Terry Jones in Memoriam

 
It's been a tough year for Monty Python fans, and it's still January. We've lost the songwriter and Python friend Neil Innes, and any remaining shreads of respect for Terry Gilliam to boot. And now dementia got the best of one of the remaining Pythons and Terry Jones is no more. He has ceased to be, etc.

Jones might have been the most important glue that kept the Pythons together, arguing for good connective material from one sketch to another in Monty Python's Flying Circus, and for the material to push forward. While he had to do his share of fighting for these artistic ideas, particularly with John Cleese, I think the entire group respected him for it. His ideas made the stuff funnier. That's why it was he who emerged as the main director of their movies instead of Gilliam, who was more gifted as a visualist.

Jones' career also was lesser after the group went their own seperate ways. He did direct a number of movies, comedies and kids' films, wrote books and scripts, and actually went back to be a historian and researcher of ancient English texts. I remember from early 2000s how he wrote some beautiful anti-war essays to protest the emerging Iraq war, sadly to no avail. But films are which he's remembered for, so let's take a look at some of his work.

Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983)
Director: Terry Jones

This is the last major Python film I haven't reviewed on this blog throughout the years. And it's the third movie directed by Jones. The movie won at Cannes film festival, and has an important place in my heart since it's the first film I ever got as a dvd. One could say I got a dvd player in order to see this movie. Thus, I loved it dearly as a teenager, but since then I've started to notice it has some flaws as well. But Jones himself considered the film to have some of the best material they ever did and was not wrong about that.

Python member Eric Idle's problem with the film was that they retread their steps and went back to just doing sketches without a story or a concrete thoroughline. But if there was, the film couldn't jump back and forth in time and place to the Third World, the Zulu War, the First World War, to the edges of the Galaxy and to Heaven itself. But one can see how the bigger themes such as religion, school and war seem to interest the group members more than actual life phases beyond the middle age. And they didn't actually manage to find any good funny answers to life's biggest questions in the end, with a fake-out which feels quite cheap after they've done something akin to this a couple of times before already. Probably they should have just saved the Galaxy Song music number for last.

In the films he's directing, Jones tends to keep his roles few and minimized. But here, he has the probably most memorable and grotesque character of not only the film, but the entire Python oveure; the morbidly obese Mr. Creosote, a seemingly fabulously wealthy culinarist and bulimic, who goes to eat every possible treat a fine French restaurant has to offer only to shoot vomit over the staff and fellow guests. But John Cleese's maitre d' gets the last laugh with the help of a wafer-thin mint. The film dares to go more into gross-out humour than Pythons ever before, but they did find a way to make everything character-based, and having the butt of jokes be a recognizable type of character rather than just the shock of guts flying or someone getting a bucket of vomit on the head.

★★★★

The Wind in the Willows (1996)
Dir. Jones

I have fond memories of this children's film of Kenneth Grahame's classic book. Besides writing and directing, Jones himself plays the lead role of Mr. Toad, although only gives himself the third billing. The whole cast is wonderful, featuring Steve Coogan, Stephen Fry, John Cleese, Bernard Hill and Nicol "Merlin" Williamson. Interestingly, Michael Palin was also involved in another Wind in the Willows released the previous year, being the voice of Rat in an animated film. Fellow Python Eric Idle plays Rat here, with Palin having a cameo as the Sun. I guess Teletubbies is set on the prehistory of this universe.

It is a bit of a film of two halves, the first being more akin to the original book, with Mr. Toad's obsessions with cars and the sunny countriside milieu. The other, then is more of a heist movie with Mr. Toad breaking out of jail and trying to get his house back from rascally weasels who have turned it into a meat-packing factory. Jones can carry the movie very well, being equal parts annoying, silly and a little bit tragic as well. And he sells the groth of the very immature but rich Mr. Toad in the latter half. The film was very much sold as a Python reunion, but other from some fleeting jokes and a general anarchic viewpoint, it is a lot more testament of Jones's singular styles.

★★★

Absolutely Anything (2015)

Dir. Jones

I wasn't expecting much from this film, since a lot of the latter-day Pythonesque works tend to be either forgettable or even terrible. Case in point was the Graham Chapman animated biopic A Liar's Autobiography (that did at least have respect for the late Chapman and some inspired moments). This was not only the last film to feature five Pythons, but also the last role of Robin Williams (as the voice of a dog). And yet, you very rarely hear anything nice being said about it.

Jones started to write the movie in the early 90's, and since then there have been a number of films that have had a similar premise of an ordinary schlub being able to do anything he wants. Most notable were Jim Carrey's Bruce Almighty and Adam Sandler's Click. Even though the film feels like a retread of similar ideas, at least it's not cynical American shit like those ones. Most of it is due to it's charming cast, featuring Simon Pegg and Kate Beckinsale as leads, and nice voice workd from the aforementioned comedy legends. The main problem is that it's just not very funny.

But really, the sort of film like this is hard to follow through, since it gives so few rules on which to work. Every problem the main character comes up with, he could fix easily if he just thought about it longer than a second. And since the possibilities given are so limitless, keeping the film mostly Earthbound feels very unimaginative. The bits with weird aliens are my favorites, but you could say this also about any Star Wars movie. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend this, but it didn't make me mad or anything. Just a bit bittersweet, since we are living in an age where old legends like Jones keep disappearing.

★★1/2

Michael Winner in Memoriam

It was very saddening to hear the passing of the British director Michael Winner on January 21st. He was aged 77. Since then, a lot of other beloved, interesting movie folk have passed as well. Night Visions Back To Basics -festival this weekend had a special screening of Death Wish 3 in memoriam of Winner, a true sleazy master and creator of a truly unforgettable classic. So, lest we forget the wine- and fancy dinner-loving, punk rocker and poor people -hating renegade, I take a look at the first three Death Wish films, his most popular work.

Death Wish (1974)

The nominal, original vigilantist movie, the film sees a peaceful architect getting pushed too far and starting to solve New York's crime problem by killing off muggers. Winner prides himself of having done ground-breaking work with this film. According to the director, American heroes had not killed other civilians in a modern-set movie before. While not strictly true, it was a new, novel idea on a mainstream film and subsequently this film became a big success.

Korean war veteran Paul Kersey (Bronson) shrugs off the news of New York City's rising crime numbers, thinking they are caused by poverty rather than the corrupted youth. Yet when street punks break into his own apartment, killing his wife and sexually assaulting his daughter, he starts to see the situation differently.

Kersey starts to prowl the streets, waiting to get mugged only to beat up or kill the attacking criminals.
As it happens, Kersey's extreme approach to the problem brings solutions and crime rates start to drop as citizens are inspired by the mysterious vigilante and his actions. Detective Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) must decide whether to capture the vigilante or to raise his hands, allowing him to clean the streets one thug at a time.

The film is suitably gritty and sleazy, a real serious affair. The film is very close of actually being as good and ground-breaking as Winner says, if not for one thing: Charles Bronson. Don't get me wrong, I love the wood-faced lug, but as an actor, he just doesn't have the chops. The film would require a regular man spiral out of control, to have a real-seeming death wish, if you will.

Bronson, however, seems like he's going to murder a couple of punks on his way to the store from the get-go. Even while his character goes through an emotional rollercoaster, Bronson remains kind of stoic and unmoved. Only at the end does he seem to develop a kind of an enjoyment in harassing street punks.

It's an outrageous, entertaining film thats till works quite well on his own. But as it was, Kersey's adventures were far from over.

★★★ 1/2

Death Wish II (1982)

Having been ran put of town at the end of his first vigilantism affair, Paul Kersey has since settled to live in Los Angeles. Which, as everyone must know, is far from being a crime-free city. He takes care of his daughter Carol (Robin Sherwood), who still hasn't quite recovered from the traumas she suffered back in New York. Kersey is also dating a new woman, Geri Nichols (Jill Ireland).

Of course life doesn't hand good cards to Kersey and one bad run-in with a gang of punks leaves them hungry for vengeance. So, they assault his housekeeper, kidnap and rape his daughter, which drives poor Carol to jump out of the window to her death. So, Kersey returns to his old, murderous vigilantist ways. And the cops realize this too, and contact New York and Detective Frank Ochoa.

This part II is one of those sequels that offers little beyond more of the same. There is some more outrageousness in the kills and Winner seethes with even more hatred and distaste in the modern youth and their punk culture. The grittiness and sleaziness has bulged to the point of making the hinges creak. Yet Winner does manage to keep the tone of this still relatively serious, mostly by keeping the pace still quite slow and the action inglorious, fast and ugly.

The film has a cynical ending that's even more open than the previous one. As New York's crime problems seemed to at least have taken a turn for the better, now the only thing at stake is Kersey's personal vengeance. he does get it, doesn't get caught, keeps working as an architect and feels somewhat satisfied at the end. But the film does question whether he actually had any affect in the overall situation, killing criminals out of personal reasons rather than because it is the right thing to do. According to Winner, at least.

★★★

Death Wish 3 (1985)

It should be noted that the Finnish name for these films is Väkivallan vihollinen, which means An Enemy of Violence. It does somewhat work on the first one (the title stems from the name of the book the first film was based on, I guess), but gets more ridiculous the further the series goes. None more so than in the third part, since there's not a single enemy of violence in the film. Everyone thinks violence is a reasonable solution to crime problems, from little old ladies to police officers to attorneys. And Kersey is of course a champion of this viewpoint.

At this point it is forgotten that Kersey used to be an architect, as he is now characterized to be more or less a drifter. An old west drifter, to be exact, arriving to areas of unrest to bring Old Testament -style justice to wrongdoers. Now Kersey returns to New York to visit an old war buddy, only to find he has been murdered by a local street gang, led by Fraker (Gavan O'Herlihy), keeping a whole neighborhood in terror.

Since the police is also fed up with the gang's reign of terror, they offer Kersey a deal of looking the other way while he does what he does. Kersey sets up in the old apartment of his friend, making friends of his neighbors, and of course ordering the hugest handgun the world has seen to start cleaning up the streets.

Cheerfully fascist, Winner shows every dead punk as a reason for rejoicing. Bronson himself found the film a bit distasteful, maintaining that the idea of the series is that violence stems violence. Indeed, Kersey's actions stem an entire block war, with booby traps and closeted old war relics being brought up to kill as many gang members as possible.

The disregard of human life goes to ridiculous lengths, making this one of the most purely enjoyable of 80's action films. It's not a mean feat, because Bronson himself has grown older, and the scenes which require him to run from gunfire in particular are laughable. But Winner knows he can shoot rotten youngsters getting shot in an infinite way, and gleefully exploits this notion to the point of pure mania. The explosive finale in particular is an incredible idea of a pure creative genius and madness in the same package.

★★★★

So rest in piece Sir Michael, your films still bring us great amounts of pleasure, as could be seen in the Night Visions screening, with a hooting and applauding audience loving every minute.

The other two Death Wish films were not directed by Winner, so I won't include them here. But fear not, I'll find another way to write something about them as well.

Docpoint 2013

Room 237. 

Not too long ago, another of Helsinki's biggest film festivals took place. As always with DocPoint, the focus was on the year's most exciting, thought-provoking documentary films from around the world. There were several interesting movies to be seen, and it's took a while, but here's a brief look into this year's crop.

The Gatekeepers (Israel/France/Germany/Belgium)
Director: Dror Moreh

Will there ever be a chance for peace in the Middle East? Impossible to say, but at least not if one doesn't study both points of view of Israelites and Palestines. While at first glance this documentary about Israeli chiefs of Security seems to be on Israel's side, it provides criticism to the endless cycle of violence as well.

The film succeeds in contrasting the personalities of all the former leaders of Shoh Bet, or Shabak, the Central Israeli Security Agency. They provide insights on how the nation viewed various threats and wars. The endless cycle of violence has made the men develop a hard shell around them, yet there are points of them reminiscing bloodshed that are quite emotional nevertheless.

The stories of these men are filled with exciting details, confidential information, intrigue and contradiction. Their stories help one to understand at least Israel's dire need to keep its face and appear threatening and all-powerful. It's one of the reasons why the two sides can't really come to terms. This is an important reminder of how a life of ordering massacres affects the human psyche, and what comes from a nation that treats each of its foreign problems by reacting with more violence.

★★★★

The Queen of Versailles (USA/UK/Netherlands/Denmark)
Director: Lauren Greenfield

Here's a story of a wealthy family that lost everything. While this story's true, it might as well be a sitcom. The main characters are self-centered, dim, greedy, oblivious to any realities in life, and, sure enough, in a constant state of Arrested Development.

Before 2008, real estate billionaire David Siegel and his trophy wife Jacqueline loved to flash around their cash. They build skyscrapers, pay to have their daughter win beauty pageants and in the most outrageous move, build a multi-billion dollar mansion in the same vein as Louis XVI's Versailles Palace in France. Yet with the economic collapse, the Siegels lose their fortune. For the most part the film features them grasping onto last remaining shreds of their wealth.

Since the Siegel's are rich sleazebags, they refuse to recognize the moral of the story - the gambling, borderline illegal actions and political horsetrade having gotten them into the mess they are in. When the shoe's on the other foot, they blame others for destroying them and attempt to bounce back by doing the same mistakes again and again. It's incredible how dumb, vain and all-around unlikeable the main couple comes off, but it just makes the movie more intriguing. They don't care the least.

This movie is a testament to this age, a story on how people overemphasize surfaces, appearances and superficial values. They delude themselves to think they are happy when they can raise envy and outrage. But underneath all that surface is but a husk of a soul, one that has a child's idea on how society works, refuses to take responsibility and is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

★★★★

The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (UK/Ireland)
Director: Sophie Fiennes

Leftist philosophy superstar Slavoj Žižek delivers another video essay using film clips from old movies, self-irony and societal critique. And, as always it is highly entertaining. This time around the lovable lisping Slovak talks about how Ideology has shaped the world around us, and can be seen in various cultural product we wouldn't necessarily expect to. Case in point are movies, both old and new, obscure and blockbusters, documentaries and fantasy.

While The Pervert's Guide to Cinema had (albeit a flimsy) thread with which to follow, this time around Žižek seems to ramble on whatever comes to mind. That's not to say the film is sloppy, on the contrary the scenes replicationg various film styles are done carefully and to a good comical effect. A lot of the things discussed are quite familiar to anyone who has ever read an article by him, seen his lecture or the documentary film Žižek! I, of course am guilty of all three, but still I enjoyed immensely to hear these theories again in another, more entertaining format. Whether I agree or not is another thing, but the strength of Žižek is that he doesn't pander but provokes and speaks out his mind. Thus, it's up to the viewer to decide what to make of it.

★★★ 1/2

Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present (USA)
Directors: Matthew Akers, Jeff Dupre

The conceptual performance artist Marina Abramović has had a long career of putting herself into her art since the 1970s. She has done this to such extent that without art at 63 years of age, she feels like a quite lonely, vunerable and uncertain person. The film chronicles her preparation fot the retrospective of her career at New York's MoMA. But it isn't just a case of putting art work on a gallery. Abramović also prepares to sit and stare at the museum guests all day, every day for three whole months.

Abramović's career has much been characterized by the search for boundaries of art. Not only allowing art lovers to look at art, but looking personally back at them is a concept as simple as there is. On a smaller scale, it could be done by anyone. Doing it with thousands of museum-goers day in, day out takes a lot of courage and endurability. But when does meeting another person, not saying one word, become art? Is it only when the other party is a respected artist by profession? The surrounding of a retrospective adds up plenty to the work, it puts on the emphasis that the artist is still present in all of her past work.

The film is ponderous and heartfelt, and like its focus, almost unbearably intimate. Just the sight of Abramović's stare brings some guests to the brink of tears. Documentarists Akers and Dupre explain Abramović's history extensively and understandably. The film is not qute as experimental as its subject matter, but it does feel like a real experiment, and makes ponder both the nature of art and humanity by itself. Not a small feat.

★★★★

Room 237 (USA)
Director: Rodney Ascher

The ominous, creepy atmosphere of the 1980 film The Shining, as well as the well-known perfectionism of director Stanley Kubrick, have made the movie larger than life. Since Kubrick tended to refuse to put all the pieces together, there was much left for individual interpretations. Thus, there are plenty of people obsessing over the film and coming up with several outlandish renditions of its meaning.

The documentary is illustrated almost solely with film clips, mostly from The Shining, but also from Kubrick's other films, as well as unrelated movies which deal with cinema-viewing and audience perception like Lamberto Bava's Demons. The interviewees are only present by sound and they are not recognized with texts or anything. It is a democratic approach, putting all the interpretations to the same line, whether observant or bug-out crazy.

Obsessing over the movie, some people have spotted out odd visual clues that provoke imagination, such as the unnatural geography of the Overlook Hotel. The theories surrounding the film's horrors sexual nature, or the retread of American bloodshed from history, seem kind of plausible. And then again, there are people who insist Kubrick framed the moon landings and uses the film to confess this to his wife. Danny's Apollo 11 sweater on one scene is the key proof of this cuckoo theory. Nevertheless, it is intriguing to hear both these accounts, and all in all the film both puts The Shining into a new light, all the while not taking anything from the mystical aura of the masterpiece. On the contrary, adding up to it!

★★★★

Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir (UK/Italy/Germany)
Director: Laurent Bouzereau

As controversial as directors come, there's no denying Roman Polanski is a character as fascinating as his films. This documentary is an attempt by his long-time friend Laurent Bouzereau to allow the man to speak his mind himself. Polanski spills his life story while on house arrest in Switzerland, waiting whether he will be handed over to US authorities for imprisonment or not.

Predictably, the story hinges on the major three disasters of Polanski's life: Fleeing the Nazi regime as a child, the relationship with his wife Sharon Tate and her consequent brutal murder by the Manson Family, and the director's actions on Jack Nicholson's house with a drugged-up minor, as well as the travesty of a trial that followed. Polanski is a humble man who doesn't attempt to shine his own shield too much and carries his tragedies as well as his successes like his current wife and children. Yet for a film titled Film Memoir, the movie glosses over Polanski's body of work in favor of a character study. His films stem from his private life, so you can't entirely seperate them, but I for one would've been eager to hear more insights on making a large number of brilliant films that disturb and challenge to this day.

★★★

Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap (UK/USA)
Directors: Ice-T, Andy Baybutt

The rapper that brought you Cop Killer is convinced that hip hop saved his life from life on the streets. Since Ice-T owes the music a debt, he attempts to serve it by going around his peers, rap legends and super stars, asking what makes the music matter. The array of artists is quite impressive, from MC Melle Mel through Ice Cube and Chuck D all the way to superstars of the modern era like Kanye West and Eminem.

This is another one in the series of music documentaries that attempt to serve as a gateway to a world of certain genre. It attempts to serve the field as evenly as possible (yet focuses on the most commercial side), leaves out niche groups and offers little information to true aficionados of rap's history. It's always nice to see music legends talk about their work and how they create their verses, so it's an entertaining piece but far from true art mastery.

★★★

Men At Lunch (Ireland, 2012)
Director: Seán Ó Cualáin

The famous photograph about the building of New York, hanging on the walls of bars around the world, has inspired this historical documentary. The movie attempts to find out who were the men sitting on a girder on top of the Big Apple eating their lunch without any fear of falling. Thus, it is a story about labor in the time of the Great Depression, and by extent, immigration.

Unfortunately, since the film is Irish, it is very biased. It attempts to prove a confession heard in one pub to be conclusive, while newspapers and competitions have come to different solutions that are dismissed entirely. Likewise, the story is quite thin since there is little evidence on who's who in the picture. The lazy, archival storytelling style is one for sunday afternoon TV documentaries, but doesn't really work on a big canvas. This could've been an interesting detective story, now it's as bland and unjournalistic as they come.

★ 1/2

Friday Night's A Great Night To Remember Tony Scott

RIP Tony. Image source

Every true movie fan across the planet was devastated to hear about the death of action auteur Tony Scott. His peers and fellow directors rushed to bring out their condolences and remember the good times. The old man used to mentor his younger colleagues, and gave a much needed crack at greatness or stardom with many collaborators, be they Tom Cruise or Quentin Tarantino. As sad it is, sometimes we recognize a great talent only when he's gone. So I'm certain Tony Scott's collaboration to particularly the action movie genre will be remembered years from now. Hell, he pushed the limit and brought out new things even in his most commercial work. The overall record of his filmography may be even better than his overrated brother's...

I'll take a look at three of my favorite Tony Scott films.

Beverly Hills Cop II (1987)

For a long time I held an inexplicable hatred for this blockbusting Eddie Murphy vehicle. I thought it was as bad as number III, or even worse, boring. Well, such misconceptions must have come from me falling asleep after the shooting range scene of this movie when I was a highschooler. Recently, I gave the movie another shot due to a friend's multiple year-long insistence. And as much as I hate to always admit it, I was wrong. Beverly Hills II is an uproaringly entertaining event movie, and holds up even when watched back-to-back with Beverly Hills Cop I. Indeed, it's everything that made the first one so good, but upped to the MAX. And with some extra Tony Scott craziness in between, especially in the grandiose and explosive action setpieces.

A hitman called "The Alphabet Killer" is on the loose in Los Angeles, and he severly wounds Captain Bogomil (Ronny Cox). Since Detroit cop Axel Foley became good friends with the Captain by the end of the first BHC, Axel F rushes from his job to another vacation in Malibu. Reunited with Detective Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Sergeant John Taggart (John Ashton), Foley swears to capture the persons responsible for wounding Bogomil, and to protect his daughter Jan (Alice Adair). The investigation leads to weapons kingpin Maxwell Dent (Jürgen Prochonow), who is, of course, protected by the law. But that sort of thing hasn't stopped sneaky Axel before.

Smartly, even though Murphy had gone to be one of the biggest stars in the world since the first film, this isn't just his solo show. Quite the contrary, in fact, since Scott allows much of the supporting cast to shine this time. Reinhold's squeaky-clean Detective Billy Rosewood is seen to have some rather unsettling enthusiasms for plants and guns, and Gilbert R. Hill's pissed-off Police Chief's mad rant in the beginning goes up to be my very favorite. "Don't think, Foley! It makes my dick itch!"


That's not to say Murphy doesn't shine once again with his mad ad lib skills. Whether faking one's identity as a Caribbean psychic, cheating his way into Hugh Hefner's Playboy party, or getting info wrom a weasely accountant by threatening him with parking tickets, Murphy's o absolute roll here, at the top of his game and absolutely hilarious. I'm also long overdue a proper post to praise his talents anyway. Nudge me if you'd like to read it.

And I adore every scene with Foley hijacking a mansion that's supposedly renovated.

The film's casual misogynism is also endearing. This is a party strictly for the boys, not to scarily big bitches.
Women.

★★★★
 
The Last Boy Scout (1991)

The late-80's to mid-90's were Scott's best time because he had the ability to pick just the right scripts to work with. With a good screenwriter on his side, Scott could rarely miss. And when he got the best action screenwriters of the game, he created classics. At that time, Shane Black, the talent behind the success of the first two Lethal Weapon movies, rose up in Hollywood's ranks and became more and more irresistible for any action movie director worth his salt. In their collaboration, Scott really understood Black's worth by not filtering out his words too much, nor ordering many rewrites. Thus, The Last Boy Scout is quite close to what Black managed to do while holding all the strings on Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang over a decade later. TLBS was said to be by Total Film Magazine "an endlessly rewatchable parade of good bits and great bits." And that pretty much nails on why I love this film so much.

Joe Hallenbeck is trying to save the life of the guy who ruined him to avenge the guy who screwed his wife.

Something fishy is going on in the world of pro league American football. A star quarterback takes a gun to the field and shoots his way to a touchdown, before offing himself by saying "Ain't life a bitch." A stripper named Cory (a very young Halle Berry) knows what's happening but fears for her life. She hires the private eye Mike Matthews (Bruce McGill) to investigate and to protect her. But this private eye is secretly having an affair with the wife of another private eye, Joe Hallenbeck (Bruce Willis), and offers him the job in case he would get killed. The plan backfires as Joe catches on to Mike and his wife, and Mike gets blown to bits by a car bomb. But Joe is a former secret service agent, who's so down on his luck that he needs the cash, so he investigates further. Along the way, Cory's boyfriend and former star quarterback Jimmy Dix (Damon Wayans) joins Joe as he also wants to get to the bottom of things.

Dix may be a great guy but he still can't spell worth shit.

So, from the plot synopsis the film's plot seems quite tangled, but actually it is a buddy cop movie much like Lethal Weapon. Again, we have a bum-like white asshole on the edge, who eventually redeems himself. His black partner's more down-to-earth and less violent, but when push comes to shove, does show he can handle things. Even the main villain's henchman is named formally, even though he only has a first name, Mr. Milo (as opposed to Mr. Joshua). But the rude and crude dialogue couldn't pass the mustard in a major studio film like LW. Thus, the film works almost like a parody of the films that put Shane Black on the map. Like in BHCII, everything is ramped up to be funnier, bigger, more violent, and considerably less comfrotable Hollywood-style corner-cutting.

"Awright, it's riddle time! Why did Mr. Milo cross the road? Because his dick was caught in the chicken!"

A good way to illustrate them is to look at the characters. Willis' Joe cracks jokes at every situation, and insults just about everyone he meets. He gets out of a tight jam TWICE by making dumb henchmen laugh at dick jokes, and uses the distraction to kill them. He doesn't seem like a very likeable character, but Willis' charm and comic timing do wonders. As does Black's ability to bring a dash of tragedy to his heroes. Willis' career has been ruined and his personality likewise. Even worse off is lovelorn Dix, whose story of his firstborn child is truly gut-wrenching and very unexpected at a film such as this.


But the real meat of the film is of course in the action, and boy does the film deliver. From trying to ward off bombs to many tight saves from flying bullets, Scott handles suspense well and at times it really does feel like Willis, Wayans, and Hallenbeck's 13-year-old daughter Darian (Danielle Harris) are in life-threatening jeopardy. But the bad guys get their bloody end, whether it's the inventors of Scrabble, or Mr. Milo, who gets a send-off so violent and crushing it could only happen in a 90's action movie.
In sum, the sky is blue, water is wet, this film is great. And then some.

★★★★ 1/2

True Romance (1993)

The most famous case of Scott supporting a fresh screenwriting talent is of course this film, based on the first script Quentin Tarantino ever sold. And it is undobtedly a Tarantino joint. The pop culture-obsession, the snazzy dialogue, the knack to write rather a collection of cool scsnes rather than a coherent story, it's all there. The main character is such an easily spottable alter ego to the screenwriter it is quite laughable how much of a badass Tarantino seems to think he is.

Clarence (Christian Slater) is a comic book shop employee, who has little luck with women. He tends to just blabber on about his love for Elvis which leaves any girl he meets in a bar cold. On his birthday, he's left alone to see a Sonny Chiba triple bill. But in the audience is also the beautiful but clumsy Alabama (Patricia Arquette), who finds his pop culture knowledge charming. After a night together, Alabama confesses she's really a call girl hired by Clarence's friends, but has really-real fallen in love with him. But she's scared since she fears her pimp, Drexl (Gary Oldman). Clarence has fallen for Alabama too, so he marches to Drexl's to demand Alabama's freedom. A shootout ensues that leaves only Clarence alive. He steals a suitcase full of drugs to fund a new life for Alabama and himself, in Hollywood, California!

The film does have a sort of a scattershot feeling to it, especially at the latter half. It seems originally True Romance's end half was to become Natural Born Killers. But the rights to that script had been purchased by Oliver Stone, who was about to rewrite it, much to the chagrin of Tarantino. So, the end half of TR had to be rewritten, and since at the time Tarantino only wrote about what he knew, he wrote about his experiences in Hollywood. It's quite easy to draw a parallel to coke-vacuuming Vietnam-movie directing has-been Lee Donowitz (Saul Rubinek) to Stone. Nevertheless, there's plenty of pure brilliance within the film and it's certainly never boring. For one, there's this scene which still ranks very high on the best scenes Tarantino has ever written.


Scott also deserves a lot of credit for the film, and even this scene to turn out so well. While the writer himself might have used an ironic 70's pop song on the soundtrack, Scott knows how to up the ante and to build tension in the way Tarantino really only learned recently. One important thing about this is that Scott shoots the film's violence as gut-wrenchingly brutal and painful. The scene where James Gandolfini's mobster beats Alabama is particularly hard to watch.

I bet Tarantino used to be more like this than Clarence.

Scott also has perfectly cast the film. the main couple are a little awkward and stiff, because Slater and Arquette usually are as actors. But it works great as two young people experiencing their first, great love. The casting of the bit parts is nothing short of brilliant. Scott must have seen that Brad Pitt would become the biggest star in the world in a few years so the joke concerning his non-role in the film would work. Almost as funny is Val Kilmer, whose face isn't once shown. Alongside that, we have the likes of Christopher Walken, Michael Rapaport, Bronson Pinchot, Tom Sizemore, all doing great to career-best work. And Dennis Hopper, man, I miss that guy. And Chris Penn, too. May the rest of the cast and crew of this film live long and prosper.

★★★★

Much love and all the best to all of Scott's family, friends and fans. The world does seem a lot poorer without him. But the way I see it, the best way to remember him is to take a cold beer and pop a favorite film of his to the DVD player.

The Directors: Terrence Malick

When talking about enigmatic film directors, the Illinois-born Terrence Malick (1943-) undoubtedly comes up. The overly shy director is known as a recluse, refusing to do any interviews or publicity for his films. In fact, there are even precious few photographs about the man. Malick is also a notoriously slow worker, having produced a body of five films during the course of almost 40 years.

But for a man we know next to nothing about, Malick's films are strongly personal and speak for their creator. They are strong, philosophical films, which ponder large questions about existence with almost poetic photography. Malick has strong connections to both nature and religion, and both are often represented in various situations in his films. His refusal to do straight-forward stories and broad-stroked art style has also earned a number of haters for his style. It is easy to think thickly voice-overed, highly symbolic films as pretentious, but every single image has a purpose and is all part of a big jigsaw puzzle of different symbols and their readings. This style of filmmaking has also been highly influential among arthouse directors, although few can make films as captivating in their mysteriousness as the grand old man. This is why I consider Malick to be one of the most important filmmakers alive today.

It's hard, even impossible to rate Malick's unique body of work with stars, so I won't attempt it here. Suffice to say, I consider two of them to be true masterpieces and the other three still pretty darn good.

Badlands (1973)

Malick could easily have been a member of the same movie brat generation that many of his age peers did, like Scorsese, Coppola and DePalma. His debut film is a incredibly powerful film, but still reflects much of the era when it was made and has Malick's usual vivid philosophication marginalized. The film is loosely based on a real life case of a young man and a woman going on a killing rampage through the American Midwest. However, Malick's film is not a thriller, a crime flick, a heist flick or even a chase flick. It can loosely be seen as a romance or a study on morale. But the fact of the matter is, that Malick did make a wholly unique film on his first try, and it's hard to fit it in any previously made categories.

Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen) is a young punk, who doesn't quite fit into the society. He's working as a garbage man, when he meets the sweet young Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek). Kit begins to court the girl, much to the dismay of her parents. Her father (Warren Oates) shoots her dog as a punishment for running off with Kit one time too often. The conflict culminates to the point where Kit sees no other option but to shoot Holly's father and escape with her to the wilderness. The pair look for a chance to be in peace at nature, at a farm and at a rich man's house, but they always get hounded by the police, and Kit has to resort to killing a lot more people.

It may sound like Kit is a total sociopath, and he does get over murdering people with a shrug. Yet at the same time he's a charming, witty and friendly man, and he's seen making friends with ease. It's the sort of normal-seeming young man that were sent to murder people by the thousands at that time in Vietnam. While Malick doesn't address this issue directly, there is some pondering on where the nation's youth is going. Holly herself is also smitten with Kit, although she's also shown to be so young and naïve that she doesn't fully realize her emotions, or make sense of the disturbingly sinister centre of Kit's facade. Her narration of the film likens her love to a story found in a cheap romance novel, and Kit himself to a rock star.

For a love story, Malick shoots his film coldly and tells the story matter-of-factly. He doesn't resort to melodrama, but rather lets the images tell story. At this point Malick was still more interested in the postures and expressions of his actors than the landscape they inhabit. The pop-culture grown youth attempt to go back to living in the nature as Adam and Eve, but can't manage to shake off neither their suburban habits nor the police on their tail. The scenes in nature look like they were shot in a park rather than a forest, which may very well be the point. There's no isolation, no true wilderness. There is some sense of melancholy in this realization that you can't go back again. Also depending on the kindness of friends and even strangers doesn't work for Kit and Holly's favor, yet they themselves only seem to think it's their forbidden love that has turned them into outcasts rather than the carnage they leave behind. This is a film about people who think they have figured life all out but in their shallowness and confusion are actually more messed up than anyone. And Malick seems to suggest that this kind of thing is not rare in the world.

Days of Heaven (1978)

Malick likes to develop his themes further in subsequent films he makes. Thus, his second feature film is another take of a couple on the run. This time, it concerns the hot-headed Bill (Richard Gere), his lover Abby (Brooke Adams) and their daughter Linda (Linda Mantz). Bill starts out as a factory-worker, but runs afoul with his foreman, and accidentally kills him as a result. The family runs away far to Texas, where Bill starts working as a hand in the harvest in the fields owned by The Farmer (Sam Shepard). The rich Farmer is terminally ill, and the prognosis is that he won't live to see another harvest. Initially the family tell nothing about their identities. But Bill sees an opportunity when The Farmer falls for Abby, and comes up with a plan to pose as brother and sister, and go on living in the farm. He plans for Abby to marry The Farmer, and thus gain all his money once he dies. But the love of Abby makes The Farmer last a lot longer than expected, never taking a turn for the worse. Thus, also the seeds of jealousy are planted.

The tale is narrated by the young Linda, and in that it seems like a film set inside a person's memories, much like Malick's later Tree of Life is. Days of Heaven is Malick's first Epic, with huge shots of fields with the tall farm house rising in the middle like a medieval tower. A lot of weight is also given to Ennio Morricone's wonderful score. The film is set in the beginning of the 20th century, yet there is so much vivid imagery that could also be interpreted to be Malick's own memories of his childhood in the countryside of Illinois. Malick also intercuts peaceful images of fields, where wind is playing, to swarms of locusts attacking and eating the crops, and farmhands burning the entire field, when his characters' feelings come into the surface and more and more intense.

This time around, Malick would offer his characters a peace of mind, but having them be deceitful, jealous and greedy, they ruin it altogether. Harmony can not be achieved when people are driven by their flaws. The bright young Linda is the one who has the best hopes for the future, as is shown in the final scene of the film.

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Malick broke 20 years of reclusiveness to film a war novel about World War II in the Pacific by James Jones for the second time. The resulting film, however was something wholly unique, unlike any other previous war films. It is a key film in Malick's career in that he evolved to being more and more interested in philosophy, such as metaphysicality, and man's relationship with nature. That's why more than battles, he likes to shoot light flickering at treetops or wind playing at the grass of a field. The film is laced with the voiceovers of soldiers pondering at their place in a world gone mad.

The film can roughly be divided into three parts. The first shows deserted soldiers living in harmony with the nature and the natives on a paradise island, until a ship comes by and the deserters are returned back on duty. The second part shows a major battle, as the marines must take out the Japanese troops stationed on the hills of a Pacific island. A major attack ensues and after a bloodshed, the men appear victorious. Yet their commandants can't even provide them with water and push them on more and more. The final part sees the tired soldiers in the jungle, not knowing where to head and where the enemy is. One patrol in particular gets into a sticky situation and have to escape the attacking enemy.

The theme of losing one's individuality is strong here. The soldiers follow the orders from clueless, merciless generals, who in turn have little concern for anything but reaching their set goals. Yet that idea is one seen in many a war movie before. More interesting is how Malick cross-cuts the war with a man's relation to nature. In the first battle scenes, it seems like Mother Nature is disapproving of the soldiers breaking its harmony by harming the peaceful landscape with their running, shouting and explosives. A key image is of a snake hissing at a pair of soldiers taking cover by a grassy knoll. But as the film progresses, Malick shows that nature doesn't really care. It just observes, like a swarm of fruit bats at the treetops. At the same time the jungle-set paradise by the water from the film's beginning has turned from to a living hell where the struggle of life and death is a reality. The cold mindset of a soldier is kill or get killed, so in actuality they get to experience nature as it is, as cold and ruthless, rather than just reaping its benefits.

Malick, if anyone, is a director whose films are born in the cutting room. The original cut of the film ran for six hours. When the film had to be cut into less than three, Malick didn't hesitate to cut certain major movie stars out of the picture, and reducing some others' roles considerably. The director doesn't want to over-emphasize any given soldiers, it is a story about humanity in general. Also, Malick willingly breaks every Hollywood war movie cliché and convention he can find. His war is a total mess, confusing, loud and raw. At war really are harmony and chaos, or empathy and nature. The same fighting pair Malick would ponder on later with The Tree of Life. But The Thin Red Line is more subtle, more thought-provoking, and perhaps even more beautiful.

The New World (2005)

Like said, Malick likes to amplify his last movie's themes with every subsequent film he makes. The New World was his first film that really split even the arthouse audience in two. At it's core is another battle between natural children and civilization. The western civilization is depicted as a cold, heartless place, whose residents are emotionally distant. At the same time the natives living in the middle of the nature are capable for mercy and love – to a point. Malick stages this conflict to the time of the first English settlement on American soil. He also has a sort of a plot to hang his thoughts to, taken from history books.

The English explorers come across the Atlantic ocean to what they conceive as West India, and build the settlement of Jamestown. Supplies are few, and many of the men are not too eager about their new habitat. Captain Christopher Newport (Christopher Plummer) agrees to set free Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell), a mutineer waiting for the death penalty, on the condition that he shall remain loyal. But the immigrants start having trouble with the curious American natives, and this culminates one of the "Indians" being shot. This drives both of the groups to an edge, and leads to Smith getting captured. But just as he's about to get executed (again) the beautiful young daughter of the Tribe leader saves his life. The young girl (Q'Orinka Klicher) comes known first as Pocahontas. She attempts to build peace between the two groups and grows fond of Smith. But Smith doesn't enjoy being in America and schemes about getting away. I'm about to dwell a little more on the plot (because while that's really not the key concern for Malick, it brings out the film's themes better), so look away from the next paragraph, if you don't wish to be spoiled any further.

Malick has a sort of one-sided romance going on during his film. No matter how much mercy Pocahontas shows, how much she helps the English, she doesn't get the love that she deserves from John Smith. After the distrust between the English and the natives culminates again to a brutal battle, she's banished from her Tribe, and starts living as a Pariah in Jamestown. A newly arrived recruit, John Rolfe (Christian Bale) falls for her and attempts to build her a common bourgeois life of being the wife of an English farmer. They build a house, a farm, give her English clothes and teach her manners. Finally, she is given a Christian baptism, and named Rebecca. But she still pines for the more adventurous Smith. Eventually, she is taken to England, where she comes to terms with her part in life and the fact that Smith didn't care for her. Rebecca insists she is happy within grey skies and tightly cut bushes and lawns that bear no resemblance to her native nature any more. The bittersweet ending also tells of her demise at childbirth.

So, at central, the film is a melancholic look at a paradise lost. Pocahontas' sense of connection with nature starts to dwindle during the course of the movie. She grows from a beloved child that wonders the moon and the stars, and runs across the grassy fields at dawn mist, to just another droll English midwife. She sacrifices it all by chasing a dream that was never there. It may be wondrous to her when she first arrives to London, of seeing so many people she couldn't imagine, but in the end she still seems to end up lonely and unfulfilled. Although Malick alludes heavily to the Christian concept of rebirth, it can not be seen to be only a good thing here. This sort of thing should be noted by those who see Malick's recent work of just pushing Christian values to their face. Malick doesn't see the religion per se as the savior. Rather, the individual also needs to find his or her own sense of mercy, a connection to nature, and of course ableness to stuck to the moment when they are the happiest.

Personally, I find the film a bit too long and repetitive, but it is still a lot more interesting than a lot of other filmmakers make during their entire careers.

The Tree of Life (2011)

Malick's latest film may be his most personal or perhaps not. However, it is clearly his most dividing film. Some viewers criticize Malick dropping the ball by going too far into naïve christian pseudo-philosophies, and pretentiousness. Others see a vivid, even poetic film that's bustling with ideas and multilayered symbolism. All can agree that this is a one-of-a-kind film that's made with an amazing visual style. Malick's central idea is that everyone on Earth must follow one of two paths in their life: either they follow nature and do things from selfish reasons, or they follow mercy and do things out of love. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's beautiful, iconic imagery spirals around the film's main themes. The film may entirely take place inside the architect Jack O'Brien's (Sean Penn) head as he struggles against feelings of depression and worthlessness. He doesn't know his place in the world and inside God's grand plan. All the film's scenes are laced with how Jack experiences them, from his angelic mother (Jessica Chastain) to his strong father (Brad Pitt), a man with few words but a loving heart.

So, the film's plot is flimsy and serves as only the faintest thread with which to tie Malick's world-explanations. First, we follow the grief in an American family as one of their three boys has died from reasons not explained. From the grief we take off to the beginning of life itself billions of years ago in the sea. One-celled organisms eventually become dinosaurs, complicated creatures who rise from the life-giving sea and suffer for it. But for suffering, they also seem to conceive the concept of mercy (!). With a quick stop at brooding adult Jack's glistening, artificial city surroundings, we're back with the O'Brien family in the 50's or early 60's, before the upcoming tragedy. The eldest child Jack (Hunter McCracken) lives and plays with his two brothers in the nature, often somewhere near water. His mother and father embody the two life paths, and try to get young Jack to follow them.

Either way you choose, life may have infinite sadness and suffering in store. Life branches to unknown paths, just like God's Divine plan for the universe. We as a people may have difficulty seeing the whole of it. But Malick does offer hope with the ending. Everyone will get a chance for redemption and coming to terms with the past. Too bad it's presented so banally in the film it makes the whole thing a little cheesy. Altough Malick has a lot of christian iconography in the film, his concepts of mercy and redemption are more spiritual than belonging to any given religion. Nevertheless Malick and underlines this religious reading way too much, particularly in the final scene. If not for that, one could read the Tree to be whatever one likes.

It is widely suspected that Malick is taking a look back at his own childhood and suffering of over his brother's death. We know little about the author, and since he doesn't give interviews nor gives out guides how to read his films, one can take these claims however one likes. Nevertheless, much of the film taking place inside Jack's memories are full of vivid boyhood games with a reasonably nostalgic look at growing up. The film really shines with these warm and affectionate scenes. It is also undeniable that Malick is searching for reasons and coping methods for past tragedies (whether for his characters or for himself) through religion and a poetic approach on the Earth's development. 

Warts and all, Tree of Life is a jaw-droppingly unique vision of cinema by a true auteur. When the viewer leaves the theatre, he most likely has his head all blurry from this whole cornucopia of unforgettable images, unique ideas, colorful boyhood nostalgia, great underplayed acting, and, in two words, pure cinema.

It has been rumored that Malick would have another film ready for this year, known to some circles as Voyage of Time. There are also a few other films reportedly at various stages in production, as well as a 3,5 hour cut of The Tree of Life. I'll believe when I see them. Malick is notoriously slow worker, having edited ToL for years because he was not happy with the result. And we haven't even seen the longer cut of The Thin Red Line, like promised. But if they do exist, I am more than eager to see them.