How Do You Know - 24th March 2011
if 30 minutes into it you want to yank your own eyeballs out and eat them to save you from this sort of floundering mess in the future.
What is so completely shocking about this amateurish weak arse dribble of a film is that while Reese Witherspoon is never top of my list, she's not exactly atrocious and almost everyone else involved in this film has done much much better and will probably do much better again, we can only hope.
Yes once in a while Paul Rudd will stumble into a howler or two ("I could never be your woman" anyone?), Owen Wilson faltered his steady stream of watchable, enjoyable romps with Marley & Me and even the sheen has slightly faded on old Mr.Nicholson after The Bucket List (although his resume is still extraordinarily respectable and lacking the massive Blunders of pears De Niro and Pacino) and yet what were the chances that all four of these established Hollywood actors would show up in one almighty blunder? How would I know! I can only imagine that the usually reliable James L Brooks roofied them all, filmed them all engaging in lurid acts with a penguin and has it hanging over their heads.
The plot is utterly redundant, tedious and devoid of laughs. Basically Reese Witherspoon can no longer play softball or something and instead of just getting one of those sports-personality endorsement deals for a shoe or something, decides instead to shack up with air-headed, insensitive, womaniser Wilson and is then hideously shocked and surprised when it continually doesn't work out. One to many softballs in the face apparently.
On the other end of the banality spectrum there is Rudd and his father Nicholson. Rudd runs Nicholson's company, what that is we are never told or fully explained but the company is being investigated, again for what, no one really ever tells us that either. Rudd, being head of said company, is therefor in the firing line but we never really see this either, we are just told it and so he has plenty of time on his hands to wander about while Nicholson occasionally shows up to rain a little more on hapless Rudd's parade with little to no information other than it's bad news and Rudd should panic. Rudd is never once interviewed by the IRS or the Feds or anyone and the whole strand of the narrative seems unnecessarily sloppy, confusing and pointless. What is even more frustrating is the storyline is never entirely or satisfactorily concluded which makes you leave the cinema even more dumbfounded and gobsmacked that you sat through the whole sorry disaster to begin with.
Rudd and Witherspoon contrive to meet on the worst day both of them are having and in a very not-very-cute "meet-cute" Rudd decides he likes the gravestone chinned Witherspoon and rather than anything resembling hilarity or romance ensuing we spend the rest of the film knowing they'll get together but have to watch two hours of worthless and pitiful crap where the only obstacle to their groinal happiness is the never faithful and imbecilic Wilson and the fact that Witherspoon continues to claim they are boyfriend and girlfriend, despite her spending all her time with Rudd and hardly any with him!
The whole thing is comparable to being flogged with chicken wire while a dwarf anally batters you with a fence post and at least in that scenario the fence post has a point.
All of this twatting about would probably be bearable if the whole film didn't look like it was put together by the same team that put together the sets for televised puppet shows in the 50s. Considering the pedigree of it's director, Mr. James L Brooks, it looks like he is trying to take tips from the people who make daytime soaps in which evil twin brothers steal the ruby of eternal life from the nuns only to find out the girl he had a crush on in high school is really his aunt.
So slam bad writing and bad directing together with impossibly poor production values and a cast who all look like they could do with a long lie down, some strong drugs or a damn good talking to and you have this years worst romantic comedy so far, mainly because it's neither romantic nor at all funny in any way at all. The bit in the trailer about the lamp is the best bit in the film and it's funnier in the trailer.
Unfortunately a sad day for all involved, Witherspoon will take this in her stride, she's used to this sort of mindless, inconsequential project that's not unlike being forced to smell the flecks from big foot's arse hair but the rest of them, not unlike actors thinking that working with Woody Allen now is still something to be happy about, need to read the script closer in future, it's only worth doing if it's any good.
Next up Owen Wilson works with Woody Allen (I slap my head with despair).
2 out of 10 sneezes into a salad that's already glazed liberally with giraffe shit
Points from The Wife 2 out of 10
The Shining - 18th December 2010
I don't really need to go on and on about how fantastic Stanley Kubrick is, as film scholars and lovers have done that since 'Paths of Glory' in 1957, but one point I will make is that, if you get the chance to see a film that you love, at the cinema, even if it's a film you've already seen a handful of times, then go see it! Drop whatever it is you're doing and head to your nearest retro screening immediately because watching a film you thought you were familiar with from TV, VHS or DVD on the big screen is eye opening, incredible, fresh and, dare I say it, a hundred times better than seeing any new film at a multiplex.
I must've seen the Shining at least ten times in my life, or at least that's what it felt like but I guess it's a film I have actually seen all the way through probably only three or four times but have seen sections of it, either through partial viewings or documentaries on the subject, many many times and it's remarkable how a film as epic in its intensity and craft and as haunting as The Shining can really just be relegated to a greatest hits compilation of oft repeated scenes in your head.
Seeing it on the large canvas is the only way to see it, the cinema screen and surround sound revealing each creepy image, each unnerving sound and each spectacularly nuanced and developed performance in a profoundly rich and absorbing way.
Maybe I am alone in this but when I think of The Shining, I would remember the performances, the sound design and the use of steadicam but I'd really underestimated the sets and colours in this film. The carpets, for example, are menacing, which is a weird sentence to say to begin with, and they seem to become increasingly garish the closer the characters get to danger. The carpet in the feared Room 237 is ridiculous but put it in this film, shot in that simple, stylish yet deceptively difficult and complex way that Kubrick likes to do it and add the increasingly tense and eerie score and it suddenly seems like the carpet is attacking, screaming and biting at Nicholson's heals as he heads into the bathroom to experience his first ghost.
The scene in the very red bathroom of the ghostly Golden Ballroom, where Jack meets the sinister British spectre of Grady, is a vivid delight on the big screen. It's a tremendously brave and bold design choice because if the performances weren't as solid and mesmerising as they are and if the words weren't quite so perfectly sculpted to give you just the right amount of revulsion but also intrigue then the redness of the bathroom could have completely overshadowed the proceedings.
There were also some images in the film, particularly towards the end when Shelley Duvall finally begins to see the hotel's peculiar hauntings, that I had flat out forgotten and that made the whole thing feel like the first time, just alive and vibrant and where you also get to see Kubrick's little mischievous touches at work.
I hate to say it but, as was proven by the atrocious made-for-tv , King produced movie, Stephen King is wrong about the film adaptation of The Shining, which he famously can't stand. I understand it isn't faithful to the book, which, as the author of the book, is a legitimate comment but he has also said that casting Jack Nicholson in the main role took away the journey of a character descending into madness because Nicholson already looks mad and everyone had seen him play mad in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest and hated Duvall's casting because she already looks traumatised at the start of the film apparently but actually both performances seem in perfect keeping with the script and Nicholson's, in particular, is incredibly layered. His character is far from normal at the beginning, having been an alcoholic who damaged his sons arm once while drunk and is now tetchy due to being on the wagon and Duvall's character has been living with an alcoholic and a son who seems to be a little different, going to the Overlook Hotel is meant to be a redemptive and contemplative period for them both. It is a realistic and expertly played set up that adds to the tension and sense of isolation that is so clear in the middle section of the film once they have settled into the hotel, showing that you can't run and hide from your problems.
It was also a delight, after the film, to go with friends and hear their take on what just happened and what the film is actually about. The genius of a film like this and the seemingly diverse nature of its imagery and storytelling is that it can be interpreted many different ways, mostly because of a confusing and open ending that leads you to question everything you have just seen. Is it all just an unfortunate roller coaster ghost story that plays out exactly as we see it, is it all an examination of hell with the character of Jack Torrance reliving his murderous deeds over and over again every winter since 1921, with Kubrick taking inspiration from Dante or is it something else? Kubrick said himself that he didn't believe in hell and saw ghost stories as optimistic because it meant humans can survive death so take from that what you will. At the end of the day it doesn't matter what truth does or doesn't lie deep underneath the overlapping possibilities in the film, just saying that there could be means that this is probably one of the most intelligent horror films you'll ever see.
I don't know who at Warner Brothers looked at Stanley Kubrick and understood him but thank goodness someone did because occasionally, to get films this good, you need a visionary director like Kubrick to be given exactly what he needs: a blank cheque and limitless time. People can call it selfish, obsessed, frustrating, difficult, never ending, uncomfortable and ultimately pointless but it's art, it's personal, it's the sheer craft and achievement of the thing (the entire interior of that magnificent realistic hotel was BUILT on a sound stage!), it's an incredible film that will survive lifetimes and it beats the hell out of remaking Prom Night.
10 out of 10 intrinsically layered but extraordinarily tasty trifles
Points from the wife 9 out 10