Just a little something I noticed. This man:

Shares his name with this man:

How cool is that?

Safe House is really quite good. It’s a tense, paranoid little thriller with good action scenes, great performances and a healthy anti-authoritarian streak. It’s not original, or even particularly smart, but it’s serious and entertaining at the same time, and that’s a pretty cool thing for a movie to pull off. So go see Safe House, you’ll probably like it, and that’s about all I have to say about that.

Well…actually, there is one thing.

There are precisely two female characters in Safe House, and neither of them are especially interesting. Now I’m not having a go at Safe House for this - a lot of my favourite movies are androcentric and there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with that. But such movies are super-ubiquitous whereas genuinely gynocentric movies (discounting the endless parade of insulting romantic comedies and chick-flicks) are rare; the result is that there are very few great female characters knocking about these days and, more to the point, Manly Men movies are starting to bore me.

There was another movie that came out recently that was basically a retread of a too-familiar archetypal story. It was called Haywire. And it was AWESOME.

Haywire is a fairly straight forward (if twistily plotted) revenge thriller, in which a covert operative is out for revenge against her treacherous former employees. It’s a neatly scripted, tightly-edited, miniature beast of a film that rarely puts a foot wrong. Also, the lead character is female, and played by Gina Carano, one of the very few plausible female action leads working today.

The script played a little with gender conventions and politics, but it would still have been more-or-less the same movie if the main character had instead been male. I would still have enjoyed it. The presence of a female lead shouldn’t really have changed anything. But it did - it made the movie feel fresher.

Good though Safe House is, the world is full of other movies like it: movies in which men kill other men and drive cars very fast and expose corruption and die nobly. Women don’t have anywhere near as much representation in the “grizzled bad-ass” stakes, and that’s what makes Haywire all the sweeter.

I want more, and better, female characters in all movies - it’s just recent action movies that have got me thinking about it more. I recently watched an interview with Donald Glover in which he talked about the idea of a black Spiderman and he said that it wouldn’t really change anything, it would just give it a different flavour. Well, this is like that. I’m just looking for something different and I think a better class of female character could be it. On reflection, it’s quite sad that I even have to bring this up, but there it is.

On a related note (said he, awkwardly redirecting the topic to something else entirely), the other night I was trying to think of great female characters in videogames, and I could think of only one: GLaDOS, the homicidal robot from the Portal games. I was thinking of writing some articles about great female videogame characters, but since then I’ve been pointed to a whole load of others I didn’t even know about. If I’m going to write about this, I will first have to play through a whole lot more videogames.

…Yeah, it’s just an excuse really.

True story: just before I watched Project X I went for a piss and heard from the next cubicle over the muffled, indistinct noises of a man who could have been silently weeping, praying or chanting - which I admit is odd, although at the time I didn’t give it much thought. I can now be reasonably certain that said gent was so upset because he had just seen the movie I was about to see. After I saw it I nearly broke down in front of a friend. This is not a cute little exaggeration I put in to make a point. It is a literal truth. This film nearly broke me.

(Above: Project X poster complete with stupid fucking tagline. No, Project X poster, I have never dreamed about a party like this. My subconscious does not hate me that much.)

Project X is a sort of a found footage movie about some nameless dick highschooler’s birthday party that rapidly gets out of hand and culminates in a neighbourhood house getting burned down at the hands of a psychotic drug dealer (spoilers), although I should confess off the bat that I had to close my eyes during much of the finale, so that all that was left was the noise, the awful noise…so I might have missed some details.

I refuse to recall their names, but there are four main characters in Project X: you’ve got your bog-standard protagonist kid whose birthday it is, you’ve got this loudmouth who seems to be actively competing for the title of World’s Biggest Cunt, you’ve got one kid who has no distinguishable characteristics beyond being a bit chubby…and then there’s the goth kid with the camera. As I said, this is a found footage movie; aside from the occasional cut to some other prick’s recording device and an awful lot of cheating, most of the footage is supposed to have been shot by the goth kid, whom the other kids have drafted in to film everything despite not knowing particularly well, or at all.

The goth kid is almost entirely hidden behind the camera - you do get a glimpse of him early on in the movie, looking worryingly like Matthew David Lewis, the kid who played Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies - and says about three lines during the course of the whole movie. Mostly he just films shit, wandering aimlessly around, apparently unable to stay put for more than a minute at a time. When he’s not outdoors filming randomers doing stupid shit, he’s indoors filming boys and girls making out from hidden vantage points. No, really. AND HE’S NOT EVEN THE ONLY ONE IN THE MOVIE WHO DOES THIS. You know, the movie aims to be a fun and inclusive look at a night of we-had-the-greatest-night-ever-hooking-up-getting-fucked-up-man-you-should-have-been-there partying, but really it’s a parade of dumb fucks doing dumb shit they’re too fucked up to be even be fully conscious of, for the gratification of a sick, voyeuristic audience. To call it pornographic in its presentation and general ick fact is to express an unduly harsh opinion of pornography, but it is also accurate. This is a horrible film and if you like it you’re a horrible person and…and I’m getting really ahead of myself. Okay, Ciaran, back on track.

(But first, a side-note: go watch Chronicle. Right now. Stop reading, go watch it any way you can, then come back here. You done? Cool. You now know exactly how far the found footage movie can go. We can now retire the genre forever now.)

I’m now going to list some of the more plot-relevant events leading up to the party:

• Birthday boy’s parents leave him the house for the weekend, telling him not to have too many people round. Behind closed doors, they discuss the possibility that he might throw a party; the mother displays concern which the father dismisses as unwarranted, telling her that they have nothing to worry about because their son is “just not popular” and “a loser”. You can read that shame in his eyes as he says it.
• Birthday boy is revealed to have a close female friend, but they’re not, like, dating or anything, there just, like really good friends. If you can’t guess exactly where that story’s going, then you’ve never seen any movies before ever and that’s really weird. Didn’t I tell you to go watch Chronicle? Why are you even reading a movie review?
• The guys hire two insane younger kids to do “security” for the party.
• The guys go door-to-door around the neighbourhood, politely informing the neighbours that there will be a party going on and there might be a little noise, but just bear with them and feel free to call round if it’s problematic. Wonderful! At least it would be if they weren’t playing it for laughs, as if the very idea of common courtesy and respect for you neighbours is one big fucking joke.
• The kids steal a gnome from a drug dealer, who seems unduly pissed off about it. This, it is later discovered after the gnome is used as a makeshift piñata, is because the gnome was full of ecstasy tablets (spoilers). Yes, that’s right, this film went OUT OF ITS FUCKING WAY TO WORK A GNOME INTO THE PLOT. For laughs. It’s supposed to be funny. A fucking gnome. This is the level of retardation we’re dealing with, people.

The weird thing about all this? That Project X has a plot, and even subplots, at all. See, the movie is 88 minutes long, and a fair chunk of that time is just montages of people at the party dancing to face-meltingly loud music, drinking, taking drugs, getting half naked, making out etc. These montages typically last a few minutes at a time, feature a lot of slow-motion and a weirdly lo-fi music video aesthetic and I just wonder: who the fuck thought that this made for a good movie? I mean say what you want about the unsavoury voyeurism of the film, at least it serves an understandable purpose, but what the fuck does anyone get out of watching randomised party footage? It’s not fun, it’s not funny, it’s not sexy and it doesn’t mean anything - so what is the fucking point? I never saw it, only Kyle Kallgren’s review, but during these head-meltingly pointless moments the movie it most reminds me of is Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers.

(Above: still from Trash Humpers or Project X, I forget which one.)

I’ll be entirely honest: I just don’t get it. I don’t get how watching people do stupid shit is supposed to be interesting or entertaining. But I at least understand that there’s an audience of moviegoers willing to praise something like Trash Humpers as “art” - they’re deluded morons, yes, but they do exist. But as far as I know, nobody has ever described Trash Humpers as “entertaining”. But I’m almost certain that’s what these bits from Project X are supposed to be. Almost. Fuck. Maybe it really is an art project. Clue’s in the title, I guess. Maybe director Mima Nourizadeh is really Harmony Korine working under a pseudonym. It would explain how this movie can be so very fucking awful.

Anyway, back to the plot. So pretty much immediately too many people show up for the party. The guests fall into two rough categories: guys and dolls. The guys come in various shapes and sizes but have one behaviourial pattern: they’re all cocks. The dolls are all exactly the same shape except for one chubby black girl who can be spotted occasionally, which is a pretty odd token inclusion…it’s hard to tell whether she’s there to be laughed at or fetishised, but I’m pretty sure it’s either one or the other, and either option seems pretty distasteful. Anyway, they’re all too loud, too inebriated, too fucking awful. Now, picture all this happening in your neighbourhood. Imagine how you’d react.

Indeed.

See, later on when the crazed drug dealer shows up with the flame thrower my immediate thought was: oh good. Some good-hearted neighbour has finally snapped and will now kill everyone. The movie’s done with its intended audience (whoever the fuck they are) - now it’s gonna make me feel good. But no. The actual message of this movie is so much more depressing than my preferred some people are bad and deserve to die maxim. In the end birthday boy ends up with a burned down house, a pissed off female BFF (because he made out with her, then was caught doing the same with some other girl, but you knew that anyway, didn’t you?) and a financially destroyed future…but it was all worth it because he had the BEST NITE EVAR. Worse: he’s now really popular in school, his dad is secretly proud of him and of course his BFF forgives him because he apologises in just the right way. Here’s the gist of what he says to her:

“My life is totally fucked right now but it’ll all be okay if I could just spend my next birthday alone with you.”

And of course this makes her wet her knickers and forgive him right there and then. Again, this is a sing-along story arc - the plot practically demands she forgive him any disgression, no matter how terrible. If I thought women were this pliable in real life, I wouldn’t be into them any more. No, seriously. Retarded is not sexy.

I’d like to rant some more about this movie’s portrayal of women, but it’s not like the men fare all that much better. They all suck in some way - the only difference is that with the guys there is at least some variety. Take the one - that’s right, just one - neighbour who actually comes round to complain: one of those kids tasers him in the back of the neck, so he turns round and reflexively punches him in the face. It’s awesome, it really is. I mean I started this paragraph with the intent of condemning this guy for punching a teenage boy, but…I’m sorry, I can’t. Not even in a real world sense. This movie has made me applaud child abuse. If a tasers-wielding kid like this exists, and you know of him, you can totally punch him in the face if you want. No, it’s totally cool. You have my blessing, and I’m pretty sure that’s legally binding.

Said neighbour - herein referred to as The Lone Ranger as a mark of respect - later calls the cops on the party, prompting an absolutely jaw-dropping scene in which two of the main kids convince the police that their quiet little get-together is winding down, while several hundred drunken, pilled-out revellers hide behind the house being really really super quiet - and it works.

See, it’s easy to forget (and also fucking hard to believe) but this movie is supposed to be funny. And it tries. Lordy, how it tries. Like that World’s Biggest Cunt kid I mentioned? Well his actor’s performance is a carbon copy of Jonah Hill’s performance as Seth in Superbad, minus most of the humour and all the charm. Of course there’s shades of Superbad all over Project X, and that’s maybe its biggest mistake, to try and take on a classic like that. Superbad was about obnoxious high schooler fuckrods trying to party, get drunk and, most important of all, get laid. But Superbad worked, not just because it was really funny, but because it understood that a) there are consequences to, and responsibilities involved in partying, drinking and fucking and b) teenage fuckheads are people too, with all the complexity and depth of emotion that that entails.

(Above: people.)

I’m going to have to stop here, because it’s dawned on me that I could go on for pages and pages and pages and not even come close to explaining how much I revile this movie. All I can say is, I want everybody involved dead. Cast, director, editor, producers, distributors, catering staff - everybody. But first, I want each and every one of those people to know that the world would have been a better place if they’d never been born. Writer Michael Bacall actually co-wrote Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, possibly my favourite movie, and I still think if he choked to death on live maggots tomorrow the world would be a nicer, cleaner place to live. This movie is proof that no matter what good the human race might achieve, it will ultimately always have evil at its heart.

Oh, and one more thing: if you actually like this movie, please never ever speak to me, and stay the fuck away from me at all times.

Disaster movie. Alien invasion. Invisible aliens. Shoddy special effects. Weak script. Half-assed half-acting. Congenital mediocrity. Loses nothing. Gains nothing. Says nothing. Achieves nothing. Avoid.

Unusually for me, I made some resolutions this year. Nothing fancy - I’m not quite ready to get in shape, give up drinking and stop masturbating in work just yet - but I am planning to keep on top of the movie reviews this year. Yep, 2012 will be the year I finally manage to review everything, or at least everything that seems relevant.

So I can’t quite fucking believe that 2012 kicks off with this.

There is a debate - a long, boring and awful but necessary debate - to be had about the implications of this movie. What responsibilities must a Mrs T biopic adhere to? Does it have to be historically accurate? How best to detail the impact her policies had on Britain? Is it a good idea to co-opt her as a feminist icon? Given that most of us see her as something of a monster, is it a bold and daring move to try and humanise her? Is that even possible?

In short: is it okay to completely rewrite such recent history?

I won’t pretend to have the answer, but I will say it makes me queasy just how fair this movie seems to think it has to be. At the time of writing the Tories are back in power, enforcing the same kind of harsh, poor- and ill-baiting policies made fashionable by Mrs T herself back in the day. I guess my worry is that by celebrating everything positive and wonderful about Mrs T (fictional or otherwise) without putting it in its proper historical context, we’re essentially legitimising this kind of behaviour. And believe me, even despite paying lip-service to it via inexpertly employed reels of old news footage, The Iron Lady has barely any real historical context. Given how closely it centres around Mrs T AND NO-ONE ELSE, it barely has time to register anything outside her immediate surroundings.

For example: Mrs T receives news of the first British soldier to fall casualty to the Falklands war (Argentinian casualties aren’t even mentioned) and vows to write personally to his family, and the family of every other British soldier who might die in said conflict*; very admirable. Soon after, the Brits “win” the war, Mrs T enjoys a massive boost in popularity, and she is shown using her victory as a stick to beat her political opponents with. From then on, it is mentioned no more. No fall-out. No aftermath. We don’t even see the reaction of the grieving families she wrote to, because this movie doesn’t give a fuck about them. It’s all about her. The Falklands war is evoked purely to further embiggen the character of Mrs T; any real world implications are completely ignored. I find that sickening.

But that’s just me. I’m a straight-forward lefty and I’m very worried about the future. But there is a baser, more immediate and more easily answered question at hand: is The Iron Lady a good movie?

The short answer is: no. The long answer: holy Mary mother of fuck, no it bloody well isn’t.

Director Phyllida Lloyd is a theatre veteran whose most noted film to date is the movie adaptation of Mama Mia! [sic]. Had I known this going in I might have been less surprised by just how awful it is. I’d say that it’s just about a better movie than Mama Mia! [sic] but I don’t want to oversell it: The Iron Lady is still fucking horrendous.

The main problem is that the movie only really sets out to do one thing - humanise Margaret Thatcher - and it fails. Of course it fails. It is trying to do the impossible. I don’t mean to sound heartless, but there is basically nothing you could do to Mrs T that would make me feel anything for her. Movies have, in the past, made me feel deeply for the following things: rats, robots, insects, fish, lizards, pandas, snakes, monkeys, toys, literal monsters, cars, houses, household appliances, ghost, goblins and Richard Nixon. There’s even a Korean film out there called Doggy Poo! [sic] which makes a fairly convincing case for the feelings and emotions of an actual lump of shit. But Mrs T? Nope. Impossible. They even give her Alzheimer’s, the mere mention of which is normally enough to make me weep floods. Still, nothing.

Meryl Streep stars, and that’s pretty fucking weird. Her performance as Thatcher in her prime is an astonishing act of mimicry, while her version of said character as an older woman struggling with hallucinations and unaccustomed self-doubt is vividly imagined and extraordinarily realised. It’s a technically accomplished and scenery-absorbing performance and I think it hurts the movie even further. Again, this movie has a hard enough time focusing on anything that isn’t Thatcher. Streep swallowing the scenery and shitting it out doesn’t help any.

There is one (and only one) other notable performance in this film: that of Anthony Head as Geoffrey Howe. His performance is subtle and wonderful, somehow provacative of genuine human empathy. That’s right: Geoffrey Howe is the only relatable human being in this movie. I mean…wow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84iy9f3GLPE

And beyond all these issues I have about this film and its implications, ultimately The Iron Lady is just dull, dull, dull. The narrative is sloppy, the faux-arthouse directorial flourishes are insufferable, and it feels far too long. (I just checked, and was shocked to find that the running time is only 105 minutes - I would have guessed at least two and a half hours.) It goes nowhere, has absolutely nothing to say about anything and the one thing it tries to do, it can’t. Early contender for worst film of the year.

* For the record, the total casualties during the Falklands war (according to wikipedia) were: 255 British soldiers, 649 Argentine soldiers, 3 civilians.

Sadly I couldn’t find any links to the actual song, but here’s the lyrics to damn-near unlistenable Fatima Mansions classic Mario Vargas Yoni. I think you’ll find it quite apt.

The mother of the nation has gone; she has hobbled off to her uncertain fate, having only a tycoon’s salary given to her to fund the purchase of that monkey-shit-brown hair rinse we know so well. They act like nothing ever happened, but it did. It’s too late—too late for the thousands driven to mental illness, premature old age and suicide by the force-feeding to them of a daily diet of despair and the doctrine of their own obsolescence. Too late for the thousands of teenagers who grew up illiterate but unaccountably proud that their nation spent the money that could have been spent on educating them to buy guns - guns which this country is too feeble and unimportant to need to use.

It’s too late to stop the rot—a rot she denied existed and which many thus forgot, which continued to accelerate and and now will not be stopped until all this fucking pretense is dropped.

Mario Vargas Yoni, intellectual born-again right-wing son of a bitch from the exotic other end of the earth, Venus flytrap lips curling over straw-coloured front teeth, so smart, so alert, so elegant…admires the departed killer for her “courage”. Tonight he speaks with Reggie Gurdjieff, most intelligent man in the UK, about new novel Shag Auntie Peggy, and on his plan for a junk bond issue to finance the privitization of the llama. But first, the bad weather…