Saturday 26 May 2012

Doomsday (2008)


Starring: Rhona Mitra, Adrian Lester, Bob Hoskins, David O’Hara, Sean Pertwee, Malcolm MacDowell

Directed by: Neil Marshall

Written by: Neil Marshall

Duration: 1hr 45mins

Rating: 3 out of 5





I love John Carpenter.  So do many other people. Robert Rodriguez, for example.  In his excellent memoir Rebel without a Crew, he reveals that Escape from New York was the flick that got him interested in making his own movies.  And it can seem like Rodriguez has forged an entire career out of remaking his hero’s films:  From Dusk Till Dawn is Assault on Precinct 13 with vampires; The Faculty is The Thing in high school; and he admitted to playing Carpenter scores on the set of Planet Terror in an attempt to replicate the great man’s legendary eerie atmosphere.

CARPENTER:  HERO, LEGEND, MUSTACHE-GROWER
But Rodriguez is no mere copycat hack.  He injects his movies with enough of his own Tex-Mex personality, creative bravado and unique sense of fun that you never feel that you’re watching an unimaginative fan boy copy.

Neil Marshall also loves John Carpenter, and Escape from New York seems to have figured just as heavily in his own gestation as a film maker.  Doomsday's premise is that a near-future Scotland has been isolated from the rest of the British Isles creating a self-contained den of reprobates, and a one-eyed hard-as-nails mercenary is sent by sleazy political types into the forbidden zone on a time sensitive mission.  Yes, Doomsday is essentially a remake of the 1981 thriller; Escape from Scotland, if you will.  Are we seeing the point where tribute crosses the line to travesty?  Is this love begetting laziness?

BUT SHE'S NOT A PATCH ON KURT RUSSELL, OF COURSE
Not quite.  Two things save Doomsday.  The first is that there are just enough differences to make it not completely derivative.  The movie pulls Terminator 3: Rise of the Machine's gender-switch gimmick and makes it work, mostly due to Rhona Mitra’s steely central performance – she’s a kind of British Angelina Jolie (both ladies have portrayed Lara Croft).  The UK setting is refreshing; the sight of soldiers using L85A1 rifles and yelling things like, “Get a bloody move on!” warms my heart with patriotic pride.  The post-28 Days Later viral outbreak plot differs from its predecessor's prison city concept.  There were no cannibals in EFNY; not overtly, at least.  And our heroine, though taciturn and a one-woman army all of her own, enters the fray with a team in tow.

Its other saving grace is that Marshall wears his influences firmly on his sleeve just as Rodriguez has From Dusk Till Dawn’s Ernest Liu cheekily wear a ‘Precinct 13’ t-shirt, Marshall has the good grace to acknowledge his idol.  This is apparent within seconds, when the opening credits use Carpenter’s preferred Albertus MT font, white text on a black background.  There’s no way Marshall would have a) done this by accident, or b) done this without wanting the more genre-savvy viewer to get the reference.  And just to be totally sure, he actually names a character ‘Carpenter’.  In leaving no margin for doubt about his major influence, I feels like Marshall is rewarding his fellow fans, and the nods and winks made me enjoy the experience more, not less.



 
So, what of the actual movie we’re left with?  Proceedings kick off with an overlong prologue recounting how an outbreak of the ‘Reaper’ virus in Glasgow towards the end of the 20th century caused London to react by rebuilding Hadrian’s Wall in steel to isolate Scotland behind it.  Accompanying footage shows how trigger-happy troops rounded up the poor Scots and left them to fend for themselves, with Marshall demonstrating a gleeful line in '80s-style exploitation gore:  fingers are severed; someone gets shot straight through their ‘the end is nigh’ placard.  Fast forward thirty years to now, and the virus has suddenly popped up in England’s capital.  The weaselly Prime Minister (Alexander Siddig) and crony David O’Hara (a man whose voice is so gravelly you could pave a driveway with it) cook up a plan to send a team across the border to pursue a cure, before the infection can get out of control.

"CHECK THOSE CORNERS..." (ETC.)
Enter Mitra’s Major Eden Sinclair, introduced Bond-style mid-mission raiding a ship hauling human cargo.  She proves handy not only with an assault rifle but in utilising her detachable eye camera, a neat gimmick that makes the obvious Snake Plissken eye-patch reference not quite as tacky.  Once she’s created enough of a tough-girl impression, she’s debriefed by boss and father figure Bob ‘Oskins, who gives her the new assignment, introduces her to her forgettable support team, and off we go.

Once on the derelict streets of Glasgow the distinctly Mad Max-esque feral locals soon show themselves, and then it’s the old Aliens who’s-going-to-be-picked-off-first game, with Sean Pertwee suffering a particularly nasty fate and Adrian Lester surviving to add a bit of Ripley/Hicks romantic tension with Mitra that never goes anywhere.  Our heroine leads the remainder of her team into the highlands where future trappings are abandoned for a visit to Medieval Land, run by a growling Malcolm MacDowell, and a car chase climax that confirms that Marshall watched The Road Warrior as a kid almost as much as EFNY.
 
A TRUE CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST
All in all, it’s not a bad piece of entertainment.  It would be hard to call the film a step forward from Marshall’s first two movies, the excellent Dog Soldiers and The Descent, but he’s daring to make the kind of genre pictures that we rarely attempt in this country and should be commended for his efforts.  The weight of past movies does sometimes hold it down, but ultimately Doomsday has just enough of its own quirks to survive the comparisons.  Let’s just hope that Marshall doesn’t really ape his hero and release an inferior sequel-cum-remake in fifteen years’ time, set on the Isle of Wight.   ***


Sunday 20 May 2012

10 Best Director/Actor Partnerships


One simple caveat:  they must have done five or more films together.  Let’s go!


10. Ridley Scott & Russell Crowe









Gladiator (2000), A Good Year (2006), American Gangster (2007), Body of Lies (2008), Robin Hood (2010) 

A good start, of course – but then they made A Good Year.  Not sure who thought that putting one of Hollywood’s most intense leading men together with one of its most heavy-handed helmers to make a lightweight knockabout comedy was a wise move.  American Gangster doesn’t do much wrong, but is completely forgettable, which is the best thing you could say about… what was it called? Body of Evidence, or something?  A return to the sort of film they did best was welcome, but Crowe does make a distractingly mature Robin Hood.


9. Richard Donner & Mel Gibson









Lethal Weapon (1987), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), Maverick (1994), Conspiracy Theory (1997), Lethal Weapon 4 (1998)

Not sure which is harder to believe – that Gibson used to be an A-list leading man, or that he was once known as a strictly Catholic family man.  Either way, it was Donner who got the most out of the Australian to make audiences flock to see those blue eyes and that peerless mullet; and in Lethal Weapon’s Martin Riggs they took a superb Shane Black script and created an action hero who was a lot more complex and unpredictable than his contemporaries.  After peaking with charm-fest Maverick, things tapered off, and neither star nor director has been the same since.


8. Tim Burton & Johnny Depp










Edward Scissorhands (1990), Ed Wood (1994), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Corpse Bride (2005), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Dark Shadows (2012)

I admire and respect, rather than relish and enjoy, the output of these two.  As a director, Burton preferences visuals and quirkiness over story and character too much for my likings; as a star, Johnny is always just Johnny despite (and despite how much people like to go on about) how eclectic his oeuvre is.  But there’s no denying that as a team they have been responsible for some of the most memorable off-centre cinema of the last two decades, peaking with the hilarious and affecting Ed Wood.


7. Woody Allen & Diane Keaton









Play It Again, Sam (1972), Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979), Interiors (1978), Radio Days (1987), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993),

A big part of the ‘early funny ones’ (with the exception of the dour Interiors), Keaton’s breezy charm was a counterpoint to Allen’s neurosis – never better than in Oscar-magnet Annie Hall, of course.  But her influence in early farces Sleeper and Love and Death, when Allen was still finding his feet as a writer/director, cannot be underestimated either.  In later times Woody turned to Mia Farrow and a succession of other leading ladies to carry his films (Mira Sorvino, Jennifer Tilly, Radha Mitchell, Scarlett Johansson…) but none have proved as mutually beneficial as the original Miss Hall.


6. John Woo & Chow Yun-Fat









A Better Tomorrow (1986), A Better Tomorrow II (1987), The Killer (1989), Once a Thief (1991), Hard Boiled (1992)

A toothpick chewing Yun-Fat brandishing two pistols and blasting through hoards of triads without breaking a sweat is one of the truly iconic images of modern cinema.  It took the outrageous direction of Woo to take Chow out of cheesy Hong Kong comedy thrillers and into pure iconography via the first two A Better Tomorrow movies and the peak of both their careers, The Killer.  Simply put, when they work together it is pure action alchemy.


5. Tony Scott & Denzil Washington









Crimson Tide (1995), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006), The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009), Unstoppable (2010)

After a decade’s gap between first working together on superior Simpson/Bruckheimer thriller Crimson Tide, it’s seemed in the noughties that these two can’t make a movie without each other.  All the technical riffs and gimmicks of Scott’s less-than-subtle direction need a strong figure to ground the movie that’s buried somewhere underneath, and few have as steady a presence as Denzil.  After peaking with the brilliantly over-the-top Man on Fire, the duo produced a couple of duds, but were back on form with Washington now playing the grizzled veteran to a new young hot shot, Chris ‘Captain Kirk’ Pine in Speed rip-off (in a good way) Unstoppable.


4. Joel/Ethan Coen & Frances McDormand












Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), Miller’s Crossing (1990), Fargo (1996), The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) Burn After Reading (2008),

The Coen boys have re-used a number of actors in their flicks:  John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, John Tuturro, Jon Plito.  McDormand (Mrs. Joel Coen) is their most frequent collaborator, ranging from a breakout performance in neo-noir Blood Simple to her hilarious turn as cosmetic surgery-coveting gym bunny Linda Litzke in the farcical Burn After Reading.  But it’s her Oscar-winning turn as Marge Gunderson in Fargo that really stands out, acting as the warm centre of a story inhabited by distinctly cold characters in icy climes.











Elvis (1979), Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Escape from L.A. (1996)

Carpenter chaperoned ex-Disney child star Russell through four iconic, wildly varied roles.  He gives one of the best screen portrayals of the King (returned to in a bit of stunt casing twenty years later for 3000 Miles to Graceland) and channels Clint Eastwood for Escape from New York and John Wayne for Big Trouble in Little China, with surly pilot R.J. MacReady sandwiched in the middle.  And then the pair went and made Escape from L.A.  Pity.


2. Steven Soderbergh & George Clooney









Out of Sight (1998), Ocean's Eleven (2001), Solaris (2002), Ocean's Twelve (2004), The Good German (2006), Ocean's Thirteen (2007)                 

Cary Grant had Alfred Hitchcock, and George Clooney has Steven Soderbergh.  Both did a lot of good for each other with their first collaboration, the fantastic Out of Sight, which gave Soderbergh the hit that his Palme d’Or-winning debut Sex, Lies and Videotape had promised nearly a decade earlier and rescued Clooney from the crash and burn of (shudder) Batman & RobinSolaris was George’s first attempt to stretch himself in a fully ‘serious’ role, and the Oceans films gave them both a franchise strong enough to recover from the disappointment of The Good German.


1. Martin Scorsese & Robert De Niro









Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), Casino (1995)

I do so hate to be predictable, but really it couldn’t have been anyone else, could it?  Never before or since has there been such a holy matrimony of star and director working together in tandem at the top of their respective games.  The movies are as iconic as the lead characters (or show-off support in the case of Mean Streets’ Johnny), and that many of their films regularly make best-ever lists is a testament to duo's combined prowess.  As a footnote, Marty seems to have dumped Bobby for his new favourite, Leo – one more film together would have made them eligible for this list.



Monday 14 May 2012

My guide to TEFL in Korea (in four parts)

I was approached recently by the nice people at www.happycatstefl.com to write a four-part guide to teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in South Korea. 

So I duly obliged – you can find part one here, and parts two, three and four will follow.











 


See also:  video interview with me about my book.


Saturday 12 May 2012

Speed (1994)

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, 
Sandra Bullock, Jeff Daniels

Directed by: Jan De Bont

Written by: Graham Yost

Duration: 1hr 56mins

Rating: 2.5 out of 5




Speed. I have issues with Speed.  I’ve had issues with it ever since I first watched it during my 12th birthday sleepover party, when my pals and I were all hyped up for a thrill-a-minute ride that turned out to be a tepid disappointment.

I have issues with Keanu Reeves, who is totally miscast.  For him to work in an action role it has to acknowledge his unique slacker persona:  Point Break has him surfing, The Matrix includes that bit where he reacts to Laurence Fishburne’s leap between buildings with a dumbfounded ‘Woah!’.  In this, he’s just a crew-cutted gum-chewing knucklehead. 

WHO CAN FATHOM THE INTRICATE MIND OF JACK TRAVEN?


I have issues with how, for a so-called action movie, it doesn't have a single shoot-out.  Reeves' LAPD cop Jack Traven carries a sub-machine gun for a bit at the start… um… then later on he shoots a lock off a door with his service pistol.  Go, boy!





JOHN WOO MUST HAVE BEEN SHITTING HIMSELF



I have issues with Sandra Bullock, who whilst being lovely to look at, is rather annoying in this.

PRETTY, BUT ALSO PRETTY ANNOYING


I have issues with Jan De Bont’s direction, or rather lack of.  Oh my God it’s so intense, are they going to get off the bus?  Will they make that jump in the road? Will I be able to stay awa… *snore*.  De Bont manages to wring zero tension from the admittedly genius scenario, and his lack of ability as an action director was further evidenced by the string of duds that followed (Twister, Speed 2: Cruise Control, The Haunting, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life).
 
OH, THE SUSPENSE


I have issues with Dennis Hopper.  A decent villain, sure, but being in such pantomime popcorn fare sent his career off into a trajectory as a psycho-for-hire that meant that we would never again bear witness to the raw evil of Blue Velvet’s Frank.  Plus Hopper’s Howard Payne supposedly has only one thumb, yet at one point clicks his fingers off screen whilst holding a phone with his good hand.  That has always irritated me.

"POP QUIZ, HOTSHOT!"


I have issues with portly Jeff Daniels playing a SWAT officer.  What was the casting director smoking?
 
DANIELS SHOOTS HIS AGENT A DISBELIEVING LOOK


I have issues with Reeves trying to ‘do an Arnie’ with quips like, “Yeah? Well I’m taller!” proving that not everyone can deliver cheesy one-liners effectively.  I also hate the clumsy exchange between Joe Morton’s SWAT leader and our hero at the start:  “Anything else that'll keep this elevator from falling?” “Yeah, the basement.”

I have issues with how, essentially, if you take away the budget and Hollywood players, what you really have is a dull TV Movie disaster flick, annoying supporting characters/possible victims included.


ALAN RUCK:  SMARMY YUPPIE BUS CRASH FODDER

 

Speed has to be the most overrated movie of the 1990s; an OK time-waster but nothing more, and certainly not one of the best in its genre.  If you want a blockbuster from the summer of 1994, rent True Lies.  If you want action movies with Reeves, Bullock or Hopper, check out Point Break, Demolition Man and Waterworld respectively.  Broken Arrow is a more fun handling of a Graham Yost script.  And if you want a decent Jan De Bont movie…uh… hmm.   **1/2

Monday 7 May 2012

BWD – Bruce Willis


A look at the Best, the Worst, and the most Different (for better or worse) of the enduringly iconic action veteran’s resume.



Best

Die Hard (1988)









Much has been written about Bruce’s breakthrough role, of course.  All I’ll add here is that if Russell Crowe – talented as he is, don’t get me wrong – can win an Oscar for Gladiator, an action movie with sandals, then Bruce should have at least been nominated for his towering work in the Nakatomi tower.


Pulp Fiction (1994)









Though it now reads like a who’s who of ‘90s casting (Stoltz, Roth, Rhames, Plummer, Arquette) and was the breakthrough for legend-in-waiting Samuel L. Jackson, the best piece of casting in Tarantino’s sophomore effort was our Bruce.  Comeback-wise, Travolta had to rise above worse (four words: Look Who’s Talking Now), but Willis had suffered a dip in popularity – via bombs like The Bonfire of the Vanities, Striking Distance and Hudson Hawk – that threatened to crash his movie star credibility when it was just taking flight.  As Butch Coolridge, Bruce is tough, wounded, sardonic and sensitive (the unexpectedly tender bedroom scene with Maria de Mederios) in turn, but it’s towards the end of ‘The Gold Watch’ vignette that a star is re-born. 

Having escaped from his gimp-suited guard, Butch has his hand on the front door knob, but hesitates.  In a moment of clarity, he realises that even though Marcelles Wallace was shooting at him earlier that morning, he is his brother in arms, and Butch can’t take his own freedom without going back for his comrade.  So he goes through his weapon options, and picks an antique samurai sword, giving the screen an image of bloody and beaten one-man redemption to rival any of John McClain’s best moments.  Welcome back, Bruce.

 

Twelve Monkeys (1995)










I remember reading an interview Willis did for Pulp Fiction where he said that he was sick of running around holding a gun, and wanted to stretch himself further as an actor.  Whilst subsequent releases like The Fifth Element, The Jackal, Tears of The Sun and Hostage (not to mention Last Man Standing, 16 Blocks, Die Hard 4.0, R.E.D, G.I. Joe: Retaliation…) have rendered this declaration void, he did go through a late ‘90s hands-free period that produced his strongest performances.  His turn as time traveller James Cole sees him vulnerable, confused and alone, and brought a depth of performance that had barely been hinted at before.  Brad Pitt’s showier turn got a Best Supporting Actor nom, whereas Bruce was typically, and unfairly, overlooked.


The Sixth Sense (1999)









Willis has always been good with child actors.  Sandwiched between his kiddie-centric roles in Mercury Rising and M. Night Shyamalan’s follow-up Unbreakable, Sixth Sense is Bruce’s best screen performance.  Quiet, mournful and with neigh a smirk in sight, it’s a testament to how he commands our attention that he stops the viewer from noticing what, on reflection, was a pretty sign-posted twist.  The gimmick value of the movie’s ending, as well as all the focus on man child-child Haley Joel Osment, meant that Bruce’s good work went largely unnoticed.       


Sin City (2005)









Frank Miller called Willis ‘his generation’s Humphrey Bogart’, and it’s hard to disagree.  Few other actors could have brought the same mixture of toughness and vulnerability to the role of betrayed and beleaguered cop John Hartigan, who has to be equally comfortable stomping a yellow paedo-freak’s face into the ground as struggling with polemic fatherly and erotic urges towards a suddenly developed Jessica Alba.  As in Pulp, Bruce stands out from a star-studded cast.


Worst

Hudson Hawk (1991)














Vanity projects are never a good thing:  they reek of smug self-indulgence and you always feel that they were having a lot more fun making the thing than you are watching it.  Hudson Hawk is one of the very worst, a charmless romp that resembles a hyperactive toddler as it runs all over the place, producing a lot of noise, making very little sense and exhausting all that keep its company.


Color of Night (1994)










Ever fancied seeing Bruce Willis’s penis?  Here’s your chance, as it makes a cameo appearance flopping about in the swimming pool during one of many tedious sex scenes with Jane Marsh in this woeful erotic thriller. Taking over a therapy group from murdered buddy Scott ‘Quantum Leap’ Bukula, psychiatrist Bruce has to figure who from a troubled line-up including the likes of Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen, Lesley Ann Warren and Marsh in drag is really a killer.  Silly doesn’t begin to cover it.


Different

Death Becomes Her (1992)









Willis ditched his macho image just as he was cultivating it to go against the grain as wimpy plastic surgeon Ernest Menville, who spends the whole movie being manipulated by ageing divas Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep.  Willis lets the clown he had so far kept mostly within run free if you can ignore Hudson Hawk, which is advisable – gurning his way through Robert Zemekis’ dated but fun screwball romp. One thing you can say about the man is that even this early in his career, only four years after Die Hard, he wasn’t afraid to send himself up.