Lena Dunham | 99 mins | TV (HD) | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 15
Some have been quick to call twenty-something writer-director-actress Lena Dunham “the voice of a generation”; usually older people who think this is how people that age are, because I’m part of Dunham’s generation and she certainly doesn’t speak for me, and you don’t have to go far or look hard on the ‘net to find similar views. But it’s turned out alright for her, as by whatever ridiculously young age she is she’s made this film, got a multi-season series on HBO (the critically divisive Girls), and recently signed a ludicrously lucrative book deal. Clearly, she speaks to someone.
Tiny Furniture, then, comes with a predisposition to dislike it from anyone who isn’t a hipster or desperate to be relevant to hipsters (I feel like this is the point at which to note that it’s recently been inducted into the Criterion Collection). It’s a slow-paced, consciously arthouse-drama-y story film about unlikeable people leading unlikeable lives. I think everyone in it is either selfish or at least self-centred, and even if you buy into any of its characters being more than that, Dunham eventually unmasks them as gits in one way or another.
It’s hard to tell if the film knows everyone appearing in it is so awful, and is inviting us to judge them in some way (be it to look down on them, or to laugh at them, or to just generally dislike them); or if it actually wants us to think they’re all alright really; or if there’s supposed to be some distinction over which ones are good and which ones not so much. If the last, it’s thoroughly unclear to those of us (that’d be most of us) who are just looking in on this self-obsessed world — all of the characters are a much for muchness in their levels of (un)relatability and (un)likeability.
Trying to read Dunham’s intentions in these regards is complicated by the film being clearly autobiographical. And if it isn’t, it’s working overtime to suggest it is. Dunham writes, directs and stars as the lead character; said character’s mother and sister are played by Dunham’s real mother and sister; I wouldn’t be surprised to learn her friends are played by her friends. Her apparent status as ‘the voice of a generation’ and the little I’ve read about her HBO series suggests to me that this is, if not 100% true to her life experience, at least a fictionalised version of it. Which again begs the question, are we actually meant to like some of these people? To identify with them? It’s clear Dunham has no problem with putting herself down and presenting herself in a negative light, but it feels to be in an angsty, whiny, “you totally get this, yah right?” way.
Yet, for all its characters’ many faults, there is something somewhat engrossing about Tiny Furniture. It’s not the car-crash rubber-necking of watching a bunch of people you dislike make fools of themselves, nor is it a burgeoning understanding that underneath it all these are genuine, relatable people. Perhaps it’s because Dunham can, to some degree, empathise with all of her characters — that almost all have some pros to go along with their cons (except, perhaps, the men) — that she occasionally, sneakily, gets you on board.
Many reviews cite Woody Allen as an influence, and it’s easy to see why: a small-scale autobiographical dialogue-driven New York-set study of specific people in a specific time. It falls short of such lofty aspirations on a few fronts, not least the evocation of the setting — there’s no trouble doubting this is set in New York, but you don’t feel the city the way you do in Annie Hall or Manhattan or many more of Allen’s works. But comparing a newcomer to a master is always a hiding to nothing for the newbie, so best not judge her too harshly for that.
Visually, the film belies its super-low-budget origins. In part this is the 2.35:1 frame, usually reserved for mega-blockbusters, which makes it ultra-filmic. In part it’s the slick interiors, cleanly shot, often with squared-off framing in longer takes, which comes across as film-literate rather than amateurish dump-the-camera. Only occasional exteriors, like grainy nighttime shots, give away the cheap roots. If nothing else, Dunham knows how to make a film look like a film.
And after all that, there’s the ending. Or, perhaps, the stopping, because does it actually End? I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with the concept of an opaque ending; one that, rather than resolve everything entirely, asks the audience to project their own meaning or their own imagined conclusion onto the events witnessed thus far. Rather than reach out and slap you in the face with an explanation, an effective opaque ending (such as Mulholland Drive’s) is like a hand reaching out to you, but you then must work to reach out yourself and grasp that hand. A bad one is like 3D: 
the hand is reaching out to you, but when you reach out to take it you find there’s actually nothing there; it was just an illusion.* I rather suspect Tiny Furniture’s guff about still hearing the ticking clock is that 3D hand.
That said, even as I write this, something struck me. But it’s terribly pretentious (in the full dictionary-defined sense) and so not much better. And weeks after watching the film, I can’t even remember it.
It’s difficult to know what to make of Tiny Furniture. I thought I was going to despise it, yet despite there being no clear sense of storyline, plot or even genuine thematic point, and additionally finding all of the characters to be unrelatable and largely unlikeable, I found it moderately engrossing. It’s not really good, but it’s strangely not bad either.
This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.
* I’m really quite proud of this analogy. I’m totally using it again. ^
I must admit to not being at all familiar with the work of H.P. Lovecraft. I know the name, of course, and the titles of some of his stories, not to mention being aware of the array of well-known fans. Aside from that, I’ve only encountered his work through its influence — there’s some stuff in the 
The marriage of low-budget and silent film style is one made in heaven, particularly when you add in the dedication of the makers. They built impressive props, ingenious sets, and employed model work in various inventive ways, all to execute a story that includes a cultist swamp orgy, a mysterious island, a sea battle, and a skyscraper-sized monster. Some online reviews have criticised the effects, but those people are quite frankly idiots. This isn’t meant to be slick CGI — it’s re-creating lo-fi early film techniques, and (aside from one or two rough-round-the-edges spots of greenscreen) it all looks fabulous.
I have no idea how closely it hews to Lovecraft’s original, but there’s a layered stories-within-stories approach (I think it gets four deep at one point) that is difficult to pull off with clarity, but never falters here. Christopher Nolan would be proud. It also effectively builds a sense of uncanny mystery; not outright scares, but a kind of disquieting unease. It’s my impression that was absolutely Lovecraft’s aim too, so another job well done.
As 
with a main cast fleshed out by ‘names’ like Randy Couture and Terry Crews. Hardly Al Pacino, or even Bourne-level Matt Damon.
The main joy of the film is, of course, the action. There are plentiful big explosions, blood-spurting deaths, highly choreographed one-on-one punch-ups… It takes a bit of time to get going in this regard, too concerned with trying to give us a plot where we don’t need one and shadows of character development where we don’t want it, but when it kicks in it’s entertainingly bombastic. Particular stand-outs include a plane-based attack on a pier and the crazy climax, an everyone-on-everyone brawl that features a whole building exploding as just one small part.
It’s two-and-a-half years since this was released? Never! If it didn’t say so on multiple websites, I’d never believe it. Where does the time go?!
It’s a similar story elsewhere in the film. If you haven’t already accurately guessed what the ‘twist’ is with the doctor just from me even mentioning him, then I’ll be surprised. You may also be aware that Laurence Fishburne is in the film — he’s in the trailer and, naturally, one of the top-billed names. If you weren’t aware, sorry; but if you are (as, indeed, you now are), then his lack of appearance early on will likely clue you in to the circumstance under which he’ll be found. But if you’re not expecting him, that’s all fine and dandy. But now you are. Sorry.
The main draw is still the action, which is suitably exciting on the whole. Best of all is a sword fight between a Yakuza and a Predator. Who’d’ve thought of engaging a Predator in a sword fight, eh? I love a sword fight, and while this is of course an atypical example, it shows the film’s level of creativeness with its inherited elements. It’s also a beautifully shot segment, making it one of the stand-out parts of the film.
And the ending itself… is it sequel bait? It’s not as bad as 
Let’s establish one thing right away: this is unquestionably an inferior version of Fritz Lang’s masterpiece, 
4) It’s mostly dubbed into English. The bits that aren’t have been re-shot. Primarily, there’s a phone call between the police commissioner and the minister, which is really quite poorly performed — watch out for an unintentionally comical bit with the wrong end of a pencil. These two actors are also edited into another scene, a large meeting which their characters attend, and it’s glaringly obvious where Lang’s work begins and ends and the basically-shot bits (flatter angles, simplistic sets) have been dropped in. The director of the English re-shoots isn’t specifically credited, but it certainly wasn’t Lang: Fischer’s examination of M’s export versions informs us that it was the localised version’s “Supervisor”, Charles Barnett.
There’s no way anyone would reasonably recommend this variation of M over the original, but it does hold interest as a curio. It may leave one wondering how and why this practice of exporting films — where multiple versions in different languages were shot at the same time, rather than dubbing/subtitling later — died out. Cost, I imagine. Despite producing interesting asides like this, it’s probably a good thing it did.
Paramount had a burgeoning franchise on their hands in the early ’90s with adaptations of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels. He first appears in 
Ben Affleck is Ben Affleck, which means a lot of people won’t like him but he’s OK. Morgan Freeman brings instant gravitas to his role, though it’s not his most likeable or memorable part.
Chatroom is born of — or, at least, partly formed around — trying to find a viable way of depicting the world of online chatrooms on film. Putting on film this world it As It Really Is — people sat at a computer typing at each other — might work well enough for a single scene in 
in this environment is also truthful. There have been many reviews that are completely dismissive of this facet of the film, leaving me to wonder if they were written by people who haven’t used or experienced such things. It’s a shame, then, that the film’s degeneration into a thriller hides the arguably-worthwhile potential to explain to such people what that online world can be like for people/kids using it.
Despite a strong-ish start, perhaps the whole second half of the film is a wobbly mess; not directionless exactly, because by then it does know broadly where it’s going, but it doesn’t do much to suggest to the viewer that it has a real goal in mind. Character motivations and relationships feel as if they’ve not been fully thought out, or at least not fully brought together on screen. Some threads take inexplicable jumps; others aren’t adequately explained or justified. Occasionally it’s Nakata’s direction that overdoes things, for instance laying the soppy “this bit is emotional” music on thick when Matthew Beard’s performance could easily carry a particular sequence.
The aforementioned Matthew Beard, perhaps the least recognisable cast member (his 
Consensus holds that the work of once-acclaimed director M. Night Shyamalan has managed a near-perfect trajectory of decreasing returns. I’m not talking about box office — I have no idea (or much interest) in how that’s gone for him — but quality, starting with supernatural chiller 
Chunks of it seem to be missing, conveyed through clunky voiceover rather than on-screen action. The first rule of screenwriting — literally, the first — is Show Don’t Tell, but Shyamalan does exactly the opposite.
I wouldn’t call myself a Shyamalan apologist, but I think he has at times suffered harshly at the hands of critics and audiences disappointed that he’s never re-reached the heights of The Sixth Sense (though, personally, I prefer 
Michael Mann is arguably best known for his modern, urban, slick, intricate crime thrillers — films like 
Should we long for a Director’s Cut, then? Maybe that would be an improvement, but I’m not convinced it would be good per se. You see, the film doesn’t just stick to giving us Nazis vs Whatever The Keep Contains, oh no. First the SS turn up, led by a Properly Evil Nazi, played straight by Gabriel Byrne. Escalation, great. Then there’s Ian McKellen as a professor drafted in to make sense of the keep’s mysteries. Also great — even the Good Nazi is going to have to die, right? Who better to root for than a saved-from-a-concentration-camp Jewish professor.
There are plus points, but they all come with a commensurate downside. The creature is well-realised at first, with some nice animated effects that are more effective than much of the over-cooked CGI spectacle we’d get today. The more we see of him, however, the less power he holds — he ends up essentially a very tall man. OK, it’s a bit better than that makes it sound, but the mysterious billowing smoke was spookier. The film on the whole is nicely shot, with some real standout moments of cinematography. But slow-mo and a smoke machine both get overused by the end, lending many of the visuals a tacky ’80s edge.
One thing the film never manages to be is remotely scary. It’s not aiming for cheap jump- or gore-based shocks (although there is a little goriness, it’s quite light; triply so by today’s standards), but it doesn’t manage any significant senses of dread or creepiness. As noted, early on it seems to be heading in the right direction — even the secluded mountain village, nestled in a harsh landscape but with greener-than-green grass and garishly painted houses, and towered over by the foreboding slab of stone that is the titular structure, is an uncanny start — but it never makes good on the promise.
I would love to join their ranks, because there are numerous exciting ideas and moments of quality filmmaking to be found here; but I won’t be, because there’s too much muddled dross packed in around them. The result is that quite-rare thing: a decidedly mediocre film that I’m actually glad I’ve seen. But, unless someone wants to hire me for that remake, never again.
I never thought I’d watch, and certainly not enjoy, the Fast and the Furious series, but a few years ago (after the second film hit cinemas, I think — which would be almost a decade!) 
It’s worth noting it was directed by John Singleton, who started out with the acclaimed social drama 
Ultimately, 2 Fast 2 Furious is like cheap fast food: you know it’s made of trash, high in fat and sugar, liable to rot something in your head — and just really bad for you fullstop… yet it’s an enjoyable guilty pleasure once in a while. If you don’t identify with that feeling then you’re a better man than me, and you’ll probably never like this film.
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