The Man from Earth

I ran across this little gem almost entirely by accident.  The Man from Earth is a brilliant film that you’re unlikely to have watched unless it’s been recommended to you by somebody else. With minimal production budget, and virtually no funds at all for marketing, the film has had to rely solely on word of mouth for its success.

Written by the bearer of geek wet-dreams, Jerome Bixby, it focuses on a departing college professor whose friends throw him a surprise farewell party at his cabin in the woods. When they probe him for his reasons for leaving, he claims that he is a 14,000 year-old Cro-Magnon who somehow has not aged over the past millenia. Every ten years or so, when people realise that he’s not getting visibly older, he packs up and starts a new life.

This isn’t taken kindly by his friends and colleagues. Not only do they find the idea preposterous and outlandish, but even when they overcome the first hurdle of cynicism they are then faced with someone who claims to have had first-hand knowledge of much of humanity’s history. Unsurprisingly, his views at times differ significantly to written history which raises the tension levels in the room to boiling point.

And herein lies the film’s greatest strength, which is a pretty unsettling one: the film puts forward a damn good argument. It’s bizarrely feasible.

Virtually the whole film is set in his living room, and it is shot and rolls out like a play, with the plot moving forward through the intellectual and emotional arguments between the various characters.

There are some actors here that you’ll vaguely recognise (I’ll never forget the face of the portly fellow who sucked off Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Mysterious Skin) but the chances are that you won’t know the names of any of the cast.

Obviously a difficult film to market, it’s found its success through BitTorrent, with the producer thanking users for the film’s spread (hear that Hollywood!?). On the surface it might seem like a boring premise with no selling point, but it’s probably one of the most rewarding films to find its way onto my screen in the past year.

Ok, so what’s the bad stuff? The production quality is just not there. The images are grainy, the sounds are disjointed and the whole film feels like it was shot on a student’s budget (which it probably was). However, these are minor flaws in a great movie.

Having won a slew of awards, the film’s success shows what media is capable of and hopefully it’ll act as a catalyst for similar releases. With real quality finding success without the backing of the major studios, it’s perhaps inevitable that more and more gems will sneak through.

I just pray that it’s a trend that catches on. Fuck knows, it sure beats another Transformers movie, no matter how much Megan Fox bends over.

Legend of the Seeker

When I was done reading Eddings, Fesit, Weis & Hickman and the other staple fantasy authors of the geek teenage years, I was introduced by a friend to Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series. Starting with Wizard’s First Rule, it provided me with a glimpse into a darker and more brutal type of fantasy than I had been exposed to before.

Here the predestined heroes weren’t in puberty, fighting awkward romantic moments as intensely as they did the nefarious enemy. And when one finished the first book, one didn’t put it down with spirits soaring, captivated by a tale of heroic adventure and daring where personal tragedies and setbacks were little more than glorified MacGuffins.

**Minor spoilers follow**

Instead, I cringed throughout the book. Scenes that lingered weren’t glorious images of a hero standing with robes billowing behind him in the wind as his righteous might unleashed justice on his enemies. Rather, I couldn’t forget the horrific murder of a young boy or the (exquisitely written) protracted torture scene of the main character that was somehow unnervingly alluring (don’t call the cops on me just yet – it was designed to be as such and is key to the plot; or at least to my interpretation of it).

**Spoilers finished**

Peaking with the second book, Stone of Tears, the series left me captivated for the first few novels and I persisted until the fifth, Soul of the Fire, where a scene with a killer chicken framed by scary lightning put paid to any lingering faith that I may have had in Mr Goodkind. Somewhere along the line he lost the plot and began designing escapades and characters only to churn out more and more instalments in the series. I never read further than that fateful passage, and I am glad that I didn’t spend any more time on what in retrospect was a non-exceptional piece of work.

I found the main characters to be bland, with very stale characteristics. However, Goodkind’s prowess as an author cannot be denied as some of his supporting characters proved to be quite brilliant – especially the eccentric cloud-reading wizard, Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander.

Having since read George R. R. Martin and Steven Erikson’s works, I now struggle to enjoy any other heroic fantasy (with the possible exception of Robin Hobb). Maybe I am being too harsh on Goodkind as he was the last genre author I read before picking up the works of those two maestros.

Regardless, he has a special place on my book-shelf as he proved to be a stepping stone to better authors and kept me thoroughly entertained throughout a few thousand pages. Nevertheless, I was perplexed and a little intrigued when I came across a trailer for Legend of the Seeker, a TV series based on The Sword of Truth.

Having watched the first few episodes I am, surprisingly, somewhat enjoying it. It lacks the darkness and foreboding of the books (which were their biggest assets) and it cuts some corners with key scenes and special effects – but at the same time it does transport one to a world of fantasy where the chicks wear tight red leather and the actors aren’t as annoying as one may have feared.

It’s proving to be rather harmless fun and my snobbish eyes don’t find themselves very offended, least of all by the luscious forest wench that is Bridget Regan.

Ip Man

I have written about Donnie Yen before and I’ve been watching quite a lot of his movies recently, with Ip Man getting the ball rolling.

Here he plays the titular role of the the first man to teach Wing Chun openly and who went on to become Bruce Lee’s master. Set in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, the film delves into Ip Man’s struggle to care for his family and friends during the Japanese occupation.

Obviously, there are plenty of martial arts confrontations and as the Japanese general (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi) is an avid karate practitioner, the film builds to an inevitable conclusion.

Yen’s fighting prowess is as breathtaking as ever, but it’s his quiet, slightly awkward and reserved nature that leaves the biggest mark on the film. Unlike Jet Li, he doesn’t have that same superstar aura that casts him into a predetermined role so you’re not left feeling that you’ve met this particular character a hundred times before.

However, as with Li’s films (and Lee’s before his), the treatment of the Japanese in the story is somewhat off-putting. They are portrayed as inherently less virtuous and as being at less of a symbiosis with their environment (admittedly though, given the setting, the latter isn’t far off the mark). It’s something that Chinese martial arts cinema seems to focus on – hammering home that Chinese kung fu is superior to Japanese karate – and it has become very stale.

Ikeuchi is given the chance to somewhat mitigate this by playing an honourable adversary, but the fact that Ip Man holds the higher moral ground is constantly pounded into the viewer with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Nevertheless, this is a very good martial arts film with a solid, honest core that delivers on almost every level. Aside from some of the recent wuxia epics, this probably ranks as my favourite film of the genre (if you can lump the two into the same category). Yen has had less exposure to Western audiences than some of his contemporaries, but this is to our detriment as he’s just as skilled a performer and probably a better actor.

The film has been a massive hit and a sequel  is already in the works. Interestingly, another picture with Tony Leung in the lead role (The Grandmaster) is also due for release in 2010 having been in production hell for the past decade.

If Ip Man is anything to go by, then fans of the genre are in for a couple of treats.

Levi’s Dangerous Liaisons

I first saw this ad two-and-a-half years ago and it still ranks as one of my favourites.

As a reward for its troubles it deservedly took home a Gold Lion and a host of other awards.

For an interview with the creative director, go here.

Infernal Affairs

Although The Departed took home all of the accolades and the mainstream’s recognition, the film upon which it is based (to put it mildly) puts forward a very good argument for being the superior movie.

Infernal Affairs was released in 2002 and was received as the box office miracle that heralded the revival of Hong Kong cinema’s glory years. Starring Andy Lau and Tony Leung, the by now familiar plot involves a mole and an undercover agent hunting each other in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

However, Andrew Lau’s film stands in stark contrast to Scorcese’s Oscar winning machine. While the latter relies on raw impact from its performers and visuals, Infernal Affairs manages (perhaps counter-intuitively) to be both slicker and subtler at the same time.

The Departed is all about how many catchphrases Jack Nicholson can deliver, how much swearing Mark Wahlberg can fit into his 15 minutes of screen-time and how… um… ya, well Matt and Leo are in there as well.

It’s a raw and visceral monster of a movie, with all of the makings of a classic gangster flick. From the 150 minutes run-time to the sharp, witty lines of its characters to the mega-cast and household names to the larger than life Nicholson performance, all of the ingredients are there.

And it is a stunning film against which I hold no ill-will and which I will gladly add to my DVD library. It’s hard to find fault with any of the cast’s showings, the direction is top-notch and the ambience is spot on.

But I am frustrated that Infernal Affairs has garnered such little recognition in the wake of Scorcese-mania. Not only does it provide the original material, which The Departed copied and then fluffed up, but it is also a genuinely superior film.

Obviously it will come across as being more outlandish to a Western audience, but even so the strengths that it holds over The Departed are clear to see. There is just so much more to the film!

Firstly, its character portrayal is markedly better. While the American picture is littered with characters that border on stereotypes (ok, ok – memorable stereotypes), Lau and Leung convey so many likable traits that it’s impossible not to get drawn in and cheer for both at the same time.

Perhaps the biggest difference comes with the mole. While Damon’s character has a very black and white role to fill (i.e. that of a prick), Lau sympathetically portrays someone who is simultaneously ice-cool while being completely at odds with his situation.

These divided loyalties and the subtleties of the cast’s quiet delivery (especially Leung’s) conjure so much empathy that, in comparison, The Departed‘s characters seem like a line-up of professional wrestlers.

Secondly, it doesn’t try to be anything more than it has to. It doesn’t add any unnecessary scenes or characters just to squeeze another star into a scene. Clocking in at 50 minutes less than Scorcese’s film, it is perhaps one of the most perfectly paced movies in recent years. With razor sharp editing, a sexy urban colour palette and an agile core formed by its characters, Infernal Affairs mesmerisingly flies past.

It is also unquestionably thematically better. The Departed doesn’t seem to make the best use of its premise. It puts its characters in this compelling conundrum, and then has them roll around fretting whilst not once actually appreciating or exploring the irony of their situation (DON’T get me started on that ridiculous love triangle). Infernal Affairs makes the most of its setting. The parallels and similarities between the protagonists is what forms the heart of the film and what drives so much of its tension.

Lastly, it is the better directed movie. I can imagine all of the Scorcese fan-boys jumping up and down in hysteria at this so I’ll concede that this is the most contentious of my points. However, there are some scenes in Infernal Affairs that bear no equal, while I’d argue that the same cannot be said of The Departed.

The part in the audio-visual store perfectly sets the fraternal bond between the two leads that runs throughout the rest of the movie, the stake-out is tenser and more exciting than anything that Hollywood has produced since Heat, and the cell-phone call stills sends shivers up my spine.

Perhaps a comparison with Heat would do Infernal Affairs more justice. Despite having nearly exactly the same plot as The Departed, it certainly bears more in common with Michale Mann’s masterpiece (above and beyond its use of similar filters) than it does with a film set in Boston’s Irish ghetto.

Watching Lau and Leung testing the sound system, you are left with the same awestruck feeling as when you first saw Pacino and De Niro having coffee in that diner. And although the action scenes are few and far between, the tension that’s delivered in the stake-out puts that on par with Heat‘s legendary shootout.

One can imagine that if Mann had directed The Departed that it would have been much more similar to the original (and thus more redundant). But, I’ll say it again – Scorcese did an amazing job with his movie.

What annoys me isn’t so much the faults of his film (they are so few and inconsequential when compared to its strengths that only a true cynic would focus on them), but rather the lack of recognition given to the original.

Interstate 60

So. You’re from a rich family, have a hot shot lawyer for a father and a super hot, if somewhat condescending girlfriend and you have come to the time in your life when you have to choose between becoming an artist or following your father’s wishes and going to law-school. Time’s ticking and the pressure’s on…

What do you do?

Obviously you take a job (for which you have to sign a contract in your own blood) to deliver a mysterious package (which you’re not allowed to peek inside of) to a location which can only be reached by an interstate that doesn’t exist.

Oh, and for good measure you decide to give a lift to Gary Oldman’s pipe smoking, wish-granting character – aptly named O.W. Grant - who lost his schlong during a card game some years back.

Given that this is only the beginning of the adventure, you know pretty early on that you’re in for a treat with Interstate 60.

A road-trip movie with a difference, Interstate 60 follows Neil Oliver (James Marsden – aka Cyclops) as he tries to find answers to life’s questions on his own terms.

The great thing about this film is that it never takes itself too seriously and veers away from pretentious territory. It’s a simple and good-hearted, if somewhat quirky, adventure-filled journey which carries some important life-lessons dressed in a cocktail of bizarre anecdotes.

Some of these include Gary Oldman’s smooth pelvis, Amy Smart as (literally) the girl of Neil’s dreams, a town full of lawyers who spend their lives suing each other, and a Museum of Art Fraud which actually contains original paintings posing as frauds.

And then there’s Amy Jo Johnson, the Pink Power Ranger, who’s in search of the perfect fuck (*minor spoiler in the vid):

Perhaps more relevant when I saw it during my university years, it nevertheless maintains a certain appeal and brings with it a lot of nostalgia. After a long few months slogging away at the London rat race this definitely comes as a breath of much needed fresh air and perspective. Heck, perhaps it’s more relevant than ever!

Some other famous faces that you’ll recognise include Chris Cooper, Kurt Russel, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd. And directing you have Bob Gale, who rounds up the Back to the Future mini-reunion.

Giving the finger to life’s external pressures, Interstate 60: Episodes of the Road (to give it its full, clunky title) has become quite the cult hit, and it’s easy to see why.

You know that any movie in which Gary Oldman is having a blast is going to be a great way to spend two hours, and this certainly one lives up to that mark.

Beautiful brutality

In SPL (also known as Kill Zone or Kill the Broken Wolf) the spectacular Donnie Yen and Wu Jing deliver one of cinema’s most beautifully and brutally crafted fight scenes.

For the life of me, I can’t praise this fight enough.

The ruthless, unbridled aggression of both combatants is so fluently combined with a wariness of the other’s prowess that the viewer is immediately embroiled in the action. Not only is it painfully clear that each fighter intends on inflicting fatal damage on the other, but it is just as evident that the fighters themselves are frighteningly aware of this.

It’s great to see that this, unlike so many other martial arts fights, doesn’t rely on a spectacle of amazing superhuman moves or on a few money shots. Rather, the sparring-style combat of Yen and Jing assessing each other while not once letting up on the intensity takes the viewer along a razor-edged journey at breakneck speeds.

The combination of non-relenting attacks and desperate defending is mesmorising. Here, it’s clear from the start, that one of the two fighters will die. The haunting music and the stylish colour palette add a further contrast to make this a truly unique scene.

Shot over five days, Yen specifically choreographed the fight so that it steered clear of traditional martial arts moves. Rather, he looked to capture the furious, non-relenting pace of two fighters hacking away at each other whilst desperately trying to stay alive.

Some other fights from the movie worth a look are this vicious dispay by Jing:

And Yen facing off against the still impressive Sammo Hung (be warned, if you intend on watching the movie this last scene contains quite a major spoiler):

The hip hop samurai

In Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai Jim Jarmusch successfully, if unpredictably, blends the mob, hip hop and samurai genres to produce a uniquely poignant indie film. Forest Whitaker plays the eponymous Ghost Dog, a hitman living in the urban ghetto who is obsessed with the samurai way of life.

It’s quite something to see this bear of a man moving with such grace and it’s just as startling to see a character stuck in the American ghetto aspire to the nobility of the samurai (as dictated by Tsunetomo’s Hagakure).

The film works well on a few levels. Firstly, it shows just how displaced its characters are. Ghost Dog subscribes to the morals of a long bygone age, while the gangsters who at first employ and subsequently hunt him are seeing their own era quickly fading.

Thematically it manages to show the clash between Ghost Dog’s noble, if unrealistic and whimsical, samurai ideals and the decaying world of the immoral mob.

However, Ghost Dog‘s greatest achievement is the charming friendliness that it  conveys in the scenes featuring Forester’s Ghost Dog and Isaach De Bankolé‘s Haitian ice-cream man.

While Ghost Dog can’t speak French and Raymond (the ice-cream guy) can’t speak a word of English, they somehow seem to understand one another. And despite neither having any money or a place in the society around them, both seem to take great enjoyment in the time that they spend together. This, more than any of the wise words of the samurai, gives the film its true heart and soul.

What results are two simple, extremely likable characters and a likable film.

Despite featuring a great score by RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan (who has a cameo about halfway through) the film can be criticised for its slow pace. However, this is a necessity given that Ghost Dog’s serene character is the main driving force.

Unfortunately Ghost Dog is not for everyone. Those looking for a fast-paced actioner or some comfort-violence might be somewhat disappointed by the lack of gratuity and startled by the oddness of the characters. The latter is particularly jarring – some of the gangsters are so bizarrely quirky, that they seem like cartoon caricatures.

However, there is a lot beneath the surface and the action pieces that Ghost Dog does contain are very well executed. And somehow, the above flaws all make the film more likable (although not necessarily more enjoyable).

Some patience is admittedly required to sit through the full two hours but, given the chance, Ghost Dog will deliver something very unique.

Blue elves and dirty prawns

The success of District 9 must be proving to be something of a headache for James Cameron. Having waited 15 years to make Avatar, he finds that he’s finally releasing his sci-fi epic only a few short months after a film with a disturbingly similar premise set the box-office alight.

Let it be said now that it should (ideally) be impossible to praise one over the other until one has actually seen Avatar, but I fear that it will be received with no small amount of prejudice when it is finally released.

The parallels between both titles are fairly glaring. Both are set in a world where tension exists between humans and aliens, the human protagonist in both undergoes a metamorphosis of sorts that leaves him incarnated as a member of the other species, and both ‘heroes’ find their allegiance to their own kind severely questioned.

It’s safe to say that District 9‘s prawn loving, gun-toting Wikus has stolen some of Cameron’s thunder. However, it would be unfair to label Avatar a lesser movie merely due to it following a similar storyline. It had, after all, been conceived long before Blomkamp’s film (Cameron has long stated that the only reason that it has not been released sooner is that the technology required to shoot the movie only became available a few years ago).

Unfortunately, I suspect that Avatar is going to suffer somewhat due to District 9‘s success. Cameron is a director whom people love to hate (*cough*Titanic*cough*), while Blomkamp was an unknown who became an overnight darling due to his stunning debut. And while Cameron’s film is the result of a massive budget which reeks of the gratuitous extravagance that symbolizes everything that is wrong with the movie industry, the South African born Blomkamp made do with a scant $30 million and broke all the rules in scoring a major hit.

However, there will obviously be some major differences. The Pocahontas-like Avatar is set in a beautiful, vibrant world filled with gorgeous and exotic elfin inhabitants while the gritty District 9 is firmly grounded in the Johannesburg slums with its featured alien race modeled after bottom-feeding crustaceans. The former has a character who comes from a hellish background and finds love in a utopian world, while the latter’s lead comes from a text-book perfect suburban world and ends up on the other side of the class-ladder.

More tellingly perhaps, whereas Avatar seems set to overwhelm audiences with its use of 3D technology (the product of the above-mentioned budget), the effects of the South African made film were so understated that they slotted seamlessly into their surrounds and proved to be the foundation upon which the film was based.

Nevertheless, I am really looking forward to Avatar, much more eagerly than I did for District 9. With a whole new fantastic world to explore (in 3D), it looks set to let our imaginations run loose in a beautiful realm of escapism for the first time in a long, long while.

When was the last time that we had a sci-fi epic based on an original script that delivered a new universe for our minds to explore? Adaptations and remakes (which seem to be the only things that Hollywood throws money at these days) certainly have their place, but they just don’t carry that wonder of introducing you to a world beyond your imagination.

Let’s hope that Cameron delivers on this count.

The Lives of Others

The Lives of Others is a German flick that bagged the 2007 Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

Set in 1984′s East Germany, it follows Gerd Wiesler, a fearsome agent (played by the late Ulrich Mühe) of the socialist government’s secret police who is assigned to place a successful writer and his lover under surveillance.

What initially begins as a routine mission for a very cold, determined and dehumanised Wiesler soon reveals itself to be anything but. The political and ideological motivations of his superiors are all too obvious for someone who has moulded himself as an agent of justice, and Wiesler soon finds that he is living alarmingly vicariously through a couple whom he’s supposed to implicate.

As he becomes more and more absorbed in their lives, the motivations and loyalties of all the characters are placed under scrutiny.

The film has become a critical success and, although poignant, it is not so heavy-handed as to detract from its entertainment value. One part social commentary, one part history lesson and one part political thriller, The Lives of Others is easily one of the best films that I have seen in the past few years.

There are a host of amazing reviews written on this spectacular film, and I won’t bore you with singing its praises – many others have done a much better job of it than I could.

I will say though that you owe it to yourselves to watch this amazing piece of cinema before the planned American remake comes out next year. Why they would remake a film that’s only 3 years old and was produced in the country in which the story is set is beyond me.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that people don’t like having to read subtitles while trying to stuff a Big Mac down their throats.