And now the Oscars

Best Film: No Country for Old Men
Best Directing: Coen Brothers, No Country for Old Men
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Best Actress: Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Best Supporting Actress: Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

So, acting-wise, it seems the rest of the world is giving America a masterclass. No surprises there, given that most American movies these days don't require much work of their actors: hence they don't build their talents in quite the same way.

Controversial opinion maybe, and certainly I'm not denying that there are some great American actors out there. But most of those who are truly great have tried spreading their wings a little beyond their own comfort zones.

Truth be told, of course, No Country for Old Men was not the best film of the year. I mean, it wasn't even the best film of the year that I saw, and I saw very few new releases. It was okay, nothing more. Honestly, I thought Sweeney Todd was better, and you'll be able to read my review of that soon, over at that other blog of mine.

Oscar day, part 2

So the noms are in, and No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are the big hits by number of nominations.

I can't say I'm unhappy with this result. I've long been an admirer of the Coen brothers' work, even though some of their more recent output has been seriously subpar. Word is that No Country is a return to form, and I am looking forward to seeing it.

There Will Be Blood director Paul Thomas Anderson may well be dead to my wife, but I tend -- to my disappointment usually -- to give people second chances and the benefit of the doubt. I didn't love his last movie, but I certainly didn't hate it anywhere near as much as Red did, so I'll be more than happy to catch this film too.

So here are my hopes/predictions for some of the major categories, based purely on what I want and having no idea how good or bad any of the films or performances are.

I hope No Country for Old Men wins Best Picture
I hope Paul Thomas Anderson wins Best Director
I hope Johnny Depp wins Best Actor
I hope Ellen Page wins Best Actress
I hope Javier Bardem wins Best Supporting Actor
I hope Tilda Swinton wins Best Supporting Actress.

Nice to see Viggo get nominated for Eastern Promises, though, and Casey Affleck for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, both of which are also on my to-see list.

Oscar day!

So today is the day they announce the Oscar nominees. At 1.30pm I will be sat in front of the TV, watching them unveiled live and then seeing what Mark Kermode thinks of it all. And then I'll be back with my own thoughts and maybe a few predictions, too.

Hasta luego, amigos.

Great Halloween moments

This made my head explode

First, a brief apology to those (such as Wife) who couldn't give a flying fuck about David Lynch, but I'm having to post this here for my own reference first and foremost. Also, though, I know a few of you do dig the Lynch.

The following theory is what has fuelled the debate that the first 40 minutes of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me is actually all a dream dreamed by Agent Cooper. I have lifted this directly from the thread "Theresa Banks' investigation - que?" over at the Twin Peaks Gazette Message Board.

From John Thorne's "Dreams of Deer Meadow", from issue 60 of Wrapped in Plastic magazine, August 2002

(Paraphrased and quoted with respect)

Vision and Revision

Lynch/Engels Goal: FWWM was intended to be about the Dale Cooper investigation, BOB and Mike, and other characters from the show.

FWWM had to be self contained and work within the framework of established facts of events prior to the series. It had to be integrated into the Laura Palmer story without adding too much new storyline/resolution.

The investigation allowed Cooper to be in the film and part of Laura's living world (and afterlife) just as the TV show hinted in ep 2009 that they shared a dream that would trigger his intuition and he would send an alarm to Laura (in which she receives his warning), and he comforts her/shepherds her in the Red Room.

Problems: this would have been three hours long; Kyle's refusal to commit to his time also led to revisions. It was implied in the show that Cooper investigated the Banks murder, and The Autobiography of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper -- by sometimes Peaks script writer Scott Frost -- has Cooper examining her body with a partner, meeting Cable, etc. With so few Cooper scenes, why bother with the prologue?

The first 30 min and Laura's story feel separate, but...

The Dreams of Dale Cooper

Cooper is actually a dominant presence and Chet only seems to investigate.

In the original script, Cooper has Desmond's lines.

In the working script, Desmond meets a mysterious fate and Coop is sent out, now a passive role. Just as he reworked the Mulholland Dr. pilot in a feature, he adds critical dialogue and restructures the opening as Cooper's dream. (It's in character for Coop and supports Lynch's fascination with dreams.) The dream has to be necessary and contribute to the story, or else it would be arbitrary.

Purpose: Every dream element leads to Cooper's better understanding of Teresa's Owl Cave ring. His subconscious seeks answers while other being enter to aid him, and information gleaned will help with the Laura Palmer case. He can enter the Red Room world in dreams, and the random/confusing elements of the prologue can be solved.

Part 1: Chet

Cooper dreams the real events of Teresa's death and floating body.

First Doubling: two secretaries at Gordon Cole's, blonde and brunette, are symbols of aspects of a double personality. (There was only one in the original script.)

The Chet dream is based on Cooper's memory of his own experiences. Lynch was able to keep his original concept (both CD and DC have the same line -- and the same initials reversed.) Just as Cooper fails to solve the case in reality, so must his dream manifestation of himself.

The blue rose is not in the original script. The blue rose is a figment of Cooper's mind, meaning like a blue rose, the case is an impossibility. Desmond can't explain the rose to Sam because Cooper doesn't know what it means but recognizes it as a case involving the supernatural OR as a subconscious clue to "look beyond the rational." Sam later asks if he's "going back" for it.

Cooper intuits the importance of understanding the missing ring in his dream, which could not be located in reality. When he (as Chet, who goes back to the trailer park for the rose) sees it on a mound of dirt (Laura's necklace is also found on a mound of dirt) and reaches for it, he can't "grasp" it.

Second Doubling: The old man at Hap's asks "Are you talking about that little girl that got murdered?" twice. (It was only asked once in the original script.) Meaning, Cooper is investigating Teresa's death for a second time.

Third Doubling: Sam repeats "We sure do need a good wake me up, don't we Agent Desmond?" (in the script, Sam asks, "You really do like that coffee, don't you Agent Cooper?"), Cooper may be trying to wake himself,

Then, the old woman, the phone pole/whooping noise (the Man From Another Place's call from the pilot), and Carl Rodd says: "I've already gone places, I just want to stay where I am." If Cooper awakens, Rodd will cease to exist. (This was a spontaneous improvisation that Lynch kept, as he sometimes does.)

Cooper submits to the inevitable and abandons his dream persona, but his dream continues. He enters (in Philadelphia) as soon as Chet disappears and tells Cole enigmatically: "I'm worried today because of the dream I told you about." A reference to the Deer Meadow dream?

Fourth Doubling: Cooper sees himself on the closed-circuit camera monitor, re-enacting his doubled presence in the Deer Meadow dream while not stating it explicitly to Cole.

Part 2: Jeffries

Jeffries appears, walks past Cooper's double, relates his experiences, then disappears -- this was changed radically from the original script to appear more dreamlike. This scene is too bizarre to reconcile with reality. In the script, Cooper's double follows Jeffries into Cole's office. After he says "it was a dream, we live inside a dream," Jeffries cries, "the ring, the ring." Cole tries to call his intercom for a stenographer, "static begins to build and the fluorescent lights start to hum," Cooper checks the hall for help and only Albert witnesses Jeffries disappear. (Wouldn't Albert be less sarcastic about the existence of BOB in the series after witnessing this?) The "we" refers to Cooper, Cole, Albert and Jeffries. Jeffries asks "Who do you think this is there?" about Cooper. The answer is: the dreamer, or Jeffries knows Cooper has changed dream identities.

Jeffries subjective experience of the Red Room (Lynch says it changes depending on whoever walks into it) is a sign that he's an entity who has forced his way into Cooper's subconscious mind. Lynch edits the scene as if Cooper's mind is overloaded with information and struggling to process it.

Jeffries supplies Cooper with crucial information (The Little Man says "with this ring, I thee wed," also unscripted) that he is able to warn Laura with. The ring is deadly when taken from the Little Man.

Part 3: Cooper

Cooper returns to the Fat Trout and intuitively looks at the space with the empty trailer, where Desmond found the ring, and sees "Let's Rock" on the car (a line of the Little Man's from the series.) The lines "sorry to wake you" and "I was having a bad dream anyway" were scripted for the earlier Chet scene, then moved to Cooper's visit to emphasize the continuing dream of the prologue.

Fifth Doubling: The last TWO previous tenants were Chalfont, just as Donna finds two Tremonds next to Harold's in the series.

Cooper awakens after his dictation to Diane.

----------------

Oh, man! I really want to watch this again now, but I'm holding off until I've finished watching Twin Peaks series 2 again...

In other Lynch-related news, my INLAND EMPIRE DVD is en route to me, so I'm excited about that. And go to Lazy Eye Theatre for a cool look at scene-making David Lynch style. Have a great weekend, and don't have nightmares!

Where’d the week go?

Forgive me, reader, for I have sinned. It's been four days since my last blog post...

It's been one of those weeks where not much seems to happen worthy of writing:

1. Watched a couple of movies (16 Blocks and le dîner de cons), so they'll make it over to Such As They Are sometime in the distant future. Latest review over there at the moment is the highly recommended Manon des Sources.

2. Been working -- same ol', same ol'.

3. Got the year's expenses receipts organized for the accountant.

4. Bought some jeans from The Gap for £13.59 ($27), which was a total bargain. They were discounted anyway, and then I had a further 20 per cent off for a missing button on the fly!

5. Heard some disappointing news from my brother in his bid to get on The X Factor: in short, he didn't make it.

6. Watched more episodes of Seinfeld. Wife and I are working through all the episodes on DVD in chronological order. It opens it up to a whole new level of brilliance, seeing how the storylines run through entire blocks of shows. Genius.

7. Bought an aerial lead so I could get the Freeview channels on our TV. That way we can now record one channel while watching another, a luxury we haven't been afforded for years. Sure, I know there's fuck all on TV, but you can guarantee that, like buses, two good shows always come along at once.

8. I haven't shaved.

So, that's it. A week in the life of a 30-something self-employed man who blogs.

What will next week bring? Well, among other things I have the series finale of Heroes to look forward to. That's on Monday night. Beyond that, friends and loved ones, it's a blank canvas. Wish me luck...

The things people say

Sometimes people say things to us that we remember for a long time. They stay with us for years. I occasionally remember things from my childhood that mean nothing. Maybe a nice thing that a friend or teacher said that no doubt meant nothing to them, but somehow it has stayed with me, inexplicably "meaning something" to me.

And of course there are occasions when people say mean things. They don't always mean them to be mean, but they kind of are anyway. Like the first time I went to a hairdresser in central London, and she told me I was going thin on top.

But I want to focus on the nice things people say. Just as with mean things, though, the nice things aren't necessarily always intentional.

Here are two things people have said to me that I hold on to as compliments, though I know they maybe weren't meant to be.

1. An acting teacher once told me: "You remind me of Marlon Brando. You don't act so much as you react." Now, I know some people don't dig on Marlon, but many people regard him as one of the finest actors in the history of cinema. I'll gladly take that comment!

2. A friend once said: "You talk as though you are in a movie." Once again, some might perceive that as meaning I talk in a contrived, overly expletive-laden fashion with a few Americanisms thrown in. I think that means I talk like a cool and hip motherfucker!

So, dear readers, what have people said to you that you have decided to hold on to and consider compliments?

New DVDs to watch

Saturday, Red and I went out to buy a new hi-fi* because our old one had given up the ghost. First the tape deck went wonky; then the CD trays began playing up and being fussy what discs they would play; and finally the minidisc slots started swallowing minidiscs.

And while we were out shopping at the wonderful Bluewater mall in Kent, I took the opportunity to use some of the funds still on my Virgin gift cards.

What goodies did I purchase?, you might be wondering. (Equally, you may well not be wondering, but I shan't let that stop me from sharing regardless.) I bought the following discs:

Brick, the one-disc version; I didn't even realize there was a two-disc version. Bugger! Not to worry. I don't even know yet if I like it, cos I ain't bleedin' sin it yet. I have high hopes.

The Three Burials of Tommy Lee Jones (or whatever it's called). Again, I have yet to see this, but the trailers look well wicked, so fingers crossed.

Open Water. You know the one about the two people who get left behind in the ocean after a diving trip. Uh-oh, shark bait! I enjoyed this film and thought it worth having on the shelf.

At £20 (US$40) for the three, I thought they were a bargain. So I guess these flicks will be getting reviewed over the coming weeks. As ever, though, I am somewhat behind in my reviewing.

For your information, these are the films I have seen in recent weeks but have not yet reviewed:

The Libertine
Domino
The Rundown (aka Welcome to the Jungle)
The 6th Day
Crimson Tide
Mulholland Dr.
Tsotsi
25th Hour
The Family Stone

Anyone seen any of those? What did youse think?

* I use the term "hi-fi" very loosely, since for the sort of money we were paying and the size of system we bought, high fidelity is highly dubitable, but it seems okay so far. Its dinky size meant we could put it on the same side of the lounge as the TV and stuff, so for the first time in several years we've routed the TV and DVD players through it, too.

Inland Empire

Now don't tell me you don't know what Inland Empire is. It's the new David Lynch film, and I've mentioned it here before.

I've just finished reading a great article about it in the latest issue of Sight & Sound, and I am more excited than I've been about a movie in yeeeaaars, let me tell you.

And it comes out on 9 March, perfect timing for it to be my birthday-week movie.

Trouble is, I feel bad for Wife. It's no secret how much she hates Lynch and his films (with the possible exception of The Straight Story), and she has previously told me in no uncertain terms that she won't sit through another. (Mulholland Dr. drove her to the ice-cream stand, and she doesn't even eat ice cream.)

I felt compelled to point out that she has hated the last two films we sat through as her birthday movies (Lost in Translation and Brokeback Mountain), so how much more fun should she expect to have watching a film that she didn't choose?

Looks like she might concede... as long as she can bring the iPod. Well, what more can I ask for?

Movie reviews

I have finally finished transferring my backlog of movie reviews over to my movie review site Such As They Are.

Additionally, of course, there are quite a few that are exclusive to that blog, including the most recent additions, United 93 and Inside Deep Throat.

Coming soon: Junebug, The Break-Up, Domino, and more...

Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite?

A recent post at Adam's blog Counting Down The Hours got me to thinking. And I left a comment at his post about my thoughts. But I'm briefly going to mention it all here.

Films.

Good films, great films, action-packed films, intelligent-dialogue films, slow films, fast-paced films, high-octane chase films, etc, etc.


Compare Reservoir Dogs (pictured) with Pulp Fiction. Did you catch them both at the cinema when they were released? Sure you did, just as I did, and weren't they great? (In fact, if you live outside of Europe there's a very good chance you didn't see Reservoir Dogs at the cinema at the time of its release, since it did really bad box office in the States.) Anyway, like me, I'm sure you've watched each of those films several times since. And they're still the best of Tarantino's work.

But which do you like best? Which, for you, is the more enjoyable film to sit and watch on a Sunday afternoon, say?

I'll tell you now, for me the clear winner by a country mile is Reservoir Dogs. Yes, yes, I know Pulp Fiction is multilayered, multifaceted, multi-angled, multiracial, and multi-whatever-the-fuck-else, but fuck me it goes on, huh? The theatrical release clocks in at a whopping 154 minutes*, that's more than two and a half hours in proper money. And if you opt for the Special Edition, you can expect to remain seated for 168 minutes -- 12 minutes short of three hours. That's a whole lot of bed sores. Now, don't fucking tell me there's nothing in there that could be cut to make for a tighter movie.

Reservoir Dogs, on the other hand, runs to just 99 minutes. That's an hour and a half plus an extra 540 seconds. No time. Reservoir Dogs is so short, in fact, that you can almost always find time to squeeze it into your day, should you be so inclined. Small. But not only that, it's also perfectly fucking formed. It's tight as a motherfucking drum. There is nothing you can cut from that film to make it better in any way. It's that rare beast in cinema that you almost wish ran longer. And you know what else, it's absorbing for all of that time: you want to know who's double-crossed whom, just as Nice Guy Eddie wants to know. You are taken into this world.

Okay, of that last point you could probably say the same about Pulp... first time around. But the more you watch Pulp, the more you wish it was shorter. The more you wish you could fast-forward through some of those scenes that have become hackneyed. Not so with Dogs.

Of course, all of this is personal opinion, so let me know what you think: compact, bijou, and perfectly formed; or big, rambunctious, and a bit flabby around the waist? When it comes to films, tell me, what's your flavour?

* Of course, for the sake of this post, I'm not considering PAL speed-up for those of us watching on home cinemas that use the PAL system.

Halloween movie: any suggestions?

Every Halloween, Wife and I like to get a good horror movie in and find ourselves hiding behind the sofa. Watching horror flicks is not something we do together that often, so if you can't do it on Halloween, when can ya?

Last year we watched Haute Tension (aka High Tension, or Switchblade Romance), which was great. Really bloody (in an extreme Profondo Rosso Argento kind of way) and pretty out there, psychologically speaking. I'd definitely recommend it.

Often we have been known to turn to that old classic The Blair Witch Project. Who knows? On a good night, if we start early enough, we might even throw that into the mix for a double bill...

But what can you guys recommend? A real good scare fest. Come on, bring it on...

“Well, there’s Technicolor and Cinemascope / A cast out of Hollywood”, part 3

You can find part 1 of this post here, and part 2 is here.

In this third post, I'm going to talk a little about the pirate and bootleg "industries".

When I was in my mid-teens, so we're talking 1985/86, I loved bootleg audio tapes. I would buy concert and demo tapes of bands I liked (Adam & The Ants, Bauhaus, The Cure, Sex Pistols) and discover songs that were almost legendary among fans but that had never been officially released.


Before long, I found that a similar market existed for film, and I began looking into it. It's funny... I said in a previous post that The Wicker Man being aired on BBC2 in late 1986, I think, was the film that sparked my interest in cinema, but I have just realized, now that I put my mind to it, that I must have already been interested in "video nasties" and the like, since I was still at school when I ordered my bootleg video tape of A Clockwork Orange.

This Kubrick classic was not officially available in the UK, for either cinema or home video, for some 30 years. Kubrick himself withdrew it from circulation shortly after its original release in the early '70s due to bad press blaming it for some street violence of the time. It was not until after his death that the self-imposed "ban" was lifted. So getting a copy on tape was a hugely significant moment in my film collecting. It was probably the most bootlegged movie in the UK at the time, I'd guess.

I paid £12 for this tape out of the classified ads in the back pages of the NME. It would have been a tenner, but for an extra £2 I could have a second film on the four-hour tape, too, so I chose another banned classic: Wes Craven's Last House on the Left. I hadn't seen either movie when I ordered the tape. I watched A Clockwork Orange many times, though, once it arrived. I don't think I watched LHOTL more than once. Bit grim, I thought.

I wish I still had that tape. Not least because the recently released-for-the-first-time-in-the-UK DVD of LHOTL is still missing footage that was probably on my tape version. And those old habits -- of wanting unreleased goodies -- die hard. Even though it's not a film I've returned to since, I still bought it cheap on DVD. Y'know, for the collection.

You see, for years, we in the UK have been treated like babies when it comes to the cinematic arts. Violent films and pornography have long been subject to cuts or outright bans. Ostensibly these bans are to protect the young, into whose hands they might fall. No thought was ever given to the possibility that an adult might not let his or her kids have sight of them. Or that a couple might not have kids, so why shouldn't they be able to watch what they want. No; the kids come first, even at the cost of the rest of the nation's civil liberties. Grrr. (By the way, Melon Farmers is a great source of information regarding cuts made to UK film releases.)

But it's not just "extreme cinema" that suffers. The UK releases of the Indiana Jones and Rambo trilogies are both cut, for example. I never knowingly purchase a cut copy of a film or TV show,* unless it's at a bargain price. As such, websites like Rewind are totally invaluable.

At this point, I'd like to make a distinction between bootlegs and pirates. Some people argue that they are one and the same. Those who are interested in collecting bootlegs feel otherwise. A bootleg offers something to the collector that is not available officially (or legally, if you want), while a pirate is a straight rip-off of an official release.

If something I want is available officially and legally, I will buy it. If it is not, then I resort to bootlegs. Simple as.

So, with that in mind, there is something I just don't understand. Back in the '80s and most of the '90s, we had video tape. It was a bit shit and it wore out before too long, but it was better than nothing, right? The advent, though, of the DVD in the late 90s (via the clunky and inconvenient LaserDisc format), coupled with the Internet's global marketplace, has led to a wealth of films being available to us all in pristine quality.

If I want to buy Ichi The Killer, I don't have to buy the UK version, which is cut by more than 3 minutes; I can import an uncut copy from the US, Australia, or Holland. And yet, with all that is available to us, and with release dates of discs getting closer and closer to the cinema release dates (indeed, we can often buy US discs of films before they hit UK cinemas), why do people still buy pirate copies of films from car-boot sales or Islington street corners?

The quality is shite. Someone I know -- in fact, a couple of different people -- constantly say to me that they have this film or that on DVD and do I want to borrow it. It is always a film that has yet to come out at the cinema, and it is always a pirate copy.

Do these people not realize that the point of DVD is the great picture and sound quality. That is the reason we have switched to DVD from tape. So to get a DVD with a shit picture on it and crappy sound -- not to mention no extra features or subtitles -- and to pay £10 for it is ridiculous! If I wait four months I can pick up a legit copy with fuckloads of extras for the same money.

If we wanted bollocks quality, we'd've stuck to the old ways, you buffoons!


* On the subject of cuts, but of a different kind, the US releases of the second, third, and fourth seasons of Quantum Leap, one of my all-time fave TV shows, have all had their music altered. Y'know, the period music that helped set the scene. It's been replaced with generic music cues. We in the UK were spared this abortion ... up until season four, and now the cunts have done it to us too.