Double Bill Mini Musings: Troubled Grooves and Opening Night Jitters...

Inherent Vice:
What's it about?
A complex tale situated at the death of the 1960s in and around the fictional seaside L.A. area of Gordita Beach, in which Private Investigator Larry "Doc" Sportello becomes involved in a twisted, sprawling string of crimes including, but not limited to, kidnap, murder, fraud, and drug trafficking. Based on the novel by Thomas Pynchon.
Who would I recognise in it?
Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio Del Toro, Jena Malone, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, and more.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Not quite Writer/Director Paul Thomas Anderson's best, but pretty close. Read the book and then watch the film for the best viewing experience. Don't try to unwind every mystery and understand every event - that's not the point - indeed, as Anderson himself said, the best thing to do is just let the movie wash over you. It's more about an atmosphere and an experience, than a neatly tied-up story. Even with some nips and tucks moving from book to film (the whole Vegas angle is reduced to a brief newspaper headline, various side characters' parts are reduced or removed, etc) Anderson manages to remain strikingly true to the source material, so much so that - at times - the film feels more like a book than it does a movie. The pacing and rhythms are different to your usual film, while Pynchon's world is beautifully recreated - cannily helped by deploying the side character of Sortilege as the narrator. Undoubtedly it's a divisive film, but it is one that will find its audience in the home viewing market, where it will reveal deeper layers with repeated viewings. Good.

Click "READ MORE" below for Elijah Wood tinkling the ivories...

Double Bill Mini Musings: Utterly Bizarre/Utterly Average...

Taxidermia:
What's it about?
A Hungarian film that concerns three generations of men, all of whom have their own twisted obsessions - sex, speed-eating, and taxidermy.
Who would I recognise in it?
You'd have to be a connoisseur of Hungarian film.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Bizarre, weird, disturbing, freakish, and more such words all work to describe (in the best possible way) this foreign language treat. It's a film about an idea - a strong central conceit of obsession - told across three individual, yet linked, tales. It's not a film for vegetarians, mind you - there's close up shots of hacked meat and organs galore. Strangely fascinating with a unique vision, Taxidermia can be a grimace-inducing ride, but ultimately it proves to be a satisfying endeavour. Grotesque, strange, controlled, and oddly beautiful in equal measure. Good.

Click "READ MORE" below for the utterly average...

Double Bill Mini Musings: February 2012...

The Ghost:
Roman Polanski's thriller is about a ghost writer (played by Ewan McGregor) who is hired to re-write the memoirs of a British Prime Minister (loosely based on Tony Blair, with added cinematic appeal and backstory) who is in a spot of bother over extradition to the USA - sending terrorist suspects overseas to be tortured by the CIA. McGregor engages the viewer as a half-crumpled writer with a witty sense of humour, while the plot manages to duck and weave enough to second guess your suspicions of how the story will unfold. It kept me hooked throughout - it's worth checking out. A bonus for fans of The Walking Dead too - Jon Bernthal plays the agent of McGregor's ghost writer.


One Crazy Summer:
As I always say - if it's got John Cusack in it, then it's worth seeing - and here we are with him re-teaming with Savage Steve Holland, the director of Better Off Dead, which was only half-as-barmy as this decidedly 1980s 'romantic farce'. It's a good kind of barmy though, with a rather loose sense of plotting (at times it's nearing sketch comedy in style), and Demi Moore as a rock singer trying to pay off the mortgage on the house of her recently departed grandfather ... the same house that is stopping the local rich folks from turning the entire island community into a resort specialising in Lobster dining. What's more - in a way that was seemingly quite popular for 1980s comedies - it all culminates in a sailing competition (also see the John Candy-starring Summer Rental - a family film I'm rather fond of from my childhood years), replete with boat-fixing montage. Oh, and Bobcat Goldthwait's in it - in full-on madcap shouty form.