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Culture

Tristram Shandy – the movie

There’s a new film of Tristram Shandy which is showing at the London Film Festival. They’ve given it the title A Cock and Bull Story, from the last lines of the book:

‘L—d! said my mother, what is all this story about? –
A COCK and a BULL, said Yorick – and one of the best of its kind I ever heard’

All the comments you read about it make reference to the fact that it’s regarded as ‘unfilmable’. You can see what they mean, but I can’t help thinking that, of all the early novelists, Sterne is the one who would have just loved making films. The book is full of great dialogue and slightly extraordinary characters, slapstick, set pieces, and technical innovation. The man who wrote a novel that includes a marbled page and those little squiggly lines to indicate the shape of his narrative would have loved playing with all the possibilities of film.

Whether or not the new film does a good job of it is another matter. I’m slightly underwhelmed to see all the usual britcom suspects in the cast – Steve Coogan, David Walliams, Stephen Fry, Ronni Ancona, Rob Brydon – because it suggests a film being played for fairly broad comedy. And I’d almost always rather see an actor doing comedy than a comedian acting. Still, it could be fab.

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Culture Other

The feelgood movie of the year!

A heartwarming story of… well, just watch the trailer.
(via bookslut)

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Culture

something bunny

chortle

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Culture

War of the Worlds

I went to see War of the Worlds today.

I really enjoyed it. The plot is ludicrous (but blame H G Wells for that), and Spielberg can’t resist making the ending just a shade happier than necessary, but it was genuinely grim at times – there’s a real apocalyptic feel to it. An obvious comparison would be Independence Day, where the wiping out of a large chunk of the human race is played for laughs – let’s blow up the White House! And Sydney Opera House! WotW, although it’s essentially a summer blockbuster, treats the destruction with an underlying seriousness. In fact, it occurs to me now – once the alien attacks get going, I don’t think there’s a single joke or comic moment. Which is genuinely unusual.

Lots of people have pointed out that it’s a post 9-11 movie, and there are some direct references – Cruise comes in after the intial attack covered in white dust, and we see boards covered in photos and names of missing people. But it also feels like Spielberg has drawn on the experience of making Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. It often feels, in other words, like a war movie as much as a horror movie.

Having said that – it is a movie that sets out to scare you. Spielberg still knows how to ratchet up the tension and make you jump. One thing I noticed was that the kind of threat kept changing. He uses different scenarios (a chase, a race against time, a mob scene, hiding behind the furniture to avoid the monster) so that he’s trying to scare you in different ways, and the enemy never gets overfamiliarised. The decision to keep the focus very narrowly on Cruise and his family is a good one, too. It makes the atmosphere claustrophobic and you never feel the hero has any control of the situation.

A classy piece of work, and a reminder of just how talented Spielberg is.

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Culture

‘The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou’

I went to see The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou today. Which I enjoyed.

Shall We Dance? is a low-key Japanese film about a married salaryman accountant who sees an attractive woman in a dance studio from his commuter train and decides to take ballroom dancing lessons.

Hollywood has just remade it with Richard Gere playing the part as a successful lawyer and J-Lo as the dance teacher. I find it hard to believe that any of the atmosphere could survive that bit of casting. So why do they remake these movies in a way which is guaranteed to kill exactly what was appealing about the original?

I haven’t actually seen the remake – perhaps it’s better than one would expect. I can certainly recommend the original, though.