Essie Speaks - mostly about movies - but also of books, countries, life. Mostly movies though :) (Updated every weekend - sunday night latest ^-^)P.S. ALL THE MATERIAL ON THIS SITE IS COPYRIGHTED AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF ITS WRITER - AND THAT WOULD BE ME!
Well... Last weekend WAS all about the Oscars, wasn't it
The one big surprise for me personally was the fact that Boyhood and Richard Linklater didn't so much as get a look-in. I'm not going down the #BoyhoodWasRobbed route but come on... They should have given him Best Director, let Birdman have Best Picture, fine... *grumble grumble*
But anyway, that is not the snub I am the most concerned with this year. I watched Selma the morning of the awards ceremony and oh my Goodness, that film WAS robbed... Check out Film Debate (see link on the right) for my review of it later this week for the details as to why I think this... But in the meanwhile...
To continue on the subject briefly, of course this years ceremony saw its' fair share of social issues. Two women stood out this year. One was Patricia Arquette who used her time on the podium to champion equal rights for women in the domain of wage equality... Check out the speech if you haven't caught it already...
Reese Witherspoon also used her moment in the limelight to take a stand with her #AskHerMore campaign, challenging journalists to ask actresses deeper questions and not get focused solely on the dresses they were wearing... Then of course when she did finally tweet "who she was wearing" she was promptly hauled over the coals for it... I mean come on - she couldn't really win, could she - a whole different set of people would have hauled her over a whole different set of coals if she HADN'T revealed the darn thing... What she did was lend a strong voice to an important discussion... Which is what we should be concentrating on at this stage because it is an argument that is far from being won...
But let's remember folks, when it's all said and done it's all showbiz - it's all a bit of fun. Discussing them and arguing about them is well and good but let's not get carried away, they are very, very far from being the end all and be all of the cinema...
This week I mull over not one but two films I rather love... They are far from being new but they are definitely classics... Classics that still offer up a lot of food for thought...
The Night
of the Living Dead. Not the remake by the way – the George Romero original. Analyzed,
talked over, written about ad infinitum. But the thing I always find is that if
you are not into deepest darkest Film Studies (ehm, like some people) the fact
that the film is actually part of a trilogy seems to be quite quickly
forgotten. For reasons best known to itself, the Dawn of the Living Dead has
found its way back onto TV recently (don’t get wrong, it is more than welcome
it’s just a little random that’s all) so I thought now would be an excellent
time to remind ourselves of the rest of the trilogy. Not least because the Day
of the Living Dead is one of my favorite zombie films of all times.
As some of
you may already know, the series is an “anthology” series (I don’t know if
you’re the same, after American Horror story, I’ve started noticing so many
anthologies everywhere it’s a miracle I didn’t give it more in depth thought
before). The inexplicable event has happened, the zombie apocalypse is here and
everywhere there are small groups of humans fighting to survive against
diminishing odds.
As a side note and just before we begin, let me tell you unequivocally that the trailer by NO MEANS represents the tone of the film. It is scary. Yes there are flesh eating zombies. But it is NOT as "shock horror" as all that. No, really. Still, I love the classic '70s alarmist style of the trailer - so I kept it. Dawn of the
Living Dead takes us one step up the food chain from Joe public. We kick off at
a local TV channel, the place we all turn to for info in times of trouble. But
this time the channel is in no fit state to guide as chaos as taken over there
as well. Francine who works at the channel and her boyfriend Stephen who is a
helicopter pilot (funny how in these Romero films there is always one (but
never more than one) helicopter pilot knocking around and the whole affair of
-but he’s our only way out- comes up again and again buuut anyway… So, sorry,
Francine and her boyfriend. As you probably guessed they make a dash for it in
the helicopter. On their travels they team up with two very hard hitting police
officers (because honestly, you’re not going to survive long if you’re anything
less) and ultimately end up in a mall. And being surrounded by such bounty (granted,
they are also surrounded by a good number of zombies) they decide to stick
around a while and catch their breath…
I would be
the first to tell you that this is not my favorite film in the trilogy (my
personal fave is the 3rd, Day of the Dead, followed by the 1st,
with this fella bringing up the rear) but you would be wrong to dismiss it as
just some sort of re-hash of the first. Group dynamics, claustrophobia and the
way each and every member of the gang copes with the apocalypse and the tough
decisions it brings with it every day makes for a fascinating viewing. Ever
present throughout the film is dark humor and of course, a damning and barely
obscured criticism of capitalism as zombies trample dollar bills, knock over
luxury items and just shuffle around the mall aimlessly consuming –whenever
they find anything to consume – merely for the sake of consuming. In pretty
much all three films they are described as –mechanized instinct – and very
little else besides. Of course when all is stripped down the only thing is left
is consumption for the sake of it (the dead bodies need no sustenance) and
savagery. Not exactly complimentary of the human race but… Dare I say it, he
may have a point…
But if you
thought this was bad, I would honestly steer clear of Day of the Dead. No,
honestly. It is the bloodiest and most brutal of the three as far as physical
violence goes and it doesn’t exactly let up as far as the psychological
pressure goes either… For the third film, we move one rung up the proverbial
ladder. We are now in the bastion of the last remaining authorities (pretty
much, anyway) in the country. It is a military facility guarded by a handful of
soldiers and housing a handful of scientists and a few technicians. The
scientists are trying, against hope, to find some sort of cure for the epidemic.
The advances are minimal however, and as practically every day brings a new
loss in their ranks, the patience of the military men is beginning to wear a
little thin… Tensions rise slowly and surely, leading to a showdown the group
can’t really afford to have under the circumstances… But with neither side
backing down, it seems like less of an option and more of an inevitability…
In this
film, we see Romero enlarging on several themes and storylines we have seen in the
previous films. The military authority is shown as closed in on itself, selfish
and crude – much like the group of security guards in the Night of the Living
Dead (the 1st film that also by and large took place in a mall).
They are pitted against pretty much all the civilians in the compound and
approach them with disdain –only the helicopter driver (again there is only
one)can feel some level of actual security, based purely on the fact that he is
the only one who can drive the chopper… It is, in short, a nightmare scenario –
the rule of law has broken down on all levels, and armed militias rule the
roost. In this chaos, however, there is one positive and fascinating
breakthrough… One doctor, Dr Logan, may actually have broken through and
managed to communicate with one of the zombies…
The
question is of course will he have the time to elaborate on this and actually
use this advance to some advantage. Romero being Romero, the answer is no. This
is where it all winds down ladies and gentlemen. This is where the nightmare
reaches its climax, and yet you cannot wake up… True to previous form, come the
end of the film, the safe house (and by now it is feeling like the only one
left on Earth) is overrun and zombies chew on the broken remains of the last
humans…
Romeros
trilogy is, in short, a prolonged nightmare where there is no real escape and
no real solution. We neither find out what caused the outbreak nor if there is
any solution to it. But with our very survival as a species now under threat, we suddenly manage to
take a good long look at all those things -
status, money, power and the rest of it – we used to deem so important.
We ask ourselves who we really are when put under pressure – and if the way the
film paints the authorities, the people responsible for protecting us , even
the most seemingly virtuous of us has a few nasty skeletons to hide, deep in
the closet. This is why Romero’s zombie films will remain classics. No matter
how much time goes by, we will still be scared by the already old-fashioned
zombies and the characters reactions to them. Not because we are afraid of the
living dead, but on some level, we know we have been confronted by potentially
one of the greatest monsters that still walks the earth today… The dark depths
of our own souls…
How has your week been my dears However you have spent it, I am pretty sure you were somehow touched by the 50 shades craze sweeping the nation as we speak. The film is smashing all recent box office records and attracting a whopping 113 million views in total of all related material (although to be fair, the number includes spoofs. Click here for the full article on Variety). All I can say is that I have a strong feeling the nations not so guilty pleasure will be around to keep tongues wagging for several sequels to come. Of course it is no longer a big secret that E.L. James locked horns with the creative team for the film pretty much all the way through the process purportedly leaving director Sam Taylor-Jonson feeling like she never wanted to make another movie again (Click here for full article on Variety). Um... That will make finding a director a tad tricky methinks... In the meanwhile though, heres soemthing for all 50 shades of you fans...
Of course, thrilling as all of that may be, that is not quite my line in scary... I tend to go for proper ghosts and ghouls and long-legged beasties. Which has meant that I have watched the new trailer for master director Guillermo Del Toro`s Crimson Peak and it has left me literally salivating... I mean check it out and tell me honestly HOW ARE WE MEANT TO WAIT UNTIL OCTOBER!!
But of course, there is one big yearly event that we do not have long to wait for anymore... The Oscars are upon us! Much like 50 Shades of Grey, whether you are a lover or a hater, you will be touched by the awards ceremony coming up on Sunday. Nor can you completely avoid the commotion it will cause... Let the countdown commence and let`s start planning those viewing parties already!
have a great week guys and see you all soon!
Essie
Regular
readers of this blog will have noticed at some point that I do a lot of viewing
on BBC Iplayer. I would strongly recommend it to the uninitiated; it is often
brimming with interesting if rather under advertised propositions. I only
clicked on Savage Grace because I thought I recognized Julianne Moore in the
thumbnail and only then realized what a relevant film it was to this Oscar
season as it co-stars this seasons other favorite, Eddie Redmayne. Savage Grace
is a disturbing true story and a true acting masterclass by the two stars. And
with controversial director Tom Kalin (of Swoon fame) at the helm, we would not
be wrong to expect big things from this one. Which is why I was profoundly
disappointed when it ended up not quite coming together in the end…
This is the
story of the American actress and socialite Barbara Daly Bakeland (Julianne Moore) and her
murder at the hands of her son Anthony ( Eddie Redmayne). Barbara is the epitome of the
histrionic actress, driving her husband away relatively early in the marriage and
being left to raise their son Anthony alone, with the help of various family
friends and relatives. Barbara being obsessed with getting her old position
with society back, Anthony is pretty much left to his own devices to experiment
and find his own way in life. And his mother’s reaction to these experiments
is, shall we say, not exactly conventional… Thus swimming through a strange,
fluid atmosphere quite devoid of boundaries, the pair arrives at the ultimate
tragedy that will end Barbara’s life.
The film
has one heck of a lot of potential. But what looks like has happened is that
Kalin has tried to take a formula that worked incredibly well for him in the
early nineties with Swoon – namely a murder with sexual motivations laced with
madness and a strange sort of folie a deux and re-adapt it. The problem is,
while this works well for Swoon, it falls strangely flat for Savage Grace. The
acting was superb and the direction very atmospheric if in places a little old
fashioned but throughout, I felt as if there was something missing. The last
half-hour or so came together a lot better, with Anthony finally
making it quite clear that the – something is not quite right – feeling we had
been harboring for a while now was bona fide insanity and having a magnificent
breakdown on screen. In fact I finished the film wishing that there had been
more of the last half hour and less of the first hour – if that makes sense as
a sentence. Then I went online to see what I could find out about the story and
promptly discovered what was missing. Basically it was a whole chunk of the
real story
.
WARNING.THE
NEXT PARAGRAPH IS BASICALLY SPOILER CITY. BUT THE MURDER IS IN THE Public
DOMAIN SO… EHM. YEAH. Don’t get me wrong I am ALL for artistic license and –
within reason – playing around with real life stories a tiny bit to suit a
vision. And I also see that cinematically speaking what Kalin was trying to do
was have a tense but understated first two thirds with subtle hints at the
underlying incest with a dramatic reveal and “descent into madness” type
finale. The problem for me was that the hinting was a little too subtle and
didn’t quite get one on the same emotional level. In real life, it transpires,
Anthony had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia years before the murder
had occurred (in the film there is no mention of it) but his father wouldn’t
allow him to be treated by psychiatrists. The incestuous relationship with his
mother had also been going on for years (in the film this is hinted at but
never elaborated – I got the impression the scene in the final half hour is the
culmination, not one in many if you get what I mean). The incest had its roots
in the fact that Barbara could never quite accept Anthony being gay and was
“trying to fix him”. In this attempt he had also been coerced to have sex with
prostitutes. Again, none of this had been mentioned. In fact Anthony and
Barbara had had numerous violent quarrels involving knives and a previous
attempted murder, all of which is overlooked in the film.
But then
again, there is no great dramatic reveal in a young man with previous mental
health issues tipping over the edge I suppose, so all of that is abandoned in
lieu of a dramatic reveal at the end that leaves us gagging for more. Grand
reveals are all very well and good in their place. But especially when it comes
to mental illness the slow and steady descent into madness can be just as
dramatic, not least because it usually corresponds more to the real experience
people have of mental illness. And I mean it is not as if there weren’t plenty
of dramatic events for this to lead off from – not least since the concept of
“fixing” gay people is sadly still an actual topic today. Between that and the
incest – the fact that technically his mother raped him – just sticking to the
facts and doing much less in the way of editing and contributing would have
made a completely sensational story. Especially with actors as brilliant as
Moore and Redmayne.
I would, in short, class Savage Grace as a
missed opportunity more than anything else. It has some wonderfully dramatic
glimmers but it never quite opens its wings and soars. Still it is well worth
the watch if only for the wonderful performances and one of the most terrifying
depictions of madness I have seen on screen for a while.
I know. Holocaust rememberance week was a while ago and I should be on to romantic suggestions for Valentines Day viewing.
Then again, you are on the blog of gal whose idea of good Valentines Day viewing is It Follows, so... Yeah... (Look out for the review of this one, some time next week on Film Debate)
Besides, as I have said in the article, rememberance is not just for one week, and this documentary definitely cannot and should not be confined to just a week. So here you go.
While we're on the matter of other websites by the way, check out the little box on the top left. You will find handy links to my work on other websites, should you be that way inclined. And while I have included links to my own work, but I strongly reccomend you explore both the websites, they are chock full of info and fantastic writings on all things film related!
Sooo - did you watch the BAFTAS - of course you did! My hearty congratulations goes out to all the winners, it was a truly fantastic contest - and well with the Oscars still on the way and the Berlinale running as we type, there is more excitement to come! I hope your favourites did well - I am well pleased about mine. The single acting award I am absolutely intense about this year is Best Supporting Actor. I am convinced it should go to no other than J.K. Simmons, he should have all the Best Supporting Actor Awards this year, so there. (*has drink of water, calms down*). My congrats to him as justice was served (ehm - not that the others weren't worthy contenders, of course they were, I just REALLY loved Whiplash) as far as the BAFTAS went...
The second one I am rooting for this year is without a doubt Grand Budapest Hotel. I was overjoyed to see that it came away with a very neat little armfull of BAFTAs. The film is a true feast for the senses and I reckon fully deserves every award it gets... Congrats Guys!
So without further ado, let's get to the show! And don't forget, if you want to chat, I am almost constantly on Twitter (@Essie_Tweets , just scroll to the bottom of the page for my feed!) these days...
Much love to you all, happy viewing and happy reading folks!
Essie
This post
was originally meant for Holocaust remembrance week. God knows it would have
suited the week infinitely better, subject-matter wise. But it took me a while
to get through the watching stage for this one. And I don’t just mean because
of the length. The subject matter means that you cannot actually sit down and
watch the thing in a couple of large chunks. The “sessions” I watched this
rather extraordinary documentary in left me drained, and in serious need of a
drink and a good few episodes of some sort of sit-com to bring me back to the
real world.
Shoah is a
truly extraordinary documentary. If you decide to watch a single thing about
the Holocaust, make it Shoah and you never need to watch anything again. Not
just because it is a mind blowing 9,5 hours long, with no natural cut-off points
or episodes. Because making a (very) long documentary is all well and good, but
you can perfectly well manage to use that time to say very little. Director
Claude Lanzmann uses the time to say virtually anything you can think of, and
tell stories from the Holocaust that you may not have heard before.
Because
yes, we hear the heart-rending and extraordinary stories of the survivors of
the camps. But we also talk to the drivers of the trains that took them there.
The villagers in the surrounding fields who were allowed to tend their crops as
the prisoners were worked to death in the camp next door. The regular poles and
Checks who joined the resistance after realising the true extent of the horrors
taking place on their door steps. And last, but by no means least, the Nazi
soldiers who oversaw the killing machines.
The one
advantage this work has over modern works is the fact that since it was made in
the early to mid-80s (the official date of the film is 1985 but it must have
taken a good few years to assemble) a lot of the people who were involved in
the Holocaust (be they victims, perpetrators or just witnesses from afar) were
quite old, but still alive and able to tell their stories with clarity. Not a
single, solitary frame of archive footage is used. Which makes sense, because I
am sure that Shoah was meant as an archive- an archive of memories.
You have
often heard me drone on about how difficult it is to make a film about a topic
like the Second World War, simply because of the profusion of material about
it. But Lanzmann, meticulous in his approach, manages to elicit stories and points
of view that I have not seen before or since. I was especially touched by the
testimony of the train driver who was responsible for driving the infamous
cattle trains to Treblinka. It will not be a major plot spoiler to tell you
that the only way the drivers of these trains could bear the job they were
given was by making the journey almost blind drunk. For even above the roar of
the train, it would seem that the lamentations of the people in the first few
carriages were clearly audible from the locomotive…
Then of
course there are the interviews with the ex- Nazis. Some of these interviews
were actually filmed in secret as the Nazis had originally only agreed to do
voice recordings. But the hidden camera imagery shows old men who could, for
all intents and purposes be your own grandfather. “We may have to stop early”
warns one old man “I have heart problems as you know and… I will let you know
if feel I cannot go on.” And while this warning is a clear demonstration of
emotions built up inside, the ex-soldier uses a meticulously drawn map and
stick to explain the day to day workings of the camp (Auschwitz) and talks
about the details of operating the death machine in a manner that is almost
matter of fact. One cannot help but wonder at the extraordinary defence
mechanisms the human soul throws up to combat stress and memories…
As a modern
day film-viewer you will find Lanzmann’s style of filming hard to get into. It
is slow moving, and seems to focus on the tiny details you may at first find
irrelevant or unimportant. What Lanzmann is actually trying to do is to
reconstruct the entire landscape of the Holocaust. The workaday details. The
little and the large that made up the entire, horrendous death machine. The result
is one of the most realistic portraits of the death camps, where your
imagination can transport you there so much more efficiently than stock-footage
of liberated camps ever could… Because that’s the tricky thing about archive
footage… So much of it is from “after the event” as it were. The only real
record of what actually happened in the camps are memories. And perhaps the
only way of truly doing these memories justice is to record them in the most
minute detail possible. To this end, Lanzmann does not even use voiceovers or
subtitles for some of the interviewees who don’t speak a European language. We
hear their story in their own voice, then through that of the interpreter. It
maybe takes a little longer, but the emotion in the voices of the storytellers
(for what else can I call them) is not lost.
This is a
definite must watch. And not necessarily just for Holocaust remembrance week
but for all times, for truly, remembrance of these horrors should not be
confined to just one week… Just set
aside some time over a few days, and bear witness to these stories, so
unbelievable and so horrifying that they could only ever be real…
The Superbowl! I live in the UK and have never even been remotely interested in sports but if you are part of the online community, the Superbowl is part of your life in one way or another... And why Superbowl spots! A big-name movie is not worthy of the title if it doesn`t have one. And I do understand. It`s one of the biggest TV events in America. What an opportunity for marketing... Let's take a look at them as we chat about movies shall we... I mean, they were made for the occasion at great expense, might as well use them!
Of course, we couldn`t possibly have started the week without this one! Apparently sex scenes constitute about a fifth of the film - which should... You know... Be in keeping with the book. I was reading an interview with Jamie Dornan (THIS interview to be precise) and it seems Mr Dornan is worries about living up to fan expectations... Don`t you worry sir, I'm sure you can... perform... :)
Now... This fella... The superbowl spot revealed Hugh Laurie and a very impressive looking rocket... My toes are curling with anticipation about this one... And the spot is only here because I really, really liked it.
Oh and one last thing before I leave you... Are we done with calling The Minions Movie a kids film - I mean everyone knows it's ACTUALLY for the adults right. Check out what the little scamps have been doing for the superbowl! Is it completely original - well no. But we are going back to the Minions because we loved what they always did so... You know... Oddly, this time round, it would be a shame if they DID change... :)
Have a great week folks - TTY later!
Incidentally, if you scroll right to the end of the page you should find my Twitter feed (I know - I really need to do something about the placement of that one) but anyway, hit me up on Twitter or something, I've only just rediscovered it and I love it this time round :)
Well it has
hit the UK TV news like a bullet this one. Anyone who is anyone is talking
about it; not least because its first episode alone became BBC2s most watched
drama in a decade, opening with 3.9 million viewers and 16.5 % audience share
for its time slot (this according to The Telegraph). I would say its popularity is definitely the cause of the
talk and not the consequence – if you see what I mean – because, well, as we
all know, audience numbers are dropping both for cinema and for mainstream
television. Any record is worth talking about and analyzing – mainly, I would
suspect, in the hope of figuring out the cause of this and hoping to repeat it.
It is a shame, really that in my opinion the analysis ends up at something we should
have figured out a while ago. If you put good quality content on a television,
guess what, people watch it! But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about
Wolf Hall first…
Wolf Hall
revisits one of the most popular topics of British Historical drama; the life,
times and wives of Henry the Eighth. We do not, however take the usual point of
view of the king himself, but see it from the perspective of the other political
force majeure of the era, Thomas Cromwell. Through his eyes we see the machinations
of the court and what exactly it takes to rise politically in those times (or
indeed, some might argue, at any time, but again I get ahead of myself).
Although it is a popular topic, I would have
thought it is no small gamble actually going ahead and making a drama series
about it AGAIN. There is so much good material to compare it to. So little has
been left unsaid. You would have to be really confident to be able to pull off
an entire series on the matter. Then there is the fact that the series is based
on a very well loved book by Hilary Mantel. I mean, it is a truly wonderful
exercise in creativity – making a series based on a well-loved book on a
well-trodden topic , creating something completely original and artistic AND popular.
Wow. Now that’s an ask.
And yet,
BBCs Wolf Hall pulls it off! First of all there is the matter of the acting,
which you would have to be an outright heartless wretch to fault. Acting phenomenon
Mark Rylance plays the lead, Thomas Cromwell and is supported by such great
names of British acting as Jonathan price, Damien Lewis and Claire Foy.
Historical dramas have always been the BBCs strong suit – and they must know as
well as we do that having a strong cast is well and good (in fact it is very
good indeed) but one must have a structure to support this cast – or a
structure for the cast to support. Wolf Hall is a thoughtful film, incorporating
candle light as a sole light source in some scenes -much to the exclamations of the media - and
taking the usual care in the décor and costumes. But beyond that, its story is
told in a very real way. There are silences, a lot of silences. Some of them
are contemplative, some of them are tense, they have been mocked a fair amount
for their number but in fact none are out of place. Cromwell is a very, very
real character, shown with faults, warts and realism. When his wife and two
daughters die of sweating sickness (come now, this was NOT a spoiler, it is all
over any outlet I can possibly imagine) Cromwell is not shown in the throes of
overly dramatic tears. His grief is, for lack of a better word, quiet and grey,
and comes out a lot in his determination to save Cardinal Wolsey and completely
bury himself in the attempts to do so. The king is also a very real, believable
character with more weakness than history – or an average historical drama -
would care to admit. I think this alone is one of the main things that makes
this series so popular. Yes we are watching grand costumes and kings and princes…
But we are watching REALISTIC, believable and relatable kings and princes. They
are human as well as story book, if you see what I mean. And it is SO easy to
glorify a king like Henry the Eighth (and I mean lets be candid he himself
encouraged it at every turn back in his day) but in an almost saturated market,
almost perversely, making him human and believable makes him original.
And then of
course there is the whole intrigue side of it. It isn’t exactly front page news that human
beings love to watch machinations unfold and reputations rise and fall. Especially
if it’s a humble blacksmiths son like Cromwell rising to power and entering the
annals of history. It is what drives any series with the remotest political
element to it. Which brings me to a point that is driving me up the bleeding
walls. Why, oh why, oh WHY has the world
and its dog taken to calling the series Game Of Thrones with no zombies or
dragons. I mean honestly, was it news to ANYONE that Game of Thrones was
basically a political drama!! A cursory web search of the series and its writer
would clearly reveal that George M. Martin never hid that he was heavily inspired
by British History in the first place! Game of Thrones has always been a political
drama with dragons, but this does NOT mean the presence of dragons is now a
criteria when political dramas have been around since cameras began and was by
no means a genre discovered by GOT. I mean don’t get me wrong, I am a HUGE fan of GOT, I think it is at best
waaay to early to make it a yardstick for all political dramas of all times.
Ok, rant
over. I will go and have a glass of water and calm down. In the meanwhile you
go and catch up on Wolf Hall. Its available on BBC Iplayer if you live in the UK, and despite the
distinct lack of dragons, it’s a darn fine series…
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