Isn't it? I keep promising that I'll write regular blogs, and I never do. No discipline whatsoever. And then the other day, I actually got off my ass and started writing a Berlin Film Festival blog -- and my bloody Internet crashed halfway through, didn't save the damn thing, and it all got lost (I'm not going to lie, I was kind of happy about it -- I couldn't be arsed to finish that one).
So anyway. Here I am. And I'll revise my blog ambitions -- I'm now shooting for one post a week, with the week's updates. Kind of like a Sunday afternoon type thing -- me, a mug of tea (*insert gay joke here*), on the couch, with my feet up and the laptop on my lap, typing away. Let's see if I can stick to that.
As for today's rant, let's start with what you've all been waiting for: the Berlin stuff. Or, at least, a shorter version of what the Berlin stuff was supposed to be. Summed up, it was all right -- I personally like Germany very much (the architecture's cool, the history's crazy, and the people are fun, in an idealistic kind of way), but Maz didn't take too much of a liking to it. The food's tricky, you gotta admit -- it's like they sprinkle some lukewarm vinegar and pickle on everything -- and the organization of the festival (which is supposed to be the best-organized in the world) was a little iffy. We got there on the first day to pick up our tickets and got yelled at by a German guy with clown hair and a massive chip on his shoulder, who claimed we had the wrong credit card for pickup, and started yelling at me that "you have to use your head, no?". Prick still got us the ticks. Using that credit card. Me 1, Germany 0.
We then proceeded onto the films (which is all there is to do, really, unless you have $200,000 and want to go to the film market and buy rights to a Stephen Dorff and Katherine Heigl film), and that was kind of split down the middle too. We saw:
Teeth -- Had gotten raves at Sundance, but I thought was a letdown. Girl has vagina dentata (ie, teeth in her basement), and she goes around "biting" the dick off of every guy who tries to shag her. And...that's pretty much it. It's repetitive, and there's a couple funny scenes and lines, but most of them obvious (ie, anyone making a movie about vagina dentata would've come up with them), and all the other laughs were just nervous laughter at the increasingly graphic footage of chopped-off Capt'n Willies. The acting's all right, but nothing to go through the roof for; and anyone at Sundance who called this a "great metaphor about the sexual power of women" is a dumbass who doesn't know anything about greatness, metaphors, sex, power, women or any combination of the above. The message of the film? All men are plotting to rape you -- and it's all right, just let anyone shag you, and that means you've got the power. (all together now -- "What...?") A massive letdown, and a missed opportunity. 3/10
Fucking Different New York -- Now THIS is funny (not the film. My post.). We booked tickets for this film really early, because the Berlinale website described it as "a collection of short documentaries showing little-known aspects of New York". Both Maz and I were like, "fuck yeah!". So we were hyped about it.
We go to the screening, right following TEETH, and we sit down. It starts. Shot on DV, the first short is about a woman getting a manicure. It shows her getting the manicure. It ends. Nothing interesting, little-known, or New Yorkesque about it. Fair enough. Film starts slow.
Follows crappy YouTube-worthy footage of two 15 year olds tying each other's neckties. Cheesy, obvious, painful homo-erotic subtext as the footage repeats itself in slow-mo. People start laughing and walking out.
Third short -- a heartbreaking love story for the whole family. A fat Russian woman is masturbating on a warehouse floor -- which floor covered in what seems to be either baby powder, milk powder, or cocaine. Cut to the same fat Russian woman walking down a small town street, with subtitle V.O. telling us how she is in disguise (read, a head scarf), because she pledged when she left the small town that if she ever came back, she'd kill herself. She goes up the stairs to her apartment. There she meets a young Asian girl, crouched and peeing on her doorstep. The Asian girl asks for toilet paper. The fat Russian woman lets her into her flat. The Asian girl goes into the shower, fully clothed, and starts undressing under the water (that's how I do it too, actually). The fat Russian woman comes into the shower with her. They start making out. Cut to them in the living room. The fat Russian woman is running a butcher's knife between the Asian girl's thighs. Cut back to the warehouse. The Russian woman is still masturbating, nearing climax -- but now there's a 17th century chandelier hanging right above her, and a bulldozer is driving towards her. Fade out.
Fourth short film. Two men in their 50s and 60s are walking through the woods, one of them holding the other one in a leash. A woman is snapping pictures of them. The leasher starts whip-spanking the leashee by a big rock, as the woman's voice starts going, "That's it. You've got a nice ass. That's the tiniest little asshole."
That's when we walked out -- but I assume the rest only got better. We were joined outside by about 40 or 50 other people, all exclaiming variations of "BUT THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH NEW YORK!" and "I didn't know it meant THAT kind of "fucking different"!".
I've got nothing against queer films. And trust me, I've got nothing against porn. But that crap was just pointless, sick, disturbing, and a waste of every single frame. Watch YouTube and you'll find videos of better quality -- and read Bizarre magazine, and you'll see stuff that's got more psychological weight. -7/10
Away From Her -- A tale of Alzheimer's directed by actress Sarah Polley and starring Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent, the film also made a splash in Sundance. It's the story of a couple in their 60s. The woman gets Alzheimer's and has to be put in a home, where one of the rules is that she can have no visits for the first month. By the time her husband is allowed to visit her, she's forgotten him, and seems to be in love with someone else...
It's a decent film, with a couple very, very, very moving moments, and some pretty damn good acting. Its problem is that it doesn't stand out in any way, shape, or form -- it's your run-of-the-mill "well, Alzheimer's is sad" story, with no specific voice or point of view to it. And while the directing is competent, and both Christie and Pinsent are good, the film is let down by some of the supporting cast -- esp. Michael Murphy, who plays his character as just another grumpy, selfish, lazy old cunt; and Olympia Dukakis, who just plays Olympia Dukakis. It also doesn't help that the script mostly revolves around a plot device (the one-month rule) that hasn't really existed in reality since the 70s-80s.
In the end, it very much feels like a Lifetime film (as Maz succintly summed it up), and a solid one at that, but no more no less. 6.5/10
Hallam Foe -- The highlight of the festival. David McKenzie ("Young Adam", "Asylum")'s newest, it stars Jamie Bell, Sophia Myles, Claire Forlani and Ciaran Hinds in the story of an 18-year old kid with voyeuristic tendencies, obsessed with his mother's death, who runs away from home to Edinburgh, and meets this woman who looks like his mother when she was young, and he starts spying on her. Terrific, terrific film -- I don't want to say anything else about it because it's got a very unique personality and tone that's better appreciated if unexpected, but definitely watch it. Directed with plenty of confidence, and terrifically acted (Bell and Myles most of all -- he proves he can do much much more than Billy Elliott, and she, I think, will be one of acting's next big things) -- in a few words, it's exactly what independent film should be. 9/10
Eagle Vs. Shark -- Another one we missed at Sundance but really really wanted to see -- and this time we weren't disappointed. A great quirky rom-com, with very very cool characters, a dozen laugh out loud moments, and a fun, unique voice behind it. If you like rom coms, quirky coms, or any other kind of com, check it out -- it's worth a couple hours, and it'll make you feel good about your day, and isn't that what films are for? 8/10
Angel -- The height of our trip -- Francois Ozon's new film, starring Romola Garai, Sam Neill, Charlotte Rampling and our own friend (whom Mary introduced me to a few months ago) Michael Fassbender. The film is a very stylized piece, which tries to emulate 30s films (down to the style of acting and to using rear projection for outdoor scenes in coaches), which tells the story of Angel, a young girl in early 20th century London, who dreams of becoming a famous writer. It's a very melodramatic affair, and sometimes it feels like a spoof (to be honest, I wondered if it was a few times along the way), so I didn't quite know what to think about it. Ozon's trying to be a 30s film also means he hits a lot of what are now cheesy cliches, and unfortunately, he doesn't infuse enough originality into them to really pull them off. The script is very stiff, with much of the dialogue drawing unintentional laughs, and I have to admit I'm no fan of Romola Garai's -- she's got the class and grace of a pig in a china shop, and she takes a lot away from the film in my opinion. The character's a hard fucking sell from the start (to call a cat a cat, she's a self-involved, arrogant, rude bitch, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever), and she'd have needed an actress with some charm and subtlety to make her interesting -- but Garai fails completely. She just feels just as self-involved, arrogant, and rude -- and she acts as if she were onstage in an Ibsen revival. Not a big fan.
The rest of the cast saves the film somewhat -- Sam Neill (whom we met at the Marriott in Berlin, Michael introducing us -- I'll be honest and admit I had the Jurassic Park theme playing in my head all the way through) is his usual likeable self; Charlotte Rampling plays the emotionally frigid upper-class woman Ozon usually casts her as, but she does it well; and Michael, in all honesty and objectivity, is pretty damn good too. There's something a little blunt in his performance, but methinks it's to conform to the old school type of acting Ozon was going for, but there's also charisma there. It also helps that Esme's the best character of the lot, the one who undergoes the most interesting arc -- he starts as a smart-mouth painter, who's actually really insecure about his paintings; and ends up an amputee veteran of WWI -- but Michael infuses life into him. Any moments of emotion in the film that the audience reacted to involved his character, and that's saying something. 5/10
That was last week. We've been back since Monday (flying easyjet, which was quite fun -- our stewards were pretty funny), and we've been working regularly since. I finished picture editing on my short film, still titled Love In Sound, and am now working with a young company, Axis Post, on grading and color correction through a DI. It's a question of budget whether we'll be able to keep that up, but I'd love to -- the woman I'm in touch with there is called Vanessa Taylor, she knows her shit down pat, and she was with WETA (Peter Jackson's visual FX shinding in New Zealand) for years before moving to the UK, so it'd be great to keep on with someone of that quality. I'm running numbers in my head now and then I'll make them an offer and see how it goes.
Maz and I are now considering what we should do with the next few months'. We both have goals in June: she wants to run on the Zach Braff-helmed remake of Open Hearts, and I'm hoping to get some work on Indiana Jones 4, so we're trying to get all the cards on our side for both of those. For me, it means I'm hustling my ASS off to get some work on one of the big films being shot in the spring -- be it The Dark Knight, or Iron Man, or Hellboy 2, or What Just Happened?, or Steven Soderbergh's Che Guevara movies, or any of another of 2-3 options. (Wish me luck. Please. ;)). As for Mary, a lot of it involves being in New York if possible, keeping in touch with the people she's gotten ahold of at Paramount, and keeping her finger on the film's pulse (ie, will it happen or not?). So wish her luck on that too. Please too.
And that's what's keeping us busy most of the time these days. A highlight of the week was a dinner Maz organized a couple of days ago in a small cheap and cheerful Italian restaurant in Kensington, where she gathered many of her creative friends, so we could all meet each other, and hopefully spark some new close friendships and collaborations, and it was a brilliant experience. Surrounded around the one same table were (this is me recording it for posterity, just in case anything does come out of it -- because it felt like one of those things): Mary Kerr, Clare Kerr, Jenny O'Reilly, Michael Fassbender, Lydia Leonard, Mary's cousins Louise and Harry Ipswich, Maddy Elles-Hill, Anna Green-Armytage, and Charles Vaughan. And yours truly. Remember those names...REMEMBER!
It was an awesome experience -- like being called back to the mother ship -- the first time I've really ever sat with a dozen people essentially of the same species as me, who cared about the same things, knew and talked of the same things, and were all driven and willing to take the same risks and chances. And it was inspiring to be sitting there, exchanging stories with people who struggle in the same way you do, and even some who've, to an extent, succeeded, and are up for even bigger things. I -- and I'm not the only one -- hope Maz will make it into a regular thing.
In any case -- we're about to go watch Volver, and I'm holding everybody up, so I'm gonna run. But I'll be back tomorrow, very quickly, with my Oscar predictions.
Cheers,
Ten Cents
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