OK, THE LAST ONE, FOR NOW : "ALIEN: RESURRECTION"

Like I said, this one was touch and go for me at first. I mean logically. I don’t want to give too much away about the third one in case you haven’t quite got round to it yet but… Hang on a minute. I’m not going to be able to say a thing about this film unless I give that away. Err… Ok this is awkward but seeing as I’m one of a mere handful of people who hasn’t watched this thing yet, and seeing that, well, we are so far evolved in our taste in films that, honestly, you don’t mind a tiny spoiler, right? I mean, it’s on the back of the Alien 4 DVD for God’s sake. Ok I’ll cut to the chase. So. You may (or may not) recall that at the end of Alien3 , Ripley had found out that she had a Queen alien embedded in her chest and had killed herself to save the human race. At this point, especially with big words like “Resurrection” being thrown about I had my doubt as to how realistic / good the film was going to be. But, and I may have mentioned this, the film had one redeeming feature in my eyes in the form of director Jean –Pierre Jeunet. The man is a little mad as far as I’m concerned (and anyone who doubts it should watch masterpieces like Delicatessen and Cite des Enfants Perdus) but this is a good thing in this particular case. I personally love the man’s style and thought that this alone was a recommendation for the film. Plus of course, this was the third “sequel” after all, if thing got a little doodah here and there, frankly, who could blame them? Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The film is brilliant. The resurrection is totally justified. And Jeunet works brilliantly with the entire combination. Allow me to explain. It is 200 years later. Technology has advanced tremendously even since Ripley’s time. And even though the aliens seem to be abandoned to the dusty vaults of history, there are still determined men and women out there who want to get their greedy paws on the aliens to use them as the ultimate weapon. In the end, a long series of experiments finally have a result: Ripley is cloned, using blood samples she gave while she was alive. And she is cloned with the Alien Queen inside of her. Now, the Queen is surgically removed and set to the task of breeding “warriors” but then there is the matter of Ripley. She is, thanks to her new genetic coding, a alien – human hybrid who, having been born in her early to mid-thirties is finding the world a slightly challenging place. Add onto this the crew of bounty hunters that have just come on board ship for shady business and already we have an interesting concoction. And as we all know only too well by now, if there are aliens in the mix, things are pretty much bound to get deadly… The film does something very, very intelligent here. They take something that could have been just used to “bring Ripley back” and glossed over and make it into a serious commentary. There is quite a serious, thought-provoking section on cloning in the film. I assume the date coincides with first arguments on the topic, but of course the arguments are just as relevant today. The other good thing is, the “argument” is not presented via long and somewhat stilted dialogue, but mainly through visuals and events, ergo it is emotionally engaging as opposed to being long, erudite words that have kinda been said before. There are, naturally, the pre-requisite chases through corridors and grizzly deaths but the whole thing carries the clear mark of Jeunet’s original style and quality so they are, all in all, a pleasure to watch. Plus, there are a few serious surprises in store. I mean one in particular made me go “Oh God, why didn’t I think of that!!” – out loud. It’s so obvious and yet so well-hidden. I did also spot a few comments on religion and its place in society, but that is possibly the topic of a longer, more serious write-up / essay (for those who aren’t sure what I’m talking about, surely you noticed that the omnipresent main computer in the spaceship is called “Father”?). I don’t necessarily agree with what the film is saying about religion, but I just wanted to point it out, if only to prove that Alien is really, really not like “any old” sci-fi movie. As someone who has actually studied film, it is my personal opinion that it merits multiple-viewings and serious consideration. And I mean, it’s a riot to watch, even if you watch it just the once… 

ANALYSIS OF A QUADRILOGY NOT QUITE LIKE ANY OTHER : "ALIEN3"

In for a penny, in for a pound. I might as well do the whole quadrilogy while I’m about it. Like I said last week though, to be fair the Alien series (it turns out) is the exception to the rule. “The rule” being that usually, even if a first film is potentially brilliant, the more sequels are made of it, the worse they turn out. But with such great directors and actors on board, really, the room for failure drops significantly. And David Fincher is, categorically, one of my favourite directors ever. Hence, I really, really, had to watch this. And review it. So, last time we abandoned Ripley, she was once again in cryosleep, crossing the galaxy with the survivors of the previous calamity. It seemed as if her troubles were over, but in fact they may, in a sense, only just be beginning. When a mysterious malfunction forces the ship to crash land, Ripley is the sole survivor. She is now officially the only woman on Fiorina 161, once a maximum security prison, now almost abandoned inhabited by the inmates who have “found religion”. Ripley has one single fear in this whole unfortunate turn of events: that an alien had snuck on board her ship and could have not found its way onto the planet. Pretty soon the bodies of the inmates begin to pile up… Her fears seem to have been confirmed… Now, I have to say we’re at an interesting point in the quadrilogy. I mean, this film is brilliant. There is a brilliant plot-twist at the end, which, the problem is, seems to bring the story to its natural end. I have the DVD for the fourth film and will review it next week, but the premise for it seems a little… Well, I do know it’s meant to be sci-fi but even so… We’ll have to wait and see if Jean-Pierre Jeunet can make it work. In the meanwhile, what of David Fincher? Stylistically the film is Fincher through and through and through, i.e. dark, gothic with a slightly apocalyptic feel about it. Fincher once again goes down the route of suspense rather than jump-scares. There are a few classical tropes employed, such as chase scenes down long, dark corridors, with the added stylistic renovation of our first p.o.v .shot from an alien. I mean, true, it doesn’t turn out to be anything mind-blowing but still, three films in, it needed to be done… It’s good quality adventure entertainment basically. It’s not an art piece, it will not change your world but hey. Not all films are meant to… And this one is perfect the way it is…

JUST ANOTHER "NIGHT ON EARTH"

Great minimalist director Jim Jarmusch once asked, I have read, why, if life hasn’t got “themes” and “storylines” films should be obliged to have them. This statement could well be the recipe for disaster in the hands of a novice or someone who wasn’t quite sure of what they were doing. In the hands of Jarmusch, however, it becomes the starting point for some of the most original and beautiful works of art in cinematic history. Now, a lot of you probably know that Jim Jarmush is a minimalist. And as such, not all his works are exactly easy to watch. Night on Earth however, is a comedy. It is, in actual fact, a sensitively filmed series of short stories that come together to make a story of a short space of time cut out of one night on planet earth… Doesn’t that actually sound a bit like what life is to you? It sure does to me…
When starting filming, Jarmusch makes his point of inspiration particularly clear; on the wall there are five clocks. You know the types; they usually have them in massive multi-national corporations and show the times in all the big capitals and important cities in the world. Here we have Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and Helsinki. It is seven p.m. in L.A., ten p.m. in New York, 4 a.m. in Paris, 4 a.m. again in Rome and 5 a.m. in Helsinki. Just at this same moment, five taxi drivers are driving along in five cities. Corky, a sassy young lady cab-driver in L.A. has just picked up a big Hollywood casting agent from the airport; Helmut, a migrant from Eastern Germany to New York whose driving skills have a lot to be desired, has picked up his first customer ever, Yo-yo, who wants to go to Brooklyn; in Paris, a young cab-driver from the Ivory Coast has just about had enough of the two arrogant and drunk dignitaries in the back of his cab, in Rome a hyperactive and slightly quirky cab driver is heading off to pick up a priest from one of the city squares and in Helsinki gruff looking driver Mika has just picked up three rather drunken friends and is wondering how to get them home and, more to the point, where he should take them. What follows is funny, touching, surreal or maybe just plain weird. But it is all simply part of a night on earth…
I spoke about Turkish minimalist director Nuri Bilge Ceylan a few weeks back; this is a totally different take on the genre. Or “type of film” as it were. There are no prolonged silences (and some of Jarmusch’s films contain those by the cart-load, but not this one) and general air of sadness. Jarmusch has somehow given what is, to me anyway, the essence of the night in a big city. It is in those small hours when all the good folks are in bed, the weird, the bad and the slightly mad become more and more conspicuous. There are no distractions; we can concentrate on their stories. And this is what these films are largely about: concentrating on one thing. Of course this is a large risk as the stories take place only in the cabs, in some of the cases there is dialogue, but in a few cases one or another of the characters carries the entire weight of the segment in a monologue. This is why, no doubt, Jarmush opted for actors such as Winona Rider, Roberto Begnini (one of his staple cast – I am not a massive fan of Begnini but here, the part fits him like a glove. He is actually one of the actors who has a monologue and not a dialogue so his task is tough, but credit where it is due, I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job of it), Isaach de Bankolé and Beatrice Dalle among others… This is for those of you who want something simple and beautiful. True, the stories don’t “come together” as it were in a magnificent climax but they peacefully co-exist and are definitely part of a whole… Like life. Real life.

THE TRUE STORY OF SUSANNA KEYSEN : "GIRL, INTERRUPTED"

We owe this week’s theme to this little gem. James Mangold, director of many hits (you will remember him as the director of Walk The Line if nothing else) has done a wonderful job portraying an extraordinary true story… I think that people usually fight their most important battles with themselves. And sometimes, more than the battle itself, the hardest part is actually accepting there is a battle to be fought. This is the story of Susanna Keysen, the American writer and her 18 month stay in a mental institution. Now, mental institutions back in the 70’s were not what they are today. Sociopaths and people with eating disorders jostled together and tried their best to make sense of what was going on. It is highly questionable whether Keysen (diagnosed with “borderline personality disorder”) actually merited a stay here but as you will be able to see from the story there were definitely battles to be fought and the institution she was sent to provided an unlikely battleground to fight them upon.
Susanna Keysen (Winona Ryder) is a seemingly normal if rather unconventional young woman in the late ‘60s. She cuts her hair short, she wants to be a writer instead of going to college (much to the horror of her mother), she bucks just about every trend in her suburban neighborhood as she goes through life. She has some slightly strange “episodes” and hallucinations from time to time but nothing that seems too serious until she chases down a bottle of aspirin with a bottle of vodka. A discreet talk with a therapist – also a friend of the family – means there is only one way forward. Susanna must go to a mental institution and receive therapy. And although technically Susanna signs herself in, she can by no means sign herself out again. Pretty shortly she realizes that she is stuck there until the hospital deems her fit to leave – and that this could in fact take years. So there is nothing for her to do except settle in as best she can and get to know her fellow inmates. Her inmates are sweet (if not “all there”) and life would be pretty easy, unless Lisa (Angelina Jolie) just having being caught for the umpteenth time is returned to the ward. Lisa is (diagnostically anyway) a sociopath. She is charismatic, sassy, good at pressing anyone’s buttons and causing any kind of havoc she chooses to. Susanna and Lisa strike up an unlikely but very real friendship that will be life changing for both of them…
I watched this film only half knowing what it was about and was bowled over, like the previous film, for two reasons. First the acting. You remember Winona Ryder, right? She couldn’t handle fame once she got her hands on it by all accounts, so I feel it’s a proper shame she vanished from the scene, she was really good once… Whoopi Goldberg is also there as Val, the head nurse. I’m always happy to see her in films for some reason, she feels like this old friend you keep bumping into, do you know what I mean? There are also appearances by other familiar faces, Jared Leto (and yes he is yummy as ever!), Vanessa Redgrave and the late Brittany Murphy among other people. All brilliant actors to be sure. But none of the above the one who blew me away, oh no… It was, and I hardly believe I’m writing this, Angelina Jolie. She won an Oscar® the Oscar® for her performance as Lisa. I always thought she was one of those people who were just about the looks, madam I stand corrected. You can act, and how… I don’t quite get why you (in fact she, why am I addressing Angelina Jolie specifically all of a sudden?) stopped (I mean, she’ s doing a lot for a lot of important issues in the world and that is awesome and deserves a barrel load of respect) but she stopped actually acting in her movies a while back and has gone slightly, well… If I said “Clint Eastwood” would you know what I mean?… A bit like Brad Pitt except he sort of made a comeback (in my view) with Inglorious Bastards. In short I was bowled over by her performance and sincerely, SINCERELY hope that we will see her in a role that involves showcasing her considerable talents someday soon.
The second is the story. You will undoubtedly notice that at places in the story it reads slightly like an Enid Blyton story but the other places are so raw and real that I seriously doubt there is serious artistic license involved. It also brings up a lot of interesting questions. I mean, a person may be “broken” in some places but not necessarily all over. Things may be going seriously wrong but that doesn’t mean they have nothing to offer as friends. It can of course mean that the friendship has some rather strange effects and consequences but there you are you see. I mean be honest, what is “normal” anyway? In the immortal words of the Mad Hatter, “We’re all a little mad here.” This film may well be one of my favorites ever… I hope you enjoy it too!

MORE CARTOONS ANYONE? TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED : "A SCANNER DARKLY"

Now, in telling its story, this film employs a rather original technique… Now, the whole thing is an animation, no doubt about that but the animated characters are real actors. Drawing of Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr, Woody Harrellson and Winona Rider (she’s the epitome of the 90’s as far as I’m concerned, it was a bit of a surprise to see her acting in a 2006 film if you see what I mean… ) parade around the screen making one feel decidedly odd. But odd is good in this particular case and experimental. Almost a nice mid-way solution for those who don’t particularly like animations, a wonder we didn’t think of it before… Apart from a few sci-fi details the whole film is set within “real” boundaries too, no weird space creatures (well there is a creature from another dimension but in context it’s actually quite acceptable), no one flying through the air… Serious and sci-fi never the less. And very thought provoking…
In the future – but not the too distant future – the world has become a much more totalitarian place… Security cameras are everywhere recording our every move, undercover cops everywhere trying to uncover God knows what… The biggest problem is D, also known as Death. That by the way is not a bad joke but the name of a highly addictive drug; little red pills that first give you a massive high and then of course, by degrees, destroy you. Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is one of the good detectives working on the gangs selling “D”. He is undercover, completely so because at his office he wears a “scrambler suit” preventing him from being recognized and is known as Agent Fred. He spends time as Bob Arctor with a bunch of small-time dealers and addicts, trying to get to the “bigger picture”. However as the operation deepens, Arctor has to take more and more D to keep “in” with the suspects. Plus when he (Agent Fred) is given the bizarre directive of keeping an especially close eye on Bob Arctor things start getting tricky… And schizophrenic… In more senses than one…
It doesn’t take long to realize this is a very “anti system” film. Not anarchist in any way but anti-totalitarianism, anti-big companies having their own agendas and controlling everything. It’s sci-fi of course, none of it is based on real events but the dedication at the end seems to imply it is in the memory of security service agents who were irretrievably harmed in the line of duty. It isn’t a “down with everything” type of message though. This is very clearly a dystopia, “look, this is what we could become. Let us do our best not to be so”. And this should be done by being anti-totalitarianism of all kinds. Not letting anyone get too strong for the common good. It’s a good film and a good moment to stop and reflect on what could happen without freedom. Something we should possibly do more often…

BEETLEJUICE, BEETLEJUICE, BEET…

Ok, we have talked about 80’s kitsch yum. We have taken a trip down memory lane. It was not long before an old favorite of mine sprang to mind. Now, everyone in my age-group has watched this film at LEAST once. More likely about 10 times. I am talking about the (in my heart) immortal classic : Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice.
Now for those too young or too old to have seen the movie, here is what it is about. Behold Adam (Alec Baldwin) and Barbara (Geena Davis). Happily married couple living just outside of a small town. Unfortunately, one day a freak accident sweeps both out of this world and into the next – yes indeed, they pass away. However, passing away is not the end all and be all, it is in fact barely the beginning. To start with, they appear to be confined to their home – with limited access to their caseworker (and here’s a nugget of information for you folks – if you commit suicide you become a civil servant in the next world!). They have an instruction manual and an unhelpful attitude from their caseworker so they settle down to make the best of it and bide their time in their home (not a massive problem since they do not need to eat or drink).But, of course, life goes on. And their house is sold to a family from New York – the attitudes of whom in a word get completely and utterly on their nerves (with the exception of their daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) who is relatively normal). For Adam and Barbara what started out like a couple of quiet nights in turns into purgatory… So they decide to do what any decent ghost must do: scare the new family away! However, being novices at this, all their attempts end in failure. So, against the warnings of their councilor, they decide to contact an expert in these matters (they see his ad in the manual you see): Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton). Now, this Beetlejuice is a rather dodgy looking character but he definitely has the powers to scare the newcomers off. Unfortunately, he also has a bit of an attitude problem. Which makes things rather interesting to say the least…
I don’t know where to begin. This is an ideal one to watch with your kids (and believe me I was tiny when I watched this. A friend of mine apparently tried to “conjure up” Beetlejuice for herself she liked it so much). Although it handles such potentially tricky subjects as death, ghosts, the afterlife and government offices (hehe) the mood is very upbeat and leaves no room for awkward questions or sadness. You will be amazed at its ingenuity. But ofcourse, it is a Tim Burton film – therefore it is painted in the colors of his imagination but that’s nothing to complain about. The actors are both brilliant and fascinating to watch (film made in 1988 guys – Winona Ryder is only ?? !). And I have to mention Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice. I know you can’t quite tell why from that synopsis, but I do, trust me. If by some freak occurrence you haven’t watched and loved this, you will become a fan by the end. Now run along and buy the DVD, trust me, you’ll watch it so many times it counts as a good investment! =)