EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

Fairytale Of Le Havre

Sometimes, it’s tough not to come across as a film snob. I try to be inclusive and open – honest, really, I do. But in a pub earlier this week with MovieBrit Kate, I found myself uttering these immortal words about Aki Kaurismäki’s latest film, Le Havre: “I thought it was great. But you’d hate it.”

In my defence, I know Kate’s tastes. She has no patience for subtitled misery, and my delight in depressing foreign movies usually ends up with me on the wrong end of the finest display of lip-curling this side of Elvis.

But I do think I’m on safe ground when I say that Kaurismäki’s films are not for everyone. They’re deadpan, deliberately paced (oh, alright, slow) and deal with small stories set in poor locations acted out by sad, ugly people.

Tempted?
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The Dead Files Are Open!

Exciting news, Readership! It’s been hellish having to wait until now to share the news but, at last, finally, I can announce the arrival of the first UKZDL anthology, The Dead Files, Vol. 1.

We are the United Kingdom Zombie Defence League – a group of writers and fans that have teamed up to give you, the discerning horror aficionado, new twists and takes on the zombie apocalypse tale. There’s a lot of fun stuff in here, and even a cautionary nursery rhyme!

I’m especially excited because of course, I’m a part of the group and my novella, The Key To The Gates Of Hell, is the finale of the whole book. It’s a tale of adventure and electrical zombies set five hundred years after Z-Day, in a world that’s very different. I think it’s sci-fi horror with a difference, and I really hope you enjoy it. Here’s an extract, just to give you an idea of what to expect.

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Introducing The Band: Against The Auteur Theory

When you start making film, you come to realise very quickly (or at least you do if you have the faintest scrap of self-awareness) that the auteur theory is bullshit. The very idea of a film being “by” one person is simply untrue.

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Tanglefoot Rice

In the unlikely event that I ever make it onto Desert Island Discs, there’s one decision with which I would struggle massively. Not the music – a heady mix of northern soul, chiming indie rock and squelchy electronica. Sod that one book nonsense – I’d be taking a Kindle fully loaded with William Gibson, Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut.

It would be the luxury item that would give me pause. Although the notion of a fast satellite uplink feeding a hot-rodded MacBook Pro appeals, I think in the end I’d have to plump for a rice cooker.

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Sure Shot

We were in a Soho pub on Friday, enjoying a quiet, late celebration of Rev Sherlock’s fortyhurhurff birthday. It was a busy night, but the staff were their usual peppy, on-the-ball self. The drinks were flowing smoothly.

All of a sudden, everyone behind the bar stopped what they were doing, and poured out a line of shots. The music was cut. A solemn toast was pronounced, and when the music came back up it was the Beastie Boys, played boneshakingly loud.

I took a moment to lift a glass, as I had just seen the news that the bar staff at the Ship on Wardour Street had needed to mark. Adam Yauch, MCA of the Beastie Boys, had just died of cancer. He was 47. His sandpaper-and-whiskey voice had made him my favourite, and he was a prime mover of the Beastie’s shift to a more conscious, if just as funky, lyrical stance.

His loss is a kick in the nuts. MCA was a richly talented musician, a rapper with a unique flow, a generous and intelligent presence. This shot is for him.

Gods And Monsters – X&HT Saw Avengers Assemble

Superheroes are mythology. They stand above us, their concerns otherworldly, epic. The fate of worlds rests on their shoulders. They have little time for us, the people they pledge to protect. We get in the way. We’re cannon fodder. However much they claim to care, superheroes pledge their fealty to larger concepts than we can embody. They owe allegiance (and often claim ownership) to flags, cities, whole worlds. The people that give life to those ideals are messy little details, and boy does it ever get annoying just when you’re about to deliver the coup de grace to Dr. Villain and all of a sudden there’s a bus full of schoolkids that’s about to drop off a cliff.

And heaven help any mortal that a superhero chooses as a companion. A life of peril and an early, messy death awaits. The flimsy protection of a secret identity is no help once the mask inevitably comes off. I could reel off a loooong list of companions, wives and lovers that have lost their lives while their super-powered paramours have wept a single, perfect tear and moved on to the next battle.

And goddamit, Avengers Assemble does nothing to break that poisonous cycle.

(Are there spoilers after the cut? Are there EVER, True Believer!)

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Locked And Loaded: X&HT Saw Lockout

If you had to pin me down, knees on my shoulders, threaten to flob in my mouth, and get me to confess to the kind of film I like more than any other, of course I would thrash and scream, and dissemble, and throw out some bullpucky about French crime movies of the early sixties, about Tarkovsky, Joderowsky and Kurismaki, but sooner or later, probably at the point where you start tickling me, I’d have to fess up and say it’s cheap, fast and dirty early eighties SF that really does it for me.

And that, Readership, is why I loved Lockout.

(as ever, ‘ware spoilers.)

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Camera Shy

It would be very easy to loose off a rant in the direction of TV critic and misogynist AA Gill following the comments he made about classicist Mary Beard and her excellent new programme Meet The Romans. But I really just wanted to make one point, raised by a quote from his review. He states:

‘The hair is a disaster, the outfit an embarrassment… This isn’t sexist or beside the point. If you’re going to invite yourself into the front rooms of the living, then you need to make an effort.’

Let’s take a look at some other TV science and history presenters and see how well they scrub up for the cameras, shall we?

NewImage

…you get the idea.

Meet The Romans continues tonight at 9pm on BBC2. You can find AA Gill cowering behind the Times paywall, or under the nearest rock.

Coverage

Coverage is a term used by film-makers to describe the shots they need to get a scene off the script and onto the screen. It’s always made to sound more complicated than it is, so let’s give you an example.

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A Feast Of Film

I knew it was going to be an interesting evening as soon as I walked through the door of Moor’s Bar. I was greeted with a loud halloo, a high five and a hug by a woman to whose face I could not immediately put a name. Then she started dancing at me and the truth dropped with a heavy clang. I had no idea who this woman was, and she was drunk as a skunk.

It took a while to extricate myself, much to the amusement of Leading Man Clive and Simon Aitken, who watched my predicament from a safe distance (THANKS, guys), clearly amused as I tried to stay polite and unmolested. My virtue remained unsullied (just) but by that point I was REALLY ready for a beer.

I was in Crouch End for the monthly Feast On Film night that Moor’s Bar’s affable owner Andy hosts with James Rumsey to show my support. It was something of an Out Of Hours reunion, as Xav Rodriguez, Keith Eyles and Simon all had films on the bill. It was also a chance to drop off a hard drive to Clive. A hard drive that had the graded pics from Out Of Hours on it. Two days earlier, Clive and I had sat together in a Nucoda suite and given his newest, greatest short a dose of pixie dust. Gotta say, even though I’d said it didn’t need much work, it benefitted from the extra effort I put in. I’m proud to say that it looks really good, and I can’t wait for the imminent cast and crew screening.

But that’s in the future. There were six short films on the bill on this rainy Wednesday night in North London, and plenty of film-makers to meet.

First up, a piece from the one director that couldn’t make it. Hector Corp is a three-year in the making corporate spoof from VFX wizard Gary H. Lee, that took the idea of mass redundancy and added plastic penguins to the mix. There was a Gremlins vibe and a skewed dark humour on show that had the bar roaring with approval. A great start, and a shame Gary couldn’t have been there to take his praise.

Prey was next up. A moody short by Xav Rodriguez, who I had last seen as a sleazy security guard on the Out Of Hours shoot. A twisty tale of the relationship between hunter and hunted, it benefitted enormously from the rain-slashed night exteriors – a fact that Xav admitted he’d neither scripted or planned for. It just so happened that on the two weekends he was shooting, the heavens opened at exactly the same time. Sometimes, you just have to embrace the gifts you’re given – even if they don’t seem like gifts at the time.

Open Window, directed by Matt Prendergast from a script by Feast regular Mark Brown was a noir short-short with a great little twist. I’m not usually a fan of voiceover, but here it was kind of the point. Shot in under an hour in a pub toilet, Open Window was very much a case of just grabbing a camera and making something. The two Marks have moved on a great deal since that early short, but as a starting point Open Window shows the sharp humour and solid writing that has become a trademark of the BraineHownd film experience.

Another early example of a film-maker’s art was up next. Keith Eyles’ Crossed Lines took a dark view of what can happen when you accidentally text the wrong number. It had a Hitchcockian air, with some nicely tense scenes and a bleak view of romance. It’s Keith’s longest film, and the one where he tried out a ton of different techniques. But it all hangs together visually, and I thought it was a great little piece.

Without Subtitles was fifth on the bill, and I don’t think I need to tell you any more about that. Simon tells me he has plans for ninja screenings at Cannes. If you’re going, keep your eyes open, and if you see Simon and Ben, ask nicely and you might just get your own private show!

It was the first time I’d seen it on a big screen. While I will always have issues with bar projection, I thought it looked pretty good. It’s the colourist in me. I never finish grading a film. I just have to stop.

The final film of the night was Conducting Threads, a lovely surrealist romance from Spanish director Nuno Montero. It’s one of those films that’s open to all sorts of interpretations, none of which are wrong. Composer Luigi Frassetto was in attendance, and gave an interesting perspective on the way writing music for film is a different creative challenge to just about any other composing job. A surprise appearance from actor Martin Head gave us yet another view of Nuno’s directing approach – which seemed to be allowing the cast and crew to make up their own minds about the film’s meaning!

As everyone settled into post-screening chat and drinks, I had to run off. The long trip back to Reading was ahead – and I had been inspired. By midnight, I would have most of a short script in the laptop. Who knows, I could be showing something at the Feast On Film more soonly than you think…

Photos by Simon Aitken. Photo of Simon and Ben by Andrew David Clark. There’s more pics of the night on Facebook!