I could never call myself a Trekkie, but that’s not to say I could never have been one. What I saw of the original Star Trek series as a child never turned me off particularly – albeit I was bemused by what threat plasticine blobs and Nazis could offer a heavily armed starship – but it was ironically my obsessive nature which stopped me from becoming a devout Trekkie in the first place.

In order to have become one, I would have had to have seen every episode from start to finish in rough order, and not just pick and mix on alternating weekends at my father’s house. Had I ever properly gotten into Star Trek, you would all fear me and the wrath of my über-geekdom.

Strangely  I have always had a passion for The Next Generation for the very reason cited above; I was able over the years to catch almost every episode on the telly as they came and went, and for those I missed I borrowed a complete guidebook from a neighbour and studied it diligently (and embarrassingly).

So yeah, as Trekkies go, I am FAIL. So much so that I only saw The Wrath of Khan for the first time last summer. I have never seen The Motion Picture, nor a single episode of Enterprise. But I do rank the TNG episode ‘Cause and Effect’ (the déjà vu one) to be one of the best episodes of a TV drama ever made (other members of that esteemed list are Lost’s ‘Deus Ex Machina’ and The West Wing’s ‘Two Cathedrals’).

So it would be fair to say I never had particularly high hopes for JJ Abrams’s revamped Star Trek, and I was never one to hide my criticism. But it wasn’t out of love for the originals or a feeling or treading on sacred ground that it bothered me, but simply a lack of timeliness to the project that made it feel wrong for now. The last two TNG films had been so poor (from the snippets I saw while angrily ignoring them) that throwing a new Star Trek into the mix that was looking backward rather than forward seemed strange to me. Does one have to go back to the beginning to fix what only went wrong along the way? Let’s hope not, or George Lucas will be announcing a reboot of the original Star Wars trilogy within days of now.

I was surprised then when the reviews started coming back so extremely positive. How could this be? Well, I should have seen it coming, what Abrams’s Star Trek has going for it is something decidedly simple but unique – it’s a blockbuster!

And no, I don’t mean to slam the previous Star Treks (since when has being a blockbuster been definitively a good thing?), nor imply weak box offices across the board. But there has always been something decidedly B-movie-ish about the majority of Star Trek films; they never lost touch with the fact that they were glorified episodes of good TV shows. Sometimes it worked delightfully, and other times it didn’t.

But Star Trek is undoubtedly an enormously mainstream, high-concept, high-budget ($150 million?!), audience-pleasing movie machine. Its CGI rivals the best the Star Wars prequels ever offered, its script is full of punchy dialogue, and there’s a sexy young cast who fit so snugly into their already worn roles that one suspects genetic tampering has been used to clone a second superior generation to crew the Enterprise. Just think – somewhere out there a hairless baby is being bred to be Jean-Luc Picard in forty years.

What they’ve done here is take an original idea and make it brighter, faster, sharper, funnier, surprisingly less camp, and suspiciously likable. There’s no doubt that this is the Star Trek film that anyone can enjoy with ease. The young characters are all introduced as new – there’s a few gags for the fans but baring the time-travel subplot not much that would require any foreknowledge of the series.

It’s not without its faults. Eric Bana as the Romulan villain Nero stoops almost as low as he did as Henry VIII in The Other Boleyn Girl – it’s a desperately written role, but he has nothing to bring to it that couldn’t be performed by a lobotomised Nicolas Cage.

The monster action sequence on an ice planet has vomit-inducing echoes of The Phantom Menace and seems determined to satisfy awkward cinemagoers who time the interval between action scenes and leave if unsatiated.

Similarly, much of the comic relief could have been left out – Simon Pegg makes a surprisingly impressive Scotty, but making him act the complete fool is an insult to the character, the actor (and his forebear) and most of the isle of Britain. Pairing him with a sidekick who is the freakish offspring of a Jawa and one of those coral people from the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels hardly helps. The ‘Scotty in the water pipe’ sequence is so painfully out of place it deserves a right booing, but then it seems to be there to satisfy both the comic relief seekers and those who think a potential death is “exciting” or even an action sequence.

Speaking of potential deaths for characters who will clearly not die, young Kirk dangles from a precipice a total of three times in this film, not including his battle with a giant bug thingy on an ice slope.

In hiring an almost perfect cast for the Enterprise, Abrams has allowed himself to get away with a lot. Essentially by rewriting the past he has all but deleted four TV series and ten films from the Star Trek canon, allowing himself and his successors to craft an entirely new universe in which to boldly go. Leonard Nemoy’s rather charming cameo is used as the royal seal to decree this new Star Trek law.

Thus, what’s most unfortunate about the project is that it essentially fails to deliver on its own premise. Star Trek was billed as an origin story for a series epic in scope. It would explain how these characters that have been adored for forty years now came to share the deck of this starship. But it simply doesn’t do that, because the time is all wrong.

The very rewriting of the time frame by Nero’s evil nastiness changes the events that Trekkies were promised by this film in the first place. This is not how Kirk came to be in Starfleet, because Kirk had a father who raised him right, while this one does not – and if we learned nothing else from The Boys from Brazil it’s what a difference a dad makes.

Similarly Spock never lost his mother (Winona Ryder, oh how you shoplifted your career to death) nor his home planet. And how did Scotty actually come to be a member of the Enterprise crew when not prodded by alternate universe Kirk and future Spock?

Abrams has created an origin story to a completely (well, not completely!) different series; a series he will no doubt helm for some time (coincidently his former pet project Lost has been hammering home for months now that time-tinkery is ultimately fruitless).

One hopes he will continue to do a decent job with it, and that in time the Trekkies will either come to love it – or rise up in rebellion and demand their universe be put to right.

Regardless, if in fifty years time I see an alternate universe reboot of Star Trek: Voyager I will be the first to hunt down the aging Mr Adams and break both his crumbling knees.

3/5

So the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival has been over a week now but it’s worth recapping what I saw in the days following my marathon Sunday viewing.

On the Tuesday of the Festival I caught the entertaining oddity Were the World Mine. A camp indulging in gay teen wish fulfilment, the film combines traditional teen angst drama with musical fantasy to create a bizarre yet recognisable fusion.

Loosely autobiographical, according to director Tom Gustafson, the story follows a troubled gay teen dealing with his attractions at an all-boys school in a somewhat conservative American town.

First escaping into daydreams about his rugby star crush – the film’s portrayal of a daydreaming adolescent is commendable – framed in the context of a school performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the film takes an interesting and utterly unexpected turn when the youth, Timothy, successfully fabricates the love potion from that play, and uses it to help the world see through his eyes, by literally making the whole town gay.

It’s a little juvenile, but it’ all performed with a nod and a wink, and it pretty much works fine as an indy comedy. Whether it truly has anything to say about gender relations and sexuality is debatable, but through the use of dance and music, all lyrics by Bill Shakespeare, it certainly sets itself apart from any similar films.

Certainly it’s the freshest the love potion film has seemed in decades.

Right after that, though thankfully in the same cinema, was a gala presentation of the sensational Il Divo. A political biopic like none I have ever seen, the latter days of the rule of Giulio Andreotti are played out in manner that could be called part drama, part gangster movie, part music video.

Indeed, the impressive young director Paolo Sorrentino said in discussion after the film that his intention had been to create a “rock opera” about Andreotti, and it very much comes off that way.

Surreal flourishes permeate the otherwise sensible walls of power in Rome: a cat with David Bowie eyes engages Andreotti in a staring contest; blood red subtitles introducing characters shift within the frame to contest with camera movements; even the music from the soundtrack is utterly eccentric.

As Andreotti, Tony Servillo creates a caricature that feels too strange to not be real. There is an inhumanity to him, as he rings his hands, hunched like Count Orlok, and yet when we see his relationship with his wife, and when we see the pressure that is on him and the sleeplessness power creates for him, we realise that it is far more than a caricature that is on display here.

In perhaps the film’s most startling image (and there are several in contention), Andreotti walks off his sleeplessness up and down a corridor for what feels like minutes on end, the camera swinging to keep up with movement as he darts in and out of focus. There is a potential master behind this camera, but like many of the masters he is clearly really having fun.

A complete antithesis to the realism of Italy’s other Cannes success last year, Gomorrah, Il Divo similarly asks questions without answers and leaves an incredible amount of ambiguity, while pointing towards Andreotti’s guilt.

It’s a bizarre experience, but one that you can’t shake off afterwards as you still picture Andreotti shuffling along the midnight streets of Rome with an armed cavalcade of police at his side.

The next evening was the Irish premiere of Religulous, another feature long out in the US, which I had been waiting for for some time. I’ve never made much secret of my staunch atheism so this was always going to be a case of preaching to the choir (if you’ll forgive that specious turn of phrase in this instance).

I’d be lying so if I did not admit I was slightly disappointed. The film took what I consider to be too flippant an approach in its observances of the faults in adhering to outdated religious doctrines. To finally turn around as Bill Maher does in the final reel and put forth what amounts to a call to arms for atheists and agnostics is quite a step that one feels a whole TV series would have required rather than 100 minutes of witty analysis.

In fairness, as comedy goes, making fun of religion is like shooting Jesus fish in a barrel.

But that’s not to say it isn’t funny, it has some great moments, mostly supplied by witty subtitles and bizarre interviewees. The discussion with an eccentric priest outside the Vatican contains many of the highlights, as does the interview with an Arkansas senator.

But good fun and occasional insights do not make it the must-see event it really should have been.

The surface has been scratched, but who will start hacking away now that Bill Maher and Larry Charles have retreated?

An exhausting dash from Cineworld to the Screen (again) made me very on time for a delayed screening of Tokyo!, coupled with Il Divo my highlight of he Festival.

This three-pronged assault on logic through surrealism and whimsy is one of the best collections of short films I have ever come across.

The first film, Interior Design, has left me forgiving the bitter taste Michel Gondry left in my mouth with the dire Be Kind Rewind. It is an expertly crafted story that begins as a generic but pleasant “country girl in the big city” story before mutating into a Kafkaesque nightmare with a happy ending.

The story of Hiroko’s (Ayako Fujitani) struggle to feel useful and her despair in realising the truth about herself is captured wonderfully through the film’s pacing and Fujitami’s introverted performance. When all surrealist hell breaks loose, Gondry uses his trademark “wait, how did he do that?” special effects so brilliantly that it sweeps you up and takes you away with it. The ending hovers in a void between meaningless and insightful that all you can do is smile.

Merde is the weakest of the three vignettes, but that is hardly a criticism. Directed by little-known French filmmaker Leos Carax, it tells the story of a horrible French troll (Denis Lavant) who lives beneath Tokyo, venturing forth only to terrorise through sheer unpleasantness.

The first elongated take following Merde along his path of terror, on what feels like a never-ending or endlessly repeating shopping street – stealing money (to eat) and licking helpless passersby.

When eventually captured and put on trial, his lawyer appears to also be a similar troll creature, albeit one who has become a respected member of French society. Pythonesque comedy ensues as the two communicate through gibberish; it nearly gets old but always remains funny, even through the lengthy courtroom scene, which is kept fresh by the use of – for no discernable reason – 24-style split screens.

It’s all very silly but very fun, with brilliant fake news coverage adding to the nonsense. The final gag is truly inspired, although one fears Carax could follow up on the offer it contains.

Finally, Shaking Tokyo is Tokyo!’s triumph. From Bong Joon-ho, the Korean genius behind the genre-bending The Host, it tells the story of a hikikomori, a sort of homebound hermit, who only orders in food and refuses to make eye contact with visitors, and designs his dwelling with used-up toilet rolls and empty pizza boxes.

After a chance encounter with a beautiful woman and a subsequent earthquake, the nameless shut-in begins to rethink his life, and the story ventures from comedy into the worlds of romance and science fiction.

It is an utter delight with more than enough quirky gags to keep it constantly fresh, as well as one of the most charming voiceovers in recent memory.

On Thursday night I took a friend to see Two For the Road, playing as one of the many classic films on show. As an extra treat it was on at the Lighthouse cinema, which I had not been to since its reopening last year. It must be the comfiest and most aesthetically pleasing cinema in Dublin.

The film was more of a treat than I expected, detailing the romantic ups and downs of an English couple over 12 years as their various holidays in France criss-cross one another in time.

The back-and-forthing feels remarkably novel for 1967, it’s the sort of stylistic device we like to think belongs solely to the likes of Christopher Nolan. But really this is all about the magnificent script (by Frederic Raphael) and the impressive chemistry between Albert Finney (utterly charming) and Audrey Hepburn (who goes from pretty pixie to bitchy madam).

Some of the sequences work better than others. The youngest pairing are so full of promise (that we see simultaneously blighted) that it’s hard not to love them, and their dialogue is so laced with double entendre that it is always hysterical. Another pairing sees them travelling with an infuriating American couple, who you wish to both laugh and strangle they are so totally true-to-life.

But the eldest, successful and bitter sequences are so nasty, and Hepburn’s outfits so gruesomely over the top, that they never quite work properly. Especially toward the end, where the film loses its sense of rhythm and extends each scene needlessly, that by the finale you feel utterly exhausted.

It is still a film years ahead of its time however.

So after what felt like an almost faultless run at the Film Festival I took my chance on an Irish film for my last night, the Saturday, when the director of Song For a Raggy Boy, Aisling Walsh, presented her new film, The Daisy Chain.

A horror (sort of), in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby, the film defiantly chose not to work.

Beginning promisingly with the journey of a young couple, played by the usually reliable Samantha Morton and Steven Mackintosh, to his former home in Co. Mayo as they expect their second child, following the death of their firstborn, the film quickly misses its footing with an overindulgence in twee Oirishness and hammy acting.

A local girl, Daisy, whose face is inexplicably always dirty, is cruel and odd, though friendly towards Martha (Morton).

When her entire family ends up dead, no one suspects a thing and the newcomers to town take her in. Despite her being really creepy.

Suddenly people start to whisper that she might not be human, and might actually be a “fairy changeling” (watch in horror as the cast clearly hold back giggles while saying those words – you might not be so lucky).

The defence comes from Martha that she is probably autistic, but that just raises further questions as to why on earth this couple are left looking after her.

There are a few good sequences: Daisy – who, played by newcomer Mhairi Anderson, is genuinely impressive in her creepiness – nearly pushes some local children off a cliff as she violently demands they “Play with me!”; a crazed local attempts to do away with the girl in a rather fiendish Wile E Coyote-style pit trap, but even that whole scene is spoiled by a slow motion shot that looks as if it was created with the free software that comes with a new MacBook.

The film is riddled with errors. Continuity errors, editing mishaps, hapless dialogue. When Daisy’s parents die, a garda says that the locals wouldn’t be so scared if it hadn’t happened on Halloween, which is the first we’ve heard of this!

At an earlier point, Martha finds a drowned child in the water; when his mother sees her with him she cries “Jack! Jack!” and continues to sob his name. The following scene, down the Garda station, has Martha ask a garda: “What was the boys name?”

A number of subplots pop up without purpose, including a sequence of marital infidelity that comes from nowhere interesting and goes nowhere at all.

It’s sloppy work, which is a shame because it has merit – it is wonderfully shot in some impressive Irish countryside locations, Morton and Anderson both pull off their roles, and Daisy is genuinely unsettling. But it all builds up to an open-ended climax that reveals that even the writer had no idea how to end this.

There isn’t even a theme, in two charming early sequences a crucifix is referenced (bringing to mind if nothing else The Exorcist), implying that there might be a theme of old beliefs versus new, but this never fully materialises. By the end of the film the only moral on show is that autistic children should be culled before they kill us all!

It was a dreadful end to what had otherwise been a terrific week of solid film viewing. Here’s looking forward to next year, when hopefully I’ll be able to take a more active role. And perhaps I can take in a few more festivals in the interim.

Good evening and welcome to my coverage of this year’s Academy Awards, live from Hollywood, California. Well, not the coverage, the Oscars. It may feel now like it’s going to be a predictable evening ahead, but who knows what the night will bring.

For the sake of clarity all posts will be submitted in Pacific Standard Time, which should help me tricking my brain into not thinking it’s 4am.

Enjoy!

5.57pm – Almost ready to go. The stars are prancing their ways down the red carpet. I’ll avoid commenting on the fashion, that’s not quite my style, but I may make the odd comment here or there. Have I any last minute predictions? Well, I hope Winslet finally wins, and I am certainly backing Slumdog Millionaire for Best Picture. Other than that, let’s just hope Wall·E takes Best Original Screenplay. Here we go…

5.10pm – Bored waiting, here’s some clothes commentary: Sarah Jessica Parker seems to think this is the Princess Awards. She’s dressed like a 6-year-old girl on Hallowe’en. But Marisa Tomei is totally working whatever the hell kind of dress that is. And Kate looks gorgeous as ever. And while Taraji P Henson and Viola Davis have no chance of winning anything, it’s nice to see them dressing to the occasion. I see Angelina Jolie has gone for 1950s super-slut. Good for her.

5.13pm – Have they started yet? I’m sleepy.

5.23pm – Somewhere in Hell is a room waiting for me, in which there is always the promise of something entertaining, but instead I have to watch Sky Movies’ introduction… and it never ends.

5.26pm – I’m going to have to throw Best Actor to Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler. While I think Sean Penn is a great actor, I really dislike him as a person. I must admit however that Rourke’s performance comes down largely to such a wonderfully scripted character. Still, Rourke to win.

5.32pm – Live from the Kodak Theatre – it’s sleep deprivation!

5.33pm – I hope that’s fake crystal, there’s a recession on, or something.

5.33pm – Good evening Hugh.

5.34pm – Australia jokes. Solid start.

5.37pm – Super-cheap musical number? Good stuff so far. Oh dear, poor Anne Hathaway.

5.38pm – Hang on, I suspect she knew that was coming…

5.40pm – “I’m Wolveriiiiiiiiine!” Great end to a fun opening number, and some good old-fashioned whoring out for free advertising!

5.43pm – There’s something rather charming about Jackman’s interaction with the audience. He may not be a comedian but he has a lot of personality.

5.44pm – Oh dear, was there a giant curtain malfunction there? Seriously, WTF?

5.45pm – Hey look, some famous Best Supporting Actresses. This had better be going somewhere.

5.46pm – Doubt still hasn’t come out on this side of the Atlantic. I can’t help but feel very in the dark here.

5.48pm – Sweet, nun jokes. As for Taraji P Henson, am I the only one who thinks Tilda Swinton should be up there (well she is, but I mean nominated) for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?

5.49pm – Hooray for Penelope Cruz, looking a tad swan-like. Her squeaky lisping voice is a delight for the first award. A predictable start though, we may not get many big surprises tonight.

5.52pm – “Art is a universal language.” Well said. Not too soppy at all that.

5.54pm – Steve Martin and Tina Fey appear with at least one great gag. Here comes Best Original Screenplay. Go… Wall·E!

5.56pm – “No-one wants to hear about our religion.” Scientology, take that!

5.58pm – Milk it is. I guess I’ll allow it.

6.00pm – A touching speech to the gay community of America. Too bad it was said in a tiny liberal bubble.

6.02pm – Adapted Screenplay: does Benjamin Button even count as adapted? It has barely a thing in common with the original story. The first award for Slumdog, perhaps?

6.03pm – Yup. I think the night is pretty much spelled out now.

6.06pm – Jack Black bets on Pixar! Priceless. The animation yearbook – this should show why Wall·E must win over Kung Fu Panda.

6.08pm – Wall·E wins it! How gloriously wonderful!

6.12pm – It always bothers me that the short animations are so hard to come across. No carrot for Presto. La Maison en Petits Cubes wins. I did love Presto, but I didn’t see this so I can’t judge this – it looks pretty. Ha! Japanese robot humour! Domo arigato yourself, good sir!

6.16pm – Huh, backstage for the design awards. How very strange these Oscars are.

6.17pm – I predict a series of wins for Button here, though I’ll happily be proved wrong.

6.18pm – I was right so far. A deserved win for a very pretty film.

6.20pm – Craig and Parker are going to do all of these, no wonder they’re expecting to get through these so fast this year.

6.21pm – Ah, The Duchess. Fancy that.

6.23pm – I could think of more adjectives for Keira Knightley than just “classy”.

6.24pm – Button beats Hellboy and Dark Knight to make-up. Maybe a cleverer usage of make-up, but not necessarily more impressive since you can’t see where much of the make-up ends and digital effects begin.

6.26pm – Amanda Seyfried, so pretty. And that guy from Twilight. I never saw that film, because I’m not an angsty teenaged girl.

6.29pm – Romance. I’m kind of enjoying these genre mash-ups. Another moment for Wall·E to steal the show!

6.31pm – Cinematography. This has to be one for Slumdog. Hmmm, do we give credit for beard-related comedy? Not funny so far. Bad Stiller. Bad.

6.33pm – This is agonising. Is he parodying Joaquin Phoenix? Or is he just here to annoy me?

6.36pm – Predictable. This is really gearing up for a three-way race between Slumdog, Milk and Button for the big wins. “I’ll try to thank people more.” There’s a good rule to live by. What moral Oscars these are.

6.40pm – Is Jessica Biel lecturing me on technology history?

6.44pm – Oh wow, a Pineapple Express-themed comedy montage! And they’re laughing at the Holocaust movie! And calling Stellan Skarsgård Irish!

6.46pm – That was very trippy. What an odd trio these guys make. Did I see any short films this year? Isn’t one of them Irish?

6.48pm – Nothing worse than when the winning film is unpronounceable.

6.52pm – And we’re back! What will Hugh do now? Oooh, the musical is back he says – I think I see where this is going. I think The Reader would make a good one.

6.53pm – Jackman and Beyoncé do Fred Astaire. This is getting strange… do I like this?

6.57pm – Ok, High School Musical kids and fascist Mamma Mia marching. This has stopped working. And now it’s over.

6.59pm – My crush on Amanda Seyfried seems to know no end. Oh Baz Luhrmann, do you hear old musicals in your head at all times?

7.01pm – Who will be our Best Supporting Actors from Oscar Past?

7.03pm – Does Ledger deserve it? Probably. Has he a chance of not getting it? Not a fucking chance in hell.

7.04pm – Why is Philip Seymour Hoffman dressed like Ghost Dog?

7.06pm – Cuba Gooding Jr: “Brothers need to work.” Nice job retelling the joke to the comedian.

7.08pm – If Ledger doesn’t win there will be riots in the street.

7.09pm – Here come the Ledgers. Tissues at the ready…

7.10pm – A touching speech by a nervous non-professional.

7.11pm – And straight into documentary. I have shamefully seen none of the nominees this year yet.

7.13pm – I am torn between backing the legend that is Herzog, or Man On Wire, which covers a subject that is so fascinating and one-of-a-kind.

7.14pm – Did Bill Maher just make a Heath Ledger joke? And then pimp his movie?

7.15pm – It’s Man On Wire. Well done! And here sprints Phillipe Petit! Hooray for the crazy Frenchman.

7.16pm – YES! Magic and a hilarious insult to the Oscar itself! Balancing acts have never been so much fun. Maher’s right, that deserved an extra Oscar all of its own – just to balance it again!

7.18pm – Seriously, where does one get to see a Documentary Short Subject? I mean, honestly!

7.23pm – Now the post-production run. Might be some surprises here.

7.25pm – Oh dear. Here comes some serious grinning…

7.26pm – Ah Will Smith, trying to justify his career. I have no idea what will win Visual Effects. Button?

7.27pm – Yes it is. A technical treat that film was. I just hope its wins stop here.

7.29pm – Smith trips up over his words while delivering Sound Editing. How ironic. Wall·E or The Dark Knight?

7.30pm – The latter. Good job. Would have been happy with either. Never did think Wanted would get a nomination!

7.31pm – Ah Sound Mixing, the award not even those nominated for it understand.

7.32pm – An unexpected tech award for Slumdog. Great to see (hear).

7.33pm – My God Danny Boyle looks happy!

7.34pm – Editing is far too big a deal to be slumped in at the end of these tech awards. Gotta be Slumdog!

7.35pm – It had to be, there’s more energy in that film’s editing than there is the entirety of Benjamin Button.

7.42pm – Jerry Lewis wins the Jean Hersholt Award. This could be amusing… or maybe not.

7.45pm – A standing ovation. The man looks fighting fit for 82. Maybe even more so than Eddie Murphy.

7.47pm – I’m not complaining, but why exactly is Heidi Klum there? I mean, wow, but still. Why not just scatter Victoria’s Secret’s finest all throughout the crowd?

7.50pm – Here come the music awards. Surely two more for Slumdog Millionaire.

7.51pm – God, could the Defiance score be any more desperate to be Schindler’s List?

7.52pm – Now that I hear it alone, there are some instruments in the Wall·E soundtrack that I’ve never even heard of before. But the Slumdog music is beautiful also.

7.55pm – Had to be Slumdog, one more to take back to India. Well, England. Now a fight to the death with Wall·E for best song! But the little robot is outnumbered two to one.

7.56pm – “MUSIC.” “LONG.” Who is this woman?

8.oopm – Wow, mixing the songs together… it actually works! I don’t care who wins, these three are all great. Though I gues I’d give it to Slumdog.

8.02pm – Well-deserved for Slumdog, though I can’t help but feel sorry for little WallE left without any more Oscars. It deserved so many. “Choose love” reminds me of a Danny Boyle movie I once saw…

8.05pm – Liam Neeson and Freida Pinto. Hot stuff.

8.07pm – Departures eh? I know nothing of it. Look forward to hearing more though. And the Academy laughs racistly at the winner’s lack of English. Oh dear…

8.11pm – Queen Latifah introduces the sad part with a song. Wait for the sound that comes when they show Paul Newman. Sigh.

8.16pm – Yeah, that was sad. Always is. Nice to look back, though it wouldn’t have hurt to allow some dialogue out.

8.19pm – Oh dear, two seperate dresses crashed into each other at high speeds and made what Reese Witherspoon is wearing. Best director time. As predictable as we expect or will there be a split this year?

8.20pm – Danny Boyle! Good show. He’s been grinning about this win for hours now. Now he can start sulking. And hopping apparently.

8.21pm – Boyle compliments the show’s stagecraft. Nice that someone said it. Aw, Boyle’s kids are delighted.

8.23pm – Mumbai – “you dwarf even the sky.” Wonderful!

8.25pm – We’re in the thick of it now. Here come some famous actresses, most of them found out of work nowadays no doubt.

8.26pm – Damn. Sophia Loren. Just damn. What age is she now? Give the award to her.

8.27pm – Did Anne Hathaway just get a “don’t worry, you don’t have a chance” pat on the back from Shirley MacLaine?

8.28pm – Kate’s tearing up and she hasn’t even won yet…

8.29pm – So… does someone want to tell me who Melissa Leo is?

8.32pm – WINSLET WINS IT! Here she comes. I think I know what’s coming now.

8.33pm – “It’s not a shampoo bottle now!” One of the nicest lines of the night. She’s holding herself together rather well so far. Her dad whistles. Impressively loudly.

8.35pm – An excellent speech – all her critics can shut it. Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack get their deserves. But did she just slam Meryl Streep?

8.36pm – And now the old actors, who will it be…?

8.37pm – Wow, a great selection! No Day Lewis this year. Odd that. Man, imagine the film you could make with those five!

8.39pm – Seriously: Douglas, Kinglsey, Hopkins, Brody and De Niro. Amazing. And now Sean Penn’s sexuality has been questioned. Brilliant!

8.42pm – Might be a big toss up here between Penn’s Milk and Rourke’s “bleech blonde battered bruiser”. Tense stuff here.

8.44pm – And Penn takes it! Maybe the only big surprise tonight. Milk is back in the running. Voted for “commic, homo-loving sons of guns”! Good stuff.

8.47pm – A call for equal rights. A powerful end to his speech. Or is it… there’s more… final praise for Mickey Rourke. How nice. Shame he has no Oscar though.

8.48pm – Steven Spielberg is here to tell us we’re inspired. Thank goodness for him, or we’d never know. Any chance of Slumdog not winning this?

8.53pm – Wow, a terrific night for Slumdog, pretty much a clean sweep! Great to see a deserving work do so well.

8.54pm – Everybody on the stage now. Hee hee, look how cute the kids are!

8.57pm – Well that’s almost it. Now they show us clips from next year’s films? Bullshit! That’s just free advertising, and totally making next year’s show biased before it begins. Bad Hollywood. Bad.

9.04pm – Eugh, a nasty way to end what was otherwise a surprisingly pleasant show. Well, that’s it for this year. It’s been one hell of a night, if only in terms of Slumdog’s success and my sugar intake. Thank you for staying with me, and now to bed…

Goodnight!

The Jameson Dublin International Film Festival opened on Thursday evening, but due to scheduling conflicts there are only a few days when I’m free to see things. But that hasn’t stopped me from using those days to their fullest potential so far.

Why today (that is, Sunday), I saw five films, which I suspect is an unbeatable record for the festival given the screening times. Good job, me!

First up was a pre-afternoon screening of Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino at the Savoy, which was surprisingly only just over half full, perhaps the fault of the early start. It’s been out for some time now in the US but still a few weeks off general release over this side of the Atlantic. It’s hard to criticise a man who still churns out good films at his age, but something is definitely missing from this.

The first hour of the film verges on self-parody, as Walt Kowalski growls disapprovingly through his wife’s funeral, neighbourly visits and a run-in with hoods. It’s Eastwood playing an Eastwood character rather than making a character work for him. The gun and motor fetishes just add to it. This is the sort of thing that has ruined Robert De Niro since the late ’90s – playing himself for laughs.

Which is undoubtedly what is going on in the first half of this film; the growls, the glares, the in-your-face (-and-ears) racism. What is bizarre is how after the initial comic shock value the word “gooks” can still get a laugh out of an audience – I’ve heard of cinematic escapism, but can people actually live out their moderate race hate through a film?

That said, the second half utterly shifts gear (yes, I went for the car pun). The gloves very much come off and the moral message comes to the fore – the ending is actually surprising and touching. It’s surprising that such a scathing commentary on modern America did so well at the box office. Also refreshing to see a film about a car that doesn’t treat the auto like it’s in a porn movie.

After a much-needed Butler’s coffee and an irresistible Vertigo (it was €10 – recession be damned!), it was off to the Screen cinema  to see The Letter Never Sent, a Siberian-set 1959 drama from Mikhail Kalatozov, who directed I Am Cuba. A slight snag – the reel did not arrive to the festival on time. Initially peeved at having to see a “replacement film”, I was delighted to learn that in addition to the replacement I could also exchange my ticket for another film – Tuesday night is now sorted.

The replacement was The Karamazovs, showing elsewhere in the Festival, a charming take on Dostoyevsky’s novel, in which a Czech theatre group stage a play of the story at an alternative arts show held in a steelworks near Krakow

As you might expect, the lives of the players get tied into the story, as does the tragic tale of an employee at the factory, yet somehow something feels very original here. At times the players move in and out of fact and fiction so fluidly you can only tell where you are by the absence or presence of absurdly long Russian names.

The film has almost no sympathy for actors, and paints them as anything from ruthlessly selfish to commitably eccentric.

Yet when the play gets into full swing there is an eruption of drama, and you do get to witness these actors give their all, simultaneously enjoying themselves and rising to the challenge of the material. Perhaps if there is any great weakness in this it is that the filmmakers have allowed the original material to so greatly overpower what they have added themselves.

Still, I have difficultly raising condemnations against a film that contains an interlude in which a small puppet cat plays Dostoyevsky, and answers questions on how he gets his inspiration.

I could, however, probably condemn Helen, which started so shortly after The Karamazovs that had it not been on in the same screen I could never have made it on time.

The first feature from British-based Dubliners Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, Helen is the extension of a series of shorts the duo (under the charming label ‘Desperate Optimists’) previously produced, known as the Civic Life Series, with which I am unfamiliar. The gist is realism based on long takes, location shooting and non-professional actors.

Ironically, for such a low-key production, Helen boasts a premise that could easily be the backbone of a Hollywood drama/thriller/comedy/horror; a shy girl is used in the police recreation TV spot for a missing teen, a popular classmate. But Helen is the draftee, Joy is the missing person, and the title makes it clear that this is going to be a film in which the main theme is not what might sell tickets. The film has fittingly been described as L’avventura meets Crimewatch UK.

However, there’s a dollop of Persona in there as well, as Helen begins to adapt herself into the former life of Joy. She begins to wear the police-supplied double of Joy’s yellow leather jacket everywhere, allowing for some interesting though eventually boring juxtapositions of yellow and things that don’t normally have yellow in front of them.

It’s not so much the lack of closure in Joy’s story that slows this film down (it is excruciatingly slow-moving) – as I said, it’s ‘Helen’ not ‘Joy’ – but rather that Helen’s story is far too empty. Annie Townsend as Helen shows little emotion towards all things (facially none, her voice-over betrays a mild sadness), whether it be revelations about her family or discovering happiness in Joy’s life.

The funding, partially Irish, results in some awkward sequences in which the action moves from real England to a suspiciously Dublin-looking pseudo England, where all the actors suddenly have Irish accents. Most painful is Joy’s boyfriend, and soon the object of Helen’s awkward affections, who’s Dublinness is not so grating rather than his delivery, which makes him sound like he is an ad for mobile phones. On the radio.

While trying to focus on how lost Helen is (she was already lost before she developed a second identity!), the filmmakers get lost themselves, and it becomes clear far from the end that the final fade to black (of several) will leave us with neither answers nor questions about what they want us to care about. Actually I didn’t really care about Joy by the end either.

Dropping my one star rating into the audience vote box before complaining about how tired I was getting, I grabbed a crepe for dinner before sprinting to the IFI for today’s highlight. Susuz Yaz, or Dry Summer as my ticket said, is a Turkish drama from 1964, directed by Metin Erksan. Part Cain and Abel, part There Will Be Blood, it follows a brutish older brother’s decision to dam off the water spring flowing from their land, effectively robbing their neighbours of water as summer approaches.

There is something splendidly simple about it all; angry brother, good brother, good brother’s beautiful but weak-willed wife. It feels like classic Hollywood (there’s a hint of Treasure of the Sierra Madre about proceedings here), with a pinch of the exotic (throw in Dovzhenko’s Earth into the mix).

There’s an erotic flourish to proceedings between the lovers, while the violence that comes from the older brother’s actions is surprisingly shocking – resulting in a slightly sped-up group beating with sticks.

The black and white images are crisp beautifully shot, with stylish rapid camera movements that make it stand out from other films.

Much of the action takes place around the small dam blocking the water channel, which provides some imaginative shots and an unforgettable finale.

Erol Tas as Osman, the selfish brute, is a joy to watch in his nastiness and a horror to watch in his vile lusting for his brother’s wife.

It is likely to be one of the Festival’s biggest crowd pleasers.

Later, back in the Screen, I was greeted with a high-five by Festival staff as recognition for my day’s back-and-forthing.

The last film of my day was to be Mar Nero, or Black Sea, the story of a standoffish elderly Florentine woman who comes to grow fond of her Romanian carer. A little heavy on sentiment at times, and long in the middle, this did turn into a pleasantly bittersweet tale.

Ilaria Occhini gives it gusto with a cane as the aged Gemma, but it Doroteea Petre as immigrant Angela who steals – the camera is clearly besotted with her.

It seems a shame to shoot in Florence and use so few of its beautiful locations, though a number of shots did capture that city’s peculiar peachy-beigeness.

There are a few nice touches: Gemma finds flakes from her dead husband’s beard left behind in his razor, later she converses with Angela’s father though neither speak the same language; both have been done before but there is wit and originality on show.

Unfortunately it strays into mundanity once too often, and the camera often gets so lost in the soft curves of Petre’s face that you would check your watch if you could look away from her yourself.

The music, however, has a wonderfully uplifting Romanian pastoral sound and is alone worth commending the film for.

There won’t be any binges quite like today’s for the duration of the festival, though I am particularly excited about the screening of Il Divo on Tuesday. I’ll keep you posted.

And what a fine day it is. To think that two of the greatest men to change the world in the 19th Century would have been born on the same day in the same year; February 12 1809.

In all the hullabaloo and celebrations of both men’s lives, there’s been little if any reference in the media to this astral pairing, quite curiously. Perhaps there is fear of upsetting those who would support President Lincoln but think of Darwin as a devil of history. It’s all very suspicious.

Surely if there was ever a time when we needed to look to the great minds of the past for inspiration it is now.

I for one have celebrated all day in my own way, reading articles and debates scattered across the internet during breaks from my work. Now I intend to continue that celebration into the early hours of the morning watching films about them, as is my style.

First up is Inherit the Wind, not exactly about Darwin, but about Darwinism, and also fantastic. As a teenager it was heavily responsible for my lapse into dedicated atheism and my love for Spencer Tracy (seen around the same time I first saw Bad Day at Black Rock – who could resist?). With a Paul Bettany biopic on the way, it was either this or The Fall, which would likely raise questions about whether I know anything about Charles Darwin at all.

After that I have also rented out Young Mr. Lincoln, John Ford’s biopic with Henry Fonda. I’ve always found something disturbingly charming about Ford’s non-westerns (though that is likely to be because I am Irish), so this should be an interesting portrayal. Again, I can’t help but feel cheated that the long-promised Spielberg biopic was not delivered on time for the bicentenary. Well, not to worry.

It’s going to be a long, inspiring night.

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UPDATE: 3.30am – Damn that was some good courtroom drama!

There seems to be plenty of division over whether 2008 was a successful year at the cinema. Certainly, as the world collapsed around us in all other respects (or so it seemed), the movie world kept up a steady output and, at least in Hollywood terms, continued to turn a profit.

There were enough films to both keep minds racing and allow them to shut down, and films from either side of this divide fared as well as one another.

There was plenty more comic book nonsense in cinemas, but also some of the best films of that newfangled sub-genre thus far came out in 2008.

At the Oscars and the various other award shows, there were few surprises, but also few cries of films being undeserving of their awards as in other recent years.

Even here in Ireland the Irish film industry reacted to one musical award success by producing some of the best Irish films in over a decade, slowly beginning the long crawl out of the gutter of inadequacy.

There were losses of course; Heath Ledger died early in the year and left expectant fans gobsmacked, while Paul Newman and Sydney Pollack – to name but two – passed after tremendous careers in cinema.

There were films I was sorry to miss; I was too cowardly to see 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days alone, and couldn’t find anyone who dared accompany me. Waltz with Bashir came out when there was simply no time available to see it. Man on Wire also passed me by. These and many more will be caught up with in the coming months.

There were disappointments as well, mostly in films by reliable filmmakers, and indeed in reliable franchises. Hellboy 2 smacked of fanboyism instead of relishing in the same beautiful darkness of del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Indiana Jones returned; needlessly. And James Bond’s 22nd outing was so sloppy it sadly undid much of the greatness of Casino Royale.

As for me, I personally had a great year, cinematically speaking. The highlights are numerous; watching Lawrence of Arabia in 70mm as the centenary of David Lean’s life passed by (I also saw Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and Brief Encounter for the first time over the year); stumbling upon Wings of Desire, Amores Perros, The Leopard and many others for the first time; watching Crank with a selection of my closest, and most sugared-up, friends at an absurd hour of the night. Laughing til I could no longer breathe at Robo Vampire. These are the sort of films you never forget not just because of how great (or terrible) they are but because of where and how and who you were at the time you saw them.

Similarly there were other special, more personal moments. I had the privilege of interviewing both Will Ferrell and Michael Palin in the space of just a few months. At the Irish premier of There Will Be Blood I had a remarkable – if utterly terrifying – encounter with Daniel Day-Lewis. Jeremy Irons invited me to dinner, though never followed through.

As well as all that, this blog was begun.

Thus far in 2009 the crop of films looks tantalising, and one can easily look forward to Milk or Revolutionary Road as much as one can to Watchmen or even the sequel to Transformers. Here’s hoping for as memorable a 2009.

And now, what you’ve been waiting for, here’s my personal selection of the best films I saw in 2008.

(Note: this list is made up entirely of new films released in Ireland in 2008, that I saw. Thus, certain films released internationally in 2007, such as Juno, are present here. In turn, late 2008 international releases, such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, will not appear until next year.)

20. Lust, Caution
Ang Lee’s follow-up to Brokeback Mountain was somewhat of a letdown, and was undoubtedly overlong, but the photography, taking in countless greys and greens, was beautiful, and the central performance by Tang Wei was superb. A shot late in the film, of a diamond-laden ring representing betrayal finding its equilibrium on a hard wooden table, was one of the year’s most impressing images.

19. Things We Lost in the Fire

The American debut of Susanne Bier was disappointing for reasons somewhat out of her control. The script’s abandoning of its fractured storyline after the first act was unsettling, and the casting of Benicio del Toro in a film so similar in feel to 21 Grams was a mistake. But it was shot in a very personal style that felt distinctly un-American, and for which it went largely unrecognised by critics and cinemagoers. The performance by Micah Berry (no relation to Halle) as the young son was notable, while David Duchovny gave what may stand to be the performance of his career.

18. Kung Fu Panda
Dreamworks may not have broken the mould with this latest animal caper, but it certainly moved into a more mature, less spoofing area of family comedy with some clever gags and superbly arranged action. Sweet in nature and low on character development, it took delight in its own silliness and provided some splendid animation, particularly in its opening sequence.

17. Lars and the Real Girl
Sweet may not be the word, in fact, Lars and the Real Girl was at times undeniably creepy, but it had buckets of wit to support itself on. The story of a man so awkward and retreated that he can only express himself through the love he shares (romantically, only) for a life-size sex doll is so inventive that it could hardly be anything less than charming.

16. Juno

Perhaps lacking the ambition of Thank You For Smoking, Juno certainly had heart, a solid script by Diablo Cody and an adorable cast. Ellen Page got the majority of the credit, but really it was Michael Cera as the stupefyingly realistic teen dad-to-be and JK Simmons and Allison Janney as Juno’s reluctantly supportive parents who deserve the most credit. The quirky soundtrack and dialogue added to the fun of the proceedings and let the film skirt around its unwillingness to genuinely tackle the issue of teen pregnancy.

15. Iron Man

Comic book mayhem got a whole bag of cool dropped on it this year. Robert Downey Jr played Tony Stark/Iron Man like a father hastily unwrapping his son’s new train set on Christmas morning. Gwyneth Paltrow emerged from who-knows-where to play his long-suffering and ignored love interest with more class than the film deserved. Yes, it was all a little rushed, the villain was terrible and the final action sequence was a mess, but – hey look! Another explosion! Fun!

14. Cloverfield
Seriously, who needs well-developed characters when you have nauseating camerawork and a giant alien crab-lizard tearing up Manhattan?! The night vision subway sequence was superbly built-up and executed, while the whole film gave off a 9/11 but with popcorn feel.

13. Caramel

As sweet as its delicious title, this Lebanese delight from all-round talent Nadine Labaki was the film most deserving of out-the-door queues of chick flick-eager women. Beautifully acted and shot, Labaki chose to ignore the politics and strife of her country and focus on the simple pleasures and sadness of everyday life.

12. Mamma Mia!

Not what one would consider a true piece of art, Mamma Mia! burst at the sides with so much energy and fun that even the dire karaoke singing of most of its leads couldn’t hold it down. Much prettier to look at than it ever needed to be, few were able to resist its cheeky charm.

11. Wanted

For years we’ve waited for a film in which two bullets, shot by two characters at one another, would collide in slow motion and fall to the ground. But who knew we were waiting for a keyboard, shattered across a man’s face, to spell out “Fuck you”? It turns out we were! Hectic, noisy and decidedly over-the-top, Wanted showed enough ‘mad as hell’ attitude to make it more memorable than your average blockbusting tripe. A cautiously curious squeak from a doomed rodent may have been the year’s funniest sound.

10. In Bruges

Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s feature-length debut was as dark as dark can be. Obvious targets for humour, such as overweight American tourists, were made funnier by Colin Farrell’s violently disrespectful delivery of lines we’ve all thought and bottled up inside. Brendan Gleeson also brought a feckload of fun to the proceedings as a simple hitman with a fondness for historical architecture. The duo were unfortunately outgunned and outclassed by the scenery-devouring Ralph Fiennes. The profanity was wonderful, though the ending attempted a philosophical sentiment that the film couldn’t really support.

9. Gomorrah

Violent and gritty, the underbelly of the criminal world has never been portrayed quite like this. There were times when it felt like the cameras were intruding on real events where it was dangerous to be filming. Amazingly, if simply, realised.

8. Persepolis

From Marjane Satrapi’s bittersweet graphic novel came a film that dared to change little from its source material. The growth of little Marji’s confidence in the film’s first act was reflected by her subsequent disillusionment with life in Iran and the world as a whole. Iraqi gasmasks became alien faces and burka-clad fundamentalists became snake-like nightmares through the simple but mesmerising animation. Honest and full of wit.

7. The Orphanage

At the same time clichéd and yet utterly original, The Orphanage was that rare joy – a horror film where nothing really happens. Using the simplest tricks of the trade – a motionless child, creaking floorboards, never-resting cameras – Juan Antonio Bayona created a house of largely unseen horrors, where everything you feared was only what you assumed you should fear. Likely to become a classic of the genre.

6. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

A late release in Ireland allowed this gem to make the cut for 2008. Harrowing and beautiful, the story of Jean-Dominique Bauby’s stroke-imprisoned body allowed for a rich story of hope and sentimentalism while allowing director Julian Schnabel to experiment with camera trickery, light and inventive editing. Mathieu Amalric gave one of the year’s best performances as Bauby, so full of life at one moment, the next, frozen.

5. The Dark Knight

Building on the back of Batman Begins, already a pinnacle of comic book movies, Christopher Nolan drew back on Bale’s Batman and allowed other characters to move to the fore, particularly Gary Oldman as Lieutenant Jim Gordon and Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent. Though hindered by a necrophiliac curiosity, Heath Ledger’s Joker was certainly one of the most impressive performances of the year. Broken up by clumsy plot holes and an at times overly complex narrative, The Dark Knight thrilled and impressed on several levels, and deserves much of the acclaim it has received.

4. There Will Be Blood

As grandiose in its scale as is the figure at its centre, this beast of a film could not be ignored in 2008. Violent in tone, like many of the best films this year it sought to look at what makes a man, and what a man can be at his worst. Succeeding through Daniel Day-Lewis’s authoritative and terrifying performance (one should not overlook the quality of the writing however), the finale answered that question of what happens when an unstoppable force hits a formerly immovable object. Paul Dano can easily be overlooked due to the towering Day-Lewis, but gave a truly impressive performance as Eli Sunday, a young man twelve fathoms out of his league. The music kept the viewer on edge, while the shocking photography echoed the greatest films of American cinema, from Greed to Gone with the Wind.

3. Hunger

More of an experiment with the possibilities of the camera than a political eulogy, Steve McQueen’s biopic-of-sorts of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands is slow, contemplative and utterly intense. From the beautiful yet ghastly art of a faeces-smeared prison wall and the wasting away of Sands’s body (Michael Fassbender is a revelation in the lead role), to the lighting of a cigarette by bloodied hands and the slow and haunting washing a prison floor, Hunger is nothing less than a work of art. It may become more famous for its exhausting single take sequence in which Sands debates his fate with Liam Cunningham’s priest, but the shot that sticks with you is a blinding beam of sunlight blasting through a bus window.

2. No Country For Old Men
The Coen brothers’ returned to their best this year, again taking a dark and twisted look at humanity, but this time with less wit, and a greater awareness of the potential of the story they were telling. Using Texas in 1980 as a wilderness representative of man’s emptiness, the story injected a pulse-pounding thriller into this void that never stopped pumping til the last minute. Eschewing a musical soundtrack in favour of fear-drenching silence, No Country took several thrilling set-pieces – a river escape from a vicious dog, a darkened stand-off at a hotel door – and divided them with moments of simple reflection that asked no deep questions but invited you to contemplate the answers. The decision to remove some of the most important sequences from the film adds to its sense of chaos and disorder. The stellar cast acted it with such honesty you might believe they were in fear of the script itself.

1. Wall·E

Arguably Pixar’s greatest achievement to date, Wall·E demands to be taken seriously. Almost utterly-dialogue free for the duration of its first act, the film builds a romance between two robots in a future where mankind has lost all sense of humanity. Building on the great debates of science fiction; what does it mean to be human?; what are the effects of our unending obsession with commercialism?; how will our relationship with nature affect the future?; Wall·E repackages them in a new form that is a glory to behold. Spellbindingly beautiful and sickeningly sweet, this animated marvel can appeal to anyone of any age, and will forever have something to say to those who watch it. That there is even a supply of heart-warming gags to boot only seals this as one of the most wonderful products of American cinema in a generation.

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And now, as an extra treat, here are the five worst films of 2008, in my embittered opinion.

5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Great talent wasted on a cacophony of wretched melodies, the clever production design couldn’t hide the hideous CGI nor excuse such a great collection of actors (Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall and Helena Bonham Carter) reduced to their very worst. The one amusing joke – an unexpected light-hearted slicing of the throat – is a gag, if you’ll forgive the pun, that gets utterly done to death.

4. Be Kind Rewind

An unpleasant and confused little oddity that sees two capable actors (Jack Black and Mos Def) compete for the title of most irritating. It not only never quite gets its tone right, it also came out about 10 years too late to be of any real relevance. The adoration it attempts to show for the cinema really comes off as a pornographic irreverence.

3. Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem

Two once-dominant franchises reduced to teen horror nonsense. One earnestly suspects that no-one involved knows what the word ‘requiem’ means.

2. The Other Boleyn Girl

As ugly as it is dull, this film forced two hours of the most horrid characters upon its unsuspecting victims. Eric Bana appears utterly bemused by where he is and what he is supposed to be doing, while Johansson and Portman repeatedly do their bests to out-bitch one another. The ending hilariously draws you away from the story to focus on the future Queen Elizabeth, as if to try and make you leave the cinema thinking fondly of a far superior film.

1. Ghost Town

A wretchedly nasty little film, an attempt at a comedic The Sixth Sense, sees the talents of Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear and Téa Leoni squandered in what just might be the most blatant victim of the writers’ strike. One moment of genuine sweetness is so heavy in saccharine after an hour of hell that it feels violating and manipulative. The open-ended finale may have seemed original and smart, but makes it feel as if those involved had no real idea of where they wanted this aimless mess to go.

]]> http://thefilmcricket.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/2008-in-review/feed/ 1 Dave Best of 2008 http://thefilmcricket.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/gomorrah-a-new-realism/ http://thefilmcricket.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/gomorrah-a-new-realism/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:50:12 +0000 dave http://thefilmcricket.wordpress.com/?p=90 ]]>

The crime movie genre is one of those genre nomenclatures that doesn’t quite make sense. The more obvious example of this mistaken identity is the western, a genre that seems to be defined by location rather than by rules, styles or themes. Who is going to argue that The Proposition is not a western? And why do I keep finding Hud buried amongst the westerns in video shops – is it because of the hats? Cause that’s not something I want to be defining a genre by.

The crime genre is similar, in that “crime” refers rather to the focus and setting than to the themes – crime films can have elements of comedy, action and thriller. But by and large the best gangster movies are studies of men, generally great men, their rises and their falls. Gomorrah, however, takes a far different approach, viewing the world of organised crime from the very bottom. And it is likely to be counted amongst the great gangster movies.

The film, set in the world of the Neapolitan Camorra, views its utterly alien location with a naturalistic, almost documentary eye. Scenes move between the Italian countryside, which contrary to traditional depictions appears scorched and wild, and a hellish accommodation complex, a series of grey cement slabs that resemble what they represent; a massive staircase to nowhere.

Into this world of modernised and organised biblical sin, director Matteo Garrone places five only slightly interlocking stories that represent different elements of the grunt work that make a crime syndicate. The film is based on the book by journalist and co-writer Roberto Saviano, whose writings have earned him a bounty on his head. But even without this information Gomorrah’s sheer style and courage leave you undoubting that these fictional tales are accurate portrayals of real people and real situations.

The stories are as follows: a nervous moneyman begins to fear he is over his head as the clan goes to war around him; a tailor who produces counterfeit high fashion attempts to make extra cash by training the Chinese immigrant workers of a competitor; a business graduate believes he is finally successful until he becomes disillusioned with the recklessness of his toxic waste-burying boss; a 13-year-old becomes indoctrinated into the Comorra but quickly learns that honour and betrayal go hand-in-hand; two teenaged gangster wannabes do their bests to become respected Mafiosi but haven’t the smarts to pull it off.

Together the stories paint a broad picture of the damage the Comorra does. But there are no Don Corleones, no Tony Montanas. These are the soldiers and their victims, those who are not the focus of your average crime drama. Austin Powers joked that no-one cares for the family of a henchman, and indeed it is easy to forget that there are real minds behind the thugs, heavies and moneymen of the world of organised crime. Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) finally becomes a member of the clan only to find a friend but family rival must become his first victim. Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) begins to find the unknown world of the Chinese fascinating while hiding the fatal secret of his moonlighting. Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) find that guns and robberies do not help them get prestige and women, only the wrong end of a gun barrel.

Of all the notes Gomorrah hits however, one strikes a most noteworthy chord. There is something utterly pretentious about the gangster existence; pathetic, even pitiable. The film’s prelude features a hit at a tanning salon, where a group of Mafiosi beatify themselves as best they can, unaware that the undertakers will take care of the rest. Young Toto, when he is not working for his mother or being hazed by gang members (being shot at point blank range while wearing armour, no less), is seen plucking his eyebrows in the mirror, aspiring to an ideal that involves none of the blood and none of the guilt that will follow. Worst of all, poseurs Marco and Ciro re-enact scenes from Brian De Palma’s Scarface – the position of crime boss has been given a legendary status amongst these hopeless youths.

But there is redemption. Pasquale finds beauty in the work that nearly kills him. Roberto (Carmine Paternoster) leaves his boss, who insults him by saying he should “go make pizza”, though Roberto has realised that a status-less job is better than one that would risk losing your very soul.

Gomorrah is a film that utterly refuses to compromise, and deserves all of the accolades that are still coming its way. It features a style of realism that is discomforting in how utterly real it feels, sometimes too much so – the gloss of Bertolucci and Tornatore has been peeled away to reveal a very different Italy to the one we had previously come to know.

It is often shocking, regularly thought-provoking and occasionally shows a strong sense of humour, most memorably when Marco and Ciro find the firearms they have stolen double as grenade-launchers.

The film’s coda places the effects of these localised events on a global scale, but what came before has already been evidence enough that the damage being done is simply too great. Gomorrah tells stories that deserve to be heard.

4/5

It’s good to be back.

I would simply love to tell you that my absence can be explained away by vacations, lottery wins and exotic hours spent with countless beautiful women, but it would be far more honest to say that I’ve done next to nothing but watch The West Wing for the entirety of the last month. That said, I am getting through it at a rather impressive speed that should allow me to reach my previously announced (and might I add ambitious) declaration.

It is odd firing through a show this fast, seeing as I really should have been watching it when it initially aired (I haven’t watched this much TV since I sat through the entirety of Day 1 of 24 in one day). Television has very much held a distant second place in my life over the last several years due to my excessive (slash obsessive) film watching, and other shows (most obviously The Sopranos and The Wire, amongst others) have taken back seats with the boot wide open and no seatbelts.

It is no doubt ironic then that my West Wing bingeing has consequently resulted in my film watching batting average plummeting. I have managed to squeeze in maybe a dozen films in the past month, an undoubted, though explainable, embarrassment for me.

Here are some interesting things I have learned in the last month:

• Das Boot is too long, but the ending is just about worth it
• Three viewings is enough for Capturing the Friedmans
• Roland Emmerich’s 10,000 BC is literally a paint by numbers how-to-make-a-basic-Hollywood-blockbuster, but there is almost fun to be found in its utter continent-shifting nonsense
• On a fourth (fifth?) viewing, Potemkin is still as brilliant as it always was, even the fifth part didn’t cause the usual fit of yawning
• Superbad hit a little too close to home a little too often
• Ten deserved a second shot
• Administering heroin to policemen will improve their crime-fighting capabilities – it’s easy to see now why Chaplin got blacklisted
• Watching Local Hero and the Season 2 finale of The West Wing ‘Two Cathedrals’ in close proximity will cause a Mark Knopfler overload that will make it literally impossible to get his music out of your head and remind you why teenaged you used to freaking love Dire Straits

More thoughts on The West Wing will follow. For the record I should be finishing Season 4 tomorrow night, and am currently averaging four episodes a night.

When this is all over, I may need some help moving on.

At 4am this evening Barack Obama was announced the incumbent president of the USA. History has been made and will be discussed with greater fluency elsewhere. John McCain has now graciously stepped down from the race. I cannot express how much I hope I have for this to positively effect not just America but the world.

For the last 8 years America has neglected its role as a beacon of goodness in the world. Similarly, I have neglected television for the art of cinema. As a result, inspired by the victory of Obama, I hereby announce my candidacy for watching the entirety of The West Wing before the end of the year.

These are special times.

In the meantime, this link will no doubt be of some interest.

There is a lot to be said for Satan’s Alley, the new ever-so-slightly over-the-top drama starring Kirk Lazarus. Lazarus is by now notorious for his repeated shots at Oscar fame, and this film is, in a pleasant, crowd-pleasing and pretentiously boundary-pushing manner, the sort of film that does well at award ceremonies around the world.

Filmed in a world of shadows pierced by light, this tale of two infatuated priests in medieval Ireland involves itself in showing how the prejudices in our past still haunt the way we see the world today. The film often borders on the erotic, but always steers clear of it, intent on revealing how religious practices can indeed be more pornographic than any sexual encounter.

The film of course is clearly buying into that “homosexual films for straight people” genre that was popularised first by Brokeback Mountain, and the casting highlights it; Lazarus is the blonde and brooding Australian, Tobey Maguire is the innocent-faced Jake Gyllenhaal lookalike (the two will in fact play brothers in Jim Sheridan’s upcoming film Brothers). The duo have a surprising amount of onscreen chemistry, as the older and more world-weary Father O’Malley (Lazarus) takes the younger under his wing and teaches him things that priests aren’t supposed to know. There hasn’t been this much sin in a monastery since The Name of the Rose…

Ok, fine, I’m going to have to stop that there. I am, as many of you will already be aware, reviewing a fake film.

However, there is method to my madness; the above enjoyable diversion was designed to highlight the fact that while some films peak too soon, Tropic Thunder is a film that peaks before it even actually begins.

Tropic Thunder was expected all summer to be a comedy highlight of the year, and it doesn’t quite disappoint. In order to sell to us its would-be mockumentary behind-the-scenes style, it opens with a selection of trailers for fictional films starring Tropic Thunder’s fictional stars. The trailer for Scorcher VI: Global Meltdown presents Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller) as a star who, despite the audience having grown up with him, has outlived his own greatest character and now fails to impress. The Fatties: Fart 2 conjures horrific memories Eddie Murphy’s Nutty Professor sequel, and is by far the weakest of the three trailers, presenting Jeff Portnoy as the sort of actor that shouldn’t be given work. The same could be said for his portrayer, Jack Black.

But as I’ve already highlighted it’s Robert Downey Jr’s Kirk Lazarus’s Satan’s Alley that steals the prologue and indeed the whole film, not just for its inspired innuendo but also for tapping into a very real and evident trend in modern melodrama; it’s ok to be gay provided you’re the underdog – audiences can relate to that.

The actual film itself is a sloppier affair than we might have hoped for. It’s never quite expressed what sort of film Tropic Thunder (that is, the film being made in this film) is supposed to be – its diverse cast (including the “5-time Oscar winner” Lazarus, method acting as a black man on and off camera) would seem to imply a large-budget Hollywood action film, rather than the artistic sort of war movie suggested by its writer and British director. For a film that we’re meant to think is meant to be Apocalypse Now, it never quite stops looking like Michael Bay’s Vietnam. The parody is diluted, if not utterly washed away.

Indeed, the revelation that the author, Vietnam vet Four Leaf, is actually a phoney, is meant to make us laugh at the thought of this farce not being true; but then none of the great Vietnam War movies claim to be based on true events. The audience is left at a loss for who to root for.

Anyways, when the film goes over-budget a more reality TV method is attempted, which in turn goes horribly wrong (in an awfully predictable gag – though a blessing since Steve Coogan hasn’t been this dreadful since Marie Antoinette). The actors are left in actual danger in the jungle and have to remain in character. Some genuine hilarity ensues – the infamous sequence in which the word “retard” is used repeatedly to discuss mentally challenged characters winning Oscars owes a lot to its predecessor in Extras (which had Kate Winslet make the same declaration to Ricky Gervais) but deserves credit, particularly for coining the now essential expression “going full retard”.

But there’s a lot that’s not funny. The one smart character, new-comer Kevin Sandusky (played by Jay Baruchel – getting confused yet?), is repeatedly ignored. Jeff Portnoy wants drugs (and does little else for two whole hours). A panda gets killed for the second time in a comedy in a year – ok, admittedly that was pretty funny this time!

As the film wears on its structure turns into the sort of rescue action picture that we were meant to assume this was not; a Missing in Action instead of a Platoon. There are again inspired moments, Lazarus’s “I’m a lead farmer” is perhaps one of the great one-liners of the decade. Speedman’s “I’m a rooster illusion” is the sort of wonderful non-sequitor that made Will Ferrell famous, but which he can no longer pull off.

What might have been a spectacular moment of comedy, Speedman’s adopted ethnic child (because all celebs must have one!) stabbing him in the neck repeatedly, was pointlessly, and one might argue unethically, spoiled in advertising for the film. Some jokes work a lot better unexpected and in context.

And while all of this is happening in the jungle there’s a whole subplot going on in LA. Tom Cruise, wearing prosthetics and a fat suit, plays Les Grossman, a vicious Hollywood executive and producer of the film-within-the-film. It’s an impressive turn for Cruise, who is surprisingly funny and carries of the grotesque excesses of the Hollywood execs and actually makes Grossman the monster we would expect him to be. But he is no doubt not the film’s highlight, as was assumedly anticipated by Stiller (who by the way co-wrote, co-produced and directed this film). The decision to have Grossman continue his hip-hop dancing throughout the film’s closing credits was a disastrous one that left the audience I saw it with cold and silent, uncertain if they were even supposed to laugh, let alone being tempted to.

There is a lot to like in Tropic Thunder, and it is certainly one of the best American comedies since Zoolander. But too many mistakes have been made. For example, Matthew McConaughey’s character, Speedman’s agent, is so entertaining that we might feel cheated we didn’t get to see the respective agents for Lazarus (assumedly a quivering wreck) and Portnoy (which might have given this waste of space something to do other than moan all film long). It holds together in the end, but only just, and largely because of inspired moments such as Satan’s Alley, Simple Jack and Lazarus (channelling Russell Crowe) and Speedman’s breakdown near the finale. Jon Voight deserves special mention for his brief cameo – he just looks so damned disappointed!

Tropic Thunder is a fun and clever action comedy, but it fails to be the one thing it wanted to be most: a satire. And failing that is the greatest sin of all.

3/5