Movie Review- Thor

Thor has hammer- hammer makes Thor strong.

Thor loses hammer- makes Thor weak.

Person who took hammer gives it back- makes Thor strong again.

The end.

Quote Of The Day

DJ on the likes of Ken Loach demanding subsidies:

Nothing sums up the demented nature of the modern left better than a soi-dissant socialist party that supports taxing janitors in Leeds to give money to millionaire luvvies in London, so they can make films about how folk in Yorkshire are ignorant bigots.

Stop The Millenium

This post makes no sense if you have not seen the films I am discussing or read the books upon which they are based.

This week I have been watching the "Millenium Trilogy" of films adapted from Stieg Larrson's novels (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire & The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest). The films are very good, well paced and with plots that sit together nicely.

There is one quibble that I have though- the investigative magazine that features throughout the trilogy "Millenium" seems to be the most tedious publication ever committed to print. Obviously it is a fictional magazine that I cannot actually read but just consider the following:

• In the second film the magazine's big story that is going to be the focus of their next issue is that men are using prostitutes. I know this is feminist Sweden but is that really news. There is dramatic talk of them confronting the punters with the kind of bullying prurience that makes them seem like the house organ of Iran's Revolutionary Guard investigating couples for holding hands.
• It is almost always out of date, despite one of the characters being an ace hacker, the Internet is unheard of among magazine staffers. They have to get their rapidly developing story to the printers a week in advance of printing it in order to get it out.
• As you would expect of earnest socialist Swedes, they don't believe in being pithy. As the journalists discuss writing up the big story in the 3rd film, you realise that they are talking about writing 30 to 50 pages each. For a magazine this seems excessive- a Private Eye special might run to 20 pages in total, yet they are talking about 200 pages of prose just on one story.
• Being socialists and Swedes they all come across as being devoid of a sense of humour, so this is 200 pages of an out of date story with no laughs in it whatsoever.

Of course being in a fictional universe, this magazine appears to actually sell to people beyond the friends and family of the staff whereas in reality it would be as widely read as Roundabout Enthusiasts Monthly.

Film Subsidies- Finally Giving The Children Of A-List Actors The Chance To Appear In Movies

As has been explained before the massive funding given to the UK Film Council was never intended to promote good art or good investments but merely to buy the support of greedy luvvies:

Stephen Frears recalls meeting him soon after [Gordon Brown] had announced a big increase in money for films. "Do you know what you've done?'' the movie man asked. "Created a rush of absolutely terrible British films?'' the benefactor replied, laughing.

So it's no surprise to learn that most of the films funded by the Quango failed to return their investment. Even spectacularly successful films like The Queen didn't repay the money that they had borrowed.

Still the supporters of continued subsidies have a new argument to make:

"Not all of the ones that have been released have started to recoup," explained the BFI spokesman. "The rationale for investing in films is not necessarily on the cultural strength of them. A large part of it is for developing new talent.
"Donkey Punch was invested in under the Warp X new talent initiative – it's new talent, a new director, and one of its cast, Jaime Winstone, has gone on to do new things, and to make a name for herself."

I don't begrudge Jaime Winstone a successful career but as her surname suggests she is the daughter of Ray Winstone, so she was not some undiscovered talent who would never have an opportunity to make a name for herself in film without a half a million pound subsidy for a crappy British film like Donkey Punch.

John Barry

I was very sad to see that John Barry had died. This was partly because I initally thought that John Barrowman had died and was gutted to realise otherwise. But it's mostly because he could compose such memorable themes as this:

How Government Works

To mark the passing of actor Pete Postlethwaite, John Prescott pens a moving tribute to the courage, decency and effectiveness of..... John Prescott. He writes how Postlethwaite influenced him:

His character, band leader Danny, after spending his life wanting to win the national brass band trophy, symbolically turns it down because he knows it's the only way he can get publicity for the 1,000 miners who were sacked from his pit.

The line that got me was: "This government has systematically destroyed an entire industry – our industry. And not just our industry – our communities, our homes, our lives. All in the name of 'progress'. And for a few lousy bob."

You can watch it here. I defy you not to cry.

These communities had their heart ripped out by successive Tory governments. 200,000 were thrown on to the dole and were just left to rot. That led to increasing rates of worklessness and despair.

It made me so angry and I thought we must do something. I then realised I was the minister in charge!

So presumably if  Prezza had watched Toy Story he would have directed his ministry to create a programme to tackle the problem of old toys being discarded when children get newer, shinier ones.

The Assassination Of Yogi Bear By The Coward Booboo

Pure genius:



via

Behead Those Who Insult Aslan

Liam Neeson is probably just trying to be multicultural and inclusive when he claims that Aslan the lion from the Narnia books could just as easily be Mohammed as Jesus. Whilst he may be trying to broaden the appeal of his film, if Aslan could also be Mohmammed then he is guilty of depicting Islam's prophet which does get many Muslims somewhat irate.

Remember how upset the Sudanese got when they thought someone had portrayed Mohammed as a teddy bear?

Finger On The Pulse

Newspaper pundits like to refer to popular cultural phenomona of the day to make their commentary seem relevant and modern as well as to show how tuned in to the zeitgeist they are. Here for example is the Telegraph's Nile Gardiner showing that he is down with the kids:

When über liberal Hollywood director James Cameron had a global box office hit back in 1997 with his epic depiction of the 1912 sea disaster, I doubt he thought the name Titanic would later become synonymous with the most left-wing presidency in American history. Thirteen years on, instead of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet clinging for dear life, it’s now Obama’s desperate White House team struggling for survival, but without the CGI effects.

Has he really been waiting 13 years just to make that rubbish and obvious analogy?

Oink Oink

Why is that the word "greed" is seldom used to describe subsidy junkie like this? Create your own sentence using the words and phrases "snouts", "troughs", "special pleading", "whining" and "luvvies", this will save me the trouble of writing anything more.

Subsidising British films has led to 100s of crap movies that no one wants to see and serves little purpose but to keep Danny Dyer occupied in shitty gangster flicks.

I've used this quote before but it remains telling:

Stephen Frears recalls meeting him soon after [Gordon Brown] had announced a big increase in money for films. "Do you know what you've done?'' the movie man asked. "Created a rush of absolutely terrible British films?'' the benefactor replied, laughing.

Very Creepy Movie Dialogue

I was watching the film Sliding Doors the other day (not my usual viewing to be honest). The film was made in 1998 when this dialogue would not have been disturbing:

Helen: Who are you on the rebound from?
James: A girl called Pamela. It was 1974. We were eight. She left me for Gary Glitter. Gary Glitter!! All the other fellows were getting left for Greg Brady and Donny Osmond. I mean, I could have come to terms with that, given time, but Gary Glitter? Oh she wanted to touch him there, yeah.

Movies Not Historically Inaccurate Enough Say Race Baiters

Some people really are too stupid to breathe:

Essence.com recently featured a commentary titled, “Another White Actress to Play Cleopatra?” where the writer opined, “Honestly, I don't care how full Angelina Jolie's lips are, how many African children she adopts, or how bronzed her skin will become for the film, I firmly believe this role should have gone to a Black woman.”

First of all Egyptians in general are at least as close to white people as to black people in terms of their physical appearance, in fact probably closer. Secondly Cleopatra was not a typical Egyptian as she was part of the ruling Ptolemic dynasty and would therefore have been ethnically Greek. The only thing that should disqualify Angelina Jolie from playing Cleopatra is that the queen was actually a bit of a munter to be honest.

This is what happens when the branch of pseudohistory that is Afrocentrism enters the mainstream.

Geekery

I was watching last years "Star Trek" movie on DVD today and it was a reasonably entertaining film. However I'm not a Trekkie, and I think the film makers have been very cruel to the hard core fans who've learnt the entire cannon over 5 different TV series and a whole bunch of movies and know which alien with a strange forehead signed which treaty with which other oddly foreheaded alien.

What they've done, and if you haven't seen the film this is a spoiler, is with some time travel jiggery pokery made the entire future history of the Star Trek universe, from Captain Kirk's birth onwards, null and void.

This must be distressing for Trekkies, it's almost as though all that time memorising lists of Klingon chancellors was wasted.

Criminal Faces

The idea that facial characteristics give clues to a person's nature has been out of fashion since the Victorian era. Yet I was intrigued to read in my daily tabloid trawl that one of the actors in the Harry Potter films seems to be a bit of a thug. He plays one of a pair of thuggish characters who flanked one of the main villains. Interestingly the other member of the pair has also been in serious trouble.

So the two young actors cast in roles due to their ability to appear thuggish turn out to actually be thuggish. Quite a coincidence.

These are the features associated with criminality by Cesare Lombroso:

• Unusually shaped ears, occasionally very small but more likely large “jug handle” types similar to those of chimpanzees;
• Upturned or twisted noses – hawk-like in murderers and flattened in thieves;
• Large, protruding jaws;
• High cheekbones;
• Fleshy, swollen, or protruding lips;
• Hard, shifty eyes; and,
• Excessively long arms.

Looks pretty convincing to me and as someone ticks at none of those features I can be trusted.

I Can't Be Bothered To Think Up A Title For This Post.

Feminists like to say things like:

Discrimination against men on the basis of gender is so unusual as to be non-existent, so what exactly will a men’s society do? To suggest that men need a specific space to be ‘men’ is ludicrous, when everywhere you turn you will find male-dominated spaces.”

I don't think men are routinely discriminated against, despite the best efforts of the femiloon movement. Then again I don't think women are routinely discriminated against either, because lets face it that were the case surely Women's Studies professors would be able to find more substantial examples of discrimination than this:

Carmen Siering, assistant professor of English and women's studies at Ball State University, said: "With just a moment of critical analysis, feminists can't be too happy about how the latest episode in the Twilight series, adapted from Stephenie Meyer's popular books, represents a young woman and her place in the modern world. In fact, the New film is really just more of the same, only worse."

Ism's Galore

I watched The Man With The Golden Gun at the weekend. Would it be possible to make a film that encompasses so many gratuitious 'isms nowadays? I mean there's sexism (Britt Ekland as the implausibly stupid blonde MI-6 agent Mary Goodnight who spends most of the film in a bikini), ethnic stereotyping ( Assorted East Asians ), more ethnic stereotyping (the Southern Sheriff) and of course heightism (the portrayal of midgets as comical yet sinister).

Roger Moore is doing penitence for his sins by having to appear in those godawful Post Office adverts.

Brazilian Braziliance

Whilst I reading about Brazil at the weekend, one thing I discovered is that their great modernist architect Oscar Niemeyor is still alive at the age of 101. Great modernist architect might be an oxymoron to some, but his buildings don't luck hideously ugly in the way that La Corbusier's creations do, from a distance at least Brasilia looks quite attractive.

Also on a Brazilian theme here is my top 5 Brazilian films (although I have only seen around 15 so this isn't exhaustive by any means and the dominence of crime related works probably reflects my tastes as much as Brazilian cinema):

5- Bus 174- a documentary about an infamous seige where a criminal took a bus and held the passengers hostage for days. The incompetence of the police and the horrendous background of the hostage taker are explored in detail. The use of actual footage of the seige makes it partularly gut wrenching to watch. When I first saw it I thought it made too many excuses for the criminal which is somewhat ironic given the next movie on my list by the same director.

4- Elite Squad- A film about Rio De Janeiro's elite paramilitary police unit, who are more of an urban warfare unit than a police squad. It has been criticised for glorifying or excusing police violence, it doesn't though, it puts the violence into context though by looking at the mayhem of the slums and the indulgence towards criminals of the intelligensia. The boasts of the Elite Squad narrator about the professionalism of the unit are undercut by what is actually depicted which a lot of the hostile critics seemed to miss.

3- Carandiru- A film based on a real life prison riot which ended up with over 100 prisoners being killed. It picks some characters and tells their stories from before they went to prison up to the time of the riot.

2- Central Station- A cynical middle aged woman who writes letters for illiterates for a living is forced to take a ten year old boy she doesn't know to his relatives hundreds of miles away after his mother is killed. I don't know if this would seem scmaltzy if it were in English, but it avoids that beartrap and is a great character driven film.

1- City of God- IMHO the best film in the last ten years, it is set in the Rio slum of the title and follows the rise and fall of it's most psychotic gangster from a very scary child to an even scarier adult through the eyes of the narrator.

The Return Of Chucky

The Sun are trying to revive one of the silliest stories of the 1990s- the claim that the killers of James Bulger were inspired by the horror film Child's Play. Apparantly the two brothers age 10 and 11, who tortured two other children, were also inspired by the film:

SICK horror movie Child's Play, which the "Hell boys" watched, has been linked to a catalogue of crimes.

A female relative of the evil lads revealed their mum had let them watch the 18-cert slasher film when they were aged just "six or seven".

I can see the pattern here, they watched Child's Play and just half a decade later they tortured some kids, therefore Child's Play causes children to attack other children because nothing else might have happened in a brief five year period.

I haven't seen Child's Play and I haven't attacked any children- how much more proof do you need of the perils of the evil film?

A Rabbitty Version Of His Masterpiece.

As a big fan of Richard Adams's novel 'Watership Down' I was thrilled to discover it had been made into a movie. However as I sat down to watch it I was horrified to discover that the director had seen fit to cram the film adaptation with dozens and dozens of rabbits!

Okay not really. But my complaint makes about as much sense as Johann Hari's shock at finding out that the cinematic version of Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" is "garbled to the point of meaninglessness".

"The Shock Doctrine" has been recognised as dishonest, dumb and deluded by critics not only on the right but also on the sane wing of the left. What the hell do you think is going to be produced when it is based on the works of a woman so stupid that she manages to defeat her own argument before anyone else even has a go? Citizen Kane?

It's vaguely distasteful to see Hari praising an exceptionally dishonest and ignorant hack, it's like watching someone masturbate over a photograph of themselves.

Ali G, Bruno & Borat.

When Sacha Baron Cohen's creation Ali G first appeared on television it was one of the most brilliant satires in years. It wasn't so much the send up of the moronic elements of hip hop culture (although that is a target rich environment) or the phenomena of middle class white kids aping Jamaican culture badly, it was the reactions of the people he interviewed.

They were members of the establishment and were almost universally highly accomplished and very intelligent. Yet when they were faced with a Yoof TV interviewer who was clearly a halfwit they refused to pass judgement on his stupidity or his outrageous attitudes. If anything they largely pandered to him and sought his approval. There were a few exceptions to that rule such as Tony Benn challenging his references to 'me bitches', Donald Trump walking out as Ali G proposed a stupid idea or when Andy Rooney got sick of his idiocy here:


Borat was amusing but didn't really show anything that hasn't been done a thousand times before, be it dumb rednecks or funny foreigners. I haven't see the Bruno movie yet of course but as a TV character he hardly broke new ground as a flamboyantly camp fashionista and I doubt the movie will either. It may well work as comedy but it is a waste of talent for someone like Baron Cohen to do John Inman meets Zoolander when he has shown he is capable of making cutting satire that says something about society.

I think the difference between Ali G in 1999 and Borat and Bruno since then is that Ali G was exposing the cant and hypocrisy that was practiced by the sort of people who watched him, whereas Borat and Bruno don't hold up a mirror to the audiences own shortcomings but instead point and laugh at the little people.