Margaret (2011): stressful cinema you can do without

I watched this film a couple of weeks ago and I still haven’t written up a review for it because I haven’t been able to really bring myself to think about it again - probably because it was more of a stressful experience than sitting and enjoying a movie.  

The cast boasts Anna Paquin (of True Blood fame), Hollywood heavyweight Matt Damon, Jean Reno from Leon and Matthew Broderick.  I’ve got a real soft spot for Broderick because of Election, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is one of my favourite films, but even the presence of the righteous dude couldn’t redeem this film for me.  Mark Ruffalo is a favourite of mine too (Shutter Island, The Kids Are Alright, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind).  Ruffalo, Damon and Broderick are scarcely in the film though.

 It’s really all about Lisa: a hormonal teenager who seeks to satisfy her insatiable desire for conflict and drama by pestering all of the people who were involved or affected by a horrific bus accident that she witnessed.  Paquin gives a powerful and convincing performance throughout so you can’t really blame her for the films failure.  You can’t simply blame the fact that the character is especially detestable either – we’ve seen anti-heroes and super villains time and time again in cinema, and they can be some of the most engrossing characters to watch.  

The film’s problem is that it focusses entirely on this high-strung, volatile, bitchy adolescent as she goes about a mundane course of day-to-day life, seeking attention and rubbing people up the wrong way.  There’s no real point to all this.  The conclusion resolves to say nothing more than “she’s probably like this because of her age and she doesn’t get along with her mum” or something.

Margaret is nothing more than a character study of a stereotypically hostile, obnoxious teenager.  There’s no clear controlling idea, it wallows it ambiguity and the attempts to reference Shakespeare are laughably pretentious.  It’s too long, entirely stressful to sit through and has no real payoff at the end.

Hunky Dory (2011): don't let the critics put you off

People have complained that this film is too formulaic, it’s too glossy and sugar-coated and that it’s so steeped in saccharine sentimentality that it will make the overpriced, syrupy Coke that you bought from the multiplex foyer seem sour and flat. 

While there is definitely truth in the above statement, I think enjoyment of this (and any) film depends on your attitude.  If you go into this film expecting to see some gritty socio-political drama focussing on the oppression of Welsh mining classes, you will be sorely disappointed. You will come out complaining about how populist it is, how it’s so conventionally structured and emotionally sensationalist etc, etc.

If you look at the poster, however, it looks like this:

If you watch the trailer, it looks like this:

If you look at the name it looks like this:

Hunky Dory.

The Collins Dictionary definition is:

Hunky Dory (adj.) informal very satisfactory, fine.

The poster is a lovely snapshot of a group of idyllic young friends having fun the blistering summer of 1976.  It’s all orange and glowing.  The trailer gives a taste of how packed the film is with poppy love songs of the era, how predictable the premise makes the plot, how recognizable the angsty teenage characters are, how petty the conflicts seem in this hazy summer utopia of a bygone Britain and how indulgently reminiscent it is.

The signs are there - everything about the design screams out feel-good mainstream movie.    It is unashamedly populist, unashamedly sensational and is obviously going to be as conventional as any piece of popular cinema.  There’s nothing subtle about the way the film advertises this sense of style.

To know all this, watch the film then criticize it for the glaringly obvious is lazy criticism, at best.  Don’t go and see the film if you know you’re going to suffer an adverse reaction to the sheer amount of light-heartedness going on.  That’s like going into a screening of Shrek with your arms folded for the entire movie then coming out in a huff saying to your bemused/horrified children “the guy’s an ogre but not once did I see a man’s skin being peeled off while he was still alive.”

For those more willing to accept this film for what it so blatantly is, I’d say it’s an easy, feel-good film with and great 70’s soundtrack (from the likes of Bowie and ELO) and superb Welsh accents throughout.  A coming-of-age film set in a specific place and moment in British history, it shares an obvious affinity to Ricky Gervais and Stephen Mechant’s Cemetery Junction as well as Billy Elliot (a couple of the producers made this film too). 

There are a lot of characters so the attempt to squeeze in all of their individual stories is overly ambitious, but the cast are great.  Minnie Driver is easily lovable and I get the feeling you’ll be seeing a lot more of Aneurin Barnard’s face in the future.  The ending is a little bit vague and they try and remedy this by giving a ‘where are they now’ sequence during the end credits – which is a bit half-baked (no reference to the recreational activities of the time intended).

Overall, a likeable film with some nice messages (namely Karl Marx’s sentiment “don't let the bastards grind you down”) and a well-polished style that makes for easy watching.

Rango (2011): forgivably formulaic fun with lizards and guns

Rango was very entertaining.  There were a few belly-laugh moments for me, which is what I was hoping for.  The action and romance plots intertwined in a classic but original way and there was more than enough quirky style to keep things fresh.

There were a few moments of adult humour (the prostate joke comes to mind) handled cleverly enough so as to coast easily over the kids’ heads and keep the adults sniggering away - as is somewhat conventional for this kind of animated feature nowadays.  I’m not sure when this clever duality of adult and childish humour originated, but it’s certainly very prominent in contemporary films like Rango, Toy Story, Monsters Versus Aliens, etc.  It’s a feature that always drives me to animated films and something which I think will come to define this type of film.  I’m not entirely convinced this feature is even exclusive to animation, rather it’s just somehow more noticeable.

Rango was a lot like Monsters Inc., I immediately thought.  There were a few similarities and in this sense it seems formulaic.  The mayor character was quite like the company owner in Monsters: a bureaucratic fatcat who conserves a corrupt system for the apparent good of the people.  They’ve both also got slimy, formidable henchmen: in Rango it’s Rattlesnake Jake, in Monsters it’s Randall the chameleon-like lizard monster.  The plot is similar in that it follows a story of the feeble yet heroic protagonists’ efforts to uncover a conspiracy and save the day thus.

Cinematically, the film also pays tribute to film history.  It appears  obviously reminiscent of Western genre greats like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone.  Not to mention the tip of the cap to Fear and Loathing.

This breed of animated features endeavours to appeal to a mixture of demographics, not just age but cultures and nationalities (Shrek and Disney-Pixar’s upcoming Brave bring the world a little slice of Scottish culture, for example).   Films like these seem to adopt a formulaic approach in order to ensure global and trans-demographic popular success.   Often very classical and accessible, Rango is testament to the fact that films like this can be both somewhat formulaic and highly original and stylised.  Altogether entertaining, well-designed care-free cinema.

The Tree of Life (2011): prophetic, symbolic and magnificent.

The Tree of Life starts something like a fragmented family drama.  It soon moves onto an incredible sequence which is almost like an abstract portrayal of the history of the universe, narrowing down to a history of the Earth.  Malick takes all the many patterns of life and existence– from microbiotic organisms to interstellar structures – and creates the most majestic collage. (I couldn’t help being reminded of that sequence at the end of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.)

The film evolves to focus on the story of Jack, son of a God-fearing American couple.  It follows his journey from birth through childhood as he grows to makes sense of the world and struggles with his complicated adolescent emotions.  The main plot follows Jack and his family, but the film remains universally relatable as it encompasses truly vast themes: life, death, love, hate, childhood, adulthood, parenthood, god, religion, nature, man, gender, sexuality, guilt, fear, shame, happiness, forgiveness, sacrifice…the list goes on.

Nearer the end it becomes highly symbolic, most notably repeating representations of doorways, passageways, bridges, circles, planets, suns, stars, waves, water, trees, hands, the sky and other loaded imagery which will inspire a complex of interpretations.

Ultimately, The Tree of Life is wholly philosophical and its messages are prophetic, discursive and intuitive.  The juxtaposition of the greatest and smallest pieces of the universe gives the human drama a context that is humbling to say the least.  Malick incredibly manages to underline the relative insignificance of man, whilst presenting an emotive human story.  Malick has created an avant-garde masterpiece with mainstream appeal.

The Artist (2011): the beginning of an era.

I love the simplicity of early cinema and how it gives you a glimpse of history in glorious 4:3.  In the Lumière Brothers and Georges Méliès films circa 1895, you see people who existed more than a century ago moving about before your very eyes.  The celluloid is scratched and flickers erratically between the black and white images of ghost-like figures as they go about their daily business or present a fantastical play.  Early narrative cinema of the 1910s and 20s has a simple modesty as filmmakers experimented to create storytelling conventions in the medium of cinema – many of which are still used today.  Any cinephile has a romantic attachment to the silent era, because that’s where it all came from.  There’s no wonder why director Michel Hazanavicius chose to create homage to cinema in his 2011 monochrome silent The Artist.  As he says in January’s Sight & Sound: “The real star of the story is Hollywood.”

The film is set in 1920s Hollywood at the peak of the silent era.  It follows the decline of a star and the birth of another as the young studio system copes with the advent of sound on film.  The transition from ‘movies’ to ‘talkies’ meant silent star George Valentin is left in the dust as the young, vibrant Peppy Miller makes herself heard in the world of showbiz.

Sound is obviously one of the most important aspects of The Artist.  This isn’t strictly a silent film, but a tribute to silent films.  The soundtrack includes expressive music to simulate the musicians which would accompany a film in 1920’s theatre houses.  Hazanavicius plays with the audience in the opening scene however, by blurring the lines between diegetic and non-diegetic sound.  He further plays with the idea much later in the film with a dream-sequence in which Valentin can suddenly hear crystal clear diegetic sound, yet his voice remains mute.  These little gags are weaved into the film’s subject matter and give the whole thing a great sense of cohesion – a telling sign of a fully conceived film.

The audience, I think, is also crucial to this film’s delivery.  The film is very aware of the audience and always cuts to shots of audiences as if to emphasize this.  Hazanavicius is always very aware of what the audience knows and doesn’t know.  The director realises that modern audiences may well know a lot about silent era cinema.  The film is packed with references to classics like Citizen Kane and 7^th Heaven; filmmakers like German expressionist F.W Murnau and Hollywood classic Frank Borzage; and stars like Janet Gaynor and Douglas Fairbanks.  The Artist is also heavy with classical cinematic conventions, for instance the simple use of rain as an expression of sadness.  These conventions used as heavily today would seem ridiculous and clichéd, but within the context of the silent-era style, modern audiences are filled with a sense of fond reminiscence.

The Artist is not trying to be an authentic silent film, but instead wishes to present a novel but respectful nod to the silent era of Classical Hollywood. It is full of references and reads like Hazanavicius' love letter to an era of filmmaking which he - and we - are indebted to. In a time when films like Avatar are attempting to revolutionise cinema by making IMAX 3D the next coming of sound, I'm surprised The Artist was even made. But I'm glad it was. To me it serves as a much-needed look back at the essential beginnings of the art form. Already receiving considerable popular success, The Artist could herald the beginning of an era when mainstream filmmakers and audiences alike become more aware and influenced by the origins of cinema. Apart from all that, The Artist also stands alone as an altogether sad, funny, compelling and entertaining film.

2011 TV Judgment

Another year of TV has passed and I feel the need to make some sort of big sweeping statement summing everything up. I’ve whittled it down to this: TV is all about judgment these days.

I hate to be the guy sitting on his high horse on top of the moral high ground, waving his finger at people, making highfalutin statements.  But it’s true.  Judgment seems to be an increasingly prevalent theme in British broadcasting.

Judgement is nasty.  No one does it.  But we all do it when we watch telly, on so many different levels.  It’s complicated.

Take the X Factor for instance, a show primarily about judgment.  When the X Factor’s on I scoff and criticise the show.  Then I watch for a bit longer and I find myself criticising the judges and contestants.  Then I think about it for a while and write a blog criticising how the show makes you criticise things.

Judgment: it’s everywhere.  It comes in a whole bunch of different forms too.

Here’s a short list of shows which are quite overtly about judgment: the X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent, Masterchef, Britain’s Best Dish, Come Dine With Me, May the Best House Win.

They all follow a simple formula: subject matter + judgment.  Easy.

Masterchef is cooking + judgement.

Come Dine With Me is dinner hosting + judgement.

The X Factor is mediocrity + judgment.

You get the idea.

Then there’s reality shows which don’t necessarily contain an element of judgment, except that the enjoyment derived from such shows clearly comes from a sense of judgment on the part of the viewer.  The Jeremy Kyle Show, Big Brother, I’m a Celebrity, etc.  These shows allow people (obnoxious ones, more times than not) to present their personalities for judgment.  I watch Jeremy Kyle  and think “Jesus, are there people like that actually out there?”.  I watch the antics of desperate Big Brother wannabe celebrities and think the same thing.

We watch to judge.  I’m not an expert on human behaviour but I imagine it’s something to do with making ourselves feel better about our personalities and social situations?

Shows like Jeremy Kyle deal with social problems in a chat show format, but the same kind of thing can be seen in the documentary format.  The Scheme is a horrendous social documentary which follows the lives of a handful of families living in one of the most deprived and depraved areas of Scotland.  The enjoyment is a gawping curiosity at the shocking lives of a particularly underclass community.  You can’t help but stare at the drug addicts, dealers, thieves and criminals with judgmental eyes.  If you watch The Scheme and think “that’s perfectly normal” then you either belong to one of the stereotypes I just listed, or you live in The Scheme.  Or both.

Closely related to such social documentaries as The Scheme are shows like the Big Fat Gypsy series.  These shows exist to uncover often secretive or little-known cultures and societies.  They satisfy a voyeuristic curiosity in us as we’re allowed to see and, subsequently, scrutinize the ways in which people from different cultures live.  Amish: World’s Squarest Teenagers and Bitches and Beauty Queens are further examples of this type of cultural curiosity documentary.

Lifestyle documentaries typically document the lives of people with unusual lifestyles, disorders or illnesses.  Shows like Tourettes: I Swear I Can Sing, Obsessive Compulsive Hoarder and The Real Thumbelina tackle Tourettes, OCD and dwarfism respectively.  It would be entirely wrong for me to generalise here and say that this sort of programming only exists to satisfy a judgmental impulse in the audience, but looking at the increasing trend of light entertainment programming and the recurring theme of judgment within contemporary mainstream culture, I think there’s more to these programmes than simply touching and insightful documentary.  This might seem like a dark and disturbing observation, but it makes sense when you look at the context.

Channel 4 seems to have a particular penchant for these lifestyle documentaries.  Judging by the nature of the rest of their output, I doubt their interests are entirely sympathetic to their subjects, either.  Channel 4’s canon of zany game shows like Balls of Steel , Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker-brand satire and the paramount in soft-porn programming Eurotrash, make it clear their interests lie very much in satisfying the need for light entertainment (to say the least).  How can documentaries about neurosis and behavioural disorder be taken seriously when they exist in relation to unashamedly provocative sensationalism such as Embarrassing Fat Bodies, and have badly-tasted titles like A Bipolar Expedition.

I don’t mean to demonise Channel 4, they just happen to be the clearest example of how cultural context (in our case one ridldled with judgment) influences our reading and understanding of other texts.



A strange new genre of show has emerged recently and is, I think, representative of 2011 TV and the culture of judgment I’ve been harping on about.  I’m talking about the hybrid between reality TV and soap opera, the truly disturbing The Only Way is Essex, Made in Chelsea, Geordie Shore and Desperate Scousewives.  Horrendous displays of narcissism, egoism and vanity are displayed in dull plots with such hammy acting it leads you to contemplate whether it’s real or not.  TOWIE is about as real as an Essex girl’s boobs.  These shows are truly awful and the characters are so annoying, but people watch to judge their words, actions, tastes and appearances.

This kind of superficial judgment is where I think ‘light entertainment’ has taken us in 2011.  It’s like a tacky tabloid culture on screen.  Press standards and tabloids have been getting whipped into shape by Lord Leveson this year. However, the chances of the same happening for TV’s throwaway ‘light entertainent’ is sadly pretty thin, I think.

I wouldn’t say that everything on TV is about judgment.  I’m not going to pretend that the vast majority of shows have, in some form, an aspect of judgment, either.  But there is definitely a noticeable recurrence of the theme, enough for me to say I think it stands among one of the most defining features of British TV and culture in 2011.

Evil is in the eye of the beholder, as the saying goes, but I think there’s too much evidence for this to be merely a cynical view of my own. The theme of judgment spans genres and formats.  At uni we were taught that commercial imperatives are increasingly taking over for broadcasters, which means populist imperatives take over for content producers, which then results in an increase in ‘light entertainment’ over more 'serious' programming.  Whether you take that to mean the quality of broadcast programming is in decline is up to you.  But there’s definitely a lot of judgment going on.

Here's to 2012.