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High Fidelity is one of those great little gems that deserves more recognition than it has achieved. And that is despite the fact that Jack Black is in it. If you ever stumble across it whilst channel hopping, it's one of those films that has the ability to always keep you watching until the end, even if you've seen it 23 times, it's 1:00AM and you have work in the morning.
In it, hopeless romantic Rob Gordon (John Cusack) poses an interesting question: which came first, the music or the misery?
To quote him in full:
"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"
If you're unaware, the other great questions in life have already been answered. The chicken came before the egg. Yes, there is a God. And since I don't think anybody really cares who let the dogs out, I'm going to attempt to answer Rob Gordon's question.
I was tempted to answer in a slightly facetious way by examining the pop music of today, lamenting how it's not what it used to be and that the sad but inevitable decline of what is called pop music over the course of a generation is enough to make anyone miserable.
Even when treating the question in a serious manner though, my initial thought was that it's just a perpetual cycle of life imitating art and vice-versa. In a circle, there is no beginning and no end.
But if science has now finally provided an actual answer to the chicken and egg question, surely it shouldn't be too hard to answer a philosophical question about music. I won't bore you with all the introspective thoughts that flashed across my mind in the journey to track down the seemingly elusive answer, but will share the train of thought that led me to what I believe is the correct answer.
Whenever a question seems this slippery, the answer can sometimes be found by shifting the focus onto the exact opposite and then see what truth that reveals about the original question.
So, if I can't decide whether people listen to sad songs because they are miserable, or are miserable because they listen to sad songs, perhaps it is easier to examine whether people listen to happy songs because they are already joyful or are joyful because they listen to happy songs.
I can only respond based on my own experience, and have no idea whether the same truth is universal though I suspect it just might be.
I listen to music a lot, and often will match the music to my mood. But here's the odd thing I noticed when I really thought about it. If I'm happy, then in order to sustain that happiness I'm uninterested in listening to anything that might ruin my disposition. But conversely, if I'm feeling a bit down, I'm unlikely to be inclined to intentionally exacerbate those feelings of gloom. So the end result is the same, that I would put on some music that I hope might lift my spirits.
So, whether I'm happy or sad, if my choice of music is in any way a considered decision, rather than just random selection, it will always be for something that either feeds my existing good mood, or helps to create one. I can't recall a time when I would have intentionally chosen to listen to music that would make me miserable, since misery is not a goal that I have.
Of course there might be exceptions. If someone is clinically depressed, perhaps there is some comfort found in sharing that feeling with the musician. And then there are Emos, whose motivation baffles me, so I won't attempt to explain.
It seems to me then that for most people, who generally desire to be happy in any given situation, wouldn't purposely choose to listen to music that would alter their mood in a negative way. So, pop music, or indeed any music which might trigger misery, is listened to for other reasons, and any resulting misery is inadvertent.
Rob Gordon, then, is miserable because he listens to pop music. But then again, it might be from spending too much time with Jack Black. I guess we'll never know.
There are certain films that are deemed so sacred that it's not generally considered socially acceptable to criticise them. If any film leads the pack in this regard, it has to be the 1941 Orson Welles vehicle, Citizen Kane.
It has topped critic's lists for decades, perhaps most notably on both the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies and BFI's Sight & Sound poll. The former still places Citizen Kane at the #1 spot, whilst the latter has only finally demoted it to second place after 50 years at the top (falling victim to Vertigo)
The problem with such lists is that it's very easy for such films to become "grandfathered in". Any film that's been around as long as Kane and held in such high esteem gets automatic consideration, and there is such a stigma attached to making a negative comment about what is seen as an historically important film that few professional critics seem prepared to accept the inevitable ostracisation that would occur if they did not vote for it.
The movie-going public has no such qualms though, so it's interesting to note it's placing on lists which are largely governed by public opinion. One good example is Empire Magazine's Top 500, which as well as 150 leading Hollywood figures and 50 professional critics also takes the votes of 10,000 of it's readers. Kane only makes No.28 on the list, with The Godfather much more deservedly taking the No.1 position. And for anyone who might fear that the top spots will just be a popularity contest of recent blockbusters, that myth is blown out of the water by virtue of the fact that many great oldies such as Casablanca, The Third Man, and even Some Like It Hot all rank higher than Citizen Kane.
Similar results are seen in the IMDb Top 250, in which Kane is currently sitting at No.45. There has been much criticism of this list, since anyone can vote, and there have been accusations of large scale manipulation to push new films towards the top. I won't deny that can happen, but I've been following this particular list for around 15 or more years now, and have observed that any such manipulation tends to be shortlived, always allowing the true cream of the crop to rise to the top in the long term.
So, what about Citizen Kane then? Are the critics right, and do the general public just not know what's good for them? Or are the critics just following tradition, too fearful to appear to be the odd one out by speaking against it?
My layman's opinion is that it is a good film. It is historically important also. But, no it is not a great film. And it's most definitely not the best film ever made. Not by quite a sizable margin. I want to keep this blog post as brief as possible, so will just quickly highlight a couple of reasons, but may if I find the time, write a longer article at some point to elaborate more fully.
It is too dependent upon a single gimmick
The main appeal of the film is it's search to discover the meaning of the dying words of a great man. As his last breath escapes his lips, so does the word 'Rosebud...'. The film spends just shy of two hours in the quest to uncover what Rosebud is. Given the importance often attached to the final words of so many historical figures, there is the automatic assumption that for someone seen to have lived such a great life, that his final words must carry some sense of the profound. Or at least some poignancy.
There are two problems here, only one of which can we really blame on Welles. Firstly, the aforementioned 'twist' has been so widely known for so long that for most people who have watched it in recent years (or even recent decades), they will probably already know the end from the start. Certainly, I have known for many years that Rosebud was the name of Kane's childhood sled. Once you know that, the rest of the film is rather disappointingly dull. Anyone who has ever seen a film by M.Night Shyamalan knows that relying upon a single twist as the most important part of the film does not make a good movie, let alone a great one.
Secondly, the twist is not even a good one. Rosebud is his sled? Who cares. It's supposed to appear profound, but instead is just pretentious. The film is trying to make the point that despite all of his achievements and wealth, he cared more about a childhood toy and the innocence it represents. I like the message, I just don't like the method. Welles seems incapable of using subtlety to make a point, instead using narration to bludgeon us with it. Nowadays, if we want to know the director's thoughts, we can just turn on the director's commentary that often comes bundled as a DVD extra. Here we're not given the option of interpreting any meaning on our own, thanks to a painfully unnatural soliloquy which sums everything up for us.
Historical importance is not the same thing as entertainment
I understand that the film was breaking new ground back in 1941. The nonlinear narrative told through flashbacks was new. And yes, I know that it used deep-focus shots, low-angle shots and close-ups, as well as many technical special effects, and even advances in the use of makeup to transform Welles into a younger version of himself to play the title role. All great technical innovations, which have clearly had huge influence on thousands of films made since then. That's fine and to be respected. By all means, make it mandatory viewing for film students, to assist in understanding the origins of these techniques.
But none of these things are what imbues a film with greatness. There is only one thing that is capable of doing this - the story. And sadly, Citizen Kane is a rather simple story to begin with, but is made worse by bad pacing and weak acting on the part of almost all the supporting actors. The closing credits even have the bizarre disclaimer that ""Most of the principal actors are new to motion pictures" as if it were felt that some kind of apology were required, which perhaps was true.
The Thief of Baghdad, in 1940, was the first film to ever use green screen technology. Similarly, the first ever 3D film was The Power of Love, surprisingly made in 1922, three decades before the birth of 3D cinema is often credited. But neither are hailed as the greatest film of all time, on the basis that they pioneered new film-making techniques.
Despite what some critics would try to convince you of, good film-making is not the same thing as good cinematography. Sure, a very poorly constructed film can detract from an otherwise good film. But above anything else, a film must be about the story - it should entertain, inspire, or inform it's viewers.
Citizen Kane does have at it's heart a potentially interesting story, sufficient to make it a good film, and should be watched just once by everyone interested in film. But with it's slow pacing and sometimes amateurish supporting actors, it is sadly just a little too tedious to really be considered a great film.
Have you ever felt a sense of deja-vu when watching a movie? I had a profound sense of deja-vu recently when watching the mid-nineties big-budget mediocre action flick, The Long Kiss Goodnight.
My initial reaction was to search my memory banks to figure out whether I had actually seen it before and had simply forgotten about it. Entirely possible, since I do watch an awful lot of movies. But, no that wasn't the reason for my deja-vu.
Let me run through the major plot points of the film and see if you can spot the same sense of the familiar, if indeed the title of this article is not already enough of a hint.
The hero of the film is found washed up on a beach, suffering from amnesia. A few memories do slowly start to return, but it transpires that these memories are actually false as they relate to a fictitious alter ego, not the true identity of the lead character.
They surprise themselves when they unexpectedly display some rather unusual and violent skills, which clearly hint at some level of specialist training. They subsequently discover that the reason for this is that they were formerly a trained assassin working for a black-ops group within the CIA, and that the amnesia they are experiencing is the result of a botched assassination attempt.
The CIA's reaction is to try to cover their tracks by eliminating their own covert agent, but said agent is not ready to give up without a fight, and turns the tables back onto the agency.
Any Matt Damon fans out there will of course instantly recognise this as the plot of the Bourne Identity. Since, the latter was released in 2002, six years after The Long Kiss Goodnight, you might make an incorrect assumption as to who stole the idea. In fact, the Bourne Idenity is based on the book of the same name, by best-selling crime fiction author Robert Ludlum, way back in 1980.
All you really need to do to transform The Bourne Identity into The Long Kiss Goodnight is to replace Franka Potente as the sidekick with Samuel L Jackson (who fulfills his usual contractual obligation to use as many four letter words as the MPAA will let him get away with) and replace 'Treadstone' as the black-ops code-name with the slighly less sinister sounding 'Chapter'. And lastly throw in a few cheap one-liners, and some fireball explosions for our heroes to outrun.
I know that it's often said that there's nothing original in Hollywood any longer, but the similarities here are uncanny. One particularly strange coincidence is that in both films, the man responsible for training the amnesiac agent is portrayed by Brian Cox (who in fact also plays the same role a third time, in X-Men 2, making this possibly one of the most bizarre niche roles ever).
Does this mean that Hollywood has completely exhausted any kind of originality? Probably, although some might argue that that happened decades earlier. Perhaps it's an unintended homage, though it seems more likely to just be a glaring example of plagiarism. Whichever is true though, I actually enjoyed The Long Kiss Goodnight. Despite it's cheap one-liners and laughable stunts, it's still kind of fun, and is infinitely preferable to the most recent installment in the Bourne series - the yawn-fest that was The Bourne Legacy, which should not even be considered worthy to be included in such a great franchise.
I'd love to see Matt Damon make a return to the Bourne franchise, but if that never happens then perhaps even Geena Davis might actually be capable of a more entertaining sequel than Jeremy Renner was.
When I was a boy, there was a period of a few years when three legendary British middle-distance runners - Seb Coe, Steve Ovett and Steve Cram - competed for the world record in running the mile. It was an exciting time for British athletics.
It was only superceded in terms of anticipation and excitement by the events of three decades earlier, when another British athlete, Roger Bannister, acheived the incredible feat of being the first man to ever break the barrier of the four-minute mile.
I've known the name my whole life, but known very little about the person, so found myself enthralled by dramatisation of his life in the 2005 TV movie, Four Minutes. And don't let the phrase "TV movie" put you off, as this is an enjoyable and gripping drama.
Bannister was not actually a professional athlete, but was a medical student at the time he ran his now world-famous accomplishment. If the film dramatisation is in any way an accurate relection of the real personality, then it seems he was indeed a fascinating character - incredibly knowledgable, determined and driven, but yet remarkably rather humble.
Beyond his own personality though, I found myself musing upon what it was that set him apart for greatness, and how he was able to achieve what had never been done before, and what some saw as an impossibility in all likelihood. I'd like to share the thoughts I had whilst watching this intriguing biopic, as there may be some life lessons for all of us.
He was inspired!
Roger was just 16 years old when he witnessed Sydney Wooderson - another great English middle-distance runner now largely forgotten - make an incredible comeback to the sport in 1945. Plagued by an ankle injury and subsequent surgery in the 1930s, he had nonetheless managed to set world records for not just the mile, but also the 800m and 880 yards in 1938.
After a bout of rheumatic fever in 1944, doctors advised Wooderson that he might never run again, but just a year later he was competing again, and set a new British record for the mile.
Rather than just watching in admiration for Wooderson's amazing achievement, Roger's response was to take inspiration from it in order to spur him on in his own activities.
True greatness rarely just falls out of the sky, all neatly packaged with a bow, ready for us to step forward and merely accept it. Instead, it is often just the next link in a continuous unbroken chain. In other words, whenever we see someone like Roger Bannister, their achievements are usually the result of inspiration received from someone else who went before them, and they in turn by someone before them.
When we look up to our heroes, as well as the natural admiration we feel, it should also have a positive effect on our own lives. Rather than compare our current situation, and feel overwhelmed that we have done so little by comparison, let's look to those great men and women and realise that they are just ordinary people like us, and with some hard work, we can rise to the same level.
He was prepared!
Bannister's medical training certainly gave him an advantage in this area, though he worked hard physically as well. He was a man fascinated by the limits of human endurance, and applied his medical knowledge to better understanding how to achieve his goals.
On an almost daily basis, he would run on a treadmill (in the days before they were widely used) to test these limits, often using an oxygen mask in order to stretch out the test conditions as much as possible. He would test his lactic acid levels by attaching hollow-point needles to his fingers, to better understand his own muscle activity.
In other words, this was not a man who just blindly turned up to a track, and ran as fast as he could, with vague expectations that he might beat a world record. Instead, he spent years not only physically training himself, but also understanding the human body in a way that would allow him to push the boundaries of possibility.
We can learn a lesson from this as well: hard work will take us part of the way, but often we need to really understand what it is we are trying to achieve, to get under the skin, if we are really determined to see success.
He was not alone!
This was the one thing from the film that impressed me the most.
Although Roger was the one to receive all the glory, he had a dedicated team supporting him in his efforts. Obviously his coach was a key player in this respect, but two other names are important as well. Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway.
These were student friends of Roger's, and athletes in their own right. At the time, they were equally well known, and although they have both achieved much later on, winning medals of their own, and Brasher is perhaps best remember as the founder of the London Marathon.
But of these three friends, it is Bannister who set the record for the mile and became the household name. What is interesting though is the part they both played on that day in history, a role not often remembered. Both were to act as pacemakers for Roger during his record-breaking run: Brasher for the first two laps, and Chataway for the third lap.
This was a planned strategy. The aim was never for either Brasher or Chataway to win the race, but instead to simply provide assistance to their friend in achieving his goal. That takes an incredible amount of humility on the part of the pacemakers, to be content simply to play a supporting role and allow someone else to take centre stage.
For some of us, that may be our role, and we should be ready and willing to accept that, as there is a degree of greatness in playing such a part, even though we might not receive recognition ourselves. And for those, like Roger Bannister, who are the ones to "win the race", let's not ever forget the contributions made by others in helping us to achieve our goals, for we rarely work alone.
Every once in a while a film will genuinely take me by surprise. I watched Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World with very little knowledge of the film, and even less in the way of expectations. Don't be fooled as I was by the presence of Steve Carell - this is not a comedy, although it has some subtle comedic moments.
In a nutshell, this is a romantic drama that tells the tale of two individuals facing an impending global apocalypse, thanks to an asteroid that is headed for Earth. It has the usual cliches that you might expect. There are riots in the street, as anarchy erupts at the news that the end of the world is no longer nigh, but is in fact here. Others seem unable to face their certain death, and choose to carry on with their lives as though nothing had changed. Many just decide to live out their last moments with as much decadence as they can, indulging in one long binge of eating, drinking, smoking, and sleeping around. A few are making plans to survive disaster by hunkering down in a bunker with suitable stockpiles of food and other supplies.
Dodge Peterson (Carell) and his young neighbour Penny (Keira Knightley) are both just looking for a way to reunite with their loved ones for the short remaining time they have left.
It's not a perfect film, occasionally striking the wrong note, and the predictable ending was a little too sentimental for my tastes. But there are some sublime moments here. One scene in particular comes to mind, as a newsreader delivers a heartfelt speech in his final broadcast before returning home to his wife and children. It is a scene filled with a deep and genuine pathos.
I loved the slow, gentle pace that the film takes, never in a hurry to reach the inevitable conclusion, content merely to enjoy the journey instead. If you're a people watcher, then this film will definitely appeal to you. Sit back and medidate on the wry observations it has to offer.
But whilst you're meditating on the deeper things, I'd encourage you to give some thought to the one thing that sadly nobody in this movie seems to spend a moments thought on. That is, what happens after the end of the world?
I don't mean finding a bunker to take shelter in either. I mean, if there truly were an apocalypse from which it was guaranteed there would be no escape. What would your reaction be if you had sufficient warning?
The response seen here is almost biblical in a way. What I mean by this is the words spoken of in the Gospel of Luke: "Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all".
If we knew that our own death was imminent and unavoidable, surely there would be some wisdom in trying to search out what life might await us after death, since eternity would gain far more significance for us at that stage than whatever activities we might cram into our last hours or days in this life.
Of course, in pondering this, don't forget to consider one last point that we often overlook. We may not have an asteroid headed our way, but for all of us, death, like taxes, is still unavoidable. And life is much shorter than we think.
Today I witnessed a chilling and violent assassination. The victim was Philip Marlowe, the hard-drinking, hard-thinking private eye created by Raymond Chandler. The key perpetrators in this terrible crime were director Robert Altman, writer Leigh Bracket and actor Elliot Gould.
It was not a quick and painless end for Marlowe. It took 112 mins for this sadistic trio to finish him off, delivering blow after excruciating blow, leaving him as an almost unrecognisable mess. The main weapon of choice was a meandering and aimless script that bears little resemblance to it's superb source material, and our hero was shot on 35mm film, not with a pistol.
I am of course speaking of the 1973 travesty, The Long Goodbye, an adaptation of the Chandler novel of the same name. I was not expecting it to match up the dizzying heights of Bogart's depiction of Marlowe in The Big Sleep. This classic and critically acclaimed film was made at a time when the film noir genre was at the top of it's game.
By the 1970s, the landscape had changed, but nothing could prepare me for how bad The Long Goodbye was.
Foolishly I saw this through to the bitter end, when I really ought to have abandoned it much sooner. Like a man who has been sucker-punched, but gets back up and keeps fighting, refusing to acknowledge the inevitability that awaits, I kept plodding on, even past the bizarre and uncharacteristic opening.
Marlowe is transformed from the wise-crackin' hard-boiled detective, loved by multiple generations of readers, into a pitiful sad-sack, who is bullied even by his pet cat. He shuffles haphazardly around his apartment, mumbling incessantly about "Courry brand" cat food. If the opening credits hadn't kept me informed, I'd have never known that this incoherent, sulking shadow of a man was supposed to be Marlowe.
It has been reported that screenwriter, Leigh Brackett, felt that the original plot of the novel was riddled with cliches. She ended up rewriting the story almost entirely, which ought to have been another warning sign. But I was so determined to want to enjoy this, that I had my blinkers on and failed to see what a mistake it was for anyone to attempt to do a better job than one of the true masters of the genre. There's a certain sense of irony that in attempting to avoid the cliches that she felt were present in the novel, that Brackett has succeeded only in creating a cliche of her own: style over substance.
Following this utterly unnecessary revision of Marlowe's character, which I can only assume occurred at all because of Altman's rumoured fondness for lighting up the occasional doobie, the film only retreats further from any potential to redeem itself, the character assassination continuing unimpeded for nearly two hours. It's enough to make a grown man weep.
So save yourself a couple of hours. Leave this softboiled version of the great hardboiled detective where it belongs, in the bargain bin. Treat yourself instead by watching The Big Sleep again.
Every now and then I hear a line in a movie which just sounds plain bizarre to my ears. If you heard such a line out of context, it would probably make no sense. Or the least, it would provoke your curiosity and make you want to see the movie to find out what on earth the line was in reference to.
These are not the best, coolest or most inspirational movie quotes. Instead, they are a bit weird or wacky. Hopefully, you'll recognise a few, but if not then you'll no doubt find that your curiosity will be piqued. If that's the case, then go hunt them down, and rent/buy/stream the movie.
I guess you could call this an Alternative List of Movie Quotes. I'll no doubt be adding to this list as new and interesting quotes occur to me. And if you know a great alternative movie quote, then please share it via the comments.
- Our pets heads are falling off.
- Do you think that's air you're breathing.
- I even thought I was dead 'til I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska.
- That looks just like a flying dog.
- I wish monkeys could Skype.
- Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
- You can't fight in here gentlemen, this is the war room.
- I was frozen today!
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