Reviews

Alias Season 5: there’s only one Sydney Bristow

Half-way through the fifth and final season of Alias, the entire show had to be put on hold in order to accommodate the pregnancy of star/producer Jennifer Garner, resulting in a shorter than usual run of 17 episodes. The compressed length, in addition to having to write the first half of the season around Garner’s ballooning stomach (fairly straightforwardly, the writers had her character become pregnant too), not to mention the fact that creator JJ Abrams was busy directing Mission Impossible 3, should have spelled disaster for the show… But they didn’t. Indeed, after a thoroughly disappointing fourth season, Alias Season 5 is a welcome return to form.

Due to Garner’s pregnancy, the first half of the season necessitates something of a change of format, given that the show’s mainstay was always the sight of Sydney Bristow performing energetic stunts in exotic attire. To compensate for the increasingly chair-bound Sydney, the writers draft in a bunch of new recruits, one of whom, Rachel Gibson (Rachel Nichols), finds herself in much the same situation that Sydney was during Season 1. As such, despite signalling something of a departure, Season 5 also recalls the old glory days, with the wide-eyed, naive Rachel serving as a suitable stand-in for the increasingly worldly-wise Sydney. The best of the new characters, however, is the feisty French criminal Renée Rienne (Élodie Bouchez), who ends up helping Team Alias out on several occasions. I would happily have watched an entire show centred around Renée (a spin-off would have been great), but unfortunately the writers make little use for her, and she drops out of the show some time before the end.

There are a few bum notes, and one of these is the third new major character, the moody agent Thomas Grace (Balthazzar Getty). To put it bluntly, he isn’t interesting, and a rather pointless subplot involving his dead wife distracts from the main points of interest, and seems to have been developed before the writers were aware that they wouldn’t be getting another season. Elsewhere, several of the show’s mainstays are becoming rather repetitive and predictable, including the is-he-or-is-he-not-evil Arvin Sloane (Ron Rifkin), who has been kept around for so long and has changed sides so many times, and yet always given another chance, that it’s got to the point of being ludicrous. By far the worst mistake, however, is

Highlight below to reveal spoiler text:

Otherwise, though, this is a fine season. It’s not as good as Seasons 1 and 2, but it’s a major improvement on Season 4. Alias was always one of the most impressive-looking shows on television, and this one is no exception, with slick cinematography and a single Los Angeles back-lot standing in convincingly for every location from Cambodia to Siberia. Unlike so many shows, Alias goes out with a bang, and manages not to disgrace itself as it does so.

Pelts: an Argento/PETA co-production

It’s no secret that I didn’t think much of Jenifer, Dario Argento’s first episode in the Masters of Horror anthology series. Actually, that’s something of an understatement: I thought it was phenomenally bad, dethroning The Phantom of the Opera from its position as the worst thing he’d ever directed. Its problem, for me, was that it could have been directed by anyone - and by that I don’t mean that it didn’t “look like an Argento film” (whatever that means), which is what the episode’s defenders invariably try to twist my words into. Rather, it was the sort of bland, anonymous point-and-shoot affair that any semi-competent director for hire could have pulled off. Basically, if it hadn’t said “a film by Dario Argento” at the start, virtually no-one would have paid it a blind bit of notice, making the decision to fly Argento over from Italy to direct it a rather pointless endeavour. Jenifer was more a vehicle for its star/writer Steven Weber than for Argento, making the decision to market the episode around Argento’s name rather than Weber’s disingenuous at best, downright dishonest at worst.

As such, I was prepared for more of the same with Pelts, his contribution to the show’s second season. My expectations were so low that I couldn’t possibly have been disappointed, and as such it’s perhaps not entirely surprising that Pelts is better than I expected. Certainly, it’s still pretty clear that Argento is slumming it, calling “cut” and “action” and picking up a pay-cheque for his efforts, and it’s still pretty near the bottom of the barrel as far as his impressive filmography goes, but it’s nowhere near as embarrassing as Jenifer. Heavily flawed, sure; ultimately pointless, of course; but this time at least there are a few hints to suggest that a filmmaker with actual talent is behind the lens.

The plot, this time, is somewhat more suited to the tastes of Argento, a vegetarian who has owned several cats and believes we should be doing more to protect the rights of insects. Basically, a poacher (John Saxon, who previously appeared in Argento’s classic Tenebre - that’s two big names slumming it) and his dimwitted hick son butcher a bunch of raccoons (or “coons”, as they call them, in one of the script’s less than subtle racism allegories), with an eye to making a tidy profit on what they both agree are the finest pelts ever seen. Junior bashes in Papa’s head with a baseball bat, however, prior to mashing his own face in one of the loathsome pair’s own gin-traps. Enter Jake (Meat Loaf - yes, Meat Loaf), the furrier to whom the pair intended to sell their goods. Seemingly unconcerned by the two dead bodies in front of him, Jake pockets the pelts and, stricken by their beauty, plots to make the finest coat known to man - with an eye to convincing his favourite lap-dancer, Shanna (Ellen Ewusie), to let him fuck her in the ass (I’m not making this up).

The film’s most impressive moments come during the opening titles, which are set against moody shots of the furrier’s various pieces of equipment, most of them dripping with blood. Argento certainly lays on the gore thick and fast here, some of it successfully, some of it not. Of the various extended death scenes, the best is that of a seamstress who sews up her own eyes, nostrils and mouth (nearly all of the deaths are self-inflicted). Less impressive is that of a man who tears out his own innards: it’s just the same Z-grade schlock peddled by Troma, only with more convincing effects. Likewise, the cinematography, by Attila Szalay (who also shot Jenifer), is highly variable: the scenes in the strip-club are the best, with copious amounts of red, blue and purple back-lighting that at times manages to evoke that of Suspiria, albeit greatly toned down; many of the exteriors, however, look flat and lifeless, with Jake’s visit to the poachers’ hut looking as bad as Jenifer in terms of lack of imagination. By and large, though, this “film’s” look is a massive step up from that of its predecessor.

Script and acting are another story, however. The plot was adapted by first-timer Matt Venne from a short story by F. Paul Wilson. I’ve not read the source material, but I can’t imagine it being particularly inspiring, given that it’s essentially just a series of grisly suicides, seemingly stemming from coming into contact with the pelts. As such, you can find the same themes of transferral and infection of the mind that are present in Jenifer if you want to attach an auteurist reading to these episodes - personally, I don’t. These are not “Dario Argento films” in the traditional sense, given that he receives no writing credits on them, instead seemingly having picked his favourite from a list of pre-existing screenplays. The performances, meanwhile, verge on embarrassing. Meat Loaf chews the scenery like nothing on earth, screaming, slavering and stomping around with a face that could curdle milk, while even the reliable John Saxon struggles to make anything of his one-dimensional role. The characters are all flat in the extreme, as it happens, and Argento, presumably realising he wasn’t going to get anything approaching a decent performance out of Ellen Ewusie, instead has her spend the bulk of her screen-time with her breasts out. Oh, and there’s a good old-fashioned gratuitous girl-on-girl sex scene too - the Masters of Horror team presumably think that this sort of thing, in addition to gallons of karo syrup, can be considered “pushing the boundaries”, but it all reeks a little of desperation. The two women look so uncomfortable during their sex scene that it’s hard not to feel sorry for them.

I don’t really have much else to say. It’s better than Jenifer, but once again it uses the Argento name to market a generic, poorly-written splatterfest that any number of no-name directors for hire could have pulled off. The Argento of old would have been able to direct this sort of thing blindfolded and with one arm behind his back, but at least there are a handful glimpses of the old spirit, even if they are present here in a greatly dumbed down form. Pelts is ultimately really just a means to an end - apparently it is thanks to his Masters of Horror work that The Third Mother is being made at all. Them’s the breaks, I guess, and, as such, I’m willing to accept half-baked Argento if it ultimately leads to some sort of a return to form. 5/10.

PS. PETA did not in fact have anything to do with the making of Pelts, in case anyone was under any false impressions. I’m sure Argento has more sense than to associate with such an organisation.

Lovers, Liars and Lunatics: suburban dystopia

If Amber Benson is one thing, it’s committed. During the production of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s fifth season, she juggled appearances on that show with work on her own independent project, an offbeat comedy called Chance, on which she served as lead actor, writer, producer and director. The film, shot on video with a budget of $25,000, was decidedly rough around the edges, but ultimately quite charming for all its eccentricities, and showed the multi-faceted Benson’s talent for writing quirky yet believable characters.

Fast forward four years, and her second film, on which she returns as star, writer, producer and director, and also adds film editor to her roster of talents, has just been released on DVD, like Chance sold directly through her production company, Benson Entertainment. Exactly how much it cost to make is unclear, but it seems to have been funded, at least partially, through a series of fund-raisers, auctions of personal possessions and of a series of Willow and Tara action figures. From the first film, it’s clear that a lot has changed. The source material is now 35mm film, and the camera setups are considerably more ambitious than those of its predecessor. It’s not always successful - there are some instances of truly bizarre framing, a handful of shots in which the focus is on something other than the main point of attention, and some rather problematic moments that lack establishing shots, making it difficult to get a feeling for the geography and positions of the various characters - but by and large the film has a slicker, more professional feel than that of Chance. Jakobine Motz’s cinematography is functional rather than particularly impressive (the lighting is rather flat), but, with the move from video to film, Benson has abandoned the hand-held, quasi-documentarian format of the previous film in favour of something more controlled. On the aural front, the dialogue recording is sometimes a little ropey, but the orchestral score, which kicks in occasionally but effectively, helps paper over the cracks.

The plot, meanwhile, is enough to sustain the 87-minute running time, but isn’t hugely substantial. Essentially, two incompetent robbers break into a suburban household, but quickly find themselves caught up in the neurotic family’s own dysfunctional relationships. Benson, this time, although given title billing, takes more of a back seat as far as acting goes, given that this is, for all intents and purposes, an ensemble piece, with eight main roles and a handful of secondary parts. The black humour of Chance, meanwhile, is maintained throughout, although the actors are at times hamstrung by a script that is very talky - Benson’s other writing credits are primarily as a novelist, and it shows in what appears to be an intermittent reluctance to show things visually (characters will frequently mutters to themselves phrases like “Fucking bitch!” and “I hate him!”, which should be self-evident to even the least attentive viewer).

The film also ends on something of a false note with a conclusion that seems intended partially to be blackly comedic and partially to be shocking: in a sense, the abrupt change of tone results in an ending that seems too dark to be successful given the film’s otherwise light-hearted tone.

Despite these problems, though, it’s hard not to admire the film for its bare-faced enthusiasm. Yes, it’s considerably slicker than Chance and, to some extent, more market-friendly (the narrative is more conventionally linear, there are no monologues to the camera, no guitar-strumming troubadours entering the scene to narrate the plot, and Benson has reigned in her use of the word “cunt”), but it’s still an odd and distinctive film with a decidedly hand-made feel to it. I’m not sure exactly how many people are going to end up seeing it, as the $30-33 (depending on whereabouts in the world you’re located) price tag, plus the fact that the DVD can only be ordered from the official web site, will put a lot of people off, but it deserves an audience. 7/10.

Disney aspect ratio conundrum

(Also posted at DVD Times)

In Disney fandom, there is a long-running debate surrounding the intended aspect ratios of a number of the studio’s animated features, including everything from One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) up to and including The Fox and the Hound (1981). For a long time, the eight films encompassed by this 20-year period were all available on DVD in a 1.33:1 Academy aspect ratio, barring The Rescuers (1977), which was released in 1.66:1. No-one could really decide exactly which ratio these films were meant to be shown in: theoretically, they were all released at a time when cinemas equipped to display Academy material were no longer common, so it makes sense to assume that they would have been exhibited in a ratio somewhere between 1.66:1 (European widescreen) and 1.85:1 (American widescreen). This was substantiated somewhat by the admittedly unreliable IMDB, which listed an intended ratio of 1.75:1 for these titles.

The DVDs, however, suggested otherwise. Many argued that Disney would not have released these films in 1.33:1 on DVD if that was not their intended ratio, especially given their otherwise solid track record for presenting the other Animated Classics on DVD properly. Opponents of this theory pointed to The Rescuers as the odd one out, wondering why Disney would have made this film in widescreen and then gone back to the Academy ratio for their next project. Likewise, the obviously cropped DVD and VHS releases of The Fox and the Hound strongly indicated that something foul was afoot in Neverland.

The release of a new edition of Robin Hood, however, goes some way towards answering these various questions. Previously, this film was, like its counterparts from the 1961-1981 period, released on DVD in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, which showed no obvious cropping. Personally, I always suspected that, barring The Rescuers and The Fox and the Hound, all the films of this 20-year period were being released in an open matte format - substantiated by the fact that zooming the DVDs in on a widescreen TV generally resulted in few if any framing problems. Now, Robin Hood has been released in a new “Most Wanted Edition” (how on earth do they come up with these titles?), and it turns out to be a 1.75:1 anamorphic presentation (i.e. with very thin black bars on either side of the widescreen frame). The Ultimate Disney review, which includes a screenshot comparing this release to its 1.33:1 predecessor, clearly shows that the earlier version was open matte. Indeed, flicking between the two captures of the same frame from both releases, it’s clear that, on the left and right hand side of the frame, there is barely even a pixel’s worth of difference. At the top and bottom, however, the new release obscures a considerable amount of the dead space that was present on the previous release.

The reviewer admittedly does have some reservations about this new presentation, pointing to the fact that “some elements do feel slightly cramped in the vertical direction”, and a few of the screen captures accompanying the review do substantiate this. I’m not particularly convinced, however, by the various arguments he puts forth in favour of 1.33:1 being the intended presentation (although, to his credit, he doesn’t attempt to claim one or the other to be the “correct” way to view the film). It seems, to me at least, clear that Robin Hood (and, therefore, presumably also One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Aristocats and so on) were exhibited theatrically at around a ratio of 1.75:1 (which falls fairly squarely between 1.66:1 and 1.85:1), therefore making this new DVD an accurate representation of its intended appearance. I consider Robin Hood to be one of the worst films from a generally poor period in the Disney studio’s history, but I’m sorely tempted to pick up this new version and bin (or, more likely, eBay) my old fullscreen disc.

The only question now is why did they go to the effort to get Robin Hood right, but weren’t willing to take this extra step for The Fox and the Hound?

Home Alone: Family Fun Edition

Dodgy name tag aside, this new release of Home Alone more than makes up for the inadequacies of its predecessor, and is unlikely to disappoint even the biggest Grinch. Whether or not you already own a copy of Home Alone, I recommend you pick up a copy of this solid new release forthwith, and partake of the Christmas spirit.

In the run-up to Christmas, a perennial festive favourite is dusted off for a long-awaited special edition release. I’ve reviewed the newly released R1 “Family Fun Edition” of Home Alone, and yes, given it a 10.

Sorry America, we got your Potters!

Forgive me this moment of plagiarism, but I still think it’s one of the funniest thread titles I’ve seen relating to this subject. As I laid out in an earlier post, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, still lacking an official date for its US released, came out on HD DVD in the UK on November 20th, and word quickly spread that, barring the inclusion on the cover of BBFC logos and the usual UK additionata (to borrow a phrase from Garth Marenghi), such as a quote from the Daily Mirror, this was actually just the as yet unannounced US release rebadged. Well, curiosity got the better of me and, despite only having a lukewarm reaction to the first two Potter films, I ended up ordering a copy from Play.com.

It arrived today, and the rumours are true: when you pop the disc in, you’re greeted with an FBI warning screen, followed by the Warner logo and the same annoying and bombastic Warner HD DVD trailer that they’ve included on every single one of their releases so far, then an MPAA PG-13 logo, followed by the film itself. If the studios continue to follow this model of simply repackaging (and re-labelling) the US discs, this strikes me as being a good thing, for two reasons. First: it cuts down on costs, meaning that a single master can be prepared for both North America and the UK (and any other English-speaking territories, as well as other locations like France and Spain, provided the extras are comprehensively subtitles, given that these discs tend to include French and Spanish dubs). Second: it should help bury the horrible legacy of PAL speed-up in films and dodgy NTSC to PAL standards converted extras. At the moment, Potter is a rare beast indeed: a 24 fps film with 30 fps NTSC extras that you can pick up off a UK store shelf. Hopefully this trend will continue.

Anyway, enough of that - how’s the disc? Superb, is the answer. In fact, it comes very close to toppling Serenity from its “best HD DVD transfer” throne. It’s amazing that Warner can put out an edge enhanced, slightly filtered and noise reduced release like V for Vendetta one week, and then release something that, to my eyes, looks almost completely untampered the next. This is an amazing looking transfer, with excellent detail and a rich, smooth, film-like look, and the fact that there are no real problems with compression is a phenomenal achievement given the number of difficult moments in this film - crowd scenes, underwater chases, firework displays, not to mention dodgy CGI fire-breathing dragons. This is very much a 10 out of 10 affair, with my only concern being some prominent edge enhancement in a couple of background shots in an early scene, which is so much heavier than anything else in the film (or indeed the shots in question) that I’m pretty sure it was a result of some effects work rather than the encoding.

As for the film, I enjoyed it more than the first two Potters, although it is to my mind still heavily flawed, not to mention far too long. As has been something of a trend recently, it’s also fairly clear that, rather than being a stand-alone film, it’s merely a single part in a much larger story. This wouldn’t have been a massive problem were it not for the fact that the film ends on a “to be continued” note in all but name: in the final half-hour, a hideous villain and arch-enemy of Harry’s escapes from his prison and comes after him, but nothing is done about this and, as is usually the case, the film ends with the school year ending and the characters heading their separate ways. Harry might have said, “Gee willickers! There’s a terrible villain who wants to kill me on the loose, but we’ll deal with him next term.” I did, however, appreciate the somewhat darker tone when compared to the first two films (I still need to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third film), and the child actors seem to be improving as they grow older.

Oh yeah, and I also finally received my long-awaited copy of Amber Benson’s new film, Lovers, Liars and Lunatics, which she wrote, produced, edited, directed and starred in. The disc was posted to me by Ms Benson herself, judging by the fact that the signature on the customs declaration matches the signature on the front cover (she signed the first 500 copies). Full thoughts and impressions will follow as soon as I’ve had a chance to watch it, but, having taken a glance at a couple of minutes, I should probably warn you that the transfer is interlaced and non-anamorphic (although, unlike Amber’s previous film, Chance, it’s shot on 35mm film rather than video).

Update, December 19, 2006 05:54 PM: Fixed dead link.

Veronica Mars, take two

Following on from my previous post, I ploughed through the remainder of Season 2 of Veronica Mars last night and this morning. And my opinions are largely unchanged: the same strengths and weaknesses that I outlined last night remained till the end. A more detailed explanation is in order, however.

The show is set in the (imaginary) small town of Neptune, home of dodgy millionaires and their snotty children, as well as the less well-off. The show looks at this “class divide” from the perspective of Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell), a teenager who used to be in with the popular crowd until a series of unfortunate happenings resulted in her being ostracised by her so-called friends. She and her parents ended up becoming virtual social pariahs after her sheriff father, Keith (Enrico Colantoni), put the blame for the murder of Veronica’s best friend, Lily (Amanda Seyfried), on her father… sorry, all these relationships are really complicated. Mrs. Mars ran off, Keith lost his job and ended up making a living as a private investigator, and Veronica, no longer on the in-crowd, helped him out.

That was Season 1. As Season 2 begins, the previous year’s various cases have been wrapped up. Lily’s killer (I’m not saying who, for those who haven’t seen Season 1) is behind bars, and Veronica has managed to regain much of her cred with the in-crowd. Tensions between the haves and the have-nots are at an all-time high, though, and Veronica finds herself stuck right in the middle. She soon has other problems to contend with, though, including a bus full of children from her school hurtling off a cliff for seemingly no reason… a bus that she should have been on. Did someone want her dead, and did it have anything to do with the events of the previous year?

I’ll give creator Rob Thomas and his writers credit for one thing: they know how to capture the audience’s interest. Whatever flaws the show might have, it has a very addictive quality. There are always unanswered questions, meaning that there’s always something to entice you to go straight to the next episode as soon as the current one finishes. Like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, upon which this show was clearly quite heavily modelled, it follows a conventional structure of most episodes having their own self-contained cases, with a couple of larger mysteries being played out over the course of the season’s 22 episodes. The “cases of the week” vary in terms of quality, but most of them do a commendable job of trying to do something unexpected… although not always successfully. The main case, meanwhile, has a decent line-up of potential suspects, including both new and old characters. The complex relationships between the various characters, meanwhile, provide ample scope for secrets, lies and intrigue, even if the soap opera elements to tend to become a little unbelievable in their complexity.

What doesn’t work, though, is that I really struggle to relate to the characters, understand what they see in each other, or even like the majority of them in the slightest. Veronica begins the season in the arms of the obnoxious Logan (Jason Dohring), before promptly ditching him for her previous boyfriend, Logan’s best friend Duncan (Teddy Dunn). By the end of the season, she’s back with Logan again. (See what I meant about the ridiculousness of the soap elements?) Logan is the sort of creep that you’d actually cross the street to avoid, making Veronica’s attraction to him decidedly implausible, while Veronica spends most of her waking hours being so sarcastic to everyone she comes into contact with that it’s a wonder she has any friends at all. Of all the regular characters, the most likeable is Keith Mars, with Colantoni’s performance being by far the best on the show.

There are also some rather irritating continuity issues, with character developments and plot threads being introduced in one episode, only to promptly be forgotten for extended periods. Early in the season, for example, Veronica’s friend Wallace’s (Percy Daggs) estranged father shows up, and various events lead to father and son eloping together. Wallace is out of the picture for several episodes, before promptly returning, and the business with his father, and his disappearance, never being dealt with. In Buffy, or other US shows I enjoy like Alias, you generally get the sense that everything that happens to the characters is working towards some sort of master plan, or at least that they are adding to their life experience and allowing them to develop, even if only in minute ways. With Veronica Mars, that sort of long-term planning doesn’t seem to exist, at least not to the same extent.

Broadly speaking, though, I can understand why this show has so many ardent followers, and I certainly enjoyed watching both seasons (I’ll probably pick up Season 3 when it comes out on DVD, but it doesn’t appear to air in the UK and I’m not obsessive enough to be motivated to download the episodes as they air in the US). It features the same cheery, irreverent take on film noir that Buffy did with horror, and as such, I can see it appealing to the same crowd. The second season even features appearances by Alyson Hannigan and Joss Whedon himself, while Charisma Carpenter is featured on a more extended basis.

Update, December 19, 2006 05:57 PM: Fixed dead link.

La Dolce Morte: a brief review

I finished reading Mikel Koven’s La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo last night, and thought I’d say a few words about it.

First of all, as I mentioned before, this is an excellent study, and nothing else like it exists. Academics, for the most part, tend to shun gialli anyway, assuming them to be unworthy of serious study, but, even when one looks at things from a less scholarly perspective, there is a real dearth of available books focusing on this genre, with perhaps the only English language title dedicated to the giallo being Adrian Luther Smith’s Blood and Black Lace, a guide that is exhaustive in its breadth but, for that very reason, lacks depth.

Generally, it seems that most scholars ignore gialli because they don’t consider them to be “good” cinema, lacking the sophistication and “art” of the more highly regarded Italian films by the likes of Michelangelo Antonioni and Federico Fellini. Even those who do study giallo films tend to be dismissive of the bulk of the genre, focusing on the films of Dario Argento or Mario Bava at the expense of all others. Maitland McDonagh, for example, who was the first scholar to seriously study Argento, in her book Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds claimed that the “outlandish titles” of the non-Argento gialli are “the only interesting things about them”, effectively rejecting an entire genre, barring the output of one of its most prominent directors.

Koven’s argument is that such scholars are looking at these films in the wrong way. He points out that they were originally intended to be played to a working class, non-critical audience who had little interest in sophistication and intelligent plotting, preferring instead to be entertained by a parade of sex and violence. Viewing these films instead in terms of “vernacular cinema”, he therefore argues, removes the need to justify these films as being “artistic” (which, he claims, most are not), instead looking at them from the same perspective as their original intended audience. He builds a very convincing case for this over the course of ten chapters, establishing first the nature of the giallo and of its audience, before going on to dissect specific traits of these films - e.g. the role of the detective, attitudes towards modernity, the influence of the giallo on North American slashers. In doing so, he refers to a commendable number of titles, although there is, as usually tends to be the case, something of an over-reliance on Argento’s films.

Koven’s approach is, therefore, a perfectly valid one. The only problem is that I don’t agree with it, and at times I found his continued refusal to view these films in anything other than vernacular terms to be something of a stumbling block. In a sense, I completely understand why he did this - anyone putting together a case study, no matter how broad the scope, must set certain parameters or run the risk of waffling - but it should be remembered that this book really only shows one side of the coin. Koven is, I’m sure, absolutely right when he argues that, say, The Case of the Bloody Iris (Giuliano Carnimeo, 1972) was only ever intended to be watched as trashy entertainment, and that applying the sort of analytical methods that academics also apply to the films of Fellini and Antonioni is ultimately a poor fit. At the same time, though, to pass off the entire giallo genre as being “only” vernacular cinema is, in my opinion, unwise. I’ve already written at length about the films of Argento and a few select others that I believe can be analysed, at least partially, as art cinema.

To tar the entire genre with the same brush is therefore, in my opinion, problematic. There are certain traits that constitute a “typical” giallo (e.g. lots of sex and violence, screaming women and gallant male rogues saving the day), but what applies to The Case of the Bloody Iris doesn’t necessarily apply to Profondo Rosso (Argento, 1975). In looking at these films from a completely vernacular perspective, you run the risk of doing exactly what Koven accuses those who try to fit them into an art cinema context of doing. Yes, plenty of academics look down their noses at these films because they don’t fit the framework of a Fellini, but, if you try to put them in their own little box and claim that we shouldn’t even try to analyse them as art films, then you’re essentially just playing into the hands of the snobs, becoming apologetic for their very existence. (It’s a bit like what Stephen Thrower said in Beyond Cinema: The Films of Lucio Fulci: his argument was that talking about “justified” and “unjustified” violence was ludicrous, because, if a horror fan tries to defend his favourite gore scene in such terms, he is merely playing into the hands of the censors and automatically on the defensive.) By removing the need to justify them as “artistic”, on some level you prevent them, and their study, from being considered respectable at all.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression: I liked this book very much. It was an enjoyable read with a coherent argument maintained throughout, and I would like to think that it will pave the way for studies of the giallo from a variety of different perspectives. Ultimately, though, it only represents a single viewpoint, and one that, whatever the author’s intentions, seems a little one-sided in its focus.

Update, December 19, 2006 05:58 PM: Fixed dead link.

Casino Royale: confessions of a layman

I’ll say it upfront: I’m not what you’d call a Bond fan. Oh, I’ve seen a fair share of the films, and have enjoyed a number of them to some degree, but I’m by no means a completist, and can’t recall ever seeing one that I’ve absolutely loved. Even the strongest, most strait-laced ones, which, for me, have been the two Timothy Dalton ventures, had their moments of high camp that were at best annoying and at worst verged on bringing the whole thing crashing down. As such, my review of Casino Royale should be taken very much as an outsider’s point of view. What I liked and disliked about it won’t necessarily be the same things that a hardcore Bond fan will like and dislike.

The short version: this is a very good film. Actually, it’s close to being an excellent film, with only a handful of problems preventing it from being a top-tier effort. I’ll get on to these in due course, but first, I must say that I really liked this “reboot”. In the past, Bond films seem to have gone lurched back and forth between serious to camp, with a Licence to Kill being followed by a Moonraker (well, that’s chronologically incorrect, but it serves the purpose of illustrating the series’ two extremes). As you can probably gather, I prefer the former, and found Timothy Dalton’s hard-edged, merciless portrayal of 007 to be far superior to Roger Moore’s nudge-nudge wink-wink camp antics. Even Dalton had his flaws, though, for me, stemming mainly from the fact that, when the scripts called for him to be more light-hearted, he seemed hopelessly out of his depth.

Casino Royale is no Roger Moore romp. It’s the first Bond film I’ve seen that is completely straight-faced. That’s not to say that there isn’t humour in it, but the humour is subtler, derived not from Bond foiling the terrorists and parachuting down to Felix Leiter’s wedding all in one swish movement (a particularly cringe-inducing moment in the otherwise commendable Licence to Kill), but rather from various dry retorts that, while self-conscious, ultimately serve the characters rather than playing to the gallery. (Bond’s response when asked whether he wants his Martini shaken or stirred put a smile on my face.)

The change in tone is partially due to the script, but also in no small part to the casting of Daniel Craig as Bond. Back when various actors were being touted as successors to the bland Pierce Brosnan (not a fan, sorry), I immediately latched on to him as my preferred choice (although the alternatives, ranging from Hugh Jackman to Orlando Bloom, meant that there really wasn’t much of a contest as far as I was concerned), and was most pleased when he got the part. People, however, were criticising the choice before they even saw a frame of footage: “Craig’s too ugly, he’s not sophisticated, he’s… he’s… he’s blond!” To that I say “Phooey!” Craig is certainly nothing like any of his predecessors, but, in my opinion, he comes the closest of all to making Bond seem human. Timothy Dalton was tough, sure, but I always saw him as more an attitude than a real person. Craig, in contrast, doesn’t really have the sophistication of some of his predecessors, but this “blunt instrument”, as M (Judi Dench - whose retention, despite this reboot, didn’t bother me anything like as much as I thought it would) puts it, lives and breathes in a way that the others, for me, didn’t. (That said, bear in mind that I’ve yet to see George Lazenby’s turn in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, regarded by a number to be Bond’s most human turn.)

In part, that’s due to the way the writers build up his relationship with Vesper Lynd (Eva Green, a fantastic actress and a Bond girl who, unusually, seems to have been cast for her acting abilities as much as her looks). Theirs is a relationship that begins as a series of thinly-veiled sniping matches, but which eventually becomes one of mutual dependence, as both find that the job they have to do is no walk in the park. The scene in which Bond comforts a tearful Vesper, who has just seen two men killed in front of her, packs more emotional punch than any other scene that I’ve seen in the series. You get the feeling that Bond genuinely cares about this woman and that, had things been different, their relationship would have gone further. (I’m trying to avoid spoilers here.) Oh, and it also helps that Green is convincing as an intelligent secret service agent - Denise Richards she ain’t.

But what of the setting? A casino hall didn’t sound to me like the most exciting location in which to set a 140-minute film, not least because I know nothing about cards. Well, the truth is that it doesn’t matter. I still know nothing about the game that was being played, despite Bond’s handy explanation of it to Vesper, but in reality it’s not necessary to understand the details in order to become engrossed. The casino, while the backdrop of a significant portion of the film, is really just that - a backdrop - with more interesting events being played out against it. Lest anyone be under any misconceptions, it’s also worth pointing out that the entire film is not set there: Bond doesn’t reach the casino until over an hour into the film.

Oh yes, and it’s bloody. This film is vicious - far more so than Licence to Kill. The Bond of this film gets beaten and bloodied, and he gives as good as he gets: I can see where the notion that Craig is a thuggish Bond comes from, for he really is absolutely ruthless in the various action scenes, thrashing his opponents within an inch of their lives and, on several occasions, killing in cold blood. Nothing quite lives up to the sheer brutality of the opening bathroom beating (although the torture sequence comes close), but the approach to violence throughout the entire film is more visceral and realistic than anything we’ve seen before. This time, we actually believe that Bond stands a chance of failing - he’s pitted against people who are more than a match for him. As befits this grittier Bond, the film was shot in the inherently grainier Super35, compared to the smooth Anamorphic Panavision of its immediate predecessors.

Having tossed around so many superlatives, I now feel inclined to point out the areas in which the film is more problematic. I essentially have three main complaints:

1. The product placement. This film, which features gratuitous advertisements for everything from Sony Ericsson phones to Blu-ray discs, leaves you in doubt that Bond is now property of Columbia Pictures.

2. The title sequence. The song is forgettable, but the execution of the graphics themselves is cringe-inducing. The concept - a “cards” motif that also showcases the new Bond - is pretty decent, but someone decided to apply a cheap, quasi-animated “cel-shaded” effect to it, which looks like something out of a video game.

3. The pacing. I didn’t mind the length, surprisingly enough, but I do agree with criticisms that the final act is rather anticlimactic. My understanding is that Ian Fleming’s original novel was more or less the second act, and that the bulk of the first and third acts were fabricated for the film. It’s a difficult situation - I’m not sure how I would have done things differently had I been writing it - but, despite an explosive climax in Venice, it feels a bit like an over-long afterthought after

Highlight below to reveal spoiler text:
the main villain has been disposed of.

All in all, though, I had a blast. This one, for me, more than lived up to the hype, and I can’t remember ever becoming so engaged by a Bond film before. After 20 films playing to largely the same formula, I’m glad they shook things up with a leaner, meaner interpretation, and that, for once, the public seems to have accepted it. 9/10.

V for Vendetta

My HD DVD of V for Vendetta finally arrived today from Amazon.com. Incidentally, I’m glad I decided to order my copy from them - my regular supplier, DVD Pacific, seem to have only just got copies in stock, and, in any event, Amazon’s shipping times and, for HD DVDs, prices, seem to be pretty much the same as DVD Pacific’s anyway.

Anyway, the disc. This is a very good but not outstanding presentation. I’d put it in the same category as the likes of Constantine and Million Dollar Baby: essentially, a smooth, rich presentation with a pleasing amount of detail and no visible compression artefacts, but not an out of this world eye-popper like Serenity (to date, still the most incredible home video presentation I’ve ever seen of a film) or Unleashed. Some edge enhancement is visible, and the image doesn’t have the crispness of some of the more stellar titles, but it is all in all a very nice-looking transfer.

As for extras, we get an exclusive In-Movie Experience, which I’ve briefly sampled and found to be somewhat better than those found on the likes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Also, all of the extras from the 2-disc special edition DVD have been ported over. And yes, that includes the Natalie Portman SNL short so tragically absent from the UK DVD releases.

Expect a full review at DVD Times by the end of the week.

Oh, and it seems that, despite HD DVD players not yet being available in the UK, Play.com are already shipping copies of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a title which is not yet available in the US. The word on the street is that this is actually a US disc, right down to the FBI warning and MPAA ratings screen at the start of the disc. If nothing else, this bodes well for future UK HD DVD releases, at least from Warner.

Torn Curtain: North by North Leipzig

After the disappointment of Topaz, I was dreading this, a film seemingly even more reviled than that particular misadventure. As luck would have it, though, Torn Curtain is in a completely different league. The reviews may have been a bit muted, but I thoroughly enjoyed what is essentially a European North by Northwest, featuring a double agent, Professor Michael Armstrong (Paul Newman), who, along with his girlfriend Sarah (Julie Andrews), finds himself on the run from the East German authorities from whom he has been tasked to procure vital information about an anti-missile defence system.

I’ll begin by stating what doesn’t work with this film. Yes, it’s true that Paul Newman and Julie Andrews are incredibly miscast (especially the former, who is never convincing as a brilliant nuclear scientist). Hitchcock made it known to them in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to be making the film, and the hostility on the set permeates throughout their performances. It’s also true that, like Topaz, Torn Curtain features another disappointing score (Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann had a massive falling-out during the scoring process, with the two never working together again, with the replacement score by John Addison coming across as bland and, again, too light-hearted). Furthermore, there’s very little new on offer here, with the script (originally penned by Brian Moore but redone by ghost-writers after Hitchcock threw most of his work out) cobbling together various ideas from other films in Hitchcock’s career, ranging from the “two lovers on the run” theme of The 39 Steps to the “spy manipulates girlfriend for the greater good” motif of Notorious.

Are these problems? Absolutely, but they don’t stop Torn Curtain from being an immensely enjoyable film. Newman actually makes a reasonably effective hero provided he’s not trying to pass himself off as a scientist, and, while the plot is nothing new, it didn’t bore me for a minute. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I was riveted throughout, and, in the run-up towards the climax, it all becomes incredibly tense and exciting. It may play like something of a greatest hits package, in much the same vein as Argento’s Non Ho Sonno, but by and large Hitchcock is reusing material that was successful for a reason, and continues to work the second time round. It also has Lila Kedrova (who I knew for her role in Massimo Dallamano’s The Cursed Medallion) hamming it up something rotten, which is definitely a good thing. The most acclaimed moment, however, and rightly so, is a sequence in which Armstrong and a peasant woman find themselves forced to murder Armstrong’s “minder”, Gromek (Wolfgang Kieling). Memorable for showing just how difficult it is to kill a man (stabbing him and bludgeoning him with a shovel don’t work, so they eventually have to push his head inside an oven and gas him), it shows that, even if he wasn’t having the time of his life making this lower-tier effort, Hitchcock was still able to rise to the occasion and deliver something truly imaginative.

8/10.

Topaz: Hitchcock fumbles

Sometimes, even the great ones misfire: this would be Hitchcock’s turn. There are essentially three problems with Topaz: the casting, the script, and the length of the damn thing. The plot revolves around André Devereaux (Frederick Stafford), a French spy who is roped in by the Americans to identify the members of Topaz, a group of top French government officials working for the Soviets. Or, at least, that’s the plot as it seems to boil down. In reality, the film is two hours and twenty minutes of meandering, plodding flimflam that gradually makes its way towards a thoroughly anticlimactic conclusion.

It starts out well enough, with a tense and reasonably effective defection by a top KGB official and his family, while on holiday in Denmark. Had the entire film been like this, I would have been rapt. Sadly, this soon gives way to a whole lot of uninvolving nonsense as the bland Stafford travels first to Harlem, then to Havana, and then finally to Paris. The actor is miscast, and the character is uninteresting. Indeed, the most engaging aspect of the material in Havana is that his lover, resistance leader Juanita de Cordoba (Karin Dor), looks quite a lot like giallo scream queen Edwige Fenech. Maurice Jarre’s score, meanwhile, is somewhat forgettable and, even worse, at times highly inappropriate - witness, for example, a late scene in which, believing that his son-in-law has fallen to his death, Devereaux and his daughter Michèle (Claude Jade) rush down the stars to music that wouldn’t seem out of place in a madcap comedy.

Still, at the end of the day, it’s Hitchcock, and as such, even in its worst moments it’s technically solid. It also has its brief moments of genius - the aforementioned introductory scenes in Denmark are gripping, as is a lengthy sequence in which Devereaux’s associate, Philippe Dubois (an underused Roscoe Lee Browne), distracts Cuban leader Rico Parra (John Vernon) while his secretary makes off with a suitcase. The death of Juanita is also masterfully handled, with, as Mike Sutton points out in his review, her dress spreading out like the petals of a flower as she sinks to the ground. Even at his weakest, Hitchcock always manages to inject a moment or two of delight into his films. Topaz has its fair share, but, for the most part, it’s simply too plodding, too overwrought, too downright inconsequential for it to sit in the same company as classics like The Birds and North by Northwest, or even later gems like Frenzy.

5/10 - for completists only.

Cars

Cars once again confirms Pixar’s status as the premier creator of theatrical animation in North America, and, while this disc is decidedly lacking in terms of extras, the transfer and audio are of a high standard. No doubt this film will see a more impressive release at a later date, perhaps when Ratatouille arrives in Summer 2007. Until then, however, this release should tide eager viewers over.

Pixar’s latest animated feature arrives on DVD courtesy of Disney Home Entertainment. I’ve reviewed the R1 release of Cars, which smells of double-dip syndrome.

Ready, set… go!

Yesterday, I received a review copy of the Region 1 release of Cars, the latest Pixar Talking Picture. My brother got the limited edition Australian tin box release for his birthday, and a side by side comparison reveals that there isn’t a great deal of difference between the two. While neither are as eye-poppingly crisp as the excellent PAL release of The Incredibles, they’re definitely both better than the disappointing transfers afforded to Finding Nemo, and stack up reasonably favourably against the transfers of the various other Pixar DVD releases. Expect a full review at DVD Times within the next week.

PS. It seems that I have a fan. A fellow calling himself “Nick Jordan” (presumably not related to the fictional television character of the same name) has left me some of the most delightful feedback. He is, it would appear, a huge fan of both my site and my Suspiria audio commentary, and can hardly hold his bladder at the thought that I am about to undertake another. You can read his charming commendations here and here.

Update, December 19, 2006 06:03 PM: Fixed dead links.

Blood and Bava

Along with Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava is often considered to be part of the holy trinity of Italian horror cinema. In 1963, he wrote and directed The Girl Who Knew Too Much, which is widely considered to be the first ever giallo film, and his influence can be felt in virtually every American slasher film of the 1980s, with his Bay of Blood (also known as Twitch of the Death Nerve) having been ripped off wholesale by Sean S. Cunningham with Friday the 13th.

Despite this, however, I’ve never really been able to get into Bava’s films in the way that I have with Argento, Fulci and other less immediately memorable giallo directors like Massimo Dallamano, Aldo Lado, Luciano Ercoli and Paolo Cavara. Bava is one of the finest visual craftsmen ever to have lived - that much, I think, is undeniable - and the minuscule budgets he had to work with only serves to make his achievements all the more remarkable. I think that he is often let down by his scripts, though. Bava was very much a “director for hire” in the traditional sense: he would turn his hand to anything in order to put food on the table, and, as such, he never claimed a genre as his own in the way that Argento did with giallo and Sergio Leone did with the Western. A lot of Bava’s films, therefore, fail to engage me, because I often get the feeling that he wasn’t truly invested in what he was doing. As visually awe-inspiring as his work is, he often seems to have found himself working with rather generic scripts, and while I don’t think that an amazing screenplay is by any means the be-all and end-all of a film, most of the time I struggle to understand the big deal with his films.

If The Girl Who Knew Too Much was the film that started the giallo phenomenon, it was Blood and Black Lace, made a year later, that solidified many of the archetypes that would be adopted wholesale during the boom of the early 1970s: the masked, black-attired killer; the cast of nubile women being offed; the psychosexual nature of the murders; the parade of shifty suspects, all with something to hide. The narrative, as such, seems a bit derivative, although it must be remembered that this is the one that set the stage for what was to come. It’s not a particularly remarkable plot, though, even taking into account its position as a forerunner to the genre: a series of murders are taking place, the victims all models from a prestigious agency. The usual shifty-looking characters are on the prowl, and, despite dropping like flies, none of the women are particularly eager to divulge what they know. I doubt that this would have been considered original stuff even at the time of its release. Rightly or wrongly, however, it has been retroactively identified as the first ever “body count movie”.

What does stand out as remarkable, though, is the photography. Even by Bava’s already high standards, this is one incredible-looking piece of work. He originally trained as a painter, and it shows: every frame is expertly composed, with a level of three-dimensionality that sucks you into the world, despite its obviously artificial appearance. It’s obvious that Argento was heavily influenced by this when he did Suspiria 13 years later, and yet the comparisons are somewhat unjust. Whereas Suspiria’s setting could never be mistaken for that of the real world, Blood and Black Lace’s feels authentic despite its deliberate artifice.

In the final analysis, therefore, I can’t claim to be as enamoured by Blood and Black Lace as some, but I appreciate it as a key film partially responsible for spawning one of the Italian film industry’s most lucrative filoni, and as an outstanding achievement in a technical sense. This is definitely a film that deserves to be seen by a wider audience, so that people can appreciate not only where the giallo genre came from, but also the American slasher movement of the 1970s and 80s. Bava definitely doesn’t get the recognition he deserves as a trendsetter.

PS. I’m incredibly grateful to Lee for his copy of the German DVD release of the film, which is vastly preferable to either of the two releases put out by VCI in the US.

Asterix and the Vikings

Asterix and the Vikings leaves an overall impression of being one of the better adaptations of the series. We’ve been starved for traditional animation lately, and to see a new film that is not only hand-drawn but also drawn well is a rare treat indeed. Still, if you’re already a fan of the book, don’t expect this adaptation to convey the depth and tone of the source material, although, conversely, it may give you a newfound appreciation for what Goscinny and Uderzo were able to achieve in only 44 pages that the filmmakers struggle to convey in 75 minutes. That said, a new Asterix has been a long time in coming, and I only hope we don’t have to wait another 12 years for the next one.

After a 12-year absence, Asterix the Gaul returns with a new animated adventure. I’ve reviewed the R2 French release of Asterix and the Vikings, which features both English and French audio and an array of extras.

Asterix and the Vikings

My copy of the recently released R2 French release of Asterix and the Vikings arrived this morning from Amazon.fr. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the French release is unusual in that it caters to English speakers by including not only English audio but also subtitles. Like Asterix Conquers America, the film was animated to an English dialogue track. As is usually the case with the Asterix films in English, all the roles were once again recast, with a selection of A- and B-list actors providing the voices. Asterix is played by Paul Giamatti, Obelix by Brad Garrett, Justforkix by Sean Astin, Abba by Evan Rachel Wood, and Timandahaf by John Di Maggio.

Of these, only Garrett and Di Maggio have had any particular experience providing voice-overs for animation, and to be honest it shows. As I said in my review of Corpse Bride yesterday, live action stars generally do not make good voice actors, because providing voice-overs requires a completely different set of abilities (since, naturally, they have to rely on their vocal performance alone instead of also drawing on things like body language and appearance). The voices are generally competent, but none of them really feel like they’re coming organically from the characters, and a number of the actors are guilty of overacting. This is especially true of the individuals playing Vitalstatistix and his brother Doublehelix (the guilty parties aren’t listed on IMDB, and the DVD includes only the French credits, so I’m not sure who’s responsible). It’s bizarre, but the French track, which is dubbed, feels a lot more natural than its English counterpart.

As far as the Asterix films go, this is one of the better ones. This is a series that really hasn’t had a particularly rosy history in the cinematic form, mainly because the mood and humour of the comics is so precise that it must be very difficult to convey it adequately in animation (and the less said about the two live action adaptations the better). As such, Asterix and the Vikings may not be perfect, but it’s certainly not a travesty by any means - and it’s definitely better than Asterix Conquers America, which, produced in 1994, was the most recent animated effort before this one. In terms of animation and technical prowess, this is definitely the most attractive of the bunch, although the garish colour palette is a little overdone. Plot-wise, it varies between being extremely faithful to the source material (so close, in fact, that entire pages are literally lifted from the book Asterix and the Normans with only minimal changes), and coming up with completely unique material, including a bunch of new characters and situations. Unfortunately, like Asterix and the Big Fight, the jokes are fairly infrequent, and those that are included aren’t hugely funny. It’s nice to see Asterix back on the screen in an animated form, however, and it blows the live action iterations out of the water.

Transfer-wise, this release is a bit of a disappointment. The digitally sourced transfer certainly looks vibrant (too vibrant, in fact, although this is most likely the result of the colour palette itself rather than any additional goosing for the DVD release), but the image has a very harsh look. Noticeably filtered and edge enhanced, lines are rough and jagged rather than smooth, with massive amounts of stair-stepping on display. This gives the image an oddly low resolution appearance, looking a little too much like a poor scaling job for comfort. At least the compression is reasonably competent, though, and the banded gradients that show up so often in digital animation are thankfully kept to a minimum.

Update, December 19, 2006 06:15 PM: Fixed dead link.

Halloween reviews special: Corpse Bride

Corpse Bride is a title that I suspect I shall come to view more as a demo disc than as something to sit down and watch, since, while the film has its proponents, I can’t help seeing it as incredibly disappointing given the strengths of The Nightmare Before Christmas. In terms of audio-visual quality, however, this disc is close to being as good as it gets, and as such, gets my recommendation for the quality of the presentation, if nothing else.

For this year’s final Halloween review, I’ve reviewed the recently released HD DVD of Corpse Bride, which features a stellar audio-visual presentation of Tim Burton’s latest stop motion animated feature.

Halloween reviews special: Death Laid an Egg

Although I would consider Death Laid an Egg absolutely essential viewing for anyone with an interest in gialli, the problematic nature of this DVD’s presentation makes it difficult to recommend, particularly given the high price tag. Unfortunately, it seems to be the best we’re going to get for the time being, since the usual rights issues would appear to be preventing a wider release.

What would you get if David Cronenberg, Jean-Luc Godard and Nicolas Roeg got together to make a giallo? Answer: Death Laid an Egg. I’ve reviewed the R2 Japanese DVD of this bafflingly weird 1968 offering.

Halloween reviews special: The Machinist

Toshiba have given The Machinist a decent enough high definition release, with a solid transfer. Unfortunately, the audio problems mar the viewing experience somewhat, while the fact that not all of the extras have been transferred over means that many people will want to hang on to their standard definition releases. Ultimately, though, it’s nice to see a slightly more offbeat film getting released on HD DVD, which makes a nice change from the various blockbusters and romantic comedies that are showing up on the format in the US.

Can there be anything more horrifying than the sight of a 120 pound Christian Bale in full high definition? I find out with my review of the R0 Japanese HD DVD of The Machinist.