Reading and Viewing

One reason--beyond natural indolence--for some downtime on the blog is that I'm doing what might loosely be called research for Shadow Puppet, and generally catching up on some reading and the Sky+ box.

Having finished Stalingrad, which was most definitely research, I continued with two contrasting Spitfire pilot memoirs: First Light, by Geoffrey Wellum, and The Last Enemy, by Richard Hillary.  Both were vivid and moving accounts of pilots' experiences, and humbling to read how these seemingly ordinary young men were able to endure the most horrific conditions--taking their planes into combat two or three times a day, with their colleagues killed around them.  Both understandably take on a certain detachment under a devil-may-care exterior.  Wellum survived the war, understanding even at the time that nothing in his life would match the intensity or significance of these early experiences; Hillary, terribly burned after being shot down, was then killed in a training crash.  Sobering stuff.

Less emotionally engaging was the final series of The Tudors.  This, by almost any standards, was a stinker: historical accuracy, competence of script, acting merit--all were wholly cast aside.  Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) lapsed deeper and deeper into Irish as the series progressed, and the dream sequence in which he was visited by Death on a horse defined risibility.  And yet--The Tudors was great fun. Taken on its own terms, it had pace, dynamism and an unpretentious--if wholly unwarranted--self-confidence.  A guilty pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.

It certainly compared favourably with Ridley Scott's bloated ragbag of cliche and stereotype, Robin Hood.  This, from the man who directed Alien, Bladerunner and Gladiator, was a sad and sorry comedown.  Scott apparently rejected more interesting earlier versions of the script (including Russell Crowe playing both Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, and the Sheriff as "a CSI-style forensic investigator) to make a stolid retelling of an old tale.  No worse, perhaps, than The Tudors, but with the unforgivable sin of being just plain boring.

Top Science-Fiction and Fantasy Films, 2001-10

Number 1

For those of you who have borne with me so far, the revelation is at hand: the film I think better than The Lord of the Rings, Inception and Batman.  The winner, of course, (there can be no debate) is Roland Emmerich's blockbusting drama, sweeping in scope yet poignant in characterisation; a great movie in this or any decade: yes, it's 2012.

Hah hah!  Regular visitors to ::Acquired Taste will know that's bollocks.  Let's move, instead, to a film worthy of our time and attention.

1. The Prestige, dir. Christopher Nolan, 2007

Yes, I know it's Christopher Nolan again, but you'll have to bear with me on this one.  Adapted--fairly loosely--from a fine Christopher Priest novel--The Prestige tells the story of two rival fin-de-siecle stage magicians.  You get Christian Bale, of course, as a chippy working-class lad, set against a polished Hugh Jackman; Scarlett Johannsen as their love interest; Michael Caine for once used properly; a bravura turn from David Bowie as Nikola Tesla; and a genuinely stunning climax. It has some of the same preoccupations as Inception--the nature of memory and identity, secrecy and obsession--but for me, executed in a more structurally satisying way.  Nolan artfully manipulates the audience's sympathy, so that the viewer is never quite sure to root for.  It's clever, pacy, always surprising and just about note-perfect.  Received on release with general critical appreciation if little rapture, in time The Prestige deserves to be recognised as a masterpiece.

Top Science-Fiction & Fantasy Films, 2001-2010

Numbers 2-4

Our survey of the decade is drawing to a close, with my favourite ready to be announced on New Year's Day.  For today, though, three remarkable forays onto the big screen worth the attention of all SF/F fans.

4. Batman Begins, dir. Christopher Nolan, 2005

I might have done better to treat Nolan's Batman franchise as a single entity, but both films are so remarkable that they deserve their own space.  Batman, of course, had a long (and to my mind, not particularly interesting) history before Nolan's involvement; Batman Begins is a thrilling journey into how Bruce Wayne/Batman came to be.  There is always a fascination with origin myths.  The material could easily be flaccid and cliched: boy experiences trauma, but returns stronger to exact his revenge*.  Christian Bale is such an effective Bruce Wayne that the audience never feels they are watching something they have seen before, and the film is particularly impressive in the way it demonstrates the darkness at Wayne's core--and shows that as essential to the 'Batman' persona.  I prefered it, by a whisker, to The Dark Knight, because the emphasis was so squarely on Wayne/Batman; the later film's focus on The Joker and Harvey Dent for me dilutes that a fraction.  But they are two magnificent films.


3. Inception, dir. Christopher Nolan, 2010
You may by now get the idea that I'm a fan of Nolan's work, and you'd be right.  Always willing to challenge the boundaries of commercial cinema, Nolan has a deep understanding of how to construct a story to keep the audience's attention.  Inception has all the trappings of a Philip K Dick story - games about the nature of consciousness and identity, weird but consistent inner worlds - but with an adamantine control of structure.  It works as a film not because of all the Dickery, but because the underlying model is the old-fashioned heist movie.  Nolan works with a number of his favoured actors--Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy--and Leonardo di Caprio is no Christian Bale, he is strong enough to lead this film.  The film explores three dreamscapes, and had the third been as strong as the first two, Inception would have been top of my list.  As it stands, the comparative weakness of that last section just tarnishes the lustre of what remains an extraordinarily accomplished and ambitious film.


2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, dir. Peter Jackson, 2001-03
If The Lord of the Rings was conceived as a single novel, then the film sequence should also be regarded as one--very long!--piece.  It is not flawless--some of the minor characters are stock buffoons, and the triple ending of the final film is deeply wearisome--but it has such epic scope and brio that almost everything can be forgiven.  Fidelity to the source material is not always necessary in film, and Jackson tweaks where he needs to, and in some respects he improves on Tolkien.  The monumental scale of the battle scenes astounds even today, and the quality of the ensemble cast (especially in the first film) is compelling.  The sense that the fate of the world is at stake is much more present in Jackson than Tolkien.  The Lord of the Rings, on the big screen as on the page, remains the touchstone against which future fantasy will be measured.


* a description which fits The Dog of the North and Vance's Emphyrio equally well.  It ain't the plot which does it.

Top Science-Fiction & Fantasy Films, 2001-2010

Numbers 5-7

Did you agree with the inclusion of No.8-10 on the list?  Today we'll be looking at an altogether more impressive set of films.

7.  Minority Report, dir. Steven Spielberg, 2002

Philip K. Dick's fiction has been fruitful ground for film-makers, dating right back to Bladerunner.  Dick was much better as a writer at throwing out brilliant ideas than he was at translating them into formally satisfying fiction, but those brilliant ideas make fantastic elevator pitches.   Minority Report is certainly not especially faithful to its source, but it builds on the idea of a police force which maintains order by being able to see crimes about to be committed.  This future, and the tensions and contradictions it embodies, are neatly realised in Spielberg's vision, and the presence of Tom Cruise at the height of his stardom does not unbalance the whole.  A pacy thriller and subtle exploration of a deterministic future, Minority Report remains an underrated piece.

6. The Dark Knight, dir. Christopher Nolan, 2008

Nolan has an extraordinary body of work, and although The Dark Knight is remembered primarily for Heath Ledger's bravura turn as The Joker, the film is much more impressive than that would suggest.  Most comic book adaptations rarely impress on the big screen, but Nolan's vision of a dark and corrupt Gotham City never fails to grip.  Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne is a dark, unhappy soul and he's entirely at home here.  Anyone who remembers the earlier film representations of the Caped Crusader will be astonished at the power and resonance Nolan has extracted from the source material.  The special effects are stunning, but the viewer is so caught up in the narrative that they are hardly noticed.

5. Serenity, dir. Joss Whedon, 2005

Whedon is in some ways Nolan's antithesis.  Every bit as talented, he has the sad knack of creating excellent work which fails to score the commercial success necessary to continue.  Firefly and Dollhouse were both remarkable TV series and both were canned prematurely (especially Firefly).  Serenity is the film we got to round off the Firefly series instead.  It's a fine film, pleasantly low-tech, with nuanced characters and a script well above the norm for the genre.  An ensemble cast create a believable and likeable crew, enhanced by a crackingly menacing turn from Chiwetel Ejiofor.  Whedon's vision here is the nearest cinema gets to Jack Vance.  It's a fine end to the Firefly experiment, but it leaves the reader melancholy for all the TV series we might have had.

Next: films 2, 3 and 4.

Top Science-Fiction & Fantasy Films, 2001-2010

With the first decade of the new millennium coming to a close, I thought it would be fun to look back at some of the best movies of the period; this being an SF/F blog, though, I'll focus on that genre.  I don't claim to have seen every film released, so my list is necessarily partial.  If your favourite is omitted, it may simply because I never caught it (although if your favourite is 2012, it's not on the list because it's sh*te).

Today we look at films No.8 to 10 on the list.

10. The Butterfly Effect, dir. Eric Bress &  J.Mackye Gruber (2004)

This was pretty much uniformly panned on release; time and two worthless sequels haven't helped its reputation either.  Starring Ashton Kutcher (bear with me here) as a time-traveller who can go back an alter the past, The Butterfly Effect is not particularly original in concept, but it scores points for the bleakness of its vision.  Evan Treborn (Kutcher) repeatedly goes back in time to right past wrongs, only to find that his efforts make matters progressively worse.  This plays out--in the directors' cut at least--to an inevitable but grim conclusion.  The logic of the time-travelling works more logically than in many such films, and while it is not a classic, The Butterfly Effect deserves more credit than it gets.

9. Avatar, dir. James Cameron (2009)

I described this at the time as great cinema, but not a great film, and that still feels about right.  The 3D pyrotechnics overshadow a plot which never rises above the serviceable, but the overall effect is certainly dramatic.  3D does not in itself make an exciting film (step forward Alice in Wonderland), so Cameron deserves credit for making a picture which fairly skips along.   A science-fiction film which gets so many people through the doors can't be all bad.

8. Harry Potter sequence, dir. various (2001-11)

Harry Potter, whether on the page or on screen, tends to polarise opinion.  I'm a fan of the books, and the films have been enjoyable, if undemanding, entertainment.  They deserve credit for fidelity to the books, and the quality of the child actors is much better than generally recognised.  The films are likely to remain staples for years to come, and to bring a new generation to the books.  The special effects are consistently excellent, but--unlike Avatar--never outshine the plot or the characters.

Come back soon to see the films I've rated No.5, 6 and 7!

On the Big Screen

The Town

dir. Ben Affleck (2010)

Yesterday I caught the latest Affleck vehicle (he stars as well as directing and co-writing, so if you don't like the film you know who to write to).  In many ways it's wholly formulaic - a heist movie in which Affleck is a bank robber trying to go straight after one last job, which he takes on against his better judgement.  He falls in love with the manager of one the banks he's robbed (played with luminous appeal by Rebecca Hall) and of course this proves to be redemptive*.  The robbery does not, of course, go according to plan, and Affleck is forced to scramble for his life.  The ending, if not exactly happy, is appropriate and gives overtones of a brighter future.

You've seen this a hundred times before and yet--somehow--The Town is a scorching film.  Affleck manages at once to be level-headed, capable and yet vulnerable.  The blue collar Boston environment is vivid and believable.  This being Affleck's film, the audience's sympathy is with him, but unusually for the "villain as hero" genre, the police chasing him are not portrayed as bungling or corrupt: they're professionals with a job to do, and Jon Hamm as the FBI man always has our respect even as we want him to fail.  The action sequences are directed with brio, and the central relationship between Affleck and Hall, while not exactly convincing, is always compelling.

"Formulaic" is often thrown up as a criticism of films--and indeed books.  But what some see as a formula might more accurately be described as blending together elements which have been proven to work in the past.  What matters is the skill and vigour with which the ingredients are combined.  The Town might be formulaic--but so is Pride and Prejudice, so is The Big Sleep, so are Patrick O'Brian and Richard Stark.  If you don't like your dinner, blame the chef, not the ingredients.

I expected popcorn entertainment from The Town.  I found something rather better.  Highly recommended!

* I am no relationship expert, but this is not a dating strategy I would recommend

At the cinema

When I wasn't writing or cooking over the past few weeks, I took a couple of trips to the cinema.  Over the latest Twilight film we will draw a veil of discretion, pausing only to observe that it almost certainly delivered what its target audience wanted; Inception, however, was rather more interesting.

Christopher Nolan has the happy knack of being able to make intelligent pictures which unite critical and commercial success.  His two Batman films are both superior examples of their type, and The Prestige is an undervalued gem.  The first two hours of Inception, meanwhile, are so compelling that they mitigate the flabbiness of the final half-hour.  Nolan also gives us a nicely ambiguous final scene; in a film about the interface between dreams and reality, anything else would have been crass.

The plot is not meant to be summarised in a sentence.  Leonardo di Caprio leads an assorted team who can enter their target's mind to extract information--or, in the case of the "one last job" of the film--implant an idea.  Most of the film, therefore, takes place with the cast running around inside another character's head.  If, like my film companion, you can't buy that idea, you won't like the film, but if you go with the flow, it'll carry you along.  And for all its intellectual trickery, Inception  is at heart a very old-fashioned kind of film--a heist movie: the ill-assorted comrades, the meticulous planning, the botched execution.  The heist struture is what orders the narrative and makes the film, for all its hi-tech gizmo chic, surprisingly easy to follow.  (The deft skill of Nolan's infodumps also has plenty to do with it).

Once we see Inception as a heist movie rather than a Borgesian deconstruction of reality, it all makes rather more sense.  Its closest cousins are not The Matrix or Avatar, but Reservoir Dogs, The Italian Job and The Sting.  As with The Dark Knight, Nolan has made a first-rate genre picture, and none the worse for that.  See it if you get the chance.

On the Big Screen...
Avatar
dir. James Cameron

Last week, before the snows swept in, I caught the big budget spectacle that is Avatar at the cinema in 3D. It's fair to say that I went without particularly high expectations; and although the film was reputedly twelve years in the making, not much of that time seemed to go into the script. Nonetheless, overall the film exceeded my limited expectations. The 3D was genuinely jaw-dropping on occasion, and for a long film it zipped along with minimal longeurs. Of the plot, the less said the better: a confection of familiar ideas and conflicts, with not a single surprise in sight. There was no danger of the audience becoming so wrapped up in the story that they forgot to admire the special effects.

Avatar is great cinema, but not a great film.