"king of copenhagen"

I finished the entire Pusher trilogy in about a week, something I'm seriously stoked about. I rule. Let's run it down: the first one is good and the most unusual of the lot, the second feels like a retread more than anything despite a cracking first act, and the third is the nastiest and probably the best, Zlatko Buric walking high and mighty over everybody else in the film. For a trilogy of films made to stave off total bankruptcy, they are way way better than they have any right to be.

Each film starts with an iconic opening montage set to the trilogy's theme music like so, one of the few times that I've seen heavy rock actually used well in a film. (If you're not an American filmmaker, it's most likely you'll know how to do this - apart from Zach Clark, whose underrated comedy Modern Love Is Automatic has a spot-on soundtrack from Blasphemer).

But the music I'm going to let you check out is the creeeeeeeepy ending theme to Pusher 3: I'm the Angel of Death by Peter Schneidermann. And you can see the trailer for the trilogy HERE.

So, Nicholas Windig Refn has a new film on the way by the name of Valhalla Rising. Reviews are mixed but I'm interested in seeing what the man behind Pusher has to bring to the viking genre. It looks amazing at least - shot just outside Glasgow as a matter of fact. (Just missed a BAFTA screening of it the other day, damn.)

Oh, and the ever reliable Pinglewood threw this track up from the awesomely-named Among The Bones yesterday, and it sounds epic, in the way a viking movie does. Ha, that's good writing, drawing parallels n' shit (even though Scott did it first.)

Among The Bones - An Altar For Serpents And Vermin

"this is merely superconductor electromagnetism"

As I sat down tonight to have a late dinner, I noticed that one of my favourite films of all time was on: Street Fighter! Fucking Street Fighter! With Jean Claude Van-Damme! JCVD! As a film, it's inept on pretty much every level - the acting is balls-to-the-wall bad, the script is as clunky as a broken dishwasher, the mise en scene is ugly and the editing does whatever it can to destroy any excitement you may get while watching the fight scenes.

BUT as a piece of entertainment, it's pretty much second to none: JCVD playing the US born-n-bred all American hero with THAT ACCENT, the invisible speedboat sequence (predating 007's ridiculous invisible vehicular shenanigans by seven years), Kylie Minogue's "acting breakthrough" (snicker), Dhalsim's unintentionally hilarious shirtlessness in the last ten minutes, the ridiculous action, the constant failed attempts at comic relief, and this immortal exchange: "For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me... it was Tuesday."

In fact, the only reason I'm going to go see Avatar in December is because the dude that plays Sagat is in it. Just when I thought my life couldn't get any better by stumbling on this unintended masterpiece, I found THIS:


Just... incredible. Incredible.

butter your popcorn, baby!

Because Tarantino is on the mind after the other day's viewing of Inglourious Basterds and I love the folks over at The Playlist, I graciously point you towards volume eight of the movie blog's Soundtrack Series - If I Were Quentin Tarantino.

The music choice here is just impeccable, so who cares if this is another "late pass" post? (The soundtracks were posted in 2007.) Check out the other ones too, they're cool and worth checking out.

DOWNLOAD If I Were Quentin Tarantino: The Playlist Soundtrack Series, Volume Eight

ah, the blogger's moan

So, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is not an "armor-plated turkey". That's that out of the way, then. Todd McCarthy veers closer to it, calling it "a completely distinctive piece of American pop art" but it never quite reaches the levels of greatness that its script and QT-ness promises. Shame.

Nostalgia time: before I saw the DVD of Kill Bill, Vol 1, I was just another kid who liked the movies but knew nothing of directors, film festivals or really, any film scene beyond the American and British mainstream. Kill Bill and Tarantino turned me onto cinema - now I am totally 4000% in love with the world's greatest art form, and at university studying Film and Media, hoping to shoot my own short films as soon as my pre-production starts making sense. So thank you Quentin.

But nostalgia aside, QT's war movie isn't his best moment. It is, I hate to say, his weakest effort thus far, a long way away from being the pop-culture war movie epic many expected. Where it is merely a good (albeit disappointing) film, it would have made a pretty incredible TV mini-series as was once planned. The fourth chapter, "OPERATION KINO", is stunning and the bar scene within it can be filed as yet another classic Tarantino moment... but with its cliffhanger involving Christoph Waltz' "Jew Hunter", it is unavoidably obvious that what made good cinema here would have made incredible TV. As The Playlist said back in May:

"Inglourious as it stands now does not really flesh out the characters well and even at a longer cut version, it doesn't feel like there's much more you can do (there's a decent amount on the cutting room floor, but not that much). It works on the page, but not the screen. So the right thing to do would have been to follow each story (Shosanna's exploits at the Cinematheque, the Basterds voyage to Germany, a little bit more story on the British Unit and Col Hans Landa's) and then culminate in the same way the script is written. Tarantino's initial instincts to make this film a mini-series could have served the story very well in a "Band of Brothers" manner (a series he himself had referenced as an example)."

EXACTLY. Forget what Luc Besson said, and imagine... one of the best TV experiences ever. Like, literally, EVER. The motives in the final act would have made a bit more sense and the deaths of apparantly important characters would have been much more powerful. And one last thing - I thought Death Proof was fantastic, so all this "return to form" advertising stuff I can understand but noitsnotrightokayokay.

But the music? Well, that's another problem... there's not really many amazing stylistic cues (Charles Bernstein's "White Lightning" cue from Kill Bill is reused at one point) aside from the David Bowie song below and the Ennio Morriconne song that plays over the credits (no mp3 as of yet, sorry). No "Didn't I Blow Your Mind" or "Battle Without Honor or Humanity", I have to say.


David Bowie - Cat People (Putting Out Fire)

You can make your own mind up when Inglourious Basterds comes out this weekend. As far as pitch perfect reviews go, The Playlist and Den of Geek have it covered. And no, I didn't hate the film. It's just... agh, Michael Leader's DoG review says what I think but better.

how long until the british isles...

Fuuuuck, I can't believe I haven't heard about this before - a Chris Morris movie on jihadists. Be afraid, be very, etc etc. Peep the article at The Guardian's film blog here.

not the rhythm of the...

I sat down and watched Claire Denis' Beau Travail last night and, yeah, it's gorgeous and like not much I've seen before. I'm not going to say that I absolutely fell head-over-heels in love with it like I did to her recent 35 Shots of Rum (why haven't you seen it, reader? do you want to admit you've not seen the best film of the year?) but it's really good and I eagerly anticipate the next time I cross paths with it.

I tried to find a clip of the musically-charged final scene but due to not being able to (and also not wanting to spoil the delightful surprise of it actually happening), I've embedded Cat Power's video for the song "He War", which includes some of the gorgeous gorgeous imagery from Denis' film. Take my word for it: let the HQ version load.

john hughes 1950-2009

"If he gets up, we'll all get up, there'll be anarchy!"

Dude made one of my favourite films to this day. If you've ever been a teenager, The Breakfast Club makes total sense to you. In some ways, despite the cheese factor and the fact that I always found Ally Sheedy prettiest before her makeover at the film's end, it still does. Definitely throwing on the DVD tomorrow night in memoriam.

Oh, and he made Ferris Bueller's Day Off - fuckin' eh! Sigue Sigue Sputnik, take it away:



R.I.P. John Hughes, we kinda forgive you for Home Alone now. Almost.

UPDATE: A few excellent memorial pieces have gone up: Astrud Sands lists the best musical moments in Hughes' films for The Playlist here; New York Magazine's David Edelstein writes an in memoriam here ("His vision was consistent, his movies of a piece... a very personal commercial director"); Empire have a tribute up; and if you've not seen it, Hughes' pen pal writes an emotional response. Seriously, check this out if you haven't.

wes anderson x roald dahl

I loved Fantastic Mr Fox growing up, and The Life Aquatic is one of my favourite films. I've been looking forward to this for a while - I hope it lives up to the promise.

Woulda been sicker with some more Quentin Blake in there but we'll wait and see. The flick premieres at the London Film Festival on the 14th October and gets general release on the 23rd.

smoke gets in your eyes...

The fact that there's a (seemingly legal) Bollywood remake of Hou Hsiao-Hsien's Three Times truly boggles the mind but I'm looking forward to seeing how this more crowd-pleasing take on the story works out.

Preview the Love Aaj Kal soundtrack here. Read about Three Times here - it really should be on your rental list, like, yesterday.