Werner Herzog is madder than a box of frogs.
That is something we can all agree on.
He is also a director who has made several films that can be classed as genius.
It's a thin line.
Here he turns his eye (or an iguanas eye) onto Abel Ferraras "Bad Lieutenant"...a disturbing and nasty film about a corrupt police officer.
Herzog creates a film that is entirely his own.
This is not a remake but a reimagining.
With alligators, iguanas and dogs it is also undeniably a Herzog film and not a Ferrara film.
The story is simple; a police officer saves the life of a prisoner left locked in police cells as the flood waters of Katrina rise around him, Nicholas Cage dives into the water to save him and ends up with back pain that leaves him reliant on pain medication for the rest of his life. That back pain sees him turn to cocaine, ketamine and who knows what else and he begins his descent into a life of madness and chaos. Eventually he finds redemption, of sorts, and a happy ending is delivered.
Cage is fabulous as the deranged police officer, it's the sort of role that only he can pull off. Hot on the heels of his Adam West impersonation in "Kick Ass" he is enjoying a renaissance and I hope it continues because he is a performer that I have always enjoyed.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Friday, 11 June 2010
The Killer Inside Me - Cineworld - 10/6/10
For many people, myself included, Casey Affleck was a stand-out performer in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" and he proved that was no fluke with another great showing in "Gone Baby Gone". Throw in his turn alongside Matt Damon in Gus Van Sants "Gerry" and you have an actor who is building up a fine body of work (we'll ignore "American Pie 2") and who is proving himself to be more than capable of carrying a film and creating the sort of "noise" that is reserved for the likes of Di Caprio and Damon.
In this adaptation of Jim Thompsons novel director Michael Winterbottom sticks close to the source material and, as a result, delivers a film that is, at times, brutal and chilling. The central part of Lou Ford, the handsome young deputy sheriff of the sort of Southern town where every woman is called "ma'am" and every man is addressed as either "sir" or "boy" needed a performance that could embody "good old boy" charm and Southern manners while also delivering the sort of physical violence that hasn't been seen since "Irreversible".
Winterbottoms decision to turn to Affleck was a stroke of genius as he gives a performance that will go down in cinema history as one of the most terrifying killers ever to stalk the silver screen. Make no mistake here, Afflecks Lou Ford is more chilling than Hopkins Hannibal Lecter and the match of Perkins Norman Bates. It's the sort of performance that announces to the cinema going public that you are a "serious" performer and that tells the studios that you can carry a movie.
The story is horribly simple as Lou beats his lover, local prostitute Joyce (Jessica Alba), to death in order to frame an old enemy for the murder. From there his life unravels and he is forced to murder two more people and is indirectly responsible for at least two others. All the while Affleck is charming and cool, immaculately dressed and totally in control of his emotions. It is an entirely convincing performance.
The supporting cast are fabulous too, in particular Alba and Kate Hudson as the unsuspecting and unfortunate victims of Fords love and violence. Both women will surely be in the running for Oscar nominations and if Affleck isn't there beside them it will be proof, if any further were needed, that the Oscars are not about rewarding the best but rewarding the best paid.
"The Killer Inside Me" isn't a film for everyone; it is brutal, violent, erotic and disturbing but for those of a strong disposition it is a rewarding experience.
In this adaptation of Jim Thompsons novel director Michael Winterbottom sticks close to the source material and, as a result, delivers a film that is, at times, brutal and chilling. The central part of Lou Ford, the handsome young deputy sheriff of the sort of Southern town where every woman is called "ma'am" and every man is addressed as either "sir" or "boy" needed a performance that could embody "good old boy" charm and Southern manners while also delivering the sort of physical violence that hasn't been seen since "Irreversible".
Winterbottoms decision to turn to Affleck was a stroke of genius as he gives a performance that will go down in cinema history as one of the most terrifying killers ever to stalk the silver screen. Make no mistake here, Afflecks Lou Ford is more chilling than Hopkins Hannibal Lecter and the match of Perkins Norman Bates. It's the sort of performance that announces to the cinema going public that you are a "serious" performer and that tells the studios that you can carry a movie.
The story is horribly simple as Lou beats his lover, local prostitute Joyce (Jessica Alba), to death in order to frame an old enemy for the murder. From there his life unravels and he is forced to murder two more people and is indirectly responsible for at least two others. All the while Affleck is charming and cool, immaculately dressed and totally in control of his emotions. It is an entirely convincing performance.
The supporting cast are fabulous too, in particular Alba and Kate Hudson as the unsuspecting and unfortunate victims of Fords love and violence. Both women will surely be in the running for Oscar nominations and if Affleck isn't there beside them it will be proof, if any further were needed, that the Oscars are not about rewarding the best but rewarding the best paid.
"The Killer Inside Me" isn't a film for everyone; it is brutal, violent, erotic and disturbing but for those of a strong disposition it is a rewarding experience.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Onion Rings
I took an American friend to the cinema last night.
He's over here on business from Utah.
For those of you unfamiliar with the charms of that particular state let me just say it isn't exactly a cultural hotspot. It's the sort of place that equates arthouse with liberal...not a good thing. It is a Republican state now and always will be. It's not the sort of place for the likes of you and I dear reader.
As we prepared to leave for the cinema I was extoling the virtues of a British arthouse audience compared to the multiplex audience he would be used to.
"These people are serious about film" I said "They see it as an artform and not just as entertainment".
He is a cultured man and as much of a cinephile as Utah allows him to be so he was excited about what lay ahead.
His initial impressions of the Filmhouse were very good.
As we sat in cinema three he remarked "I wish we had a cinema like this in Utah, there must be an audience for this sort of film, it can't just be me"
I was feeling quite smug.
My city, my cinema...cultured, arty, exotic.
Imagine my horror as a young couple sat down in the back row two seats apart from us and proceeded to take out a packed lunch (at 9pm) which included an enormous bag of "Bobbys" Onion Rings.
Onion Rings.
Onion Rings.
In a packed cinema?
They reeked.
I made a jokey comment about the situation but it made no difference and so I had to put up with the whiff of stale onions for the duration.
This was made even worse by the arrival of a Spanish couple who sat in between me and the Onion Twins and sucked each others faces intermittently during the film. That sort of thing might be fine on the Continent or at a swingers party but in a packed cinema on a wet Tuesday night in Edinburghs Filmhouse cinema....really?
Grrrrrr.
The cinema is a place to go and WATCH films.
It isn't a place to eat a picnic or copulate.
If you want to eat a picnic or copulate do it somewhere where that might be acceptable...a park or a bedroom perhaps.
I'm slowly drifting towards misanthrope.
He's over here on business from Utah.
For those of you unfamiliar with the charms of that particular state let me just say it isn't exactly a cultural hotspot. It's the sort of place that equates arthouse with liberal...not a good thing. It is a Republican state now and always will be. It's not the sort of place for the likes of you and I dear reader.
As we prepared to leave for the cinema I was extoling the virtues of a British arthouse audience compared to the multiplex audience he would be used to.
"These people are serious about film" I said "They see it as an artform and not just as entertainment".
He is a cultured man and as much of a cinephile as Utah allows him to be so he was excited about what lay ahead.
His initial impressions of the Filmhouse were very good.
As we sat in cinema three he remarked "I wish we had a cinema like this in Utah, there must be an audience for this sort of film, it can't just be me"
I was feeling quite smug.
My city, my cinema...cultured, arty, exotic.
Imagine my horror as a young couple sat down in the back row two seats apart from us and proceeded to take out a packed lunch (at 9pm) which included an enormous bag of "Bobbys" Onion Rings.
Onion Rings.
Onion Rings.
In a packed cinema?
They reeked.
I made a jokey comment about the situation but it made no difference and so I had to put up with the whiff of stale onions for the duration.
This was made even worse by the arrival of a Spanish couple who sat in between me and the Onion Twins and sucked each others faces intermittently during the film. That sort of thing might be fine on the Continent or at a swingers party but in a packed cinema on a wet Tuesday night in Edinburghs Filmhouse cinema....really?
Grrrrrr.
The cinema is a place to go and WATCH films.
It isn't a place to eat a picnic or copulate.
If you want to eat a picnic or copulate do it somewhere where that might be acceptable...a park or a bedroom perhaps.
I'm slowly drifting towards misanthrope.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Magnolia - DVD - 6/6/10
Don't panic.
It is 2010.
I'm well aware that I have taken eleven years to see this movie.
What can I tell you? There are a lot of movies and I only have so much time. I'm going to miss some. Including some of the good ones. I'm sorry.
While it may have taken eleven years I'm glad that I've finally found the time to sit down and watch "Magnolia".
It is fabulous.
A grand, mesmerising, twisted, dark, Altmanesque tale that tackles family, fidelity, morality, immorality, faith, fame, success, failure, happiness, life and death. At over three hours long it has the time to do so but it never drags or sags. It races along at a breakneck pace and yet manages to find enough time to draw characters that you feel for, believe in and understand.
It's an amazing feat.
P.T Anderson wrote and directed "Magnolia" two years after "Boogie Nights" and at only 29 years old.
Amazing.
Simply amazing.
The stories, and there are several, include...
The wife of a successful television producer, Linda (Julianne Moore), and her efforts to come to terms with the fact that her husband, Big Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) is dying. She is riddled with guilt over her infidelities and she falls apart in spectacular fashion as she entrusts her husbands nurse, Phil (Philp Seymour Hoffman), with the task of delivering an overdose of liquid morphine. She then makes an attempt to take her own life while sitting in her car.
At the same time on the set of Big Earls most successful show "What Do Kids Know?" (a quiz where three adults challenge three kids) the host Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall) is also dying and has made an effort to reconnect with his daughter, Claudia (Melora Walters) prior to filming only to be turned away. On the set Jimmy collapses and one of the kids Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) is buckling under the pressure to succeed from his father and embarrasses himself by wetting his pants.
Jimmy Gators daughter, Claudia, is a coke addict and finds herself visited by kindly, geeky, Christian cop Officer Jim (John C. Reilly) who is following up on a complaint about the noise. He is immediately attracted to her and she sees in him a chance of redemption and so they agree to go out on a date.
A former contestant on the show, Quiz Kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) is fired from his job and makes a fool of himself by declaring his love for the barman in the gay bar he frequents. He is desperate to have corrective oral surgery (braces) and needs to find the money for it, as he is convinced that straight teeth will bring him luck in love.
Frank T.J Mackey (Tom Cruise) is a male sex guru who's "Seduce and Destroy" seminars make him wealthy and infamous. During an interview with a female journalist Frank is confronted with the fact that she has discovered that he has lied about his family life. His story of who his parents are is untrue...the journalist has learned that his father is Big Earl Partidge.
At the same time Big Earl asks Phil to find his son for him and bring him to him before he dies.
Are you following this?
I'm only scratching the surface.
A myriad of people, stories and events collide and interact here.
Every single person on screen delivers a performance that can rank among their best. Julianne Moore is incredible as the broken Linda. Tom Cruise is, frankly, astonishing as Frank. The fact that he didn't win the Oscar he was nominated for is shameful. P.T Anderson manages to draw out consistently wonderful performances from every one of his actors.
It isn't an exaggeration to say that "Magnolia" is a masterpiece.
It is a masterpiece.
The ending, as surreal and disturbing as any in cinema history, is worth the wait.
It is 2010.
I'm well aware that I have taken eleven years to see this movie.
What can I tell you? There are a lot of movies and I only have so much time. I'm going to miss some. Including some of the good ones. I'm sorry.
While it may have taken eleven years I'm glad that I've finally found the time to sit down and watch "Magnolia".
It is fabulous.
A grand, mesmerising, twisted, dark, Altmanesque tale that tackles family, fidelity, morality, immorality, faith, fame, success, failure, happiness, life and death. At over three hours long it has the time to do so but it never drags or sags. It races along at a breakneck pace and yet manages to find enough time to draw characters that you feel for, believe in and understand.
It's an amazing feat.
P.T Anderson wrote and directed "Magnolia" two years after "Boogie Nights" and at only 29 years old.
Amazing.
Simply amazing.
The stories, and there are several, include...
The wife of a successful television producer, Linda (Julianne Moore), and her efforts to come to terms with the fact that her husband, Big Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) is dying. She is riddled with guilt over her infidelities and she falls apart in spectacular fashion as she entrusts her husbands nurse, Phil (Philp Seymour Hoffman), with the task of delivering an overdose of liquid morphine. She then makes an attempt to take her own life while sitting in her car.
At the same time on the set of Big Earls most successful show "What Do Kids Know?" (a quiz where three adults challenge three kids) the host Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall) is also dying and has made an effort to reconnect with his daughter, Claudia (Melora Walters) prior to filming only to be turned away. On the set Jimmy collapses and one of the kids Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) is buckling under the pressure to succeed from his father and embarrasses himself by wetting his pants.
Jimmy Gators daughter, Claudia, is a coke addict and finds herself visited by kindly, geeky, Christian cop Officer Jim (John C. Reilly) who is following up on a complaint about the noise. He is immediately attracted to her and she sees in him a chance of redemption and so they agree to go out on a date.
A former contestant on the show, Quiz Kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) is fired from his job and makes a fool of himself by declaring his love for the barman in the gay bar he frequents. He is desperate to have corrective oral surgery (braces) and needs to find the money for it, as he is convinced that straight teeth will bring him luck in love.
Frank T.J Mackey (Tom Cruise) is a male sex guru who's "Seduce and Destroy" seminars make him wealthy and infamous. During an interview with a female journalist Frank is confronted with the fact that she has discovered that he has lied about his family life. His story of who his parents are is untrue...the journalist has learned that his father is Big Earl Partidge.
At the same time Big Earl asks Phil to find his son for him and bring him to him before he dies.
Are you following this?
I'm only scratching the surface.
A myriad of people, stories and events collide and interact here.
Every single person on screen delivers a performance that can rank among their best. Julianne Moore is incredible as the broken Linda. Tom Cruise is, frankly, astonishing as Frank. The fact that he didn't win the Oscar he was nominated for is shameful. P.T Anderson manages to draw out consistently wonderful performances from every one of his actors.
It isn't an exaggeration to say that "Magnolia" is a masterpiece.
It is a masterpiece.
The ending, as surreal and disturbing as any in cinema history, is worth the wait.
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Black Narcissus - Filmhouse - 2/6/10
What do you want from a film?
Do you want to be entertained?
Do you want to be challenged?
Do you want to be made to think?
Do you want to be frightened?
Do you want to be shocked?
Do you want to see beauty?
Do you want cinematography that blows you away?
Do you want a film that tells the story of a group of nuns who move into the former "house of women" in a remote Indian village to set up a school and who then fall prey to a madness that ends horribly for all concerned?
If that's what you want then Powell and Pressburgers gem "Black Narcissus" is the film for you.
If that isn't what you want then you should stop reading now...you might even want to think about giving up on breathing.
Deborah Kerr stars as Sister Clodagh who has donned the Habit in order to forget the love she lost as a young women in Ireland. She is placed in charge of a rag-tag bunch of Sisters including Sister Ruth who soon falls in love with Englishman, Mr Dean played by David Farrar and then slowly descends into madness before throwing herself at Dean and then at Sister Clodagh but in very different ways. Oh, and just for good measure Jean Simmons plays an exotic native girl who is Lolita to the power of ten.
Madness, love, passion, desire, lust, religion, faith...all wrapped up in a film that is so beautiful to look at that you could easily watch it without sound and be as entranced as you are with it. The credit for that, in large part, lies at the feet of cinematographer Jack Cardiff who was a mainstay of many of Powell and Pressburgers films.
"Black Narcissus" isn't a film that you can afford to miss. It should feature high on any list of films to see before you die. Sixty-three years old and it still has the ability to shock and it looks as fresh now as it would have in 1947. It is a film that demands that you love it...few will be able to resist it's charms.
Do you want to be entertained?
Do you want to be challenged?
Do you want to be made to think?
Do you want to be frightened?
Do you want to be shocked?
Do you want to see beauty?
Do you want cinematography that blows you away?
Do you want a film that tells the story of a group of nuns who move into the former "house of women" in a remote Indian village to set up a school and who then fall prey to a madness that ends horribly for all concerned?
If that's what you want then Powell and Pressburgers gem "Black Narcissus" is the film for you.
If that isn't what you want then you should stop reading now...you might even want to think about giving up on breathing.
Deborah Kerr stars as Sister Clodagh who has donned the Habit in order to forget the love she lost as a young women in Ireland. She is placed in charge of a rag-tag bunch of Sisters including Sister Ruth who soon falls in love with Englishman, Mr Dean played by David Farrar and then slowly descends into madness before throwing herself at Dean and then at Sister Clodagh but in very different ways. Oh, and just for good measure Jean Simmons plays an exotic native girl who is Lolita to the power of ten.
Madness, love, passion, desire, lust, religion, faith...all wrapped up in a film that is so beautiful to look at that you could easily watch it without sound and be as entranced as you are with it. The credit for that, in large part, lies at the feet of cinematographer Jack Cardiff who was a mainstay of many of Powell and Pressburgers films.
"Black Narcissus" isn't a film that you can afford to miss. It should feature high on any list of films to see before you die. Sixty-three years old and it still has the ability to shock and it looks as fresh now as it would have in 1947. It is a film that demands that you love it...few will be able to resist it's charms.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
An Interview with Alex Zane
Alex Zane.
Television presenter.
Stand up comedian.
DJ.
Film reviewer.
Annoying isn't it?
No, not really because Zane, as well as ability, has a charm and likeability.
Actually, that is annoying!
I decided to pitch my own cutting, incisive interview technique (which lacks any ability, charm or likeability) up against Zane and ask him the questions that needed to be asked.
That's not quite true.
What I really did was ask him some frivolous questions that I thought you might enjoy reading the answers to, I don't think you will be disappointed.
The more observant film fans amongst you will have noticed that Alex shares a surname with Hollywood hunk Billy Zane. I asked Alex which of the other Zanes film roles he would most like to have played; Cal Hockley in "Titanic", the voice of John Rolfe in "Pocahontas II", Elrich in "BloodRayne" or Billy Zane in "Zoolander"?
I’d choose Billy Zane as himself in Zoolander, because in it he transcends the idea that he’s just a jobbing actor and becomes ‘Billy Zane’ an oracle of wisdom, a soothsayer of sorts, all in the one line “Listen to your friend Billy Zane, he’s a cool dude” during Zoolander and Hansel’s altercation.
Not that I in anyway encapsulate that kind of gravitas. I have once in my life been witness to an altercation involving a friend. I was at the far side of a car park rubbing my lips along the side of a van, in an attempt to cool them after foolishly ingesting some chili vodka, when I noticed my friend being punched. What happened next reminds me of the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in ‘The Shining’ when he senses Danny is in danger and travels all the way to the hotel to help him only to get an axe in the back. I ran and ran and ran to the other side of the car park, went ‘What’s going on?’ and got head butted in the face, thus ending my ill thought through intervention.
My close friends know that I am currently working on a script for the film of your life, Alex, which I am calling "I'm Alex, not Billy, Zane". I'm now giving thought to casting and wondered who you would like to play the part of "Alex" in the film? Thanks to the miracle of CGI you can select an actor who has already shrugged off this mortal coil.
I’m going to use the CGI option but not because he’s dead, because I’d like to look like him circa 1977, when Smokey and the Bandit came out. Burt Reynolds was my hero as a child and Smokey and the Bandit is in my Top 5 movies of all time (4th place). I’ve always loved watching car chases and cars driving fast, Smokey and the Bandit, Cannonball Run, The Blues Brothers, these were the films that first alerted my senses to what cinema could offer.
I met Burt Reynolds once in LA doing an interview, that went well enough for him to say at the end “What’s your name, I’ll remember you?” to which I replied “Alex Zane”.
The following day I walked into a whiskey bar on Sunset Boulevard with my friend and Burt Reynolds was sitting in there. I turned to my friend and said, “I know Burt Reynolds” to which my friend said, “No you don’t”. In an attempt to prove myself right, I took my friend over to where Burt was sitting, said “Hi Burt, I interviewed you yesterday” to which Burt Reynolds replied “Oh yeah, Alan right, Alan Zone”.
If that isn't the best anecdote you have heard this year then you are either Stephen Fry (who I imagine regales himself with amusing anecdotes all the day long) or you are dead. What more do you want? It's got Burt Reynolds in it for goodness sake...that's the very definition of a great anecdote. Well, it is for me.
Whenever I hear the description "disc jockey" I always think of tiny men riding seven inch singles around a hit parade themed race track, which, I will admit, says much about me and very little about anything else. But a disc jockey you are, so what music would you chose to have playing over the opening and closing credits of "I'm Alex, Not Billy, Zane"?
I think the closing credit music of a film is as important as the opening. I think the greatest musical end to a film is The Pixies: Where is My Mind over the final scenes of Fight Club. But there are others too that bear less relevance to the plot but, for me, are equally effective, The Prodigy’s Funky Shit at the end of Event Horizon or A Whiter Shade of Pale at the end of The Net both work really well. I think I’d choose AC/DC: You Shook Me All Night Long for no other reason than I’ like to walk out of the cinema with that song playing. For the opening, presumably over my birth, I’d use Yazz: The Only way is Up (Baby). Or perhaps The Bangles: Walk Like an Egyptian, which is the first single I bought, and thanks to CGI I’d be born walking like an Egyptian in that terrifying and unsettling way you get when you apply CGI to babies, like in Son of the Mask.
I haven't ever kissed a girl in the back row of the cinema and, at 36, I think that the time may have passed but what about you, a younger, better looking and more talented man?
I see going to the cinema as more of a solo experience. Perhaps if I’d had a girlfriend as a teenager I might have experienced those ‘back row’ moments but I did not. Therefore I don’t just believe in the cinema not being a suitable location for a date but I struggle to empathise with those who do. Obviously if you’re going to be grown up about it, fine, you sit there and enjoy a film and upon leaving you discuss the highs and lows of the movie experience, I understand that. But if you’re just looking for a dark room in which you can hide away and make squelching and sloshing noises with your partner, elsewhere should you wander, perhaps to Laser Quest, a bowling alley, a shopping centre, a youth club, some woods, a cave, the engine room of a ship, under a bridge, some wasteland, Hull, the moon, but not the cinema.
I did go to the cinema with my schoolmates once to see Groundhog Day. Some older boys through popcorn at us throughout and no one kissed.
I'm very pleased to see that Alex didn't have a girlfriend as a teenager. If he was sat at home listening to The Smiths and crying then we may well be at the start of a beautiful friendship. As there must needs be opposition in all things though, if we are going to be friends that means there will have to be enemies. Which film would you force your enemy to watch on rotation for eternity?
Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace. It takes a truly bad film for you to sit through it and then afterwards have no real memory of what occurred on screen so emotionally uninvolving was the whole experience. That’s Lawnmower man 2. All I remember is it’s in the future, there are some of those punky skate boarder-y kids who always seem to inhabit the backstreets of future cities and there may have been a sequence involving a motorcycle of some description. It makes Highlander 2 look like the Godfather Part 2.
So there you have it.
Alex Zane has managed to drop in the names of "Lawnmower Man 2" and "The Mask 2" yet still comes out of this interview smelling of roses...no mean feat I'm sure you will agree.
Many thanks to Alex for agreeing to answer my questions and for those of you based in Edinburgh make sure you take the time to see the man himself during the Edinburgh Festival.
Television presenter.
Stand up comedian.
DJ.
Film reviewer.
Annoying isn't it?
No, not really because Zane, as well as ability, has a charm and likeability.
Actually, that is annoying!
I decided to pitch my own cutting, incisive interview technique (which lacks any ability, charm or likeability) up against Zane and ask him the questions that needed to be asked.
That's not quite true.
What I really did was ask him some frivolous questions that I thought you might enjoy reading the answers to, I don't think you will be disappointed.
The more observant film fans amongst you will have noticed that Alex shares a surname with Hollywood hunk Billy Zane. I asked Alex which of the other Zanes film roles he would most like to have played; Cal Hockley in "Titanic", the voice of John Rolfe in "Pocahontas II", Elrich in "BloodRayne" or Billy Zane in "Zoolander"?
I’d choose Billy Zane as himself in Zoolander, because in it he transcends the idea that he’s just a jobbing actor and becomes ‘Billy Zane’ an oracle of wisdom, a soothsayer of sorts, all in the one line “Listen to your friend Billy Zane, he’s a cool dude” during Zoolander and Hansel’s altercation.
Not that I in anyway encapsulate that kind of gravitas. I have once in my life been witness to an altercation involving a friend. I was at the far side of a car park rubbing my lips along the side of a van, in an attempt to cool them after foolishly ingesting some chili vodka, when I noticed my friend being punched. What happened next reminds me of the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in ‘The Shining’ when he senses Danny is in danger and travels all the way to the hotel to help him only to get an axe in the back. I ran and ran and ran to the other side of the car park, went ‘What’s going on?’ and got head butted in the face, thus ending my ill thought through intervention.
My close friends know that I am currently working on a script for the film of your life, Alex, which I am calling "I'm Alex, not Billy, Zane". I'm now giving thought to casting and wondered who you would like to play the part of "Alex" in the film? Thanks to the miracle of CGI you can select an actor who has already shrugged off this mortal coil.
I’m going to use the CGI option but not because he’s dead, because I’d like to look like him circa 1977, when Smokey and the Bandit came out. Burt Reynolds was my hero as a child and Smokey and the Bandit is in my Top 5 movies of all time (4th place). I’ve always loved watching car chases and cars driving fast, Smokey and the Bandit, Cannonball Run, The Blues Brothers, these were the films that first alerted my senses to what cinema could offer.
I met Burt Reynolds once in LA doing an interview, that went well enough for him to say at the end “What’s your name, I’ll remember you?” to which I replied “Alex Zane”.
The following day I walked into a whiskey bar on Sunset Boulevard with my friend and Burt Reynolds was sitting in there. I turned to my friend and said, “I know Burt Reynolds” to which my friend said, “No you don’t”. In an attempt to prove myself right, I took my friend over to where Burt was sitting, said “Hi Burt, I interviewed you yesterday” to which Burt Reynolds replied “Oh yeah, Alan right, Alan Zone”.
If that isn't the best anecdote you have heard this year then you are either Stephen Fry (who I imagine regales himself with amusing anecdotes all the day long) or you are dead. What more do you want? It's got Burt Reynolds in it for goodness sake...that's the very definition of a great anecdote. Well, it is for me.
Whenever I hear the description "disc jockey" I always think of tiny men riding seven inch singles around a hit parade themed race track, which, I will admit, says much about me and very little about anything else. But a disc jockey you are, so what music would you chose to have playing over the opening and closing credits of "I'm Alex, Not Billy, Zane"?
I think the closing credit music of a film is as important as the opening. I think the greatest musical end to a film is The Pixies: Where is My Mind over the final scenes of Fight Club. But there are others too that bear less relevance to the plot but, for me, are equally effective, The Prodigy’s Funky Shit at the end of Event Horizon or A Whiter Shade of Pale at the end of The Net both work really well. I think I’d choose AC/DC: You Shook Me All Night Long for no other reason than I’ like to walk out of the cinema with that song playing. For the opening, presumably over my birth, I’d use Yazz: The Only way is Up (Baby). Or perhaps The Bangles: Walk Like an Egyptian, which is the first single I bought, and thanks to CGI I’d be born walking like an Egyptian in that terrifying and unsettling way you get when you apply CGI to babies, like in Son of the Mask.
I haven't ever kissed a girl in the back row of the cinema and, at 36, I think that the time may have passed but what about you, a younger, better looking and more talented man?
I see going to the cinema as more of a solo experience. Perhaps if I’d had a girlfriend as a teenager I might have experienced those ‘back row’ moments but I did not. Therefore I don’t just believe in the cinema not being a suitable location for a date but I struggle to empathise with those who do. Obviously if you’re going to be grown up about it, fine, you sit there and enjoy a film and upon leaving you discuss the highs and lows of the movie experience, I understand that. But if you’re just looking for a dark room in which you can hide away and make squelching and sloshing noises with your partner, elsewhere should you wander, perhaps to Laser Quest, a bowling alley, a shopping centre, a youth club, some woods, a cave, the engine room of a ship, under a bridge, some wasteland, Hull, the moon, but not the cinema.
I did go to the cinema with my schoolmates once to see Groundhog Day. Some older boys through popcorn at us throughout and no one kissed.
I'm very pleased to see that Alex didn't have a girlfriend as a teenager. If he was sat at home listening to The Smiths and crying then we may well be at the start of a beautiful friendship. As there must needs be opposition in all things though, if we are going to be friends that means there will have to be enemies. Which film would you force your enemy to watch on rotation for eternity?
Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace. It takes a truly bad film for you to sit through it and then afterwards have no real memory of what occurred on screen so emotionally uninvolving was the whole experience. That’s Lawnmower man 2. All I remember is it’s in the future, there are some of those punky skate boarder-y kids who always seem to inhabit the backstreets of future cities and there may have been a sequence involving a motorcycle of some description. It makes Highlander 2 look like the Godfather Part 2.
So there you have it.
Alex Zane has managed to drop in the names of "Lawnmower Man 2" and "The Mask 2" yet still comes out of this interview smelling of roses...no mean feat I'm sure you will agree.
Many thanks to Alex for agreeing to answer my questions and for those of you based in Edinburgh make sure you take the time to see the man himself during the Edinburgh Festival.
Vagabond - Filmhouse - 31/5/10
The frozen body of a young women lies in a ditch.
She is beautiful but her clothes and hair are dirty.
She has no possessions or any identification.
Who is she and how did she end up where she has?
Director Agnes Varda takes us on the road with the young vagabond and provides us with the answers to these questions and in the process asks us to think about even bigger questions; are we ever free, can we really be independent, do we have free will and what price do we pay for trying to be free, independent and to make choices?
The young woman is Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire) and we follow her as she hitch-hikes across Southern France meeting other vagabonds, doing odd-jobs, setting up home with a Tunisian vineyard worker, attempting to become a potato farmer with the help of a philosopher/goat farmer and, ultimately, dying in a ditch.
It's a tragic tale but filled with moments of warmth and humour.
Bonnaire is absolutely wonderful...full of fight, righteous indignation and vim. She seems, on the surface, to be totally free but as we become more and more involved with her we see that she is a prisoner just as much as anyone who is holed up in an office working nine to five. She is utterly reliant on others for everything and her end, when it comes, is all to easy to predict.
A clever, cautionary tale that is all too relevant to the world we live in now despite it being twenty five years old.
She is beautiful but her clothes and hair are dirty.
She has no possessions or any identification.
Who is she and how did she end up where she has?
Director Agnes Varda takes us on the road with the young vagabond and provides us with the answers to these questions and in the process asks us to think about even bigger questions; are we ever free, can we really be independent, do we have free will and what price do we pay for trying to be free, independent and to make choices?
The young woman is Mona (Sandrine Bonnaire) and we follow her as she hitch-hikes across Southern France meeting other vagabonds, doing odd-jobs, setting up home with a Tunisian vineyard worker, attempting to become a potato farmer with the help of a philosopher/goat farmer and, ultimately, dying in a ditch.
It's a tragic tale but filled with moments of warmth and humour.
Bonnaire is absolutely wonderful...full of fight, righteous indignation and vim. She seems, on the surface, to be totally free but as we become more and more involved with her we see that she is a prisoner just as much as anyone who is holed up in an office working nine to five. She is utterly reliant on others for everything and her end, when it comes, is all to easy to predict.
A clever, cautionary tale that is all too relevant to the world we live in now despite it being twenty five years old.
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