Well good evening. May I interest you in a short journey through the 'B' section of my film collection?
It's not the best film collection ever. Indeed, there are many notable omissions. And many films that I actively dislike, but for some reason can't bring myself to part with. But I think maybe the real treasure is probably the friends we made along the way. Or something.
If anyone asks, we'll say that.
So here we are, in the 'B' section. Is it any good? Let's find out.
Babel
I have seen this film exactly once, and I'm in no massive hurry to see it again. The picture I've chosen represents exactly my memory of it - sad people sitting around being still and sad.
I think I own it because I really liked Amores Perros and 21 Grams - previous films by director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. What an amazing name. Try saying it out loud. It's loads of fun, isn't it? Now imagine being able to walk into rooms and announce yourself with that name.
"Behold! It is I. Alejandro! Gonzzzzzzalez! In! A! Rrrrrit! U! Now - give me your wine, your women and a selection of cold meats."
Anyway, this film is nowhere as fun as that would be. It is all about people being quietly depressed. I think their child dies in a pool or something. And no-one speaks their language, so they can't even shout "Oh no! I am so sad!" without people shrugging and offering them directions to the beach.
Baby Driver
This is more like it. People zooming about in cars, and doing exciting shooting with guns. And Edgar Wright, who won me over with the first episode of 'Spaced', playing all sorts of masterful tricks with his camera and editing.
This is a pretty excellent experience, at least upon first watch. I was blown away at the cinema by all it's cleverness and it's excellent soundtrackness and fast driveyness. It was not quite as exciting second time for some reason. Not sure why. It's well acted and the plot is pretty solid. It devolves into silliness at the end, but I'm generally in favour of that, if it's done with confidence. It's certainly better that Scott Pilgrim - another Wright film that leans heavy on the style, but is way too pleased with itself.
I don't know, Baby Driver. I don't know why I don't love you as much as I should. If it helps, I bought your soundtrack. Please don't cry.
Back to the Future
The Back to the Future films are perfect. Everyone knows it. There might, I suppose, be some people who pretend otherwise - professional contrarians who like to sigh heavily when presented with brilliant things as if a moment of happiness would get them instantly kicked out of cool guys club.
Disliking stuff doesn't make you cool, professional contrarians! It makes you massive pillocks. There is nothing wrong with sharing in the joy of mutual appreciation for a work of great beauty and it diminishes you not one jot to admitting that you enjoy seeing a man get poo on his head.
Yes! Poo on head is but one of the manifold wonders on display in this joyous trilogy of movies. There is so much casual wit and brilliance going on, we'd be here all day if we tried to talk about it all.
Suffice to say, the first movie is a clockwork-perfect assemblage of delightful characters doing exciting things in the most satisfying of ways. The second film - though less substantial - plays exciting games with narrative and dances lightly around huge concepts. My happiest memory of the third film is of sitting back one Christmas Day Afternoon, full of dinner and trifle and wine, and Oh My God Back To The Future Three Is Just Starting! Cowboys and time travelling trains and even more poo on head! Bliss.
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
I can't remember anything about this film, really. I know I've seen it, because I have a vague, dark feeling in my mind when I think of it, like a memory trying to strangle itself.
I don't think it was a bad film. In fact, I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it, in that way that you enjoy Nicolas Cage films. Which is to say, nervously and with a sense of giddy dread. But if there's a plot, it has not lodged in my mind, and my fingers have never paused over this DVD and considered a repeat viewing.
I will. I'll do it.
When I'm in the mood.
Bad Taste
Oh good grief, yes! Come on!
This is an astonishing piece of work. One of those films that is an absolute delight to show to someone who has never seen it. Because then you get to watch them gape in disbelief all the way through. Especially if you've told them it's by the guy who made Lord of the Rings.
I first came across this film during the late 80s when my brother and I were on a mission to watch every horror film known to man. Even then, to teenage minds steeped in blood and monsters and exploding heads, even then this was absolutely off the charts.
An ultra low budget tale of alien invasion, as if told by an excitable but intelligent 13 year old. Erupting, sometimes literally, with innovative ways to shock your eyes. Sheep explode, zombie aliens eat the brains of other zombie aliens... at one point a guy has to eat some blue sick. Peter Jackson has an expert's command of the language of cinema, but a total disregard for the rules of its acceptable use.
This is amazing, and silly, and horrifying and nuts. And thus I have loved it for a very long time.
Barbarella
I think I like the idea of Barbarella more than I like the actual film. She's super sexy, obviously, and there's a level of visual and narrative invention akin to that other great sci-fi kink-fest, Flash Gordon. But in all honesty, the concept of the film, and the memories of the good bits, are far better than the reality of watching the thing.
It's a bit of a rag tag collection of wilfully gonzo set pieces, that don't have quite the conviction they need to entertain. I want to love it. It feels like the sort of film that should define me in many ways. And don't think I haven't kept glancing up at the lovely picture of the space lady all the way through writing this.
But... there's something lacking. Maybe I'll watch it again and get it. That sometimes happens. And watching it again will surely be no hardship.
Batman - The Movie
When we were little, my brother and I, we would spend quite a bit of time at the house of our Aunt May. Yes, very much like Spiderman. Except the closest we got to superhero action was when she let us watch repeats of the 60s Batman TV show. Which, being sensible young men, we absolutely loved.
I have no real sense of seeing the movie as a separate entity, but it's a sure bet it found its way into the mix. I only watched it with a real sense of "Oh, here is that specific film" a few years ago, when teaching an evening class on film and critical theory.
I thought it would be fun to compare the characterisation of the Joker to the Nicholson and Ledger versions. Turns out, there's not a great deal to say about this one. Where Nicholson exemplifies late 80s excess and Ledger digs deep into the heart of a fractured, post 9/11 sense of dislocation... this guy is just kind of a prick.
Plus, right, he didn't even shave off his moustache! He just painted white stuff over it. What's that about? You'd never get into a Justice League movie with a moustache these days.
Anyway. This film is surrounded by so many ironic, postmodern takes that it's hard to get a hold on it, for me. Suffice to say, I really like Adam West's voice. It's one of my favourites, up there with Patrick Stewart and Jenny Agutter.
Batman Begins
A startling and exciting film which made a massive difference to superhero movies. But then it's sequel was better by several orders of magnitude, so it always seems a bit small as a result. A shame, as this is quite a piece of work.
I was certainly very excited when I first saw it. I went in expecting the usual parents/alleyway/gunshot/pearls stuff. And then... whoosh! We're going up a mountain in the snow and he's got a beard and fighting monks! I was not expecting these things, and it delighted me.
Watching it now, when Marvel has demonstrated just how much fun you can have with super-hero movies, it does seem a little earnest. And Nolan is far too keen to make this grown up and serious. "No, these bat ear things are very necessary because of science! And this is military armour! And this cape is actually the sort of thing everyone should be wearing, if we were sensible..."
Sadly, this attitude persists in the more recent DC films, and it is an unfortunate legacy. Nolan made this look easy. Everyone else trying to make superheroes real has instead made themselves look like idiots.
Battle of the Sexes
Watched this on holiday. Can't remember much about it. Good actors, who I like a lot in other things. And are quite fine here, to be honest. But it didn't seem to have a very strong idea of what it wanted to be, outside of "a film that will make an excellent trailer."
True stories very rarely make for good film narratives, in my opinion. Which explains why no-one has optioned the story of that time I met Midge Ure outside Bradford St. George's Hall.
Battleship Potemkin
This is one of those films that I only own because I used to teach film editing. And when you read books about 'How to Teach Editing', because you don't actually know that much about it and there's only so long you can bluff your way through, those books always say "Oh, the editing in Battleship Potemkin! That's good! Do that!"
And then, if you're like me, you think, "Ah! Battleship Potemkin! I know that! It's got the thing with the pram on the steps that they reference in The Untouchables! Where Kevin Costner and his men are in the train station and they are waiting for gangsters! And there's a lady with a pram, pulling it up the stairs. And Kevin Costner looks all nervous, and then the bad guy sees him, and - WHOOSH- Kevin Costner swishes his coat aside and - WHOAH! - he's got a shotgun! And he shoots the guy and the pram starts falling down the stairs and Kevin Costner goes to grab it but - OH NO! - all the other gangsters start shooting at him! And then ANDY GARCIA comes running in and he does a slide and he CATCHES THE PRAM and shoots the bad guy in the head! Bam! Shoot! Yeah!"
What happens in Battleship Potemkin? No idea. Something about Russians?
A Beautiful Mind
Only seen this once. I was bought this by the girl I was going out with at the time and we watched it together. I was unhappy because I think I knew I'd made a mistake going out with her because she was quite, quite stifling. As a result, I have very negative feelings about it, not helped by the fact that it seems quite 'Oscar'y, and I often don't enjoy that.
I should probably watch it again. I remember a good bit with him drawing on windows. And apparently Vision from The Avengers is in it, but I can't remember that at all.
Beetlejuice
People love this film, don't they? I honestly don't know why. It's visually fun, I suppose. And it's good for playing "Spot the things Tim Burton has done to get himself mentioned in articles about the recurring motifs of Tim Burton."
But it all feels a bit underpowered, to me. I love Michael Keaton, but he's very much an actor who has become more interesting as he's got older. This wacky zany shit does nothing for me.
I didn't really see this 'at the time', which may be part of it. So to some extent I taint it with my ever diminishing love for Tim Burton. Who used to be good, until about Planet of the Apes, and then became just tedious.
Before Sunrise & Before Sunset
These films are great because they are:
a) about recognisable and interesting facets of the human experience
b) visually relaxing
c) romantic
d) quite short, in terms of running time
I recommend them on this basis.
Being John Malkovich
There was a period in 1999, 2000 when suddenly everyone started making amazing and interesting films. It was glorious and intoxicating.
I was at a very enjoyable, chaotic point in my life too, with all sorts of possibilities swirling around me and no definite sense of quite who I was. Being John Malkovich - a crazy mobius strip narrative about identity and obsession - was very much made for those times.
This quirkiest of high concepts - man finds portal into the mind of John Malkovich - is set in the murkiest and most mundane of worlds. I don't always want to revisit it; like reading my diaries of that time, it brings about a strange mixture of excitement and horror at the place I inhabited.
But it's quite something.
Being There
I can't remember much about this. Peter Sellers plays a kind of vacant, childlike guy, who goes into the world and does remarkably well regardless. Like Todd from Bojack Horseman, or whichever politician you hate most at the moment.
I can't remember how they sustain this seemingly dull premise for a couple of hours. I seem to recall having fond thoughts of it. I guess Peter Sellers is very engaging.
Be Kind, Rewind
An excellent premise - two guys remake films on no budget - is quite entertaining for a bit, but doesn't quite go the distance. This felt like the tail end of the excitement started by the Being John Malkovich wave. Good premise, but not really enough content to sustain an actual, y'know, film.
Or so I recall. It's been a while. But every time I consider watching it, my brain says, "Don't."
What's with you brain? Don't you like art?
Brain?
Don't say no, brain. People are watching.
Anyway. That's enough for now. See you next time for... more ramblings about films beginning with B.
Previously: (Armageddon - Awakenings)
Next: (The Beyond - The Blues Brothers)
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