Mud - another good Matthew McConaughey film

The second film I watched on my flight to Chicago last month is the last one I'm going to write about from that trip.  Matthew McConaughey is an actor about whom I knew very little until a few years ago.  I don't think I can remember seeing him in anything at all before I saw Killer Joe last year, and looking through his IMDB resume I think the only film of note on the list is Contact (maybe Tropic Thunder too).  So it's hardly a surprise that he never appeared much on my film radar.  Anyway, something has changed now and in the course of a couple of years he has suddenly become and actor who stars in very interesting films - films like Mud.

Here Matthew McConaughey plays the eponymous Mud - a mysterious loner who appears on a deserted island in the middle of a swamp in rural Arkansas.  Two local boys discover Mud hiding out in a grounded boat beached on the island when exploring the swamp in their normal way.  They recognise Mud as potentially dangerous, but at the same time mysterious and intriguing.  When Mud offers to trade them a gun for their help in fixing up the beached boat help they quickly agree.  When he tells them about his girlfriend Juniper in the town, and how he is unable to go and get in contact with her, they naively agree to pass on messages to help him out - dreams of young love drowning out any warning signs of what they might be about to get involved in.

Mud is a very good film that tells a story about family, loyalty and betrayal in which the naivities of youth are tested against the desperate realities of the real world.  When the main young lad Ellis looks at Mud and Juniper he sees only star-crossed lovers rather than two people locked in a painful and possibly abusive relationship.  When Ellis falls in love with an older local girl he immediately declares her his girlfriend - causing her amusement and his rejection.  The main question the film asks though is which will win out, Mud's cynicism or Ellis' idealism.  When 'something bad' happens to Ellis, what will Mud risk to save the lad?

The film might be a little cheesy in its depiction of Reese Witherspoon's Juniper as the classic damsel in distress, but its heart is in the right place as it shows two impressionable young lads trying to think the best of the adults around them and asking if those adults will respond in kind.  Plus there's Matthew McConaughey's acting, which is really good.  He may have come to it late in his career, but it seems like he is intent on becoming a serious actor.  Good for him, and good for us.

Robin Hood Prince of Thieves - Back-filling my pop culture knowledge

As anyone who follows me on Facebook will know, I watched Robin Hood Prince of Thieves on Friday night last week.  I would say that the reasons for this are too long to go into here, but I'm not paying anyone for my column inches so I might as well tell you.  Until last Friday I had never seen this particular slice of early-90s pop fiction, and when I chanced upon a DVD of it on my shelf while I was hunting for something more substantial to watch last Friday I decided it was time to fill this particular hole in my pop culture knowledge.  I vaguely recalled a friend lending me the DVD ages ago along with her copy of The Sound of Music as part of a kind of cultural exchange.  I watched The Sound of Music right away, but Robin Hood had sat on the shelf untouched for years.

I know that reams of print have been written about the terribleness of Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, the mind-bending abuse of English geography (Apparently Nottingham is one day's walk from Dover, going via Northumbria) and fantastic pantomime performance by Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Nottingham.  There's not a lot I can add to any of that, save to say that I agree with everything everyone seems to think about the film.  It's a terrible film littered with bad acting, plot contrivances, derisory characterisation of woman as either damsels in distress or aged crones and ethnic minorities as scimitar-wielding wise men and - worst of all surely - under-uses Brian Blessed (though he does shout - once).  Every battle scene fails to tread the line between being perilous enough to make the action seem dramatic and comic enough to make the film passable by the censors for a audience of children; whenever the action is ramped up it looks out of place, whenever things are toned down they look cheesy.

To be honest though, I can hardly complain.  It's not like anyone ever recommended it - I knew exactly what I was getting myself into when I put the DVD in the PS3.  The film's one saving grace (everyone seems to agree on this) is the scenery-obliterating performance by Alan Rickman, who gurns his way through an endless string of ridiculously over-the-top lines while exuding the sweaty bug-eyed look of a demented serial killer.  It's a performance any pantomime bad guy would sell his soul for, and the one highlight of the entire experience.

So with this out of the way that's another pop culture classic off the list.  I guess the next target's going to be Titanic.  That's right folks - I've never seen Titanic.  And at 3 hours long I'm not sure I'll ever get around to bothering.  Let me know if I'm wrong!

Beasts of the Southern Wild - interesting but aimless

This film caught the attention of many (including myself) earlier this year when its young star Quvenzhané Wallis was nominated for the prize of best actress as the Oscars.  She was in the end well-beaten by Jennifer Lawrence, but the impressive fact is that Wallis was the youngest ever person to be nominated in that category.  The nomination is perhaps even more exceptional when you realise Wallis's background, that she was effectively pulled off the streets and lied about her age to play a character who was supposed to be much older.  It's a story that makes Beasts of the Southern Wild an interesting prospect.

The film is about a young girl (named Hushpuppy - played with ability far in advance of her age by Wallis) who lives on an island called Bathtub that sits off the southern coast of Louisiana.  Hushpuppy lives with her father, a man who suffers from violent outbursts which serve to harden Hushpuppy against the realities of the natural world around her.  The denizens of Bathtub see themselves as connected closely with the natural world, living as they do on both the social and physical outskirts of the modern USA they hardly connect with modern America at all.  When a great storm passes through Bathtub many people are killed and the others are forced to live on a series of rafts while the wait for the waters to recede.  All the while we are shown images of glaciers cracking and large beasts rumbling their way across the world - metaphors perhaps of nature's intention to clear humanity off the Earth like so many species before us?

After watching the film I stumbled across a number of heated debates going on in and around the IMDB discussion forums.  Whereas some people thought the film to be a tear-jerking look at innocence and the fragility of humanity, a vocal minority are expressing the view that the film is hopelessly racist, chock full of Victorian era stereotypes and references to the 'noble savage' trope.  Posters on IMDB seem to have missed that many of the inhabitants of Bathtub are in fact white, and that to equate Hushpuppy's apparent connection to the natural world with the 'noble savage' concept isn't really fair.  After all the people of Bathtub aren't really portrayed as an idealistic tribe a la Pocahontas, rather they are people who happen to live on the front line of a natural disaster.  If anything they hark back to traditional ideas of US expansionism of the colonial era, where self-sufficiency outside of government control was the holy grail for the intrepid souls trekking their way into the wild west.

I felt that the people who had made this film were trying to aim very high, but without really finding a target.  They start off with a lot of imagery that's all about humanity's connection to the natural world.  Hushpuppy's teacher tells her about evolution, how things are destined to change and how we need to adapt along with them or die.  It all seems like it's going to mean something.  Hushpuppy then goes in search of her mother and finds something which may or may not be what she was looking for.  Then when the beasts finally arrive at Bathtub (yep - it's not a metaphor, they're real apparently) nothing really happens.  Then it's over.  I wonder if the people on IMBD who are shouting racism are doing so before they're trying to find the meaning, but when they come up with a blank they're lashing out and accusing the film of being evil - rather than just a bit aimless.

Kick Ass 2 - filmed at TRL

Despite somewhat indifferent reviews in various parts of the press, me and a small group of my fellow TRL employees took a trip into Reading last week on Saturday afternoon to watch Kick Ass 2 at the Vue.  Aside from the interest we had in seeing the follow up to the surprisingly subversive Kick Ass, the film held special interest to us because a film crew spent time on the TRL test track last year filming something for the movie.  These things never get officially announced at TRL, but when fluorescent signs directing people to KA2 crop up around the site - people quickly start asking questions and spreading information on the grapevine.

For me, the thing that made Kick Ass such an exciting movie was the way that it shocked, the way that it took a bunch of conventions and shat on them while telling you all about the composition of the shit it had just produced.  It used Nicholas Cage's acting skills effectively (how often can anyone say that?) and gave the world a new future star in Chloe Grace Moretz - who's filth-laden taunting led the audience in the cinema I saw the film to literally gasp in shock that a 11 year old girl could say such things.  The big problem with making a sequel to such a film is that you can't really be shocking any more, since that's what everyone's expecting.

Kick Ass 2 picks up the story a few years after the first.  Mindy (aka Hit Girl) is trying to be a normal 16 year old girl, Dave (aka Kick Ass) is trying to convince her to be Hit Girl again by re-igniting the crime-fighting fires.  It's about as straight a story as a post-modern super-hero spoof can be.  Mindy doesn't want to be Hit Girl any more - or does she?  Her guardian certainly doesn't want her to take after her father, so she does her best to try to fit in with the other kids at school and leave her PVC-wearing crime-fighting days behind her.  But with Kick Ass back in action beating up with a bunch of other super hero wannabes, Hit Girl's probably going to have to come and save them.

People who say that swearing isn't clever clearly haven't seen The Thick of It.  Kick Ass 2 doesn't get as colourful as Armando Ianucci's classic, but they give a good go of it as Mindy mouths off appropriately at her high school.  Some of these scenes feel a little odd - mainly one in which Mindy and her new mates come over all dreamy-eyed watching a boy band video - but the dirty humour and poo gags are generally done better than most of the frat boy stuff that normally comes out of the Vince Vaughn / Seth Rogen.

When the scenes finally arrived in which TRL's test track is clearly visible, the 4th wall was totally broken for me as I spent the entire sequence looking at the background to see our track and trying to work out if Chloe Grace Moretz was ever at TRL or in fact they used a stunt double for the whole thing.  It looks like every shot where the background is visible you can only see the back of Hit Girl's head, while all the shots of Moretz's face are in close up or look suspiciously green-screened.  I guess that means that all the stuff at TRL was done by the 2nd unit, and that no big stars were ever here.  Not this time anyway.

Kick Ass 2 isn't as good as Kick Ass, mainly for the reason that shock-value only works once.  It's still a fun film though as long as you're happy to watch crudity, foul-mouthed banter and stylised ultra-violence.  The film may be called Kick Ass - but the real star is Hit Girl.  Given the amount of time that Chloe Grace Moretz spends not actually playing Hit Girl in the film, I think only a fool would bet against Hit Girl - the movie coming to a screen near you eventually.

The Bling Ring - materialism gone even madder

The second film I saw on the way to Chicago last month was The Bling Ring.  Based on a true story, it tells of a small group of Southern Californian teenagers who systematically broke into the houses and stole from a variety of well-known celebrity figures.  Far from any showing devious criminal intent, these teenagers appear to be stealing from their idols because they adore them - almost as if the celebrities who have been chosen to have their possessions stolen are being honoured.  The Bling Ring depicts this small band of teenagers (led by Rebecca - played by Katie Chang) as being obsessed with the cult of celebrity, shows their desire to bask in the shadow of the idols and emulate them in any way they can - including by owning what they own by any means possible.

The Bling Ring is a strangely interesting film to actually watch, given what it actually consists of.  The film goes into a lot of detail in depicting the upper middle class teenage gang breaking into the houses of the rich and the famous, and even more detail as we watch them try on their clothes and gape in awe at the riches before them.  Expensive watches, row after row of shoes, boxes of fine jewellery - all toys that we watch these young criminals gawk in awe at, try on and steal for themselves.  We then get to see the aftermath, as the young gang go around to each others' houses to wear the stolen clothes, brag about their antics on Facebook and go out to exclusive clubs to photograph themselves prancing about in their material gains.  All the while our ears are assaulted by a barrage of Southern Californian 'valley girl' drawl - the dialect of the English language that showed us how the phrase "I was like..." is a synonym for "I said..."

But the film isn't really about these people, it's about why these people are able to exist.  Given the focus that the film puts upon the lives of Rebecca and her growing band of followers, and their obsession with the material gains of celebrity culture, it's clear that The Bling Ring is trying to be an indictment of vacuous materialism.  Witness the way that the characters in the film see worth only in things, possessions, looks, fame and stardom.  Director / writer / producer Sofia Coppola is making a statement about a generation of young Americans who are risking getting lost in a brand of hollow celebrity culture that rewards nothing but fame for fame's sake and values nothing above consumerism.  These are people who see value only in being famous, and if you can get famous by stealing from the famous - what's wrong with that?  The film ends on an interview with co-criminal Nicki (Emma Watson) that sums things up nicely.  Why should she have any compunction about what she's done?  She has her 15 minutes of fame now - and that's all that matters!

Parental influence is a strong theme in the film, it shows how bad parenting can reflect terribly on a child and their upbringing.  Nicki's mother is depicted as subservient to her children, interested only in the reflected fame that Nicki's notoriety will bring her.  Most of all though the film is a warning about what can happen if a society allows a cult of consumerism and 'might is right' to become endemic at all levels.  The only difference between what is depicted here and the riots that happened in the summer of 2011 in Britain is the social class of the people taking part.  Both stem from the same problem, which is that society has sleep-walked to a place where we idolise material possessions and fame - with an understanding that if you can get away with it then no-one should ask why or how you have them.  That's a dangerous place for us to be.  The Bling Ring tackles that head-on, and as such I think it's a film well worth watching.