Monday 12 November 2012

The River Murders

Was at a loose end a couple of Sunday night's back and thought I'd have a go on me LoveFilm for a quick film. This popped up on the homepage - sounded interesting so thought I'd give it a bash. What a load of shit it was!!! Had the potential to be so much more but it simply didn't deliver. 


Disappointing to see that Ray Liotta, who I had a lot of love for in Goodfellas, has had a lot of work done to his face. Ray, Ray, Ray, take the aging process with a bit of dignity eh. He was also very weak as the main character. Some quite wooden acting that was lacking spark.

I'm not sure that I can say much more about it than that. A good one to watch if you're chatting to someone and don't mind missing an entire film.

Skyfall

This was an S&M Cinema Club outing. However, we shunned the usual drinks, dinner and cinema in Hebden for cinema then dinner at the new shiny complex in Halifax. I think that this will be the place where we see most films now. Obvs still try and support the independent cinema when we can but the length of films is so often a decider for whether we see one or not. They don't start until 20.15 every night at Hebden and this film, Skyfall, is over 2 hours long. That makes for getting home very late. Even later when the shitting trains don't turn up!!


Anyway, digression alert. I bloody loved this. We all know that Casino Royale was great and then Quantum of Solace was not very great. It's been four years since that. This had to be good else we'd have all lost our faith in Dan the man for playing The Spy Who I Would Like To Love Me. The opening sequence was perhaps a little too long, could have shaved a good two minutes off there - and I was a bit upset that the "body" going down the waterfall was quite clearly a dummy. They had the budget, they could have found a donor corpse from somewhere. Or at least blurred the water a little more post-production. I thoroughly enjoyed the credits. A cry back to the classic Bond openings. I initally wasn't enjoying Adele's Skyfall and while I still think that she could have gone more Bassey with it, it's a decent effort and a song that is currently being used as my alarm to wake me up of a morning. 

I'd like to say at this point that I did not enjoy the scene where he goes into the shower of the Bond girl, who I think said she was pretty much a sex slave, and just starts getting it on with her. What ever happening to chatting to a woman?! Jesus man, control yourself! It's a little bit rapey. However, having said this, I'm not sure that, if Daniel Craig got into my shower with me, I would be in a position to turn him down. What woman would?


Javier was a  great baddie. I enjoyed him campness and his accent/voice. There was almost a singsong quality to his dialogue and that together with his timid voice made him quite endearing. If only he wasn't mental and tried to kill anyone and everyone.

SPOILER!!!
Final note - putting this out there for discussion really. My tea buddy at work suggested before I saw the film that M might stand for mother. Now, having seen the film she doesn't think that it does anymore but I, on the other hand, do! There were so many signs: Javier kept calling her "mummy" and "mother" when he was talking to Jimmy; the gravestone outside the chapel said "Albert Bond and Monique Delacroix Bond" (insane name); and then at the end of the film when M's on her way out she says to Bond "I got one thing right". Is she his mother?! Who knows. Throws it right out there to interpretation. People who I have mentioned it to since have agreed that it is possible but that perhaps it's more that she adopted a motherly role in his life. I hate not having answers to shit like this!

Oh an Ralph "Raph" Fiennes, what a waste as a good guy. After In Bruges he should only play evil men!

Pedro Almodovar-fest

I was loaned a boxset of Pedro Almodovar films aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages ago by someone at work. Four films in there - Bad Education, Talk To Her, Volver and All About My Mother. I can't remember which order I watched them in, only that I was to watch Talk To Her and Bad Education last because they were the most morally wrong. Now, earlier in this little blog I posted about having watched The Skin I Live In (directed by Peter also) and I'm not sure that anything can top the moral depravity that took place in it!! Turns out I wasn't wrong. While there were questionable and raw issues raised in Talk To Her (doctor raping a coma patient) and Bad Education (abuse of boys at a Catholic school) - they were dealt with in a sensitive manner and not quite as vividly as the vajinoplastie times seen in The Skin I Live In. I thought that All About My Mother was going to be a bit incesty, which would have definitely overtaken The Skin... for creepiness, but Pedro didn't go there. Thank God!


Things that have come from watching these films:

1) I definitely concentrate more when there's subtitles. Obviously you have to because, unless you speak fluent Spanish, you won't have a scooby what's going on. When I was younger and first discovered Teletext/Ceefax I started watching all programmes with 888 subtitles selected. I did that for many years, still do it now sometimes. I find that I take more in that way - I'm absolutely terrible for remembering names of people when I'm watching the box, and I often miss bits of plot as a result of being so easily distracted, but with subtitles you don't have to listen, just have a quick read of the screen and beep! all necessary details absorbed into the brain. 

2) Penelope Cruz would get it. Her and Javier must have a beautiful child. I've never seen him/her. Wait a sec... yep, looks like a cutie.

3) Javier Camara looks almost exactly like someone who gets the train every day! It was pointed out to me by my fellow commuter a few months ago and after I watched the films I doubted his observations until the day came that we were sat bang opposite Javier non-Camara. Spitting image!!!!! It's uncanny. The flatness of his face and his eyes are so similar. Can't look at him now, freaks me out.