Couch Potato Pickings
On BBC4 tonight at 10pm
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
Archive for February, 2009
Our competition to win copies of the Coen Brothers’ wickedly dark comedy Burn After Reading is now closed. Well done to all our entrants - everyone answered correctly that, er, yes, the Coen Brothers directed the movie.
We were inundated with entries, but sadly there are only three winners, who are Liam Porter, Susan Norminton and Lorraine Partyn. Congratulations folks, enjoy your prizes!
Look out for our competition to win copies of LA Confidential.
This truly inspirational documentary-style drama from France left me reeling with awe and admiration. I taught English for a couple of years in my early 20s while living in Italy and I’m all too aware how cushy was my time as a teacher. It certainly can’t compare with the experiences of François Bégaudeau, the former teacher whose book chronicling a year in the life of a class in a middle school in inner-city Paris is the basis of Laurent Cantet’s wonderful film, The Class.
Bégaudeau himself plays the class’s committed teacher, and a multi-ethnic cast of non-professional teenagers makes up his tough, lippy, all too vulnerable pupils. Nominated as Best Foreign Film at this year’s Oscars, the film was a very worthy winner of the Cannes film festival’s top award last year, the Palme d’Or. (General release from 27th February)
Filmmakers have it tough these days. Whoever they pick as their villain, an interest group somewhere is bound to take offence. With The International, though, director Tom Tykwer has found some bad guys almost everyone in the audience can unite in hating: bankers.
Yes, it’s a dastardly bank (only one?) that is at the heart of a larcenous conspiracy that is causing mayhem around the world in this gripping – and, oh dear, so topical – thriller.
Determined to bring the evil bankers to book, however, are Clive Owen’s dogged Interpol agent Louis Salinger and Naomi Watts’ no less tenacious New York assistant district attorney Eleanor Whitman, who are following a global trail of money laundering, arms dealing, terrorism and political assassinations. But the international bank they have in their sights, the IBBC, is a slippery foe…
Inspired by the activities of the shady BCCI (dubbed the Bank of Crooks and Criminals International), which was founded in Pakistan in 1970s and collapsed in 1991, The International is a thriller that pushes all the right buttons in these credit-crunch times, stoking the viewer’s feelings of outrage and injustice as every fresh enormity by the bank is revealed, and then offering the possibility of vicarious revenge.
As one of the duo attempting to deliver retribution on our behalf, Watts is largely wasted, her role diminishing as the plot advances. But Owen is great, even if his expression - dour and determined – barely changes throughout the movie. Yet dour and determined is what the story requires. There’s no place here for Bond-like witticisms or Bourne-style heroics. Owen’s cop is an ordinary man, not a superhero.
That’s not to say that The International doesn’t thrill. Twkyer, maker of the flashy, techno-driven thriller Run Lola Run, stages some great set pieces, including an assassination at a political rally in a Milan square and a ferocious shootout at the Guggenheim museum in New York, a sequence that makes imaginative use of the gallery’s famous spiral ramp and leaves a series of artworks shredded. Watching the scene, I thought for a moment, as one video installation after another took a battering, that a gang of militant anti-modernists (Stuckists, perhaps?) had invaded the building. But, no, the gunmen are yet more of the bank’s lethal minions.
In the week when disgraced ex-RBS boss Fred Goodwin has refused to give up any of his huge pension, we probably all need an outlet for our pent-up feelings of indignation and resentment towards the financial world’s one-time masters of the universe. A movie won’t change anything, but The International does deliver, if only briefly, a moment of catharsis. (General release from 27th February)
‘You’ve got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying - in sweat!’
It was Debbie Allen’s tough dance teacher Lydia Grant who’d utter those fame-ous words every time the theme tune played at the start of an episode of the mega popular 80s TV series.
Get your legwarmers out and prepare to re-live it all as the original movie from 1980 gets a remake. And Debbie Allen will still be in it - this time as the principal of the school.
UK release date is set for 25 September. Plenty of time to practice your pas de bourrée then!
Reading the showbiz news lately, it is obvious that the film industry is being affected by the recession. Studios are playing it safe and, as I’ve mentioned before, are churning out remakes of hit movies in hope of making a guaranteed profit. But is there such a thing nowadays?
Well, let’s hope so because…
…Warner Bros is remaking the 1984 fantasy film The NeverEnding Story
Here’s a reminder:
…Crazy-haired foul-mouth comedian Russell Brand will be starring in a remake of the 1981 Dudley Moore classic Arthur
A clip from the original:
…Columbia Pictures is in final negotiations to remake the 1990 actioner Total Recall which saw Arnold Schwarzenegger dress up as a fat lady - although less convincingly than John Travolta
Have a look at Arnold’s cross-dressing antics:
…Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal will be starring in an remake of the 1958 musical Damn Yankees!
Talk about a trip down memory lane!
Speaking of, remember way back in August last year when News Muse reported that Morgan Freeman had gone and crashed his car?
I now hear that he’s being sued by the female passenger he was travelling with - Demaris Meyer - who by the way vehemently denies any romantic involvement with the star. She is however suing the pants off him: medical expenses, pain and suffering, lost wages, permanent disability, property damage… ouch! Sounds expensive.
Also this week, one of my favourite actresses, Jodie Foster, ended up on US reality cop show Speeders when she got caught driving too fast in LA. Unfortunately we won’t be seeing the clip anytime soon as Jodie, who reportedly became very annoyed and agitated at the sight of the cameras, refused to sign a waiver. Strange. You’d think she’d be used to it by now. The cameras I mean.
“Get off my lawn.”
Nah, doesn’t have quite the same ring as “Go ahead, make my day”, does it? This, though, is what the 78-year-old Clint Eastwood is reduced to snarling in his latest movie as star and director, Gran Torino. Yes, the abiding demand of old codgers everywhere: “Get off my lawn.” Has it really come to this for the great icon of American masculinity?
It appears so. Gran Torino is reportedly Eastwood’s final acting role, so his portrayal of the film’s aged widower Walt Kowalski cannot help but appear as a last wheezing gasp for the type of tough guy he has embodied for most of his career, a farewell to Dirty Harry and all his kind.
All of which makes what the movie has to say – about Eastwood’s screen image and about contemporary America - even more fascinating.
Gran Torino’s Walt is a blue-collar bigot. A veteran of the Korean War who spent 50 years working on the line in a Detroit Ford auto plant, he is completely out of step with the times. His dismay at the changed world around him is clear from the start of the movie, which finds him in the process of burying his wife after a lifetime together.
He has no affinity with his middle-aged yuppie sons (they drive foreign cars, for heaven’s sake), his disrespectful, midriff-baring, mobile-using grandchildren appal him, and he has nothing but disdain for the young priest (a “27-year-old over-educated virgin”) who wants to honour a promise he made to Walt’s late wife and get Walt to attend confession.
As for the once all-white neighbourhood where he has lived for years, don’t get him started. He’s full of contempt for the Asian immigrants he now lives among, spitting out a stream of racial slurs that would make Alf Garnett or Al Murray (or Archie Bunker, to give an American example that Walt would recognise) seem beacons of tolerance.
You’d reckon Walt would be way too old to change his ways, but change he does after he is grudgingly drawn into the lives of the Hmong family living next door. (It’s one of the many ironies that the movie throws up that Hmong people, who come from Laos and other parts of Southeast Asia, only immigrated to the States in large numbers because they sided with the US during the Vietnam War and consequently faced retribution after the conflict.)
Walt only begins to have any contact with his neighbours after he catches shy 16-year-old fatherless boy Thao (Bee Vang) trying, as part of an initiation rite to join a local Hmong gang, to steal Walt’s treasured 1972 Gran Torino car. Even then, he wants nothing to do with Thao and his family, but thanks to the insistence of Thao’s older sister, Sue (Ahney Her), he gets the boy to do a series of small jobs around the neighbourhood as payback for his attempted crime.
Gradually, the old man and the boy begin to form a bond. And when Thao and Sue’s troubles with the local gangbangers get more serious, Walt steps in…
Is this a last hurrah for Dirty Harry?
No. In fact, the way that Gran Torino finally deals with the question of violence turns out to be a repudiation of Dirty Harry and all he stands for.
When Eastwood made Unforgiven the best part of two decades ago, the movie - in which an ex-gunfighter reluctantly returns to the way of the gun with grisly consequences - was widely seen as a corrective to the Westerns he had made in his career. But Unforgiven was ambivalent about violence and it was still possible, if you were so disposed, to cheer legendary gunman Clint’s fearsome prowess.
Gran Torino goes much further, however, towards a rejection of violence as a solution, though you’ll need to see the movie to find out how.
It’s well worth the trip to the cinema. True, the film is clunky in places, and the acting (not least by Clint himself, it has to be said) sometimes strikes bum notes. But it is also warm, funny and moving, and genuinely thought-provoking about no end of hot-button contemporary issues, from race and class, to ageing and masculinity. Eastwood may be saying goodbye to acting, but on this basis he isn’t so out of touch after all. (General release from 27th February)
Couch Potato Pickings
On Watch tonight at 10pm
In this hilarious film, based on the bestelling book by Nick Hornby, record store owner Rob (John Cusack) and his co-workers Barry (Jack Black) and Dick (Todd Louiso) make Top Five lists for pretty much every occasion in an attempt to make sense of their failed relationships and the world in general.
Here are just a few that come under discussion:
- Top five records to play on a Monday morning
- Top 5 Recording Artists
These are the five favourites of Rob’s high school girlfriend Penny Hardwick (Joelle Carter):
- Carly Simon
- Carole King
- James Taylor
- Cat Stevens
- Elton John
- Top 5 Songs about Death
Leader of the Pack - The Shangri Las
Dead Man’s Curve - Jan & Dean
Tell Laura I Love Her - Ray Peterson
One Step Beyond - Madness
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
- Top 5 Dream Jobs
Journalist for Rolling Stone magazine, 1976 to 1979
Producer, Atlantic Records, 1964 to 1971
Any kind of musician, besides classical or rap
Film director, any kind except German or silent
Architect
- Top 5 Most Memorable Break-Ups
(Click here for a clip)
- Top 5 Side One Track Ones
(Click here for a clip)
- Top 5 Things Rob Misses About Laura
(Click here for a clip)
- Top 5 Musical Crimes Perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the ’80s and ’90s
I’m not by any means a music snob. I like what I like and don’t expect everyone else to share my taste, although most of my friends generally do. Nevertheless, creating lists is always great fun. Unfortunately, however, I’m staring at a Top 5 list of Things To Do by the end of the day, so I’m currently having to fight the urge to produce my versions for most of the music categories above.
However, I’m sure I can squeeze in time for one, so here goes:
The Top 5 records I would play on a Monday morning to bring a smile to my face and a spring to my foot are:
- Bolt
- Confessions of a Shopaholic
- Slumdog Millionaire
- Hotel for Dogs
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- He’s Just Not That Into You
- Push
- The Pink Panther 2
- Notorious
- Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Barking mad… Convinced he has superpowers, an animated dog – voiced by John Travolta – sets off on a misguided mission.
Bag lady… A young financial journalist, played by Isla Fisher, indulges her passion for shopping and falls for a wealthy entrepreneur.
Hot seat… Questions are asked when a teen orphan from the slums of Mumbai makes it to the final rounds of India’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Perky pooches… Two kids secretly take in nine stray dogs at a vacant house.
Age concern… Brad Pitt plays a man who is born a pensioner and steadily grows younger.
Love hurts… Based on the self-help book of the same name, this romantic comedy follows the dating misadventures of nine individuals.
Power players… Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning head the cast of this sci-fi thriller as two loners with incredible abilities.
Treasure hunt… Bungling detective Jacques Clouseau, played for a second time by Steve Martin, attempts to stop a globe-trotting thief who specialises in stealing historical artefacts.
Street life… This musical biopic charts the meteoric rise and tragic death of rap icon, Notorious B.I.G.
Summer loving… Woody Allen’s latest sees two friends questioning their lives after they arrive in Barcelona and encounter a charismatic painter and his tempestuous ex-wife.
Couch Potato Pickings
On Five today at 3.10pm
I know what you’re thinking – Matthew Shepard, who’s he?
Most Brits won’t have heard of Matthew Shepard, and I expect most Americans won’t know the name either, especially those who don’t even know what state KFC originates from.
But then again, I also suspect that most Brits and most Americans hadn’t heard of Harvey Milk until Sean Penn won his Oscar.
Hmm, yeah, I’m right, aren’t I?
Nevertheless, Matthew Shepard was in the news last week here in the UK. Do you remember now? No? Well, more about that later.
Matthew Shepard was a youth from Laramie, Wyoming who was murdered ten years ago at the tender ago of 21 simply for being gay. This film today tells the story of this shocking crime.
Many people convince themselves that homophobia doesn’t exist anymore. But, unfortunately, it does still exist. It’s rife in schools – just look at the way that kids use the word gay to describe something bad. And, where homophobia itself doesn’t exist, blindness to homosexuality generally takes its place with the widespread assumption that all women fancy men and all men fancy women.
This lack of acceptance comes from ignorance, and while I’m delighted to hear the news this week that finally people are seriously making steps to introduce gay education into schools to tackle this problem, such a positive development has also seen numerous narrow-minded individuals crawling out of the woodwork to oppose the decision.
With such disapproval still strong in our society, it baffles me how so many people don’t actually realise that most of their gay friends have struggled to find a happy place in the world. ‘Gays always seem so happy’ is the usual perception.
Yes, gay people love to be happy because they know all too well how hideous it is to be really sad. Think about it.
And Shepard’s horrific murder in 1998 (even though it occured a good 20 years after Harvey Milk’s campaigns for gay rights) illustrates this ongoing struggle for acceptance, as does the devastating vote to ban gay marriage in California last year.
In the wake of Matthew Shepard’s murder, a number of films were produced, as well as an even greater number of tribute songs, and a play (later turned into a film) called The Laramie Project. This stage play, which depicts the reaction of the people of Laramie, Wyoming, to Shepard’s murder, has done the rounds in America, and made the news last week here in the UK because of a production taking place in Basingstoke.
One of the characters in the play is the American cleric Fred Phelps.
Now, anybody who watched Louis Theroux’s BBC documentary about the most hated family in America will probably have bells of recognition ringing now. Yes, the Westboro Baptist Church, headed by Fred Phelps, is basically a family who call themselves a church and teach their children to hate gay people.
They also believe that America is doomed for tolerating homosexuality and spend most of their time picketing the funerals of service people killed in Iraq because they believe that these individuals were serving what they call a “sodomite nation of flag-worshiping idolators.”
In addition to these funeral demonstrations, the Westboro Baptist Church also spend much of their time travelling across the USA to picket every performance of The Laramie Project that they hear about.
When the church heard that a theatrical group in Basingstoke, England were going to stage this play last week they booked their flight to the UK intending to bring their vitriol over here.
Fortunately Home Secretary Jacqui Smith banned them from coming. Go Jacqui.
Take a look at the Westboro Baptists’ webshite to see how they reacted to that decision. Reading between the lines, I’d dare to suggest that they might have been a little disappointed…
Read the full story here.
With double Oscar-winner Milk bringing the history of gay rights to mainstream attention, it’s a shame that today’s movie about Matthew Shepard isn’t getting more of a prime time slot today. However, it’s better than nothing at all, and to give it credit, Five is also showing another movie tomorrow at the same time about a man driven to suicide because of the lack of acceptance around his homosexuality. It stars Sigourney Weaver and promises to be a real tearkerker. Read more about it here.
Movie Talk sniffs around the back alleys of the internet to bring you the juiciest showbiz news - so you don’t end up barking up the wrong tree…
Internet rumours about Madonna doing the soundtrack for Twilight sequel New Moon are partly quashed.
Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd are in talks to star opposite Reese Witherspoon in a Columbia Pictures rom-com with the working title How Do You Know?.
Freida Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire fame and more seasoned actress Naomi Watts join Josh Brolin and Sir Anthony Hopkins for Woody Allen’s next project due to start filming in July in London.
Ang Lee is in talks to direct a film adaptation of Yann Martel’s Man Booker Prize winning novel Life of Pi.
Mike Myers and Paris Hilton excel…at the Razzies.
