My 3 problems with Atonement.

It’s facetious to judge a film without having seen it, but the near-constant barrage of reviews and media coverage that this film is generating means that I feel I basically know it already, and that I don’t care about the honesty of weighing in and giving my opinions without yet having seen it. Because I know I will see it, eventually. It’s inevitable - this is already turning into one of the year’s most talked about films. This is not one of the things that makes my list of quibbles, but it’s a point that bothers me. The first review of Atonement I came across was Emma’s, which I read with great avidity. I was curious to see what she thought of it, having just read the book myself. Later that week, the reviews began appearing in most of the Broadsheets and some more blogs. Then came the Venice Film Festival and the weight of press coverage this garnered was almost sickening. It bothered me that with so many other highly anticipated films showing, Atonement was the one that got the most buzz. It goes without saying I was thrilled when the Golden Lion for Best Film went to Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution. If the judges had awarded Atonement the top prize, I think my head might have exploded

1. Kiera Knightly.

I’m with Mark Kermode on this one. How the hell is “Ikea Knightly” an Oscar-nominee? It completely baffles. I’ll confess (albeit with glee) that I’ve only endured the first Pirates film, which I thought was “alright, not really my thing and way too long”. The second, and subsequently the third, seemed to get progressively worse and from all accounts, so did Keira’s acting. Having been marginally interesting in Bend It Like Beckham, she has simply done nothing in recent that has dazzled. Or even, you know, not made me sigh in despair. The final straw was catching her on Jonathan Ross last night. She didn’t seem entirely sane, but nor was she interesting in a kooky way. Instead she came across as needy, trying to wheedle Ross into admiting she wasn’t a bad actress. I don’t really pick fault with the casting of her as Cecilia, probably the book’s least interesting character, so much as I fault her acting at all, full stop.

2. The adaptation of the novel.

I had some major problems with the book itself, more on which later. But while reading it, I realised that this is an exceedingly odd choice to adapt for film. Ian McEwan’s excellent Enduring Love was, in my opinion, a better novel and also had a filmable plot. Atonement’s primary concern is with writing and the destructive power of the imagination, whether a writer is ever completely honest, if it is possible to atone for a terrible crime by writing about it. These themes are engaging and thoughtful, but not ones that scream “cinematic!”. The middle section, which centres on World War II, is the most filmable section of the novel, and also the part I found least engaging. Coincidence?

3. The novel itself.

I’ll admit that I read Atonement purely for the reason that there was to be a film based on it and I always prefer to read the book first rather than after. It wasn’t through lack of trying, I’d started it on two previous occasions but always gave up. There was something that didn’t quite catch me in it’s opening chapters, but this time I ploughed on and ended up rather enjoyed sections. The opening third, set in a stately English home during a sweltering pre-war summer, was well written and I found parts thrilling. The middle section, set during the war, I found formulaic. It had the façade of being well written, nicely composed sentences and McEwan’s masterful vocabulary in all it’s glory, but the sentiment seemed false to me. It was borderline boring, but not too offensive. But then came the shocker; it’s third act actually appalled me. I’m loath to reveal what exactly angered me, but it’ll suffice to say it was a cruel twists deployed by McEwan that only served to further his cleverness. I doubt he did it purely as a show-off gesture, but that’s how it read to me. The twist completely undermines everything that has come before it and plain upset me. But rethinking about it now has me conflicted; I understand that this twist was integral in driving home the central theme of the book, but at the same time I felt cheated and misled. The characters were sacrificed in favour of lamenting the fate of the author, we’ll say.

As you can probably tell, I've been messing around with the format and layout of this blog. I was unhappy with it before, but now I can't make up my mind whether this new style is better or worse. I like the Feist picture up the top but the wider format kind of freaks me out. On one level, it allows for better viewing of pictures (see my photos down a couple of places, you can see the full front of Shakespeare & Co. rather than just the snippet that the previous format allowed) but it also has the same impact a completely blank A4 page has when you have to write a poetry essay in half an hour and your mind's gone blank; how the fuck will I fill this space? And the grey background? I like it better than white, but... Would the Fug girls shake their heads in aghast derision? Would I make E! News? Answers on a postcard please.

Back to school, yadda yadda

In honour of my (very) immenint return to school, I present my favourite cinematic schooling moments.

Donnie Darko: Richard Kelly’s directorial debut was an ambitious sci-fi that shot Jake Gyllenhaal into superstardom and left thousands of teenagers scratching their heads wondering what it all meant, but it’s crowning achievment has to be the single slo-mo tracking shot through Donnie’s high school. We meet his friends, the teachers, the school bully (who appears to be snorting coke...) and Jake’s future love interest, all set to the oddly apt strains of Tears for Fears. It’s one of the most perfect scenes in recent film history, settling nicely into the niche between the bizarre time-travelling plot and the pure weirdness inherent in high school.



Ferris Bueller's Day Off: An odd choice, as Ferris doesn't spend a second in school during the course of the film, but it's one of the highschool films. Who hasn't spent a mind-numbing maths class dreaming of going on the mitch with Ferris, Cameron and Sloane? It's such a pity that Ferris chose to skip on that particular day, as here's a glimpse of what was going on during the economics class:

"In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone?... the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?... raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. "Voodoo" economics."

The Breakfast Club: It's a tough choice between this and Pretty In Pink for the mandatory John Hughes flick, but for pure iconic status, it's gotta be this one. For honing in on the accuracy, and the stupidity, of school stereotypes (the jock, the princess, the weirdo, the nerd and the drop-out) and for the line "Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?", you can't beat it.


Clueless: It's been over a decade since Cher and Dionne shopped, gossiped and match-maked their way through high school, and the Valley-Girl vernacular is ridiculously outdated, but Amy Heckerling's sharp update of Jane Austen's Emma is still as funny as ever. Some of the fashion choices are priceless and it's high time "Betty" and "Baldwin" were brought back as synonyms for good looking people! Or maybe not. But hey, if we're ever faced with a tough opponont in a debate, we have Cher to look to for inspiration.


Mean Girls: Probably the best high-school film ever made. Certainly the best movie Lindsay Lohan ever made. And, wait for it, my favourite comedy of all time.

"You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, J.V. jocks, Asian nerds, Cool Asians, Varsity jocks Unfriendly black hotties, Girls who eat their feelings, Girls who don't eat anything, Desperate wannabes, Burnouts, Sexually active band geeks..."


Sadly, "Fetch" ain't never going to happen.

Cansei de Ser Sexy

C.S.S. flip the trend of “all guys and one girl” that so many indie and rock bands have adhered to throughout the years, by being made up of lots of girls and one guy. This fact, along with the facts that (a) they are Brazilian and (b) they make really fun electro-pop-punk should make you want to listen to them.

There are a number of other reasons why you should like CSS. They are:

C.S.S. like music and pop-culture (“Music is my boyfriend!” they exclaim exuberantly). They want you to enjoy them as much as they enjoy, say, Death From Above 1979. They sometimes drink too much (“Alcohol”) and enjoy being rude to people (“This Month, Day 10”). Drunken buffoons, admitting their own mistakes and prancing around in sparkling leotards? What is this, the 70s? Nope; C.S.S. present their very own brand of joyous, humane disco-pop which has absolutely nothing to do with the en-vogue stylings of Snow Patrol et all. If their album seems to run out of steam towards it’s end, you can’t blame the band themselves. They’d probably be the first to admit it.

“Lets Make Love (And Listen to Death From Above)” is probably their most sophisticated song, but is nicely representative of their general sound. Funky guitar backed with electro beats, garbled English delivered in Lovefoxx’s curiously detached vocals, handclaps, a catchy chorus that grabs you in a headlock and demands you pay attention; this is the C.S.S. sound and woe unto those who attempt to ignore it. Those jaded enough to reel off the bands from whom C.S.S. are derivative of - Le Tigre’s type of female-fronted electro-pop, the way Lovefoxx’s voice sometimes strays in Poly Styrene territory (especially on the second track, “Patins”) - are missing the point; C.S.S. may wear their influences on their multi-coloured sleeves, but they are purely of their time. Indeed, we must look to LCD Soundsystem for a taste of their ironic pop references; witness their hilarious slagging of Paris Hilton, and the emergence of a new internet culture, without which it’s fair to say C.S.S. would have floundered into Brazilian obscurity. Within the blogosphere, a whole global community of disco-depraved indie kids can revel in the joys of Cansei de Ser Sexy.

Breach (2007) Billy Ray

In a year dominated by great female performances (think; Laura Linney in Jindabyne, Marion Cottillard in La Vie En Rose, Imelda Staunton in Harry Potter, Maggie Gyllenhaal in Sherrybaby) it is somewhat of a relief to finally see a male performance that could be worthy of an Oscar nod come February. Chris Cooper’s turn as real-life FBI agent Robert Hanssen in Breach could well be one of the year’s defining male performances, although this muted, intelligent thriller could slip under many people’s raders.

Everyone has their favourite niche genres, whether it’s biopics of doomed musicians or high school comedies. One of my own personal favourite genres would be the political thriller; the recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate being a case in point. I had been an admirer of Bill Ray’s Shattered Glass ever since I saw it a few years ago and when I heard he was making another film based in reality, this time concentrating on the downfall of FBI agent Robert Hanssen, my interest was piqued. The cast list, when I saw it, only furthered my enthusiasm for this film; the excellent Chris Cooper, the aforementioned Linney plus a bit part for The West Wing’s nasty vice-president Gary Cole. There’s always a risk of being disappointed when you look forward to something, but Breach handles it’s subject with decorum and an unshowiness that betrays it’s sensational plotline. It’s smart, well-acted and emotionally involving; a welcome change from the candy-coloured assualt of the summer film season.

In 2001, FBI hopeful Eric O’ Neill was assigned to work alongside Hanssen in order to find out his secrets. At first, O’ Neill is only told that Hanssen is a sexual pervert and that his mission is to investigate any deviant activities in order to save the FBI from any potential embarrassment. As the weeks progress, O’ Neill (a surprisingly good portrayal by Ryan Phillipe) becomes fond of Hanssen and demands to know why he is supposed to be investigating him. Reluctantly, his supervisor, Agent Kate Burroughs (Laura Linney) explains the true reason; Hanssen has been working as a spy for Russia for years, divulging vital pieces of U.S. intelligence and authorising the killing of other agents. He is a traitor and a liar.

Cooper, who has made a living playing hardened men (American Beauty, The Bourne Supremacy, Jarhead) is the unbreakable core of the film. Hanssen is obviously an extremely complex man; a devout Christian who has no qualms about betraying his fellow country. At times he seems without morals, but then a small touching gesture he makes towards O’ Neill will flip your perception of him uncomfortably. We are clearly not supposed to empathise with him, he is cruel and perverted, a heartless liar, but Cooper gives such a lifelike potrait it is difficult not to feel some glimmer of sympathy. None of the other characters know what to make of him either. “His grandchildren do love him,” admits Agent Burroughs reluctantly. It isn’t a showy performance by any means, but you can hardly keep your eyes off him. He exudes quiet menance from our very first encounter with him and O’ Neill, understandably, is terrified. He is the scariest onscreen Boss since Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada, except Anna Wintour never sold secrets to the Russians. At least as far as I’m aware…

The Bourne Ultimataum, which I also enjoyed, deals with roughly the same topics as Breach; CIA, espionage, secrets. But it’s hard to think of two such dissaparate films. While the Bourne films are a frenzy of jump-cuts and wobbly handheld cameras tracking impressive car-chases, Breach is a much quieter affair. The bulk of the action takes place in offices or apartments, there is no final showdown, no jolting cameras or frentic electronic scores. It is character based, dialogue based; and even the more chilling for it. The tension builds up slowly throughout the entire film, beautifully realised in muted greys and blues, until the inevitable end rolls into place with a saddening clunk. Breach is not an uplifting film, but nor is it a downer; it simply understands that people are complicated in what they do, in what they say and what they think.

“It doesn't really matter; the judgement of other men... I know what I've done.” - Robert Hanssen, Breach.

Sleepless long nights, that is what my youth was for

If one single album could represent an entire holiday, the musical score to my three weeks spent idly in France would be signified by Feist’s The Reminder. I bought the former Broken Social Scene member’s second album on my second or third day there, in a pleasantly crowded FNAC store in Paris. I knew the album fairly well when I bought it, having previously acquired it by less than legal methods (ahem…) but I usually have to own a physical copy of the music to be able to fully connect with it. It isn’t such a matter of being Old Skool as it is being lazy, it’s easier to “get into” an album when you have all the accompanying paraphernalia to guide you along; jewel case, artwork, booklet, that shiny silver disc. There’s a time and a place to wax rhapsodic on liner notes, but this isn’t it.

Listening to The Reminder, feeling stoned on the music and the lightness of air, my sleepy-sick tiredness and the heat and noise of the Paris streets clattering through the open windows of our apartment, I promptly decided that this was one of the best albums of the year so far. Not only is it a ballsy, beautiful collection of songs with maturely rendered instrumentation, but The Reminder has an easy flow which is a rarity in a modern album. Radiohead’s last effort Hail To The Thief was filled with great songs, but it was also stilted and bloated. There was no continuous link binding the songs together; or if there was, it was sequestered away in Thom Yorke’s head. Feist’s themes may not be grandiose, love songs and rocking out with your friends aren’t going to shatter the earth, but she maintains roughly the same tone throughout. Never mind that “SeaLion Woman”, a rollicking Nina Simone cover, packs a wallop greater than, say, “The Water” but they are not so dissimilar to create a noticeable jump. The Reminder is 13 sophisticated pop songs, united by deft instrumation and the weird, keening thing that is Leslie Fiest’s singing voice. If she can’t quite reach every note perfectly, if she sometimes snags over the lyrics, this only adds to the intimate feel of the album. It’s more polished than 2004’s Let It Die which has attracted criticism (see: Stylus Magazine’s review) but it is also more musically centred. Let It Die has fabulous songs (and The Reminder has not got a BeeGees cover, which is always a bonus) but it does not have the vision that The Reminder posesses. Roughness and lo-fi productions have always been praised in music circles, but that does not mean a well-produced album is a negative thing. Feist is a legitimate indie singer; but she’s smart enough to get good people working alongside her, and has the sense of humour to have fun with it. The Reminder is the sound of a singer being totally at ease with herself. All you haters can go screw you'selves!


As for the songs themselves now, it’s hard to imagine where to start. The pure burst of happy nostalgia that is “1234”, the shy sweetness of “Brandy Alexander” and the sultry stomp “My Moon, My Man” all vy for my favourite song on the album, but my preferences are in a constant state of flux. One moment I’ll decided that “Limit To Your Love” is one of the best things she’s ever done, the next moment I’m dying for a blast of “SeaLion Woman”.

The French love Feist, and she loves them right back. The Reminder was recorded mostly in Paris and therefore it’s fitting that it was in Frogland that I grew to love it, along with Let It Die. The feeling of companionship and camaraderie that is scattered through the album (Feist is quite happy to share song writing duties and handclaps with her friends and fellow musicians) was mirrored in my own listening experiences of it; over the course of our holiday my whole family grew to love the album as much, or even more, than my own appreciation of it. I’ve expressed elsewhere that I can only consider albums amazing if they transcend themselves and reach out into my everyday life. If I don’t have a tangible experience with it, no matter how great the songs, I can’t claim to love it. All my favourite albums have some personal memories attached to them. It’s safe to say that The Reminder has shot into my personal favourites.

And now, for your listening pleasure, The Mixed-Up Files presents Feist. Enjoy!

Holler

Long time no blog. This is what I've been getting up to.

Mmmm. This was like my 3rd or 4th time in this bookshop. My favourite experience of it was the first time I went and got my first glimpse of the legendary owner, George Whitman. He was topless and we thought it was an old woman at first. He was throwing bits of bicycle out the window and screaming at one of the employees. I'm so working here when I live in Paris.

In case you can't tell (and I'd be freaked out if you could), that green dealie is not a hospital tag but my pit-band from The Shins, whom I caught at the Olympia on Tuesday. They were awesome.





This appears to be a lion in front of some bookshelves. Don't ask why, I found it on the camera, never having seen it before. I thought it'd be appropriate for the blog though.