Joe Henry - another Sydfest highlight

If you're in Sydney, there's still a chance to head to Hyde Park's Spiegeltent to see Joe Henry, one of the musical highlights of this year's Sydney Festival.

See The Australian's festival coverage for my online review, extracted here:

"ON a washing line of singer-songwriters US troubadour Joe Henry would be pegged up at the literate individualist end, flapping in the breeze with Tom Waits and Elvis Costello - neither of whom he resembles. Henry is a survivor trying to shrug off life’s disappointments; a caustic observer of American foibles and personal follies adept at a poetic twist of phrase..."

Too inebriated to engage in sexual intercourse? Pas moi!

"From the moment she crawled on stage like a wild animal, French singer Camille brilliantly confounded traditional expectations of how a singer is meant to perform while masterfully bringing the audience to ever greater peaks of delight..."

My full review of Camille's fabulous Sydney City Recital Hall concert is in The Australian's Sydney Festival section. If this and the clip above makes you want see her, as they should, then pray she returns soon.

Oscar's cinematic demolition derby

"...there has to be something wrong when so many of the year's finest studio pictures get pushed into such a narrow release window, creating a relative shortage throughout the rest of the year. When I talk about quality films I mean essentially dramas - the kind of films the studios, far more interested in mass-appeal sequels, kid flicks, rom-coms, torture porn, thrillers and digital effect-a-thons, leave to their specialty divisions, which after a bad year are now in retreat."

Extract from Cinematic Demolition Derby, my piece on the ABC's Unleashed opinion site on how Oscar films are clogging our cinemas to the detriment of (a) film programming through the rest of the year and (b) the health of the US indie sector.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Gump

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The Curious Case of Forrest Gump - watch more funny videos

Koch vs Cruise in Battle of the Valkyries

With the Tom Cruise film Valkyrie opening across Australia tomorrow, a tip of the hat to SBS TV for screening Jo Bauer's lavishly mounted German telemovie Operation Valkyrie (aka Stauffenberg) last night.

It was the previous major attempt at depicting the 1944 assassination plot against Hitler led by Lieutenant Claus von Stauffenberg (played here by Sebastian Koch,who played the playwright in The Lives of Others, and a Nazi officer in The Black Book) . (note: copy corrected).

Haven't watched it yet bar a few stolen glimpses but it's bound to make fascinating comparison with Bryan Singer's Valkyrie, made for the resurrected United Artists, which I have seen.

I'll be writing about both films elsewhere. In the meantime I'll simply note that it's interesting that The Weinstein Company bought the rights to the German film last year and that from the brief moments I glimpsed last night, there appear to be similarities between the two films that are even more striking than might be expected.

See here for a 2004 Urban Cinefile interview with Baier. The German director was a guest of the 2004 Festival of German Films, where his film had its Australian premiere. When the film premiered on German TV it was watched by 7.5 million - representing nearly a quarter of the nation's households.

Gregor Jordan's newie the worst film in human history (it says here)

I don't usually quote other blog posts in full but this withering reaction to Australian director Gregor Jordan's new film, The Informers, from Hollywood Elsewhere's hyperactive Jeffrey Wells, writing from Sundance, is a zinger. It starts off with a headline that reads "Vomit Bag" and doesn't get any softer.

"Gregor Jordan's The Informers, based on Brett Easton Ellis 's 1994 book of the same name, is about as rancid and repellent as a movie of this sort gets. Set in 1983 Los Angeles, it makes you feel immensely sorry for the actors but mostly for yourself because you're stuck watching it. I just came out of it; everyone I've spoken to about it (i.e, those who saw it with me at the Yarrow) looks pained and deflated -- like they've got the flu.

"I know that I will never ever watch another sleazy, poison-virus flick about a bunch of empty, drugged-up Hollywood zombies smoking too much, drinking too much, doing too much blow and boring the living shit out of the audience. That's it - I'm done. The script, co-authored by Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki, is occasionally functional but more often flat and tedious; sometimes it's repulsively stupid. It may be the worst Sundance movie I've ever seen -- it's certainly one of the biggest stinkers ever to show here.

"I have to go catch Bronson now but this film made me want to puke. What a thing to watch after cheering Barack Obama's inauguration! Shame on everyone involved with this film except for Billy Bob Thornton, the only actor in this film who manages to exude at least a smidgen of dignity."

So you didn't like it, Jeffrey?

Postscript 1.05pm: ropeofsilicon has a useful summary of early reviews and as Scott reports in the comments box, it's clear that Wells is by no means alone. When reviews are this bad they tend to increase my desire to see the film, if only to check out if it's really that bad.

Sometimes I can be pleasantly surprised - if you approach a film with low expectations and it turns out to be at worst merely flawed or uneven or mediocre (which means that by definition it hits a certain base level of competence), then the experience be one of discovery. Which reminds me, must hire Richard Kelly's Southland Tales now that it's out on DVD in Australia.

Ry Cooder - I, Flathead

RY COODER
I, Flathead
Nonesuch/ Warner Music 7559-79900-5
****

Ry Cooder is world music’s most renowned poly-cultural collaborator, as evidenced by his projects featuring Buena Vista Social Club, V.M. Bhatt and Ali Farka Toure. Just lately though he’s returned to his roots in Americana via his Californian Trilogy, beginning with Chavez Ravine and continuing with last year’s My Name is Buddy.

The final CD, I, Flathead, is billed as the product of fictional musician Kash Buk and his band, The Klowns, their exploits further detailed in a 95-page novella.

The sense of fun is ubiquitous as Cooder cycles through diverse styles of earlier eras including electric blues, western swing, country and rock, the tongue-in-cheek lyrics and striking melodies possibly influenced by his former Little Village partner, Nick Lowe. The track Johnny Cash, complete with Cooder’s lifelike vocal impersonation of the man in black, exemplifies the disc’s strengths; what could have been dead pastiche is instead delivered with vim and swagger. _ Lynden Barber

First published in Limelight, November 2008

(Cooder image: Vincent Valdez)

70% of our films bomb - Ang Lee's producer

Just come across a piece by co-host of ABC TV’s At the Movies, Margaret Pomeranz, republished on the Australian Film, Television and Radio School's blog site, the (red) set*.

The remarks she quotes from Ang Lee's producer, James Schamus (pictured), strike me as extremely germane in the discussion about the poor domestic box office for Australian film that's been going on in recent months. I don't think the comments should be used to make excuses for poor performing local fims, they simply serve to put the debate into a broader international context.

"I once had a long talk with James Shamus, writer and producer of all of Ang Lee’s films. He is one of the principals of Focus Features, a small, highly regarded production company in America, the arthouse offshoot of Universal Pictures, which produces about 10 films a year.

"I asked him how many of those 10 films he regarded as successful. He replied, 'about three'. I was dumbfounded. 'But with all your skills, your expertise, your experience,' I stammered. 'How come so few?' 'Because it only takes one factor to be wrong,' he replied. (You can see the full interview with James Shamus at abc.net.au/atthemovies) " (except it doesn't appear to be up yet - LB)

"It’s that delicate, this film industry. Not just ours. Globally. One factor going wrong and the film is a failure. With the whole of Australia producing a little more than 20 films a year from fractured production sources, the miracle is that we sometimes do get it right."

(image: flakmag.com)

Thumbs up and down for Mary and Max

The reviews have started to come in for Mary and Max following its screening as the official opening night film at Sundance, and the verdict is...mixed.

The film is, of course, the much-anticipated debut feature for the Melbourne-based filmmaker Adam Elliot, who won the Oscar in 2003 for best animated short with his rather lovable claymation effort, Harvey Krumpet. Icon Films are releasing the feature in Australia on April 9 (see here for its very appealing website).

Screen Daily (Screen International on-line) calls the feature "...another bold example of adult storytelling through animation to follow recent breakthroughs like Chicago Ten, Waltz With Bashir and $9.99.

"Shot through with a bittersweet sense of humour and a visual panache which captures but never mocks human loneliness, it will be a firm festival favourite...although its theatrical life will be limited strictly to the arthouse. Awards recognition could drive it to a more promising life in ancillary markets" (ie. DVD, free-to-air and pay TV - LB).

indieWIRE says the film, voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette, "creates a unique mixture of darkly playful and bittersweet vibes with his quixotic visual technique, but lacks the ability to make the whole thing jive together as a single package....

"Perhaps because the filmmaker’s style has such remarkable individuality, the movie beats out other recent claymation ventures — including the Israeli feature $9.99 and Henry Selick’s upcoming Coraline—for constructing an entire world with its own special brand of absurdity. At the same time, Elliot could benefit from a rigorous script doctor: While the simplicity of the narrative reflects an intentionally morose tone, it also hints at the filmmaker’s room to grow."

Cinematical: "Although a tad sappy and heavy-handed at times, Mary and Max fidgets and wiggles its way into our good spirits by the time it reaches its endearing conclusion."

The most critical voice is that of Variety: "Maudlin sentiment, miserablist humor and scatological sight gags are affectionately but awkwardly molded together...A glum tale of friendship....has its share of deadpan amusements, but its combo of mordant whimsy and tearjerker moments winds up curdling in an unappetising fashion. A strong voice cast...could buoy the toon's otherwise uncertain prospects beyond Oz..." The review concludes, lest you failed to get the message, that "Mary and Max is clearly a labor of love, but one destined perhaps to be loved by a very select few."

The film's next big international outing is at the Berlinale (Berlin Film Festival) next month.

More views at IFC.com

If you build it they won't come

Audiences scatter in fright as the engine 'Aussie film' rolls into station

Screen Oz has just announced the domestic box office results for local films in 2008 - which of course seem less dismal than they really are because they're inflated by Baz's big, hugely hyped studio production, Straya. The latter's $26.9 million (during the 2008 calendar year) took box office earnings to a total $35.5 million.

This amounts to 3.8 per cent of the total box office of $945.4 million.

The Black Balloon, was the second highest domestic grosser, with $2.3 million.

Australia’s first-ever official co-production with China, Children of the Silk Road (pictured above), came third grossing $1.2 million.

While 2008 saw the release of several very good Australian films (discussed on this site), it became increasingly clear as the year progressed that the brand "Australian film" had become a turn-off in the public mind.

Nothing about that in the Screen Oz media release, of course.

It's no good just making good films in the future. The public doesn't want to see them. Addressing this massive problem up front, rather than ignoring it in the hope it will go away, might be a good way to start.

New Order 1982 - I was there, honest

Below, one of my live reviews of New Order, published in Melody Maker, January 30, 1982.

Not sure what I think of the writing - OK, I think it sounds naive, but hey, I was young. Still it does provide a snapshot of a moment. And the final line, "New Order may only have just begun" turns out to have been prescient.

In early 1982 the band had yet to record their breakthrough hit, Blue Monday; they were only just starting to come out of the shadow of their former incarnation as Joy Division and reinvent themselves as pioneers of a new rock /electro hybrid. It was clear from this gig they were heading in an exciting direction.

NEW ORDER North London Polytechnic

First the resounding echo of the cumbersome mythology surrounding
this group, then the subsequent, inevitable dismissals and sneers. Now,
perhaps for the first time, it's possible to listen to New Order
freely, untainted by excessive fears or prejudices.

Not that they don't share responsibility for some of the more
unfortunate aspects of their image. Nobody can control the stupid
dead-pop-star religion, for sure, but New Order seemed too keen to
encourage the growth of some special aura, quite happy to be shrouded
in mystique on some sacred pedestal of musical greatness.

There was the reluctance to speak to the press, of course, and those
portentous lyrics and self-important song titles - The Him, Truth,
etc., but it didn't stop there - these tendencies found a natural
reflection in the music too. When does passion stray into pomp and
dignity into posturing? Their first album seemed to suggest they
weren't even sure themselves.

To judge New Order properly the myth needs to be shattered - they're
ordinary, down-to-earth people who happen to have a bent for music,
right? - and at tonight's gig, in a small, high-ceiling students
hall, they oblige perfectly.

Humanity, frailty? At first things look like becoming a disaster. On
Denial, the second number of the set, Bernard Albrecht seems totally
out of touch with what the others are playing, his guitar cutting in
and out as inappropriate junctures. Whether it's incompetence or just a
technical fault (bad monitors?) doesn't seem to matter though; from
here on New Order launch into a selection of some of the most divinely physical dance music you're likely to hear all year.

Live they aren't all dark and gloom at all. Those negative tints are
there to add emotional shadings, not to dazzle; stand watching in too
much awe and you'll miss out on some of the pure joy involved in their
music.

New Order provide a much-needed slug of passion tonight, reviving
nerve endings that have grown tired from under-use. Too many groups at
the moment are content with just playing, making sure they've got the
notes right; New Order are more concerned with the way they play,
pushing themselves to the limits on every song, forcing the pressure at
all available points.

There's two responses to all this - stand and gawp (as most of the
audience did, still obsessed by the myth, no doubt) or throw yourself
into the music with the spirit it demands.

General preconceptions of what kind of rhythms constitute "dance
music" are still so narrow - too many people assume that "white rock"
ain't for dancing' and "black funk" ain't for listening'.

New Order are proving that's not necessarily so; their last piece, an
irresistible application of Giorgio Moroder's electrodance ideas (in
much the same style as Everything's Gone Green, excluded from the
set), hit a gloriously punishing level of intensity from the first note
and never let up.

New Order may only have just begun. - LYNDEN BARBER

3D = 2D with layers

The Hollywood studios - Katzenberg's DreamWorks Animation and Disney especially - thought they'd found the answer to the threat of illegal downloading when they hit on the formula of digital 3D.

There are many of us who thought this sounded a bit desperate - the format is hardly new and never worked as anything other than a gimmick when it initially came in the 1950s as a way of attracting people to the cinema in the television era. But who really knows?

Meet the Robinsons gave me such a headache I had to take off my special 3D goggles from time to time. On the other hand the concert film U23D had no such problems and looked stunning (though the fact it was also in Imax format was a huge factor in its favour).

But while the jury is still out, it may be leaning towards a negative verdict, according to a story in today's New York Times.

"Studios, thrilled by 3D’s dual promises of higher profits and artistic advancement, have aggressively embraced the technology without waiting for movie theaters to get on board," writes Brooks Barnes. "And without those expensive upgrades to projection equipment at the multiplex, mass market 3D releases are not tenable...

"...Only about 1,300 of North America’s 40,000 or so movie screens support digital 3-D. (Imax adds 250.) Overseas, where films now generate up to 70 percent of their theatrical revenue, only a few hundred theaters can support the technology. It costs about $100,000 for each full upgrade.

"Studios require about 3,000 screens in North America for most new releases. (Upcoming) popcorn movies like Avatar or Monsters vs. Aliens, a 3D entry from DreamWorks Animation, typically open on more than 4,000 screens. "

In any case, 3D is hardly likely to be drawing people back to cinemas now that the inevitable - 3D TV - is just around the corner.

As Barnes observes, the delay in the introduction of 3D in cinemas is threatening to undercut "the ability to deliver an experience that consumers cannot replicate at home....The home entertainment market is rapidly catching up, with companies developing 3D options for the home. RealD, a California company that is the lead provider of 3D technology for theaters, last week demonstrated a similar product for televisions at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas."

Of course if punters are viewing 3D movies at home (through DVD-3D or whatever machines we'll end up playing the things on) the studios will hardly care - they'll still be raking in the income, at least for as long as these films are not available via illegal file sharing.

But the cinemas will lose out - which is bound to make many in the exhibition business wonder why on earth they need the extra expense of installation of 3D projection - particularly in a recession.

A longer term problem may be that for all the hype, digital 3D is no nearer to genuine 3D than its analogue predecessor. That is to say that it fails to offer the multiple perspectives that a technology based on holography would offer.

Walk around the cinema while a digital 3D film is playing and everything still looks the same. You're really watching a multi-layered version of 2D, in which some objects appear nearer the viewer, some further away. That's not a three-dimensional experience, which requires that you get a different perspective on the action as you change your position in the auditorium.

As holographic-based entertainment technology is developed - surely not so far away - viewers will be able to peer around actors and objects. But how to sell this new, genuinely revolutionary experience? The phrase 3D will by then have been thrown away on enhanced 2D.

(image: elearning.kern-comm.com)

Sydney Festival kicks off with a third of a million in the streets

The Australian has seriously ramped up its coverage of this year's Sydney Festival, which launched on Saturday night with nearly a third of a million people crammed into the city centre for free activities including concerts by Grace Jones and Santogold.

I'm contributing to the many additional short'n'sharp reviews that'll be going on-line within a few hours of the events' conclusions - starting off with my verdict (mixed) of indie favourite Bill Callahan's (pictured) opening performance last night (Sunday) at the Spiegeltent.

This is the final year at the helm for the event's Irish director Fergus Linehan, who has massively ramped up the number of acts liable to appeal to under-40 audiences, including the Nick Cave-curated All Tomorrow's Parties mini-rock fest (which kicked off in Victoria at the weekend).

(image: harpmagazine.com)

What I did on my holidays - part 1

Did some catch up viewing on DVD and the TV over the Xmas break. Here's the verdicts - no deep-fried film criticism, here, just off-the-cuff reactions (heck, it's getting late)...

THE 'WHY THE HELL DIDN'T I SEE THESE IN THE CINEMA?' CATEGORY:

Junebug (SBS) - Amazingly strong - and quite different to what I expected. I don't know, thought it might be good but perhaps just a tad drab and worthy. Wrong. You could take any 10 second patch at random and it would just leap off the screen. Takes the standard set-up of the urban-dwelling son/ daughter returning to their family in the smalltown or suburb where they grew up (a la Ten Empty, Mullet, Beautiful Girls et al) and does something magical with a set of richly drawn characters. To stack it up against Ten Empty is to despair.

I was forewarned about the brilliance of Amy Adams's performance as the lead's almost manically perky sister-in-law by its Academy nomination. The revelation was Embeth Davidtz's comical fish-out-of-water English art dealer from Chicago, trying so hard to fit in - at least, when it suited her. Davidtz has been good in everything I've seen her in, which isn't much - off the top of my head, Schindler's List and Bicentennial Man, and um, is that it? We should see more of her.

Apocalypto (DVD) - Quite stunned by this. Extraordinary, virtuoso film-making. Sure, the violence is consistently over-the-top, though watching at home actually makes the film easier to watch from that point of view (assuming you're a bit of a wuss). The US critics were patronising, as if every word of praise had to be wrung out of them, but Mel Gibson's arrest and anti-semitic rant was in the recent past and it's hard not to detect the agenda.

The allegorical layers don't really resonate as Gibson probably intended but as pure action cinema this is a blinder.

MY GOD THIS IS FAR BETTER THAN ANY COP SHOW I'VE SEEN:

Life on Mars (DVD) - I never bothered when it was on TV - the central conceit sounded too gimmicky (cop in the present goes back in time to 1973) but nothing prepared me for:

(a) the productive ambiguity about how John Simm's DI Sam Tyler got there (coma? timeshift? insanity?)

(b) the fabulous humour, much of which springs from...

(c) the brilliant characterisation of Philip Glenister's DCI Gene Hunt (pictured), Tyler's sexist, foul-mouthed, rule-bending boss - surely one of the most memorable screen cops of all time . He's the bad guy you love to - well not to hate, but in fact sneakily enjoy. Like the Devil, he has all the best lines - and there's lots of them. (Eg of a scared witness : "He looks more nervous than a very short nun at a penguin shoot."). Glenister's performance was full of conviction while just holding back from pushing over the top.

I SUSPECTED I MIGHT FIND THIS OVER-RATED AND...

Pan's Labyrinth (DVD) - I realise, thinking about it, that the reason I never got around to seeing this on the big screen was because I'd felt let-down by Guillermo Del Toro's over-praised The Devil's Backbone (handsome yet somehow coldly uninvolving) and suspected this might be the same. In fact it took me three nights to get to the end of this - literally had to force myself. Yes, it has superbly mounted fantasy sequences (including remarkable sound design), as expected.

The problem is that the Spanish Civil War framing story is totally inert. The Fascist stepfather is a cartoon villain lacking in either real menace or complexity (even Hitler was nice to his dog and Eva Braun - something the team behind Downfall understood only too well) . The maid who's "secretly" helping the partisans is so obvious in her behaviour she might as well have a neon sign with the word Resistance! Shoot Me! attached to her head. The teenage girl lacks personality and her relationship with her sick mother is without any real human interest. But hey, what would I know? The young woman behind the Video Ezy counter promised me I'd find this "amazing" (usually a very bad sign, I find).

GEE THIS STACKS UP INCREDIBLY WELL

Stand By Me (DVD) Perfect in every way. Hadn't seen this for 20 years and the only thing that's changed is that it's become even more resonant - it's certainly more poignant for knowing how River Phoenix's early death uncannily echoes the fate of his character who, as we learn in the opening scene that frames the story as a long flashback, is destined to die young after intervening in a bar fight. A film about youth and death that is never heavy-handed, frequently humorous and always truthful.

Postscript (Friday): Just realising the word "Dickensian" captures Philip Glenister's DCI Gene Hunt larger than life aspect very nicely.

Mythic archetypes and all that superheroic jazz

Reader david's comments on my post Further thoughts on superhero movies - part 2 suggest a fruitful branch of the superhero discussion.

It occurs to him "to wonder where all this began and having done so I think it's as old as the campfire really. Larger than life figures with magical powers are part of the oldest stories. Even Shakespeare's predilection for the lives of royalty fits the mould, his protagonists holding the power to alter history or destiny."

I think he's right; superheroes are mythic archetypes. The same goes for supervillains like The Joker, who offers a variation on the Jungian archetype of the trickster."

Aided by my magical wand , ie. Google, I've discovered that Refractory, Melbourne University's on-line journal of entertainment media, has published a fascinating exploration of these ideas in an essay by Nigel Kaw.

Extract:

"Comic-book superheroes are a new form of mythology as they draw on previous incarnations of myths and draw them into themselves to form the latest myth for the times. These mythic themes historically repeat themselves in endless variations.

"The superhero in the comic-book can trace its ancestry back to Greek, Roman, Nordic and many other mythologies of ages past. Ancient mythologies may be considered as a way of explaining the forces of nature to man.

"Examples of myths may be found worldwide that describe how the universe began, how men, animals and all living things originated, along with the world’s inanimate natural forces.

"The heroes/heroines of the Greek and Roman myths for example, had super human qualities that satisfied man’s desire for an invulnerable guardian or protector. Resisting evil was the primary goal. The comicbook superhero is a modification of this monomythic theme that expresses man’s need for feeling control in his life in spite of his vulnerability and mortality.

"'Superhero stories are the myths of today and they require a lot of color and sense of fantasy,' said veteran American comic-book writer and multiple superhero creator, Stan Lee in the LA Times, 8/28/01. That is to say, superheroes fill the same role as the legendary mythological heroes, the gods and demi-gods, warriors and knights of the past.

"The connections between mythic gods and superheroes range from the implicit to explicit. On the explicit side, there are gods and demi-gods who are superheroes: Thor, Hercules and the New Gods are some examples. In the superhero of Thor, we see the ‘first successful attempt to harness existing mythology on a large scale’ to construct a comic-book superhero. Marvel Comics’ The Mighty Thor, really is the Norse God of myth but with superhero updates' (according to Reynolds, Richard, Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology (Studies in Popular Culture)."

The Wikipedia entry on Trickster is also worth seeking out as it offers a detailed account of the archetypal characters who win out over their opponents using trickery, mischief and humour, ranging from mythic characters such as the Norse God or giant Loki *(pictured above) to Bugs Bunny and Chaplin's tramp.

Kaw sees not only The Joker but also Batman as examples of the Trickster. "The Trickster rebels against authority, pointing out the flaws in carefully constructed societies of man. He exists to cause us to question and not accept things blindly. The Batman works outside authority by being a vigilante superhero and by his very existence, questions the corruption of the constructed society of Gotham city."

He doesn't mention The Joker but the two characters are clearly mirror reflections of each other, being similar yet in many ways opposite.

Superman, meanwhile , is the latest incarnation of the mythic archetype of the Saviour or Messiah. "Like Moses or Jesus, 'he originates outside the community he is called to save’[43] and ‘his identity is secret, either by virtue of his unknown origins or his alter ego, his motivations a selfless zeal for justice’.[44]

"Consider how the baby Moses, in order to escape certain death is sent floating down the Nile in a basket," writes Kaw. "Think of baby Kal-El sent off through space in his rocket to escape death from the destruction of his world Krypton. Both of these events lead to mythic heroes with two sets of parents and the later discovery of their hidden destinies as a saviour of humanity.

"In Judeo-Christian beliefs, it is acknowledged that Jesus was portrayed as a new Moses with features that paralleled the story of Moses."

(The quotes footnoted as 43 and 44 are from Lawrence, John Shelton, and Robert Jewett. The Myth of the American Superhero, Cambridge: UK 2002).

How to get someone to read your script

Sit down for this one, it's a shocker.

In his latest Variety column, editor in chief Peter Bart actually turns down an obvious chance to wax egotistical yet again about how he ran Paramount in the '70s and had to persuade, nay, practically beg Francis Ford Coppola to direct The Godfather, yada yada.

Who's been spiking his porridge?

The peculiarly non-self serving Bart column looks at a book by producer and director Tony Bill about on-set jargon, called Movie Speak. It includes a lively anecdote about how to get someone of influence to read your script.

Bart reports that Bill admits "impatience with writers who can’t figure out 'an original, imaginative way of submitting a script.' 'You just don’t mail it in,' he
snorts.

"Bill sites the example of how Bud Yorkin and Norman Lear, when they were first
struggling to get into features, convinced Sinatra to read the script Come Blow Your Horn. One day they hired a moving truck to pull in front of Sinatra’s house, unload a
big leather armchair, a reading lamp and a bottle of Jack Daniels together with, of
course a script. Sinatra was sufficiently amused to read their script right away and
even agreed to star in it."

That should work for Australian screenwriters. Heck, throw in a parcel of cocaine while you're about it.

(image: www.personal.psu.edu)

Straya still hanging in with local audiences

After six weeks in release Baz Luhrmann's Straya has reached A$ 28.8 million in its home territory - very impressive for any film made here and that identifies as Australian.

So I hate to have to point out that's still less than half of what it needs to earn to overtake the local earnings of Titanic, as Australian Fox executives foolishly boasted it would do before its release (and I bet they're now wishing they hadn't).

Meanwhile here's a review (for those few who haven't tired of them) from The Independent On Sunday's always interesting Jonathan Romney, who seems to be disappointed that he didn't hate the film:

"Australia has its watchable moments: the cliff-edge cattle stampede is as breathtaking a 'how-did-they-do-that?' moment as you could wish for (erm no, Jonathan, it's called CGI - LB). But the romance is tepid and formulaic. The love match – stuck-up schoolmarm falls for roistering rough diamond – emulates such chalk-and-cheese screen couples as Deborah Kerr and Robert Mitchum. But there's no frisson between Kidman and Jackman, both actors too wrapped up in their own narcissism. The film's only real surprise is just how bad Kidman is, especially in the first hour, where her cartoonish Pommie neurotic is stridently grating.

"Australia is at once naive and cynical, coy and crass, besotted with nature yet 100 per cent artificial. But it's never boring, the scenery's handsome, and, as long as you don't expect narrative sophistication, there are less lively ways to spend two hours and 45 minutes. Not quite bonzer, but more palatable than the proverbial raw prawn. "

(Sundowners image: www.altfg.com)

Further thoughts on superhero movies - part 2

Interview with Dr Peter Coogan, continued from post below.

Q: Can you briefly argue the case for an Institute for Comic Studies and a Comic Arts Conference? Are comic book movies - usually treated as low-art by the media - also worthy of academic study - and why?

A: "The comics medium is just that- a medium. Like any other, it has highs and lows, art and trash. Comics are a medium for the expression of the human condition. Is there some reason that words alone (novels) and pictures alone (painting) and moving words and pictures (movies, television) deserve study but words and pictures together (comics) don't?

"It's been argued that the pictures in the Lascaux Caves are a kind of comic strip - comics are therefore one of the first media for recording human experience and deserve study just as any other artform does. ICS and the CAC provide places for scholars to study comics - sequential art that records the human experience and ranges in quality just as any other medium ranges in quality.

"Comics in another sense are a very young medium and haven't had the time or space to produce great art yet, but the novel was once young and disparaged, but look at it now. If the novel was worthy of study in the 18th century (and I've had a class in the 18th century novel), comics are worth studying now."

"Cinema studies started by focusing on genre films, particularly the Western. If the horse operas of John Ford could tell us something about ourselves in the forties and fifties, surely the comic book movies of today have something to say.

"If as Michael Atkinson says, "the entirety of American culture...is embracing the childish universe of superheroes", then maybe we ought to try to figure out why. But "comic book movies" is a derogatory term that dismisses the comics medium. Bad movies are bad movies, not "comic book movies." Maus, Persepolis, and Watchmen were all comic books, or graphic novels. Ghost World, The Road to Perdition, and A History of Violence are all "comic book movies" with nary a bit of spandex in sight. If movies deserve to be studied, then movies that adapt novels, movies that adapt comics, movies that come from whatever source they come from deserve to be studied.

"Most academic or scholarly analysis these days does not focus on the aesthetic quality of the object, so why should the study of comics or the films that spring from them be held to some special need for aesthetic analysis - but in addition, and this is a reason for the need for ICS and CAC, the medium-specific concepts to study comics haven't been developed yet.

"We don't have the language or terminology to discuss the aesthetics of comics in the way we do for other older artforms. Scholars and critics need venues to develop critical tools specific to comics just as they have developed them for theater (starting back with Plato and Aristotle), novels, film, music, dance, and other art." (Coogan interview ends)

(Lacaux image: oddee.com)

* Postscript: these are the comments by critic Michael Atkinson to which I asked Coogan to respond: "Superheroes are, essentially by definition, idiotic confections intended for children, and the fact that I can't escape them as an adult so far this millennium makes my blood boil… What's more, adults are flocking, adults reviewers are treating the movies seriously, the filmmakers themselves apparently believe they're making coherent and profound statements.

"The Dark Knight epitomizes the problem specifically not by simply being a Caped Crusader trifle masquerading as Paradise Lost, but because it failed to do the simplest things movies have always done: tell a fucking story. The film is quite literally one violent set-piece followed by a 20-second snatch of exposition, to explain what significance the set-piece is supposed to have, repeated again and again and again, for over 2.5 interminable hours.

"Stories require character and incidents that happen to those characters and decisions those characters have to make, and us watching them make those decisions, and then the tragic triumphant/ironic result of those decisions…

"The Dark Knight runs along literally like a series of disconnected cabaret acts, with what passes for narrative happening off-screen most of the time, and the ample screentime remaining filled up with chases and fights so haphazardly shot and cut you can't tell where anybody is or what's going on.

"We wouldn't be having this conversation if the audience were only kids, however large that audience might be. Somehow the entirety of American culture, young and middle-yeared and old, is embracing the childish universe of superheroes – which is structured around the easily-distracted worldview of kids, not around the reasoned, complex worldview we would hope children would grow into.

"Does America need that badly a post-post-9/11 big Daddy to vanquish danger so we can slumber in our cradles? The much-lamented infantilisation of the mass populace continues, and at what cost? How much public effort and energy and time is spent consuming this attenuated nonsense." (Atkinson ends)

Further thoughts on superhero movies - part 1

My recent "Triumph of the Fanboys" spread for The Weekend Australian, on Hollywood's fascination with superhero movies, featured some very interesting quotes from US academic Dr Peter Coogan, director of the Institute for Comic Studies and co-founder and co-chair of the Comic Arts Conference. (He's also the author of Superhero: The Secret Origin of a Genre, Monkeybrain Books, 2006.)

For space reasons his comments had to be severely edited down from the full interview, which was conducted via email. But as space is no object to Eyes Wired Open I'm taking the opportunity to publish them here in full. They're well worth a read.

Q: WHY the intensification of comic-book film production, especially of films featuring superheros? And why the strong audience response (at least to some of the films)? Many people answer "CGI" - the technology has caught up with the stories and made these fantasy worlds easier and cheaper to put on screen. Others say it's also because studios love pre-developed brands, characters and stories whose audience appeal has already been proven in another medium (as is also the case with movies based on novels, TV series, plays, foreign films, etc)

My suspicion is that other factors are at work too - what is your take?

"I agree that those first two answers are part of the equation. CGI has played a great role in making superheroes believably jump off the four-color page on to the silver screen. Costuming technology has advanced - just compare Christian Bale in Batman Begins to Adam West in the Batman TV show. And branding - with ready-made audiences who can be wooed at the San Diego Comic-Con and be brought on board as viral marketers through web-based interaction and behind-the-scenes material- is important.

"But the primary difference is respect - respect for the material. The main difference between Batman and Robin and Batman Begins is that Joel Schumacher doesn't respect Batman, but Christoper Nolan and David Goyer do. Superman I and most of Superman II were good because of the accident of Richard Donner being a fan - the Salkinds didn't know he was a fan, they hired him because of the success of The Omen.

"But look at the scenes he filmed for Superman II and compare them to Richard Lester's - the difference is respect. Hollywood has somehow learned to give superhero movies to directors who respect the material and most oftens are fans themselves - one can say that the inmates have taken over the asylum, but it turns out they're crazy about running the place, not just crazy."

Q: There still remains a suspicion in some quarters that the studios are dumbing down the audience by enticing adults into thinking like adolescents (or in the case of The Dark Knight, giving adolescents the illusion they're being presented with high art because the characters give self-important speeches to indicate lofty themes). The most extreme example of both views that I've come across is from former Village Voice critic Michael Atkinson (quoted at length at the bottom of Part 2, see post above).

Even Variety - not usually keen to be seen as a hive of intellectual snobbery - recently ran the withering headline, "Hollywood woos the nerd-herd at Comic-Con". It would be great to read your take - which I'm sure is very different.

A: "Comic-Con, which I've been attending since 1991, has grown immensely under the attention of Hollywood and the concomitant influx of geeks who are not comics fans. The use of Comic-Con as a kind of focus group is actually a reflection of the studios respecting the source material and its adherents.

"Yes, fans know they're being marketed to and enjoy the manipulation because it means that they are being asked for their approval. A film that bombs at Comic-Con usually bombs in the theaters because of the ability of Comic-Con attendees to spread the buzz or be buzzkills via blogs and discusion boards.

"But by wooing the fans, Hollywood has actually learned to make better films. A superhero film that satisfies superhero fans is generally a better movie because it stays true to the elements of the material that work- the elements that have been working for decades and have been tested and retested over the years in the low-cost laboratory of the comics page. Marvel Studios makes good comic book movies because they understand the characters - Marvel is run and staffed by fans who turned pro.

"And I disagree that the headline, 'Hollywood woos nerd herd at Comic-Con: Fanboys force studios to take event seriously', is in fact withering. (Variety reporter) Marc Graser seems to get the point that the studios are giving the people what they want - stars and footage, and the sense of being insiders in the industry and having a voice in the process.

"Graser quotes James Schamus, producer of Hamlet 2, on the value of the instantaneous feedback that Comic-Con provides and the way it starts a dialogue with the fan community. That dialogue demonstrates the seriousness and respect with which Hollywood is now treating the fan community, and in the process making better movies.

"(Critic Michael) Atkinson misunderstands the nature of the superhero genre. Yes, its a fairly simple metaphor and one that appeals to children- especially boys, because hero stories are about masculinity-the responsible use of power. The superhero genre stands as a metaphor for the place of the US in the post-Cold War world, just as the Western did during the Cold War

"Here's part of the section from the chapter where I discuss the superhero genre as metaphor for the post-Cold War world:

"These uses of Western metaphors can be summed up in the Truman Doctrine of containment, the idea that a frontier has to be defended against an alien culture bent upon the apocalyptic destruction of America. That the Western so neatly fits the Cold War can be seen in the common interpretation of High Noon (1952) as a Cold War Western with Sheriff Will Kane representing America, Frank Miller and his gang in the position of the Communists, and the townspeople standing in for the rest of the world.

"But now the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force has replaced the Truman Doctrine, and it seems more based on the superhero metaphor. In the Gulf War, Kosovo, and Afghanistan the United States acted more in the line of a superhero than a Western sheriff. Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosovic and Osama Bin Laden are portrayed in the media as power-mad, meglomaniacal supervillains who threaten the world and whom no one but America can stop.

"The American military's invulnerability and quick victories fit in well with the superhero genre, as do the recurring fights with Hussein, Bin Laden, and their proxies. Admittedly, it is unlikely that (Colin) Powell or either President Bush (ie. son or elder - LB) consciously draw on superhero comics when thinking about world events, but it is similarly unlikely that Truman had the Western in mind when he propounded his doctrine of containment, although in retrospect the connection is fairly obvious.

"If Bush, Cheney, et al had superheroes as their base metaphor instead of the Western, we wouldn't be in Iraq. Superheroes offer a compelling moral fantasy- and yes the quality of storytelling in Hollywood has degraded, but that's not the fault of superhero movies, it's the fault of the blockbuster and the corporatisation of Hollywood- the studios are now small cogs in larger media machines. Instead of being storytelling factories they are merchandising machines.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Return of the Jedi-these were terribly told films, long before the current superhero film renaissance. But superhero movies are just movies--take a look The Specials (2000), a tiny movie written by James Gunn, that uses superheroes to tell a story about temptation, friendship, and character- and no explosions or fights.

"I disagree with Atkinson's review of Dark Knight (see below - LB) - I found it to be literally heart pounding (on the other hand I fell asleep during Fantastic Four II: Rise of the Silver Surfer), but Atkinson blames the genre for Hollywood's generalised problem with storytelling (though if he wants to bash a superhero movie for storytelling problems, he should start with Batman II); the problem lies in the need to make money around the world, and movie audiences find action movies to be appealing because they translate well -the dialogue isn't that important.

"The basic unit of the action movie -the thrill, like the basic unit of comedy, the laugh - doesn't depend on storytelling, it depends only on manipulation. The classic example of a film that stresses the moment-to-moment thrill over story is the execrable Tango and Cash, so the superhero movie is not the cause of the sins of Hollywood, just another victim."

Interview continues in part 2, above.

(Images - Harry S. Truman: Wikipedia.org/ Colin Powell: timeonline.typepad.com/ Comic-Con: a.abcnews.com)

Results of pre--Xmas quizzes

On Dec 20 I asked readers to identify my favourite film picks of 2008 from a series of stills. Received such a tumultuous response that I've spent all Xmas working through the answers (he jested). So where were you all? Too hard, was it?

Paul Martin, aka Melbourne Film Blogger, is the winner. He replied almost immediately and got eveything right bar two - even number eight, the greatly under-rated Rendition, with its ingeniously structured script, which I doubted anyone would get. Congratulations, Paul.

The ones that flummoxed everybody are U23D (pictured above), which in its final minutes turned into an abstract, experimental film suggesting previously unsuspected possibilities for the 3D medium, and Terence Davies's poetic documentary reverie devoted to his native Liverpool, Of Time and the City (pictured lower right)

The full list:
1 I've Loved You For So Long
2 Waltz With Bashir
3 The Savages
4 Silent Light
5 The Edge of Heaven
6 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
7 Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
8 Rendition
9 Persepolis
10 Happy-Go-Lucky
11 You the Living
12 The Dark Knight
13 In Bruges
14 Hunger
15 U23D
16 The Band's Visit
17 Wall-E
18 Sita Sings the Blues
19 Of Time and the City
20 California Dreamin'

The answers to my best Australian films quiz of Dec. 22:
1 Son of a Lion
2 Unfinished Sky
3 Cactus
4 The Black Balloon
5 Three Blind Mice
6 The Square
7 Not Quite Hollywood
8 The Oasis
9 Glass: a Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts

The winner here is the somewhat shy Anonymous (not Syms Covington, by any chance?)
Congrats, "Anon".

The curious case of Roth's backwards Benjamin narrative

After my recent posts on Harold Pinter - noting his development of the backward narrative in the play and film Betrayal - and my passing comment that I was in no hurry to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I was very interested to read this analysis of the film's alleged failures - not by a critic but John Truby, a screenwriting teacher, script editor and story consultant.

You may recall that Button concerns a man (played by Brad Pitt) who ages backwards - that is, he's born as an oldie and becomes progressively younger. This conceit, adapted by Forrest Gump screenwriter Eric Roth from an F. Scott Fitzgerald story, sounds very suspiciously to me like a gimmick. Truby gives a very convincing explanation for why this central structuring idea - gimmicky or otherwise - is problematic in dramatic terms.

Extract:
"...A story that unfolds backward is extremely rare for a reason. It makes story causation virtually impossible. Or, to put it another way, you end up with the ultimate episodic story. An episodic story is one in which each event stands on its own - each scene in effect becoming mini-story - and does not connect with the other events. The whole becomes less than the sum of the parts.

"One of the only stories to unfold backwards successfully is Harold Pinter's Betrayal. But notice that Betrayal is built on a relationship between a man and a woman. It is an organic unit from first to last. With this as a foundation, the story's backward movement, instead of being episodic, induces the audience to focus on the original causal forces that ultimately drive these two people apart.

"Benjamin Button is the story of one man's life. But his backward unfolding is based on the lowest form of causation, the biological. That's not what we are interested in when we see someone's life story. We want to see an unfolding based on the character's life choices. We want to see how the character's highest, most human qualities play out. It is these human elements that make plot possible, because plot is based, among other things, on the hero's ability to plot his own course.

"Because Benjamin Button tracks a man biologically getting young, he becomes nothing more than a freak who can't make any choice at all. He floats through life, an observer of the world who holds little interest for the audience..."

Truby might also have mentioned that crappy looking make-up Pitt wears for his wrinkly scenes. Even even in the stills and trailer this looks no more convincing than Dustin Hoffman's similar get-up for Little Big Man - and that was nearly 40 years ago.

Of course I may have to eat my words when I see the film. Let's just see...

Arise thee, Bob Plant CBE.

Yesterday watched a DVD of Led Zeppelin live at London's Royal Albert Hall in 1970 (part of the two-disc set simply called Led Zeppelin). Little suspected we were about to witness the latest example of former rebels being officially defanged by the British establishment.
(image: z.about.com)

Arise , thee, Sir Bob. Well not quite - according to Britain's latest New Year Honours List, it's actually Robert Plant, Commander of the Order of the British Empire .

British Empire indeed. Is that supposed to include Australia?

Interesting to note the absence from the list of the strutting vocalist's former Zeppelin sparring partner, Jimmy Page, perhaps indicating a prejudice against guitarists begun when Mick Jagger became a Sir while Keef remained one of the common herd.

So did Page do the honourable thing and turn down a CBE on the grounds it represents a stuffed, post-imperialist anachronism?

Or maybe his old black magic/ Aleister Crowley interests were considered a bit dangerous by Her Majesty. Or perhaps it was his well-documented former habit of taking the writing credit for songs written by others (viz. Dazed and Confused and Black Mountainside - see earlier post comparing the latter with versions by Bert Jansch and Anne Briggs).

I'd prefer, however, to think that like me, the Queen watched Page's meretricious guitar pyrotechnics at the Albert Hall and decided to tip him into the wastepaper bin marked 'Royal Rejects'. On disc the band were both disciplined and awesomely powerful. As at least the early part of the disc shows, live they could be horrendously self-indulgent - Page especially. (image: scagozo.com)

For evidence that Plant has serious taste, hear Raising Sand, his 2007 album with bluegrass star Alison Krauss - a flawless masterpiece down to the last note.

Watch these two live clips. The first is a version of the album's sublime Killing the Blues. The second captures a radical reinterpretation of Zeppelin's When the Levee Breaks that sounds closer to the Velvet Underground's Heroin being played by a bluegrass band at 3 in the morning than it does Led Zep IV's Viking invasion.

There's plenty of other Plant-Krauss goodies on YouTube including a similarly radical take on Black Dog and a Battle of Evermore with Krauss handling the original's Sandy Denny part with aplomb.

Home for the Holidays - 2

A belated Happy New Year.

Just finished reading Bruce Beresford's unputdownable Josh Hartnett DEFINITELY wants to do this...true stories from a life in the screen trade, taken from diaries the veteran Australian director kept between finishing work on HBO project, And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself in 2003, and starting production on The Contract (a thriller starring Morgan Freeman and John Cusack, in 2005 ).

The book offers a vivid glimpse into the sheer frustration and graft (endless rewrites and notes on scripts, meetings and phone calls) involved in getting a movie up. At times Beresford has as many as a dozen projects on the boil in the hope that at least one will end up going into production.

When he finally gets the go-ahead to make Amazing Grace, about the epic campaign to get the slave trade banned in Britain and one of only two projects about which he is really passionate, he has to let it drop. In utter desperation he has just signed a contract to direct (and you have to love the title) The Contract.

The latter he thinks is so poorly scripted that he can scarcely believe it has managed to attract finance. He's only agreed to make the film because he needs the pay cheque - and now the producers won't allow him to wriggle out.

Much of the book's readability comes from the delicious tartness of Beresford observations about the industry and just about everyone he meets.

Presumably none of his actual and potential associates knew he was keeping a diary with plans for eventual publication. How, I continually wondered, did the people mentioned here react to seeing their meetings and private conversations described with such flagrant indiscretion? Viz. the paragraph where Beresford describes a lunch with Morgan Freeman, noting that the actor flirts with an attractive young African American woman and when told that she's married, asks her if she fools around. I'd love to see Mrs Freeman's face upon reading that. (The Freemans were said in August 2008 to be divorcing. The book was first published in 2007 - though of course I'm not suggesting any connection.)


I've often felt that Beresford lacks an "edit" button when being interviewed (or writing books, for that matter) and doesn't really understand the effect his words are likely to have on others. Of course this makes him a terrific interview in an age when actors and filmmakers are spinning bland PR concoctions for dear life.

You may recall a few years ago Beresford making headlines when he described Toni Collette, one of Australia's most successful and respected film actors, as a ham who makes Bette Davis look positively restrained. This was part of a lengthy interview published in The Bulletin.

In his book he accuses the journalist, Jennifer Byrne, of quoting him off the record. I doubt it. As The Australian's staff film writer at the time, I rang him the day after the Bulletin story appeared. Not only did he stand by his comments, he was perfectly happy to repeat them - on the record.

On another occasion Beresford was promoting his film Paradise Road, a story about WW2 prisoners forming a choir, co-starring a then little-known Cate Blanchett. Asking him about its surprisingly negative US reviews, I expected him to come out fighting in its defence. It was the least the film deserved. After all, this was a personal project that he'd spent at least a couple of years developing.

Instead he opined aloud that when so many reviewers say similar things, "you start to wonder if they might be right." I can imagine Roadshow, the film's distributor, popping their curlers when they read that in the next day's paper.

But give me a filmmaker who entertains self-doubt in public over yet another vapid self-promoter. I love the book's final paragraph, in which he returns to his plans - discussed several times earrlier - for a film about jazz musician Chet Baker, probably with Josh Harnett in the title role. Yes, he's told, Josh definitely still wants to do this. Just not with your script - and only so long as you're not the director.

Not much in the way of self-promotion there.

Oh, nearly forgot - my New Year resolutions:

(i) to spend less time at the computer to make time for reading more books (especially if they're written by indiscreet filmmakers);

(ii) the usual one about getting into a regular exercise regime and losing weight.

Ha!

(images -book cover: Harper Collins/ Freemans: www.welt.de/ Paradise Road: abcnews.go.com/ Chet Baker artwork: amazon.com/ Josh Hartnett: upload.moldova.org)