Kermode Uncut Film Club: Breathless

Mark Kermode is one of my favourite film writers and just recently he's started an online film club, which I thought I would partake in and offer up a few thoughts. The first of his intro's is embedded above, for the 1983 American remake of the classic French new wave film À bout de souffle aka Breathless.

After a 2 hour long fruitless search through HMV, Blockbuster, and every single other place in town that sells DVD's last week, I finally resorted to just ordering it from Amazon. At last yesterday it arrived on my door step and I finally got round to watching it just now.

I have seen À bout de souffle before about 2 years ago in college but I have to say I remember it only vaguely,  though I can tell you that at the time I didn't really enjoy it very much. That combined with the fact that up until I saw the above video on the Kermode Uncut blog last week I had never heard anybody have a good word to say about the film, had discouraged me from bothering to watch it in the past, despite my love for Richard Gere. Like Kermode im a big fan of An Officer and a Gentleman, as well as particularly his performance in American Gigolo.

Having now watched the film I can happily say I'm glad I did. I can see why the general audience and a lot of critics (particularly fans of the French original) would turn their noses up at it, but those that do have obviously missed the point of the film. It's a fun film, which oozes of being a passion project. Writers Kit Carson and Jim McBride (also director) have an obvious appreciation of the source material and the heavy use of Jerry Lee Lewis and Silver Surfer wouldn't exist were it not for them being fans themselves. Gere as well is clearly enjoying himself and is 110% convinced by his character. He gives a great hyperkinetic performance which is arrogant to the core whilst remaining likeable in a manner reminiscent of an 80's Tom Cruise character from something like Cocktail or The Color of Money, but without any of the insecurities. Truly a film with "cult fan base" written all over it.

Opinion: The Exorcist TV Show

A couple of days ago now I heard the news that a new 10 part television show has entered into early stages of development supposedly offering a new take on The Exorcist story.
News article here courtesy of Collider.

Now, as anybody who knows me would be able to tell you The Exorcist is my absolute favourite film in the history of forever. I could happily spew out an article of my obsessive adoration for the film right now, but I'll save that for another day, suffice to say that I watch it A LOT and talk about it A LOT.

News of a new entry into the franchise shouldn't come as any real shock. Firstly because their's been numerous sequels to the film throughout the years already (of which I have yet brought myself to watch), and secondly because we do after all live in the age where nothing is sacred. Remakes, reboots, sequels and other such adaptations on existing properties make up a vast majority of what makes it onto our screens today both in the cinema and on television, and so its only understandable that a franchise that is as prevalent in peoples minds and pop culture as much as The Exorcist is wouldn't stay dormant for too long.

The thing that is most irksome and worrisome about this latest project is that its retelling the original story without consent or input from either William Peter Blatty or William Friedkin. Spin-offs of the original film and book are bad enough, but its simple fact that the reason that the original 1973 film adaptation of The Exorcist worked so well was because of the continued input of the 1971 books original author William Peter Blatty throughout the production of the film, aiding director William Friedkin in realising their shared intended vision. What came from this was a film which was a perfect accompaniment to the original novel, allowing both novel and film to stand as phenomenal individual pieces, but to also work together and create a deeper, more vivid and complete story.

Granted, the pedigree they have working on the show is decent thus far. Although I've yet to see the film, Martha Marcy May Marlene writer and director Sean Durkin is the brains behind the project, and I know that the aforementioned film was exceptionally well received by critics and the indie film community. If I heard that he was making a 10 part series about exorcism, but not specifically The Exorcist I would be excited, however it seems to me that the franchise name is needed to carry the series and just generally drum up some early press attention.

The whole thing reminds me of 2 other in production TV series based on film franchises- the upcoming Silence of the Lambs spin off Hannibal, and Hellraiser: The Series. Both are based on franchises I love, and both I have different worry's about, however I can see how they would work as TV series as neither Hellraiser nor Silence of the Lambs are individual open-shut stories in the way that The Exorcist is. They both have a rich mythos which take place over several years and several stories. The Exorcist takes place over just a few months, and to my mind the film and book between them do a perfect job on wrapping up every characters story and any events that happened prior to what happened in the books are explained in sufficient detail enough to not warrant any other entries into the canon of the series (save maybe for Father Merrin's exorcism in Africa which has already been done in two films).

Thankfully its not all doom and gloom for Exorcist fans at the moment. A new print of the film is being released to Blu-Ray next year to celebrate its 40th anniversary, containing new special features and hopefully at last the full uncut versions of all the deleted and unfinished scenes which have been teased to exist in the past and glimpsed in previous releases special features.

Review: Dark Shadows (2012, Dir.Tim Burton)

Tim Burton fans are easily categorized into two distinct groups these days: the people who enjoy his earlier gothic influenced work which solidified him as an auteur; films such as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, and the fans who prefer his more recent family friendly Hollywood blockbuster targeted films; fare like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland. Now, sometimes the two overlap slightly but from my experience they tend to be the annoyingly obsessive Tim Burton fangirls who wet themselves at the slightest mention of a Burton-Depp team-up (and yet I've never heard any of them say they've seen Ed Wood).

Needless to say, the Burton fans of yore have at this point all but given up on the director ever getting back to his roots having sold his soul to the boardroom made movie machine. Alas, his next movie was announced having finished Alice in Wonderland as being yet another collaboration with Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Danny Elfman. Cue a thousand eyes rolling. But wait, turns out its an adaptation of an old long running gothic TV series about a creepy family of misfits and monsters set in a haunted house.

"Fantastic! Tim Burton is making a Munsters movie!"

Wait, nope, the other one...

"Tim Burton is heading up an Addams Family feature film reboot?! Inspired!"

Hmmm... almost, but not this time...

"You're saying there was another gothic tv series about a creepy family of misfits and monsters set in a haunted house?"

Why yes, of course, how could you forget good old Dark Shadows!

"..."

I can honestly say I have yet to talk to even a single person who has heard of the original TV show prior to learning about this feature film adaptation. Now I'm not sure if that's just a British thing, but from what I've read online its hardly a household name in America either. Thankfully I can safely say though that if you are in this camp then rest assured, its easy to assume that right from the films inception the marketers knew it was a relatively obscure IP and so the film stands as its own work of which you really need no prior knowledge of the series before watching.

Now, most of the time when you're sitting watching a film for the first time you'll get to a point somewhere around the 30minute mark or maybe a little later on about half way through the film where you'll subconsciously say to yourself either that you're really enjoying the film, or you're not. Not the case with Dark Shadows. Literally from one scene to the next my opinion on the film shifted from either end of the love-hate spectrum right to the very end. In fact hate might have been a strong word there. I never hated the film but my God did I cringe. And I mean really some of the dialogue and the manner its acted out just was so jarringly out of place in the film that I was physically wincing and repelling backwards in my seat, not too unlike a vampire being shown a cross.

On the other hand I really immensely enjoyed so much about the film. The overall look of the film is really attractive and it's hard not to get excited knowing that Burton still has it in him to create dark, horror inspired films. Its reassuring to see pumpkin patches, fog and gravestones. Indeed, a handle of scenes evoked strong memories of Sleepy Hollow which to my mind is, at least set wise, Burtons darkest, most typically gothic film, whilst the contrasting bright colours that drench the world beyond the Collins Manor are an obvious throwback to Edward Scissorhands. The trouble is that neither of these two colour schemes are particularly defined and often creep into each other which means the darker scenes aren't as scary or even as moody as they should be, and the statement Burton was making on suburban society in Scissorhands is completely diminished.

The cast all do a fine enough job given the complete lack of material most of them have to work with. The original series was a soap opera and so naturally there were a lot of characters throughout its 1,225 episode (yes, really) series run, and it seems that almost every single one of those characters were forcibly chucked into this film. Each has their own arc sure, but they're so shallow it's frustrating, especially so due to the talent  on offer. Its of no surprise to anybody that the only cast member with any real material to work with is Johnny Depp, and that's fine because he's the lead character and top billing actor, and for what it's worth his portrayal of vampire Barnabas Collins is rather good. Everyone I've talked to about the film has told me "He's just ripping off Jack Sparrow", but that's just how Johnny Depp is, he's a physical actor and to the average movie goers eyes, yes, this probably does seem like Depp recreating his undoubtedly most famous role, however fans of horror cinema will see subtle glints of Max Schreck and Bela Lugosi in his vampire. Without a shadow of a doubt however the real star of the show is Eva Green as the witch Angelique Bouchard. Green's ability to physically shift between deranged looking witch to sultry siren at the tip of a hat is pitch perfect throughout, making her not only the most interesting character on screen, but the one I at least, ended up getting the most emotionally invested in. 

As with most of his work lately, Danny Elfman's score is completely forgettable though it compliments the film nicely whilst the rest of the soundtrack shines. Well known hits from The Carpenters, Barry White and Alice Cooper are fun and inspired, as well as often being a source of humor which is sadly lacking or falls flat in most of the dialogue.

The strange thing about the film is that at its core it's so fatally flawed it should really have never made it out of the studio the way it is, but for all these shortfalls it's just so damn hard not to get swept up in the fun nature of the film. Its obvious that the cast were all having fun, and its obvious that Tim Burton and screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith have a real appreciation for the source material. It's never going to be an easy job to convert a soap opera into a 2 hour movie, but they've really tried to stick to the original format's conventions as best as possible and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I only wish they'd have made the 3½ hour epic that looks so desperate to escape from the film we ended up getting.