The Year in Films

I've recently both read and seen No Country for Old Men. I liked the cinematography of the film and the spareness of the book. But I thought both lacked any intellectual rigour. They both seemed too much of a pose. I guess my view of humanity is not like theirs. Control was wonderful. The story of Joy Division. It had the best music performances I've ever seen in a film. The actors had to learn the instruments and it was recorded live. It was almost unbearably sad. (Just released on DVD). Saw Sweeney Todd this week and immediately bought the soundtrack on leaving. I had no idea it would be so bonkers. Helena Bonham Carter was completely captivating. I wanted to applaud in the cinema. But I didn't. She's come a long way from A Room With A View... I fancy seeing Eastern Promises. Doesn't it have some extended naked wrestling? I thought Atonement was great only spoilt by Ikea Knightley. I love Ian McEwan but wasn't that keen on this book. I enjoyed the film more - as the long march through France has been largely telescoped into a great beach scene of devastation. Direction was good all the way through - I particularly liked the sound of the keys of a typewriter to create pace.

I agree with Drew-Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd was a piece of cinematic brilliance! I am a fan of Burton, and i thought Sweeney Todd was one of his best and most original to date, regardless that he uses the same people over and over. However, i find that is helpful-least he knows how to get them to act their best :) This year though i have yet to see anything else-Cloverfield looks decent, and 10,000 BC, which is out in March, looks good. Knightley, by the way, is to be in a film called The Duchess, alongside Ralph Fiennes, which is supposed to be out this year. It should be good for those who like historical dramas, if it is anything like Amanda Foreman's biography.

There will be blood! Absolutely loved it.

Eastern Promises was very good, but has the feel of a low budget English film noir. Viggo Mortensen is outstanding in what is a pretty decent international cast.

Inland Empire - David Lynch at possibly his most bonkers in a long while, and brilliant!

Ooh, a new David Lynch. Didn't know it existed. I will try and hunt it out. I'm so fed up with the cinema I rarely go. I saw Juno and it was OK - good to fill a couple of hours but not that much more - and this was meant to be the 'great' indy film of the year. Oh dear. I'm afraid the Yanks have ruined film. We can't even get our own homegrown stuff on the screen as the Hollywood chains own our cinemas. It's all a bit sad.

"I'm afraid the Yanks have ruined film" Interested to hear you elaborate, Tony. What was ruined? What homegrown stuff is blocked by Hollywood chains? Isn't Lynch American?

Be warned Tony, Inland Empire is 3 hours long and pretty mind boggling, even by Lynch's standards. But don't believe anyone who tells you there is no plot, because there is. I think it's out on DVD now. It had a fairly limited release because Lynch had no distribution deal for it, so he did it himself through small art house cinemas around Europe.

I downloaded it off the internet... are the bits in Polish supposed to have subtitles? I liked it a lot, though I thought the first half was better than the second... somehow it went downhill when those east european girls started baring their breasts and doing dance routines. I'm not sure, but I think I'm more inspired by films than fiction when I write. I've often wished I could recreate Lynch's nightmarish, oversaturated atmosphere in prose.

If I remember correctly I think the cinema release did indeed have subtitles for the Polish bits. And it wouldn't really be a David Lynch film without an unnecessary moment of nudity. That aside, I agree the second half dragged a bit, but considering the way it was written and filmed, I think it was a mostly successful project. And I'm the same, the works of people like Lynch, Cronenberg, Fincher, etc, are a big part of the sources that influence my own writing. I guess I'm just more interested in the relationship between ideas and imagery...

The Hollywood studios control the world of film - with the notable exception of Bollywood. In the West they decide what is made and where films are shown. they control the supply and the distribution. It is true that some British films do get very limited showings in our cinemas - but you have to be a Mike Leigh or someone of his ilk to get a look in. Even then you will probably only get a one week showing. The cinemas are block booked for the Hollywood films, whether they are any good or not. It is a cartel that is only lightly breached by the handful of independent cinemas - and that stops creativity in its tracks.

The Yanks have ruined film? Eskimo Nell and Confessions of a Window Cleaner being the apex of film after all... To be honest, I reckon we've all ruined cinema. It's the same argument as with independent publishers, small record labels, local theatres etc. People say that 'they' just serve us up dross and that 'they' dumb us all down and this is a terrible thing. When it comes to it though, not enough of 'us' go and buy or see what we think is the 'good stuff' to guarantee that the good stuff is viable. If we all went to see British films, then there wouldn't be any question over whether British films should get into cinemas. Shane Meadows' films have been consistently profitable, for instance, because they don't cost that much to make and, because they're good, people go and see them. I'm pretty sure that most people get exactly the kind of films that they want to see, when they want to see them. I'm very into British obscurities. You'd be surprised at how few British films are permanent fixtures of releasing companies DVD catalogues. Many major British films are unavailable on DVD. Often when they do crop up they are either prestige restoration job carried out by the BFI or very cheap budget DVDs. The reason for this? These films are not commercially viable in the middle of the road market. You do have to accept that more people like Star Wars than like Brief Encounter, The Canterbury Tales, If or Ratcatcher... It's easy to say "Oh, I'd go and see X if it was on anywhere' and then not. There's not really an excuse if you live in a major conurbation with a variety of cinemas. It's not so easy other places, but there's always DVD. As with anything that's consumer led, you have to put your money where your mouth is. There's always a huge variety of film entertainments available, including huge chunks of the film entertainments of the past. You've only really got a right to be full of wrath if you put the legwork in. For the record, the only things I saw at the pictures this year were Control and St. Trinians. Both British-ish films. One was better than the other. Cheers, Mark

Nobody controls what films are made, all you need is the money it costs to make - the films Tony wants more of are not the expensive ones, I've seen fantastic movies (sfx heavy movies at that) funded by credit cards. Of course making that money back is harder. The people controlling what films get in the cinemas are the cinema owners. They are more often than not independant of big studios or distribution companies, and are in the business of putting bums on seats, if they or the distribution companies are not picking up movies, it's because they don't think (right or wrong) that people will watch them.

"There's always a huge variety of film entertainments available, including huge chunks of the film entertainments of the past. You've only really got a right to be full of wrath if you put the legwork in." Yes, this does remind me a bit of the story from a couple of weeks ago when more than 1500 people had signed a protest against the Arts Council pulling £25,000 funding from a publisher of novels in translation. If those people had taken the radical step of buying three of the publisher's books, the problem could've been solved immediately.

I think it's a little more complex than you imagine. The American owners of our major cinema chains are in total cahoots with the major studios - they will put on a film that has cost a lot of money, has been lambasted by the critics and has very few people going to see it - and then leave it on for another week - when a popular, locally made film will get taken off. The high cost films need to try everything to get their money back - and that includes hanging them out there for as long as they can so that every twit can get to see them. We are not as stupid as they think - but they are making us stupider.

It's not a conspiracy, it's economics. Big multiplex chains (and many of them are not American: Vue is British owned after a management buyout, Odeon and UCI are owned by a UK private equity firm, and Empire is still a UK company) are like supermarkets, they buy centrally and in bulk. Consequently only the big distribution firms have the reach to get to them. Vue (my local) will want to put more or less the same program in all it's 62 cinemas - much as Sainsbury's want the same stock in all their stores. Printing 62 prints is very expensive, beyond the reach of most small distributors. Big studios want their films in cinemas for as long as possible, they don't generally make much money out of it but it generates hype for the dvd sales (where they do make money). Most multiplexes are mostly empty most of the time, so there's no real loss in scheduling crap like 27 Dresses on a small screen for a week, it costs them the same whatever. It would be nice if they could turn that over to a local film, but that that is more hassle, and thus more cost, for them. And people still don't go to see them. - Before Vue took it over my local used to do small arty films on a Tuesday night, it was mostly empty - There are distribution companies such as Fox Searchlight (a division of possibly the most evil of all evil American entertainment corporations) that specialize in picking up small films and punting them into multiplexes. There's not very many of them because they don't make a lot of money because, even when the films are there, people still don't go and see them.

Well, whether or not the owners of chains are American, what they're doing is just business. The aim of the cinema chains isn't to make a judgment on the merits of films and then offer the best ones to the pubic. It's to make money by getting the largest possible revenue through bums on seats for the smallest possible outlay in terms of buying in product. No conspiracy there. That said, Vue (Angel) and Odeon (Holloway) in Islington to put on quite a bit of less mainstream stuff because there is a market for it in the area. Cineworld in Wood Green puts on lots of Bollywood stuff, too.

I think I agree with you mikepyro - the French manage to have a very successful film industry, largely through being rampantly protectionist, but they also put the investment into it. They don't do that here. Regards Lynch - all personal taste :)

meez goin' to see either cloverfield or juno on friday. Which one's the better, Mike??

okey dokes, cheers Mike. :) Juno it is...

And I will admit to buying the soundtrack to Juno - there's some delightful quirky little songs in there!

lynch is a wonder, he conjures nightmares with such vivid discomfort, he works like a perpetual paradox, so free but so oppressive. he works in blueprints, maybe, leaves the psychogeography up to us, to inhabit his filmscapes with our own horrors. I watched juno recently, and thought it was very lovely, full of tenderness and seething with life. no country for old men, also, was powerful. its hopelessness was somehow refreshing. I thought the darjeeling limited was excellent too, last year, and sure I may have a thing about wes anderson but it was so funny, and beautiful, and moving through all its self-awareness. critics always accuse him of some quirk or another, at the expense of real emotion, but that must be bullshit. the funeral scenes, like ned's death in the life aquatic, were touching beyond repair. and on top of everything india looked beautiful in that movie, and their respect and pride about death was a wonderful change from making a taboo of the whole affair. as for the power of the yanks in movies, it's much as has been said already above me here. a monopoly is never going to be the greatest solution, and there are a hell of a lot of shit blockbusters out there, but there are a hell load of great films too, both american and not. and a hell of a lot of good cinemas. sadly I left the curzon back in london, but there are places showing the films, and if they aren't then fuck the new releases and let's all buy some dvds. no one has ruined cinema, they've just changed the way it works. maybe it's hard to make a film now, to fund a film, but the chance can be there, even with a little budget. depends what game you want to play, maybe, or what kind of film you want to make, or see. the creativity is still there, its just hiding a little. but isn't that all the more fun? for every abominable bastard like dan brown and whoever the hell else tops the fiction charts with the stench of their own smug puke still on their breath, there is a great writer, or a good one at least. we're selective because we want to be, not because we have to be. as for america? bastards maybe, but darren aronofsky, anderson, lynch, harmony korine, larry clark, excellent. and these must be on the commercial side of weird. lots to see, lots to do.

Last time I come to you for bwuddy film advice! You forgot to mention that you're about 3 years old! :P

Never said you don't know quality when you see it, but it wasn't a great movie to take my 36 year old date to see! FFS...ask me my age next time will ya!! ;)

The soundtrack was great...doodeedooo...you love me, me love you, doodeedoodee...some nice, quirky lil folk songs in there...stuff I could listen to on a lazy sunny day. And when the woman in the abortion clinic said, "Condoms are great! They make my boyfriend's junk smell like pie." Well, we all had a hoot at that one :) I suppose I got that sinking feeling when I walked into my date's lounge and saw such dvds as 'snatch' and 'layer cake' and some horror flicks and i thought, shit, I'm taking her to see a 12A teenybop comedy. lol...shoulda stuck with Cloverfield, but someone said the shaky camera scenes made her barf.

not sure I can understand quite why juno would be a bad idea for anyone, even at the whopping old age of 36 years old. but what do I know.