Arriving at the South Bank centre for an ostensibly literary but obviously geeky talk which coincides with the final day of London Comic-Con, it feels a bit like being trapped in a thinking man's Forbidden Planet. You get a better class of geek here. I'm no longer the nerdiest person in the room and everyone also has more acceptable levels of personal hygiene*1. It's almost enough to make up for a pint being £5.75. Well. Almost...
ROD The faithful had gathered in the cultural centre of the capital like Ewoks to worship at the feet of old Goldenrod himself, aka Anthony Daniels - the actor behind protocol droid C-3PO. With the imminent release of the final film in the Skywalker Saga, Daniels has carpéd the diem to compile a timely memoir about his experiences in and out of the golden suit. And joining him in conversation about this venture is BB-8 operator (and far more, besides) for the new era of Star Wars movies, Brian Herring.
Brian is a fantastic host, years of puppeteering and behind the scenes work stoking a barely concealed showmanship. But after a brief introduction and resumé for the audience members who aren't already familiar with his work, Anthony joins Brian on stage. It's at this point that the crowd realises that it wasn't just the golden plating drawing the attention after all. Daniels is a natural raconteur, his reserved manner born out of politeness and wry wit, rather than self-deprecating shyness.
GIRLS We start at the beginning (always a good place), with Anthony's yearning - his vocation - to be an actor, leading quickly to that day in George Lucas' casting office when the young performer first saw Ralph McQuarrie's iconic concept painting of the droids in the Tatooine desert - and the deal between Daniels and Threepio was wordlessly sealed.
Despite the theatrical setting and presentation, the show is very informal. And as structured as the conversation is, it quickly drifts organically around its subject. While the prequel films are referenced but skirted over politely, it's worth noting perhaps that Return Of The Jedi doesn't even get a mention in the first segment. All in all, you can't really condense 40 years into 40 minutes and expect everything to take equal billing.
MAINE This is a book launch of course, and the frequent plugging of the tome in question quickly becomes a self-effacing punchline. With this in mind, the anecdotes and recollections on offer don't delve too deeply into detail - this is a taster session after all (as if a single person in that room wasn't already on-side as a customer before they even sat down*2).
The time whizzes by effortlessly - an hour and a half nowhere near enough to do justice to over four decades of performance. The second half of the show (no intermission) sees the pair breaking the seal and walking out into the stepped audience area to field open questions*3. Some of these prove to be sweet if predictable, some of the better ones unanswerable in a full form given the evening's time limitations, and a couple so cynically loaded ("Do you think The Last Jedi was great or awful?") that full credit goes to Daniels for batting them aside with devastating good grace.
PLO The evening culminates back on the stage with a big-screen presentation of the final Rise Of Skywalker trailer (with which, let's be fair, the vast majority of the room were already very familiar). While Anthony is tight-lipped here about C-3PO's fate in Episode IX, his book's publication at the end of 2019 certainly suggests the end - if not of C-3PO himself - of an era in general*4. Daniels has future projects pipelined for voicework as the protocol droid*5, but by this point we'd expect nothing less.
Always in motion is the future, and if the Disney-era has taught us anything it's that the odds of second-guessing the trajectory of Star Wars are approximately 3,720 to 1. But the one thing we can do is look back on what has been. With warmth, with wisdom, and perhaps even see a few things from a different point of view, too...
But if you have a small independent bookshop in your town, get it there instead.
*1 Yeah look, what can I tell you? They may be 'my people', but the body odour of the comic-class is a cliche because it's often true. Try spending more than twenty minutes in Forbidden Planet on a Saturday afternoon, really. #NotAllNerds [ BACK ]
*2 That said, although there were copies of the book on sale out in the foyer, this wasn't a signing session. And the harsh lesson of economics is that without these bearing an autograph or inscription, it's as easy to wait four days until the official publication date and buy it more cheaply from Amazon. Hey, I don't make the rules. [ BACK ]
*3 For the record, your humble correspondent did not raise his hand to ask a question. He'd already proffered three absolute belters (quite frankly) via Brian Herring's request on Twitter and felt sure that this avenue would form its own section of the show. As it turns out, it didn't. So ultimately one has to conclude that if these weren't deemed worthy of separate inclusion or working into conversation, then they probably weren't meant to be answered anyway. Honestly, I'm wasted on this planet. But I digress.
[ BACK ]
*4 The evening's closing music was the victory celebration from the 1997+ versions of Return Of The Jedi. IE not Yub-Nub. As is right since Victory Celebration been the canonical end to the movie for 22 years now, and it's about time Ian Disney got that into his skull.
[ BACK ]
*5 Earlier, Anthony referred to his voicework on "wonderful animation" in the dark times between the original and prequel trilogies, by the way. He means Droids. He's saying Droids is wonderful. See? I fucking well told you it's not just me who thinks that.
BOOM. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Hey, d'you remember Zombieland? The low-fanfare, roundly entertaining ensemble comedy-horror from 2009 when The Walking Dead was only three seasons old so everyone was still into zombies? With the jokes and the splatter and the post-modern subversion of the nuclear family and 21st century crisis-management? Well if you missed that, here it is again only less.
Writer/director Ruben Fleischer returns - hoping for all the world that people still associate his name with the 2009 undead debut rather than last year's Venom - along with his original players in the form of Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), Wichita (Emma Stone), Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) and Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson). The years have been good to the cast, with Stone in particular largely beyond this type of fare these days, so their reunion is a definite point in the movie's favour.
FAMILY We pick up ten years after first meeting the gang as they've settled into a dysfunctional yet relatively stable family unit. Stable that is until Little Rock feels the urge to flee the nest after a chance meeting with drifting stoner Berkeley (Avan Jogia), and the arrival of the valley-girl-esque Madison (Zoey Deutch). And so another road-trip and rescue mission begins through the burned out wreckage of America as fun, gunfire and relentless gore go hand in hand...
Eisenberg's opening (and subsequently sporadic) narration returns*1, as does the slow-motion, Metallica-backed title sequence*2, as do the on-screen graphics listing Zombieland's familiar rules, as do the Zombie Kill of The Week™ cutaways. And while it's certainly nice that these stylistic recurrences haven't been jettisoned during the production process, their collective weight quickly becomes the film's problem, rather than its solution. Double Tap is doing nothing new, even with characters we're meeting for the first time*3. The cast all do fairly well in their roles, but for the most part we've seen it before (in Eisenberg's case especially, as he only seems to have one performance).
SHARON The problem, as is so often the case, is one of expectation. 2009's Zombieland came out of nowhere and took civilian audiences and critics alike by surprise. But much like Guardians Of The Galaxy, Kingsman and Deadpool, the audience for this sequel consists almost entirely of fans of the first movie. And now they've got a checklist. What's more, in this case they've had that list for a decade. The zombie-culture renaissance has waned somewhat in the intervening ten years, and scripted references to Dawn Of The Dead and The Walking Dead now seem more lazy than geekily insightful.
Then there are the weird tonal shifts throughout, like the creative team couldn't agree on where to land between cynical, bleak and comic. It doesn't help that the characters new to this entry have only been half-written, so some of their 'exits' come off as similarly uneven. Ultimately, both the story and its execution feel very on-the-nose, as the film steams through in its bid to make as many callbacks as possible, hoping they'll be an adequate substitute for charm or originality*4. I mean, sincere congratulations to Fleischer for getting the band back together, but Double Tap feels as if they should have come back for more. It's like a second-draft screenplay became the shooting script without anyone noticing until the edit stage.
LYLE And for those among you thinking 'this sounds like it would work better as part of a double-bill with the original', I assure you it doesn't. I'd re-acquainted with that one at home in the afternoon before watching Double Tap, and if anything the direct comparison just hurts the sequel more. Don't get me wrong, the film has some great moments and even in its dips is never flat-out unenjoyable. It's just very forgettable.
There's a mid-credits scene which begins about 45 seconds into the credits (basically so that you won't be able to walk out without watching it start). It features a flashback/reprise of Bill Murray's Bill Murray™ character from the first Zombieland. And if you enjoy that, there's also a post-credits coda in the same vein. Alas, of the sizeable Saturday night crowd who'd come out to watch Double Tap, I was the only one who wanted to hang around that long. Which should tell you something about the mood in which the movie leaves its audience.
I'm not convinced that we needed a second Zombieland movie, and watching this I don't think Ruben Fleischer was either. But in a year which sees the sixth installments of both the Rambo and Terminator franchises, I see no real harm in splatting a few more ghouls just for the hell of it. Double Tap is basically fine, but that in itself is not.
You remember how Amazon made that TV spin-off pilot episode which worked relatively well on its own, yet still completely failed to recreate the spark of what had made Zombieland special in the first place? Well, now there's a movie like that as well...
Zombieland.
It is very, very similar to Zombieland.
That's not a bad thing, it's just not enough.
Without wanting to damn with faint praise, you may as well see this in all the glory it's got on a huge cinema screen, yes.
It is, although the number of rewatches you'll get out of this is anyone's guess.
That's a strong four, but I think the film will quickly earn a reputation of being 'neither nowt nor summat'.
*1 Although the narration seems to be aimed through the fourth-wall and directly at the viewer this time, rather than something which could broadly count as a diary being read retrospectively. [ BACK ]
*2 For the record, 1986's Master Of Puppets is used to open Double Tap. And I'll be honest, For Whom The Bell Tolls from the first movie worked far better. It's a super slo-mo sequence so the slower, heavier song creates a stronger pairing. Choosing Master Of Puppets to for the sequel just feels like Ruben Fleischer trying to impress a girl by picking his naming Metallica tracks. Which, as men of a certain age will no doubt know, never actually works. [ BACK ]
*3 Guys, seriously. The whole "oh we've met another group of travellers who are avoiding zombies and their defining characteristics are almost exactly like our own!" schtick was done first in Shaun Of The Dead. The one from fifteen years ago. And it was only a passing gag there, here's it's dragged out expanded to fifteen minutes for a punchline which could have been achieved after five. [ BACK ]
*4Haha! Tallahassee is sitting in the president's chair in The White House*5! He's brash and uncivilised and kind of a moron and he's sitting in the president's chair! DO YOU SEE? DO YOU GET THE JOKE? THIS IS HOW YOU DO A SATIRE HAHAHAHA!![ BACK ]
*5 Naturally it's not explained why our heroes are able to break into the White House and find everything intact because not a single looting soul has forced their way into one of the most prominent buildings in America over the previous ten years that it's stood empty. Although I imagine the reason is on the same page as the fact that they're living there for weeks/months and no one attempts to get in then, either, despite there being plenty of other surviving humans around elsewhere in the movie.
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DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Who among us ever thought they'd see the day, where old and new can collide seamlessly before our eyes? The marriage of cutting-edge technology (to the point where it's not yet finished, in fact) and some of the most retrograde action filler you've seen since the early 90s straight-to-video boom? Yet here we are, standing agog as US Government black-ops hitman Henry Brogan (Will Smith) battles it out with someone who looks a bit like Will Smith used to look a quarter of a century ago, if you squint. And you've had a couple of drinks. And if you never really paid that much attention to Will Smith a quarter of a century ago.
FUN But hey, it's all good fun! No wait, it's not is it? That's right, it's not good fun. I'm always getting those mixed up. The first act of Ang Lee's Gemini Man lopes along like a perfectly serviceable moody thriller that's about to set up its mind-shattering reveal. Except that reveal has already been completely undercut by a) the film's title, b) the film's poster, and c) the film's trailer which explains the entire fucking concept before its audience has even had a chance to buy a ticket.
Dropped into the October schedule like a badly rendered stepchild, Gemini Man comes over as a shelved 199x Van Damme thriller which has been waiting for the technology to catch up, and when it did Jason Statham said he was busy so they phoned Will Smith instead. And then it turned out the technology had lied about catching up. And lied badly.
So it's Looper but for people who don't like thinking about stuff. Will Smith trying to kill his other self, except one of The Will Smiths is younger and both of The Will Smiths are good people really and it was all Evil Clive Owen's fault anyway, with the latter's accent from the Washington DC suburb of Walthamstow and having gone up four trouser sizes on account of all the fucking scenery he's chewing. Benedict Wong stars as the gadget-guy / pilot / comic-relief. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is The Girl One*1. More on her later.
SPENDER On the plus-side, the action sequences are relatively well shot and directed in terms of actual physicality. The movie features a gorgeous continuous tracking shot of Smith-Senior on a motorcycle, and that's doing so well until he starts being chased in turn by Smith-Junior. The resulting fracas contains some of the worst animated acrobatics in living cinematic memory (think of the swing-sequences in 2002's Spider-Man, except it's 2019 and now there's really no excuse). Your leading man puts in a satisfactory turn in a role which isn't more than half-written anyway, as do Winstead and Wong. But Gemini Man was never about characterisation to begin with.
Yes, as to the main attraction? Well, future-phobes will be relieved to hear we're not there yet. Much like Tarkin and Leia from Rogue One, the digitally de-aged Will Smith looks more or less fine. Until his face begins to move that is, at which point we're sent hurtling down the Uncanny Valley fast enough to give us whiplash. Although as much as Smith-Junior looks like Pixar's work-in-progress of animating a new turnip character, his digital visage still emotes more feeling than that of Clive Owen; the cinematic equivalent of a bookmark in that he just sits there inert, not adding anything to the plot and whose only function is to periodically remind you where you'd got to. Gemini Man is clinical proof that any mediocre film can always be made worse by Owen's presence.
So in the third act where, coincidentally, a third Smith turns up (in a twist so ham-fistedly telegraphed that you can almost hear Ang Lee hoping that no one in the audience has seen Oblivion) - I was thinking 'Oh, hang on... ace-marksman assassin, super-fighter, wearing a mask... is Will Smith's other self Deadshot? Is this a deftly-marketed Suicide Squad lead-in?' Nope. No such luck, mate. Wishful coincidence. It's just another Will Smith.
CROCODILE SHOES The passage of time is treated as an inconvenience throughout, international air journeys undertaken off-screen and in apparently zero-time according to the conversations continuing around them. The whole thing is edited as if a two-hour movie has been commissioned for a 45-minute TV slot (oh that it were so short). Although at one point during an in-car, background-painting conversation as Smith-Junior asks his progenitor "you grew up in Philadelphia, right?", I at least thought we were going to get some rapping thrown in to add some much-needed goodwill nostalgia. Nope, another opportunity missed.
Still, at least a flick like this can bring some woke 21st century sensibility to the action genre, right? As if. At one point where Smith-Senior is fighting his younger self in the Budapest catacombs*2, Mary Elizabeth Winstead's sole purpose as a trained, qualified and experienced government agent is to stand pointing a shotgun at them. Not as a threat or a warning, but because it's got a torch mounted on the top and the audience wouldn't be able to see what's happening otherwise. Five minutes later when the brawl has moved to a subterranean pool, she drops a flare in and jumps in after them. I mean does the Bechdel Test even matter when your supporting actress is doubling as your lighting technician? Isn't that equality enough, guys?
We close with some faux-philosophical bantering about the ethics of cloning and patriotism (no, seriously), a payoff which probably looked neat on the page followed by the kind of implausibly happy ending that feels like it was written and assembled over a year after principal photography. Not least because Smith-Junior's CGI face is by this point so warped and distended that it looks as if a swarm of wasps may be about to emerge at any moment.
"I'm gonna be okay!" says our reformed demi-protagonist as the credits beckon. No. You're really not, mate. None of us are going to be okay until the Uncanny Valley is left out of Hollywood journey-planning for good...
Screaming into a mirror and noticing your reflection is out of sync.
And is drawn in crayon.
And while we're on the subject, David Benioff has co-written the screenplay to Gemini Man. That's David Benioff as in "Benioff & Weiss" from The Game Of The Thrones. Now, I don't watch GoT (long story, no real agenda but catch me about it another time), but if Gemini Man is anything to go by then the upcoming Star Wars project from Benioff & Weiss is probably in the shit already...
*1 And if you find yourself in the fandom subset of being a) British, and b) slightly in love with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, you'll be pleasantly surprised when Will Smith arrives on his aggressively pursued date to find Mary already halfway through a pint. Fantastic stuff, albeit another callback to mid-90s UK culture. Mind you, a waiter brings over two more pints a minute later and all of a sudden the one she had in front of her is gone. Like the waiter's taken that away. We didn't see her finish it. Either the continuity sucks in this movie or the table service does... [ BACK ]
*2 And why does this part of the film take place in Budapest? No idea. No real reason at all mate. Not mentioned. Scenery and/or tax breaks, one imagines. But they come and go back to Langley VA like it's nipping round to the Co-Op for some milk. Which would be arguably a more interesting film... [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Writer and director Adrian Panek brings us Werewolf (Wilkołak in its native Polish), set toward the end of the Second World War. In February 1945, Allied Forces are liberating the prisoners of the Nazi concentration camps. One of these, Wolfsberg, is in chaotic freefall as its murderous officials know the end is near. After the intervention of the Russian Army, eight children are taken to a remote abandoned mansion in Poland, which serves as a temporary orphanage – their parents having all been killed at other camps.
Under the sole care of Jadwiga (Danuta Stenka), the children try to adjust to their freedom until help arrives. But it soon becomes apparent that this won’t happen, since the woodland surrounding the house is populated by creatures that have killed the soldiers who left them there. The children become trapped indoors with no running water, food dwindling and tension rising by the hour. One way or another, this can’t go on for long…
HOUSE So the children are starving inside the house while the monsters are ravenous outside. Both are desperate to survive, the only difference being that the hounds aren’t turning on each other. The film is more a dark survival thriller than outright horror, but Panek certainly borrows from the gory supernatural in bringing his threat to life. And while the title isn’t as literal as audiences might expect, it’s still wholly relevant to the text of the film.
With its subjects imprisoned for a second time, the storyline necessarily ramps up a sense of claustrophobia. The drunken Russian soldiers evoke an inherent distrust of authority akin to 28 Days Later, while the internal group dynamics here are closer to The Secret Of Marrowbone than Lord Of The Flies. But that’s not to say the threat within the walls is any easier to deal with than the one outside.
BACHELOR The youngest of these characters would only have known life in the camps, separated from their parents for who knows how long. They have little to no idea how to function now, not savages but ill disciplined and impetuous. The older ones meanwhile are emerging into a world they barely remember that’s still unsafe, and are facing the rollercoaster of puberty with no guidance. It would be easy to make the children brattish, instead Panek brings a very sympathetic portrayal of even the most unlikeable members of group. Ultimately it's only their humanity which can save them.
Although it’s performed in Polish (with German and Russian from the soldiers as appropriate), Werewolf is very economically scripted with a show-don’t-tell approach, meaning the subtitles never become a distraction. Panek gets outstanding performances from his players, a triumph of writing, direction and of course acting (not least due to the potentially harrowing preparations required by a cast this young). There are particularly strong turns from Sonia Mietielica (Spies of Warsaw), Nicolas Przygoda (Panic Attack) and Kamil Polnisiak (who debuts here).
OFFICE CHRISTMAS
In a work this delicate there are pitfalls, however. We only really get to know half of the children, and with a pool this small that seems negligent for characters the audience are supposed to be rooting for. Because they’re not counted-in during the first act, it’s difficult to keep track of how many of our heroes there are, and who’s missing at any point.
Additionally, the film’s ending seems to resolve everything a little too neatly. While it certainly works in terms of the character arcs and subtext, in practical terms this feels a little on-the-nose. But at only 88 minutes, Werewolf is surprisingly well paced with plenty of room to breathe.
It feels odd describing a piece with so much growling, barking and screaming as ‘quiet’, but there we are. Werewolf is as introspective as it is fraught, and reminds us that the real monsters don’t always live in the woods…
It's a high bar to clear in the future, put it that way.
I shouldn't imagine so.
There isn't.
Level 2: Werner Daehn is in this, and he was in that Valkyrie with Terence 'Valorum' Stamp.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Joker (spoilers in the footnotes)
Cert: 15 / 122 mins / Dir. Todd Phillips / Trailer
It's not supposed to be an easy-ride. Just keep that in mind as you sit down to watch the story of a middle-aged man, single but living with his elderly mother in a run down apartment block as he ekes out an existence as a jobbing clown in a city which has forgotten how to laugh. As he's taken for granted, mocked, ignored and assaulted on a daily basis. As he has neither the social nor the practical skills to pursue his dream of being a standup comedian, evoking only laughs of pity rather than knowing camaraderie. As it's not one thing which tips him over the edge, like the timings of a fast food outlet breakfast menu, but a succession of bad decisions and worse reactions that corner him and seem to offer only one logical way out. As that involves becoming one of the most notorious villains of comic culture, by which bloodsoaked point he's long past trying to make other people happy. It's not supposed to be an easy ride.
DOWNFALL Which is just as well, really. Todd Phillips' highly anticipated Joker movie is very good but is also bloody hard work, for both the right and wrong reasons. Charting the downfall of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), it's a snapshot of crisis which plays as well to today's time as its 1981 setting. And don't let that year fool you, the sets, wardrobe, makeup and titles have a delicious 1970s vibe, as does Lawrence Sher's cinematography. His desaturated eye flits from the confines of Fleck's claustrophobic apartment to voyeuristic tracking shots across the street as he makes his way through Gotham's urban jungle. This is a city which doesn't know the decade has ticked over.
There are references to wider DC lore (to the point where even a Marvel-kid like me picked them up), but the movie is largely self-contained. Comparisons are inevitable of course, and tonally Phoenix is perhaps the closest to the Nolan/Ledger Joker, with the sense of deranged threat every bit as palpable when the character is pinned down. Of course that earlier performance was by definition more mysterious, his backstory shifting every time he spoke to someone new. There's no such ambiguity here. Phillips wants to (and does) explain every excruciating beat of Arthur Fleck's fall between the cracks. And while Joaquin's hypnotic performance adds intrigue to the characterisation, there's still no real Mystery™.
BABY But it's the performances that matter here, rather than adherence to any previous timeline. Phoenix leads brilliantly as usual, although we'd expect nothing less at this point. And while there are strong supporting turns from Robert De Niro as talk show host Murray Franklin, Zazie Beets as Arthur's neighbour Sophie and Frances Conroy as his mother Penny, everyone else is firmly in second-place here*1. At a hair over two hours, the film is tight but never rushed. And with a full stage to himself, Phoenix manages what Leto couldn't and redefines the character properly. This new iteration carries all the critical DNA of the Joker, while still being its own thing.
The story is underscored by a fantastically mournful score from Hildur Guðnadóttir and a darkly wry jukebox soundtrack*2. The film is definitely over-egged in places but Phillips paints his scenes perfectly, and it's an overdue lesson to others in the DC-verse insisting that visual and thematic darkness are automatically the same thing. Although the director is by no means unaware of his successes here, and spends the last ten minutes of the movie cruising past a swathe of natural end-points, desperate to wring every last drop out of his subject with patience-testing curtain calls (confirmation: there's no bonus content during or after the credits).
YOKO ONO This wants to be the Logan of DC, and in many ways it succeeds. But while there are certainly plenty of things working in Joker's favour, I don't think it'll become the classic it's being lauded as in some quarters. When the hype has died down, we'll be left with a damned solid love letter to 70s noir cinema, viewed through the socio-political lens of 2019. Phillips has assembled this well, but it's too reliant on the movies it homages to be truly groundbreaking.
Joker often feels like it's Phillips making a statement rather than telling a story. And it's a statement which will be taken out of context by some*3. And it really shouldn't be, but not everyone can read in subtext and there are some genies you just can't put back in the bottle...
Given the movie's provocative nature and mixed critical reaction, that's probably not unlikely.
Not that I heard.
Level 2: Joaquin Phoenix is in this, and he was in The Sisters Brothers with Riz 'Bodhi Rook' Ahmed.
*1Interesting casting point: A young Bruce Wayne is shown here in a couple of scenes, played by Dante Pereira-Olson. Dante also starred in You Were Never Really Here where he was the childhood iteration of Joaquin Phoenix's character, Joe. So while this movie toys with the long-recurring theme that Batman and the Joker are two sides of the same coin, that's done with performers who have previously played the same person in the same film, again with a generational divide between innocence and clinical psychoticism. It's a small point which is unlikely to be picked up in the cinema, but adds to the architecture of the film. Lovely stuff. [ BACK ]
*2 At one point there's been a production meeting in which someone has asked "So can we use Gary Glitter on the soundtrack?", and it appears that someone else has replied "Yes. Yes, that is entirely in keeping with the vision of this piece. Do that." Er, okay mate. [ BACK ]
*3 Although at least it's a statement which stands up to some scrutiny, unlike some of the utter bollocks Phillips has come out with on the movie's promotional-trail. Ho-hum. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
