Posts Tagged jmag
The Men Who Stare At Goats: jmag review
Here’s my quick review of The Men Who Stare At Goats from the latest issue of jmag. With this source material and calibre of cast, I had such high hopes…
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS
Directed by: Grant Heslov
Starring: Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges
Country: USA
The Men Who Stare At Goats starts with the statement: “More of this is true than you would believe.” And that’s both what’s wrong and what’s right with the movie.
It works best when it’s showing the secret history of the US Army’s unit of psychic spies, trained in paranormal abilities by a Lebowskiesque guru played by Jeff Bridges. These flashbacks, though, are intercut with a tacked-on storyline in the present about a journalist (Ewan McGregor) stumbling across a man who claims to be a member of “Project Jedi” on a secret mission in Iraq (George Clooney).
Sounds awesome? It’s inspired by Jon Ronson’s wildly entertaining book, but it misses the point that the book’s fascinating precisely because it’s non-fiction. (I mean, the soldiers are trained in something called the “sparkly eyes technique”!)
While The Men Who Stare At Goats is intermittently entertaining, it turns everything into farcical comedy. It should’ve realised that when your source material is this batshit, you play it straight.
Just one other review this month: the bizarre Twilight Zone-inspired Pontypool.
Issue #37 on sale now.
Directed by: Grant Heslov
Starring: Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges
Country: USA
Stars: 2
The Men Who Stare At Goats starts with the statement: “More of this is true than you would believe.” And that’s both what’s wrong and what’s right with the movie.
It works best when it’s showing the secret history of the US Army’s unit of psychic spies, trained in paranormal abilities by a Lebowskiesque guru played by Jeff Bridges. These flashbacks, though, are intercut with a tacked-on storyline in the present about a journalist (Ewan McGregor) stumbling across a man who claims to be a member of “Project Jedi” on a secret mission in Iraq (George Clooney).
Sounds awesome? It’s inspired by Jon Ronson’s wildly entertaining book, but it misses the point that the book’s fascinating precisely because it’s non-fiction. (I mean, the soldiers are trained in something called the “sparkly eyes technique”!)
The Men Who Stare At Goats is intermittently entertaining, but it turns everything into farcical comedy. It should’ve realised that when your source material is this entertainingly batshit, you play it straight.
Antichrist: jmag review
Here’s my quick review of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, just out on DVD, from the latest jmag. Warning: the following fails to grasp the whole ‘authorial intent is meaningless’ thing that’s hammered into every first year arts student.
ANTICHRIST
Directed by: Lars von Trier
Starring: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg
Country: USA / Denmark
After watching Antichrist, all I wanted to do was get Lars von Trier drunk and ask him: “Really?”
He has Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg give incredibly raw, honest performances as a couple dealing with the death of their young child; but he puts them in a film so over-the-top it often seems like a Flying High-style parody of art cinema. And that’s before a talking fox arrives to announce that “chaos reigns!”If you were too squeamish to see Antichrist on the big screen, don’t worry. Once things turn violent, it’s still not that bad – well, except for the bit with scissors, anyway. (Shudder.) It’s just the way he’s mixed violence with explicit sex that makes it shocking.
Antichrist is full of beautiful, nightmarish imagery: you could freeze it at random and create a perfect oil painting. Sometimes the movie seems like it’s inching close to saying something profound… only to run away giggling again.
So, Lars: should we take this psychodrama seriously? And how about that drink?
Other reviews this month: Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, Hillcoat’s The Road – more on that here – and Final Destination 3D.
Issue #36 on sale now.
If John Waters Could Only Save One Film…
John Waters is so damn enthusiastic about art that you can just wind him up and watch him go.
Just before Christmas last year I had the chance to chat with everyone’s favourite dirty uncle of cult cinema, and there’s a lengthy chunk of the interview now online.
Even when I haven’t thought much of one or two of John Waters’ films, I’ve always admired him for how excited he remains about other artists’ work, and not just his own. Film, theatre, fine art, you name it. So in the grand tradition of the Heathers lunchtime poll I asked him the following: if 1950s-style aliens arrived on earth to destroy all our movies and you could only save one film, what would it be?
His reply: Boom!
It’s the best failed art film ever. Elizabeth Taylor plays Sissy Goforth and Richard Burton plays the Angel of Death, a gigolo who comes to live with rich ladies before they die. It is staggering to see this movie. I could watch it over and over and shout out all the dialogue. It has Richard Burton saying for no apparent reason: “Boom… the sound of knowing the next moment you’re alive…”
(He gave me some good advice about surviving Christmas, too. While he loves it, he said he “understands people hating it. I think the biggest mistake you can make about Christmas is ignoring it.” Next Christmas, as Stephen Colbert would say: pick a side! We’re at war!)
Go read it, because he’s awesome. There’s some more of the our conversation – including why he thinks the Marquis de Sade is more famous than the Beatles – in the latest jmag.
I think the biggest mistake you can make about Christmas is ignoring it.
Thirst: jmag review
Here’s my quick review of the Chan-wook Park’s wetly disturbing vampire film, Thirst, from the latest jmag. (And yes, I did later plagiarise my own line about “sparkling and non-sparkling vampires”, and I apologise to myself for it.) It’s finally getting a DVD release in Australia next month after some sadly limited festival screenings earlier this year.
THIRST
Directed by: Chan-wook Park
Starring: Kang-ho Song, Ok-vin Kim
Anyone who’s witnessed the five-star, what-the-hell-am-I-watching? spectacle of Oldboy knows that Chan-wook Park’s films are rollercoasters: funny, scary, and violently melodramatic.
His latest, Thirst, isn’t just a vampire movie; it’s also the weirdest literary adaptation you’ll ever see. It’s inspired by the decidedly non-vampiric Émile Zola novel “Thérèse Raquin”, but twisted into a slow-boiling, genre-smashing story of an infected priest and the temptations of bloodlust.
Thirst is being hailed as everything that Twilight isn’t. (Personally, I think vampire lore is big enough for both sparkling and non-sparkling varieties.) Thirst is missing the momentum of some of Chan-wook Park’s other films, but manages to make vampires feel fresh again.
Did I mention wetness? The impeccable sound design makes this one of the schlurpiest films in cinema history, all blood and snot and seawater. Sam Raimi’s recent Drag Me To Hell was obsessed with horrible things happening to mouths, but Thirst will make you long for simpler times when people just used to get stabbed in the eyes.
Other reviews this month: Away We Go, Coraline, and Where The Wild Things Are. (Here’s something of an extended 12″ remix of my Wild Things review.)
Issue #35 is on sale now.