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This is great news for anyone involved in using music in films. Moby has made a large selection of music available free online to anyone using it as part a film or piece of art they're producing. It's a great selection and has lots of stuff you might use as background in scenes. Nice.
You know what, a lot people could do with a Michael Clayton in their lives. He's a fixer, someone who sorts out the mess you've got into, who knows the right people and who generally puts things right. Wait a minute, I know that guy! Isn't that what faith is all about? Except Michael Clayton tends to bend the rules a little, and he's got his own messed up life to worry about when he isn't working out yours. And anyway, it turns out you have to be a wealthy client of a prestigious and amoral New York law firm to benefit from his services. Faith sounds a lot easier to me.
So this is the new George Clooney film, with a set of Executive Producers that reads like a who's who of the better side of Hollywood. Even our own Anthony Minghella is there. And the poster is full of quotes declaring it to be the best Clooney experience since records began. Wow.
It turns out 'Michael Clayton' is not nearly as fast-moving as the trailer would suggest, but it's not slow either. It feels like one of those legal thrillers - like 'A Civil Action' or even 'Legal Eagles' but with the smoother and altogether cooler presence of Clooney. Underneath it's a lot more formulaic than it pretends to be, but that didn't stop it from being kind of enthralling as I watched it. Solid entertainment for those who value drama above action.
Imagine. It's a creative meeting at Pixar, with it's image still glistening with the success of last year's 'Cars', and before that: 'The Incredibles', 'Finding Nemo', 'Toy Story' ...in fact, every movie they've made. And here comes the pitch for the next one: let's make about a rat, set it in Paris, call it something strange and focus on haute cuisine.
There must, I venture, have been at least a moment's hesitation, before the vast resources of the most successful animation company in the world were devoted to such a project. But then story has always come first in a Pixar film, and here it shines more than ever. This is a cracking film that, like the best animations, will reach far out of it's core audience of children and families. For those if us who yawned through this year's 'Shrek 3', despaired at 'Happy Feet' and stirred only slightly at the sight of 'Surf's Up', this is finally what we were waiting for: a story, a real story, that gives space for it's characters, but still delivers a hefty measure of humour, action and drama, and even manages a some satisfying twists in the plot on the way. I loved it.
So 'Ratatouille' is the story of a rat, by the name of Remy, who has aspirations beyond the decaying rubbish that he and his fellow rats must eat. Inspired by a TV celebrity chef he spies through the window of a cottage, he longs to cook gourmet food. A hilarious and sudden end to the rats existence in an old farmhouse gives Remy the chance to fulfill his dream as he finds himself under the streets of Paris and the very restaurant of the chef he so admires. The story that follows contains everything you could wish for in a film with some fantastic chase sequences around the kitchen and through the streets. As you'd expect the animation has taken another leap on and the detail is simply stunning, aided by an excellent soundtrack. The result is the best - yes, the best - film to date, deserving of praise it's received and steady success at the US box office. If you have kids, it's a must; and if you don't, borrow some.
Cool. Off to a special preview of 'Ratatouille' tomorrow morning in Leicester Square. the whole famiy's coming so it should be good fun. The reviews have been universally good in the US where it opened a few months back. It's out in the UK later this Autumn.
Showed 'This is England' at our team retreat in Turvey last night and, wow, so good to see it again and remember how powerful it is. The first time it was Thomas Turgoose's performance that stood out, but this time round I noticed just how amazing Stephen Graham is playing the part of Combo. In the final scenes in the flat, as things begin to turn nasty, you notice the how he shows Combo's growing anger through the expressions and flickers on his face. It's a fantastic performance and leaves me wanting to see the film again and again. Can't wait to see what Meadows will turn his hand to next.
A while back, may be a couple of years, a few of us did a series of reflections on films that somehow touched on spiritual issues. If 'Atonement' had been released then, there's no doubt we would be including it too. It's a film that explores a complex range of issues, not least whether one can atone for mistakes made in the past - in this case, ones that have changed the lives of the victims forever.
I think it would be a mistake to put an overt 'Christian' spiritual spin on the story - McEwan himself is a humanist - even though the word 'atonement' itself has a fundamental Christian meaning. But, in the sense that issues of forgiveness and atonement between humans are intrinsically spiritual, then it certainly has a lot to provoke reflection.
What's more, Briony’s mistaken assumption about what she sees happening between Robbie and Cecilia one summer's day, leads her to see Robbie an an increasingly dangerous menace .... pushing her to make a final tragic jump in her imagination when her cousin Lola is brutally raped later that evening. The power of imagination, and how quickly it can build to create destruction, is something that Christians - who are often the first to make assumptions about others, including those from different denominations - could do well to reflect upon. Recent postings about the 'evils' of the Emergent Church movement seem especially pertinent.
Ultimately, we discover in 'Atonement' that it is the act of writing the story, and rewriting history, (don't worry, it all makes sense if you read the book or see the film!) that is the attempted act of atonement. Briony longs for things to be different, including her own cowardice when it came to putting things right. And who hasn't wanted time to be rolled back and for things to be different: for us to have done something better, more noble or just less selfish? And, although it's tempting for Christians to concentrate on the need to put ourselves right with God, making peace with others is just as much a Biblical challenge. Again, it's hard not to reflect on the churches need to 'atone' with the world for some of the things we have done. The thousands of victims who are pursuing claims against the church as victims of child abuse by clergy will probably have something to say about that I guess.
In all of this, McEwan offers a spiritual hope - probably without intention. In the Dunkirk scene where we follow Robbie's journey along the madness of the beach, we come across those soldiers singing the hymn 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind'. It's as though we are being reminded in the midst of terrible chaos and suffering, that God is present. Perhaps McEwan is being sarcastic or provocative, but for me it's a very moving part of the film and a reminder of the presence of God in our brokenness.
So 'Atonement' has plenty to offer in terms of debate and reflection for Christians. Go see it and join in.
See the trailer here.
There are arguably two climaxes to 'Atonement': one at the close as we are delivered an unexpected and numbing twist to what we have seen, and one two thirds of the way through as Robbie, the tragic hero of Ian McEwan's novel now film, makes his way to the shores of Dunkirk as the British army retreats. In one single simply unbelievable shot we swoop down over the whole panorama of the beach where 300,000 men are desperately trying to escape the advancing German army. The power of this moment is that, as we follow Robbie stumbling up the beach, we see an uncompromising image of the dark madness of what took place, unadulterated by British propoganda: men sitting and dying unaided, others simply looking emptily out to sea, horses being shot to avoid the Germans taking them, drunkeness, panic, resignation... in the background a ferris wheel out of control. It's a terrible sight and, as the camera swoops across, it's almost too much to take in. We come to rest on a group of bloodied, battle-worn men, standing singing together the hymn 'Dear Lord and Father of mankind': the simple words somehow managing to overpower the scene and capture the sense of what is happening in the minds and hearts of the soldiers. It's an incredible piece of cinema, and even if the rest of the film was a waste of time, you'd want to go and see it for this scene. In fact, the film is quite brilliant throughout, one of the best I've seen this year and a triumph for Keira Knightley and James McAvoy who take the leads. The story manages to tell a moral tale without pretension or preaching. It's the must-see of September.
Metaphilm has a post about how 'Snakes on a Plane' gives an insight into the American mind set:
At thirty thousand feet above sea level, Snakes on a Plane is a basic Hollywood movie: exciting stunts, goofy one-liners, campy performances, gratuitous sex, unneeded violence, and serious pre-release hype in search of a foregone market conclusion. The movie itself does little to advance cinematic aesthetics, and it squeaks by with a semblance of entertainment value. It is a Hollywood B-movie, period. However, at ground level, the movie is something else altogether: a vehicle with wide open windows staring straight into the post-9/11 American mind—a mind plagued by existential fear and phantasmic preoccupations.
The movie easily compares to the events of September 11th: the snakes equal terrorists; the plane in the movie equals the planes of 9/11; fear of snakes equals our fear of terrorism; the movie’s evil mastermind equals the likes of Osama bin Laden; the movie’s F.B.I. action hero equals our governmental and military heroes; the anxiety of the movie’s passengers equals our own anxieties; etc. These basic comparisons are obvious, but there is more to the story. We begin that story with America’s obsession with fear.
I get so used to films being released in the UK long after their US debut, it kind of becomes the norm. 'Knocked up' which is getting rave reviews, is already available on DVD in America and, although the time lag is getting shorter, there's still a wait for most movies. The exception are the big worldwide releases like the 'Potter' series which are trying to avoid piracy and can afford to have lots of extra prints made.
Anyway, it's nice to be ahead with Shane Meadows 'This is Engalnd' which I saw last year and which only made it to the US late July. It's also getting rave reviews, which is going some considering it's set in the Midlands. It deserves some attention though: it's a complex and layered script with all kinds of themes brought together in the story of Shaun, a young lad who finds a sense of family in a local gang, only to have it overshadowed by the arrival of Combo, recently released from prison. When I saw it at last year's London Film Festival, Shane Meadows and most of the cast were there, talking about the film and what it was like making it. They happened to be standing near the exit as everyone filed out and in a strange 'laddish' way, instead of talking to them, people nodded and grunted at them in the same way a teenage boy might show appreciation. It was like we, as the audience, had taken on the character of what we had just seen on the screen.
Anyway, more to the point, 'This is England' is released on dvd here in the UK this week with a two disc set and a ton of extras. If you missed it at the cinema, now's the time to catch up with the best film of 2006.
So here's what happened. Thursday night I take a lad we used to foster to see 'Transformers'. We drive 30 minutes to Stevenage, wait in a line long enough to stretch back to the house we left 30 minutes earlier. Then both the people selling tickets in the booth get and disappear! There's 60 or 70 of us in line and no one in selling tickets. We wait 10 minutes. One woman tracks down the manager and begins a verbal assault which is clearly going to lead to violence. A single young guy begins selling tickets again. He is SLOW! I try to order tickets on the phone only it's too late, even though we got there 25 minutes ahead of the trailers - almost unheard of in my case. When we get the tickets I need some ice cream to recover. There's no one in the ice cream booth.... we wait for a bit and then I find a girl taking tickets on the door. 'He's just gone to the toilet' she says. I catch sight of the guy coming back and wonder if he's washed his hands. he doesn't like the kind of person who would wash anything. We only have £5 between us which is enough for ONE scoop each, and believe me, when they say one scoop, they're not kidding. It's a large mouthful at best. We head into the screen and sit down in front of a noisy gang of lads. This is a nightmare, my worst cinema experience this year.
And then the film begins and I suddenly get some perspective. Yes, it's been a tortuous experience but, when compared to the 110 minutes that follow, it's actually been a taste of paradise. Nothing, nothing in all the world is as bad as watching a film transform into a turkey. This is undoubtably the worst film of the year so far, but it's helped me see all that hassle was in fact wonderful bliss. Transformers meanwhile sucks.
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