Batman - The Dark Knight Rises

I had a minor operation Tuesday afternoon, but despite the local anaesthetic wearing off and the pain slowly rising in my back, nothing was going to stop me seeing the final part of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy at the first possible opportunity. So in the evening I gritted my teeth against any discomfort and drove down to Winnersh Showcase for a half-full screening. The Dark Knight Rises is the final part of this series of films in which crime and crime-fighting are shown as two sides of a very dirty coin. The films have explored the legitimacy of fighting crime at all costs, as well as the morality of humanity left to its collective impulses. Crucially though, they have been directorial triumphs for Nolan - and helped him break into the Holywood A-list for film producer / directors.

Let's start with the cast. I'm going to provide a list and stop when I get to someone who who has not played a lead role in a major film: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Liam Neeson, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy. Now that's an A-list. I can only assume that there would have been a role for Heather Ledger too had he not died.  With a cast like this and a director of Nolan's capability, could there be any doubt that 'The Dark Knight Rises' would be a classic?

And now the plot. It's 8 years since the Joker's reign of madness was ended by Batman. The Batman has gone into hiding and Bruce Wayne is a recluse, but a new grandiose evil - Bane - is threatening Gotham's security and so Batman is set to return to protect the city once more. This time though, Batman is wanted by the city's police and only trusted by police commissioner Gordon. While this is happening, a master-thief - the Catwoman - is beginning to ruffle the feathers of the city's rich and famous. As Bane's plan to 'free' Gotham's citizens from its police and governors is revealed, Batman is in a race against time to free himself from captivity and help the city's beleaguered residents. Classic comic book stuff. Let's start the review off with a positive shall we, Anne Hathaway.

Anne Hathaway plays catwoman - and she is amazing. Not in a pervy way, though she does look fantastic in the variety of figure-hugging outfits they must have sewn her into, but in a she can act after all way. Who would have thought she could pull off an action role? Most her lines could easily have turned into cheesy mush a la Halle Berry - they never do. All the best scenes are when she's fighting against her instinctive reaction - to go it alone in a laissez faire style and screw the world; can she be convinced to make a stand against all the injustice she knows is happening? When called upon to pull off high kicks, one-liners and ninja moves, she's no Heath Ledger, but she's more than up to the task. Though the film is nominally about Batman and Kane, it is Hathaway and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robin Blake who provide the central character arcs for the film. Each of these characters starts out as a naive idealist - he is the green cop for whom no criminal is too well-connected, she is the impudent thief for whom no treasure is beyond taking - each ends up learning that both sides of the law / crime divide have their dark sides and cannot be given unquestioning trust. He starts out as lawful good, she chaotic neutral - by the end each are probably chaotic good. Bonus marks to people geeky enough to understand this reference.

A lot of news print in the last few weeks has been dedicated to discussing the politics of this film. Despite being a summer blockbuster it's a film that has a lot to say about politics, and seems to be espousing a subtle right wing agenda. Bane - the arch-villain - is a Robespierre figure, who on occasion espouses the kind of pseudo-communist nonsense I can only imaging US Republicans think Socialists like myself believe. The parallels with the French Revolution continue as Commisioner Gordon reads from 'Tale of Two Cities' at the end of the film and Cillian Murphy's character sit astride a court reminiscent of the kangaroo courts of the Reign of Terror. Nolan seems to be creating a not-so-subtle anti-revolutionary agenda here, where the French Revolution was a terrible mis-adventure in which the barbarous and unwashed masses cruelly rose and obliterated western civilisation for a brief period.

An example of the subtle centre-right propaganda comes from Catwoman's character development. She starts out as an antagonist, and tells Bruce Wayne that he shouldn't presume he and his friends can have so much wealth and expect everyone else to let them have it. Bad Catwoman talks like a Commie you see. After Bane's 'revolution', her housemate comments that a house previously owned by a family is "everyone's house now", a comment that visibly saddens Catwoman. The subtext being that now Catwoman is coming around to the side of good, she's understanding the need for property rights to be respected.  Read into this what you will. I can only recall one moment in which anyone points out that Bane's 'revolution' isn't really a revolution at all, more like it's a huge ransoming of human life in which millions of people are imprisoned to his will. For all the anti-left wing messages in the film it's hardly a balancing moment. The film exhibits at best an establishment view of the world; at worst it's not far off a sort of subliminal propaganda.

In addition, the film has a huge number of plot holes and contrivances. Characters are constantly conveniently turning up at various points to provide input, rescue someone or explain the plot. There's a major plot twist towards the end of the film that is absolutely unnecessary. Also, they do that classic movie thing when a scientist says that a disaster will happen in about 5 months, at which point someone sets a clock with a countdown timer to the time exactly 5 months hence. I'm still shaking my head over that one.

In the end though, all is forgivable. All the plot holes, continuity errors, macguffins and right wing sub-texts are forgivable because this is a tour de force of blockbuster film-making. Christopher Nolan is the master of outlandish directorial feats, so each time when the camera expanded out to a wide view or the music swelled in anticipation of something I pushed myself back into my seat and thought "c'mon Chris - gimmie something amazing". I was never disappointed. From the opening scene of a kidnapping on a plane, through to several moments of epic destruction as Bane enacts his plan to bring Gotham to its moral knees, there was just too much to be in awe of to worry about the occasional continuity error. This trilogy of Batman movies has been an outstanding achievement by this landmark director. He has forever re-defined what is possible with a comic book movie adaptation. Never again will people automatically assume that such films are Val Kilmer-esque cheese festivals full of dodgy one-liners and fluorescent costumes. Nolan has proved that comic book adaptations not only can be dark and full of hidden depths, but that they're better like this.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off - still relevant

So I had to do a double take the other week when by housemate Andy announced casually in conversation that he had never seen Ferris Bueller's Day Off. There might only be 5 years between the two of us, so it is really possible that this is enough of a generational gap to mean that he has never seen a film that was so pivotal to my generation's psyche in the late 1980s? Perhaps it's just one of those weird gaps for him, a film he missed but then got too old and it became redundant to watch it.

Thankfully a work colleague saved him the other day by lending him the DVD, and so for the first time in well over a decade I sat and watched Matthew Broderick ham it up to the camera as Ferris Bueller in all its 1980s materialistic bollocks glory. It's something I never realised in the past, but watching the film now it is so obvious how wedded to 80's consumerism the film is. Consider the main characters, Ferris and sister Jeanie live in an upper middle class paradise where he has a room full of technological wizardry, while she has a car and all the designer gear she wants. Ferris' best friend Cameron's Dad is so rich he has owns a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California (only a few hundred were made and they are very expensive apparently!). All of them decide they'd rather not go to school and so bunk off to Chicago where they have a great day out. Cameron is so cloistered that when they arrive in Chicago he assumes the slightly dark-skinned guy working in the car park can't speak English. Oh dear.

Of course the film exists in a complete fantasy world and as such is able to get away with a lot of this. It's a world in which it is a comic moment when a 15 year sics their Rottweiler on the school headmaster. It's a world in which Ferris - in one of cinema's great scenes - is able to lead thousands in a rendition of 'Twist and Shout' on top of a flotilla of caravans in downtown Chicago. It's the world of John Hughes of course, who is sort of an American version of Roald Dahl in that all his teenage characters are super-cool while their parents are half way to being idiots.

All this neatly comes together when the film has its own epiphany moment that ousts the draw of materialism for the empty chalice it truly is. When Cameron accidentally destroys his father's Ferrari - the film's ultimate statement of materialistic splendour - he realises that despite worrying all day long about the consequences of this happening, it's actually for the best. Cameron knows that the terrible consequences of this act will perversely allow him to connect to his father for the first time. Basically, money isn't everything and the material wealth of Ferris and his friends is irrelevant. The thing that's important is having a day out with your friends, going to an art gallery and stepping back and enjoying life while you can. As Ferris says - "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it".

Of course these things are easier to say and do when you've got tonnes of money, great friends, enough to eat, a massive house and a loving family around you - but like I said, this is the middle class fantasy land of John Hughes. It would be easy to write off 'Ferris Bueller' as a relic of a now-irrelevant age. After all, the film stars Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey - how much more 1980s do you want? But in our continuing age of materialism-beats-all the film is a startlingly relevant reminder that stuff isn't important, people and relationships are.

Public Enemies - Depp is Dillinger

This is a film that came out a few years ago and has been on my LoveFilm list for almost as long. I would have got it earlier but for the vagaries of copyright law meaning that LoveFilm weren't allowed to make the film available for rent until very recently.  You could buy it from them, but no renting. I am not entirely sure why this changed recently, perhaps a new agreement between the companies, or perhaps the distribution company realising that their real competition is now from services such as Netflix and so allowing 'traditional' DVD rental more freedom.

Which reminds me, Netflix is rubbish. It has an unbelievably poor selection of sub-par films and although it does have quite a lot of TV series available it doesn't live up to its promise. It seems that we are still a little bit away from completely 'on demand' TV and film over the internet.

Whatever the reason for Lovefilm's delay, it was Sunday evening during a self-imposed break from Mass Effect 3 that I cracked the DVD out and watched 'Public Enemies'. The film is a biography of the later portion of the life of notorious US fugitive and bank robber John Dillinger. Dillinger - as you can read for yourself on Wikipedia - was a serial bank robber and prison escapee who became something of a celebrity in a troubled USA during the great depression. The film portrays him as a relentless in his pursuit of his goals (money and his girlfriend Billie - played by by Marion Cotillard), but at the same time a man of the people. The film shows him as a man who would never steal from the poor, would never kill and is loyal to his friends.

Johnny Depp plays Dillinger. Depp is a fantastic actor who proves himself every time he gets to play a proper role in a film. Yes he's great at playing Edward Scissorhands-like characters for the nth time, but proper acting surely has to be the way forwards for him as he gets older. He can't keep on playing the fool for the rest of his career. Christian Bale plays the hard-nosed FBI agent on the case to catch Dillinger. It's a role that doesn't require a lot from Bale, and he looks like he's operating on autopilot as he gives stern glares delivering his tough-guy talk.

It's quite a good film, one in which I learnt a little about the history and culture of the USA in the early 20th century. It has several vicious gun battles and when people get hit by gunfire it isn't pretty. All good points in my opinion. One question I have is this: is the film trying to make a political point about the role of an uncontrolled banking sector? Even though the central character spends his time stealing from banks - he isn't portrayed as the bad guy. Is the film saying that it's ok to be a criminal as long as you go after the rich in society? If so then it's a very relevant film in the modern age. The banking crisis of the last 5 years closely mirrors the one that went on during the great depression of the 1930s. After all the banks have stolen from us, why should the ordinary citizen worry if a bunch of criminals try to rip them off? Would we in current times line up to cheer on a modern day John Dillinger? Perhaps not, unless it was actually Johnny Depp doing it of course.

The Iron Lady

Just what is the point of this film? After watching it last week my housemates and I weren't quite sure what to make of a film that seems to want to make a political point, but shies so far away from it as to end up saying nothing at all.

Before I get any further with this though, it's important that I declare my political interests. I could give you a detailed resume of what I think about a whole series of issues, but it's easy if I just say I'm pretty much a Communist and be done with it. Just as long as you understand that I hail from the libertarian left of Chomsky rather than the authoritarian left of - from what I can tell these days - Nick Griffin. For example, I think private property should be entirely abolished. I really do, that isn't just a Bolshie statement designed to get a rise out of people.

Anyway - with this established you probably can guess that Margaret Thatcher is quite far down on my list of favourite politicians. For me she was the driving force behind an economic doctrine that has ruined Britain's social fabric and continues to wreck people's lives in the modern day. However I also believe that in her own terms she was one of the most successful Prime Ministers Britain has ever had. For these reasons and more, a film about Margaret Thatcher should be very interesting. Sadly, despite being a film about Britain's most dominant political force of the late 20th century, it's a huge let-down. The film makes a half-hearted attempt to present Thatcher as just a woman battling against the male-dominated hegemony of British politics, while glossing over most of the important political decisions she made.

Margaret Thatcher remains one of the most polarising figures in modern British politics, which is why if you're going to make a film about her is seems inconceivable that you would re-cast her role in politics as simply a battering ram against the old boys club of the Conservative Party. If you agree with her politics then give me a film that tells me why; if you think she's the devil then give me a film that tells me that instead. Of course the end of her political career at the hands of her peers is an intriguing tale of a very British coup; but even the film's treatment of that doesn't really give it the gravitas that the nation felt at the time. For over a decade Thatcher had totally dominated British politics - and overnight she was gone. 'The Iron Lady' seems unable to convey any of this - what is the point of making a non-political film about Margaret Thatcher?

The one reason to watch this film is Meryl Streep. She puts in a stunning performance and has Thatcher's appearance, voice and facial expressions nailed down. Absolutely deserving of the Oscar she received last year, just a shame that the makers of the film were unable to provide her with a screenplay capable of conveying about Thatcher than the fact she wore a lot of hair spray and is now old.

50-50 - Seth Rogen in good film shock

Any film that is advertised with the phrase "starring Seth Rogen" immediately puts my guard up. This is a man who has managed to carve himself out a flourishing career as what I can only describe as a sort of real life Peter Griffin - the lovable douchebag friend of a friend who says the wrong things at the wrong times and is effortlessly funny and irritating in equal measures. Looking over Rogan's filmography you can hopefully agree that I'm right to be wary. He has been in an extraordinary long list of epicly shit films, with the occasional classic. He played the voice of the alien in "Paul", and was fantastically cast in that well-written role. Perhaps Rogen's problem lies in the fact that he's so easily cast as the lovable stoner, that once on set a director doesn't feel the need to direct him to do anything different to his usual routine. Rogen is a funny guy, so with a decent script and a bit of control he should be a great comedy actor.

"50-50" is a film that lends plenty of evidence towards this theory. It's a film in which Rogen is used sparingly, and as such is hilarious at every turn. Rogen stars alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who plays Adam, a man who is diagnosed with cancer and given a 50-50 chance to live. Rogen is Kyle, his best friend and confidant who's light-hearted banter contrast against society's expectations of who we should behave around someone with cancer. As Adam struggles to work out the best way to break the news to his mother, Kyle is busy convincing Adam that his cancer is a massive chick-magnet. Tacky though this may sound initially, I found the film to be a touching look at dealing with tragedy. No-one is ever prepared for the day that someone they know and love dies, or is given a 50-50 death sentence, so why should we be surprised that people often deal with it in shockingly different ways. Adam reacts by becoming insular, rejecting his mother's attention and the help of his psychologist, instead finding Kyle's light-heartedness comforting. Eventually though, he turns on Kyle too, accusing him of not taking his condition seriously.

"50-50" contains a fantastic performance from Anna Kendrick as Adam's psychologist. She has only just qualified in her role and Adam is one of her first patients. She spends half her time trying to connect emotionally to Adam, and the other half of her time worrying that she isn't being detached enough to be professional. It's a character that could easily have become a tedious romantic side interest, but Kendrick is extremely good at playing up the helpless confusion her character feels, the same confusion that we all feel when called upon to deal with death.

I'm not going to lie, 50-50 is a tear-jerker. I can imagine that it'll be an emotional shuttle mission for anyone who has lived with cancer or had a friend / relative who has done the same. Not only is it a tear-jerker though, it is a film that treats its subject carefully and realistically - something that I think is extremely hard to do.

The next paragraph is going to contain gigantic spoilers for the ending of the film, but it's an important point that I want to address. So if you really don't want to know what happens at the end, stop reading the review here...


SPOILERS BELOW!





50-50 has a Happy Ending. In the end Adam has his surgery and is told that with time he will make a full recovery from his cancer - a Happy Ending. Happy endings are an interesting beast that can create all sorts of responses from people watching. Sometimes people are happy to laugh and cheer, at other times people see nothing more than a sleazy corporate decision to leave the door open to a sequel. For me, a happy ending has to be earned, or has to make sense in the context of the story being told. A happy ending that's bolted on to the end of a story because the writers are either a) leaving the door open for part 2 or b) frightened to follow through on the story they created is something that's sad and open to derision.

For me, earning a happy ending is primarily about doing something interesting with your storyline. The characters in your story should have some sort of arc, go on a journey that starts in one place, goes up and down and ends up somewhere new. The journey can be an emotional one or a journey of discovery, in which something is learnt or a pain is endured. One of the best earned happy endings I've seen in recent times was the Christmas specials that followed the end of the second series of The Office. As I'm sure you'll know, The Office followed the tribulations of the hopelessly self-promoting David Brent as he bumbled his way through his role as a middle manager in a paper merchants in Slough. Brent is a legendary comic creation who is smug, selfish, intolerant and bigoted - but all he really wanted to do was make people laugh, he just happened to be really bad at it. However in the the Christmas specials of 2004 the series ended with a simple yet powerful series of happy twists, the best being the final scene in which David Brent told a shit gag - and everyone laughs. By putting Brent's character under a critical microscope for 2 series, he was been subjected to so much pain and scrutiny that he finally deserved a happy ending. To give him anything else would almost be ungrateful.

The same is true of Chanel 4's stand-out sitcom from 1999 - Spaced. The happy ending is earned by the characters in it slugging through an emotional mire, but digging themselves out with grit and determination.

Thus "50-50" earns its happy ending by wringing Adam's emotions out to dry, by treating its subject matter with the due care and attention it is able to reward its audience for allowing themselves to go through the emotional grinder in the name of entertainment. I don't think "50-50" would have necessarily been either a worse or a better film had Adam died at the end, but his survival cannot be called out as a mawkish appeal to base sentimentality - rather it is earned and deserved.