Goodbye Companiero! - Screen legend Peter Falk dies.

The Man Who Stares At Screens is deeply saddened to learn of the death of screen legend Peter Falk, best known for playing iconic television detective Columbo.  Mr Falk's lawyer reported that he had died peacefully at his Beverly Hills home yesterday evening, he was aged 83 and had been suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

Falk started his acting career on the stage, but was warned by his agent not to expect much screen work due to his glass eye, which he had worn from the age of three after his right eye was removed due to a retinoblastoma.  Despite this Falk went on to win five Emmy's (four for Columbo), one Golden Globe and received two Academy Award nominations and win over an army of fans both within the industry and amongst the public.

He also starred in one of The Man Who Stares At Screens own favourite films,  Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire in which he plays an angel who chose to become mortal, a role that seemed somehow very fitting for this most humble yet endearing of actors.  Here's a clip of Peter Falk's performance in that movie, one of my favourite scenes and a fine example of the man's acting skills for those who may not be aware of the gentle genius of the man in the dirty mac.  RIP.

Double Take (2009) - or why Alfred Hitchcock is to blame for the cold war.

Okay I know! I'm like buses, no posts for nearly a year then two come along at once, but whilst I've regained my blogging mojo I just had to mention this little gem I discovered a few weeks back whilst browsing the net for interesting and unusual filmic fodder and this one certainly fulfills both those caveats.

Double Take is a 2009 Belgian-Dutch-German financed production directed by Belgian Johan Grimonprez, which according to it's Wikipedia stub is best described as an essay film. It certainly is a hard movie to classify, it being a strange amalgam of fiction, documentary and stock footage that weaves a fantastical tale around a visual history of 60's cold war media coverage, advertisements and footage from Hitchcock's film and TV work, interspersed with snippets from the life of a modern day Hitchcock impersonator which come together to form a hypnotic, witty, competent and surprisingly cohesive essay on the duality of truth, the nature of modern media and it's ability to manipulate fear as a socio-political tool.

The main premise of the film is a story about Hitchcock, who, whilst filming The Birds walks into a room off-set to discover an older looking double of himself who claims to have come from the future (1982 to be precise). The ensuing conversation between the two doppelgangers forms the narrative backbone of an extended montage of entertaining and eclectic footage that builds to form the films core argument whilst also touching on higher concepts such as the nature of reality and truth and the usual conundrums that naturally occur whenever time-travel rears it's abstruse head.

I titled this entry Why Alfred Hitchcock is to blame for the cold war, but that's not really fair as this is not what the film is trying to convey, I have simply taken the liberty of extrapolating Grimonprez' argument to it's logical conclusion. The film refers heavily to the concept of the Macguffin a narrative device that Hitchcock himself was oft fond of using in his filmaking. I believe that Grimonprez is suggesting that the central axiom of the cold war ie, the threat of mutually assured destruction was itself a giant macguffin used to direct social and political policy with the mass media implicit as chief manipulator on both sides of the iron curtain.

Whatever conclusions you draw from this intriguing work what you experience will be like nothing you have seen before, a compelling and charming piece of cinema drifting on that rare cloud where documentary meets art. Highly recommended.

Apocalypse Now Remastered - or how to make a masterpiece look bland.

WooHoo! I'm back, yes after nearly twelve months without a post here I am again. I offer no excuses for my absence, it's the usual story.... Start blog, get excited about blog, realize nobody is reading blog, get depressed about blog, forget blog exists, but the arrival in cinemas of a shiny new digital remaster of Apocalypse Now in it's original cut (don't mention the Redux) inspired a return to the keyboard.

If you are one of the massive 18 unique visitors this blog has received since it's inception and for some bizarre reason you have returned then you will know that Apocalypse Now features in The Man Who Stares At Screens All Time Top Ten list so the prospect of seeing Coppola's Vietnam epic on the big screen again at a small, beer friendly art cinema was too much to resist and I settled down with a cool crisp lager into my own personal two-seater sofa for a very reasonable £8.50 (screw you and your overpriced "VIP" seats Mr Odeon) expecting to have my mind yet again blown by Coppola, Sheen & Brando et al, and of course I did, but on leaving the cinema I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. Where had all the colour gone?

The film itself has lost none of it's power and I could wax lyrical for pages on the profound nature of the relationship between Willard and Kurtz and the questions it raises about society, morality and the implications for a civilization that can produce men such as these, but I shall not. If you have seen Apocalypse Now then you'll know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't then you should stop reading immediately, go buy the DVD (available in The Man Who Stares At Screens Shop by the way) and find out for yourself.

The difference between this and previous versions of Apocalypse Now is that it has supposedly been digitally remastered. Now I don't know about you, but when I hear that term I expect to see a clean lush print, full of colour and life, and if Star Wars is anything to go by a few extra CGI monsters thrown in for good measure, but in this case the studio seem to have gone the opposite direction taking a beautiful lush film and managing to make it look worse. The first thing I noticed was the very obvious digital noise that was apparent throughout the screening. At this juncture I should note that I was sat only ten feet away from a twenty-odd foot screen but still, using a remastering process that adds noise to the original film stock rather than reducing it seems somewhat counter intuitive. My second and more heartfelt gripe regards the colour. One of the reasons I've always loved the cinematography in Apocalypse Now is the intense colours and how they give the film that other-worldy look, particularly in the jungle scene where Willard and Chef encounter the tiger. The glowing luminescent green and blue hues of the trees that gave this scene in the original print a truly alien feel in this version are bleached to mere green and blue tinted grays and this seems to be the case throughout, scenes that were previously bathed in colour just don't seem to have the strength they previously had. At first I thought it was maybe just that I'd had the contrast up too high the umpteen times I'd watched my tired old VHS copy, but having discussed it with other afictionados they all agreed, it seems that whoever was responsible for mastering this copy pulled the saturation knob right down instead of turning it up to eleven the way they did the first time around and in my mind it suffers for it.

However, being amongst my favourite films I couldn't leave this review on such a down note, regardless of the careless handling of this latest print, it remains one of the enduring masterpieces of modern American cinema. It seems strange to me that The Godfather movies are always the center of attention when we discuss the quality of work Coppola has produced and don't get me wrong, Godfather I & II are indeed great works, but when laid alongside the impeccable profundity of Apocalypse Now they appear mere soap-opera in comparison and it is surely this that is Coppola's masterwork.

L'Avventura - or the mystery that became an enigma

I have a confession to make.  I like to think of myself as something of a film connoisseur with respectable taste and a decent knowledge of great cinema from all over the globe, but despite that I've always struggled with Italian cinema.  Italian food great! A good Italian red wine, fine. Italian football, beautiful! I even had an Italian girlfriend once, but Italian cinema has always left me cold and despite my most earnest efforts the majority of Italian movies that do make it into my DVD player are usually ejected again before they reach the sixty minute mark, even the classics.  It is for this reason that L'Avventura had languished, unwatched on my shelf for several years after receiving it as a gift from a similarly cinema obsessed friend who's tried in vain ever since to get me to watch it.  I was well aware that it was considered a classic and something of a landmark movie, but had resisted stating my irrational allergy to all films Italian in mitigation, well shame on me!  I finally relented this week after some further reading led me to discover that not only was it considered great but had actually spent some considerable time on both Sight and Sound and the BFI's lists of the ten greatest movies of all time and my know it all movie buff pride overcame my Iberian prejudices.

Released in 1960 and directed by Michaelangelo Antonioni L'Avventura premiered at the Cannes film festival where it met with such a chorus of boos that both director and star Monica Vitti fled the theater.  Regardless of this it won the special jury prize and went on to be a worldwide box office smash, it's brand of elegant ennui becoming something of an emblem for the super cool sixties.

The story, if it can be said to have one, centers around the disappearance of Anna, a beautiful young bored socialite whilst on a boat trip with her equally beautiful bored friends and the resulting search, but that is not really the point here.  Antonioni intentionally strays away from traditional cinematic narrative structure using the mystery of Anna's disappearance merely as a framework on which to build a series of character studies of a group of people for whom, despite being rich and free to live as they please are bored vacuous and seemingly emotionless, carrying on love affairs more as a cure for tedium than from any real feeling and as the film progresses the mysterious disappearance is slowly forgotten as the protagonists' seemingly boundless self obsession washes over everything else.

As with many classic movies the production of L'Avventura was plagued with difficulties.  The production company went bankrupt, the crew went on strike due to non-payment, weather conditions were so bad on the Island where the first part was shot that the entire crew was stranded there for days and Lea Massari, who plays Anna, had a heart attack part way through shooting and was in a coma for two days.  Despite all of this what resulted is a compelling and often visually stunning film that deserves all the accolades it has received.  The cinematography, especially in the first part of the movie is entrancing, the characters often taking second stage to a landscape as bleak and empty as they are themselves and Antonioni's languid pacing fits perfectly the existentialist nature of his subject.

I am sorry now that I left this movie gathering dust for so long.  It will be going back near the top of the pile for another viewing in the near future and has led me to think I may have been too hard on our Mediterranean cousins, perhaps it's time to give La Dolce Vita another go.

Movie News - Hope for The Hobbit: MGM get another reprieve

IF like myself you are a fan of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings series and have been looking forward to seeing The Hobbit ever since it was announced then you will be happy to learn that financially troubled studio MGM, who own half the rights to the Hobbit movie/s alongside Warner Bros today received yet another extension on their debts in the hope that they can strike a deal.

The beleaguered studio that is in the red to the tune of $3.7 billion to 140 creditors was given it's sixth extension to date, this one set to expire on Sept 15th.  It comes just a day after representatives of MGM met with executives from Lionsgate Films to discuss a possible merger and reorganization deal.

Jackson himself is confident it seems, as despite the company's difficulties he is pressing on with pre-production for The Hobbit which is expected to be MGM's first new production should they ever manage to get back in business.  It was reported today that Jackson has been on a casting trip to Los Angeles for the movie and is expected to hold further casting sessions in New York and London in the near future.

Save The Green Planet - or how the East saved horror.

I discovered Save The Green Planet several years ago, it was a completely random selection from my online movie rental service and I had absolutely no idea what to expect.  I'm not generally a fan of horror, especially not torture horror unless it is prefixed with comedy in big letters, Save The Green Planet is this and much more, in fact it's something of a genre buster.

Released in 2003 and written and directed in Korea by Jang Jun-hwan it could be classified as a Comedy/Horror/Sci-Fi/Detective/Drama movie, though I'm still probably missing something out.

It tells the story of the more than a little psychotic Byeong-gu and his besotted circus performing girlfriend Su-ni.  Byeong-gu is convinced that the world is about to be invaded by aliens and with the help of Su-ni kidnaps a powerful company executive who he believes is really a high-ranking alien official who will be able help him contact the alien prince at the next lunar eclipse and stop the imminent invasion.  Believing that only he can save the world he imprisons the executive in his basement and begins to torture him for information on the alien threat.  As the torture progresses it becomes evident that Byeong-gu's ravings about alien invasion may hide much deeper seated reasons for kidnapping and torturing this particular individual.  Meanwhile the police are under a great deal of pressure to find the missing man, who is the son in law of the chief of the force.   

Sometimes a film comes along that reminds you why you fell in love with cinema in the first place and Save The Green Planet is one of them.  It's an absolute joy from start to finish, brilliantly written and acted, constantly inventive and unpredictable moving seamlessly from slapstick comedy to gruesome torture to moments of true tenderness with an assuredness that is all the more impressive when you learn that this is Jang Jun-hwan's directorial debut.  The editing is superb with excellent pacing and lots of intriguing little animations and CGI snippets that really add to the sense of Byeong-gu's mental disorder.  Having seen this film six or seven times since first coming across it it has lost none of it's charm and is still absolutely the first movie I recommend to anyone with any modicum of taste in movies.  It is also the film that confirmed for me the suspicion that as far as horror movies go Hollywood should hang up it's gloves and leave it to those on the other side of the Pacific.  Since the mid-nineties all the best most innovative horror movies have been coming out of Japan and more recently Korea, with the American film industry playing a poor game of catch up and I just cannot imagine modern Hollywood ever producing anything as original and imaginative as Save The Green Planet.  Absolute top notch cinema, get yourself a copy and cherish it.   

Zardoz - from the ridiculous to the sublime, and back again!

ZARDOZ is a film that had avoided me for some long time.  Being something of a fan of the weird and unusual in cinema it had always been floating around on the periphery of my viewing list without my ever committing, the thought of spending an hour and three quarters watching Sean Connery running around in nothing but thigh high boots and hot pants probably had a lot to do with this.  However I finally relented and this week my DVD player played host to one of the most bizarre and mind boggling movies ever to have crawled out of the seventies. Made in 1974 by John Boorman, critically acclaimed director of Deliverance and Excalibur and set in a distant post-apocalyptic future the film opens, after a short monologue, with a giant flying stone head that lands in front of a group of scantily clad, jeering, behorsed "exterminators" and says;

"You have been raised up from Brutality, to kill the Brutals who multiply, and are legion. To this end, Zardoz your God gave you the gift of the Gun. The Gun is good! Penis is evil! The Penis shoots Seeds, and makes new Life to poison the Earth with a plague of men, as once it was. But the Gun shoots Death and purifies the Earth of the filth of Brutals. Go forth, and kill! Zardoz has spoken." and then proceeds to spew hundreds of shotguns from it's mouth to the obvious joy of the assembled crowd. 

.....and that's only the start of the weirdness!

Connery plays Zed, one of the exterminators, who hitches a ride in the giant head and finds himself in the Vortex, a sealed bubble populated by immortals with psychic powers who had long ago separated themselves from the rest of humanity to live in a state of peace and harmony which was now becoming a state of ennui and decay.  Having long ago discarded all notions of sex and violence the immortals are intrigued by this visitor and perform a series of interviews and experiments on him that begin to highlight the cracks and imperfections in their own society.

Zardoz contains all the classic ingredients of seventies post-apocalyptic sci-fi; wildly unsuitable clothing, more bare breasts than you can shake a big stick at, a hefty dose of nihilism and the liberal application of transparent plastic and mirrors to make everything look suitably futuristic, but there is also much more.  

There are scenes that are sheer brilliance with well thought out dialogue that offer real food for thought, there are scenes that are just laughably bad (such as the sexual experiments performed on Zed) and then there are other scenes that are so outright bizarre and psychadellic that you can only assume Boorman spent large portions of the preceding decade performing experiments of his own with various illicit substances.  There are many films of which it is said "you have never seen anything like this" and on most occasions it's usually bumfluff, but in the case of Zardoz I think I can safely say you have never seen anything quite like this before.  It is a hard film to describe without giving too much away, think The Wicker Man crossed with The Omega Man crossed with Planet of the Apes crossed with The Holy Mountain and you're half way there.

It's a love it or hate it movie that usually gets lumped into the "so bad it's good" category.  The story goes that Connery was struggling to find work after ditching his role as James Bond so Boorman was able to hire him cheap and it's hard to think of any other reason why someone who had shot to mega stardom as a suave super-spy would choose to play a role like Zed, but beneath all the silliness, dated imagery and Sean Connery's chest hair lurk some interesting ideas on sex, mortality and the emasculation of society that are perhaps more relevant today than they were at the time of it's release.  I personally loved it and if you're willing to set aside your disbelief and place your tongue firmly in your cheek I think you might too.