And a Car made of Blood

There have been times in their careers when the Coen Brothers have taken time off from making astonishing movies to make very good ones. The Hudsucker Proxy emerged from one of these periods as did The Man Who wasn’t There. True Grit is the latest.

On first glance, this seems like a vessel built from borrowed lumber. Jeff Bridges admirably reprises his Lebowski role (a useless man who is startled to find that he is useful), while Matt Damon strings out his famous Matthew McCanaughey impression to feature length. It will also be noted that this latest offering from the eclectomanic Coen’s is their second Western in three or four years.

None of this knowledge dampened my enjoyment of the movie at all. This is far from rehash. In fact, it slowly dawned on me as I watched, this is perhaps one of the most truthfully Coenish things they’ve ever done. It plays to their strengths perfectly: It is hysterically dark and appallingly funny. The setting also allows them to experiment with language in a way that has often sat uneasily in their other movies. Who the fuck knows how these 19^th Century nutjobs spoke after all? I’m pretty sure it was well peculiar.

Intelligent Westerns have been the order of the day in recent years, and the fad has served up some good movies and some bad movies. Over the past decade we’ve seen Home on the Range, Brokeback Mountain, The Three Burials of Melchiadez Estrada and of course No Country for Old Men. So, in a season when its traditional to talk about the true meaning of things, its refreshing to watch a movie which reminds us of the true meaning of Westerns: Blood, dead, horse, gun, man, beard.

Fist pump.

A pudding made with champagne.

When I'm riding in my pink limousine, clutching a globeful of napoleon brandy and fondling two mixed race ladies, I like to watch movies about famous people. Especially ironic 'uns. Make me feela better about myself.

Only joking about the limousine and stuff. But I did just watch Somewhere.

Its a film about a famous man who, in his relationship with his daughter finds meaning to his existence.

Its essentially a pornographic enquiry into the way the other half live. I would imagine that this is the extent to which most people will enjoy the movie. It tries to redeem some vestige of intellectual credibility at the end, by cleaving on an existential crisis from the protagonist.

The most insidious thing about this movie is that it is one which Sophia Coppola has made before. Four movies is too soon into a directing career to begin rehashing.

Debauchee becomes jaded. Meets girl. Girl shows him the meaning of life. Debauchee has existential crisis. This movie is called Lost in Translation.

In fact, the only innovations made in this movie are the most insipid and saccharine and fraudulent elements. Almost everything interesting about Lost in Translation is chiseled away.

There are some redeeming qualities. There are several very wry visual gags. The acting is exceptional at times particularly from Ellie Fanning and the quite remarkable Chris Pontius. There is also some experimentation with audio. But all this serves to highlight one daunting fact: Sophia Coppola is an excellent film-maker, just not a very interesting one. If you disagree with me, feel free to through champagne in my face.

A Good Movie

I feel like maybe The Kid Are Alright is an important film.

Before going into that let me just say why it is a good film. This is a movie made with clarity and attention and diligence. Its characters are expertly drawn. There are no villains and yet they are all villains. There are no heroes and yet they are all heroes. There are moments of heartbreak. There are moments of real heartbreak.

I think this movie might be important because, really its not important that the protagonists are gay. Like, this is a movie about a gay couple without being a gay movie. Maybe this is really semantic of me.

Whatever. Thats the feeling I got. This is a movie about some people who find themselves in a difficult situation. Its not about gay people. The people in the movie happen to be gay. I think that thats an important moment in our culture.

Less importantly, or maybe more importantly, this is a movie which is unabashedly about the middle classes, about liberals, about trendy suburbanites. In that way it sort of reminded me of Jonathan Franzen's novels.

I think that its very difficult for people to make movies which aren't self-conscious about being familiar with these people. Which is strange because I imagine that most people in the movie industry come from this demographic. I think its interesting. Maybe movie-makers won't feel that they have to be Mike Leigh anymore. Just in the same way, perhaps, that Will Smith felt like he didn't have to be Paul Robeson.

I don't know if I'm being melodramatic, maybe I am. I certainly thought it was an interesting movie. I also think maybe its an important movie. I have been wrong about these things in the past.

Man with beard masturbates for money

Literally the whole point of sarcasm is like to emphasise the opposite point. Like if you want to say that something was really stupid you have to say:
"Yeah that's clever."
If you want to say that a girl is really ugly then you might say:
"Yeah she's so pretty."

The point of I'm Still Here, an exclamation mark, filmed by good-time pals Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck, is that Joaquin Phoenix is not an irritating, self absorbed, neurotic naughty.

Phoenix bamboozles his way through the movie pretending to be a drunk, pretending to be pretentious, pretending to be an absolute twat.

It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. A taste like semen. For two reasons.

Its the same semeny tang left by movies like Oceans 13 and Cannonball Run II, movies which were actually made from little slices of testicle. These movies are about how fun it is to be a famous person. CCTV cameras are trained on prepubescent millionaires as they have ostentatious fun together. The same semen has been weaved into a movie in the case of I'm Still Here.

Also its like "The Dude is way protesting too much." It seems like way too much effort for a previously cool man to expend on proving to people that he's not a twat. I for one never thought that he was a pretentious person. I sure as hell do now.

What a bumhead he is. No scratch that. He's a boring cockhead.