A Day of Violence - FAB Fest, Filmhouse - 30/4/10

Nasty.

Brutish.

Violent.

Aggressive.

Ugly.

Sounds good doesn't it?

No?

Then you should probably stop reading now because "A Day of Violence" was all of those things and it was fabulous because of them. Made on a budget of £50,000 (which is roughly what a Premiership footballer makes for 45 minutes work) this is very far removed from the glossy gangster films that clutter up the multiplexes and it is about as far removed from the sort of sanitised nonsense that Guy Ritchie produces as it is possible to get. Director Darren Ward gives us a nightmarish look at the life of small time debt collector Mitchell over the course of his final few hours on the planet. During that time we are dragged into a world of genuinely shocking violence and gut wrenching blood letting.

The fact that it is made on a shoe-string budget means that, clearly, it lacks the polish of films with much larger bank accounts but given Wards love of Italian cinema, and particularly the "nasty" element of it, this works in the films favour as it become something of a homage to the sort of films that he clearly loves.



There can't be many films that feature such graphic violence that also manage to elicit so much sympathy for the central character who is responsible for so much of the fims brutality. The fact that Mitchel (played by Nick Rendell) does manage to make us feel something other than fear and repulsion is testament to Wards ability. Like "The End" which screened earlier today as part of FAB Fest "ADOV" is an example of people who care enough about film to get up and make them. Could this film have been smoother around the edges? Yes. Could this film have been slicker? Yes. Is it going to be in the running for anyones shortlist of best British films this year? No. That shouldn't stop everyone from applauding everyone involved because with a shooting schedule that saw filming only take place on weekends, a miniscule budget and a, relatively, inexperienced cast (with the exception of cult legend Giovanni Lombardo Radice) they have made something compelling and undeniably there own.

The End - FAB Fest, Filmhouse - 30/4/10

The very definition of independent cinema and for that reason it is very difficult to be too critical of writer/director/star Jeremy Thomas. After all he is out there making films while I am sat here in screen two of the Filmhouse hunched over my Mac offering "criticism" of his work...you tell me who deserves the credit? In fact, don't...I'll tell you; it's Jeremy.

Harvey Fenton of FAB Press introduced the film as "existenial horror" and I think that is a fairly accurate description of what was on display. However, I think that Thomas also has an interest in the philosophical theories of fatalism and determinism going on the plot of "The End". Thomas plays a school teacher who, while helping in the pursuit of a masked kidnapper, discovers that his life is actually a movie...or at least he thinks it is. He may simply be a paranoid schizophrenic. So far, so "Truman Show" but what makes this film worthwhile was the clear sense of mischief and humour that ran throw it like Irn-Bru runs through the veins of your average Glaswegian.

I'm not sure that Thomas will ever graduate to making "big" movies but I'm equally unsure as to whether he has any interest in doing so...with films like "The End" he is in total control and the result is that he has made a film that is, despite my reservations, original and clever. Maybe Hollywood should give him a call...original and clever, the man could be the saviour of cinema.

Merantau - FAB Fest, Filmhouse - 30/4/10

MerantOW!

Indonesian romantic comedy, coming of age tale, gentle melodrama...this is what Merantau is not.

What it is is about one hundred minutes of punches, kicks, slaps, smacks, crashes, bangs and wallops as Yuda negotiates his way around the mean streets of Jakarta attempting to protect a young woman from the evil clutches of international sex worker smugglers.

Like most of you I have seen my share of martial arts movies and fight scenes but I can honestly say I have never sat through an action film and wanted to whoop, cheer and punch the air like I did during this. Things happened during the fight scenes that I haven't ever seen before and that, in itself, is no mean feat for a film in this genre.

Leading man Iko Uwais is a Silat expert...an Indonesian martial art that, if you're anything like me, you will never have heard of or seen before. He is also a decent young actor proving that it is possible to give a convincing performance and kick ass without being a dumb-ass on screen.

This was the only UK cinema screening of "Merantau" but I would wager you will hear more from its star in the next few years and don't be surprised to see Silat academies opening in a town near you soon.

Biff!

Bang!

Merantau!

High Lane - FAB FEST, Filmhouse - 30/4/10

Based on the last known work of Enid Blyton "Five Get Butchered in Croatia"...

OK, not really but you get the idea.

Five bright young things from France decide to go climbing in Croatia only to end up falling victim to a psychotic poacher named Anton. To my mind the sort of people who enjoy climbing deserve everything they get...why don't they just watch the great outdoors from the comfort of their living room like normal people?

Director Abel Ferry has taken "The Descent" and turned it, almost literally, upside down. Instead of ghastly goings on deep beneath the surface of the world the rest of us call home his heroes/victims find terror in the world high above the rest of us. Chloe, Karine, Loic, Fred and Guillaume all fall foul of the worst sort of horror as they find that the beauty of the natural world is home to all the beastliness of the very world they think they are escaping..except here there is nobody to hear you scream.

While it couldn't be called an original idea it is a gripping horror film and it manages to avoid simply being a copy of "The Descent" thanks mainly to the stunning cinematography (some of the shots when the five are crossing the sort of rope bridge last seen in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" are seriously wonderful) and the equally impressive performances of the cast. Fanny Valette is especially impressive as Chloe and Johan Libereau is equally impressive as her cowardly boyfriend Loic.

For those of us who never venture closer to nature than the walk from the car to the cinema this is the sort of film that makes us feel smug about our opposition to nature. For those of you who get some perverse enjoyment from climbing hills or extreme sports let this serve as a warning to you.

Erasing David - 29/4/10 - Cameo

"If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about"

You must have heard people say that before?

There is a collective term for the sort of people who believe it; idiots.

What they seem utterly unaware of is that what is "wrong" is not a constant, it changes regularly and is decided by other people. Just because you and I think that something is "right" or "wrong" does not mean that it is right in the eyes of the law today or that it will still be right in the eyes of the law tomorrow.

Despite this people in Britain have allowed themselves to become the most observed country in Europe and we come behind only China and Russia in the world. Why? To make us "safer" of course. This despite the fact that the ever increasing numbers of CCTV cameras have had no impact on crime or anti-social behaviour.

Did you know that ever telephone call, text message and email you make or send is kept on file for twelve months?

Did you know that your mobile telephone can be turned on without your knowing it and then used to track you and to record conversations?

"You're paranoid"

"The government aren't about to start using that sort of information"

"What are you worried about?"

"You're a conspiracy theorist"

Yes, yes I may well be.

In "Erasing David" direcor David Bond decides to see exactly what information is out there about him and how easily it could be used to find him or be used against him.

The answers to both of those questions are utterly unsurprising to a "conspiracy theorist" like me but if you are the sort of person who believes that there is nothing to worry about by government and industry holding huge amounts of your personal data (and handling it very carelessly in the case of this government) then what he discovers will shock you.

This is a film that deals with issues that everyone should be concerned by...the fact that so many of us are not is, possibly, more worrying than anything else.

An Interview with Duglas T Stewart

Duglas T Stewart is the lead singer and head honcho of Glasgow hipsters BMX Bandits.

BMX Bandits have been making whimsical, sublime, romantic and emotional pop music since the mid-'80s.

Mr Stewart is one of the most important figures in Scottish pop music of the last thirty years. An inspiration to and influence on people from Kurt Cobain and every single member of every single group to emerge from Glasgow since 1986. His love of music is well known and his influence on music is undeniable but what about the movies?

I managed to secure a few moments of Mr Stewarts time and asked him to tell me what songs of his he would choose to be the music of the opening and closing credits of the film of his life.

"If BMX Bandits tracks were to be used I think I'd have The Sailor's Song (from My Chain) as the opening theme as it says a lot about my romantic nature and about longing for love to come and rescue/save me. Also although it has a sad side to it, it is very much a song of hope. I think the end theme should either be I'm Still Hungry (also from My Chain) or E102 (The Rise and Fall of the BMX Bandits). I can imagine quite a lot of stuff in the film might be seen as sad or mildly tragic but in the end there is always hope. I'm still hungry for life and for love and for music and also I believe in trying to go forward. I'd like people to leave the cinema feeling better, feeling their is hope ... not feeling defeated."

Listening to that answer I'm reminded of that wonderful Oscar Wilde line; "Nothing should be beyond hope, life IS hope". Even when there is an element of tragedy in the songs you write I always feel that there is something hopeful in the music. Hope (as another Scottish band put it) is important. What about music from other people for your films soundtrack?

"Generally I prefer movie music that is scored by people like Ennio Morricone or Bernard Herrmann to soundtracks made up of collected songs. Some directors do that sort of thing very effectively like Scorsese or Tarantino but if BMX Bandits wasn't being used I'd like to have Ennio Morricone score the movie. A theme a bit like his main theme for Il Grande Silenzio for would be good fror the opener. I think the great beauty in its sadness would be right and the opening scene would be of me walking down the Great Western Road in Glasgow late at night. The streets would be covered in snow and deserted except for me and it would be snowing still. You wouldn't know where I was going. For the close something lighter and again more hopeful and sensual like Metti Una Sera a Cena. The last scene would be me getting into bed alone as the theme played in the background and I would be lying there with no real expression until it got to the bit at roughly 3.05 where the vocal lifts off and at that point my eyes would close, it would cut to black and the titles would role."

We need to find a writer and a director for this film, it already sounds amazing. If you could make a film about any one of the fabulous bands to have emerged from Glasgow over the years (and that's not easy for me to say given my status as an Edinburger) who would it be and who would you cast?

"To be honest I really think it would be BMX Bandits and not just because we could do with the promotion. I think our story could be the one with most drama including heartbreak, sex, violence, abuse, abduction, jail scenes and also it would feature a lot of the other key Glasgow bands in the story. Obviously there's been a lot of members (25) so I'll give you just a few casting suggestions:

Rhys Ifans as Duglas
Ewan McGreggor as Norman Blake
Talulah Riley as Rachel Allison
Robert Downey Jnr as David Scott
Tom Hanks as Francis Macdonald"

Now I know that this film has to be made. Tom Hanks as Francis MacDonald...it's the role of a lifetime and the one that would surely bag Hanks that elusive third best actor Oscar.

I had a huge crush on a girl at school called Emma. I used to sit with her outside of school and wait for her mum to pick her up. Eventually I plucked up the courage to ask her out. We went to the cinema and to my annoyance I can't remember what we saw. We didn't sit in the back row and we only ever went on one more date (a recurring theme in my love life) but can you remember the first time you took a girl to the pictures and what you saw?

"The first time i took a girl to the pictures was Frances McKee (the Vaselines). I was 16 and she was 15. We went to see An American Werewolf in London. I warned her before that I wasn't good with blood and guts but I think she thought that I was joking. Anyway the combination of nerves and the gore got to be too much for me and I started to feel really faint and unwell. It ended up with Frances having to almost carry me out of the cinema about one third of the way into the movie and take me for a cup of tea so that I could recover. She was very kind about it. Since then I've seen way more violent and gory stuff and been okay. I think it was really nerves that got to me. We didn't sit up the back, so we had a long walk up the aisle when I was feeling bad and had to leave."

It's annoying that my first date wasn't with a member of The Vaselines but then again I'm no Duglas T Stewart so a date with Frances McKee would have been wasted on me. What about the first time you went to the cinema at all, can you remember that as clearly?

"My first trip to the cinema was a double bill of Tom Thumb and The Wizard of Oz. I really like Terry Thomas and Peter Sellers as the villains in Tom Thumb but The Wizard of Oz was on a different level. It was so magical, so other worldly. It's still a big favorite of mine."

Through your lyrics and the answers to my questions it seems you are a lovely man, a romantic even but surely there must be a dark Duglas lurking inside you somewhere? If you were to be a villain from the history of cinema who would it be?

"I think I'd be Frankenstein's monster. He doesn't mean to leave a path of chaos and destrucion behind him or cause such terror, he can't help it, it's just the way he was made."

You are a key part of the cultural history of Glasgow and so is the Glasgow Film Theatre. If you were to find yourself trapped inside the GFT forever what film would you want to find playing on loop?

"Well my all time favorite movie is "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" but if it was playing in a loop I'd be in a mess. I actually got to introduce a screening of it at the GFT, which was one of my greatest thrills ever but on a loop I'd go for another a Jacques Demy film, "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort". It looks so beautiful, is so joyful, I love the Michel Legrand music and the wonderful on screen magic between real life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Francoise Dorleac."

At the end of this interview Duglas left me with this parting comment;

"I hope those answers are good for you."

On behalf of everyone reading this Duglas I feel pretty confident in saying that, yes, those answers were good for us.

Thank you so much...for the music, for the lyrics and for your thoughts today.

Idiocracy - DVD - 27/4/10

Second feature film from Mike Judge which takes a look at the unavoidable future of mankind...sort of.

I once saw a woman on the Maury show who had called her child "Lemonjello". Honestly. She had called her child Lemon Jello. That sort of decision takes a special kind of idiocy. It's that kind of idiocy that Judge looks at in "Idiocracy" where he imagines a world entirely populated by the sort of people who willingly submit themselves to the "Jeremy Kyle Show" and who think that the films of the Wayan Brothers are amusing.

I realise that mocking that sort of "culture" makes me appear like the worst sort of snob...and I am.

I'm also proud of it.

It's not that I don't like "stupid". I do. I really liked "Role Models" and I am addicted to shows like "Judge Judy" and "Americas Next Top Model" but I also like things that are knowingly intellectual, arch and artistic. The danger of the world we live in is that too many people are brought up to believe that notions of beauty and sensitivity are the preserve of intellectuals; which they are not, they belong to all of us.

This is turning into a rant.

So what.

While the world that Judge paints in "Idiocracy" is unlikely (can anyone really imagine "Fuddruckers" changing their name to "Butt-Fuckers"?) his point is valid. Unless we start to promote a love of education (I don't mean school or college) then where will our society end up? Too many bright, hard working, dilligent and creative people don't have children for fear of what a world like ours will do to them but the consequence of that is that only people who are dim, lazy, demotivated and boorish will have children and then they will have children...you get the general idea.

This wasn't a particularly well made film, once again Judges weakness in constructing a plot is all too apparent, and the performances from the leads (Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph) are stuck in second gear his central premise is an important one and he does manage to hit the target more than once with his observations on a society utterly in awe of big corporations and the dark art of advertising.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Idiocracy...coming to a town near you unless you do something about it.