There’s something cool happening on such a large scale in Michael Winterbottom’s film, and though never consciously acknowledged, it’s one of the most exciting things happening onscreen (a feat in itself, as the title pretty much sets up the tempo of the piece – it’s a party even when it’s serious): Tony Wilson, the main character, has a disposable income from selling out (on television) and, at the end of the film, he is still spending his money on venues and perks for recording artists, in attempt to capture and catapult bands he likes – but never actually owning any of the musicians’ contracts (“I protected myself from the dilemma of selling out by having nothing to sell,” he cheerfully declares after showing a big wig record executive a blood penned contract stating just that very thing). This redemption, thankfully, has no potential for weighing the film down – which is why it flies in under the radar. Tony repeatedly experiences little, musical glimpses of the future (like the first Sex Pistols’ show: pop. 42), and acts on them without worrying about whether or not he could be mistaken. Who doesn’t love characters like this: Wilson shimmers, knowing he’s onto something, and smiles as the smoke clears to reveal whether or not this is the commencement of one of his many successes – or failures. We truly believe he could care less either way. Tony loves the music. 24 Hour Party People is a film that suggests to us from the start that it’s highly fictionalized, but nevertheless gives conductor privileges to the very character whose life it is embellishing, allowing him one of the most vividly successful and wildly entertaining incidences of direct address I’ve ever seen. In between, Winterbottom splashes titles across the screen whenever he feels like it and indulges – however bizarre – any turn Frank Cottrell Boyce’s script chooses to take. In short, it’s as much of a film about Manchester’s post-punk period (mid-1970s - mid-1990s) as it seems forged in that era’s image; It’s ribald, but mature – it’s the difference between a) what comes after you’ve examined a
musical movement’s place in your culture and acted upon it – and, b) when you’re just busting things out shaggy dog style. The story turns out to be worth telling – despite how indulgent it may have appeared upon first glance. Steve Coogan’s wondrous performance as Wilson (so dry he’s peeling) is all the more fun because he doesn’t call attention to himself – even when he’s calling attention to himself (keep that thought in your head through the whole movie - I dare you). A movie with this much truly reasonable confidence in itself is worth recommending from rooftops on general principle.
Unfortunately, its relatively obscure subject matter and lack of familiar actors will only allow it enough exposure to gather mass amounts of dust on some shelf somewhere (i.e. – it’s too cohesive and smart to attain late night video store run cult status). Pity, that.

Please exonerate me from using forms of the word 'indulge' twice in this review. (Because I would do the same for you, that's why)

The simplistic nod of the title to actions carried out in the film, like most of my argument, is nothing more than a capsulated display of its (sadly) empty nature. You almost have to pity the honking sincerity in the confidence with which director Roger Avary invests Lauren and Sean's final scene: He really believes he's come to the (surprise!) hollow-as-a-reed center of their souls. He (Avary) also seems reluctant to render the "self" in "selfishness" in these characters - and will be chasing the energy and effortless lack of a conventional narrative of Pulp Fiction through his whole career (another "mark my words" segment brought to you by the makers of "I Call Coin!"). (He'll also probably always be about ten steps behind his former co-writer/contemporary who has bothered to go to the trouble of becoming an artist). Avary's technical prowess flirts with greatness in the fifteen minute pre-title sequence where he uses backwards motion and time shifting techniques to great success. The whirlwind vacation taken by the film student Victor is the best part of the movie - and, in truth, is an absolutely perfect amalgam of the tiresome whole of the film: ("Went here, did this - scored drugs, got laid - oh, and then I did something else, maybe. I don't know. I got laid and did drugs though, boy howdy!") The seventies' split screen works too. It's just that - and perk up your ears, people - the film is one hundred five minutes of Avary trying to distract the audience from Bret Easton Ellis's shallow celebration of excess and sadness posing as a deep dissection of foggy youth. Drug fueled subplots rule every emotional exchange, and I'm talking about all the subplots (I haven't seen such a universal acceptance (and interest) in drugs in a film by nearly every character since...well, since Killing Zoe, Avary's first film). Ellis' and Avary's shared world view: We're all on drugs all the time whether we care to admit it or not - and the drugs just enhance our self-centered desire to fuck anything that moves. Huh? (Wait! Wait! Wait! One more summing-it-all-up-in-one-line shot: "I really did try to kill myself - just before I faked it". You're so right James. You're so right. We all try to be real, but fake just works better. Nobody really understands us. Let's go be misunderstood all alone together. Oh, James, I-) Double Huh?
 

[I hereby exonerate Barry Pepper from being blackballed by this film when his "carry a movie" time comes (and it will). And yes, I do possess that power.]

It's ripe with interesting themes: The head mobster's kid, unable to go straight, wants a chance at organized crime because he's driven to succeed; the ever ready abstraction of "owning a town"; unfolding layers of ever more suspicious loyalty, and blah, blah, blah. All of it straddling the line between being an original spin and being a tired retread, all of it ruined from the get-go by David Koppelman and Brian Leavin's state-and-restate-the-obvious dialogue. What's particularly depressing about the whole fiasco is that it was salvaged at all, and worse, that it was salvaged as a vehicle for Vin Diesel, which means the gentle strongman's long, rambling philosophies on the art of being a hoodlum are left, it seems, relatively untouched - even though they often contain little offshoots which make glaring, disorienting reference to scenes that were clearly excised from the finished film. (We used to salvage films like this for the heavies like Hopper and Malkovich, before they started choosing roles with their bank books as high priority). Knockaround Guys is the kind of film that is steaming with machismo - and even the kind of film that sometimes knows what to do with that machismo (in a near great scene, Vin Diesel forces a local tough to do his dirty work with a beating he describes as "worse than anything he [the guy] has ever given") - but never a film that seems to be confidant that the audience will swallow it's excuse for the machismo (And here I am, holding yet another self created record for "Most Instances of Machismo in a Single Sentence"). An insecure film about completely secure guys. The perfect note for me to advance to a self-indulgent rant about "scene missing" films. Read on.

[From the now erected 'I Call Coin' vault, it's time to address the films we've half labeled as: Unfinished something or other; Scrapped together something or other; Films deemed regrettable far too late (or upon completion) to not finish and release (even if the editing room becomes like an operating room, performing a tricky surgery that often leaves the patient horribly disfigured and more than a little off); Films that make it a point to showcase their deleted scenes as if said scenes existence alone supersedes any notions you may presuppose with regards to said film; Or, finally, films  released on video and DVD in mandatory catchall altered versions, (i.e. - This film couldn't be sold in theaterss as PG-13, here's some nudity and gore to up the ante). There is one good instance, and it is Gangs of New York. Here's a small sampling of truly unfortunate instances: Rollerball, Soul Survivors, Town and Country, Impostor, Storytelling, Windtalkers, All the Pretty Horses, Eye of the Beholder, Lost Souls, Supernova. You sort out which film might fall under which descriptive umbrella (time permitting). Oh, and I left out, films that aren't as cool if they make sense (Which, I believe covers the whole list of unfortunates).]

Feel like I'm in a mode of utter disservice by dismissing this as our semi-annual exercise in seamless character study a la Mike Leigh, especially because it returns to the more humble magnifying glass which bore the likes of Life is Sweet and Secrets and Lies. The nod of my reaction to what some critics seemed to view as a competent rut, always wallowing in the miseries of life, always looking on the bright side at close - this seems particularly unfounded given how multifaceted and consistent Leigh's improvisational techniques can be. All or Nothing is abysmal - to be sure; But it's also powerful, uncommonly observant, and tirelessly objective, even when its wielding a score that's heavy on the cello. The always spot-on Spall is out of happiness, and the housing project he lives in seems to constrict with this very notion of joyless existence (perhaps the deciding factor in abandoning the film, for some critics, is the exploration of Spall's neighbors as catalysts for contrast; It's certainly not a new trick, but a potent one to say the least). In fact, the events in the film - though the climax isn't an everyday occurrence - seem to have a pace and a bloodline off such low volume, of such unobtrusive docudrama, you barely feel the whole thing creeping up on you - - - but you do still feel it. One thing Leigh is never in short supply of is emotion, and All or Nothing has a dandy of an epiphany/confrontation/release scene (the one I usually refer to as "the big second act speech", a  cynical phrase that feels all too inappropriate in this instance). The whole nature of underrating something this brilliant - even as an exercise - is preposterous. The little specks of character alone, the idiosyncrasies shared by Spall, his wife, and their two children, these perfectly slight details are much like the filmmaking itself, which just seems to unfold - as ever - without feeling mechanical oor stylized in the least. That we barely realize most movies don't come within miles of this intimacy, of this level of penetration, of this absolutely thorough development is why we can never take Leigh for granted. An exercise? Who said that was bad for you, anyway?

[Yes, I realize I made a top ten list way too early]

Jewish culture, at face value, with stereotypes not played up, and not milked for laughs; Progressively fascinating - storytelling unfolds surprise layer after surprise layer; Opening scene is a bizarre match even for a die-hard culture (we assume), a tradition played straight, which makes itself look goofy and awkward without a push; The confusion of disapproval and tradition into one cultural experience, contrasted, in a later scene where the family meets the divorcee, to unleash its tradition of disapproval to no confusion; Late Marriage is a terrific expression of the old and the new worlds colliding, with great characters whose honesty feels like authenticity (especially in the rare glimpse at sex as it really is - foibles and all; A struggle of the old versus the young that feels almost quintessential, like the perfect amalgam of the absurdity of these trials we label "traditions"; Makes great observations about the baggage people come with and the debt of privilege (and the shallow price we pay for both); At times, the movie actually seems to be out to disprove the imperfect nature of love (in its initial portrayal of Zaza as easygoing and unworried - about everything), but later, it also seems to champion a celebration of that same imperfect nature of love; At once he says lines like (sarcastic) "As long as you're happy" to his parents while also secretly treasuring and steeling himself inside his family's control; The movie is very casual about how disturbing it is being; When it seems to be turning the tables to examine every viewpoint simultaneously, appearing to carefully and ruthlessly entertain each one, Kosashvili throws us a curve ball: As soon as we've accepted the movie's first act as an objective expose, he dispenses a potent commentary. The images of Zaza, entranced in his mother's spell as they watch the dancing at his wedding evince a bitter viewpoint, made all the more brilliant by its universal abilities: It may translate differently to different cultures, but it is united by age; He has learned the fallacy of a world controlled by men, who are actually controlled by women. A movie sure to generate more questions than answers; Late Marriage is one of the most original spins on a common conflict choice I've seen in forever. On a video shelf, I'd stack it closer to In the Company of Men than My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It's just might severely wound the latter.

Wonderfully convoluted; Doesn't feel at all like a cheat when fate is this outlandish, probably because Almodovar's style is so quietly devil-may-care; Third act is, as ever, too dark to be supported by the rest of the movie - even with the structure being jumbled by flashbacks and flash-forwards that should be used a little more carefully (i.e. - they don't refresh, so you forget major pieces of the story while you watch) - although they give events a more jarriing appeal; Often balances between quirky and genuinely reflective; Most of it is just really, really, really, really entertaining without ever convincing us that it's much more than that; The silent film is the piece de resistance (if ever there were one), but the ballet sequences are marvelous, too; Almodovar seems to be working up to making his masterpiece - but he's just really taking his time; I take him more and more seriously the more distance he puts between himself and films like Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! or Kika (albeit, I'm missed Live Flesh); Talk to Her seems to flow much better than All About My Mother, mostly because we not only care about the characters (which Almodovar does effortlessly), but we care about the situations (as we should, you know?); And, was it just me, or was the shot of Michael Cunningham's book "The Hours" an in-joke proving Almodovar can see the future and know to use the over-nominated book's film as a precursor to a major plot point? It just seemed too coincidental. Who's going to win the pennant, Pedro? (Okay, that didn't sound the least bit convincing as I have about nil interest in sports - and everybody knows it).

If man's job is his identity, main character Vincent is truly a stranger - and the film makes no neverminds about repeatedly issuing itself liscence to overuse that point. The biggest trouble is how little humanity Cantent seems to invest in his characters. Early on, he chooses to make everything nice and slow, nice and dry, (and nice and boring), in order to establish his objective viewpoint. That each character feels more and more like they came off the same assembly line that produced David, the robot boy in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, is all the more limiting. Cantent has a perfect opportunity - I should say, several perfect opportunities - to suggest how idiotic it is to live at the whims of the Corporate World and how wonderful it could be to have an opportunity to not be part of it - but instead, frames his picture around a man's search for his missing dignity through a series of elaborate lies, (if you need me to tell you the ending to save you the suspense, feel free to e-mail me). It's awfully grim stuff and there rarely seems to be much more justification than the obvious: This is what is happening in the world. (eyes roll) Thanks for the wake-up call there, bud.

Everybody's pretty serious about pretty much everything in The Ring, somehow hoping to compensate for the hopelessly dopey plot mechanism that fuels the first half of the film: That people are afraid of a video tape and its eerie images (and the fact that many characteristically stupid high school kids perished exactly a week after viewing it - just like somebody said they would!) Underneath the dime store mise en scene that Gore Verbinski uses all of his zero creativity to speak through, an endlessly disturbing plot about a murdered little girl whose mother killed herself and freaked out some horses (and so on, I suppose) manages to peak its head through. It isn't until we've given up all hope as a false ending brings closure in a rather pussy, rather pre-Kobayashi ("Kobayashi, Kobayashi...") fashion, that the film seems to sprout wings and actually begin using the limitless landscape of its supernatural substance (and it might have been a surprise if I hadn't been watching the time on the DVD player in anticipation of the end). Verbinski spends so much time building and building, setting up an inconclusive logic, hoping to duplicate the success gleaned from the average American audience member's common confusion between being impressed by a surprise ending and being duped by a product that barely seems to care about its first ninety minutes. Naomi Watts is awkward and often far too emotional about everything that isn't her son - counting her yet another actress incappable of communicating maternal fear without turning it into a dry hump version of an emoting exercise better left in high school drama clubs. Dorfman (whose work in Panic deserves to seen at least by a third of this film's audience) conveys his little grown up philosopher in a kid's body to us with the best of his ability, almost winking, as if, at eight or nine (or however old he is), he realizes you have to do "one for them, one for yourself". The Ring is so one for them.

I Wonder what our government is doing now that will come out warts-and-all in thirty years? Kissinger may have been an enigmatic man, but we rarely catch a glimpse of him, or I should say, we never get a sense of him as a person. Maybe that's not the point - but I think it's still somehow necessary. The film is oddly structured: At first stating his accomplishments, then a garden variety bio, and finally a scathing rapid-fire of accusation and "irrefutable" evidence against him on the matters of sending troops into neutral Cambodia, staging a counterproductive coup in Chile and idly allowing Indonesia to enact genocide upon neighboring Timor during a violent annex. I wondered if the director was attempting to create an objective dialogue with the audience. If so, perhaps he need not have taken to heart quite so feverishly the concept mentioned by Brian Cox (as Robert McKee in Adaptation) wherin the third act is what affects your audience on their way out. (That could've been confusing, I know, as Brian Cox also narrated this film). The film is to anti-Kissinger to be called The Trials of Henry Kissinger;  I'm not sure I can suggest another title without being too vicious. I both love and hate films like this. I love to watch edgy exposes on the dark side of politics. Trouble is, my suspicion and disbelief spoils any pleasure I may derive from these little history lessons.

Has a distinct The X-Files quality to it (relative lack of theatrical urgency, i.e. – small screen suits) right down to the relative simplicity of its resolution – and the genuine attention to sustaining suspense that’s cranked up from the word go. The twist itself isn’t so much a twist as a confirmation of our outright suspicions; the details don’t really add much depth (forgive the pun) to the characters' guilt or lack thereof, which remains unchanging despite the emerging Big Dark Secret. Great scene where supernatural happenings trigger characters to hypothesize that they might be dead and not know it yet. The quickness with which this twist is abandoned – an almost cinematic laugh at how ludicrous the very suggestion of such an in-between existence is – suggests a deliberate comment on this oft-mimicked theme. Easily the best submarine movie in years and a decided break from the tedious, consistently derivative genre entries of late (U-571 and K-19: The Widowmaker spring clumsily to mind); Perhaps simply leaving numbers out of the title does the trick? Dialogue is of particular
rata-tat-tat note, most of it ostensibly clever, often witty and rarely dull. (There’s a great scene where a message is passed through the submarine and before we know it, the message’s words and nuances change just slightly enough to flavor supporting characters, moving just fast enough for us to completely ignore this as the standard expository introduction to the length and population of the boat, as found in nearly every sub flick). Script was authored by Twohy, Lucas Sussman and Darren Aronofsky, who was planning to direct but made Requiem for a Dream instead (thank God). Solid cast, too, proving that Twohy has no trouble with actors or craft, but only lacks the drive to commit
substance to his films (which makes me wonder how he penned something as brilliant as The Fugitive). Bruce Greenwood, as I’ve said before, has the makings of a star; bit actor Holt McCallany needs more exposure, too; Olivia Williams manages to radiate sex appeal from the moment she steps on the boat. Supernatural element is kept suggestive and hallucinatory, a careful tactic to suggest personal and group delusion. One better, it allows Williams to utter a phrase we so rarely hear in films of this sort: “Let’s say what we’re all thinking”.

[One final note: Twohy seems to have a massive hard-on for the Alien series (see: Pitch Black, a film I lovingly branded thus: “Take one part Alien, one part Aliens and one part Alien 3 - mix them together among a druggy set of (sometimes) visually independent images and season with a commanding - if over-the-top - performance by Vin Diesel and you've ggot an action movie that's so bad its almost good.” Good bit of Below, in imagery and technique, recalls the editing and sound scheme of the first film in that series. The long, cluttered, creaking vessel that contains a host of evil – but, alternately [the vessel] is the only thing protecting its human passengers from the outer elements.)]

What struck me most, in the film, was how easily and clearly the director's (Brad Silberling) voice – on whose personal experience the film was VERY loosely based – was communicated [by all reports, he gleaned the aesthetic of loss, dealings with in-laws and moving on from his girlfriend's murder in 1982]. Dustin Hoffman publicly complained that the film was under-marketed, but I feel like that makes logical sense: How do you market a film like this - a) without giving away what the film is really about, namely, the predicament of being honest at the very worst time; and b) without making it a romance, which is certainly is not; and c) on general principle, how do you sell such a unique tone? Previously, Silberling directed City of Angels, (that highly suspicious re-make of Wings of Desire) about an angel who can hear everyone's thoughts – but yearns to feel human love. That film was obviously all about making money, but the dour – almost elegiac – tone he invested in it, made the goopy excesses almost bearable. Here, Sarandon and Hoffman play characters who propel the actors' usual personas into carefully thought out, deeply lived-in parents. Watching Hoffman grow exceedingly more manipulative as he pushes back his own need to confront loss and, instead, focuses his energies on business, couldn't have ended more beautifully than his crying session on the couch with Gyllenhal (who, as a main character, finally seems to be awake enough to exist – see: Donnie Darko, The Good Girl for a glimpse of what he looks like as a sleepwalker). As both parents seem to suspend themselves on a tightrope, balancing between flat-out using Gyllenhal as a temporary stand-in for their daughter and, in resenting his individuality, Silberling delights in watching these parents realize the profound – if mechanically obvious – truth that accepting their deceased daughter as such, and by making plans to move on (Sarandon's list, Hoffman's window repair) can rally them closer to resolution. The film seems to hold to that very notion, as Gyllenhal takes to the road with Alexia Landau (who is particularly terrific, a less intimidating version of Clair Forlani, I think), and everyone lives happily every after. In a film with this many overlapping tones (and, as is par for the course with cross-genre films), everything feels symmetrically engineered to the very last plot point. Moonlight Mile is still rather charming, and inherantly watchable that even supremely outrageous courtroom scenes - where characters run wild with long, epiphany-laden soliloquies - feel almost right. Easily one of the best Hollywood dramas I've seen in ages. It's a shame it didn't make more money. It reminds of me of something Harvey Weinstein said: (on Chicago's success) "If you can get it to gross $150 million, that means people don't have to make blockbusters that are idiotic." I felt like I was reaching when I compared Unfaithful to In the Bedroom in its depiction of families who commit murder and get away with it. Moonlight Mile reminded me of In the Bedroom too, but for a much more pleasant reason – because both films seem to present families in a way much closer to how they really tend to be.