The Return of the Musketeers (1989)

Posted on December 22, 2012 by badblokebob

16 years after they first swashed their buckles for director Richard Lester, Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay and Richard Chamberlain return as the titular swordsmen in an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ Vingt ans après, aka Twenty Years After. As feats of sequalisation go, there’s something inherently pleasing about reassembling a cast and crew the best part of two decades later to adapt a tale set at a similar distance.

Unfortunately, it didn’t go down so well: although it did receive a theatrical release in Europe, in the US it wound up as a cable TV premiere a couple of years later. This may in part be due to the fact that it looks like it was shot close to the early-’70s originals, not in the late ’80s. It’s also tonally similar, a scrappy style that perhaps didn’t sit so well in the multiplexes of a decade-and-a-half later, despite a pulpy structure and emphasis on fun japes rather than serious-minded storytelling.

Despite being sourced from an Old Novel, The Return of the Musketeers is — just like its two forebears — far from being a Literary Adaptation. It may not scale the same heights of fun and frivolity as the first Lester-directed Musketeers movie, but it’s more or less on a par with the second, with moments (such as a clever opening) that shine through. Rough around the edges certainly, but likeable heroes, hissable villains, and widespread irreverence keep it the right side of entertaining for those who enjoyed this cast’s previous adventures.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Posted on December 21, 2012 by badblokebob

Conan was created by Robert E. Howard in 1932, but is probably best known to most thanks to the Schwarzenegger-starring 1982 film, which was successful enough to provoke a sequel in 1984. Having never read any of the stories or watched either of those films, that’s about where my knowledge of the character ends — except for this recent attempt at a remake/reboot/whatever “re”-prefixed word you want to use this week.

Here, at least, Conan starts out as a young boy in a village of warriors, who are then massacred by the villainous villain in his quest for some MacGuffin. Naturally our young hero is the only survivor and I imagine at that point he swore vengeance, so he goes off and grows up to become someone with more muscles than acting chops (played by Jason Momoa, previously seen as a non-English-speaking muscleman in Game of Thrones) and somehow or other gets on the trail of the villain.

If my poor description sounds like the film doesn’t make sense, that’s a tad unfair, because it is followable… I just didn’t really care at any point. The plot kind of pings about through some disconnected set pieces, few of them particularly inspiring with the exception of one featuring ninja-types who are formed out of sand. Whether the story is faithful to Howard or a reinvention I don’t know, but either he’s been heavily borrowed from down the years or the filmmakers ignored his work in favour of familiar bits and bobs from other sources. Visually it’s just as non-inventive, which is what you get when you hire the director of a middling Frankenstein TV movie, two horror remakes, and Pathfinder.

This new version of Conan isn’t a dreadful movie per se, it’s just sort of uninspiring. I didn’t hate it, I just don’t care to particularly remember it, and even when I do I’m not 100% sure if all the things I remember are even from this film. There’s now talk that the next attempt to use the character will be an Arnie-starring sequel to the first film, skipping both the original sequel and this version. Perhaps that’s for the best, for both the franchise’s financiers and fans.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

RoboCop 2 (1990)

Posted on December 20, 2012 by badblokebob

The consensus opinion seems to be that the RoboCop films exist on a steep downward trajectory of quality, starting with the pretty-good first film and ending with the nadir-of-humanity third. In this equation the second lands, naturally, somewhere in the middle — not that good, but not so bad. Personally, I enjoyed it more than the first.

As future-Detroit’s police strike over something to do with evil megacorporation OCP, ever-popular officer RoboCop fights a war on drugs, while OCP plot his replacement… Such is the barebones of a plot on which hang some solid stabs at satire and some nice boundary-pushing plot points, which at times left the film feeling still relevant today — something I felt the first RoboCop no longer was. Take the gun-toting pre-teen wannabe-drugs-baron, for instance, one of the film’s best characters who (spoiler alert!) they’re not afraid to deal a bloody death to. I’m not revelling in the death of children here, and I don’t think the film does either; instead, it demonstrates a kind of ballsiness and not backing down from the story and world they’ve created.

The satire is one of the most praised elements of the original film, but with new writers and a new director on board it would’ve been easy to ignore that in favour of a film in which a robot cop shoots lots of criminals. That is, obviously, not the case, and while at times some of the sequel’s jabs at society may be more on-the-nose even than the first film’s efforts, they’re not unwelcome or inaccurate. The screenplay was in part written by objectionably-right-wing comic book author Frank Miller, and though it was reportedly massively re-written after his work was done (to the extent that, decades later, there was a comic book miniseries that adapted his original version) I think his touch can still be felt at times.

I also criticised the franchise opener for poor special effects, and I think RoboCop 2 improves in that regard too. There’s still moderately obvious modelwork on display, but it doesn’t seem as cartoonish or juddery as the previous film’s. The climactic villain is a more genuine threat (it’s responsible for at least one massacre at any rate) and the battle with RoboCop, a mix of life-size props and stop-motion, makes for an exciting, well-matched finale, something the first film’s falling-down-the-stairs moment didn’t quite achieve.

I can’t say I’m overly enamoured with either of the RoboCop films I’ve watched to date. As a character and franchise it seems to have slipped from the consciousness a bit in the last decade or so, and I can’t say I find huge fault with that status. Plus, it’ll be interesting to see if the forthcoming remake can do anything to boost the franchise’s fortunes. Nonetheless, this sequel is a solid example of R-rated late-’80s action entertainment that, as noted on more than one occasion, I certainly liked better than its predecessor.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

RoboCop (1987)

Posted on December 17, 2012 by badblokebob

In a crime-addled future Detroit, cop Alex Murphy is gunned down by a gang of crooks, only to be resurrected by evil megacorporation OCP as the future of law enforcement: RoboCop. Obviously — that’s the title.

Hailed by those who love it as some kind of satirical masterpiece, RoboCop does manage to raise itself above other mindless ’80s action fare, at least to some degree. Equally, should you choose to watch it brain-off then I doubt you’ll be too troubled by its criticisms of corporate greed or the privatisation of public services (at least, I assume those are the targets — this is an American film and don’t Americans love privatisation? But then, Verhoeven is European, so who knows). There’s gory action and the odd one-liner to enjoy, as well as Murphy’s battle with identity once he becomes the robotic enforcer.

At this point, I think RoboCop has become a film you had to be there for. Viewed now, 25 years after release, it looks dated. The stop-motion rendering of big bad robot ED-209 appears jerky and cartoonish now, like something from a kids’ action/adventure film rather than an 18-rated satirical thriller. RoboCop beats it by making it fall down some stairs, after which it can’t get up, wiggling its legs in the air comically. Maybe that was Verhoeven’s intent, to make it laughable, but I’m not sure. I’m loath to criticise old-fashioned effects because, a) that’s all they had access to at the time, and b) they can often look better than today’s CGI-obsessed major movies; but where the likes of Back to the Future or Star Wars still stand up to scrutiny, I don’t believe RoboCop cuts the mustard.

There’s a remake coming soon which has seen a lot of criticism levelled at it by fans, especially over leaked photos of the new costume. I’m not exactly looking forward to it, but nor am I dreading it — the concept’s a good’un and could withstand a refresh. Plus the version of RoboCop presented here, all stompy and bulky and slow, wouldn’t cut the mustard in an era that’s decades on from the T-1000 and can see small, streamlined technology every way we turn.

In the meantime, there’s this, but I do think it’s rather had its day.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

Passchendaele (2008)

Posted on December 16, 2012 by badblokebob

Despite winning a bunch of Canadian film awards, this First World War drama seems to have been really poorly received by critics — the Radio Times even saw fit to award it just 1 star! I must dissent, however, because I thought it was very good.

The story concerns a Canadian soldier who is invalided out of the war, returns to Canada to recuperate, falls for a local outcast woman, and eventually returns to the front in time for the titular battle. There’s more to it than that, but I’ll leave that for you to discover. Sandwiched between the two battles, the stuff in Canada makes up the bulk of the film, making this more of a period social/romantic drama than a war film. You could class this bit as a melodrama, something that never seems to go down well with critics, but I don’t think is necessarily a bad thing. In the ’40s, say, that would probably be considered the height of cinema. I appreciate we’re not in the ’40s any more, but that kind of epic feeling is still welcome to some, in the right place. That said, it does get a bit cheesy at times — the climax in particular is a bit heavy-handed with its symbolism.

On the whole, however, the bookending battle scenes are suitably evocative. The opening owes a lot to Saving Private Ryan & co in its style (the film’s relatively low budget makes it look distinctly like something from Band of Brothers), but many things owe their style to many other things, so I don’t think this is a problem either. Besides, that look has become the visual shorthand for This Is A Gritty Real War, that’s all. And besides, the sequence does its own thing with it. It’s quite a chilling, effective opening.

The later scenes at Passchendaele itself have more of their own feel. This is the muddy, rain-soaked First World War, and the fighting is chaotic, brutal, messy. Some have criticised it for not showing the scale of the event, which confused me because I thought it had a grand scale. And even if the scale isn’t big enough, the up-close-and-personal fighting surely gives an indication of what it was like to be there. If you were there, you wouldn’t have got an aerial shot of a huge battlefield with thousands dying, would you.

Serving triple time as star, writer and director, Paul Gross’ work as the latter is very good — see again comments on the battle scenes. Cinematographer Gregory Middleton also gives the Canadian scenes a painterly style, making a pleasant contrast. Gross’ screenplay… well, see the comments on the melodrama again. I think it’s mostly fine; we’ve all witnessed a lot worse — there’s nothing clunkingly bad here. His acting is equally solid.

For all the apparent critical bile you’d expect there to be obvious flaws, like terrible acting, but I really don’t think that’s the case. Again, like with the melodrama, some of it is occasionally a little mannered and some of the smaller roles are a fraction below par; but goodness, I’ve seen much worse performances in bigger roles in much better-regarded films.

Passchendaele may not be an exceptional achievement in cinematic quality, but it is very good and I really don’t see why some have such apparent hatred for it. In its own way it conveys well the lives and horrors of that time, and by being made from a Canadian perspective it offers a slightly different view to the one we normally see. And to be honest, I appreciate a film that remembers and in some way honours those that fought in the First World War — thanks in no small part to the Americans, we’ve had an endless stream of World War Two pictures, but the very particular circumstances of the Great War are less often put on screen. I think Passchendaele does a solid job of rectifying that, at least a little.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Final Destination (2009)

Posted on December 15, 2012 by badblokebob

The best thing about The Final Destination is its title, because turning the series’ familiar name into a definitive article for the final entry is really quite a neat move. Sadly, it was a hit and they’ve made more. Why it was a hit… God only knows.

For starters, the story (such as it is) is a complete and utter rehash of the plot of every other film in the series. The only thing on its side is efficiency: it races through ‘plot’ scenes in a quest to find the next set piece. For example, the Rules are explained to this all-new cast because they Google “premonitions” and find out what happened in the previous movies. The overriding sense of familiarity makes for kind of depressing viewing. Previous films tried to find new twists on the rules, ways the cycle might genuinely be broken, etc, whereas this seems content to merely move from one death to the next. Aside from creative ways to kill people, literally the only new idea is that the premonition-haver sees two people die at almost exactly the same time and can’t remember who was first, meaning instead of traipsing to warn the next person they have to find two people. And that’s it.

Production values are low too, featuring very cheap CGI and very poor acting. I’d say both are below the standard of US network TV filler, so for the fourth entry in a fairly successful big-screen franchise that seems even more woeful. I know it’s only Final Destination, but still… The cast aren’t helped by the woeful screenplay, but I don’t think they could’ve enlivened a better one either. They’ve clearly been cast just for being Young and Pretty, but surely there are some Young, Pretty people who can act?

The focus is clearly on the deaths — at 11 it has the highest of the series, and with its short running time that means there’s a fatality every seven minutes. They’re also very gory, more so than in previous films I’d say, but they’re not commensurately more inventive. There’s a very thorough line in misdirection at times, but the whole enterprise feels painfully lacking in creativity. I’m not sure some of them even make sense. But then do they need to? Similarly, there’s some customary low-rent-horror-movie completely-gratuitous nudity too, which I’m sure delighted teenage boys even more in 3D.

None of the deaths matter because nothing is done to make us care about these characters, or even be broadly interested in them, unlike the best of the earlier entries. So there’s zero tension, zero emotion, just elaborate death after elaborate death. It’s one of the most hollow films I can think of. It may even have been better if they’d ditched the attempts at a plot and gone for a series of vignettes in which, unbeknownst to one another, the survivors were bumped off in order. That’s basically what this film wants to be anyway. At least it would’ve been something different. And shorter. And when you want an under-80-minutes (before credits) film to be shorter… oh dear.

The 3D factor was a large part of the film’s promotion, and it makes full use of stereo visuals in exactly the way you’d expect a schlocky horror to. Problem is, it’s so designed for 3D that some of it doesn’t work in 2D. It’s not just the usual array of stuff flying at the camera for no reason — that’s a sure sign it was meant for cheap 3D thrills, but otherwise fine — here, stuff pokes straight out. That means in 2D you see, say, the flat end of a pole, with absolutely zero sense of depth. This happened with one trap in Saw 3D, but in The Final Destination it keeps coming up. It might not sound like a serious problem, but again and again it jars as you try to work out exactly what’s where in the very flat straight-on 2D rendering. Maybe it’s good that 3D films are so thoroughly designed for their intended medium, but I’m not convinced.

As mentioned, this was sold as the final Final Destination — hence the definitive-article title — but it was a surprise hit (thanks in no small part to the 3D, back in the Avatar-hype era when it guaranteed anything a significant boost) and so the series has continued. What’s perhaps most odd, however, is that it makes no serious attempt to bring the whole series to a close. Sure, #3 ditched any links to the first two with a brand-new cast as well, but you’d think, knowing this was The Last One, they’d try to bring it full circle somehow. But clearly not.

Then again, I’m not sure anyone involved could have if they wanted too. The evidence for that is on screen: some of it is unbelievably boneheaded. “Where’s Lori?” “I dunno, I’ve been calling and texting all afternoon, she won’t pick up her phone.” Oh, maybe she’s, I dunno, in the film she told you she was going to see in the scene before last! Dear God.

Elsewhere, one character starts talking about déjà vu before getting killed in the same way as the first film’s most famous death. I suppose it’s meant to be Meta and Funny, and maybe it kinda is, but again the CG is so cheap that the half-trained eye will spot an effect is about to happen, and the manner of death once again doesn’t really make sense. Later, we learn that shopping mall sprinklers can instantly extinguish all fires — handy!

I could go on. I have half a dozen more examples in my notes. But no. It’s so woeful that it’s kind of frustratingly bad — you want someone with half a brain to come along and make the film work.

There’s a somewhat amusing way to judge the Final Destination series: its posters and/or DVD covers; and, specifically, what they tell us about the decreasing importance of character to the franchise. You see, the first prominently features head shots of the central cast (albeit half turned into skulls). The second offers either blurry head shots or full body shots, reducing their recognisability. In the third, the cast are still there, but reduced to near-facelessness seated on a roller coaster, often upside down. And by the fourth, they’re not even there at all. It’s true that Final Destination has never really been about the characters — it’s about how they die — but it’s also true that the more attached you are to them, however superficially, the better (as it were) their deaths are. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that the characters, deaths and films get weaker at about the same rate, or perhaps each really is connected to the others.

There’s potential in the concept of the Final Destination films, but clearly it’s either limited or the people in charge don’t know how to exploit it, because after making two quite-good films they’ve turned it into a repetitive, stale, uncreative, formulaic disaster. And there’s now a fifth too, and a sixth hasn’t been ruled out — surely it/they can’t be any worse than this? Based on form, maybe they can…

The Final Destination is on Film4 and Film4 HD tonight at 11:05pm, and again on Friday 21st at 11:10pm. Because I’m sure you really want to see it now.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Final Destination featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2012, which can be read in full here.

Fantastic Four (2005)

Posted on December 14, 2012 by badblokebob

In the wake of highly successful franchise launches for X-Men and Spider-Man, the next Marvel superheroes to be afforded the big-screen treatment were the Fantastic Four, a kind of family imbued with superpowers after a space accident. “Kind of family” translated to “family movie” for Fox executives, and they produced this dross.

“Family movie” does not automatically equal bad superhero film. Indeed, The Incredibles is one of the sub-genre’s best offerings. I don’t know much about the Fantastic Four comics, but it strikes me that Pixar more successfully hit the tone and style that the makers of this film were aiming for.

The problem I felt is that this incarnation of the FF doesn’t really have a story. They kind of meander through a few things that Happen, then a villain finally emerges and they defeat him. It leaves the film bereft of narrative drive; a series of scenes strung together without a common goal. When those scenes are populated with middling acting, unengaging characters, lacklustre humour, stalled drama, and both practical and computer-generated special effects that look about twice as old as the film is, then the experience you’re left with isn’t entertaining on almost any level.

An interesting footnote about this film is the list of weird, minor regional differences, which don’t bear repeating but are at that link if you’re interested. It also received a surely-unasked-for extended cut on DVD in the US, which included completely different (longer) opening credits; both promenade & planetarium scenes from the regional variations; and mostly new character scenes, as if the film didn’t have enough of those already, or plot extensions that help make more sense of stuff that, actually, more-or-less scanned OK anyway. I can’t imagine anyone wanting an even longer version of this, but it takes all sorts, eh.

They’re re-booting Fantastic Four soon (an unusual summer-season-dodging Spring 2015 release date was recently announced) and I wish them well — the characters have run in comics for over 50 years; there must be something to them. Hopefully those in charge can learn from this film’s mistakes, and the successes of family-friendly efforts like The Incredibles, and give us something so good we can forget this ’00s incarnation ever happened.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

Posted on December 13, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #23
Brad Furman | 114 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 15 / R

Adapted from a novel by best-selling author Michael Connelly, The Lincoln Lawyer seemed to appear out of nowhere and garner an uncommonly high amount of praise. I’m glad that intrigued me, because, while not a revelatory experience, it’s certainly worth your time.

The story concerns hot-shot lawyer Mick Haller (Matthew McConaughey), who works out of the back of his car (hence the title), and his latest case, defending a rich playboy accused of murder. Essentially, it’s a solid crime/legal thriller; the kind of thing we’d probably get as a 90-minute TV episode over here, but thanks to America not really having that format, it gets the cinema treatment. Nonetheless, it’s well enough acted, with an interesting enough story, to sustain the grander status automatically afforded to something released theatrically.

As a thriller its plot is naturally packed with surprises, reversals, about-turns… in other words, twists. The big one plays at the halfway point, which is a nice change. It’s not exactly an unguessable turn of events, but the story may still have a few surprises up its sleeve. Of course, anyone who watches or reads enough crime fiction is rarely (if ever) going to be surprised by a thriller’s plot, as they all essentially re-arrange a selection of elements from the genre’s large grab bag in a way that makes them moderately unique. Connelly and adaptor John Romano make sure Lincoln Lawyer arranges its chosen selection in a way that indeed makes it unique enough, especially when buoyed by some quality acting and slick (but not show-off-y) direction from Furman.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen McConaughey in anything (nothing I remember, anyway), but my impression has been he’s not all that. Here, though, he nails the slightly-smarmy-but-kinda-likeable street-wise defence attorney Mick Haller. He’s buoyed by a quality cast: Ryan Phillippe is eminently plausible as a rich kid used to getting his own way, while the likes of William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, John Leguizamo and Bob Gunton offer typically consummate support.

The array of small roles arranged around Haller once again make it feel like the setup for a TV series. There’s his ex-wife and their daughter; his investigator ‘sidekick’; his driver (important when you work out of the back of your car); a couple of detectives he butts heads with; the bale bondsman who gets him work; some regular clients… They do all have a role to play in this particular tale, but with so many it feels like setting up avenues to be explored in future episodes. I suppose all thriller authors do this nowadays – their heroes are designed to run for books and books (Haller’s only at four, but Connelly’s other main character has amassed 17+, and you can see similar numbers in other author’s series), so they need to be set up like a TV series. Plus it helps if they ever get adapted for TV… and just to cement such a view, NBC have commissioned a TV spin-off from this. (Lionsgate also talked of pushing ahead with a sequel. I haven’t heard anything about either project for ages so don’t know their current status.)

That may be the tip of the iceberg for Michael Connelly on screen. Though this is only the second adaptation of his work, he’s clearly successful in print and positioning himself for a big-screen future: after languishing in development hell for 20 years, he recently paid Paramount $3 million for the rights to his most prolific character. With said character being the half-brother of Haller, and that Lincoln Laywer sequel in development, maybe Connelly’s work is destined to become the Marvel Cinematic Universe of crime/legal film adaptations. This could be the time to get in on the ground floor.

One might argue that The Lincoln Lawyer doesn’t quite do enough to transcend the feeling of a TV procedural, and it’s a point of view I have some sympathy for. But even still, it’s a high-quality, well-made example of the genre.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

The Lincoln Lawyer placed 8th on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2012, which can be read in full here.

Drive Angry (2011)

Posted on December 12, 2012 by badblokebob

Nic Cage does the Taken thing with added CGI and supernatural posturing in this grindhouse-y actioner from the director of such inspiring films as The Prophecy 3, Dracula 2001 and the My Bloody Valentine remake.

The grindhouse style works for it. It’s got a crazy plot, crazy action, gratuitous violence, gratuitous nudity, rough production values, variable acting, loopy bad guys — the highlight is definitely the latter, with William Fichtner channelling Christopher Walken. The whole thing could do with being punchier and pacier, and shorter, but the out-there action, some bits of dialogue, and Fichtner make it almost worthwhile. None of it is especially memorable, but while it lasts it’s appreciably trashy.

That said, the sex scene fight is a steal from Shoot ‘Em Up, and not a very good steal. Slow-mo saps it of all tension or excitement. Other action scenes fare better, but by no means all of them. Edited by the director and his brother, I think they need to learn some new tricks to punch these scenes up a bit. It gets better as the film goes on and they have crazier material, but some of the early stuff is remarkably pedestrian.

The film’s promotion made a big point of being shot in 3D (instead of the usual style of “Drive Angry 3D”, the posters call it “Drive Angry Shot in 3D”), but most of the in-your-face “look it’s 3D!” stuff is CGI anyway. So would it benefit from being seen in 3D? Only in that stuff flies at the camera and whatnot. You can indeed tell it was made for 3D, but that doesn’t mean it needs it. Indeed, the poke-the-audience stuff aside, none of it suggests it would look great in 3D — for all the pointlessness of cinema’s new money-spinning format, it can add something to the vistas in a film like Avatar. Drive Angry has nothing vaguely on that level.

These days your big blockbusters won’t get you change from $200m, so at $50m Drive Angry is a cheapy – which at least explains some of its low-rent looks. But it’s not that cheap, and the CGI is appalling. Some of it was of the level I’d expect from a direct-to-DVD mockbuster, and those are made for closer to $50 than $50m. In spite of the low cost, it did spectacularly badly at the box office. Even though it sold itself as “Starring Film Star Nicolas Cage” and “look there’s action!” and “look there’s a sexy girl!” (these are the three main things you get from the poster, and I imagine the trailers also), it opened a paltry 9th at the US box office and took just $28.9m… worldwide. Total. That’s only about 60% of its budget. Its poor performance makes it “the lowest-grossing opening of a 3D film released in over 2,000 US theatres”. Unlike some low-budget flops (Dredd 3D, I’m looking at you), this commercial failure doesn’t really bother me.

As noted, director Lussier does not have an inspiring CV: he started with numerous straight-to-video sequels, then a big screen sequel-no-one-wanted (even with Nathan Fillion in it) in White Noise: The Light, before what I guess must’ve been a modicum of success with My Bloody Valentine, which I seem to remember a (relatively) big fuss being made about because it was one of the first live-action things in true 3D or somesuch. Perhaps the massive flopping of Drive Angry will kill his career back off — his next project is apparently re-make threequel Halloween III, which I don’t imagine anyone anywhere is eagerly anticipating.

Drive Angry isn’t completely without merit, but it’s the kind of film where you have to hunt for the good stuff among the dross. Even as brain-off actioners go, you can do better.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

Tiny Furniture (2010)

Posted on December 11, 2012 by badblokebob

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. ^

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Category Archives: 2012

The Return of the Musketeers (1989)

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

RoboCop 2 (1990)

RoboCop (1987)

Passchendaele (2008)

The Final Destination (2009)

Fantastic Four (2005)

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

Drive Angry (2011)

Tiny Furniture (2010)