If the cinema seems to be all for kids and teens at the moment, it’s time to turn to the DVD shop
Last week we groused how everything at the cinema seems to be aimed at kids. This week we’re carrying that thought to its logical conclusion: why take your chances with high-school teen-coms and films based on videogames, when you can stay home watching hand-picked DVDs instead? That’s right folks, it’s another in our semi-regular series “10 DVD Alternatives”.
DVD is too often painted as the villain, splintering the audience and hastening the demise of the picture-palace. It’s often said nothing can replace the ‘magic of the big screen’, the communal joy in a roomful of strangers being overwhelmed by the same grand emotion – which in fact is true. The sociable aspect of film-going equals (maybe even trumps) the cinematic, and can never be replayed in your living-room. But the truth is, most people no longer go to the cinema. People, by and large, stay home and watch TV because it’s simpler, and they’re tired, and their time is limited – so the kids take over the multiplex (which is more like a high-school playground on Friday nights), and get films to match. The audience is already splintered. It’s supply and demand.
In short, I’d dearly love for the following 10 movies to be shown at the cinema. Nothing would please me more. But the audience isn’t at the cinema, it’s at home watching rubbish on TV – which is what these are chiefly “alternatives” to. Still, I haven’t quite lost faith in the big screen, which is why certain rules were enforced in compiling the final list. DVDs are only recommended if they’re:
(a) Films that haven’t played in Cyprus cinemas;
(b) Films that I doubt will ever play in Cyprus cinemas (this excluded worthy candidates like The Matador, which may sneak in on the Pierce Brosnan Factor, or Running Scared, the year’s guiltiest pleasure);
(c) Films in English, or available in Cyprus with English subtitles;
(d) Films I’ve spotted in at least one local video club;
(e) Preferably films that arrived in the past couple of months.
I’ve also tried to go for the more unusual stuff, just because it tends to get lost in the shuffle, and also concentrated (mostly) on films I’ve seen. Look for them at discerning video clubs, which for Nicosia readers would include Movie Time, DVDream, Plateau and E.L.A.
In alphabetical order:
FACTOTUM. Matt Dillon is Henry Chinaski (based on Charles Bukowski, who wrote the original book) – a factotum, a jack-of-all-trades, but really a writer. What’s his novel about? asks one of his many bosses at the dead-end jobs he works to support himself. Everything, replies our hero amiably. “Like cancer?” probes the boss. “Yes,” drawls Chinaski. “What about my wife?” pursues the boss. “She’s in there too.” Low-key, well-observed and very deadpan, not unlike Norwegian director Bent Hamer’s previous comedy Kitchen Stories (which is available at E.L.A. in Nicosia, should you wish to do a double-bill).
THE FAR SIDE OF THE MOON. A real hidden gem: Robert Lepage – acclaimed French-Canadian stage director who’s worked with Cirque du Soleil – adapts his own play and stars in a double role, as an embittered academic and his twin brother, a philistine weatherman. Reality slides into fantasy, visual imagination abounds; the moon becomes the mouth of a washing-machine, a goldfish bowl morphs into the Earth. Looks like the high-flown and quotidian have a lot in common – as do the brothers, if they only knew it. In French. Spotted at DVDream in Nicosia.
KISS KISS BANG BANG. Why is this film on this list? Because – incredibly – it hasn’t been shown at the cinema, and doesn’t look like it will be. (It flopped in the US, which is usually the deciding factor.) Maybe it’s just too clever, too manic, too foul-mouthed, too post-modern, or maybe it’s that Val Kilmer plays a character called ‘Gay Perry’ – or maybe the Chinatown riffs and Raymond Chandler chapter-headings went over the heads of the mass audience. Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. are our heroes, getting involved in a murder mystery, bickering endlessly and sharing exchanges like the following: “Look up ‘idiot’ in the dictionary, you know what you’ll find?” “Um … A picture of me?” “No – the definition of the word ‘idiot’. Which you are!”. Also with the sizzling-hot Michelle Monaghan.
LADY VENGEANCE. Korean revenge dramas are all the rage! From the director of Oldboy comes a serenely twisted chiller, with a very composed young lady – “I’m planning to kill another person. Do you think I’m sexy?” – plotting elaborate revenge on her former mentor. Elegant and a little callous – at least till the final section, when the truth about the villain emerges, the middle-aged parents of his victims turn up sobbing and weeping, and a ‘cool’ film suddenly becomes gruelling and disturbing. Not for all tastes. In Korean.
SHOPGIRL. Enough ultra-violence: Claire Danes is the shopgirl, torn between two very different suitors. Ray (Steve Martin) is rich, middle-aged and not entirely honest; he loves her, but can’t get close to her. Jeremy (Jason Schwartzman) is young, maladroit and terminally clumsy; he loves her, but doesn’t know how to get close to her. Martin also wrote it, adapting his own novella, and it’s sensitively-done if a mite self-conscious; we can almost forgive him for Cheaper by the Dozen 2.
THE SQUID AND THE WHALE. Middle-class divorce, based on writer-director Noah Baumbach’s own family (one assumes he and his folks are no longer speaking). The parents – both writers – separate non-amicably, but try to be civilised for the sake of the children. The older, teenage son sides with Dad. The younger boy acts out, turns delinquent and takes to masturbating in the school library. But who gets to keep the cat? Brief, impressionistic, sketched in family shorthand – the nicknames, in-jokes and recurring phrases (“He’s not serious”; “Don’t be difficult”) parents and children use to navigate the chaos of being stuck in a lifetime relationship. A minor masterpiece.
THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA. Tommy Lee Jones directs and stars, as a Texan man-of-few-words taking the body of his friend Melquiades down to Mexico for burial. A modern-day Western as well as a tract on US-Mexico relations, calling for less racism and more understanding – and it’s good-looking, if a little glib. Possible best line: “Hey you! The ants are eating your friend!”
TONY TAKITANI. “Tony Takitani’s real name was … well, it really was Tony Takitani”. The story of a man who lived for surfaces, unburdened by any inner life, possibly standing for a dead-inside, materialistic post-war Japan that’s forgotten its aesthetic traditions (Tony was named for an American officer). A little jewel, based on a story by Haruki Murakami of Wind-Up Bird Chronicle fame; a pristine, ethereal film in shades of beige and white, backed by an utterly beautiful Riyuchi Sakamoto score. In Japanese. Only available, as far as I know, at Movie Time in Nicosia.
WASSUP ROCKERS. 15-year-old Hispanic skaters go from the ghetto to Beverly Hills in this curiously amiable movie. Starts as quasi-documentary, turns into fantasy, with the boys having to field gay fashion designers, gun-happy Charlton Heston and a drunken rich-bitch who takes one lad home and gives him a bubble-bath; all a bit silly, but the glimpses of the kids’ lives feel honest and their rapport is unmistakable. Great hardcore-punk music, too.
WHY WE FIGHT. The only film on this list I haven’t seen – but how can I ignore it when the fate of the world may depend on it (or at least its subject)? A documentary on America’s “military-industrial complex” and the reasons why the US goes to war, from Eisenhower to George W. Bush; director Eugene Jarecki got unprecedented access
to Pentagon records and (apparently) makes Fahrenheit 9/11 look like the cheap rant it was, even while reaching many of the same conclusions. Watch it and be stunned. Then watch all the others…
SUMMER OPEN-AIR MOVIE MARATHON
It’s our favourite time of the year, when the Cultural Services of the Ministry of Culture – in collaboration with Theatro Ena and the Friends of the Cinema Society – pick 15 or so oldies to show at the open-air Constantia Cinema in Nicosia throughout July and August. The mood is relaxed, the starry skies inspiring, and the films often unforgettable. Last year was especially strong, with a Chaplin and a couple of Marx Brothers as well as ‘Topkapi’ and ‘The African Queen’.
This year, I’m afraid we have issues with the selection. I’m sure there are good reasons why oldies have been winnowed down to a mere third of the total, but their replacements are fairly uninspired. The 15 films break down as follows:
1. OLDIES (PRE-1980): Two Italian comedies, the classic ‘I Soliti Ignoti’ (1958) and the lesser-known ‘Amici Miei’ (1975), plus three other films, united only (I presume) by the fact of new prints having been struck. Francois Truffaut’s rather twee ‘Stolen Kisses’ (1968), Louis Malle’s stylish-but-empty ‘Elevator to the Gallows’ (1958), and Buster Keaton’s ‘The General’ (1927) – a masterpiece, but not the easiest Silent comedy for children to appreciate. Speaking of which…
2. CHILDREN’S FILMS WITH A DIFFERENCE: Two Danish cartoons called ‘Cirkeline’ and ‘Strings’ (both 2004), an award-winning South African film called ‘The Wooden Camera’ (2003), and the recent British fantasy ‘Five Children and It’ (2005). An eclectic bunch, though quality tends to be variable with kidpics.
3. WELL-KNOWN FILMS FROM THE PAST 15 YEARS: Mike Leigh’s powerful, Golden Palm-winning ‘Secrets and Lies’ (1996); Ang Lee’s gay-themed comedy ‘The Wedding Banquet’ (1993), even more intriguing in the light of the Lee-directed ‘Brokeback Mountain’; and, for some reason, Woody Allen’s ‘Hollywood Ending’ (2002). This is probably the best strand, even if the films are rather random.
4. OBSCURE FILMS FROM 2005: Three little-known films, all released in the past year: ‘Mon Petit Doigt m’a Dit’, a French version of Agatha Christie’s ‘By the Pricking of My Thumbs’; a Spanish comedy called ‘Seres Queridos’; and another, slightly more prestigious Italian comedy called ‘Manuale d’Amore’. The films may be pleasant (they sound pleasant) but they seem to go against the spirit of past Marathons, which aimed for a more transcendent vibe – timeless classics watched in the contemplative setting of a summer night. These are movies you might find on LTV or Mega. But maybe it’s just me.
Films will be shown at 9pm from July 11, Tuesday to Thursday as well as Sunday, every week till August 27. Call 22-809512, 22-348203 or 22-349085 for full programme details.
