One use of strong violence

I love the British Board of Film Classification. Nowadays, in the age of consumer choice, they don't just give you their opinion on which films are suitable for which age groups, they also provide you with helpful 'Consumer advice'. According to their website, consumer advice "enables the public to make informed choices. It covers in particular violence, sex, language, drugs and any other matters likely to be of concern to the public."

Below is a list of the type of consumer advice available for movies currently showing at my local cineplex. Bonus points if you can guess which movie corresponds to which piece of advice:

1. Contains very mild threat
2. Contains mild threat and scary moments
3. Contains mild language and sex references
4. Contains strong language and infrequent bloody war violence
5. Contains strong language
6. Contains infrequent strong language
7. Contains strong violence, sex references & one use of very strong language
8. Contains strong language and sex references
9. Contains strong gory violence, horror and sex
10. Contains moderate sex references and one use of strong language
11. Contains strong language
12. Contains strong language and crude sexual references
13. Contains emotionally intense scenes
14. Contains strong language and violence
15. Contains strong sex
16. Contains strong bloody wrestling violence, strong language, sex and drug use
17. Contains moderate fantasy violence and horror
18. Contains strong bloody violence
19. Contains moderate violence and one use of strong language
20. Contains one use of strong language and moderate sex references

The great thing about consumer advice is that it adds a whole new dimension to the cinematic experience. Suppose it's a Friday night, I'm bored, I feel like watching a movie, I check the local listings, but hey! I haven't heard of any of these movies. What to do? I could spend half an hour trying to find out about each of them on Rotten Tomatoes, but by the time I'm through, maybe I've missed all the showings. With consumer advice, I can just choose what I feel like watching. Say I feel like watching a violent film. My options are almost limitless! But if I know what kind of violence I'm into, then I can easily narrow my choices. I'm into bloody wrestling violence myself, so #16 would be the obvious choice (the smart ones among you will have guessed that #16 is The Wrestler). I can even choose what I want to go with my bloody wrestling violence. It's like a buffet, but better! Say I like strong language, drugs and sex. Why, #16 has it all! How could it not win an Oscar?!?

I still find some of the advice slightly confusing, though. Take "one use of strong language" as advertised for #19 and #20. What does that entail exactly? One instance of profanity? Or a single profanity repeated over and over? This would clearly influence my choice. It would be helpful if they could also clarify what kind of strong language, e.g. "one use of strong language beginning with "f", repeatedly" or something such like. My favourite description is "contains emotionally intense scenes". I've never wanted to see one of those.... and now, I never have to!

The correct answers, in numerical order: Beverly Hills Chihuahua; Bolt 3D; Bride Wars; Che: Part One; Frost/Nixon; Ghost Town; Jar City; Milk; My Bloody Valentine 3D; Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist; Revolutionary Road; Role Models; Seven Pounds; Slumdog Millionaire; The Reader; The Wrestler; Twilight; Underworld: Rise of the Lycans; Valkyrie; Yes Man

Tommy Lee Jones vs The World

No Country For Old Men (2007), Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Carry McDonald, Joel and Ethan Coen (Dir.)
In The Valley Of Elah (2007), Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron, Susan Sarandon, Paul Haggis (Dir.)

There are some things that are so far removed from our understanding of how the world should be that we don't know how we should react. Sometimes we try and find words to describe them, but often it seems that the words have all been used up describing less consequential things. Tommy Lee Jones has chosen to make movies instead. He seems to be leaving his weightier roles for the latter years of his career (he probably didn't think he had the wrinkles for it before), putting in two outstanding performances, as a retiring Texan sheriff in the Coen brothers' No Country For Old Men and an ex-military father trying to uncover the truth behind his son's disappearance in Paul Haggis' In The Valley Of Elah.

The most astonishing thing about these two films is how much they share in common, not just in terms of personnel (Josh Brolin also appears in both films, as do - according to The Guardian - two other actors, and the films also share the same cinematographer, Roger Deakins), but also in terms of sentiment. Both depict characters overtaken by world events, for whom their environment has become so unfamiliar as to be completely unfathomable.

In No Country, Tommy Lee Jones represents the old men of the title, a sheriff on the verge of retirement confronted by a series of grotesque killings resulting from a drug deal gone bad. When he finds out that a local welder (Josh Brolin) is on the run with $2m of drug money, he realizes he must find him before the killers contracted to recover the money do so. The sheriff is, however, resigned to his limitations, a man who observes with incredulity at how the world has changed around him, whose values could not possibly have prepared him to confront a man like Anton Chigurh, the mysterious killer who will stop at nothing to recover the $2m. In one of the more light-hearted yet telling of the many memorable scenes from the movie, sheriff Bell sits at a diner with his deputy, reading the paper:

"My lord, Wendell, it's just all-out
war. I don't know any other word for
it. Who are these folks? I don't know...

...Here last week they found this
couple out in California, they would
rent out rooms to old people and then
kill 'em and bury 'em in the yard and
cash their social security checks.
They'd torture them first, I don't
know why. Maybe their television
set was broke. And this went on until,
and here I quote...

...'Neighbors were alerted when a man
ran from the premises wearing only a
dog collar.'
You can't make up such a
thing as that. I dare you to even try.

...But that's what it took, you'll notice.
Get someone's attention. Diggin'
graves in the back yard didn't bring any."

It's these incomprehensible events that make this no country for old men and that put old men at a loss as to what to do about someone like Chigurh, a man who we're told has "Principles that transcend money or drugs or anything like that", and whose conviction is so strong that morality no longer becomes relevant. Chigurh is played with chilling effect by the excellent Javier Bardém. The dodgy haircut alone is enough to terrify you. No Country For Old Men is another great contribution to that film genre, the modern western (I think of Lone Star, The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada...), that sets modern day events against the timeless, expansive , desolate backdrop of the south. The script is full of classic lines, sharp dialogue and cutting sarcasm and the film itself full of visual details that will keep Coen buffs talking for years.

In The Valley Of Elah takes its title from the biblical battlefield in which David fought Goliath. The title itself is laden with irony, as Paul Haggis' film is noticeably ambiguous about who is David and who is Goliath. Indeed, that's the point of the film, which is a critical inquiry into the fate of soldiers returning from Iraq. After being informed that his youngest son has absconded from his base following his return from duty in Iraq, Hank Deerfield sets out to find him, teaming up with a local police detective to try and uncover a military cover-up. Giving any more away would spoil the film, so that's all I'll say about the plot. The film works on many levels, as a father's personal journey to find his son, both literally and emotionally, as a social critique on military action, and as a study of the effects of war on individuals or inter-generational friendship. Theron gives a fine performance as the single mother detective ridiculed by her male colleagues, but Tommy Lee Jones is outstanding in his portrayal of a man whose entire life has been shaped by the military - to the extent that he still finds it inappropriate to present himself in front of a woman without a shirt - but whose circumstances lead him to question many of those values to which he himself has appeared. The film intercuts Deerfield's investigations with eerie video footage from Iraq recovered from his son's mobile phone that hints at the horrifying events that might have led to his disappearance.

The two films remind us of the non-Hollywood reality in which the good guys don't always win. Haggis' film is by far the bleaker of the two, however, for it tells us that, in sending troops to the grotesque theatre of Elah, we don't know whether we're sending them as Davids or Goliaths, for these events are so far removed from any comprehensible notion of morality that we have no framework by which to judge what's right and what's wrong. The film is, in the end, a cry for help, expressed with great poignancy in its final scene.

Summer movies (part 3)

The Bourne Ultimatum, Paul Greengrass (Dir.), Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Joan Allen, Scott Glenn, Albert Finney

Who is Jason Bourne? Find out in this latest installment of the Robert Ludlum adaptations. I must admit to not remembering much about the first two, other than the fact that I didn't like them. That's probably largely to do with my having a considerable distaste for Matt Damon, as well as having watched them on a 4 inch-square screen on an economy class flight to somewhere. However, this third chapter is quite compelling, even if it doesn't particularly stretch Matt Damon's acting abilities. Having had his memory, identity and girlfriend taken away from him, Bourne returns to get to the source, a top-secret CIA operation known as Blackbriar. His investigation takes him to Paris, London, Madrid, Tangiers and New York, and reunites him with CIA agent Nicky Parsons, played by Julia Stiles. There's non-stop, engaging, implausible action all the way through. The film is like a feature-length hybrid of Alias and 24, and suffers from much the same downsides of those two shows, namely a rather one-dimensional portrayal of US response to paranoid national security issues, an equally one-dimensional obsession with violence and revenge, and the ridiculous attempt to portray computer geeks and surveillance technology as ultra-cool. Interestingly, the CIA and NSA always tend to come off badly as portrayed in Hollywood movies, in general contrast to the US military and the FBI. There's a thesis to be written somewhere in there. All that aside, it's all mindless entertainment, particularly if you like the increasing trend for rooftop chases (To Catch A Thief is still the original and the best, closely followed by The Untouchables).

Summer movies (Part 1)

So it seems that 2007 is packed full of medium to low-brow entertainment, perfect for whiling away the hours between those flood warnings. Here's the pick of the ones I've managed to catch so far:

4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Tim Story (Dir.), Jessica Alba and, well, who cares.....
AKA "Who cares? Jessica Alba's in it....", the sequel to Fantastic Four, incidentally still the best comic book-adapted animated TV series ever, introduces the Silver Surfer, who is, you won't be surprised to hear, a silvery being from outer space who flies around on a surfboard and does some pretty nasty things in preparation for the arrival of his master, Galactus, an even meaner-ass outer-space being who's coming to suck the life out of Earth. The Silver Surfer is kind of like a John the Baptist of the galactic anti-Christ. Thankfully, Dr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Rock and The Human Torch are here to save the day. There's the usual globe-trotting that seems to be the norm in these movies these days, with action sequences at the London Eye on London's South Bank, Shanghai, New York... and enough gags, CGI and schmaltz to keep teenage boys happy. The acting is... well, who cares? Did I mention Jessica Alba's in it?

Ocean's Thirteen, Steven Soderbergh (Dir.), George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and the rest of the crew....
Steve, dude, like stop playing with my head already. This is by far the most convoluted of the Ocean's remakes. I mean, we know the plot already: there's a casino, there's lots of money in it (yes, even more than in the Bellagio), they're gonna steal it. The fun is in figuring out how they're gonna steal it. But what's the point if the plot is so complicated that you end up getting a headache and none of the enjoyment? JMG fell asleep, and both George Clooney AND Brad Pitt are in this movie, so that's saying something. Essentially, this is just an excuse for grown men to wear disguises and walk around looking hip in Vegas. Don't think about it, just soak it all in....

Hairspray, Adam Shankman (Dir.), Nikki Blonsky, John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer, Amanda Bynes, Queen Latifah
OK, so despite having been reluctantly dragged to see this by JMG, Hairspray really didn't suck anywhere nearly as much as I thought it would. In fact, I'd even say it was quite fun. And, in retrospect, who wouldn't wanna go see John Travolta in drag? The story follows sickeningly good-natured Tracy Turnblad, as she fights to fulfill her aspirations of becoming a dancer on TV and be recognized as a dignified individual. Oh, and she more or less brings about racial integration in the process, which is no mean feat, for a schoolkid from Baltimore. Christopher Walken is quite endearing as her simple-minded, but honourable father, but John Travolta's naive and over-protective mother becomes a little tiresome after a while. There are plenty of cheesy songs for those of you who like that sort of thing, although most of them are actually bearable, even for those of us who find musical theatre deeply offensive. What makes Hairspray enjoyable is the quirky, at times pretty dark humour that pokes fun at the musical genre. There's a slightly uncomfortable undertone throughout the whole movie that makes you feel that this is the kind of movie Hollywood makes in order for Americans to feel OK about their rather tragic recent past. But if you're not that cynical, then this is entertaining enough. Amanda Bynes is the best thing in the movie, playing Tracy Turnblad's quirky, slightly ditzy sidekick.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, David Yates (Dir.), Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson
I'm all for dark Harry Potter films, but I wasn't overly impressed by Order of the Phoenix. I fear the whole enterprise might be starting to get a little tiresome, which would be rather sad. The wizard world is in denial about rumours of the return of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, and it's up to Harry Potter to train an 'army' of his school peers to prepare for battle against the ultimate evil. This film focuses much more on Potter and his inner struggle against his mysterious connection with Voldemort. Sadly, the film suffers considerably for it, for Radcliffe is getting rather old and he was never that engaging anyway (it'll be interesting to see how he survives another two Potter movies). The older Potter lacks the cuteness factor of his younger self and appears to have gained an annoying sense of self-importance. As a film, Order of the Phoenix doesn't have anything novel to offer over the previous instalments and it feels rather choppy at times (e.g. the fate of Sirius Black). As usual, Hermione is grossly underused, which is a shame, given that Emma Watson is a much better actor than either Radcliffe or Grint. And Nicholas Hooper's score isn't particularly memorable. Having said that, it saves me from reading the books, and I get to learn some wicked spells to defend myself against the dark arts, so it's all good.

Transformers, Michael Bay (Dir.), Shia LaBoeuf, Megan Fox, John Voigt, John Turturro
They're robots in disguise. Really. What more do you need to know? Although here's what I wanna know. How come the good robots (the autobots) choose such crappy disguises? I mean, c'mon, a banged-up Camaro, the cab of an articulated truck... when the bad robots (the decepticons) dress up as F22s, armoured vehicles and tanks and stuff. Anyway, Shia LaBoeuf plays the geeky schoolnerd unwittingly harbouring the key to an advanced, alien, robotic civilization. His first car (the aforementioned banged-up Camaro) also happens to transform into a kick-ass robot, perfect for a kid with no friends. When it becomes apparent that evil robots are taking over the US's defence system, autobots, led by Optimus Prime (guess those robots weren't very good at Latin) start landing on Earth to try and find and destroy the Allspark that is the key to their civilization (hey, I didn't make this sh*t up!) before the decepticons get their hands on it and bring destruction to the human race. Along the way, you find out that robots can be cheesy and patronizing in equal measure, and they break a lot of stuff. Megan Fox effectively provides the feisty female interest who makes an unlikely friendship with the class geek. The visual effects are stunning and are accompanied by Steve Jablonsky's score, which is at times reminiscent of Batman Begins, but cleverly references Terminator 2 at key moments in the battle between autobots and decepticons. John Voight is by far the worst thing in the movie, ridiculously miscast as Defense Secretary John Keller.

Praise for....

This is something that has bemused me for some time. Who writes those testimonials that appear on billboards for third-rate Hollywood movies and on the inside pages of fiction best-sellers? You can tell much about the likely quality of a movie from these helpful one-liners. For example, "Rocky Balboa is the best Rocky movie yet!", is hardly a ringing endorsement, is it? The word "yet" also warns you that it's not outside the realm of possibility that Sylvester Stallone might appear in one further installment, in which it doesn't matter if the guy is blind and in a zimmer frame, he'll still knock the crap out of an opponent 60 years younger after 12 rounds in the ring. Or what does it say about Final Destination 15 that the best the distributors could do was an endorsement of "Thrilling!" from the News of the World, as if, somehow, a thriller shouldn't be expected to be "thrilling".

Books don't escape this sort of disingenuous advertising either. Take Jacques Pépin's autobiography, The Apprentice, which I'm currently reading. It's a great book describing his early years as a trainee chef, going on to cook for Charles de Gaulle, emigrating to New York, almost becoming JFK's personal chef and eventually becoming a TV personality. Yet, the Washington Post seemingly has nothing more helpful to say than "Fascinating", Entertainment Weekly chips in with "Colourful memories", or how about this from the Chicago Tribune: "Well told", as if somehow they're commending this charming Frenchman on his competent command of English grammar. Some others have clearly read the book more carefully and offer far more useful commentary. Anthony Bourdain, ever-enthusiastic, has this to say: "I've been waiting for this book my whole life!... A well-written, funny, sad, informative, and always enchanting account of an incredible career.... An instant classic." And this brings me to Bourdain's own hefty tome, Les Halles Cookbook, which I recently purchased. This, by the way, is an excellent book, replete with classic French recipes accompanied by Bourdain's odd-ball commentary: "So, let's make fries. But do it right. There's no half-ass way to make French fries." You can almost feel him watching over your shoulder. "No, you f*cking idiot! You're supposed to blanche them first!" That's the kind of thing he might say if you didn't give due respect to your fries. The introduction alone is worth the 9.99GBP (reduced...) I paid for it. Yet the front carries this dubious endorsement from Gordon Ramsay: "A workable, usable book with attitude", which in my impression of Gordon Ramsay, translates as: "Yeah, this book is f*cking sh*t! Usable! I use it as a f*cking doorstop! And I don't care what people say about his attitude, I still think he's a f*cking a***hole!" Of course, that might just be me being unkind....

Here's another book I'm reading: The Tapestries, by Kien Nguyen, a novel set in early 20th Century Vietnam. Now, some people are just full of themselves. What the heck is this?

"The Tapestries stirs and bleeds and blushes, fully fleshed. Its every leaf glimmers with sunlit rain, its every anguish burns the eyes. It breathes... No detail escapes Nguyen's watchful eye, no shape or surface slumps into soft focus... The pictures, thousands of them and almost every one jewel-bright, tell the story... Under the swoosh of the story itself lie the backdrops crafted so exquisitely that their silver blades and lanterns gleam long after the drama fades from view."

I get the feeling that whoever it was at the San Francisco Chronicle who wrote this was suffering from a severe case of post-colonial romaticism. Firstly, the place was run by French people; there were probably bakeries selling baguettes to rich white people all over the place. Secondly, the poor guy was sold into slavery to the household of the magistrate who murdered his father. Thirdly, there were probably rats everywhere, and cockroaches, and malaria. And it was hot, and sweaty, and humid.

Babel Babble....

Alejandro González Iñárritu (Dir), Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, Koji Yakusho

I put it to you that this is one of the most overrated movies of the year. Far from being the towering achievement that its title implies, this kinda crumbled to pieces like the proverbial tower. I regard Iñárritu as the natural heir to Krzysztof Kieslowski in his ability to weave together divergent stories across space and time into a coherent whole, as in his excellent Amores Perros. I've found his last two attempts, however, to be rather disappointing. 21 Grams had nothing very interesting to say and was kinda pretentious, while Babel, despite seemingly bearing an important message about cultural miscommunication, is far from an entertaining movie. I can't say that I found anything in it that was appealing - the characters aren't compelling, the story isn't that interesting, the acting is average, and the conclusion is highly unsatisfying. Why is it, for example, that the white American couple end up OK (Cate Blanchett doesn't even need an amputation), but everyone else gets screwed over? Is this a comment on the way of the world? In fact, I spent much of the movie trying to decide whether there was any point to any of it. The three settings (Morocco, California/Mexico, Japan) don't fit that well together, and the Japanese section is particularly tenuous, if not wholly bizarre. Not even Iñárritu's usually excellent cinematography makes the trip worthwhile. Perhaps the one redeeming quality is Gustavo Santaolalla's score.

I sense there was a reason why men were sent to the corners of the earth speaking in different tongues, but I suspect it wasn't so they could make a movie about it.....

满城尽带黄金甲 - The Curse of the Golden Flower

Zhang Yimou (Dir), Chow Yun Fat, Gong Li, Jay Chou

The Curse of the Golden Flower is set to be Zhang Yimou's latest bid for Best Foreign Film at this year's Oscars. A typically stylish, visually sumptuous period drama based telling the story of a Tang dynasty Emperor whose thirst for power results in the death of his three sons, Golden Flower has attracted a great deal of attention, much of it for its unusually revealing costumes (Critics Rip into Golden Flower's Bodices, Guardian Dec 20, 2006). Based on a play by Yu Cao, the film has all the ingredients that make imperial dramas so cinematically appealing: elaborate sets, visually stunning set pieces, beautiful costumes, internecine power struggles, decadence, love, incest, patricide, filicide, martial arts... But Golden Flower is more than just another period martial arts drama. In fact, unlike Zhang's previous films, House of Flying Daggers and Hero, there is much less focus on elaborately choreographed swordfights, in favour of emphasizing the ritual of imperial life, in a manner reminiscent of Raise the Red Lantern. As with many of Zhang's films, plot is far from everything and the plot is, at times, rather obtuse. The story focuses on Gong Li's empress, the emperor's second wife and mother of his two younger sons, who, upon realizing that she is slowly being poisoned at the behest of her husband, hatches a plot to kill the emperor on the night of the Chrysanthemum festival, pleading with her eldest son (played by Taiwanese actor/singer Jay Chou) to lead the assault and take over the reign.

The main characters are sadly not very fully developed; Chow Yun Fat's emperor is disappointingly two-dimensional, while his first son, subject of the illicit and unrequited affections of the empress, is more like a straight line, not helped by some pretty poor acting by Qin Junjie. But the film is all about Gong Li. After some pretty average Hollywood distractions in Memoirs of a Geisha and the absurd Miami Vice, she's back on form in a captivating performance that holds the film together. Empress Phoenix is a perfect blend of seductiveness, imperiousness, deceit and despair, all of which which Gong Li excels at. If you only need one reason to watch this movie, let it be Gong Li........