a cinematic template for Saving Private Ryan?

A civilised afternoon was only slightly marred by an unseemly spat between Jacques Rivette and Claude Chabrol when the latter attempted to slip a packet of Gitanes onto l'addition. Tempers frayed and Claude was forced to contribute the equivalant purchase price. Egalite came at the price of a bruised ego. Comme ci, comme ca.

As the brandy carriage trundled around for a third circuit (the women - Diana Kurys and Agnes Varda - having retired to the drawing room for a needlepoint session) the conversation - defined here as a verbalization of concepts involving abstractions and concrete objects which make up the reality in which we reside - drifted to discussion of the life of Edith Piaf.

Born on the pavement of the Rue de Belleville in December 1915, the "Little Sparrow" (her nickname originated from the small bird, a staple ingredient of the pauper's stew on which her family survived) rose to iconic prominence as a singer after prostitutes at the brothel run by her Italian mother pooled their earnings and send her to audition for French Pop Idol.

Offered a contract on the label run by Stock Aitken et Waterman, she first scored in the French hit parade with Hymne a l'amour, a high energy grunge ballad penned by Ringo Starr and first offered to Jason Donovan.

Multi-platinum selling discs followed... but it wasn't until Non, je ne regrette rien, boosted by a video directed by Jean Renoir, that Piaf was able to afford a rambling stately home in West Sussex and a comprehensive collectiion of onyx table lighters.

As I said to Patrice Leconte as the White Magnums were being served, the film really does....(c'est sufficent - ed)

Film de la Semaine: Phillippe Francais on Ocean's Thirteen

Astute cinemagoers will no doubt have noted (as have I) the glaring error in the title Ocean's Thirteen. There is, as any averagely educated cineaste will tell you, just one ocean - a global ocean.

However, to be scrupulously fair to director Steven Soderbergh, an American, the major oceanic divisions are defined in part by the continents, various archipelagos and other criteria.

These divisions are (in descending order of size) the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean (which is sometimes subsumed as the southern portions of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans),  the Arctic Ocean and last - and unfortunately least - Danny Ocean, played by George Clooney, husband of skiffle star Rosemary.

Smaller regions of the oceans are called seas, gulfs or bays and - take note, Steven,  there are also some smaller bodies of saltwater that are totally landlocked and not interconnected with the global or World Ocean.

Simple oceanographic blunders are to be expected from film-makers (how I chortled at Alfred Hitchcock's mistaken concept of saline currents in Vertigo - a schoolboy error) but an oversight of this magnitude simple cannot be allowed to pass without comment.

It's not as if Soderbergh is a newcomer to oceanic misconconceptions - Ocean's 11 & 12 were both named on the basis of flawed data. It's about time he took seriously the concept of the hydrosphere.

Anyway, Ocean's Thirteen concerns the strangely landlocked activities of a group of (time out  - ed)....

The UK Top Ten

With Ocean's 13 out this week and Shrek 3, Rush Hour 3 and The Bourne Ultimatum to come, the race is hotting up for the most disappointing threequel of the summer. The thermometer's rising but the barometer of originality is dipping fast... and here's why.

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End - After numbing bums for three hours, Jerry Bruckheimer's pet whale is ultimately harpooned by the wooden stick that is Keira Knightley.

2. Wedding Daze - Take the recipe for American Pie, leave out the funny bits and presto!, see your comedy souffle sink faster than Jason Biggs in a talent contest.

3. Spider-Man 3 - An experience akin to looking over an excitable child's shoulder as they play a videogame to which you don't know the rules.

4. Paradise Lost - Purgatory found.

5. Zodiac - David Fincher takes three hours to show how hard it is to catch a serial killer without a computer.

6. The Hitcher - Do you see Rutger Hauer taking Sean Bean's seat at Bramall Lane? No. So why is Sean trying to take Rutger's place in psycho history?

7. Bridge To Terabithia - With little competition in the kiddie-flick market right now, the low-rent Narnia continues to keep the nippers quiet.

8. 28 Weeks Later - Britain becomes the land of hope and gory in the zombie lark that shows the US military as incompetent and heavy-handed. Pure fantasy.

9. Mr Bean's Holiday - Does this really make people laugh? Honestly? So much for our world-renowned sense of humour.

10. Cheeni Kum - Up yer bum.

The Brothers Grimm

Below you'll see the celebrities I supposedly look a bit like, to be honest they're more like the pictures of celebrities that look a bit like the picture I happened to upload.

Anyhoo, I've just got back from commenting on the Mark Wahlberg vehicle "Four Brothers" for the Action & Thriller Close-Up programme with my identical bros Tom and Olly and I though it would be fun to see if any of us get the same celebs.

Dom:

I suppose no-one will believe that I got Wahlberg without trying to cheat but I swear it was a coincidence. Maybe I should have been the mysterious and elusive fifth brother in Four Brothers!

OllY:























Olly will love the fact that he got JT but we all know he looks more like Fred "The Wonder Years" Savage! What a shame it is for him, however, that the OC has stopped filming as he could have doubled for either lead male :(

Tom:

Josh Jackson is actually quite an accurate resemblence - the chin and eye-brow arches have it - but you won't find a closer match for Ronan Keating... It's amazing how you can see the exact same expression on two complete strangers. From hairline to eyebrows right down to smile, chin and even stubble-length, Tom and Ronan look to have been separated at birth. Even their neckline and shoulder stance are the same for crying out loud!

So, it looks like our common ground lies with Fred Savage and just about anyone likely to appear on The OC or Dawson's Creek. Who do you look like? Send your findings.

Catch the triplets on Sky Movies Action & Thriller soon.

Wong doings

Wong Kar-wai is a tall guy.  Most photos show him nonchalantly slumped in a director's chair, trademark shades on whatever the light conditions (thankfully he has Chris Doyle or more recently Darius Khondji on hand for those visuals), so you can't gauge just how tall he is.

But, Wong stands a lanky 6ft, and it was this tall frame that strolled onto the stage at the NFT London last week.  The appearance had been confirmed nary a week earlier with tickets selling out faster than

Glastonbury

.  And yes, he was wearing sunglasses indoors, and managed to make it look cool.   

Over 100 minutes, Wong and interviewer/friend/devil's advocate Richard Jobson traced the director's career from a writer on early cops and robbers movies to his recent Cannes-opener My Blueberry Nights, which is also Wong's first English language film (and hasn't survived the translation if some reports are to be believed). 

But, this wasn't a night for recent rubbish reviews.  Wong Kar-wai is the director of such classic films as Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love and the little-seen Ashes of Time.  In near fluent English he conversed on a variety of topics from John Woo and Martin Scorsese's influence on his debut movie As Tears Go By, to shooting in Argentina for Happy Together (the producers weren't pleased with the scuzzy locations he sniffed out) to his Kubrickian shooting schedules (In the Mood for Love shot for fifteen months, and a completely different film could be made from the outtakes).

Given that his films concentrate on loss, regret and wasted opportunities Wong himself was a convivial speaker, brimming with praise for his collaborators (actress Gong Li can "hold" the camera i.e., fix it with a look, for as long as you please without breaking character, Chris Doyle is cripplingly shy but drinks himself sociable), and showed no signs of fatigue after almost two hours talking.

Highlight of the evening must be the news that Ashes of Time's negative has been released from the vaults after years of legal wrangling, and Wong is currently re-mixing the sound, presumably for a re-release.  Too long unseen apart from on a shoddily transferred Hong Kong DVD; this could be the year's most exciting news.  Keep this in mind if My Blueberry Nights really does put the why into Wong Kar-wai.

Rob Daniel

The UK Top Ten

Judging by the laugh-free stinkers occupying rungs 5 to 8 of this week's ladder, it appears that the global comedy famine has reached these shores. Analysts are advising British cinema-goers to stay indoors and turn on the cricket as the blight continues with next week's American Pie knock-off Wedding Daze to be followed by an excruciating outbreak of sequelitis in Ice Cube's Are We Done Yet?

1. Spider-Man 3 - Sam Raimi gets tangled up in his own sticky web of underdeveloped villains, samey set-pieces and the staggeringly uninteresting romance between plonker Peter Parker and wishy-washy Mary-Jane Watson. If you've seen one... play the videogame.

2. 28 Weeks Later - If zombies dismember and devour everyone who gets in their way, how come there are so many of them? Just one question to ask of a movie set in a London that doesn't exist in any A-Z and sees the new Wembley stadium completed in 2001 (it's 28 weeks later, right?).

3. Zodiac - Ironic that the only sign of life in the cinematic graveyard is all about death. David Fincher picks himself up after Panic Room to recreate 1960s/70s San Francisco in all its polyester-and-serial-killer-plagued finery.

4. Bridge To Terabithia - Narna-Narnia, Narna-Narnia; hey hey; good-bye!

5. Magicians - Taking its place alongside Cannon & Ball's Boys In Blue and Smith & Jones' Morons From Outer Space, this national embarrassment sees Mitchell & Webb showing all the comedic qualities of Marks & Spencer.

6. Lovewrecked - Look, American teen non-entities like Amanda Bynes don't just go away by themselves. You have to stop buying tickets to their movies.

7. Wild Hogs - A mid-life crisis caper... pitched at kids. Are we missing something here? John Travolta, Martin Lawrence and Tim Allen deliver all the hilarity you'd expect from them.

8. Mr Bean's Holiday - Blair or no Blair, the fact that 90 minutes of Rowan Atkinson at his least amusing can make nigh-on £22 million at the box office is undeniable proof that there is absolutely no future for this once-proud nation.

9. Next - Nic Cage in an all-action thriller with a hint of sci-fi and Jessica Biel wearing nought but a towel. What could possibly go wrong? Stump up £7 to find out.

10. This Is England - Aw, look at all the cute little skinheads. Despite an excellent first hour, Shane Meadows pulls too many punches with his rose-tinted recollections of the Doc Martin brigade.

Strummertime Blues

We like a mouthy, bourbon-swigging rebel here at Cinephilia.

Especially if they're a diplomat's son who lived all over the world and attended a boarding school notable for the amount of pupils who hung themselves.

Not for us some spotty working class oik who gets a bit lippy after donning the ripped T-shirt and safety pin through the earhole look beloved of the Seventies punk revolution.

Nah - we're down with a dude who wrote one the best rocks anthems ever - White Man in Hammersmith Palais - and was never happier than when chewing the fat in his twilight days around a campfire at Glastonbury.

Ladies and gentlemen...we give you Mr Joe Strummer!

Guy Richtoy's TW*T!

Guy Richtoy has made some of the best films of the last hundred years.

Following the critical success of his directorial debut "Lock Stock & Two Barrels of Smoking Monkeys", he met and married the international singing star Madogga but returned to his roots as a cockney villain for his second film "Twat":

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Phillippe Francais culturally dissects 28 Weeks Later

I was violently taken aback (see pic) when I deduced - as you will no doubt concur - that the plot from 28 Weeks Later owes more than a smidgin to the fever that consumed a quarter of the Athenian troops in the Pelloponesian War of 430BC.

This outbreak fatally weakened the dominance of the Greek empire, but the sheer virulence of the disease prevented its wider spread. The exact cause of the plague was unknown for many years. However in January 1967, researchers from the University of Penrith analysed teeth and old copies of The Observer recovered from a mass grave underneath the city and confirmed the presence of Robert Carlyle's spittle.

Idly sauntering (as much as my arthritis will allow) through the National Portrait Gallery, I perchanced upon a preliminary sketch by R Harris of Brisbane. It conveyed - by virtue of a striking use of charcoals - the sheer destructiveness of the Bubonic Plague which cursed Europe in the late 1300s.

Starting in Fishguard the disease reached Mediterranean and western Europe in 1348 (possibly from Italian merchants fleeing fighting in the Crimea. Possibly not.), and killed twenty million Europeans in six years, a quarter of the total population and up to a half in the worst-affected urban areas, particularly the maggot-infested swamp of human despair that is London's East End.

Anyway, to return to the film, I was particularly...(hold it there, Phillippe - Ed)