Had a bit of a video mish over the past couple of days and thought I'd report on my findings.
Hard Boiled (1992): John Woo's last film before he went to America and disappeared forever is basically a gigantic shoot out from start to finish. Immensely trashy, but at the same time magnificent. The action scenes are ludicrous but fun, and the lead actors Chow Yun Fat and Tony Leung Chiu Wai (not to be confused with Tony Leung Kar Fai) both have enough charisma to light a small city. The most joy is to be had in the little details. The token woman (Chow's work romance) is played by Teresa Mo. Mo is a very gifted comic actress, but an odd choice for cheesecake, and yet all the more interesting for it. There's Anthony Wong as the bad guy - he pretty much only played bad guys back then - chewing the scenery as usual. Then there's Bobby Au Yeung in a brief but vivid role as a cop who gets accidentally shot by Leung. And Woo has the genius to film the climactic shootout in a hospital (with a maternity ward to maximise the tension). And there are the explosives!
Basically it's all energy and wisecracks and barely concealed homoeroticism. Hollywood could never do something as violent as this while still being intrinsically amiable. Tarantino, I spit on you, you smug cunt!
Hard Boiled was for a long time top of the list of on-screen deaths in a movie (Hot Shots Part Deux isn't even close), but was recently usurped by the Lord of the Rings films. Perhaps it's time for a Hard Boiled Part Deux...
Pan's Labyrinth: this had a lot of arthouse buzz earlier in the year. Sort of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe meets the Spanish Civil War, it's all very grim and latin. The titular Pan is actually not Pan himself but a kind of psychedelic Mr Tumnus, who provides little girl Ofelia (Ophelia!) with a dream world away from the increasing terror presented by her army captain step-father. The film's main flaw is that it's too depressing and predictable, to the point where I started fast-forwarding because some scenes signposted themselves too clearly. I know it's a fairy tale, so the plot has to fulfill certain requirements, but even so... At the end I decided the film was brilliantly imaginative but irredeemably dreary. It was only when I watched the making of and director Guillermo Del Torro carefully explained why the movie was so good that I was moved to agree with him. It's odd that the making-of featurette reveals the greatness of the movie when the movie itself doesn't, but that's our post-modern DVD world for you.
The Science of Sleep. Music video director Michel Gondry makes a supposedly autobiographical film about a guy whose dreams get caught up in his waking life. It's set in France although much of the film is conducted in english. What plot there is revolves around a guy trying to get a girl (the simultaneously plain and beautiful Charlotte Gainsbourg) and being a dork about it. It's all charming enough but Gondry attempts to make it all end wistfully and minor key rather than just have the couple get together, and in order to do this makes the guy become increasingly immature and the girl increasingly remote. It's stretching things a bit too far. Still, not a bad effort, and I'm tempted to check out Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (also by Gondry), even though it has Jim Carrey in it.
For Your Consideration: Christopher Guest is back and the critics are unhappy. The film is about the actors on a small independent film getting carried away with unfounded oscar gossip about themselves. Simple premise, pretty funny, but the reviews I've read of it online are largely scathing. I actually enjoyed it better than A Mighty Wind, which I felt didn't do enough with the material (and was about 20 minutes too short - a rare criticism for a movie these days). Still, you can't please everyone.
Hot Fuzz: the long queues of students and hipsters outside the Embassy put me off viewing this at the cinema. Plus I didn't think much of Shaun of the Dead. I did enjoy this film more than previous one, but it suffers from the same problems. In both films the satirical setup is very well observed, but once the plot gets absorbed in the genre specifics (zombies or cop action) it gets a bit silly. I read an online review that was right on the money: the writers took the idea of a shootout in a quaint rural village with Miss Marple types as gun toting desperadoes, and worked their way backwards. The climax is ludicrous (in a bad way), and the gun play was self-satirised much more effectively in Hard Boiled (John Woo, 1992). That said, the performances by Simon Pegg and Timothy Dalton (!) are very good. Shame it doesn't hang together better.
Grizzly Man: in which Werner Herzog, still pining for Klaus Kinski, goes off and finds self-shot footage of a grizzly bear loving nutcase who got killed by the bears he thought he was protecting. This film is fascinating as it sounds. My only real problem is that Herzog puts himself into it. This doesn't usually matter, as Herzog in his documentaries is often just as entertaining as his subject, but a couple of the scenes (the ones with the coroner and the 'close friend') felt eerily like they were scripted and acted rather than reported. By contrast the self-aggrandising grizzly man felt a lot more natural. Weird. Still, a really strange and wonderful film I heartily recommend. Also has an hour-long documentary about the making of the soundtrack music, with veteran folkie Richard Thompson (subbing for Ry Cooder, surely?) providing some fine licks.
Might get around to Eagle v. Shark at some point (when the students and hipsters have died down). Currently enjoying more Flight of the Conchords though. Great stuff guys, great stuff!
Posted by stuart at September 2, 2007 8:42 PM