Tag Archives: film and television

Some notes on House of Cards

09 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in film review, politics and current affairs

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I have reached the end of series 1 of House of Cards. For the uninitiated, it’s a thirteen episode story of the rise and revenge of a ruthlessly ambitious politician, Frank Underwood, set in present-day Washington, but based on a British novel and TV series.

Engrossed, I still ask myself what it means. (And what it means that I like it so much.) In the same way I ask myself why I care so much about the machinations of federal politics in Australia. I can excuse my interest in ideology, and policy, but why do I care so much about the personalities, and the ‘politics’ in the derogatory sense of the word? Oh, no doubt it’s the Machiavelli in me.

My aside to the audience, Frank style: There used to be no Frank in me at all; I determinedly lived as the lamb to the slaughter, playing life with an open hand for all to see. One can only do that for so long, for so many times. But most would-be-Franks are not as subtle as they think. Nor can they see as far ahead as him.

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Why did Joel Schumacher come along and wreck two episodes in the middle? He is the worst director in Hollywood. Reference: Batman and Robin, the movie which spoiled my adolescence. He squandered most of what was good about the show in his two outings. He made them feel like episodes of West Wing on a bad day, the episodes of Frank vs. the education union, fizzing out in that predictable American subplot of the hero finding an innovation to solve the day (‘let’s stage the gala party outside’; ‘let’s offer food to the protestors’). House of Cards is not about cute punchlines. Go away, Joel Schumacher, and do not come again.

David Fincher, on the other hand, you are welcome any time.

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Did you know Robin Wright, so tall and skinny and middle-aged in this, was Buttercup in The Princess Bride? I certainly didn’t, till IMDB told me. That’s messed up; I didn’t know so many years had gone by. Don’t get me wrong: she is beautiful still. But somewhere, surely, Buttercup’s still young.

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Back to meaning. What it ‘means’. Back to drama. Is there more to it than carthasis? Is it mere diversion? Of course it is. It’s about how we live and why we live. House of Cards is a masterpiece of the screen because in it we have all of life. We live out our own dilemmas writ large, and our own anxieties, and our cultural identity. Perhaps it is vicarious living, but in a way which makes us think more deeply about our own life, or should. It is all the spheres of life – marriage, politics, the office, recreation. It hints at things we don’t know in ourselves and in each other. It has enough depth to justify those eleven hours of my life.

Recaps: constructing pasts from memory

06 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by in autobiographical, film review

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I’ve been caught up in the US version of House of Cards. You can choose to watch each episode with or without ‘recaps’. I choose with. The recaps shift entirely each episode, highlighting a different thread of the long and involved narrative. You suddenly remember one of the minor characters and the brewing subplot which hasn’t been touched for an episode or two. The recap is determined by the episode you’re in. And the thing is that memory is like that too. Whenever I make a change in life and find myself in a different context, I make a new narrative, dredging up memories which were dormant in the previous episode but now make sense. An example: I moved to an Anglican church last year for the first time in my life. Suddenly I’m seeing new foreshadowings, a book I read at eighteen which nearly convinced me, the times I visited the cathedral with my grandfather the rector. Connections to other Anglicans. I’m finding in the mass of memory a subplot which made this inevitable. The difference is that in House of Cards, in almost any fictional narrative, there are no dead-ends, there are no superfluous events or characters.

The death of Philip Seymour Hoffman

03 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in death, film review, R.I.P.

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Since I saw that Philip Seymour Hoffman, my favourite actor, was dead on the television news-ticker this morning, my mind has kept hiccuping: PSH is dead! Initially the hiccups were strong and happened every five minutes; by now, they’re less frequent and less violent.

Is it grief I feel when a celebrity I admire dies? Is it a less intense version of what happens when someone I know dies? Or something else entirely, given the ‘relationship’ with the celebrity runs only one way? I don’t know.

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(Note on the news ticker, saying ‘breaking news’: it was a delayed broadcast from the east, three hours old, and the presenters didn’t even know about it, the news hadn’t hit them yet. This is what happens when WA is three hours behind the east: sometimes a time bubble opens up, and one becomes aware of watching something from the past, different in an important way to the present.)

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Hoffman was amazing – he appears in so  many of my favourite films, lighting up so many of them. We watch him age in Synecdoche, New York, and it feels like we have followed him through a lifetime. We want him to be innocent in Doubt. We live in fear of him in Punch-Drunk Love. I don’t think it’s going too far to say he was the quintessential face of film in the first thirteen years of the century.

 

From Lincoln to Little Dizzle: My favourite films in 2013

31 Tuesday Dec 2013

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American Hustle

 New Films

1. American Hustle – a film of surprises, lit up by Amy Adams’ performance, with a script which knows how to use the conventions of drama while also being fresh and strange. The playful evocation of the seventies fascinated me.

2. Lincoln – the sort of serious drama I appreciate more and more as I get older. Review here.

3. The Great Gatsby – I thought at first the drama would be lost in the glitz, but in the second half, the film hits hard. Particularly devastating for me is the realisation that Daisy is not a good person.

4. The Turning – the adaptation of Tim Winton’s short story collection (my favourite work of his) misses the connections between the stories because each story is individually adapted by different creative teams, with different actors for the same characters. But this is also the film’s strength, a kaleidoscope of Australian talent around the theme of remembering the town you grew up in from middle age.

5. Mystery Road – this film noir set in the Australian outback makes my list on the proviso that I understand the ending next time I see it, because I was just confused. But it is an atmospheric clash of genre and setting as an Aboriginal detective returns to the town he grew up in to solve a murder mystery.

On DVD

1. Safety Not Guaranteed – a quirky drama-comedy about a reporter and his two sidekicks who go to answer a classified ad looking for people to accompany a time-traveller. It’s not about time travel at all; it’s about outsiders finding meaning in life. It stars one of my favourite TV actors (Aubrey Plaza) and is a surprise delight.

2. Seeking a Friend For the End of the World – a film which shares some of the same tone of Safety Not Guaranteed. It brings together two wonderful actors – Keira Knightley and Steve Carell (US Office) – wondering what to do when there’s only a couple of weeks left to live. It’s dark but funny and made me cry. A lot of critics didn’t like it; I respectfully disagree.

3. The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle – this is one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen, and makes it on the list for being so bewilderingly interesting. My wife saw it on the videostore shelf and thought it worth trying; I’m glad of her serendipitous find. It’s like Fight Club meets David Cronenberg. After becoming addicted to experimental cookies discarded in a lab, an anarchist cleaner obsessed with the meaning of life gives birth to a blue fish creature. Obviously not a film for everyone. Unfortunately, it ends suddenly and unconvincingly, but even that’s part of the charm – like a dream which you suddenly wake up from.

My Top 10 Films of 2011

02 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in film review, lists

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Unlike my antiquated novel list, these are films which were actually released in 2011.

10. Contagion –an effective, chilling account of the spread of a pandemic. Marks off for Jude Law’s annoying character.

9. I Love You Philip Morris – the most surprising film I saw all year; an offbeat, strange comedy about a man who keeps breaking out of prison.

8. True Grit – a Western by the Coen Brothers.

7. The Debt – stylish, quality thriller about the assassination of a concentration camp doctor.

6. Melancholia – a film I need to see again, but I don’t have the endurance required for it. The way von Trier shows the planet moving closer and closer until it engulfs the Earth is truly frightening. The whole film is disturbing.

5. Higher Ground – a woman begins to doubt the 1980s evangelical world she is immersed in. For anyone who knows the world and is willing to hold it up to the light, this will surely be engaging.

4. Black Swan – an intense thriller about an obsessive ballerina losing her grip on reality.

3. The Guard – black, black comedy about an Irish policeman with his own contrary code of honour. I laughed so hard at all the outrageous things he says and does.

2. Source Code – a man keeps up waking up inside someone else’s body in a train about to explode. A science fiction thriller which will probably come apart under scrutiny, but it gripped me like no other film this year.

1. Tree of Life – it’s difficult and sometimes boring, but it’s brilliant because it captures as much about the meaning of life as a film can hope to do. It also shows what it is to be a child, giving us an experience of life through a boy’s eyes.

Honourable mentions:

  • Ides of March – it really is very good and probably belongs in the top 10.
  • Voyage of the Dawntreader – far better than Prince Caspian, I enjoyed this Narnia film.
  • Anonymous – a likeable, loud historical conspiracy thriller about the ‘real’ author of Shakespeare’s plays.
  • We Need To Talk About Kevin – a fine adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s novel, but without its beauty or compulsion.
  • Incendies – melodramatic but fascinating drama.
  • The Eye of the Storm – an interesting attempt to film Patrick White.

The most underwhelming films of the year: 

  • Get Low – a boring, competent film about a hermit who stages his own funeral.
  • Red State – Kevin Smith bombs out with this crazy, rather pointless shoot ’em up.

The Worst Piece of Casting in Literary Adaptation History

10 Thursday Feb 2011

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I hate it when people go on about how film adaptations spoil their favourite book. Don’t watch it and shut up. No-one likes a pedant. But first let me go on about this one point. It’s okay, it’s acceptable going-on, because it’s the worst piece of casting in literary adaptation history.

A.S. Byatt’s Possession describes literary scholar Roland Mitchell as shy and awkward. His nickname is Mole. Let me repeat that he is a literary scholar. And he is shy and mole-like. Now no-one likes typecasting or stereotypes. No-one would insist that literary scholars all look shy and awkward, but it is crucial to this story that he is.

Whatever the case, has anyone ever pictured a literary scholar to look like this? Like a big chinned Hollywood star?

Obviously some movie producer did. He read the script which described a shy, awkward literary scholar with a nickname of ‘Mole’ and the first name which came into his mind was Steven Segal. But Steven being unavailable, the next name that came into his head was Aaron Eckhart (whom I have nothing personal against). And so Eckhart became Roland Mitchell, with predictable results.

(On the other hand, Gwenyth Paltrow is perfectly cast as Maude, might I add.)

[Thursday 3pm #35] Nathan’s Top 30 Films of the Noughties

26 Thursday Nov 2009

Posted by in film review, lists, Series: Thursday 3pm feature posts (2009)

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1. American Beauty (2000)
I need to watch this film again (I saw it four or five times early in the decade) and see if it still has the hold over me it had then. It is, by turns, a beautiful and savage look at suburban life.

2. The Science of Sleep (2007)
A film with the atmosphere of a dream in the best possible sense; Stephane pursues his neighbour Stephanie and his artistic ambition in a world with all the distortions and twists of dreams.

3. The Virgin Suicides (2000)
I love this film’s evocation of the 1970s and of adolescence. It is a film of rare beauty, humour and drama.

4. Synecdoche (2009)
A sad film about death and art, and a play which consumes the world.

4a. LATE ADDITION : A Serious Man (2009)
A comic film about suffering and the meaning of life, sharply witty.

5. I’m Not There (2007)
The lives of Bob Dylan told in myth; strange and wonderful.

6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Would you erase all the memories of a failed romance if you could? Crazy and beautiful at the same time.

7. Me, you and everyone we know (2005)
A film about awkward people in love; quirky and warm with splendid dialogue.

8. Donnie Darko (2001)
I don’t pretend to understand it, but it’s a startling, inspiring journey with Donnie, an authentic and brave teenager.

9. Amazing Grace (2007)
The most mainstream of the films on this list, an inspiring biopic of William Wilberforce’s fight against slavery.

10. Amelie (2001)
Every second person’s favourite film is genuinely brilliant, a whimsical, exploration of the meaning of life.

11. Adaptation (2002)
Charlie Kaufman for the third time in this list; he was meant to adapt The Orchid Thief, a conventional non-fiction narrative, but instead he wrote a script about the whole idea of ‘adaptation’ and a writer battling to write the script for The Orchid Thief.

12. Atonement (2007)
A classy adaptation of one of my favourite books, retaining much of the tragedy and drama; also visually stunning.

13. 24 Hour Party People (2002)
Director Michael Winterbottom has crafted a brilliant postmodern biopic of Tony Wilson and his involvement with Joy Division, New Order, The Happy Mondays.

14. The Quiet American (2002)
An excellent adaptation of the Graham Greene novel; a sombre exploration of colonialism and personal ethics.

15. The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)
The Coen brothers’ film noir about a barber who gets himself in over his head. The first time I watched, it was an all time favourite, but it had less impact on repeat viewings.

16. Death at a Funeral (2007)
The funniest film I saw all decade.

17. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
As good as the hype – an energetic, pulsing thriller-drama.

18. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001)
Two teenage boys go on a holiday with a married woman.

19. Palindromes (2004)
An awkwardly funny and disturbing film about abortion and paedophilia; I don’t think I’m brave enough to watch it again.

20. Memento (2000)
A crime film about a man with no short term memory, with a very effective narrative innovation.

21. Storytelling (2001)
I love the creative writing class scenes early in this film; a shocking and funny film about ‘fiction’ and ‘nonfiction’ from Todd Solondz (Palindromes).

22. Pan’s Labrinyth (2006)
A violent fable set in wartime Italy.

23. Match Point (2005)
The only Woody Allen film of the decade I liked, and I speak as a fan; a kind of Dostoveskian drama.

24. As It Is In Heaven (2004)
A heartwarming Swedish film about a composer who goes back to his small home town; I saw it in a tiny seaside cinema in NZ on our honeymoon.

25. Team America (2004)
A puerile, hilarious satire on the international politics of the decade from the South Park creators.

26. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
A kind of J.D. Salingeresque look at a crazy family from Wes Anderson.

27. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007)
A nasty thriller/ family drama brilliantly executed by octogenarian director Sydney Lumet; you’d need to be in the right mood to enjoy this.

28. Mullholland Dr (2001)
I don’t know what to think of David Lynch’s nightmares; there was a time I lived by them.

29. He Died With A Felafel In His Hand (2001)
A funny Australian look at share houses.

30. The Dark Knight (2008)
Batman as he should be; epic filmmaking at its best.
A strong contender for the number one place – Fight Club – was released in November 1999, just outside the decade. It was still playing at cinemas well into 2000 when I finally saw it. American Beauty was released in 1999 in the USA, but not until January 2000 in Australia. Some arbitrary decisions, then.

On turning 28: a ramble

05 Thursday Mar 2009

Posted by in film review, life

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She calls me the Birthday Nazi because I always expect too much of birthdays. I remember when I was seven I thought it so unfair that a girl called Courtney got made to write lines on her birthday. We should be immune from getting into trouble on our birthdays. Our spouses should have unlimited patience. Our bosses should show inexhaustible generosity. The cars on the road should slow down and let us through.

I have a tradition of seeing films on my birthday. I haven’t done it every year and nor can I remember each one. But I can remember most of them. In 1999, it was Shakespeare in Love. In 2000, American Beauty for the second time. (How appropriate, then, that this year I’m going to see Sam Mendes’ latest film.) In 2002, Iris. In 2003, perhaps it was at the Adelaide Nova Cinema, the one about the nurse who believes the comatose patient loves him and he rapes her. Two birthdays in Adelaide – 2008, I was at the Adelaide Writers’ Festival for my birthday and saw (in the absence of much choice) Valley of Elah. 2006, Capote. 2007, anomalously on video at home, Kiss or Kill.

For years now I’ve felt so old. I guess I am pessimistic about the chances of my thirties being nearly as fun as my twenties. So much responsibility. How can I embrace responsibility? What are its rewards? I thought responsibility would make me feel authentic. It does not. (And I fear responsibility is a code word for compromise with the world. Perhaps the real problem is I still have the values of a 22 year old dissident while living the life of an old married man.)

Death used to be so far away, such a remote possibility. But the last few years it’s come to live in my soul, something near, whispering its certainty all day. I cultivate it, I was checking the recent deaths page on Wikipedia every day for a while. I’ve stopped doing that. I only check it a couple of times a month now.