Stanfords Finest

”When you’re in the joint you spend all your time dopin’ out who you’re gonna see the first day you’re out. The second day. The third. But then you get out, everybody’s got a different face than you remember. Maybe you do too. You pray for one face that didn’t change. One face that still knows you looks at you the same way it always did”

Carlito Brigante

I guess I must be in the joint because this is how I feel. Such a brilliant quote from the awesome Carlito’s Way. Looks like I may be here longer then I hoped as we have won some new work. Back to the desert I go.

6 weeks to go.

One of the best films ever is Wall Street and it is with deep joy that I hear a sequel is now being planned. Along with the eighties nostalgia, big hair and scathing attacks on Reaganomics the best thing about the film is Mr Evil Capitalist himself Gordon Gekko. Douglas was perfect for the role and he seemed to embody the power dressing late eighties in looks alone and his performance should have copped that Oscar. Perhaps the biggest legacy of Wall Street are the quotes that have now entered popular culture with the misquoted ‘’greed is good’’ and ‘’lunch is for wimps’’ thrown around when talk turns to yuppies and the latter end of the 80’s. I love the quotes and still use them to this very day in my office despite the fact that all irony is completely lost on my Cantonese colleagues meaning they either think I am serious or a psychopath. This is how it should be. So when I feel sorry for myself as my colleagues go for lunch en masse for some fried something or other I am again reminded of Gekko; ‘’No feelings. You don’t win ‘em all, you don’t love ‘em all, you keep on fighting and if you need a friend, get a dog’’

I have a new test called the Miami Vice Test. Ask someone what they think of the film and if they don’t like it because it should have been an 80’s kitsch experiment then they are beyond salvation and you must leave them to their own tormented existence. We are seemingly so retarded that the only art we can digest is facile and insubstantial and our minds and attention spans have now shrunk to that of goldfish allowing us to laugh at the same joke over and over and over again. This was most recently displayed by the public’s reaction to the Starsky and Hutch film which was simply one 70’s joke on repeat and therefore guaranteeing success at the box office. No wonder the film execs and audiences were up in arms with Miami Vice – why not do an 80’s Starsky and Hutch with Miami Vice huh? You know, the slip-on shoes and the shoulder pads and the big hair? It could have been the perfect multiplex fodder for the masses that had already digested and shitted out the Starsky and Hutch burger and were hungry for more. Alas Mann said no and the Chavs are livid. No neon lights? No knowing winks or mullets? Not here stupid. (more…)

Vince Vaughn yesterday

The Break Up. What is it, a drama or a comedy? Judging how the audience of 12 year old girls and menopausal housewives were laughing like drains at the obvious and unamusing quips I would say a it was funny drama or a rom com. The movie chronicles the relationship and break up of frog faced Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston in a way that is neither gripping or amusing but it didn’t drag and there were a few good bits, I think, although a few hours after seeing it I am trying hard to remember what they were. There are one or two wry smiles to be had somewhere I recall but I might be wrong I’ve forgotten what happened. As for the housewife behind me rolling around in hysterics I can only imagine that she has never seen a film before or she was on acid. This a laydeez film but it was always going to be. Bring on Miami Vice. 4/10

Seeing as its Wimbeldon and there is tennis in the air I thought I’d go on about Match Point, the new filum from Woody Allen. Or Dad as he is known to his adopted daughter that he married. Nice. Match Point features the kind of “brits” a middle aged American imagines the upper echelons of British society consists of. How super. The story is based around the idea of a tennis coach meeting and marrying into a well-to-do family and the subsequent choices our hero has to make when he realises marrying for money rather than love is not wise. The film rips along at a fair old pace and it does have its fair share of braying hooray Henrys being all posh and that so there’s unintentional laughs to be had. I have to say I enjoyed da movie and, like Layer Cake, Match Point is a good London film. I did find the story began to implode twords the end but thankfully it doesn’t go on too long so its not drawn out torture. So to summerise I would say there are worse ways to waste an hour and a half and although the conclusion is unsatisfactory you don’t feel dirty and used at the end. New balls please. 7/10

16 blocks. 16 blocks. Where to begin? Fist of all I can recommend this with a capital R. The film is built around the story of Bruce “hard-drinking” Willis transporting a criminal, who is black natch, 16 blocks for his court appearance. But beneath this simple concept there are sub-plots and twists and the film quickly transforms into an emotional rollercoaster ride. This isn’t Die Hard. Willis plays yet another flawed cop with a heart of gold but it’s the co-star makes this film. Mighty Mos Def. If you’re hip-to-the-groove like me then you’ll know Mos emerged on the rap-de-rap scene over a decade ago spitting rhymes that were like firewater. Little did we know then that the cat was a closet luvvie. He dropped a few amazing, if not revolutionary singles and one very good album. Then we waited for years for the next recording. This was the New Danger LP. It was shockingly bad. Looking back he must have had his mind on other things such as the silver screen. So, now he is an actor and in 16 blocks he was great. No, he didn’t go the LL Cool J/Ice T “hip hop cop jiggaboo” route. No sir, Mos took the Forrest Gump road instead which takes some courage in light of the machismo running through hip hop over the last few years. The chemistry between Willis and Mos was clear to see and the ending almost had me in tears. It was beautiful. So I hope Mos, the thinking mans MC, now picks his future roles with care and becomes an example to all those fiddy wannabes that you can have brains and art and be respected. 16 Blocks is a great filum most definitely. 9/10.

So there I was, being forced to watch Harrison Fords new film Firewall. Oh dear oh dear. America comes to terms with the horrors of interweb banking. So bored was I that I passed the time counting the number of facial expressions Harrison Ford acted out in his role as uber Neo-Con Jack something-or-other. The total? One. I can only assume he has now based his entire repertoire on the look an Alzheimer’s sufferer has when they suddenly realise they are married with children. Ford should bow out now before he totally ruins his legacy. I dread to think what Raiders of the Lost Ark 4 will be like and I hope the old man isn’t fighting and jumping around because on this form it will be like watching disabled acrobats in a Victorian circus. Ford is a hero of mine but he is sullying his reputation with awful “thrillers” like Firewall. Being Americans, the villain of the piece was English of course. All villains in US films are English these days for some reason. You’d hope after our Prime Minister sold out the entire United Kingdom to fight an illegal and unjust war for George Bush we’d get cut a bit of slack. Not a bit of it. Thanks America.

So, in summary, do not bother with this thriller-by-numbers because the only potential interest in the film, Ford, is too old to know what day it is let alone what he can do to rescue this tosh. 2/10.

Why bother? Why get a book that is brilliant is everyway and butcher the life out of it? How can one group of professionals get it so horribly, horribly wrong? I mean it was so wrong as to be almost unintelligible. I didn’t understand what I was watching. I don’t this know man. You are not my real parents.

The graphic novel, V for Vendetta, was so perfect as to require no real input from director or script writer or producer. You see how page one looks? Shoot it just like that. Page 2? Ditto. See how the camera angle works in this frame? Shoot it like that. See what V says here? Write those words in your script book. Simple. I could of done it, you could of done it, Michael Winner could of done it – it is painting by numbers. So how did they make so bad? The whole book is completely gutted and whole sections of important information are just tossed aside, ripped up and stamped on. None of the spirit was there. V was a Guy Fawkes ninja and dear Evey got the Starbucks for those crazy gals she worked with in the office. I could stand only 36 minutes. If I had paid to see it I would of been even more gutted.

I mean it was so wrong as to be almost deliberate. The themes Moore explores in the book are subversive and, like all thought that isn’t “normal”, could be a danger to our fragile societies. The ideas of anarchy are not widely played out or depicted in our media save for a few crusties having a pop at plod every May Day. The Man doesn’t want us to think about what we do any more than he wants us to find entertainment in anything beyond the trivial or superficial. How was Hollywood really going to make a film that could seed the minds of millions of people in not having to settle for this supposed reality? No way. Sit down, eat your popcorn and watch Big Momma’s House 5.

So was the butchering of this film down to the inept individuals charged with transferring this masterpiece to the silver screen or was it a deliberate attempt by the American film industry to rubbish and humiliate the ideas and dreams that many of us cherish? If you read the book you may find out. Hollywood Prevails.