November 2014 Blindspot Challenge: Notes on a Scandal

This was an interesting case, as I went into this movie with almost no idea of what to expect beyond a vague idea of the basic premise. I'd never even heard of this film until last December after I had just finished one of my exams. A few cinema studies students got together and organized a film trivia night and invited the rest of us to attend. It was pretty straight forward, and frankly the limited range of questions was a tad bit disappointing. Among the various prizes they had a selection of DVD's, and certain participants of the event were called up to the table and allowed to pick out two to take with them. 

By the time I was finally called up, most of the DVD's had been taken. The first one I ended up taking was Never Let Me Go (a very emotional science fiction film), the second was a bit harder to choose. I was faced with either Bend it Like Beckham or Notes on a Scandal. I chose Notes on a Scandal, despite having no idea what it was about. It ended up in my drawer for some time, even long after I finally saw Never Let Me Go. Naturally when I decided to assemble my own list for Ryan McNeil's Blindspot Challenge it seemed like perfect material and it turned out to be a pretty tense movie.

Barbara Covette (Judi Dench) is an elderly and very cynical schoolteacher who leads a lonely life. Meanwhile Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett) is a young and beautiful art teacher who is married to an older man and struggles to cope with the strain of her children. Hart gets in over her head when she gets roped into an affair with student Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson) which she has trouble breaking up. Barbara seizes an opportunity when she secretly catches them in the act. Barbara proceeds to begin essentially blackmailing Hart to do whatever she wants, systematically attempting to destroy her life. The persistent conflict between these two drives most of the film.

Judi Dench is despicable in her performance, but manages to convey her character in such a way that you are simultaneously intimidated and curious about her enigmatic nature. It is also an interesting decision on the part of the filmmakers to have much of the film be shown from her perspective. The fact that we actually hear her inner thoughts as she coldly writes down her feelings about the situation at hand in her diary makes her all the more frightening as an antagonist. From the moment we first meet her it's clear she's not a pleasant individual, but she's also believable.

Meanwhile, by contrast, Cate Blanchett makes the perfect foil as the likable if eccentric art teacher. She makes her anxieties about her family clear but at the same time you can tell she cares about them. Her son Ben (Max Lewis) has Down's Syndrome and she obviously has trouble accommodating it but also goes out of her way to try and do her best for him. Even with her affair she constantly makes it clear that she is ashamed of it, something helped by the fact that the student in question is a twisted, perverted human being who has her in his grip just as firmly as Barbara.

The supporting cast is also very good. Bill Nighy also appears as Hart's husband, in which he is also quite likable. The relationship between the two of them feels very real and you can easily find yourself wanting to see the two of them make things work. Their kids also seem like real kids, and it is not hard to see where Hart's mix of emotions comes from, and of course Andrew Simpson is appropriately easy to despise as the perverted teenager who sets everything in motion. At the core, however, the story is really about the interactions between Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, and those are arguably the best parts.

It's kinda sad that I hadn't found out about this movie sooner, and even if I had seen previews for it back in 2006 I probably would have dismissed it as being dull and boring or not something that would have interested me. It really is a very good movie with possibly one of Judi Dench's best performances. It's a tense little thriller with some very compelling characters who play of of each other brilliantly and a conflict that will keep you going with no idea of where you'll end up. It is definitely worth it's 92 minute running time and I would suggest giving it a watch.

Halloween Horror: The Descent

Claustrophobia can be a very effective tool for creating good horror. Ridley Scott's Alien and John Carpenter's The Thing both made great use of a confined environment, but if you thought being trapped in a tiny Antarctic outpost while your partners were being gradually assimilated by an alien life form was bad, that's going to seem a picnic compared to what you'll be in for with The Descent. Right here is a movie that takes claustrophobia to its logical horrifying extreme, and uses it to full effect.

Speaking of The Thing, part of what made that movie interesting was the choice to use an all-male cast, subverting a few horror clichés by taking them out entirely. It is not too hard to find movies that have an all-male cast. A lot of my all-time favorite movies have exactly that, but what about the other logical extreme? Finding movies with an all-female cast is something of a rarity, and even more rare is finding an all-female cast in a genre that isn't stereotypically feminine to begin with (i.e. melodrama). The Descent is one of those rarities. It has a grand total of one male character of significance who doesn't make it through the first ten minutes.

Sarah (Shauna MacDonald) is something of an adventurer. She and her friends like to embark on all kinds of exciting thrill-seeking experiences. It all goes great until a tragic accident happens ironically after one such adventure has ended. While driving to her hotel, there is an accident on the road. Sarah's husband and daughter are both killed, and she herself is severely traumatized.

A year later, Sarah's friends get back together, along with a reckless skydiver named Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), and try to distract her by inviting her on a cave-diving expedition. Everything goes fine at first until it turns out that her friend Juno (Natalie Mendoza) had slightly more complicated plans than a simple cave exploration trip. They eventually find themselves trapped, claustrophobia sets in, the girls become panicked and tension mounts between them as they search for a way out.. and that's not even getting into what starts happening about halfway in.

This is a film that will leave you uncomfortable even before anything actually terrifying happens. If you have ever been in a cave, you will probably know how claustrophobic and environment it can be. We get a number of scenes involving the characters moving through spaces that are just large enough for them to crawl through, but also long enough that one can't help but fear what might happen if it gets to narrow.

There is also the anxiety that comes from not knowing for sure the way out, and the disorientation that comes from the fact that much of the movie happens in the dark. For most of the film, it becomes hard to see what is going on. Everything that can be seen is shown through whatever light the women are able to produce and occasionally the infrared setting on their video camera. This in turn helps to create the feeling of being trapped in a cave, with limited resources.

As far as character development goes, this movie is not the strongest, though that is not to say it is handled poorly. You do get connected to the characters and subsequently want to see them get out in one piece, but it is easy to lose track of who is who, especially once they enter the caves. However, this does help to add a layer to the disorienting atmosphere. Once they are in the caves and the lighting is limited to whatever the main characters can produce, it becomes harder to tell who is where, who is in front and who is behind. In that sense, the fact that it becomes hard to tell people apart actually works to the film's advantage.

Modern horror films have a tendency to fall into various traps. Often times they will have some really good idea that ends up being turned into a generic slasher film, or it will be an idea that was just silly to begin with. It is rare to see a well-executed horror film, but The Descent is definitely one of those exceptions. It is a compelling but never comforting piece that will make any claustrophobic cringe in their seat.

British Invaders Blogathon: The Lion in Winter

So this one is kind of a funny story. You see, I first saw part of The Lion in Winter years ago when I was too young to fully appreciate sophisticated movies (I think this was back when I as still a ginormous Star Wars nerd, I'm not proud of those days). I remember seeing maybe the first twenty minutes or so, and being disappointed to find out that despite the Midieval Setting it wasn't full of epic swordfights and exciting action but rather a story of political intrigue with a lot of talking. 

Being the way I was then, I ended up leaving as soon as I realized that there wasn't going to be much action. The film began with a sword fight, a jousting tournament, and an epic battle scene, but it ended up being more about a small group of characters in one castle and their interactions. Now, years later, in light of Terrence Towles Canote's British Invaders Blogathon, I have been inspired to dig out that same copy of the film and give it another chance. Was it worth it? I think it was.

It is 1183, and Christmas is approaching. The aging King Henry II (Peter O'Toole) is trying to decide who will take his place when he dies. He organizes a family reunion to which he invites his three sons Richard (Anthony Hopkins), Geoffrey (John Castle), and John (Nigel Terry). Also invited is Henry's wife Eleanor (Katharine Hepburn) who has been imprisoned and is only released for the holidays, his mistress Alais (Jane Merrow), and her brother Philip II (Timothy Dalton) who also happens to be the King of France. 

Unfortunately, neither Henry nor Eleanor can agree on who should take over, and before long tensions begin to rise. Soon the three sons are forming alliances with and double-crossing each other in the hopes of taking the throne. Philip finds opportunities to take advantage of the mounting conflict. Eleanor and Henry end up in a complicated relationship that constantly veers between rekindling their old love and plotting against each other, while Alais is caught in the middle of it all.

Now, I'll confess, it is a very complicated story, and I suspect that you may have to watch the film multiple times to fully understand everything. You really do have to be on your toes or else you may lose track over who is scheming against who, but it is really a very well-executed piece. The characters play nicely off of each other, each one has a distinctive personality, and there's plenty of great scenery and amazing sets for the castle where much of the narrative is set.

Peter O'Toole is incredibly convincing playing the aging Henry II, which is a pretty remarkable feat given he was only 36 at the time, and this was just a few years after his breakout role in Lawrence of Arabia. Katharine Hepburn is equally strong as his scheming wife, balancing those romantic and sinister qualities so that you're never sure whether to love her or fear her. Same goes for each of the sons (I honestly had no idea until the credits rolled that was a young Anthony Hopkins as Richard). Really, it's just great acting all around.

I'm glad I decided to give this film another go. Considering the complexities maybe it's for the better I left early on the first time round, since I probably wouldn't have understood it. However, there is a strange charm to the whole thing, even if it's not easy to follow. If you'd like a clever Medieval narrative drawing less from fantasy and more from history with less focus on sword fights and more emphasis on character, this is for you.

Craig's Bond is Okay!

In my controversial article Why Do People Like James Bond? I raised the question of what sane person could sit down in front of one of Connery's Bond films; endure the obvious sexism and still come out thinking that Bond's the best guy ever. I did, however, know that the more modern Bond films were getting better about those issues. After reading a review of Casino Royale from Cinema Monolith I got to thinking about giving Daniel Craig's Bond a chance.

I managed to find a used copy of Casino Royale for $5.00 and purchased it. I was told this one got better about the issues of misogyny that had so repulsed me from Sean Connery's era. I was nervous but I gave it a shot and it was actually not too bad a film. I'll confess seeing as I've never actually gambled in a casino before I didn't always understand the poker phrases that were used by the characters but they did manage to get some good tension out of those scenes.

I had seen the 1967 spoof version. For those of you who haven't seen that one, it involved David Niven as the "real" James Bond who has to catch the people responsible for an "assassination" (and by that I mean the guy's hat was shot off but he was otherwise unharmed) which somehow led to twenty different people taking on the name of James Bond. The film opened with a group of men casually driving past lions in the English countryside and built up to a mind-boggling climax in which a whole bunch of random characters got into a brawl in the casino but everyone dies because Woody Allen is tricked into taking a nuclear explosion pill. Seriously.

That version was a disaster. Six different directors ended up working on different segments of the movie and none of them really tied together. The whole thing ended up being just one great big jumbled mess with absolutely no coherence whatsoever. It was a waste of time and not one I'd recommend at all unless you enjoy your movies making no sense, and I don't mean that in a good way like with the films of Lynch or Cronenberg.

Fortunately, I was assured that Craig's version made a lot more sense, and it certainly did. I'm not sure there was really any resemblance to the 1967 version. The 2006 version of Casino Royale actually has a plot that could be followed. Admittedly it is a very complicated plot that had a lot of stuff going on but it's certainly better than its predecessor.

Now I'd also been assured that the Craig films get better about one big issue that had kept me from the Connery films, and that was the way women were treated. In Connery's era, women were basically just things Bond could have sex with. Sometimes he'd go through five or six different love interests in one movie, confessing his love for each only to blow them off as soon as they got killed. In Casino Royale, there is some of that womanizer aspect of Bond's character, but it's certainly downplayed.

If anything, while that aspect of Bond is still present, it's now treated as a flaw in his character. Connery's films often glorified the fact that Bond likes to have sex with women and can't get within ten feet of any female character without thinking about it. That's not even getting into the fact that Goldfinger, one of the most respected films of Connery's era, had a glorified rape scene.

Here, in addition to the fact that M has been a woman since the Brosnan films, the love interest Vesper Lynd is still glamorous but actually has a personality of her own. Bond has to earn her respect (and not by sexually assaulting her and curing her of being homosexual). In her very first scene, she and Bond use Sherlock Holmes-style deductive reasoning to find out about each other. One thing Vesper notes in that scene is Bond's tendency to treat women as sex objects rather than actual people.

However, whereas Connery's Bond would have embraced that notion, Craig's Bond does find himself questioning that outlook and coming to respect her more. There is one memorable scene where he finds Vesper alone in the shower following a rather violent confrontation in which two people were killed. Instead of continuing to hit on her Bond actually can see that she's freaked out by seeing that kind of violence for the first time and takes the time to try and offer some comfort. Later on he even ends up wanting to leave the British Secret Service to be with her, something Connery never would have done, and goes out of his way to try and save her even when it seems hopeless.

Another enjoyable aspect of the film was the way that Casino Royale occasionally poked fun at or subverted some of the "classical" Bond conventions. The fact that they acknowledge the absurdity of how women were treated in Connery's films is one thing, but really they do all kinds of fun little twists and turns.

One particularly amusing twist is on Bond's favorite drink. Traditionally, Bond would always ask for "Martini, shaken not stirred" but here when setting up that famous line, he asks for an insanely convoluted concoction. Later on we do see him getting tricked into drinking a poisoned Martini and ordering one at the Casino Royale. Of course that time he's in a hurry so when the bartender asks if he wants it "shaken not stirred" Bond just replies with "Do I look like I care?"

Now, I want to make it clear that this only applies to the Craig and Brosnan-era Bond films. I still stand by everything I said before with regards to Sean Connery. Craig's, however, aren't too bad. They've certainly gotten better about the issues that made the Connery films so repulsive and to be fair they also made Bond a far more interesting character.

Casino Royale was an enjoyable enough film and it even got me emotionally invested in the main character at times. I'd be willing to try out Quantum of Solace and Skyfall, the latter of which I've been told is even better than Casino Royale.

The Red Shoes, the Line, the Cross, and the Curve

It is a tale of sorrow, of triumph and tragedy. A young woman with a love for dancing obtains a pair of  red shoes. When put on they present a terrifying experience in which she is forced to dance uncontrollably, leading to her tragic demise. Based on that description, you were probably thinking of the 1948 classic The Red Shoes, or the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen (the same guy who wrote the stories behind Disney's The Little Mermaid and Frozen, along with the classic fairy tales The Ugly Duckling and The Emperor's New Clothes) which inspired it. To be fair you were half-right.

I say half, because there is something I haven't told you. You see, I'm interested in discussing The Red Shoes, but I'm also curious to bring up a different film, with a name attached that you probably never expected to see pop up on this blog: Kate Bush. For those of you who aren't familiar with her work, she is a very talented British pop star first discovered as a teenager by David Gilmour from Pink Floyd and has since gone on to have an impressive musical career spanning three decades. Her music is so distinct it is almost impossible to fit her work into any specific genre. If anything it's sort of a blend of several different styles that would ordinarily seem mutually exclusive.

Kate was heavily influenced by a wide variety of different works (her very first single was based on the novel Wuthering Heights), and she has plenty of interesting music videos. The story behind this particular work is that in the early 90's she released an album titled The Red Shoes inspired by the 1948 film. Instead of doing a few music videos for specific songs like she would normally do, Kate got the idea to make a short film that would incorporate several tracks from the original album.

The result was a little film called The Line, the Cross, and the Curve. It is an interesting experience if you ever get the chance to see it. I don't know if it was ever released on DVD, but it should be available on YouTube. This movie was not a huge success, and even Kate was disappointed by the final product (supposedly she later called the film "a load of bullocks"). To be fair the low budget does show at times, but at the same time it's an intriguing experiment in what could be considered avant-garde film making.

Okay, technically, it's ambiguous whether the shoes themselves actually have any magical properties in The Red Shoes, but they still play a significant part. In that one the red shoes are only explicitly magical within the world of the ballet itself, as depicted in its incredible dance sequence which condenses the events of the narrative while still illustrating the key events. Outside of the ballet, the tragic fate of Victoria Page ends up being more the result of the mounting tension between director Boris Lermontov (who provides a means for her to fulfill her dream of being a great dancer) and his former composer Julian Craster (whom she loves).

Lermontov is a man who believes that his career as a ballet director should come above all else, while Craster is an idealist who believes love conquers all. Ultimately the tension reaches its peak when both men confront each other in Victoria's dressing room, and force her to choose between them. Victoria is confused and unable to make a choice between her dream and her love, leading to her attempted suicide, or at least that's what it looks like. Ultimately that's the big question: was it the shoes or was it her?

The ending also offers a parallell to the ballet itself when Victoria, who is lying on a stretcher, badly hurt and possibly dying, asks Craster to take off the red shoes. During the dance sequence we saw something similar, when the ballerina she portrays lies dying as a man carefully removes her shoes. In the context of that ballet, it seems as though the ballerina is finally at peace, and here there is a very similar vibe.

The Red Shoes is indeed a masterpiece of cinema, and quite a daring film for 1948. Now granted, this was a British film, but it was still made during the days of the Studio System, and to an English-speaking audience the ambiguity of mixing dreams and reality as seen here was very hard to get away with, but the risk ultimately paid off and the result was an incredible movie that still inspires artists today. I don't think it's too great a stretch to suggest that this film was a major influence on the more recent Oscar winner Black Swan, and of course we can certainly see its influence on Kate Bush.

Plot-wise, the two films diverge in two drastically different paths. The Red Shoes is slightly more grounded in reality, and centers around the stress experienced by the central character of Vicky, and the growing tension that comes as she is ultimately faced with the impossible decision of choosing between the man she loves and her passion for dancing. The Line, the Cross, and the Curve takes on a stranger approach, centering around an unnamed singer (played by Bush herself) who is visited by a mysterious woman that tricks her into wearing a pair of cursed red shoes which dance endlessly, leading to a journey through a surreal fantasy world.

Music still plays an important role in both films, although in very different ways. The Red Shoes is about ballet after all, and so there are plenty of long stretches of time spent without dialogue, particularly during the dance sequences. It's in many ways a very visual piece with some splendid choreography.

Kate's film uses her own music as a driving force, with the plot being set in motion by the singer being tricked into drawing a line, a cross, and a curve on three sheets of paper (which triggers the curse that puts her in the red shoes). The only way to escape from being forced to dance endlessly by the shoes is to reclaim those symbols, something she ultimately does through song.

Now both films are quite the experience and certainly worth your time, but why bring up these two specifically? Well, Kate Bush's The Line, the Cross, and the Curve was clearly influenced by The Red Shoes. In fact, it was based on the album The Red Shoes which also featured a song inspired by the movie. This was actually part of what led me to look up The Red Shoes in the first place after it was recommended to me, since I already knew the title through Kate's music. 

There is a bit of a resemblance. It makes one wonder if the makeup on "The Shoemaker" in The Red Shoes inspired the character known only as "The Guide" in The Line, the Cross, and the Curve.

They are two very different films and it would be futile to compare and contrast them. One is a big-budget musical epic and the other is a low-budget experimental short, but it is interesting to discuss both films at length, and to see the impact one movie had on another. Story-wise, Kate's little film has almost no resemblance to Powell's epic, but the inspiration is there. 

The British Invaders Blogathon: The Bridge On the River Kwai

By total chance I found out that Terrence Towles Canote at the blog A Shroud of Thoughts is hosting a blogathon celebrating classic British cinema. Since this was an area I knew very well and for once I managed to find out about three months early (as opposed to my occasional tendency to find out at the last minute or just after it ended) there was no way I could avoid participating. 

It was just a question of what films to look at. I've seen plenty of great British movies and in fact one that he labelled a valid choice was 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I immediately got to thinking about some of the iconic war films of the 1950's and 1960's and a few came to mind. I've already written about Zulu for my 50th article (and submitted that one for the blogathon) so I couldn't do much for that one. 

However, there were two other films that seemed to stand out in my mind. Lawrence of Arabia would have been a great choice, but given how long that movie is there's the question of whether I'd find time to watch it. The other one, fittingly by the same director and with some of the same cast, was the 1957 Best Picture winner The Bridge on the River Kwai. Quite the film I must say.

Where to begin with this movie? Well, the story is set against the backdrop of World War II and follows two key plot threads. The first centers around the commanding officer of the POW's, Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), and his relationship with the commandant. I'm no expert, but I have read up on this and I do know that Japanese POW camps of the time were notorious for their inhumane treatments of prisoners. Many people died in these camps, a fact the film makes very clear right at the start when we see two prisoners digging a grave. 

The camp is run by the seemingly tyrannical Colonel Saito, who calls the POW's cowards for surrendering instead of dying for their country as per the code of his own army. He announces that he has instructions to build a bridge across the River Kwai, and plans to use the prisoners to make it happen. However, Nicholson objects when he is told that the officers are expected to work alongside the enlisted men, and keeps true to his stance in spite of the pleading of army doctor Major Clipton (James Donald) and prolonged torture by Saito. Eventually, however, the two are able to settle their differences and work together, with Nicholson using the bridge as a means of uniting his men with a common goal.

The second plot concerns an American POW named Shears (William Holden) who against Nicholson's advice organizes an escape plan. They are caught and his two partners are killed but Shears manages to get away when he falls over a cliff and is presumed drowned. With some help from a local village he manages to get to safety only to be roped into secret mission to go back and destroy the bridge under the command of the cold Major Warden (Jack Hawkins). Ultimately this thread will collide violently with the first bringing about tragic consequences.

Of course, all of the actors are great in this film but the one who does tend to stand out is Alec Guinness as Nicholson. There is something about his performance that makes him a very peculiar character. You can never quite tell if he's a wise and noble individual or completely insane. On the one hand his intentions seem noble enough but at the same time he puts himself and his officers through excruciating torture ignoring Clipton's pleas to give in when that would obviously be better for everybody.

This is very much an anti-war film about pure and utter madness. We see several people who mean well acting in what seems to be out of a patriotic sense of duty and yet ultimately it almost becomes one big friendly fire incident and nothing is accomplished. It's the kind of film that really leaves you questioning just where you stand and who you're rooting for, given that on the one hand Nicholson seems to have noble enough intentions but at the same time one can understand why Major Warden wants to destroy the bridge. In both narratives you can really connect with the characters, so when they inevitably come together it leaves you unsure whose side you're really on. Major Clipton sums it up quite nicely in the end: "Madness... madness".

In many ways, The Bridge on the River Kwai is an icon of British war cinema at its finest. It is an all-around great movie with a compelling story, great acting, and well-rounded characters that will leave you questioning your own morality.

50th Article

Alright, so I've hyped this up a lot. Hopefully, you've all got your bets in on the subject matter of my fiftieth article. I promised you a movie that meant a lot to me and I'm going to deliver. You're probably excited to hear what movie I've decided to talk about. It is a story of courage, determination, and survival in the face of impossible odds. This is Cy Endfield's 1964 movie war film Zulu.

I was first introduced to this film near the end of middle school. I never was quite like the other kids in my class. They lived in the present, keeping up with the latest sporting events and quoting lines from Family Guy, Robot Chicken, and South Park. Meanwhile here I was living in the past, studying military history in my spare time and even reading my textbook for fun, watching old movies, and getting huge laughs out of the Marx Brothers and Monty Python, who I was excited to find out touched on the same time period as Zulu in one of their sketches featured in The Meaning of Life.

It was more specifically near the end of Grade 8, shortly before I was to make the transition into high school that my parents acquired a copy of this film. Having an interest in military history as I did it quickly caught my imagination, and I must have watched it a thousand times throughout the following summer. It sparked an interest in a period of history I never even knew existed beforehand (even if it's depiction of that time isn't perfectly accurate). It also got me exposed to a few older actors, particularly Jack Hawkins, who I would later see a lot more of in movies like The Bridge On the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, and Lawrence of Arabia.

The film's story is inspired by the real-life battle of Rorke's Drift during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879, in which a handful of British soldiers managed to successfully defend a small mission station from an army of Zulu warriors despite being hopelessly outnumbered... after a much larger and seemingly more formidable group of soldiers was massacred by the Zulus earlier that same day.

Michael Caine (who you may know better now as that guy who keeps popping up in Christopher Nolan movies) appears in his first starring role as Lt. Bromhead, the professional veteran from a long line of soldiers, who is initially in charge but finds himself subordinated to the inexperienced engineer Lt. Chard. Together these two men must put aside their differences to figure out the tactics necessary to succeed against all odds. 

There's a number of other characters, and that is one area where this film works surprisingly well. There are a lot of characters, but none ever takes too much focus and they're even fairly easy to tell apart despite most wearing similar uniforms. In fact, there's so many characters it takes about 45 minutes to introduce all of them, but even with the later introductions, when we suddenly meet another soldier they don't seem to come out of nowhere and their presence never appears forced.

Nigel Green co-stars as Color Sergeant Bourne, the stern officer who likes to remind his soldiers that nobody told them to stop working. Gert Van Den Bergh plays the Boer Adendorff, an expert in Zulu tactics who serves as a consultant for the officers and may have a strange admiration for the Zulus' skills in combat. Jack Hawkins plays the role of Otto Witt, a Swedish missionary who wants to help the sick and wounded, convinced that the soldiers have no chance if they stay and fight. Ulla Jacobson plays Otto's daughter Margareta, who is every bit as determined to help the sick as her father.

Meanwhile, in the hospital we have a whole other group of characters. James Booth plays the role of Private Hook, a scoundrel "malingering under arrest" who tries to get out of work and wants some brandy, but ultimately manages to prove a capable soldier and a hero. Peter Gill appears as his partner Private 612 John Williams (it's explained that numbers are used as a way of distinguishing soldiers who share a name), a Welsh soldier who also plays a major role in the climax. There are plenty of other soldiers with names and personalities, perhaps too many for me to go any further in detailing all of them.

The story itself is presented in a fairly straight forward manner. Essentially, the first half of the film is the preparation for the battle, and the second half is the battle itself. The first half takes its time but it never really seems to drag on the same way I felt a movie like Solaris did. In fact it is very compelling on some level because it sets up everything for the second half, giving us time to get to know as many characters as possible (even if it takes a full 45 minutes to introduce all of them) as well as to learn about the tactics of the Zulus and how the soldiers plan to counter those methods. As I mentioned before, I also like how you can actually tell the soldiers apart, averting a common problem with even some of the best war movies.

Once we do get to the battle scenes, they get appropriately tense and chaotic. The violence is a bit tame by modern standards, as there isn't a lot of gore (barring one medium close-up of a soldier taking a spear to the chest), probably because this was being made when the film industry was just coming out of the strict regulations enforced during the "Golden Age" between the 1930's and 1950's (though movies like this may have helped pave the way for more daring films like Bonnie and Clyde and A Clockwork Orange a few years later). Still, the action is solid and does keep the viewer going.

This is also an interesting film to examine from a sociological perspective. It was shot on location in South Africa (we do get several impressive landscape shots) with actual Zulus being cast. In fact, the historical figure of King Cetawayo was portrayed by his own descendant. There are stories of the relationships between the filmmakers and the Zulus they worked with that are quite inspiring. One account is that the filmmakers weren't able to pay the Zulu extras equally to the actors due to the apartheid laws prevalent in South Africa at the time, so the former party got around the law by letting the Zulus keep the cattle used for filming in order to ensure they got some sort of reward for their work.

This is reflected a bit in the movie itself. As the film is told from the perspective of the British, the Zulus are naturally cast as the antagonists. Some of the characters utter some... period appropriate remarks, but in the end, there seems to be a mutual admiration between both sides. Chard and Bromhead manage to emerge victorious, but aren't necessarily proud of their victory. and the Zulus are seen to salute them as "fellow braves".

Compare the way they are treated here to say... the depictions of Native Americans in westerns of the 1930's. While Zulus are antagonists, it is made clear that they are human beings. Whereas the Native Americans were often seen as bloodthirsty savages who needed to be eradicated, the Zulus here are treated more as a worthy opponent to the protagonists. They are a complicated and intelligent people capable of posing a great challenge even for the might of the British army. Not bad for a film shot in a country with a racist government at a time when civil rights were just starting to be recognized.

Overall, Zulu is a great addition to the war genre and an example of British cinema at its finest. It might not be the most accurate rendition of the Battle of Rorke's Drift (though as I have argued previously, to depict any historical event precisely as it happened is impossible), but it is still a compelling story of bravery, ingenuity, and determination in the face of impossible odds, with solid acting and great action.

Religious Satire in Monty Python's Life of Brian

There is no doubt that Monty Python is one of the greatest geniuses of comedy. Between a TV series and three movies they have produced an incredible range of work and indeed some hilarious material. There is also no doubt they can spark quite a bit of controversy, and nowhere is that more evident than in their second feature film Life of Brian. This is a hilarious movie in itself, but it does have some deeper meanings compared to Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

The plot of Life of Brian can be summed up quite simply as one man's ongoing quest to be left alone. Graham Chapman plays the role of Brian, an ordinary fellow who just happened to be born in a stable next door to the Nativity. He grows up to be a respectable young man who finds himself joining one of several anti-Roman groups in the hopes of helping his people, but that eventually leads to unforeseen consequences, and he spends much of the movie either running away from both the Romans and the hoard of people irrevocably convinced that he is their messiah.

Of course, given the movie is obviously influenced by Biblical epics such as Ben-Hur it is natural that it generated a lot of controversy when it was initially released. It is not a story about Jesus, nor any other religious figure, but it clearly draws inspiration from those stories, and in doing so provides a satirical commentary on how religion can affect people, as is especially noteworthy in the scenes with Brian's "followers".

This massive crowd of people that we see is stubbornly convinced that Brian is their messiah (when in fact he really just wants to be left alone), but they take that idea at face value and just assume they're always right. In fact, they never even really bother to listen to their supposed messiah. When Brian tries to tell them to go away, they just declare that "a blessing". When he tries to explain that he is not the messiah, the crowd just makes up an excuse in response like "I'll say you are, and I should know. I've followed a few." or "Only the true messiah denies his divinity."

That in itself is frustrating enough, especially when the whole crowd shows up at his house. There Brian tries to tell them to think for themselves. They say they agree, but the fact that every single one does so in unison seems to suggest otherwise. Even his overbearing mother telling them to go away is seen as "a blessing", leading to one of the best lines in the movie ("He is not the messiah, he is a very naughty boy!")

The movie also emphasizes the inevitable conflicts people can end up in when driven by blind faith. How many people have died over disagreements about religion throughout history? We see the absurdity of such disagreements happen throughout the movie. They do allude to it on a few fronts, with one good example being the fact that the various anti-Roman groups who all have very similar names (Judean Peoples' Front, Peoples' Front of Judea, etc.) and more or less the same goal (getting rid of the Romans) seem to spend more time fighting against each other than actually doing anything about the authorities they supposedly oppose. One of the more obvious examples, of course, is in Brian's "followers". Brian loses a shoe, and upon finding it they immediately interpret it as a sign, but can't agree on what it means. Then they become divided over whether they should "follow" the gourd or the shoe. 

Finally, we see the violence that comes with blind faith. How many "peaceful" religions have committed horrible atrocities. The scene with the Hermit brings this aspect to the forefront. After getting annoyed with all the trouble Brian's "followers" are causing him, he starts to take out his anger on Brian himself. One of the "followers" tries to tell him he's the messiah, to which the Hermit replies "no he's not". The immediate reaction of course is to "kill the heretic". The part that really ties it all together is the hypocrisy of these "followers", who proceed to drag the Hermit away to have him killed all the while ignoring their own supposed messiah's pleas to leave the poor guy alone.

How many of these concepts could be applied to actual religions in the world? Quite a lot I'd say. Life of Brian is a hilarious movie with lots of great moments, but underneath all that great humor is a strong social commentary on just how far people will go for their beliefs.

It's the End of the World as We Know It... and I Feel Funny!

2013 saw the release of two unrelated yet similar films, released around the same time (one just a few months after the other) that both had a strange setup: a bunch of guys get together to have a good time and end up trying to survive the apocalypse. Both of these films I had the chance to see in the theater, and one was (in my opinion) hilarious, while the other was (again, in my opinion) awful. Still, the connections between these two movies are quite interesting.

The first of these movies was of course This is the End, the story of a group of celebrities trying to survive after the Rapture happens while they're at a party. Personally, I really didn't like this movie (though evidently a few people disagree, as I recall when I saw it in the theater at least one person a few rows behind me kept bursting into laughter every other moment while I remained almost completely deadpan). In fact, I recall that as soon as I got out of the theater I found myself really wanting to watch The Road just because I wanted to see a good movie about the apocalypse.

None of the jokes stuck with me and the only person I really cared about at all was Emma Watson, who of course is only involved briefly because the guys were all idiots who had a completely pointless discussion about rape, and we're forced to continue watching their unfunny shenanigans when I'd much rather see Emma Watson fighting demons.

The second, as you may know, was Edgar Wright's third installment of the "Cornetto Trilogy", The World's End, a hilariously dark comedy about a few guys going on a pub crawl only to find out that their hometown has been taken over by robots as part of a massive alien conspiracy. This was a hilarious film with a wonderful cast, well-timed jokes, a bit of drama here and there to balance things out without taking over, and of course a fun narrative.

In some ways both films are quite a bit different. One centers on a group of celebrities playing themselves while the other involves a group of fictitious characters. One uses the set-up of a party while the other uses a pub crawl. In some ways, though, this also makes them surprisingly similar. Let's look at the basic structure.

In both films, we start off with an all-male group of friends, in fact with a similar number of people: This is the End has six (though that is including Danny McBride, who joins in a bit later and initially remains completely oblivious to the apocalypse happening around him), while The World's End has five. In either case, said group of friends starts off by getting together to have a good time. 

Granted the "good time" is a bit different in each case, given that in one it's just the five friends going on a pub crawl, and the other involves the six protagonists being the last remnants of a much larger party. We also get a whole sub-plot about Michael Cera being an annoying idiot who likes to blow drugs into people's faces without their consent.

Though the central group is entirely male, we do get a female supporting role, someone who is memorable but whose role in the story seems relatively small compared to the men. Personally, I'd say The World's End handled this much better with Sam, who despite having much less screen time does manage to stick around long enough to have an impact on the story. 

This is certainly more than can be said about how this aspect was handled in This is the End. Now granted, Emma Watson's appearance was memorable, in fact it was really the only thing I actually liked about that movie. I remember while I was saddened to see Sam leave partway through The World's End, I had grown attached enough to the other guys that I didn't mind spending most of the rest of the movie following them. 

In This is the End, I found I really didn't care much for what happened to the guys there and was way more interested in what happened to Emma Watson. Seriously, if This is the End had centered around her transformation into an action survivor during the apocalypse and the guys the movie insists on following just had a minor cameo, I think it would have been a lot better.

So in terms of structure, we have something similar, even if the apocalypse itself is different: a group of male characters and one female supporting role in what initially seems to be everyday life going out to have what they consider a "good time" only for things to start getting chaotic. Over the course of the story, the characters have to make difficult decisions to figure out how to survive as eventually they get picked off one by one.

I do find it curious how each of these films utilized a similar premise, coming out the same year only a few months apart, and yet they're also both so different. One may be great, and the other is terrible (though some might disagree with me on that point), one is British, and the other American, but it is weird that somehow in the same year two different parties managed to come out with a comedy based around the same basic premise of a few guys having fun only to get caught up in the end of the world.

Why Do People Like James Bond?

Ah, James Bond. That super-awesome lovable badass super spy and all-around really great guy and excellent role model-

Hang on, what is this?

 James Bond is in a barn with his latest girl and... HE FRIGGIN' RAPES HER! Um... yeah... this guy was supposed to be the hero right? He's supposed to be the good guy that we're supposed to be rooting for and here he is sexually assaulting a young woman. Okay, you could argue that the woman does eventually consent but Bond still has to force himself onto her and she clearly tries to fight back. And the worst part? This scene is somehow supposed to be charming.

Ever since I watched Goldfinger for a class a few years ago I have found myself perplexed by this situation. The fact of the matter is that James Bond is incredibly sexist, and the worst offender is, ironically enough, Sean Connery i.e. the Bond that everyone else usually says is the greatest. Every time I hear someone (especially women) talking about how much they love Bond I always find myself thinking about scenes like this one, where Bond is, like it or not, a misogynistic jerk who seems to see women as little more than sex objects.

In the old films he'd sometimes go through four or five girls in one movie, usually moving onto one almost immediately after the last gets killed with almost no time to grieve (another example comes from a different film I'd seen before Goldfinger: You Only Live Twice, where Sean Connery's Bond spends about three quarters with one girl, only for her to get killed off and Bond to end up falling in love with some other female agent who was only present for the climax).

So why is it that Bond has such a fan base after all these years? That is hard to say, part of it may stem from the fact that more recent films have gotten a bit better about this (say what you will about Goldeneye, at least Bond didn't go through five different love interests), but many hardcore fans still defend Connery's Bond.

To bring up an analogy, let me refer to an older movie: Birth of a Nation. This was a film made long before Bond and was every bit as significant a part of film history as Bond, and possibly even more so (given most modern film making techniques came from it). The thing is, most people who aren't film historians or students tend to pretend this movie doesn't exist. Why? Because the story is incredibly racist and involves a glorification of the Klu Klux Klan.

From Birth of a Nation (1915): the heroic Klu Klux Klan has captured an evil black man and... WAIT WHAT?

I cite this example because it seems a double standard to me. Why is that most people will shun a film as blatantly racist as The Birth of A Nation and then go on to ignore the prominently sexist elements of James Bond films while talking about how awesome he supposedly is? (or might have been if he didn't treat women like crap)

As you've probably guessed from this post, I am not a fan of James Bond. Before anyone brings it up: yes, I am aware that some of the more recent incarnations have gotten better about this, at least starting with Pierce Brosnan in the 90's if not earlier. One of these days I might even work up the nerve to try watching one of Craig's Bond films. However, that does not change the fact that most fans point to Connery as the definitive James Bond. In other words, they look at a misogynistic pervert who likes to sexually assault every woman he sees and think "Wow, THIS is the guy I want saving the day."

The name's Bond. James Bond. I'm going to save the da- Wait, what do you mean I'm under arrest for multiple counts of rape?