This is John Cleese’s favourite film of his own¹, and one can see why: it’s a simple, yet very funny, story of a theft in the same tradition of The League of Gentlemen, The Lavender Hill Mob, or that other heist film from Ealing Studios I don’t recall the name of right now. Drat.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

Anyway, this similarity isn’t too surprising, given that the film is mostly directed by Charles Crichton, the man responsible for directing The Lavender Hill Mob. I have described Mr. Crichton as having “mostly” directed the film because the studio was worried he wouldn’t be able to handle a comedy assignment, and asked Mr. Cleese to ‘keep an eye on things’²; demonstrating that studio people in positions of influence are frequently idiots and haven’t a clue about anything other than what they have watched in the last minute or three, most likely due to most of their brains have been burned away by cocaine.

But, I digress.

Cleese’s character, the barrister “Archie Leach” (the birth name of Cary Grant³), is possibly the simultaneously stupidest and highly educated individual you’ve ever encountered. Sadly, he’s possibly also the most realistic character you’ve ever seen in a film. That’s what makes not only his character, but all of them in the film work so very well. As absurd as they are, they’re all well within the bounds of reality. We see the events of the tale and the way the characters deal with those challenges causes us to think there, but for the Grace of God, go I. This doesn’t exactly prevent one from considering a life in crime, but it certainly makes for a damned funny movie.

The key to this–or any–type of comedy is best summed-up in a post by Christopher Fowler (which you can read RIGHT HERE), in which he details a conversation he recently had with the writers of the Tony Hancock’s material, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. Hancock’s character (he only had the one, really) could never be mistaken for either a ‘success’ or a ‘bright spark’, and therein the comedy bursts forth, according to the writers. In describing the un-produced Hancock film The Day Off, Mr. Fowler says this:

It’s virtually plotless, sad and very funny indeed. In it, Hancock meets up with another bus driver, and argues about the pointlessness of saving and withdrawing the same amount each week with his bank. He tries to bully a man on a park bench into admitting he feels insignificant, and fails. He loses an argument about wasps and bees. He meets Charlotte, a girl who works in a dress shop, and pretends he’s an architect building a cathedral, while she pretends she’s a model. He forces her to have a dessert she doesn’t want because she needs to stay model-thin. Hancock gets found out just before a touching goodnight kiss, and the romance turns sour. The film ends as it begins, with Hancock going home alone as the weather-girl announces tomorrow will be a sunny day–for those with a day off.

… [Ray Galton and Alan Simpson] agree that the script’s downbeat ending is funnier because ‘failures are funny, successful people are not’.

Thus we can see this film, full of the incredible failures nearly from start to finish, as a classic English comedy in the same tradition as Hancock, Ealing, and so very many others… most of which I can’t remember the names of… Drat.

There’s a further connection to this film for Mr. Fowler: in addition to his award-winning novels, he’s also responsible for co-writing a piece of comedy on the DVD of A Fish Called Wanda with Mr. Cleese. Unfortunately I returned this to the library before I remembered that, and thus I cannot tell you either which bit of “extra material” it is, or how funny I thought it was. Drat.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Prominent Features
Star Partners Limited Partnership 

Directed by Charles Crichton
and un-credited John Cleese

Writing credits
written by John Cleese
from a story by John Cleese and Charles Crichton

CITATIONS

1.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095159/trivia?tab=tr&item=tr1054980 [ JUMP BACK ]
2.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095159/trivia?tab=tr&item=tr0792640 [ JUMP BACK ]
3.  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095159/trivia?tab=tr&item=tr0792726, and yes I’m stopping this now [ JUMP BACK ]

Cover of “Aja”, by The Darcys (Jan 24 2012, Arts & Crafts Productions A&C066)

This, clearly, makes me a prime candidate for the music of Steely Dan, seen by many to be the gear-heads’ musical favourite; mostly due to their multiple studio accomplishments (although I only know of them being really fanatical to high fidelity recording processes and insanely complicated guitar lines). When I want to hear a little something intelligent, jazzy, and exceedingly tasty in its musical accomplishment, I turn to ‘The Dan’ (or Brian Eno or Jeff Beck). Thus, when hearing that the Toronto independent rock group The Darcys were covering the entire Steely Dan album Aja, I was fascinated to hear what they had accomplished.

The problem that any musician doing a ‘cover’ of another group’s work faces is that it’s a song they love, and probably love everything about the original version. However, the reason they do their own version is to bring something new to it, or at least it ought to be the reason. If all they do is duplicate the original’s arrangement, then there’s no inducement to listen to the new recording instead of the original. While this hasn’t stopped classical musicians doing the 378th recording of Mozart’s 12th symphony, or countless other works, there’s a difference there as we haven’t a clue what the original performance sounded like, so there is no ‘definitive interpretation’ which is tied to the composer in the same way that Dark Side of the Moon or Abbey Road have one specific version in the collective awareness of the listening public.

The original version of Aja (pronounced like ‘Asia’, by the way) is considered by some to be the “best recorded pop album in the 1970s”, which is either rejected as being of “too much intelligent content to be considered ‘pop’ music” or else “given much of the material recorded in the 1970s sounds like it was taped in a public swimming pool using a tin can, it’s hardly a tough thing to be at the top of a chart for technical achievement, is it?” Whichever, it’s often used for testing samples and recording reproduction fidelity to demonstrate the tonal range of vinyl vs. CD vs. digital file formats of various codecs; mostly due to the fact that the various editions have stayed fairly true to the original masters and haven’t been screwed around with, unlike most of the other recordings of the period. Having it get the Grammy Award for “Best Engineered Non-Classical Recording (1978)” probably helps too.

Due to the above–plus the fact this is the group’s best-selling album, having reached #3  on the U.S. charts and #5 in the United Kingdom–everyone knows the material backwards. So why even take-on the task then? Well, according to an interview with one of the band members in conjunction with THIS BLOG POST for the CBC Radio3 show Appetite for Distraction, the idea was given voice because one of the band members was both drunk and tired of answering questions posed by someone in a bar that evening, so he said the band was about to record this in order to make the guy shut up and go away. Sadly, the pestering individual was a member of the Toronto music media, and the statement was published shortly thereafter. The band member claims he is no longer permitted to drink, for fear of him doing something equally insane to the rest of the group.

Cover of “Aja”, by Steely Dan (Sept 23 1977, ABC Records)

It’s not fair to do a track-for-track comparison of the original album to the new version, as the purposes for the creation of the two are so wildly different from each other. The original was made to give voice to the muse of Walter Becker and Donald Fagan, while the new one was made to pass the original album’s contents through the collective muse of The Darcys to see what would happen. Thus, the preference of one over another isn’t either just or even relevant. No doubt the eye-balls of the members of the Toronto group are filled with a non-stop stream of words by people who are quite happy to make it painfully clear that “the original is perfect”, “why would anyone commit such sacrilege”, or the always popular “this cover album sucks goats!”

I was originally made aware of this about 2/3 of the way through the tune “Peg” which was pre-released as part of the album’s promotion. In the middle of typing something frantically on the keyboard whilst listening to Radio3, the chorus rammed itself into my awareness, my head shot-up, and I thought is that song what I think it is? The answer, obviously, was yes. In a series of events–that culminated with [ahem] ‘a well connected radio personality’ sending me an Advance Copy CD–I’ve now had a chance to listen to the entire effort. Five times. In a row. Without listening to the original version once. Yet.

 However, it’s nigh-on impossible to hear any of the tracks on this without hearing the original in one’s head. 

Which brings us back to the original question, why would you attempt this in the first place? Again, I submit the purpose is to bring something new to the musical work, due to it being interpreted by a different person in a different age. I’m a big fan of re-interpretations of The Beatles, The Who, and for some reason I also have about 87,000 different recordings of the Cole Porter composition “Love for Sale”.

Ultimately, the new version of the album isn’t all that successful as something which stands on its own. I wouldn’t expect it to replace the original in my mind, as that’s something a cover version has only done for me with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s version of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” (the cover is far more in keeping with the event it records in its lyrics, for one thing). To create a version of any album which is superior to the original one is arguably impossible, but it ought to stand on its own in some fashion. This one doesn’t, no matter how hard I try to really, really like it.

A few tracks do make the cut, as they work but not entirely through their lengths. The title track handles the material fairly well, with echoes of the original here and there, but an entirely new feel to the whole of the song. Likewise, “Josie” works fairly well through most of its length for the same reason. “Deacon Blues” and “Home at Last”, however, just don’t work at all, sometimes to the point of being down-right ‘broken’. Not all songs are structured in a clear enough way to make it possible for re-interpretation, and especially not easily an entire album being re-interpreted by the same group in essentially the same style (although one exception to this is Luther Wright and the Wrongs’ version of The Wall as semi-blue-grass styled music, which is brilliant).

Cover of “The Royal Scam”, by Steely Dan (May 1976, ABC Records)

The cover image chosen by The Darcys [see image, way above, right]  is odd, as it harkens far more to the cover of The Royal Scam [see image, right], which Steely Dan declared in the re-mastered edition of which as “the most hideous album cover of the seventies, bar none (excepting perhaps Can’t Buy a Thrill)”. As tough as it is to make an album your own, it’s probably tougher to make the cover art yours as well.

Now, props to the group for taking this task on in the first place! To learn to play any of these songs is incredibly tough, and to do this with all seven is fantastic. To add to that the challenge to, essentially, ‘un-learn them’ and then re-learn them afresh is a hell of a steep climb for anyone, never mind an independent band attempting to fulfill a drunken promise made by one of the members in a fit of frustration. What a staggering achievement this is!

But it needs to have more than that, frankly. The sparseness of the original in large areas are too often honoured seemingly for the reason that “that’s what Steely Dan did”, instead of honouring a new approach. There are little musical frills from the original throughout that ought to have avoided entirely in favour of the songs’ cores. As well as that, there are some vocal moments which are delivered by the lead singer which were originally echoes by the back-up vocalists and ought to have been avoided for the same reason or delivered in some new way by another singer during the new recording sessions.

Basically, it’s a great idea. If they had attempted to show off their instrument chops by duplicating it perfectly, that would have gotten a pretty good reaction for the work (although not on an artistic level). Instead, they went for the far tougher assignment of re-working the music with their own style, and that’s awesome. However, the end result isn’t something which seems to have gone far enough to create a new work per se. Thus, my ultimate reaction is “meh…”

If you want to listen to ‘old music’, then you risk not evolving into a better person; or at least ‘fresher’ one. Thus, if you want to play the old music, you must do so in an entirely new way, bringing the best of the old into direct contact with the new work

If you want to check out the music for yourself, then HEAD HERE to download it for free. However, if you prefer a ‘hard copy’, I have the ‘Advance Copy’ CD in front of me, and will happily send it to someone who requests it (hit the “contact” link up there).

The Three Musketeers (1973)

Well, that’s a lot of information to explain why there are two films, isn’t it? Do you need a lie down now? I might, actually. What about a glass of something, or some tea? Can I get you a sandwich perhaps? No? ‘Head straight to the films, please’, you say? Right then!

While I’ve read all of The Count of Monte Cristo, I admit that I’ve not read the source material of The Three Musketeers, or Twenty Years After, or even The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later (which I suspect wasn’t included in the plot of either of these films, although its details seem so similar to some of the first two stories’ it’s tough to tell, really). 

These are daft, sillly, and damned fun. Everything you could want from a film about these characters is here: bawdy humour, oodles of swordplay, lovably ill-behaved heroes, and enthusiasm about everything good in life: rescuing people, serving your sworn ruler, romance, food, wine, love, and waving a rapier around as often as possible. If, during the films, you feel like shouting Huzzah! or similar terms, I think that’s just fine as well, if not outright recommended.

The title sequence for the first film is incredible, showing us a swordsman’s moves in a pseudo-stop-motion effect and electric blue colour, predating both The Matrix or Tron. While stylish and magnificent, the tone is far more apt to a film of an art-house than what we get. Both approaches are appropriate to the material, and both are very well done, it’s just a bit of a confusion to the viewer who is now expecting a “Great Work of Serious Art” rather than what they get: a “Great Work of Dedicated Romp”. Again, let me say that both the title sequence and the film are exceedingly good, it’s just they don’t quite match each other.

The Four Musketeers (1974)

The bodies of the two films–or, more appropriately, the “bawdies” of them–are filled to the rim with slapstick fun, much of which involves that wonderful symbolic use of “extra-long loaves of bread and bombs” as representing “phallus and testes” way they do so well. Swashbuckling fun for all! *

The cast is made-up of a “who’s who in early-’70s cinema’, with the evil Rochefort played to ever-so-oily perfection by Christopher Lee; M. Bonacieux, d’Artagnan’s landlord, is performed with energetic glee by Spike Milligan (and we see nothing of him in the second film, which is a damned shame), and his wife Constance de Bonancieux, the Queen’s Seamstress (but who also seems to be her confidant and adviser at times) by Raquel Welch; and the scheming Milady de Winter by an incredibly stunning Faye Dunaway. Rounding out the cast of other characters are a host of others literally too numerous to mention.

One who deserves special note by myself is Charlton Heston as incredibly refined and restrained Cardinal Richelieu, thus proving my point about his work being uncontrollable being ill-considered. Considering the complete lack of restraint by most of the cast when going over-the-top with slapstick a-plenty, it would have been easy for him to fall in line with the others (although I’m not sure how it would have been appropriate to his character, frankly). Thus, my earlier comment about his work being uniformly of the “lookit me! LOOKITME!” sort was obviously too hasty. While I doubt I’ll see much more of his oeuvre, I’ll not be approaching it with the same expectation or resistance I might have before finally seeing these films.

There’s some frankly bad sound dubbing in these due to the “shoot pictures first, record audio later” approach to things, but it being the style of the time it’s not too bad in the circumstances. The first film doesn’t allow too much in the way of character development, but there’s an awful lot of characters to simply get introduced here, so there’s little time left to develop any of them as a result; this is left to the intricacies of the second film, which was known as “The Four Musketeers: Milady’s Revenge” in the USA, and variants of it in France, West Germany, Brazil, Italy, Greece, and in Hungary’s ‘long title’. It would seem that the Lady de Winter has a secret and is happy to take revenge upon a few others while she’s keeping the status of that secret. INTRIGUE!

The camera-work for this is uniformly good, if a tad uniformly wide but, given the amount of the sword-waving and running-about going-on inside the frame, it’s certainly justified. The stock used seems a tad grainy but, again, the requirements of detail in night and shadowed scenes, couple with the amount of running around needing some extra depth of field means little else is possible for use.

The story, had it been shoved into one film of about 2/3 the length of the two of these combined, would be too much detail to handle. director Richard Lester was wise to split them into two film, thus allowing the narrative to have sufficient elbow-room for the silliness and action that makes both of the films work so very well. He was, on the other hand, damned stupid on a contractual basis to have done it. Re-negotiating with the cast afterwards would have been not only have been intelligent a choice on a legal standpoint, it would have simply been the right thing to have done.

If you see these available for your viewing pleasure, rest assured it will be one.

The Three Musketeers (1973) & The Four Musketeers (1974)
an Alexander, Michael and Ilya Salkind Production for
Este Films and Film Trust S.A. 

Directed by Richard Lester

Written from the novel by Alexandre Dumas père
with a screenplay by George MacDonald Fraser

Trailer for The Three Musketeers (1973)

Trailer for The Four Musketeers (1974)

* NOTE: the author of this post is well aware of what a buckler actually is, and will not be making any jokes based on “buckling a swash”, as this would be wrong. More apt would be to “swash a buckler” which is, in fact, where “swash buckling” comes from. So belt-up. [ RETURN ]

It’s the last film he made in England before running off to Hollywood in order to not get caught in the War (although he must have been anticipating doing so, given the release date followed the production itself), and you can see great chunks of the work to come from him: seemingly slow-moving plots, careful examination of characters (often in trains), story-driven narrative with bits of dialogue that mix specific information as well as ‘slice of life’ elements of the moment, and then a bunch of action that stems from a plot that’s actually moved pretty quickly but you didn’t notice that originally. It’s all there, folks.

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

The first reel takes place in a hotel in the middle of a mountainous country of Europe, where–Goodness Gracious! Such a remote and wilderness place–news about what’s happening in England, and specifically the Cricket Tests, cannot be had with any reliability! There is talk of a war, but the Great Decision has not yet been made (but really, it’s the decision of the Bowler that really matters, wot?). There are a number of groups of characters we follow in this chunk of the story, and it’s probable that if it was made today the whole first third of the film would be hacked out because “it’s too confusing. Who’s the hero? What’s the problem that he’s going to solve? Who’s the dame he’s going to win? Who’s he going to have to kill? If it’s not there in the first twenty pages, you’ve lost everything.” Or, at least, so is the wisdom of William Goldman, the man who declared he’s right about everything. 

The funny thing is, all of it is there in the first twenty pages or so, but it’s not presented in bullet-list form, nor exclusively so; there’s a whole bunch of extraneous stuff in there to distract you from the ‘essentials’ noted above. That’s what’s called “entertainment” and “colour”, folks. It’s supposed to be “fun” and something you can “enjoy for the sake of”. Remember that? Remember when we had that opportunity for more than the length of one ‘witty’ line about someone’s sexual prowess or reference to a sponsoring corporate product? Not that I’m pooh-poohing the newer films for the sake of that, I’m just acknowledging that things were different back in 1938, and everyone seems to do things the same these days, instead of using as many different styles of story-telling as are available. Nothing is “wrong”, it’s merely “different”, and we need more “different”. As it is, films are so frequently in such a head-long rush to get to the music-swelling ending that we’ve sacrificed the “getting to know you” bit of the stories, it’s refreshing to see one again and it reminds us that we shouldn’t rush to the ends of our lives either.

But back to this film.

Hopefully by the middle of the film you’ve given-up trying to work out where it’s headed in the end, because there’s a great deal to enjoy by simply letting it get there in its own time. This journey is wonderful in its own right as are its the stops along the way as we get to know people, the question of the tale to be answered, and then the matter of how to solve the problem by the end. As with life, it’s not the conclusion that matters, it’s how you get there and the direction in which it takes you that is more appreciable. 

Spend some time with this one, and see just how good a smart mystery / thriller can be, and how it can be done with a mixture of people (as opposed to a bunch who are seemingly all equally good-looking and thin). It’s wonderful. You can even watch it for free by heading to THIS PAGE on the Internet Movie Archive!

Gainsborough Pictures presents
The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock  
 
Written by Ethel Lina White (for her story “The Wheel Spins”),
screenplay by Sidney Gilliat (credited as ‘Sidney Gilliatt”)
and Frank Launder

I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

Cheered-up yet? Don’t worry, it’ll get dour soon enough.

After probably over two years of un-interrupted hair growth, a haircut.

Publishing & Frustration

If anything can be said to be “what 2011 has taught me”, it’s that one should either have tonnes of cash to force your plan to come to fruition in a  small amount of time, or you shouldn’t have any delusions about being successful to any degree beyond a tiny amount. Publishing is under-going a massive re-structuring in how it gets stories to people, who controls what, and even how they make money at all. Thinking “yes, well, I’m small enough to bounce when necessary and adapt as fast as required, plus I’m already starting from the idea that eBooks are ‘good’ and they need to be priced as though they’re Mass Market Paperbacks”, I wasn’t too worried about breaking even eventually on things.

Sadly, I’m in the same situation as publishers at any size of operation are: doing badly financially.

The autumn saw  two more books published by Atomic Fez Publishing, both by Canadian authors. They are Dirk Danger Loves Life by Chris Rothe, as well as Terribilis by Carol Weekes. Sales of both have been fairly solid, including a substantial order from Canada’s high-street bookshop, Chapters/Indigo/Cole’s (which is actually a mixed blessing, and click this link to learn why). So, good!

“Terribilis” and “Dirk Danger Loves Life” upon arrival

Once the books were delivered, there was still some time to get myself organised properly with them in time for them to be on sale at VCon Nº36, as well as adverts for them in the programmes of that event, plus the British Fantasy Society’s annual “FantasyCon” the same week-end, plus the UK editions of Terribilis in hard-cover were ready in time for that same event. Hooray!

During the BFS “FantasyCon”, Atomic Fez was in the running for two awards: “Best Small Press (2010)” and “Best Novella (2010)” for one of its books, Ponthe Oldenguine by Andrew Hook. There were also a few other categories and titles Atomic Fez showed-up in as part of the ‘long list’ of nominated books for people to vote for. To make it into the shortlist in the first year you qualify for consideration is pretty good (and Atomic Fez is the first non-UK publisher to be ‘shortlisted’ for “Best Small Press” as far as I can tell), and there was one other author being considered by a BFS Awards committee which is the sort of thing they don’t announce. So that’s good too! Unfortunately I couldn’t interest the media in talking to me about that at all, even in a slow news period, and even considering one of the other novellas in the running for that award was 1922 by Stephen King, and he didn’t win either.

Additionally, I contracted a PR person to help me with marketing, media relations, and other things that I hadn’t a clue about, and she did a bang-up job in the early months of 2011. The difference she made didn’t manifest itself until the last half of the year, but the effect she’s had shows-up in the fact that Chapters/Indigo/Cole’s didn’t give a sweet fuck about my books until she worked her magic. Additional things she beat me for until I did them was to get copies of some back-titles out to readers through a contest over on GoodReads.com, copies of the two new titles out through that same process as well as LibraryThing.com. 

At the same time, though, sales dropped tremendously, no matter what I did. Advertising didn’t seem to do much; at least not more than have people visit the site more. I’ve always considered advertising as a “long game”, with the notion of repetitive exposure being the key to eventual sales increase. Visit the site though people did, part with their money they did not. Even deep sales of 50% or more, as well as transatlantic distribution centres to reduce postage costs, didn’t seem enough to interest people in September. 

Bronze Fennel

So, with the end of this year, and a continual smash on our household finances causing us to hit the limits on all of our available credit and no further allowances for extending that any more, I’m now seeking a ‘day job’ to provide as much cash as possible in order to pour funds into the coffers of Atomic Fez. “Selling out” might be the best description, really.

I’m sick and bloody tired of trying to be my own man, frankly. Over the past quarter-century I’ve often been entrepreneurial out of sheer necessity, but mostly due to me not being drawn to the life of a veal-kennel-living worker-drone. Thus, I’ve been a professional photographer, a retail store owner, an actor and arts-journalist, and now editor and publisher. I’ve probably made far more “working for The Man” in retail, and when with the BC civil service as a file clerk, than all of those others combined. Most of one’s life is supposed to be spent being self-supporting and ensuring that society’s less-well-off are provided for properly; whether through tax payments or charitable donations. So far I’ve spent the vast majority of my working life with so poorly an income that I’ve not paid a cent in taxes (although with no “deductions at source”, so there’s been no refund cheques either), and–being in my late-40s now–I’m sick and bloody tired of it. If spending the daytime hours making someone else rich through my effort means I get enough money every fortnight I can do what I bloody want the rest of the time–and not have to make do with either not having something or having crap instead–then it’ll mean I’ll be free to actually see a film occasionally, have a suit that’s newer than my current 15-year-old one (and it was bought at a consignment store, so who knows how old it was already), and maybe even not rely on the generosity of others for ability to do just about anything.

Still, given the amount of effort that’s gone into the earlier endeavours of my own, it’s damned frustrating that none of them actually paid off, and the declaration by Kevin O’Leary that “if a business hasn’t turned a profit by two years, take that dog out behind the shed and shoot it” is something that either makes me weep or wish to punch the guy in the face for saying. Still, it haunts my mind daily, especially as it could very well be the right approach to take for all I know.

Movies Galore

During the rest of the year, I watched movies galore in order to teach myself something about story and structure of it therein. As having never taken an English degree (or a degree of any kind at all, actually), the ability to examine a story and not only know if something doesn’t work, but know why it doesn’t work, has been done based on a combination of reading experience, text examination as an actor, and pure gut-instinct. Being sure I was making adjustments to a story without merely making it match my eclectic and esoteric tastes was something I’ve lacked. Thus, I jammed as many well-regarded movies and TV series into my eye-balls as I could. There’s a lot of films I’ve missed through lack of opportunity or due to considering them “beneath me” for various reasons, but their influential natures are coming to surface in too many things I’m working with as an editor that I could no longer ignore them, in my view. The end result of this effort is recorded in the reviews here on this site, which number over one hundred in quantity (and there’s a bunch I’ve not reviewed during the past year). I’ll probably continue to do it into next year, as it’s a good way to focus one’s views of the film and re-enforce the lessons in structure the stories might teach.

My conclusion early-on in this effort was that, to be successful, a story requires only three things: a solid plot, some developed characters, little bit of action (minimal, even, but at least a bit), and you can mix in with them any story-form, genre, or influence you want. Miss out one of those three, or get the balance wrong, and you’re screwed.

Case in point: the three-part series under The Matrix banner, which got an entirely wrong balance in the final two films, which contain a complete shortage of plot and character but oodles of action, and I found the them to be so generally pointless that their simple existence was insufficiently justified. The first one ion the series was not only the best re-telling of the New Testament I’ve ever seen, and was so perfectly structured in its story and character arc that stopping right there would have been far better than anything else. But the film made too much money, and Hollywood can’t leave “well enough” alone, and need to rape it for all the opportunities it might offer.

An interesting thing to note about the “Matrix Trilogy” is that the gross box office receipts for the first film were $171,479,930 (as of 26 September 1999), with an estimated production budget of $63 million; the second film’s gross was $281,492,479 (as of 26 October 2003), on an estimated budget of $150 million; and the gross for the third was $139,259,759 (as of February 2004) for a film with an estimated budget of $110 million [all figures are $US]. Thus, we have three films made for $323 million making a gross income of $592,232,168, thus supposedly netting $269,232,168, and that’s just the films at the box office during their initial wide-release; there’s still the DVD releases of each film–and don’t forget the box-set, anniversary, and BLU-RAY editions–plus distribution of the film itself after those initial cinema receipts. Now for the bizarre part: none of the films have ever formally posted a profit. Ever. This is a prime example of Hollywood Accounting, which sufficiently screws with the financial records so that they never have to pay someone a part of the profits; just look at Art Buchwald’s experience for further proof.

Crocus sativus (“The Safron Crocus”)

Key films for various reasons: Star Wars Episodes I-III; Kurosawa’s Ran and The Seven Samurai, as well as Yojimbo; the “Man With No Name” trilogy from Sergio Leone; the Brothers Coen, for demonstrating they do nearly all noir films, but in a minimalist fashion, Spartacus, for the commentary track with the scene-by-scene detailed memo from the writer about why bits were required to shore-up character and plot points; the Bond series to appreciate how well made the early ones were, as well as how each of the films add to a continuous influence of tales reflecting the politics of the times; the series of “Planet of the Apes” and “Alien” films for demonstrating how action and SF can co-exist with intelligence, as well as the latter for introducing me to the brilliance of David Fincher; 2001: A Space Odyssey and Doctor Stranglelove (or “How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb) for demonstrating the range of Stanley Kubrick’s talent, back-to-back (the comedy was released in 1964 and the SF-film was his next film, in 1968).

Summary

So… there we are: 2011. The only things that I seemed to do well returned no income, and that’s been the pattern for me since leaving high school. Stunning. 

So I look to 2012 to provide me with an income derived through the anonymity of working for other people as a tiny cog in a massive machine which probably contributes to the continual division of the ‘rich’ and the ‘poor’ becoming more and more cavernous every day. Pardon me whilst I leave you to search for a corporate teat from which to suckle.

Bitter? Me? Hell no! That’s not a strong enough word, for one thing…

Gorky Park (1983)

Gorky Park could actually be called a ‘murder mystery’ really, but I’m going to call it a spy thriller because it involves the KGB, plus US citizens, plus a bunch of other things. Also, basically I’m going to call it a ‘Spy Thriller’ for reasons that involve revealing too much of the plot. Besides, I just plain feel like it! So there!

It’s odd in its casting: William Hurt plays a copy who’s equally able to run around and punch people, as he is to contemplate various contradictory and seemingly un-connected evidence. At this point he wasn’t known for anything other than a couple of things on Kojak of all things, as well some work in The Big Chill which only came out two months earlier in the cinemas. Meanwhile, Brian Dennehy plays a more sensitive and analytically-inclined guy than he had up to this point, mostly playing punching / shooting / cussin’ / whoring / neanderthals (or partial ones at the very least). Meanwhile, Alexei Sayle shows-up for the first time, and clearly impressed everyone, including me, because he’s always awesome (but what a waste it was with him in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade… however more on that one in a later post).

I’d really like to examine the plot and its twists and turns in all their surprising detail… but I can’t. Because of spoilers. Which is a shame.

Look, just watch the film. Even if you have seen it before, if it’s been longer than a decade since then, and especially if you saw it in all its dis-jointed glory as a television broadcast, I’m willing to guarantee you’ve forgotten at least one major detail near the end. No, don’t think about it right now, just watch the film and let it wash all over you.

The characters are fully realized, with all of them being complex in a way we’re un-used to typically in a spy thriller. Especially intriguing is the number of sides to the… oh, damn, here we go again. Crap.

It’s really good. Trust me.

[heavy sigh]

Sneakers (1992)

In order to avoid getting a “G-rating”, which was considered to be the surest way to be over-looked by ‘grown-ups’, oddly Sneakers ended up adding some swearing to an other-wide brilliant script. The result is seeing Sidney Poitier call someone a “mother fucker” and David Strathairn mention oral sex. Not their proudest moment, but you do what you have to in order to make things work in the marketing department.

This is much more of a ‘Thriller’ in the ‘Tech’ category, as we’re dealing with a computerized universal decoding / decryption MacGuffin that–unsurprisingly–everyone wants, but telling who actually is who is never something that’s easy. Asking for some ID is never reliable, even if people are co-operative. Those ‘secret guys’ seem to have this aversion to revealing stuff. Funny that.

The characters are less complex here than in the earlier film but, given the complexity of the action involved, it would be pretty difficult to cram that in there as well. They’re still more complicated than you’d expect in a thriller, though, and a fair number of their motivations and decisions are surprising when revealed. Hooray!

I wish Dan Ackroyd got more roles like this, though: “Mother” is a kinda nerdy conspiracy theorist who knows his way around wiring and complicated hardware the same way most people can handle a corkscrew*. “Mother” is ‘thinky’, and funny, and intriguing. He’s a really good actor, and an extremely good writer, and I like his work. 

Mildly disturbing to some may be the fact that all of the technology in the film was available to the common man for reasonably low prices before the film came out. Viewed today it looks really tame. Having already read David Gurr’s An American Spy Story, satellite and electronic monitoring potentials were well-known to me when originally seeing this in the cinema, and that was back in the days before these here interweb-tubes.

Sneakers is more light-hearted than Gorky Park, but is just as satisfying over-all, owing to the calibre of the actors and the quality of the writing.

…and I can’t really say much more than that without giving something away again. Blast.

So… watch that one as well.

Gorky Park (1983)
Eagle Associates

Director:
Michael Apted

Writers:
novel by Martin Cruz Smith
screenplay by Dennis Potter

Sneakers (1992)
Universal Pictures 

Directed by
Phil Alden Robinson

Writing credits
written by Phil Alden Robinson and
Lawrence Lasker & Walter F. Parkes

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

* No, I haven’t any idea what that means either. [ RETURN ]

The Big Lebowski (1998)

While this has become a cult classic, I still don’t think it’s that incredible. Yes, it’s fabulous, but I wouldn’t declare it “87 out of ten stars!!!!” as some have. I’m not sure what I would change, but it’s so anarchic that it’s tough to identify anything as either “not sufficiently developed” or “extraneous”. The one section which I wouldn’t remove is the dream sequence, oddly, as it’s such a fabulous reflection of Hollywood’s musical montages, as well as the idyllic nature of The Dude’s notion of life. 

I might take out the character Jesus Quintana, as it really has nothing to do with anything in the story, but he acts in the same way as the gravedigger in Hamlet or the Night Porter in “the Scottish Play”. Besides, the basis for taking out that character would then have to equally apply to the character only identified as “The Stranger”, played by Sam Elliott, and he is possibly the only consistently normal person in the entire tale, so we need him. Hmmm… tricky…

Like Fargo, the movie the brother released two years earlier, The Big Lebowski is what may be best described as “minimalist noir™”. Basically, ‘how much can you do with a noir mystery or thriller to follow its rules, yet make it about as non-depressing and cynical as possible?’ Everyone in both of those films, plus Burn After Reading, is entirely out for the betterment of no one but themselves, and are willing to do anything in order to get it. The one individual who is an exception to this is the police officer Marge in the earlier film, but that’s getting a bit away from the two films we’re really examining here.

With The Big Lebowski, the questions are “why is this loser getting confused with someone else?” plus “where’s this ‘Bunny’ Lebowski, and what does Jackie Treehorn have to do with it?” An obvious additional couple of questions are “where’s The Dude going to get a decent run that really pulls the room together?” as well as “how are they going to fare in the league standings after all of this shakes down?” but those are more by the way sorts of things.

Burn After Reading (2008)

In Burn After Reading, however, the questions are more straight-forward: “who’s going to pay the most for these secret files?”, as well as “how did they get those secret files?” Again, everyone is out for their own betterment, whether they’re the author of a memoire, wanting–no, needing, dammit–cosmetic surgery, or simply looking for a bit of sex to warm them up for another run. The number of selfless people in this story are about as many as you would expect to find in Washington, DC: zilch.

The number of excellent performances from people you hadn’t expected to do real solid comedy yet are pretty damned good thank you very much, however, is “all”. There’s a moment when Brad Pitt’s character needs to be ‘sneaky’, and only ends-up looking completely self-conscious instead. And yet, if you really deconstruct what Pitt does, it’s such an incredibly subtle yet entirely clear bit of body language adjustment, but the guy makes it look effortless. 

Somehow, the Coen boys get the best performances of their careers out of everyone in their films. In some cases, the actors go on to continue their careers with increased skills in every genre of film, but they never quite match their achievement without a script written by them.

Typically, each of their scripts are filled with excellent dialogue which demonstrates a love of and un-matched facility with language. They also have a love of the movie-making business, as their ability to turn stereotypes and predictable scenarios on their proverbial heads is a high-water mark in cinema.

Damn, they’re awesome!

The Big Lebowski (1998)
Polygram Filmed Entertainment
Working Title Films

Directed by
Joel Coen & an uncredited Ethan Coen

Written by
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen

Burn After Reading (2008)
Focus Features presents
in association with Studio Canal
in association with Relativity Media
in association with Working Title Films
Mike Zoss Productions

Directed by
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen

Written by:
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

Somehow everything in this has either been carefully finessed or is responsible for creating the impression of “this is how things were”. The music, the speaking styles, and the decorum of people in general all appear to be so evocative of the age and body of the time that one gets suspicious of its veracity. From the outset, the whole film is so evocative of the era, it’s entirely possible that everything it does has come to represent that period specifically because of it being done so well here, and not that it is faithful to the reality itself. Given the number of things spotted which I know to be spot-on, it’s probably safe to say the rest of it is too; especially given Sidney Lumet’s reputation for getting things correct in every detail.

The characters are a bit one-dimensional, but given there’s so damned many of them, and their equality of time-involvement in the plot, plus the length of the film being finite, it’s tough for this not to be the case. The detective Hercule Poirot (played by Albert Finney), does have a variety of sides to him, but there lacks a transitory experience in the performance, no matter how excellent the work is. 

The story itself has all of the possible twists, plus a few more one doesn’t expect. As a mystery, all should be there for one to see and analyse, and, frustratingly, you see at the end that it all is. There are a few gigantic leaps of faith that Poirot’s logic takes–I swear his explanation and analysis of the crime takes longer to navigate than the crime itself took to execute, which is never a good sign–but as it holds up to scrutiny, it’s tough to fault it.

The film’s beginning in the story proper, following a sequence explaining a background event which took place five years earlier, is a wonderful introduction of the characters and a mirror of the tale to come. Each personality is equally presented to us in importance, and we get to see the hero’s boredom with ‘normality’: intellectual stimulation is what he craves, problems to solve are his principle interest. The other individuals are merely passing through the scene with little interest in engaging with it, or even each other. Granted, the others also have destinations in mind, whereas Poirot enjoys the journey; the solution isn’t as enjoyable as the actual doing of the solving.

Watch this, do not blink, and you’ll have both an entertaining and fascinating two hours or so.

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Nat Cohen presents for EMI FIlm Distributors Ltd.
G.W. Films

Directed by
Sidney Lumet

Writing credits
screenplay by Paul Dehn
based on the novel by Agatha Christie (who isn’t credited for that specifically)

PLEASE NOTE: the above is not in any way the official trailer for the movie. It is, however, pretty fun.

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.