This is England

“T.I.E., mate.”

From all that I know and have seen on England in the eighties, I’m incredibly surprised that anyone lived to write or make films about it. This Is England is a movie about when lighthearted, victimless destruction takes a turn toward the dark heart of nationalism.

Black Book

From the director of Robocop and Showgirls!

Fear not, gentle cinema goers! Paul Verhoeven has returned to Holland, and this is his first Dutch film since 1983. While almost all European international releases deal with the past, can one really blame the continent for having such a rich and terrible history? I’m not convinced that I’d seen a Dutch film before this one, and I’ve certainly never examined this part of Euro history: Holland’s occupation by Germany.

Black Book not only realises an infrequently examined aspect of European history, it does so in a distinctly unsanitary fashion. It feels like several movies all at once, but this makes it more real; in Black Book, one can see many things that they are unlikely ever to see elsewhere.

Die Hard 4.0 (Live Free or Die Hard)

Yippee Ki-yay!

I’ve seen a lot of “educational” movies in the last couple of weeks. What all movies tell us is that it takes only one man to bring down a corrupt system. Wise men know that this man is John McClane, although some might argue that his name is John Rambo (those same people, I would argue, have faces paralysed by years of steroid abuse).

I don’t feel like I do a lot of action movies; they have to have something going for them. If every action movie starred Bruce Willis, maybe that would change. I felt pumped for Die Hard 4.0 (yeah, its working title was retained for Australia). My pumpedness was paid well in explosions, gunfire, crashing people into walls, and crashing people into walls which then proceed to explode. This movie has everything.

No Reservations

It’s Raising Helen! In a kitchen!

Well, actually, this is a remake of a 2001 German movie. Except it’s not a remake so much as it is “based on the original screenplay Mostly Martha by Sandra Nettelbeck”, which strikes me as an odd credit. At any rate, No Reservations is the brand of movie that, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the whole movie.

This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, because the main cast is talented: the incredibly beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones, charismatic Aaron Eckhart and thoroughly unannoying child actress Abigail Breslin raise the movie above being too shockingly twee. It strikes an okay balance, and makes for the perfect “Liz Movie”. (The definition of a Liz Movie is the sort of movie that I would only see with my friend Liz, and under no other circumstances).

Movie Screenshot Game Round XXI: Tsunami Hotpot

Now you know that I will never stop the —-ing winning!

The rules:

  • I’m going to post a screenshot from a movie. If you’re the first person to guess the movie, you win!
  • If you win, you have to continue the game by posting a screenshot on your blog with the same rules outlined here (please link here as well). The winner of your round will host the next round, and so on.
  • If you don’t have a blog (and if you don’t want to start one), I’ll host the next round as well (the screenshot should still come from the winner, if possible). If you do have a blog, but the winner of your round doesn’t, you should host the next round too.
  • Once the winner posts their screenshot, Mark will link to it from this post. Each winner needs to link to the next winner, and so on.
  • Only movies are eligible. No television shows.
  • If no one can figure out the answer within 3 days, then you’ve stumped the internet. If you want, you can give hints. If we still have no winner, then congratulations, you’ve won. Maybe I’ll start a hall of fame or something. Give everyone the answer, and post another screenshot (or pass the baton to someone else, and link them). If you decide to host the next round, be nice, and post an easier screenshot. This game would be no fun if you keep posting random landscapes from obscure Italian films.
  • My original choice from this movie would have scarred everyone for life, so I present to you something more palatable:


    Click to enlarge

    I believe in you, people.

    Update: Mark wins with I (heart) Huckabees! His hubristic new round is online!

    Philosopher’s Stone, Book versus Film! Fight!

    Today I gave a presentation on Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I present it to you below, with the ad-libs (for which many will hate me) presented in bold. The ensuing discussion actually led to something pretty interesting that I might be inspired to write later, about adaptation.

    Discuss: The Magic of Film Undoes the Magic of Reading; or The Magic of Film Outdoes the Magic of Reading.

    Movie Screenshot Game Round XIX: Palindromeda

    I fail to stop winning!

    The rules:

  • I’m going to post a screenshot from a movie. If you’re the first person to guess the movie, you win!
  • If you win, you have to continue the game by posting a screenshot on your blog with the same rules outlined here (please link here as well). The winner of your round will host the next round, and so on.
  • If you don’t have a blog (and if you don’t want to start one), I’ll host the next round as well (the screenshot should still come from the winner, if possible). If you do have a blog, but the winner of your round doesn’t, you should host the next round too.
  • Once the winner posts their screenshot, Mark will link to it from this post. Each winner needs to link to the next winner, and so on.
  • Only movies are eligible. No television shows.
  • If no one can figure out the answer within 3 days, then you’ve stumped the internet. If you want, you can give hints. If we still have no winner, then congratulations, you’ve won. Maybe I’ll start a hall of fame or something. Give everyone the answer, and post another screenshot (or pass the baton to someone else, and link them). If you decide to host the next round, be nice, and post an easier screenshot. This game would be no fun if you keep posting random landscapes from obscure Italian films.
  • This is obscure, sure, but also cultish. Everybody wins!


    Click to enlarge

    You’ve got the touch!

    Update: Roy wins, in a mere fifteen minutes! Ghost World is where it’s at. The new round is up, featuring clearly the best movie ever.

    The Reckoning of the Bookshelf

    My mother went about clearing some books away to be sold on my grandmother’s church féte next week. I walked by and saw something on the floor:

    “How can you give away a book by Gary Gygax?!” I cried.
    “Oh, is it good?” she asked.
    “He’s the creator of Dungeons & Dragons!”

    So that didn’t answer the question.

    Next to the book (Night Arrant, apparently), I spotted an old favourite:
    “Why is The Ninja on that pile? It’s the trashiest book ever!”

    I was immediately transplanted back to the fateful year of 2004, out of high school, in full time employment, and returning to writing in a desperate attempt to maintain a vague sense of intellect and sanity (I’m still at the same office, albeit part time and, if anything, the anti-intellectual strain has grown considerably stronger).
    At the time, I was getting through 1.5-2 books a week. Towards the beginning, I was reading nothing but Discworld books. Realising that I needed a bit more variety than the words of Pratchett, about five or six books in I flipped across to a “one Discworld, one other” book policy.

    What struck me about The Ninja was that it was essentially a cavalcade of human depravity. I located this, from my livejournal entry of June 29. 2004:

    I took a break from my rereading of the Discworld series to read some book called The Ninja. Now, I should have taken the hint from the author’s name, Eric van Lustbader, but I was still surprised when suddenly it became pornographic. Now I totally understand what JP was on about; the written word gives people more liberty to be graphic than most other media, which makes it much easier for people to get away with pedophilia and rape fantasies. I hate those people. The Ninja isn’t as bad as all that, but I don’t particularly want to know about Justine’s “full breasts” (mentioned at every possible juncture, even those one might deem impossible), and I certainly don’t want to know about the characters fellating each other. I fetched this book out of my parents’ book disposal box expecting ninja, but I didn’t expect this filth! I’ll keep on reading just in case some ninja turn up. If they don’t soon, and Nicholas and Justine keep on devising new ways to delay orgasm, I’ll have to start Witches Abroad.
    I don’t read books to feel dirty.

    JP, after much racking of the brain, turned out to be Jeremy Parish. If I recall correctly, he was talking about Piers Anthony and his progressively more messed up rapetacular Xanth series at the time (and, if I’m wrong, then I have totally slandered a big fantasy author – win-win!).

    The best thing about all of this is that The Ninja did turn out to be “as bad as all that”. Not only did the villain rape a couple of women, he also drugged up and raped a little girl, and then, get this, he raped the hero! So I suppose the lesson that we learned from that book that pansexuality is a terrible, terrible thing.

    It was with great satisfaction that I saw the following album at JB Hi-Fi some time after:

    Vanlustbader is a Queensland band, but this name and cover can be no coincidence.

    If I had more experience with exploitative pulp, I’d kick more right out to you. Off the top of my head I can think only of T. Jefferson Parker’s Little Saigon (another Asian-American meld), which inexplicably culminated in the villains being incestuous vampires (not literal vampires, but blood swapping siblings).

    On one level, you want to pass this stuff on for future generations to be enticed by … but you also know, deeper down, that you want to keep such treasures for yourself.

    Movie Screenshot Game Round XVI: The Hostination

    I won! Again!

    The rules:

  • I’m going to post a screenshot from a movie. If you’re the first person to guess the movie, you win!
  • If you win, you have to continue the game by posting a screenshot on your blog with the same rules outlined here (please link here as well). The winner of your round will host the next round, and so on.
  • If you don’t have a blog (and if you don’t want to start one), I’ll host the next round as well (the screenshot should still come from the winner, if possible). If you do have a blog, but the winner of your round doesn’t, you should host the next round too.
  • Once the winner posts their screenshot, Mark will link to it from this post. Each winner needs to link to the next winner, and so on.
  • Only movies are eligible. No television shows.
  • If no one can figure out the answer within 3 days, then you’ve stumped the internet. If you want, you can give hints. If we still have no winner, then congratulations, you’ve won. Maybe I’ll start a hall of fame or something. Give everyone the answer, and post another screenshot (or pass the baton to someone else, and link them). If you decide to host the next round, be nice, and post an easier screenshot. This game would be no fun if you keep posting random landscapes from obscure Italian films.
  • So here you go! It’s a personal favourite of mine, and may it serve you well.


    Click to enlarge

    Get guessing!

    Update!: Roy wins! The answer is Who Framed Roger Rabbit! Next round now online!

    Amazing Grace

    “How Sweet the Sound.”

    It’s a biopic that doesn’t chart a young genius’ stratospheric rise and meteoric downfall at the hands of drugs! I’m in! Amazing Grace is a fairly interesting film, but it’s yet another case of me already knowing that slavery is wrong: I don’t exactly need Horatio Hornblower to tell me as much.

    Despite its lack of mainstream appeal, Amazing Grace has a great cast, to the point that it could have been called “Michael Apted Allstars”. Alas, it was not, but this woeful lack of suitable titling fails to detract from the finished product.