January 2014 book and film review

Welcome to the first media review of the year. Only two books this month, but a slew of movies from the 30s to the 13s!

BOOKS

WOLF HALL and BRING UP THE BODIES, by Hilary Mantel. The life and times of Thomas Cromwell, from childhood to the death Anne Boleyn. Wolf Hall opens with the lad Cromwell being beaten half to death by a brutal drunk of a father and escaping abroad to become a mercenary with an Italian army, before returning to Britain to help arrange the King's divorce from Katherine of Aragon and the split with Rome. The second book covers his greatest triumph: engineering the downfall of Queen marque II, the rather less than Good Queen Anne Boleyn. If only she'd had a son...

These two books have caught the imagination of the reading public in a way not seen since Harry Potter, and with rather better reason. Mantel offers us, not unsullied documentary fact, but a "proposal". This, she proposes, is how it how it might have been. But she has researched her subject with great care and produced a fine piece of writing as she speculates on the workings of the mind of one of our most intriguing historical figures. Just how did the son of a blacksmith rise to be the foremost commoner of the land, wielding power over earls, dukes and even the great king himself. And if we believe the narrative, even Cromwell is not quite sure how he did it.

I enjoyed these books greatly, with their terse, matter-of-fact style (perhaps a little like the man himself?), immersing us in a world where it never seems to stop raining and where horrible death lurks around every corner for the unwary, reckless, or even simply indiscreet. Will she write a sequel, covering Cromwell's plan to marry his master off to the Mare of Flanders, a marriage which went sour within six months and cost Cromwell his life? I wouldn't be surprised. Watch this space...

FILMS

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (1932) D- Cecil B DeMille. A powerful Roman tribune (Frederick March) falls for a beautiful Christian slave who is about to be fed to the lions. This arouses the jealousy of Nero's wife (Claudette Colbert) who's having an affair with him. Can he save the girl or will he follow her into the arena himself?

This wasn't the first of DeMille's epics; he'd already made a couple of silent biblical blockbusters like The Ten Commandments, but here he established himself as perhaps the first director to become a bankable name in his own right. Made in the pre Hays code era (just), it features the celebrated "bathing in ass's milk" scene, which caused a sensation at the time of its release and certainly for this viewer remains one of the sexiest sequences ever committed to celluloid. Not that DeMille had to work that hard to make such a sultry, gorgeous creature as Claudette Colbert look good, but it proved too much for the censors. When the film was re-released in 1940 they excised the entire 12 minute segment from the finished film, denying an entire generation of adolescents the best turn-on they could ever wish for. However I am pleased to announce that the copy I was able to obtain was complete and unexpurgated. Woo hoo!

 KILL LIST (2011) D- Ben Wheatley. Two unpleasant young men are commissioned to perform a series of targeted assassinations. The pay is good, but eventually even they begin to have qualms about their grim task. Kill List established his reputation for making films with well observed characters carrying out distinctly unpleasant deeds as in his later Sightseers and A Field in England. It's easy to become revolted by Wheatley's offerings, but you can't help watching. Notable.

STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS (2013) D- J.J. Abrams. Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and crew put themselves in harms way to bring down an evil genius with special powers (Benedict Cumberbatch) Will they prevail? Of course they bloody will. Defeat Kirk and Spock? Never!
 I speak as a firm fan of most of the Star Trek franchise, from the tacky but exciting (as well as sexy) original series, through Patrick Stewart's Next Generation (he doesn't like to talk about it these days, but that's only because he knows it's what history will remember him for) and also the various movies (quick guide: the even numbered ones are the best). The same rule may be applying here. I was a little underwhelmed with JJ Abrams' first Star Tek movie, but I enjoyed this a lot more. The characters have had a chance to grow into their roles, and they work well with a rather better plotted story which is littered with references to its progenitors from the earliest times. The only failure for me was Simon Pegg's lamentable rendition of Scottie, not that Jimmie Doohan could act either, but Pegg's version just comes over as a sort of half-drunk Glaswegian idiot. And that's not Scottie at all.

MAGNOLIA (1999) D- PT Anderson. Somewhere in southern California, a number of characters interact in a tableau of interconnected stories which somehow weave into each other in a rather disturbing way. Famous for its extraordinary "raining frogs" scene, and also perhaps for Tom Cruise's best acting performance to date, I was certainly absorbed by this strange, sprawling essay on all things American, from a motivational speaker who hides a dark secret, to a traumatised woman who rejects her dying father, to a lonely cop who befriends an addled junky teenager. It's all grist to PT Anderson's mill and he makes a fine job of putting it together. However, I will say this: it is also one of the foulest-mouthed movies I have ever seen, with sickening profanities issuing from the lips of every character, women included, from first scene to last. This is a popular mode these days, though whether it is appreciated I'm not sure. I know people talk like that, but...

WORKING GIRL (1988) D- Mike Nichols. The working girl in question is Melanie Griffith, who works as a secretary in a big Wall Street firm. But she has money making ideas of her own, one of which is stolen by boss Sigourney Weaver. When our girl discovers what has happened, she determines to steal it back, assisted by a smitten Harrison Ford (Weaver's fiancee) who is drawn to her sass, to say nothing of her obvious physical attractions. But can they get the hide-bound directors to buy it?
Having carried all before him in a glittering Broadway career, Nichols exploded onto the film world with The Graduate in 1968. From there he had a slightly patchy progress (Catch 22, Carnal Knowledge), but many thought this was a welcome return to his best form, and certainly the film was a big hit at the box office. Today I fear it has dated rather badly, though it remains a light, frothy comedy in addition to highlighting the issue of the "glass ceiling" that women endured at that time, and to some extent still do.

HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (2004) D- Alfonso Cuaron. Our eponymous hero seeks out the man who, maybe, maybe not, was implicated in the death of his parents. But he is up against one of the most powerful wizards in the world, so he'd better watch out...
I should admit at the outset that I've never read a Harry Potter book (I read the first three pages of the first one and put it down, never to pick it up again) or even seen any of the films. Then a friend told me he thought this was the most "cinematic" of them, so I gave it a try. He's right: it is cinematic, and this is in no small part down to to director Alfonso Cuaron, who may be up for an Oscar this year for his efforts with the film Gravity. Yes, it does look very good on screen and the special effects are startlingly effective. But it remains a kid's film, just as the books are kid's books, and despite the extremely impressive cast list (Richard Griffiths, Fiona Shaw, Robbie Coltrane, Gary Oldman inter alia) it remains just that: kid's stuff. Enjoy...

WILD THINGS (1998) D- John McNaughton. A pretty young student (Denise Richards) goes after teacher Matt Dillon, but when he rebuffs her advances she accuses him of rape. But nothing is as simple as it seems in this movie, where, like a Dan Brown book, everything we thought we knew five minutes ago turns out to be wrong- and not just once but again and again.
OK. So far so good. And with a stellar cast (Kevin Bacon,  Bill Murray, Neve Campbell) to play out the story you'd think we'd be onto something good. Wrong. This film is terrible, mainly because of the tacky writing and a very cynical eye to the main chance on the part of director McNaughton. It raised eyebrows at the time because of the amount of sex and nudity in a mainstream movie, but, and I know this will astonish some of my friends, I'm afraid it takes more than a few gorgeous scantily clad women to make a good movie. And in this case it actually makes it even worse.

HOUSE OF TOLERANCE (2011) D Bertrand Borello. In fin de siècle Paris, the denizens of a bordello ply their trade to the upper crust, worrying if they'll go down with the clap or, as happens occasionally, get brutalised by a vicious client.
In an elegant, languorous style, Borello paints his pictures with a brush that might have been borrowed from the great photographer Helmut Newton, yet, like his images, and despite the lubricious content, the result is curiously unerotic. The colours are deep and rich; the women quietly beautiful, but there is something lacking in this movie: a decent plot and characters with which we can identify. The result therefore, in spite of its innate loveliness, is ultimately unsatisfying.

HITCHCOCK (2013) D- Sacha Gervasi. Hitch is searching for his next screenplay- he'd like to do a real horror movie this time. He can't find anything that suits, until someone gives him a copy of Robert Bloch's book Psycho. The rest, as they say, is history. He needs to find a leading lady to be stabbed, and he plumps for luscious Janet Leigh (played by Scarlett Johansen). Doubtless he'd like to test her on the casting couch, but he's always under the gimlet gaze of wife Alma (Helen Mirren).

We've seen Hitchcock biopics before, notably The Girl, a made-for-TV movie in which the rotund one's relationship with another blond beauty, namely Tippi Hedren, is explored during the making of The Birds. The fact that I recall very little of that offering is not exactly a good sign, and I fear this too will fade in the memory fairly quickly, even allowing for Anthony Hopkins making a pretty good fist of his role as Hitchcock. Helen Mirren isn't right as Alma; Scarlett Johansen a mere cypher as Leigh. I think it a shame they couldn't do more justice to the Great One. Alfred Hitchcock was one of our greatest directors, yet as he points out in one of the few telling moments in the film, he was never recognised by Hollywood in the shape of an Oscar, perhaps out of a mixture of anti-British sentiment and jealousy. Disappointing.

EDEN (2012) W/D- Megan Griffiths. A brutal gang of sex traffickers kidnap a young girl from the town of Eden, and that is the name they give her as she begins her new life as a sex-slave- that and the fluffy little kitten they give to all the girls in the belief this will comfort them. The business is efficient and profitable- if a girl gets pregnant they remove the baby near term and sell it on- any other problems they solve with murder. But Eden (Jamie Chung) is bright, resourceful, and she is constantly looking for the chance to escape. At first it seems impossible, but she is a patient soul...

An extremely disturbing and powerfully made portrait of the sex trade; the images linger long after the closing scenes as we remind ourselves that all this is real, and happening right now, around the world.
Nasty, but compelling.

GREAT BEAUTY (2102) D- Paulo Sorrentino. A slightly elderly man is invited to an all-night party in Rome and partakes of the usual pleasures on offer, but can't help thinking, as he looks back over his life, that he's getting a bit old for all this... This film owes a certain tribute to Fellini's great film La Dolce Vita; there is the same vapid, hedonistic world and the same sort of world-weary man observing it through eyes that have seen a lifetime of excess. And to what end? he asks himself.

To me, the real star of this film is Rome itself, lovingly depicted in all its mercurial moods, from dawn, through the heat of the day, to twilight, and on into velvet darkness. As a whole though, all we can say is, it ain't no Fellini...

CAESAR MUST DIE (2012) D- The Taviani Brothers. In a prison in central Italy, the inmates (some of whom have committed terrible crimes) put on a production of Julius Caesar.
Here at last, the cream rises to the top. Caesar Must Die is actually filmed in a real prison, and the actors are indeed a motley collection of mafia bosses, rapists and murderers. Back stories behind the basic "let's put on a play" theme are woven into the narrative, and the result is an astonishing achievement; skilful, subtle and deeply moving. Just how the Taviani brothers drew such powerful performances from players with little or no acting experience is an unfathomable mystery, but they did it, and did it magnificently. Bravo!