Category: Entertainment

The Good, The Bad, Kermode and Me

Film critic and presenter Mark Kermode goes by many names, including The Good Doctor and Flappy Hands. You may know him from BBC2’s The Culture Show. His most devoted fans, however, tune in to hear his pithy comments on Kermode and Mayo’s Film Reviews on Radio 5 Live every Friday afternoon with Simon Mayo. Kermode and Mayo are a long-standing double act and they squabble like an old married couple.

I met Mark when he was touring his second book, The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex at the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds. A very long queue formed after his talk for him to sign the copies we’d bought. He spent a long time chatting with each one of us, including me, was charming and seemed genuinely interested in all we had to say.

He even gave an impromptu blast on a harmonica that he whipped out of his pocket (Mark plays in a rockabilly band, which explains his haircut). He’s better looking in person, but I digress.

One of the things I like about him is that he’s not a snob. In fact, he’s the very opposite of a snob. If an action blockbuster comes out and he likes it, he’ll say so. Conversely, if a low budget, art house film comes out that he thinks is a load of rubbish, he’ll say so. He often defends films that are considered to be ‘uncool’. Mark simply likes good films, of any genre or time period.

I don’t always agree with his verdicts but he is never short of well informed, witty and entertaining. When he loves something, he is delightfully eloquent, but he is most famous for his rants and also for his pedantry. The rants can go on for a very long time, delivered with much hyperbole and unsurpassed fervour.

Mark has been passionate about films since he was eight years old. Other critics are deeply knowledgeable and entertaining but, for me, no one exudes that pure love of cinema like old Flappy Hands. After watching what must be thousands and thousands of movies (and an awful lot of crap), his enthusiasm is still intact. That’s why he gets so angry…because he cares so much.

In his previous book, It’s Only a Movie, he describes how he got into the world of professional film criticism. In this second book, The Good, The Bad and the Multiplex, he gives us his take on the modern Hollywood scene and the multiplex experience.  There are amusing anecdotes in both books with this latest one kicking off with his hilarious account of trying to get an assistant cinema manager to fix the screening of a film starring Zac Efron wherein the top of Zac’s head was missing. One of Mark’s many soap boxes concerns showing films in the correct Aspect Ratio and when cinemas GET IT WRONG!

As for multiplexes, his tenet is this: there is nothing inherently wrong with them provided they are run properly, but so many of them are run badly. They are like glorified sweet shops with a film casually thrown in. Selling popcorn is the priority and digital projection (digital doesn’t always equal efficiency) is left to its own devices, often without anyone capable of fixing something if it goes wrong. Mark’s opening chapter is aptly titled, ‘Would the Last Projectionist Please Turn Off the Lights’.

Does anyone really like their local multiplex? They are soulless places and they all look, smell and taste the same. Going to the aforementioned Hyde Park Picture House, a charming cinema dating from 1914, is a much pleasanter experience.

Another of Mark’s soap boxes is 3D and there is a chapter devoted to its technical shortcomings. The decision to invest so much money in this recent resurgence is not for any intrinsic artistic merits but as a defensive measure against piracy and to lure us away from watching Blu-ray on our 42-inch TVs with surround sound.

So much money is thrown at so many mediocre projects and it’s disheartening. Mark makes the point that a mainstream, big star film doesn’t have to dumb down. Audiences don’t need to be talked down to, including the all-important 15 – 35 years old, male demographic. He poses this question: Why not make it intelligent while you’re about it? As he points out, it didn’t do Inception any harm.

I’ve been thinking about the level of writing that goes into a lot of hit U.S. TV shows these days, in contrast to a lot of the bland releases that hit our cinema screens. Look at the series, Lost, a brain twister if ever there was one. Give audiences something to challenge them and they lap it up. Meanwhile, original filmmakers outside of the system, including some brilliant British ones, struggle to get their films distributed.

Mainstream cinema would benefit from more intelligent scripts. Mark’s proposal is that it wouldn’t damage the takings, at least. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with car chases and explosions or indeed, charming rom coms. Just spend some of those millions on the screenplay and see what happens. We’re being fed a diet of prequels and sequels with nary an original thought in sight.

Another issue Mark addresses in his latest book is Hollywood’s insistence on making its own versions of foreign language films. These re-makes are rarely as good, but try persuading the industry that distributing the original films would be a more worthwhile venture. When it’s a case of art versus money, there’s only one winner. So, audiences go to see an inferior movie, like feeding on the crumbs or wearing hand me down clothes.

Finally, the book ends with a sad farewell to celluloid, its history and traditions and the magic it has given us. As we boldly go into the digital future, we gain and we also lose. The closing paragraphs may just make you cry.

Film is one of the greatest art forms to come out of the 20th century and look how we treat it. Next time you’re sat in the dark, sucking on your mini-buffet, ask yourself this question. Is this screening worthy of the legacy that the great writers /directors / producers / actors have left us?

It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare every time. Heaven knows, America needed its share of fluff to get it through the Great Depression (the difference being it was mostly well made fluff) and we need it today too. Just every now and then…make us think. In the meantime, I shall bask in the glow of Mark’s rants. And for any Kermode fans reading this – “Hello Jason Isaacs” – they’ll know what that means!

 

 

 

Film Review: So Long at the Fair

This period mystery made in 1950 and starring a very young and incredibly beautiful Jean Simmons really is a little known gem of British cinema and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen it. Chances are, a good number of you haven’t even heard of it because it rarely crops up on anyone’s list of must-see movies. But do yourself a favour and don’t let that put you off – it’ll grip you from beginning to end!

Simmons plays Vicky Barton, who along with her brother Johnny (David Tomlinson – perhaps better known for his roles in Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Mary Poppins) is en route from Naples to the Paris Exposition of 1889. She is brimming with excitement at her first visit to the French capital and can’t wait to be one of the first people to climb the new Eiffel Tower. Johnny though is more reserved, one might even describe him as stuffy but he’s willing to endure the sightseeing to please his dear little sister. Vicky is keen to stay in Paris for at least a week but he’s only booked their hotel rooms for two nights and doubts whether they will be able to extend their booking on account of the crowds that have descended on the city for the Expo. He’s also tired and keen to get home to England.

On arrival at their hotel, Vicky and her brother are welcomed by owner and manager Madame Hervé (Cathleen Nesbitt), a chalk cliff-faced widower if ever there was one and she gives them the keys to their rooms, 17 and 19. Johnny is about to sign the hotel register when he is distracted by a missing item of luggage and while he pops outside to their coach to retrieve it, Vicky signs the register instead. After having settled into their rooms, Vicky drags poor tired Johnny out for a night on the town and following dinner they head to Moulin Rouge where she encounters George Hathaway (Dirk Bogarde), a charming young artist living in Paris. However, George is with friends and so their encounter is only brief.

Back at the hotel, Vicky leaves her brother in the lobby to enjoy a nightcap and she heads up to her room with the threat that she’ll drag him out of bed at 9 in the morning. As Johnny enjoys his drink, George appears with his friends who just so happen to be staying in the same hotel. He asks Johnny if he has change for a 100 franc note because he doesn’t have anything smaller to pay his cab fare but the best Johnny can do is lend him 50 francs, which he does. George promises to pay him back in the morning. And so nightcap imbibed, exhausted Johnny finally retires to his bed behind door number 19.

In the morning when Vicky trots down the corridor towards her brother’s room his door isn’t where she thought it was and on closer inspection, door number 19 opens to reveal a communal bathroom. Assuming she must have remembered his room number wrongly, she asks Madame Hervé which room her brother is in to which she is told – “Your brother? But surely you are here alone.’ Startled, she asks the hotel porter who confirms that she arrived on her own and the register backs up their story because only her name is in it. In fact, there’s no evidence of her brother at all, not even the room he was supposed to have taken. And so begins a wonderfully paced yarn full of Victorian etiquette and charm that will keep you guessing right up to the end.

I would be doing you a disservice if I revealed the rest of the plot so I won’t but I will say that Vicky seeks help from the dashing young George who is only too happy to come to this fair maiden’s aid. Simmons is just terrific as the confused and rather helpless innocent abroad and Bogarde plays his part of the raffish young hero as easily as he does in many of his movies. The sets and costumes are splendid as are the exterior shots; you’d never guess it was filmed entirely at Pinewood and to add to the film’s overall authenticity many of the British supporting cast (who are all excellent by the way), speak French like natives. The audience is not distracted by unnecessary subtitles either and it works because even if you don’t understand the language, you understand body language. Sometimes a shrug of the shoulders or a wave of a hand can relate as much as any line of dialogue.

Written by Hugh Mills and Anthony Thorne and directed by Terence Fisher and Antony Darnborough the film has parts that will make you giggle and others that will send a shiver down your spine. Imagine being a stranger in a strange land with no money and very little knowledge of your environment only to be told the person you arrived with (and more worryingly your guardian – the person who was looking after you) was but a figment of your imagination! A hard to imagine scenario, isn’t it but scary nonetheless. But did it really happen? Well, according to legend it did (with a slight variation on the characters) although there is no evidence to back up this claim (sounds like poor young Vicky).

So Long at the Fair is an intriguing British noir, a dark little tale set in the city of light. It’s worth a look for many reasons not least because there’s something frighteningly real about it. Has such a thing really happened before? And in today’s complicated and technologically advanced world could such a scenario happen at all? Surely not. But just suppose the day before the opening ceremony at London 2012…

Reading: The Old Fashioned Way

The publishing world is experiencing the biggest change in history since Gutenberg invented the printing press; that is, the move into the digital world. Ereaders, and the Kindle in particular, have become big business of late and have been hailed as the future of reading. Call me old-fashioned, but I just cannot understand the appeal of the Kindle. As an avid reader and, indeed, belonging to the younger generation, it is assumed that I should be the target market for the latest technological craze. The ease and convenience of having thousands of books at your fingertips is often cited as the main reason why one would want to own a Kindle. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for convenience- living in a modern world are we not all guilty of this? – Yet I have never contemplated leaving my battered paperback on the shelf.
To me, the smell of an old, dusty book is one of life’s simplest pleasures; it transports me to my childhood when I first fell in love with reading and reminds me of those happy hours I spent engrossed in the latest novel. You don’t get that with a Kindle. On a par with the glorious smell is the memories books stir when picked up off the shelf. I often find myself reaching for the books I studied at University- not necessarily to read them, but to thumb through the familiar pages and read the annotations scribbled around the side, to remember how important that book was at a particular point in my life.
Whiling away many an hour in a quaint second-hand bookshop is the perfect Saturday treat. It is my idea of heaven; books of all shapes, sizes, genres piled high, each one possessing a history. I find myself turning to the inside covers, searching for messages from loved ones- personal notes that hint at the identity of the book’s previous owner. Perhaps this is the very reason why I will never abandon the printed book; I need it to feel unique, personal, mine.
Call me old-fashioned, but the Kindle will always be too clinical; it’s cold, hard exterior will never replace the feel of a traditional book. It may be convenient for those who commute long distances daily; it may work out cheaper to purchase E-books than the printed version; it may even encourage tech heads who would not have read a printed book to give reading a chance. However, I’m not afraid to buck the trend; give me an old, dusty book any day.

George Clooney Arrested at Sudan Embassy During a Protest

Hollywood superstar George Clooney and his father were both arrested today during a protest that accused the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, of blocking food and aid from entering the Nuba Mountains and initiating a humanitarian crisis. Also arrested were Democratic US Republican Jim Moran, of Virginia, Martin Luther King III and NAACP President Ben Jealous. The arrest was made after they received three warnings not to cross a police line set up outside the embassy, and followed Clooney’s meeting with President Obama, testimony in the Senate and attendance at a state dinner held for Prime Minister David Cameron.

Speaking before the arrest, 50-year-old Clooney explained to The Associated Press that he was impressed with Obama’s engagement on the Sudanese topic and was hoping to bring people’s attention to the crisis currently unfolding in Sudan. He also said that for international leaders to expose corruption, they need to “follow the money” that is reaching the leaders of Sudan. “This is a moment where we have a chance to do something because if we don’t, in the next three to four months, there’s going to be a real humanitarian disaster.”

He also acknowledged the uphill struggle facing all those protesting, saying that “Its such a silly thought to think you’re actually succeeding in any of this. But if it’s loud enough…at the very least people will know about it, and you can’t say we didn’t know. That’s the first step.”

 

 

Will the Hunger Games Premiere Match the Hype?

The Hunger Games Premiere is hitting cinemas on the 23rd of this month, and with the huge success of the books the question on everyone’s minds is, Will it live up to expectations?

So big are the books that aside from spending 160 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List they have sold in excess of 23 million copies in America alone. The Hunger Games are those rare books that, like Twilight and Harry Potter, permeate into society’s conscious mind and rest there until Hollywood decides to spin a profit with films.

While for the legions of fans that the Young Adult trilogy has racked up will consider the film a no-brainer, others have noticed that the storyline seems to have taken influence from various other stories – Stephen King’s The Running Man and Long Walk spring to mind, with the former taking place in the future where the government is in full control of what is seen and heard in the media, and the top entertainment being a reality gameshow where people have to outrun killers while the public place bets; the latter is a national sporting event for 100 teenage boys to embark on an treacherous walk in the author’s vision of a totalitarian USA, and if they break certain rules or receive three verbal warnings (walking under 4mph is one violation) they are shot. Then there’s Battle Royale, a story where the Japanese government captures a year-9 class and, under the Battle Royale Act, forces them to kill each other. Each of these stories has something that the Hunger Games seems to have borrowed, but the author, Suzanne Collins, insists she got the idea by flicking between real-life war coverage and a reality TV show. However they came to be, these books were released in a saturated genre and became huge sellers, so it’s the film to be concerned with now.

While there are well-known people in the first film to be released, such as Woody Harrelson, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci and Donald Sutherland, they will be playing important but not primary characters. The main characters are being portrayed by unknowns, so is this a false move or a touch of genius? The Hunger Games will undoubtedly have no trouble at the box office regardless of who is starring in it, and everyone has expectations and opinions of actors that are already known. By going with yet-to-be-big actors, the cast can work solely on making the film as good as possible, rather than wondering how each actor’s fans will react, but fans could have concerns that unseasoned actors may not be up to the task – but at least moviegoers can be grateful that Kristen Stewart won’t be in yet another film. Instead, the Hunger Games will feature Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss and Josh Hutcherson as Peeta Mellark. How well they will do can be decided in less than 2 weeks, and it’s a safe bet that if they do a bad job, there are millions of people who will be more than happy to say as much.

If you’ve already seen the Hunger Games trailer and can’t wait for the big release, we have some behind-the-scenes footage of the upcoming Hunger Games film below:

 

What are your expectations of the film? Let us know in the comments below.

Bieber’s Mum To Release Tell-All Book About Her Superstar Son

Apparently there just isn’t enough Justin Bieber news in the world already – the videos, songs, pictures, stories and books that adorn every facet of stores and Twitter fall short of the cravings of preteens the world over. With this in mind, Bieber’s mother Pattie Mallette has apparently signed a deal with Revell Books to release the currently titled Nowhere But Up: The Story of Justin Bieber’s Mom, due on September 18. The story reportedly explains her role in turning her offspring from regular Canadian youth into the world’s most famous (and perhaps annoying) teen on the planet.

The main curiosity is knowing just what can be said in a tell-all book about a person who is barely eighteen years of age. Aside from tedious stories about his romantic life with Selena Gomez, even the press has a hard time delving into his private life; and with his mother as his chaperone, how much can there be to tell? Maybe if he’d accepted Slash’s invite to a strip club the book could have a juicy chapter or two.

To make sure no one accuses her of just cashing in on her son’s success though, the book will also detail her own personal trauma, which includes the “abuse and addiction” she suffered in her youth, as well as her attempted suicide at the age of seventeen. As with all such memoirs, she told told Billboard.com that she wants the book to inspire anyone who faces similar hardships (although the cynics among us may well claim that such people are unlikely to be fans of Bieber and thus unlikely to read the book): “I want them to see that no matter how desperate their circumstances may be, they can have hope for a better future.” To prove her dedication to inspiring others, part of any profits from the book will be donated to charity.

Of course, with her son a literary genius it comes as no surprise that Justin will get credited not only in the text but in the crafting of the book too, as he will be contributing the foreword.

Aside from recording, touring, writing the foreword to his mother’s book and courting controversy in the media, Justin will be following up the success of his existing book (First Step 2 Forever: My Story, published in 2010) with Justin Bieber: Just Getting Started later this year. It has also been rumoured that he will be releasing a third book in 2015, entitled Let’s See What Happens Now I Can Legally Drink. Whether his fifteen minutes of fame will be up by then remain to be seen.