Elgar: Portrait of a Composer (1962)

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Ross Birks

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My first encounter with BBC-era Ken Russell. Elgar might not seem like much today but if you do a bit of background reading you’ll realise just how innovative and bold this docudrama was for its time. Russell had to fight the BBC tooth and nail in order to do something that wasn’t just an archive footage documentary. The result is a musical biopic that combines fictional and non-fictional techniques with true invention.

I always respond to Russell’s penchant for bold brush strokes and his experimental approach to cinematic form is present here. My favourite moments are when Russell seems to take over; full-screen close-ups of insects through a microscope, musical interludes and sheer imagery punctuate the biopic elements with true vigour. This isn’t quite Ken Russell unchained, but he is well on his way.

Elgar is a lovely little example of pushing boundaries in the tightest of envelopes. I mean, who would have thought BBC educational documentaries needed a stylistic kick up the arse? Plus, as a complete Elgar novice I also found the subject matter pretty enlightening.

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Songs from the Second Floor (2000)

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Ross Birks

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Upon seeing A Pigeon Sat on a Branch earlier this year I immediately declared my love for Roy Andersson. I knew I had to catch up with his other films pronto. So finally I arrive at my first stop: Songs from the Second Floor.

This is the first in the trilogy that Andersson would finally complete with Pigeon. It took him fourteen years to get them out there but the painstaking attention to detail is present in every shot. It’s difficult to review these films. Like Pigeon and its predecessor You, the Living (the next on my watchlist) Songs from the Second Floor is a dark comedy built up of single-take vignettes. There’s no real story to speak of. The connective tissue is more technical and thematic than plot. That being said, the snapshots we are presented with here are more connected than they are in the later film. We actually see characters return and progress in their sorry little lives rather than just drop in on them once. I might be way off as I am watching these out of order months apart, but I suspect certain locations are actually present across the multiple films too. There are one or two backdrops in here that seem familiar to me, which makes the idea of a grand rewatch very exiting.

I’ve never seen films like these before. I’ve never seen a vision of life and fantasy so blissfully skewed and strange. Andersson’s world is surely a miserable one to exist within, but as mere spectators to it it is a joy to behold. It is a farcical, predominantly beige and pale universe where mishaps, bad luck and simple twists of fate are everyday occurrences. I love all the handcrafted weirdness and nutty background detail. All of the faces and body-types are cast to perfection. I’m a big fan of films built from single-take tableaus too so you can imagine my excitement when I discovered these films existed. Maybe the reason I resisted binge-watching them immediately after Pigeonwas to avoid the disappointment I will no doubt feel once I have no more to discover. The whole thing is just so complete and beautifully realised. I’ve seen two now and they are both entertaining, exciting, surprising and enlightening in equal measure. To put it simply: I am in love.

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Christine (1987)

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Ross Birks

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The further I dig into Alan Clarke’s back catalogue the more often I find myself thinking “How the hell did he convince the BBC to broadcast this on national television?” Christine is similar in form to Clarke’s seminal Elephant in that it is built up of endless, roaming steadicam shots only here they are broken up with occasional dialogue. We follow Christine, a young teenager and heroin addict as she mopes around from council estate to council estate interacting with fellow junkies and losers in search of her next fix. It’s an especially bleak character study but an important one.

I am in awe of Clarke’s experimental approach to these topical stories. There’s a very melodramatic version of Christine that could easily be made but instead Clarke strips everything back to its bare minimum. It’s almost European in that sense. Christine’s existence is repetitious, banal and more or less inconsequential to many of those around her so it’s only appropriate that the film too adopt many of these qualities. There’s no story to speak of, no characters to invest in. It is just a brief peek onto a way of life that many either ignored or were oblivious to. This is about as fly-on-the-wall as you could get. I can’t imagine what your average British couch potato thought when they flicked on the BBC and were faced with this. It’s such a provocative piece of work and really quite stunning in how casually confrontational it is. Clarke really knew how to push buttons without actually pushing them himself. Just like Elephant, this looks and feels like a landmark in British broadcasting. Even now I am slightly troubled by it.

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The Firm (1989)

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Ross Birks

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I’m relatively new to Alan Clarke but thanks to the BFI’s recent mammoth box-set I’ve been swiftly correcting that oversight. The Firm is the first one I delved into and it’s an intense affair all around. I’ve never really had much interest in British made-for-TV productions (not snobbery, just happenstance) but Clarke really made the form just as artistically valid and exciting as its big-screen counterparts.

The Firm is an angry, violent piece of work. As a peek into a particularly nasty British sub-culture (football hooliganism) the film feels immediate and authentic. The characters here aren’t likeable but there’s a sense of what makes them tick as well as a peek into the deeper aspects of their lifestyle. The BBC butchered Clarke’s director’s cut to soften its rough edges but when presented uncut, the film gains a crucial scene. Bexy (Gary Oldman) returns home to his wife (Lesley Manville) one night and apparently rapes her. But after a few moments we realise this is simply a role-play the two have acted out many times before. It’s easy to peg Bexy as the root of all evil, but with a wife who finds his demonic streak attractive and actively encourages it when it suits her, the conversation becomes far more complex.

Gary Oldman’s livewire performance as Bexy is incredible. He was on such a roll at this point in his career that there’s a convincing argument to be made for him being the most exciting British actor in the world. He seemed like lightning in a bottle, always unpredictable and dangerous. I can picture the cameramen shaking during takes, just out of fear that Oldman’s fury might miss its target and impact them rather than the lens. It’s difficult to imagine Oldman as anything other than a volatile hot-head in his youth, given all the sinister characters he portrayed during that time. He is one of my favourite actors and every new performance of his I encounter I feel proud to be alive to watch his career continue and unfold. Manville too is very good. She’s another British institiution, famous for her collaborations with Mike Leigh (or at least that’s how I best know her). She disappears into every role I’ve seen her in. It always takes me a wikipedia search or two to remind me where I’ve seen her before, not because she’s forgettable, but because she’s just so invisible and convincing. She was actually married to Oldman at the time, which makes their joint performances here even more fascinating.

Clarke’s quest for naturalism in locale and casting, paired with his sweeping steadicam shots transforms The Firm into something far more than a mere “hot topic” BBC film. It is stylish, ugly and real at the same time. The violence (again, best experienced in Clarke’s preferred version) is truly spine-tingling and the film refuses to pull any punches in its darkest stretches. It has lost none of its power in the 27 years that have elapsed since it was first broadcast. Even arriving to it as late as I have, I found it to be a riveting and thought-provoking watch.

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The Spectacular Now (2013)

Posted on June 24, 2016 by Ross Birks

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I like the way The Spectacular Now holds itself. It’s a coming-of-age movie that confidently tries to be more adult and sophisticated than the genre usually allows for. The two leads, Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, glow with youthful charm and their shared chemistry is a big part of why the film works so well. On the surface it’s all very sugary and sweet, Ponsoldt bathes much of the film in a golden hue but there’s also a sense of impending doom. After all, adulthood is just around the corner.

I keep coming back to this sense of foreboding in the film. The central romance feels authentic and is one of those affairs destined to last only a short summer but one which will be incredibly formative for those involved. While Sutter and Aimee seem to be falling in love and the film indulges in all the fluttered heartbeats and awkward giggles, it’s also not afraid to anchor it all on someone who is, frankly, sort of an asshole. I understand why this is considered Teller’s breakout performance – he’s a fresh and captivating performer, never boring, always surprising – but it’s also because Sutter has got real demons. He’s constantly chugging booze, is pathetically infatuated with his ex (Brie Larson) and has questionable motives for pursuing Aimee. Woodley too heightens Aimee to something more than just the “sweet girl-next-door” type. She is one of those “heart of gold” characters. So hard to pull off and imbue with a heartbeat but Woodley manages it with a breathless ease.

The film breaks new ground in two sequences: when Aimee and Sutter first have sex and when Sutter decides to track down his deadbeat dad. The sex scene here is about as awkward, touching and genuine as any I’ve ever seen before. It’s little more than two kids figuring it out in the moment and enjoying their connection on a new level and it is performed and captured to near-perfection.

The second sequence, involving Sutter’s Dad (Kyle Chandler) at first seems like a bizarre digression but it becomes crucial. For the first time, Sutter comes face-to-face with the man he assumed he should look up to, and is instead faced with a waste of space. There’s no big confrontation, no “movie” moment where the bad guy gets his comeuppance. Instead, Teller keeps the realisation internal. It’s the moment when Sutter re-asseses his life and his priorities. The fall-out of the scene – a car crash – is even more powerful as a result. I assumed the film was heading to a tragic conclusion. After all, all those close-ups of Sutter drinking were surely going to pay off with blood. I thought I was ahead of the movie, that the film was going to end with Aimee killed in the crash because of Sutter’s reckless drinking and selfishness. Initially, the fact she survives with a fractured arm seemed off to me. But after a bit of mulling over I realised it was more true to life. This isn’t just Sutter’s movie. The lessons aren’t only his to learn. By the end of The Spectacular Now the characters have realised two things: Sutter is fucked up and Aimee can do better. To leave their future together ambiguous is also the right move.

It’s taken me a while to catch up with The Spectacular Now but I near enough enjoyed every minute. It’s still a movie movie and works as an escapist fairy tale but it can also be enjoyed as something much deeper. The complex characters, caring direction and careful script all work in harmony. It’s the closest I’ve seen to a Cameron Crowe movie not directed by Cameron Crowe in a long time. I know I’m not the first to make that comparison, but cliches are cliches for a reason. Somehow this film manages to embrace the good ones and avoid the bad.

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My Bloody Valentine (1981)

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Ross Birks

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On the surface this is just another 80s slasher movie but the texture is quite individual. It’s set in a small mining town in Canada. Director George Mihalka shot on location, in an actual mining town (and an actual mine) and cast local Canadian actors who weren’t just generic good-looking teens. These are working-class faces, working-class body types. The guys wear glasses or have big beards, some of them are good looking, others are just gloriously plain. The same goes for the girls. They all look and sound like who they are meant to. It’s no mistake My Bloody Valentine often gets labelled as the Deer Hunter of slasher flicks. The human element is incredibly specific to Canada, which I really love.

So what about the scary shit? Well, Harry Warden is no Michael Myers but in terms of horror iconography you can do far worse than a murderous miner with a pick-axe. Just as a visual, that thing is incredibly strong and instantly recognisable to this film. This also might share the title for second best holiday-themed horror film of all time (along with another Canadian horror classic, Black Christmas). Valentine’s Day is so ripe for a slasher riff and the film doesn’t miss a beat. You’ve got dismembered hearts in heart shaped chocolate boxes, love triangles between characters, a Valentine’s Day dance and the whole thing takes place in a town called (wait for it) Valentine Bluffs! Is that one of the coolest fictional town names or what?

My Bloody Valentine is such a complete little bubble. To judge it on plot or dialogue alone, it might not seem all that special, but the way it’s dressed – the surface pleasures – are very unconventional. It’s a B-movie cast like a 70s small-town-on-the-outskirts masterpiece. Imagine if a psychotic miner suddenly started terrorising the characters in Five Easy Pieces or The Last Picture Showand you’re halfway there. The physicality of the special effects (I watched the uncut version) and the authenticity of the locations, actors and dialect are also essential to the overall impact. This one has really stayed with me. Apparently it’s Quentin Tarantino’s favourite slasher movie of all time too. Oh…and as far as horror movies with end-credits theme songs go, “The Ballad of Harry Warden” is the fucking pinnacle.

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Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Ross Birks

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Out of the four Friday the 13th movies I’ve revisited recently, The Final Chapter might be the one that has fared best. Based on my recollections, I assumed Part 2 was the best of the first batch but, actually no, this is the strongest entry so far.

Directed by Joseph Zito, The Final Chapter has incredibly strong atmosphere and visual style. Shot almost entirely at night during a hellish downpour, the budget feels like it was extended beyond the special effects and the bland, interchangeable backdrops of the previous instalments are bettered here with environments that feel lived in and authentic. The movie also kicks off with a long steadicam shot showcasing the aftermath of the carnage from Part 3. It’s even cooler as most of the scene appears to be lit from a spotlight from a police helicopter hovering above the whole scene. Yep, for this one they even got a goddamn helicopter!

The film on the whole feels more serious and edgier. Jason is at angriest and most ruthless here with the violence being very extreme and harsh. It’s no doubt enhanced by Tom Savini returning to the franchise to – he assumed – kill off his Jason creation once and for all. We all know that ultimately it wasn’t the final chapter, but it was the end of Jason in human form before he became an undead monster. And for Savini to be at the helm of his demise brings a nice sense of closure to these first four movies.

The cast of teens here are the best of the initial four with an eclectic ensemble that includes the kid from The Last American Virgin, twins and Crispin Glover! The casting is excellent. Sarah and Doug are the only couple I’ve seen so far in the series that actually convinced me they were genuinely in love. Teddy is excellent. Glover’s dancing is iconic. What a set of kids. I also really dig the new dynamic thats created by adding a family with a kid into the mix. Corey Feldman will always be Tommy Jarvis to me. Finally Jason Vorhees was given an ultimate foe and how fitting that it would be in the form of a thirteen year old boy who defeats him by taking on his own appearance. Jarvis and his knack for special effects is a clear nod to Savini and I just really love that, for this film, the filmmakers found room to give one of its heroes a genuine talent and interest. It goes a long way. In the end, the make-up artist saves the day! Very appropriate for a franchise that only became a success because of it’s extreme kill effects.

This is also the first of the sequels that actually has something of a plot which arises as a consequence of the previous movies. Rob turns out to be the brother of Sandra from Part 2 looking to avenge his sister’s death. His vendetta doesn’t ultimately go anywhere but at least the writers tried to build on the mythology a little bit rather than just reverting to the “stalk, kill, repeat” formula. Jason is overcome in much the same way Ginny outsmarted him in Part 2 as well, by one of his victims dressing up in a guise familiar to him. It follows the rules already in place. The continuity in Jason’s appearance is also the most consistent of the sequels. As a result, The Final Chapter does feel like an actual chapter rather than just another familiar retread.

Had a lot of fun revisiting this. There’s load of really cool moments. Jason getting a machete to the face and sliding down the blade is an absolute Savini slam-dunk. Trish falling backwards out of a second storey window in slow motion during torrential rain is just flat-out bad-ass. There’s nothing in the previous three movies that comes close to that in terms of pure visual awesomeness. This might be living, breathing Jason’s last stand but at least he went out on a high.

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Friday the 13th Part 3 (1982)

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Ross Birks

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Friday the 13th Part 3 is known to most as “the one with the hockey mask”. It was also originally presented in 3D. Back in the day, this was my favourite of the original three movies, I’m not sure how I would rank it now, but my feelings remain fond.

The whole thing is brighter and crisper (due in part no doubt to the mass of lights needed for the 3D photography) but the special effects are also more gruesome and inventive than those in Part 2. The silly “things flying out at the audience” gags are fun. The best of which features Jason crushing a man’s head so his eyeball pops out at us. I like that the final girl, Chris, actually has a bit of history with Jason (she encountered him in the woods during those “missing years” between his drowning and re-appearance in Part 2) and that it is a bit ambiguous as to what transpired (did he want to rape her? Attack her?). Chris is a bit too much of a goody-two-shoes to become one of my favourite final girls but she’s a good foil for Jason.

I also enjoy that this takes place directly after the end of Part 2 and that it acts, between that film and The Final Chapter as the middle-spree in a very long weekend of terror that would turn Jason Vorhees into a mythical boogeyman at Camp Crystal Lake. This is really his defining rampage and I like to see the first three sequels as a three-part origin story. Of-course this one gets bonus points for being the one in which he first adopts his most recognisable guise. Ironically enough, this is also the only Friday movie in which nobody refers to Jason by name.

Part 3 has some of the more interesting dynamics with the group of teens as well. They are essentially paired up into three couples; Chris and Rick, Debbie and Andy and Shelly and Vera. There’s also a pair of stoner hippies and biker gang thrown in to up the body count into double digits. Shelly might be my favourite character of the original three films. Not only is he the one who provides Jason with his iconic mask but he acts as something of a mirror image to Jason. He is the outcast in the group, a prankster and do-gooder who can’t understand why he never gets the girl. He gets repeatedly frustrated with Vera for constantly turning down his advances and turns to dressing up and staging dopey jump-scares or murder scenes out of frustration. It’s not hard to imagine, if he wasn’t ultimately murdered by Jason, that Shelly himself might resort to some kind of forceful violence in light of never getting his way. Of-course I’m probably reading into all this way more than was intended, but there’s certainly something unsettling, tragic and off-key about Shelly. There’s a complexity there not present in most of the other characters in the franchise. It’s all the more fitting that Jason’s hockey mask is stolen off of Shelly’s lifeless corpse.

I dig this movie. It’s a solid cookie-cutter slasher with some dashing of complexity buried deep if you’re so inclined to dig for it. It’s not a good movie by any standards but it does what it wants to and is, at the very least, as good as Part 2 and more confidently directed by Steve Miner. It is in this movie that Jason’s appearance finally becomes locked down. It would be refined and elaborated on from movie-to-movie but the essentials are all there: deformed chrome dome, hulking upper body, earthy tones, machete and hockey mask. If for that reason alone, Friday the 13th Part 3 remains rather historic.

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Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Ross Birks

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I always have fonder memories of Friday the 13th Part 2 than I do of the original. It feels like this is where the series begins good and proper. It’s the first one to feature Jason as the killer and is also the first one to be consciously produced to please a fanbase. After the unexpected financial success of Friday the 13th, Paramount happily agreed to distribute a sequel and this is the result.

I actually think Part 2 was the first Friday the 13th I ever saw but it’s been many, many years since I laid eyes on it. Sadly, looking at it today I’m surprised at how little it improves on the original. It’s a better film technically and has more of an identity but most of it remains mindless and plain. An unfortunate run-in with the MPAA would also mean much of the intended gore and brutality was trimmed away making this one of the tamer films in the Friday franchise.

That being said, the things I like I like a lot. I really enjoy Jason’s crude appearance here – the dungarees, sack and pick-axe are iconic in their own way – and the simplistic way he is introduced. The original film’s director Sean S. Cunningham famously left the franchise because he found the idea of promoting Jason to the main antagonist nonsensical (remember Jason was only featured as a child in part 1). The film never really justifies Jason’s return (like, what the hell has he been doing all these years?) but in all honesty it’s something we just accept now. He first shows up here as a pair of feet splashing through a puddle in a suburban neighbourhood before he finally offs Alice, the heroine of the previous film. I like the idea of Jason searching for her in the yellow pages and catching a bus to avenge his mother’s death. You would think a Jason v. Alice face/off would be the crux of the sequel but it is instead truncated into the pre-credits kill. Weird. But then again storytelling was never the strong-point of these movies.

The kids in Part 2 are better than the first bunch. There’s no Kevin Bacon but I think this film’s final girl, Ginny (Amy Steele), is one of the best the series ever had. The image of her holding up a pitchfork to camera ready to defend herself is one of the franchise’s defining moments as far as I’m concerned and when I think of a “final girl”, that shot is one of the first my brain jumps to. So cool. The final jump-scare is a good one too. Seeing Jason’s horribly disfigured face smashing through that window really struck a nerve with me the first time I saw it and the slow motion makes it even more hallucinatory. Sure the whole film is a beat-for-beat re-tread of the original but I prefer the way they come across here. This thing is just far more memorable than the original which, again, might be down to me seeing it first but I suspect it’s also because the film is overall better made.

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Blood Bath (1966)

Posted on June 12, 2016 by Ross Birks

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Big fan of Jack Hill so jumped right into this. The funny thing about Blood Bath is how labyrinthine it’s production history is. There are at least four different cuts of this thing with completely different plots, scenes and characters. I decided to watch the cut known as Blood Bath as it is the one featuring the most of Jack Hill’s work.

It’s a rather slight movie but is quite beautifully shot. Bathed in chiaroscuro lighting and extreme angles, the influence of Welles is felt in the visual design but the presence of a pulpy vampire plot sets it apart. It also predicts the cinematography of Spider Babywhich Hill would direct straight after this and have far more success with. There’s undeniable atmosphere in this thing and the film is best experienced as a kind of screen-saver of gothic black and white imagery. As soon as you try to engage with anything else it becomes tedious. The story is nonsensical and the acting adept at best but it’s your typical quickie Roger Corman production made atypical due to it’s schizophrenic mishmash of alternate cuts. An example of a movie with a production history far more fascinating than the film itself.

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