It wouldn't be right for me to go into too much detail about what Pedro Almodóvar's new film The Skin I Live In is all about, although I can tell you what it's not about. It's not about the flawless employment of the English language, what with its preposition-misplacing title, and it's definitely not an adaptation of this children's book about racial tolerance:
I suppose you could say that it's about love, obsession, betrayal, madness and vengeance, and if any of that makes you think of Vertigo then you're a step closer to understanding where Almodóvar's coming from, which is to say, a place of considerable weirdness.
The Skin I Live In doesn't approach the complexity or emotional depth of Hitchcock's masterpiece, but it does present a morbidly fascinating account of the lengths to which one man will go to assuage his inner demons. It helps that the film's lead actors - eternally watchable, infuriatingly handsome Antonio Banderas and impossibly beautiful, vowel-hogging actress Elena Anaya - are both really, really ridiculously good-looking but equally capable of suggesting inner torment that only occasionally rises to the surface.
Credit must also go to Almodóvar's regular cinematographer José Luis Alcaine, whose clean, clinical photography would no doubt be approved of by Banderas' meticulous plastic surgeon, and to the make up team, who give Anaya an unsettlingly flawless look that suggests something's not quite as it should be.
The film's problems come from the underwritten characters: they're all bursting with the potential of the kind of depth that made Vertigo what it is, but we never really get to the heart of their motivation. Why Banderas' character goes to quite such extreme lengths is explained but not fully explored, and the secrets harboured by the rest of the players never satisfyingly explain their actions.
That said, Almodóvar is still one of the world's most interesting auteurs, and you'll be lucky to find many directors making whatever the hell they feel like and still producing watchable, quality stuff like this.
Apologies for going all serious there and using words like "assuage" and "auteur"; here's a little game of Where's Pedro? to redress the balance:
Joel Schumacher's crack at the not-at-all done-to-death home invasion movie at least features Animal Kingdom's Ben Mendelsohn in a porn moustache and Nicolas Cage in the kind of glasses that suggests he will, at some point, stick his thumb in someone's eye socket.
Anonymous
The film that finally blows the lid off one of the cultural world's biggest lies - Thom Yorke never wrote a single Radiohead song. It was Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley all along! Also, Anonymous is directed by Roland Emmerich so everyone is contractually obliged to make a reference to explosions. I've got first dibs on "Bang Goes The Bard".
Released October 28th 2011
The Woman In Black
Why hasn't D-Rad been allowed to speak in this trailer? Anyone would think he couldn't act or something.
Released February 10th 2012
Immortals
You know what there aren't enough of these days? Mythological war movies with rousing motivational speeches, unconvincing CGI and unbelievably camp costumes. We really need more of those.
Released November 11th 2011
Abduction
It's directed by John Singleton and stars Alfred Molina, Jason Isaacs, Sigourney Weaver, Maria Bello and Michael Nyqvist. I wish I could say that that completes the lead cast. I really do.
Released September 28th 2011
Red Tails
I'm fairly sure that this is just a cover up and George Lucas is remaking Star Wars with an entirely black cast to make up for Jar Jar Binks.
Hysteria
I firmly believe that Queen Victoria's Dildo would have been a better title.
Australian actress, model and all-round whatever Holly Valance aroused tabloid journos last week with a "steamy" photoshoot for Foster's Gold, in which she's seen stripped down to her pants, painted gold and lying "seductively" on a bed. It's a recreation of the classic scene from Goldfinger, apparently, BECAUSE FOSTER'S GOLD AND GOLDFINGER BOTH HAVE THE WORD "GOLD" IN, DO YOU SEE?!?! I do hope someone got a massive bonus for that.
metro.co.uk published the above photo, following it with these utterly redundant words:
"Seductively laying [sic] across an unmade bed, Holly only wears a pair of knickers as the rest of her body is smothered in gold body paint. With one leg in the air, she rests her head on her hands [sic] while the other clutches onto a bottle of the new drink."
Thanks for that, metro.co.uk. If it hadn't been for your drooling description of the picture you've just shown me, I wouldn't have known what I was looking at. By the way, how many hands does Holly have exactly?
Obviously the Daily Mail got in on the act too, and after making the usual helpful observations about "negative comments" Holly attracted "earlier this year when she was spotted looking curvier than normal" (translation: The Daily Mail called her fat because she was bigger than a size 8), celebrated her normality by publishing this snap of her "reclining sexily across a white bed":
The Mail obviously credit their readers with more intelligence than the Metro, and so didn't feel the need to add a detailed description of their photo, so I hope they won't mind if I do it for them:
"Awkwardly lying on a filthy mattress in a Soho brothel, Holly holds the product she's advertising so far to the corner of the frame that it's barely noticeable, allowing us to focus more carefully on her terrifying frying pan-esque head and vacant expression, suggesting that she's got no idea why she's allowed someone to paint her tits and arrange her in assorted unsexy positions while they witter on about something called 'Goldfinger', whatever that is."
Now obviously I'm no James Bond geek, so I won't bang on endlessly about how this "recreation" singularly fails to recreate any of the sexuality, intrigue or subtlety of the scene which inspired it. I would, however, suggest that for all the associations there are between Foster's Gold and Goldfinger, they could just as easily have picked any film with the word "Gold" in the title from which Holly could pick a classic scene to recreate. So here's her next few campaigns sorted:
First off, despite what you might have heard, The Guard is nothing like In Bruges. It's got Brendan Gleeson in it and it's written and directed by In Bruges' director's brother, but that's it. In fact, it differs from In Bruges in one massive sense: The Guard is actually quite good.
Pointless comparisons and unpopular opinions aside, The Guard is one of those micro-budget films that succeeds on the strength of its script, and on the subtle but memorable performance of its lead actor. It's also one of those films that has a bizarrely high number of completely different posters floating around the internet, almost challenging Harry Potter for the title of Most Over-Postered Film:
I said "almost".
On the surface it's about a vaguely amoral policeman - he's happy to snarf drugs from crime scenes and employ the services of prostitutes on his days off but he's the only honest plod in Galway - and an impending drug deal, but at its heart it's a razor-sharp look at xenophobia, where characters from all over the world fail to function properly because they simply don't understand anyone from another country / city / postcode. Italy, the US, Britain, Ireland and especially Dublin all appear incomprehensible to somebody at some point, as if Galway is the world's most diverse but dysfunctional melting pot.
It's not a wall-to-wall LOLgasm so much as a wry grinfest, with Gleeson playing the part of a man who may be a genius, an idiot or both, and doing it so well that a second viewing may be necessary to try and nail him down. The supporting cast are also spot-on, and special mention must go to Don Cheadle, who by day wears eye-wateringly beautiful suits as befits his deliberately stereotypical FBI agent character, but by night unleashes beasts like this:
The action-not-quite-packed climax feels a little out of place, and is evidently all that those who've described this film as "Hot Fuzz meets In Bruges"can remember, but as a character piece The Guard is a welcome dessert after all that rich crap you've been shoving in your face at the multiplex over the summer.
That's the second food metaphor I've used to describe a film this week. If I do it again you have permission to hurt me.
Reading through some of the names involved in the making of Cowboys & Aliens is like reading the ultimate dinner party guest list. Daniel Craig! Harrison Ford! Sam Rockwell! Steven Spielberg! Damon Lindelof! I would have made my signature Moroccan Baked Chicken and gone all the way to Budgens for a bottle of their best wine (for under £6) if that lot came round for tea. We'd laugh and chat and eat and drink and later on we'd all get naked and go for a swim. Great days.
Unfortunately though, the man in charge of this particular dinner party is Jon Favreau, he's working from a recipe by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and between them they've managed to turn it into one of those toe-curling episodes of Come Dine With Me. Daniel Craig is standing around looking bored, Harrison Ford has finished off the Budgens wine by himself and is calling Sam Rockwell a gaylord and Steven Spielberg has snuck out the back door, hoping nobody notices he was even there.
In case that overlong metaphor isn't clear enough, here's the stone cold fact: Cowboys & Aliens is shit. Not Green Lantern shit or Tron: Legacy shit, just disappointingly shit, a crushing waste of a fantastic concept and an amazing cast. I'm fucking furious with Jon Favreau and if he came round my house for dinner I'd stuff him in the oven and cook him at gas mark 9 for eight hours until his juices ran clear. Then I'd feed him to the cat.
Favreau's ham-fisted direction turns what should be a fun, wild romp into a humourless, boring slog, and that's unforgivable. He's so excited at having James Bond and Indiana Jones in his film that he daren't actually direct them, so Craig mooches about looking mean and wondering whether or not to crack a joke, while Ford is allowed to be the grumpy bad guy he's always wanted to be, only realising at the end that he's supposed to have another dimension to his character.
The script is equally to blame. Almost nothing happens for long stretches of screen time before a rushed, cursory and often nonsensical explanation of events or conveniently-remembered flashback pops up, while dull characters are given embarrassing clichés to fill the time. Sam Rockwell can't shoot straight for no good reason! A small boy is given a knife for no good reason! Could either of these tired plot devices crop up at crucial moments in the final act? Well, if you can stay awake through the overlong fun-vacuum of a finale, you might find out.
Annoyingly, everyone else involved in Cowboys & Aliens does their job flawlessly. Harry Gregson-Williams' western-y music is great, Mary Zophres' costumes are entirely convincing without screaming "LOOK AT ME, I'M AN AUTHENTIC 1880s WAISTCOAT!" and the production design and cinematography complete the period realism. What's more, the alien effects - which, refreshingly, mostly take place in broad daylight - are a successful blend of CGI and animatronics. Sadly, though, none of this is enough to save the film from the incompetence of its writers and director, and I for one would like it very much if all of them would stop making films and go away.
2.05pm: BIG SCREEN Fatigue
It's Day Three of Empire Presents BIG SCREEN and I'm even more tired and irritable than usual, which fortunately means no The World Is Not Enough "jokes" today.
My first duty of the day was to appear on a panel called "How To Become A Film Journalist" alongside two former Empire editors and three other film journalists of infinitely more experience than myself. I didn't have a lot of anecdotes to share about being in Jack Nicholson's front room or that unfortunate incident I had with Robert DeNiro but it was fun and I should parp out a big thank you to Empire for inviting me on. *PARP* Thanks!
I briefly popped into the press room for a cup of tea and found the camera shy Charlie Lyne of Ultra Culture hard at work posting pictures of me on the internet:
Other laptop brands are available.
Still feeling grumpy (Grumpy didn't like that, LOL) I went for lunch in Nando's, home of the most anaemic burger and fries known to mankind.
Fortunately they delivered on their promise to bring my food "as speedily as chickenly possible", although I don't know to what extent they've measured how long it takes a chicken to convey three plates of food to a table in a busy restaurant.
After annoying everyone within a ten foot radius with my foul whining I retreated to the safety of the press room, where I found Animal Kingdom's Sullivan Stapleton giving an interview about some terrible Sky TV drama he's in. Now let me make this clear: I'm a married man, reasonably sure of my sexuality, but Sullivan Stapleton is a hottie. It's a good job he didn't speak to me or I'd have blushed, giggled and quite possibly dampened my knickers.
I'm just off to play footie and sink a few beers with the lads now. Will probably check out the skirt while I'm there.
6.15pm: Muppets, Barbarians and that
You'll be pleased to hear that my Nando's "chicken" burger cheered me up despite being caked in unsolicited mayonnaise, and that mood was only increased by Empire's Chris Hewitt conducting a live interview via satellite with Kermit The Frog, which was unnecessarily delightful.
Even more delightful was a clip from The Muppets, which very nearly had me in floods of manly tears. I think I will enjoy that film when it comes out IN SIX MONTHS.
I decided to give Conan The Barbarian a try despite every fibre of my being telling me not to be such an idiot, and for a while it was fun. Jason Momoa introduced it in a screen that was so massive even his seventeen-foot tall frame was dwarfed by it:
Sadly the fun stopped more or less when the film started. I lasted an hour but the volume had been set at 'Apocalypse' and the 3D was unbelievably bad, none of which helped the fact that the film was, as expected, utter cabbage.
One element of the weekend that I haven't mentioned is Hollywood Boulevard, the collection of stands, shops and other memorabilia that people like to queue up for at these things. Here's a barely-watchable (leave me alone, I'm not a cameraman) two-minute video of what you're missing if you're not here. Watch out for the long line of miserable-looking people who don't even know the only thing at the end of their queue is a Smurfs poster.
It's better in 3D.
10.10pm: Bedtime
That's it. It's all over. I'm going to bed. I did nothing else of much interest in my remaining time at Big Screen but I felt like some kind of conclusion was necessary.
Despite only seeing a fraction of what was on offer, and some of that being a bit Conany, I had a fantastic weekend. It's great to mix with everyone that goes to these events and I didn't see a single person I didn't like, except for Paul WS Anderson and he doesn't count. I hung out with friends, met people that I previously only knew from Twitter and others that I had no idea even existed, and all of them were lovely. If I interacted with you at all in the last three days, know that you are a wonderful person.
I hereby send out gargantuan congratulations to Team Empire for making it all work, especially host Chris Hewitt for his dogged refusal to die at any point despite occasionally threatening to when I saw him behind the scenes, and massive thanks to James Warren and all at Romley Davies PR for giving me somewhere to blog and the odd pastry.
If you require any further waffle from me, which I find highly unlikely, I contributed to the Picturehouse Podcast yesterday, and everything I said is now both online and out of date.
