BASEketball (1998)

TWO GUYS INVENTED A GAME... AND TURNED THE SPORTS WORLD UPSIDE DOWN!

Back before David Zucker became one of the men behind Airplane!, The Kentucky Fried Movie and the Police Squad series, and thus changing the face of comedy forever, he was a regular youngster playing ball with his friends in his driveway. However, the game they played wasn’t the one you would expect. They played a game of their own creation, a weird hybrid of baseball and basketball. As it is, their formative driveway hi-jinx stayed only within that small circle, and Zucker would go on to become a famous filmmaker with his brother and friend. In 1998, though, when he hadn’t stepped behind the camera for a few years, Zucker decided that it was time to share the game of his youth with world.

Two jobless losers from Milwaukee, Joe Cooper (Trey Parker) and Doug Remer (Matt Stone), invent a new game playing basketball, but using baseball rules: BASEketball. After the game gains popularity, and with help from billionaire Ted Denslow (Ernest Borgnine), they form the Professional BASEketball League where everyone gets the same pay and no team can change cities. However, when Denslow dies and bequeaths the team to Cooper, a rival team owner, Baxter Cain (Robert Vaughan), tries to force changes on the game to make more money.

Considering that the film was about the creation and development of a hybrid sport, it seems somewhat fitting that the comedic influence of the project would be something of a hybrid itself. Although it was a project pursued without the aid of David Zucker’s regular partners, brother Jerry and friend Jim Abrahams, his individual comedy stylings are still very well established: a simple storyline crammed with jokes to the point of bursting. To try and compliment this, a new sensibility was added, namely Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park. South Park had landed on TV screens the year before and made an instant impression on the world for its crudeness (both in jokes and production values) and its controversy (the show was one of several things blamed for youthful delinquency). Convinced that the show would last only one season before being cancelled, Parker and Stone looked elsewhere for their next project and fell upon Zucker’s new film, which would be his first as director for seven years. Needless to say, the potential for these different comedic methods mixing together did create something of a ripple of anticipation. As it is, South Park wasn’t cancelled, which meant that Parker and Stone, now committed to two different projects, had to film BASEketball by day and make South Park by night.

When I said that Zucker tends to operate with a basic story for his films, I’m not kidding. The script for BASEketball is a thing riddled with cliché and standard set-pieces, which clearly is written in such a manner that the force of personality is what makes the film, and jokes, shine. There are familiar Zucker-isms in there, including his standard cruelty to kids bit that lifts straight from Airplane! (someone accidentally causes a sick child distress) and gags in the background, as well cameo appearances from his old buddies Robert Stack and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. However, there are two things that I find odd about the script. The first is that there are, including Zucker, four credited writers on this film. Seriously, four? Normally when more than two people contribute to a script, it starts to suffer from the old Too Many Cooks Syndrome, making it feel disjointed and unwieldy. But the script for BASEketball doesn’t feel this way at all, if anything suffering from feeling too basic, with little development beyond the simple blueprint of the very familiar story arc. That sure is a lot of no effort from four writers.

The second problem that I have with things is that Trey Parker and Matt Stone clearly had such an integral influence on how this film was made, so it’s seems unfair that they not be given credit at all. For example, the role of Squeak Scolari was concocted by the pair, who insisted that Zucker create a third character for the central unit, and this has a huge effect on how things progress. Plus, so much of their dialogue is so clearly their words and not those that others wrote for them, with the infamous ‘psyche-outs’ being the biggest example of this. When they’re not onscreen, you can bet that it was Zucker and co. behind it; when Parker and Stone are onscreen, there is virtually nothing that isn’t theirs. There are even numerous jokes that refer directly to the pair. For example, when they signed up for the film, many of their South Park fans instantly began calling them sell-outs, so when Joe calls Doug a sell-out, they both get a look on their faces as if they’ve heard this somewhere before. Also, Parker twice breaks out character voices from South Park, of Mr. Garrison and Cartman respectively. There is even a scene featuring a song written and performed by Parker to his own character, which is itself so very much a thing that he would do.

And this rather brings me to a major point of the film. Whilst I do think it’s funny, and laughed several times throughout, there is a clear gap between how funny the Zucker portion is and how funny the Parker/Stone portion is. They’re both funny, but the latter jokes, for all their crudity, are much more effective. Most of the film will give you small laughs and chuckles, but the big laughs come from the aforementioned psyche-outs, which are given all of their punch by Parker and Stone. It therefore creates a weird imbalance in the film, where you spend a lot of the run-of-the-mill, if competently handled plot waiting to get back to the bits you know will be funnier. Now, Zucker has done a good job in keeping the pace up, so the film isn’t a slog, but there’s still the mild sense of impatience that comes through it all. Certainly, there are some jokes that simply don’t work, like Ernest Borgnine singing I’m Too Sexy in his own video will, but there is certainly more funny than not.

The performances are of varied quality. Parker and Stone both put on a very spirited and funny show (although Joe and Doug are likely not a million miles away from the reality of the pair’s friendship); Dian Bachar really commits to the role of Squeak Scolari, being self-effacing, emotional and damn funny (his delivery of the line “I am not a piece of shit” absolutely slays me - seriously, I had to stop and laugh just there); and even Yasmine Bleeth actually regularly hits a decent comedic stride for much of the film. Robert Vaughan is also always a decent bad guy, but Jenny McCarthy comes off the worst, though it’s mostly because her role requires her only to look good and not do too much else.

BASEketball is a pretty silly movie, and the story is as familiar as it can get, but it’s harmless and has still got some very funny stuff to it. It’s the psyche-outs that are the best jokes, so you may end up feeling a bit uninterested when they’re not on, but there is still enough to keep you entertained throughout. Honestly, it’s a perfectly decent Friday-night-with-friends movie, so don’t judge it too harshly.

Baise-moi (2000)

In the movie Dodgeball, when Peter LaFleur is trying to come up with ways of making money to save his gym, a friend suggests that they sell blood and semen. After receiving some disgusted looks from the group, the friend clarifies: “What? Not mixed together.” Indeed, selling blood and semen separately can probably make you some money. However, if you try selling them mixed together, all you’ll get is shocked expressions and a heavy dose of controversy. Such was the experience of filmmakers Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi, who released a thriller in 2000, based on Despentes’ novel, that courted near worldwide controversy and criticism for its use of pretty graphic violence and real sex. See, blood and semen, I wasn’t just talking nonsense.

Two women, occasional porn star Manu (Raffaëla Anderson) and part-time prostitute Nadine (Karen Lancaume), go on a spree of sex and murder after they each lose their last links with society when Manu gets raped and Nadine’s only friend is shot and killed. Meeting by chance, they get in Manu’s car and take off in a nihilistic voyage, robbing, killing and seducing all manner of people that they meet and trying to stay ahead of the law.

A few days ago, I was due to review a particular film in this journey through all I own. Unfortunately, when I went to watch it, I found the DVD had been damaged, likely done in a house-move a few years ago, rendering it unusable. As such, I was forced to move on through the list, and re-buy the broken film. Now, this would all simply be something of an annoyance at the best of times, but there was an extra point that made this especially galling… I don’t like Baise-moi. I watched it for the first time some years ago, aware of the controversy surrounding it (it was banned... a lot) and wanting to see it for myself. Good times when I found it for very cheap. However, those good times turned bad when it turned out I hated it. Until today, that had been the one and only viewing I had ever given it, hence the reason I was unaware that it had been sitting on my shelf with an almighty crack in it. However, since beginning this endeavour to give some sort of critique or review to all the films I own, Baise-moi was one that I rather looked forward to watching again, if only to try and engage with it more critically than I did the first time around. When you see a film that you seriously don’t like, there is always the temptation to completely destroy it on every level, which is only compounded when the film shows so much sex and violence, which some don't care for. The severe emotionality of such a reaction can occasionally get in the way of offering fair criticism, although it shouldn’t be ignored entirely, either. As such, I shall attempt to consider the film as fairly as I can… so here we go.

First off, I’ll consider the visuals of the film, which is perhaps the least contentious facet of the production. Baise-moi had a very low budget, being filmed on digital video with no extra or artificial lighting, and all on location. This, coupled with camerawork that’s clumsy and amateurish, does make the film look pretty bad, but it does rather add to what seems to be the overall effect. The world of Baise-moi is a pretty awful place, filled with low-down bars and unpleasant hotels, and the characters are equally awful. There is almost no one who is without some sort of guilt or objectionable personality. These are disagreeable people moving through an indifferent and fairly cruel world. That the visuals are so crummy does help to convey this sense that it’s a very crude world we are in. It’s nasty to look at, but I think that’s part of the point.

 

The characters… what am I meant to make of them? Neither of them is particular pleasant, really. Taking Nadine first, she’s pretty lazy, kind of a pothead, a bit of a drinker, and something of a user of people. She’s a pain in her roommate’s ass, who complains about Nadine watching porn and masturbating all day in the living area instead of her bedroom. Nadine says she’s tired of having to do it there. From these points, you’d guess that she is someone who doesn’t like hassle, likes the freedom to do what she wants without people annoying her about it. She’s also a part-time prostitute, which isn’t really a big deal, although the filmmakers would perhaps seem to suggest that there is some connection between sex with a prostitute and rape (during a session with a client, Nadine watches a movie on TV that shows a violent sexual encounter), as if the man is assaulting Nadine by using her sexuality for his own gratification. Nadine has one friend, a junkie (or drug dealer, I’m not sure) for whom she writes out fake prescriptions to be filled at his convenience. I would say that this is not a reason to like her any more, since she’s still committing a crime, regardless of how okay she seems to be with her friend. Especially since she has not long strangled her roommate and ran off with the rent money. So, she’s a lazy, unpleasant, thieving murderer and a hooker (though it’s the film that has the problem with that part). I fail to see why I should care about her, then.

What about Manu? She actually does have a bit more to be angry about. She’s kind of a slacker, not really wanting to get a real job, and so makes some money by doing work in porn films or borrowing from her brother. Her brother is a dick, overbearing and abusive for no real reason. And, although she doesn’t back really back down, she does take some abuse from random people in the street who are looking for her… friend? Again, I’m not really sure on that one. Manu also does experience a genuine assault, when three men take her and her junkie friend to a warehouse, where they are both raped. Whilst the friend screams and writhes, getting her a severe beating for her trouble, Manu takes it without sound, movement or complaint. One of the attackers says that having sex with her is “like fucking a zombie”. Afterwards, she tells her clearly traumatised friend that they didn’t take anything from her because she removed everything of value from her sexual self, so there was nothing to take. It rather does sound like she’s dead inside, and voluntarily so. Shortly after, when at her brother’s house, he realises what happened (although his automatic leap to rape is a bit flimsy) and, finding his gun, asks her who did it. When she refuses to tell him, he implies she enjoyed it. Manu takes the gun and kills him, and then steals his savings. I am more inclined to feel sympathy with Manu than Nadine through all of this, although she’s still not an entirely a nice person. That said, she doesn’t really have to be entirely nice. In fact, her character is drawn fairly well in the beginning. It’s only as things go on that you care less about her.

You can pretty much pinpoint the exact moment things start to go off the rails, and it’s about the time that Nadine and Manu meet. Walking in opposite directions at the train station, post-murders, Manu stops Nadine and almost right away asks her if she knows how to drive because she has a car and they could drive away. This scene just feels odd, too simply done. Later Nadine remarks how strange it was that the two met the way they did, to which Manu replies that it wasn’t, that it was then or never… what does that even mean? It’s not an affirmation of pre-ordained fate bringing them together, because it acknowledges the possibility that they might not have met. So, it was just coincidence, so it was strange for them to meet in that way, so it is illogical nonsense. It would have made more sense if they had met as they were independently on the run, bumping into each other as they try to escape or lay low, instead of just on the street, where clumsy dialogue forces them into an initially unnatural union for the purposes of story progressing.

It’s interesting to note that, in some places like the US, the title of the film was translated as Rape Me, although the filmmakers and many people who liked the film hated this title. Rape is, for those who don’t know, a crime driven not by lust or physical attraction, but by power. The whole point is for the aggressor to force themselves on the victim, taking from them the power to stop it from happening. Now, Nadine and Manu are often said to be, for lack of a better word, “agents” of a feminist spirit, out to reclaim their own identity and sexuality from the male populace, who have subjugated and oppressed the female populace for so long. Effectively, the pair is out to take back the power that was stolen from them, even completely turning the tables on others. Theirs is a thrill-ride, with both parties drunk on freedom.

Personally, this is why I think things crumble after the pair meet and go on their spree. After they get together, the film exists in a world where they just go around doing whatever they feel like, regardless of what that may be or why. I suppose that we’re meant to take this as both women enjoying the full reign of freedom that they never had before, but it just becomes tedious. At one point, both Manu and Nadine say that everything they did was somewhat pointless because they don’t really feel any different. Now, I’d be willing to accept this as a statement that, after adopting the mindlessly violent characteristics of their male oppressors, they feel ultimately unfulfilled by their actions because it did nothing to erase the pain they have felt all along… but this doesn’t really hold up too much because they’ve clearly been having a great time with themselves, having sex and stomping faces. For them to suddenly say that it was all for nought rather comes out of nowhere. If there was a hint of desperation in their activities, with them trying to reclaim their initial thrill at their first taste of freedom (which was killing a woman), then I’d be able to accept it more. However, the whiplash-inducing shift in their feelings smacks of an attitude that we should really start trying to end this thing. Once again, it’s this crummy leap of logic stuff that gets in the way of telling the story effectively, so it’s tough to take it seriously.

What is incredibly interesting, though absolutely typical of the internet, is the fierce conflict of opinion of those who have seen the film. Many decry the film as sick, perverse, immoral, stupid, badly made crap; others call it a masterpiece, a brave and courageous work shining a light on aspects of society that others are afraid to talk about. Many people who like the film often employ the argument that those who don’t like the film are prudish, reactionary, or simply too stupid to engage with the themes and events of the film. I will agree that some of the negative opinions do come from a particular knee-jerk sensibility, causing the speaker to voice an opinion before mulling things over appropriately, but many people don’t like it because they simply don’t like it. The people that love the film are generally possessed of a rather smug sensibility that I actually find even more distasteful. A regular comment I find somewhat perplexing and kind of funny is when they say that people who don’t like the film probably just want films with great lighting and good camerawork and effects and Oscar-winning acting and for things to be explained. It’s odd because, aside from admitting the poor quality of Baise-moi’s lighting, camerawork, effects, acting and ability to make sense, it tries to make some sort of virtue of them. Just because something looks like crap and doesn’t have big names in it, doesn’t mean it’s any good.

“Why did they make this film?”… it’s a question that is asked regularly of the most controversial films to be released. Ones deemed to be too violent or graphic or offensive or any number of other crimes that people throw around in such circumstances. More so than any of the other accusations of immorality on film, this is the question to which it ultimately breaks down. Why would the filmmakers unleash such a nightmarish work upon the world, filled with such inflammatory and offensive material? Shock value is often suggested as a reason, since using seditious images is a virtual guarantee of much publicity. Really, they would have to release it because they have something to say. Rarely is something so contentious released without reason. There is also the school of thought that would suggest that, if a piece of art can inspire such a vast amount of discussion and criticism, then it does hold some sort of worthy place in society, even if the piece is deemed “bad” and the discussions are on topics that most find uncomfortable. Indeed, Baise-moi hits on virtually all of the taboo subjects like it’s ticking them off a checklist. It’s use of violence and sex and blood, and the apparent enjoyment in such nefarious acts as murder and rape, does force the viewer to confront some pretty nasty things. However, does it really try to offer any sort of comment or observation on these things? Is it enough to simply show something terrible happening, and then place the onus on the audience to discuss what they see? If it were, then there’s no need to attempt any kind of storytelling, or concern yourself with how things may be perceived or considered. You could just show a rape and see where the feelings land.

I generally don’t see too much evidence for any kind of engagement from the filmmakers’ side about what it is they want to achieve from the film. Is it a porno? Absolutely not, since it’s in no way arousing, and it was clearly never the intention. Is it an effective thriller? Not really, because it quickly becomes kind of boring since the storytelling and characterisation goes all to hell from the minute the pair get together. Is it a good feminist text? I just don’t know about that. Certainly, it shows two women striking out on some sort of march of freedom that happens to include murder and theft, apparently taking power from a society that victimises them, but it’s hardly a positive one. Besides, it seems to be angry with everyone in general, occasionally glancing in the general direction of feminist principles as a sort of theoretical alibi.

… well, I sure seem to have talked myself in all manner of directions on this one. To a degree, I think that this is what most people would do when trying to engage with Baise-moi, though smarter people than I would do a much better job of things. After all of that, talking about it as much as you think you can as an intellectual property, there is still one last thing to consider, the thing that I said from the beginning couldn’t be entirely ignored from the process: the emotional reaction.

Honestly, when all is said and done, I still don’t like Baise-moi. For my money, as a film, the script is clunky and a complete stranger to logical storytelling, the direction regularly loses focus on what’s meant to be happening, and the acting is of a standard that mostly lands only on passable. I don’t think it’s brave, just a bit more willing to exploit things others would know better not to. I also get the feeling that I’ll end up putting much more effort into getting any meaning than the filmmakers did in conveying them. More than anything, though, I just get the feeling that this film doesn’t like me very much, and its reasons for that are pretty scattergun.

Backdraft (1991)

ONE BREATH OF OXYGEN AND IT EXPLODES IN A DEADLY RAGE

Fire-fighters are pretty awesome, can we agree on that? They’ve chosen a job that can mean they go running into a flaming building, which could be rapidly collapsing as they go, wearing a lot of really heavy gear, to save someone who couldn’t find a way out before the fire blocked them in. Yes, fire-fighters are pretty awesome. Despite this, they are rarely the subject of films, certainly pre-9/11. There has only been a handful of big titles to give them sufficient focus, like Ladder 49, World Trade Center, Frequency, or the disaster great The Towering Inferno. However, the first one that people tend to think of when they think of fire-fighter movies is the all-star crack from the early 90s, directed by Ron Howard – Backdraft.

After years of drifting between jobs, Brian McCafferty (William Baldwin) finally decides to follow in the footsteps of his father and become a fire-fighter, although he hits a rough start when he is assigned to the company run by his brother, Stephen (Kurt Russell). The two have never got along, and Brian resents having to answer to his brother. Meanwhile, a series of fires are set, each seemingly started to kill a specific person. After losing his head at a fire, Brian accepts an offer to assist arson investigator Don Rimgale (Robert De Niro) in his attempts to catch the arsonist behind these fires.

Note: I apologise in advance for any puns or quips that involve fire, flames, heat or anything related. It’s as unintentional as it is unavoidable.

Gregory Widen knows how awesome fire-fighters are. He should, since he used to be one. Widen served as a working fire-fighter for three years before becoming a full-time writer, which he was able to do thanks to being able to sell his first script, Highlander, whilst still an undergraduate. During his time as fire-fighter, he witnessed a friend be killed by an explosive backdraft at a scene. This incident, as well as his general experiences on the job, went on to become the basis for his script for Backdraft, which would be his second feature screenplay. The screenplay itself is effectively three different stories – Detective Story, Family Drama, Monster Movie – all set within the high-pressure world of smoke-eaters. On the first level, the Detective Story, it’s a fairly straightforward run. A serial killer is on the loose, targeting specific people for destruction, and using a very specific modus operandi. What this killer does is orchestrate a fire hazard known as a backdraft (where a small amount of oxygen is introduced to a fire-torn, oxygen-starved environment to explosive effect), which then waits for the intended victim and literally engulfs them in an enormous fireball. With people being killed, it’s down to a veteran arson investigator and his new assistant to find the clues and track down the killer before he strikes again. Again, for the most part, pretty straightforward stuff.

The next level is the Family Drama. Here, it’s more about character development, which we like. When Brian McCafferty was a kid, he wanted to be just like his dad, a capable and dedicated fire-fighter. One day, when Brian accompanied his father on a call, Brian’s father was caught in a gas explosion and was killed. From then on, Brian has always had something of a fear of fire. Still driven by a desire to honour his dad’s memory, as well as the gung-ho example of his older brother Stephen, he trains up to become a rookie. Stephen, the lieutenant of Brian’s new company, thinks his brother doesn’t have what it takes, which will end up costing someone their life. The pair, who have never got along all that well, particularly after their father died, start cracking sparks against each other. They each think the other is holding on to some long-buried grudge, which starts to make working together very difficult. They each have their own faulty relationships with women, too. Stephen split from his wife a long time ago, but still has trouble reconciling himself to that, living on his dad’s old boat, like most brooding semi-alcoholics in the movies. Brian doesn’t fair much better, finding a bit of a frosty reception from an old flame who thinks he’s still too immature to be a decent prospect.

The third level is the Monster Movie side of things. In Backdraft, as you would expect, the monster being fought is the elemental force of Fire. A great deal of effort is put into creating the sense that fire is alive. When Don explains to Brian the reality of his job, and that of all fire-fighters: “It’s a living thing, Brian. It breathes, it eats… and it hates.” Monster movies are all about a group of individuals coming together to fight a common, perhaps insurmountable foe, and the fire in this film absolutely carries that. It’s difficult to predict, impossibly brutal, and rages with a ferocity that levels buildings. It’s also very difficult to contain, since it can turn virtually anything into another torrent of conflagration. Upon finishing the script, Jennifer Jason Leigh apparently told director Ron Howard that she wished she could be the fire, since it had the best part… she’s not wrong.

The actual coming together of these different plotlines is rather fitting. Arson investigators will sometimes refer to the proverbial “Fire Triangle”, which requires three factors to be in place for a fire to ignite, these being oxygen, heat, and a source of fuel. This thinking seems to have factored into how Backdraft unfolds. Each different story aspect acts as a separate factor contributing to the Triangle, each one feeding into the other to create the explosive effects that we see onscreen. As it is, though, these different factors can seem a little imbalanced at times. The Family Drama parts, though important and holding some good stuff, simply can’t stand up to the intrigue of the Detective Story or the thrilling tension of the Monster Movie. Stephen’s problems with his estranged wife, Helen, do hold some interest, given that they speak directly to Stephen’s increasingly despondent nature. However, Brian’s relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer, serves little real purpose, with things not so much being tied up as cut off. It feels rather tacked-on, something to justify the need for a plot device.

Things are much better served in the Detective Story, following the two-man investigation unit as they try to find out who’s behind these killings. The character of Don Rimgale, an actual person, is far more intriguing than most people in the familial concerns of the film. A former fire-fighter-turned-investigator, he’s a fierce guy, thorough and methodical. He’s also got a long memory, as evidenced by his appearance at the parole hearing for serial fire-bug Ronald. Ronald has convinced the psychologist and parole board that he’s a changed man, but two minutes with Don and it’s clear he’s far from rehabilitated. The use of the Ronald character serves as an interesting one because it’s him that Brian must go to for help in finding the last piece of the puzzle. There is a distinctly Silence of the Lambs feel about this scene, owing to the entirely creepy (though for completely different reasons) presence of a violent killer being interviewed by a rookie investigator, with something of a quid pro quo exchange happening. The fact that Silence of the Lambs was released earlier in the same year may or may not be a coincidence. Just to make things weirder, Scott Glenn appears in both films.

By far, the most effective scenes are those under the Monster Movie banner, where the good guys are called in to fight the fiery beast at great risk to themselves. Ron Howard wanted to achieve that sense of being in the cage with the animal, so had a cameraman fire-suit up and wander through the carnage with a handycam. It’s sparingly-used, thank God, but it’s effective nonetheless. Being able to see the fires blazing so close to our heroes, and us, goes a long way to making us feel the fear in its presence. We also get glimpses of what happens when the animal strikes, the devastation to body and mind when someone turns their back on it for that split second.

Performances throughout are a mixed-bag. On one end, there are the strong performances, coming from those you’d expect - Kurt Russell, Robert De Niro and Donald Sutherland. Russell gives Stephen a simmering intensity, a jovial nature that barely contains a fierce temper and gung-ho sensibility that borders on the suicidal. De Niro’s Don Rimgale is a no nonsense kind of guy, and De Niro looks like he carries the weight of a backstory we barely see, but only get pieces of. Few people can show so much with so little like De Niro. And Sutherland’s Ronald is thoroughly creepy. Not particularly intimidating, or even imposing, but he can be very aptly described as a fire fanatic, a wide-eyed enthusiast, someone who loves to let the beast out of its cage just to see what horrific damage can be done. His half-laughing admission about burning little girls and old ladies is quite unsettling.

Scott Glenn, Rebecca De Mornay and Jennifer Jason Leigh do what they can to give equally decent shows, but suffer a little from having the focus be primarily on the relationship between Brian and Stephen. Leigh especially gets short-changed, removed from proceedings in a sort of neat, but hardly satisfying conclusion. William Baldwin is perhaps the weakest on show, but it’s still not a bad performance really. He certainly throws himself into the physical demands of the role, but just isn’t always entirely there for the rest of it.

There is one thing that I find unsettling about the film, though. There is a bit of a lack of real resolution in things, despite the appearance of so. The culprit is uncovered, but only partially dealt with. The one responsible for the deaths of three people, along with the attempted murder of three more, and severely burning another, effectively gets away with it. It would seem that more focus is placed on that which served as the catalyst for the crimes, an act of under-handed dealings. This initial crime is dealt with more decisively than the much more violent and dangerous one, which seems to get swept under the rug in the spirit of some moderate notion of honour. Are we to accept that the first crime is the one more deserving of resolution, despite the other crimes being more public and with a higher body count? I understand what the film is trying to say about the importance of a fire-fighter’s job and how they should not be taken for granted, and I understand how things have been wrapped up, but this is not so easy to accept in light of the story. Even most of the relationship woes are settled by a single and decisive turn, with the others being simply ended. In the end, it does feel a little uneasy.

Overall, Backdraft is an engaging and effective thriller, and goes towards showing fire-fighters to be the heroic figures that they are. However, this idea of heroism and honour somewhat clouds the reality of the plot, offering only half-conceived conclusions to what was a pretty good mystery show. The direction is decent, and some of the performances are damn good, but you can’t ignore the feeling of a story barely covered with some level of emotional bias.

Back to the Future Part III (1990)

THEY’VE SAVED THE BEST TRIP FOR LAST... BUT THIS TIME THEY MAY HAVE GONE TOO FAR

And so we come to the final chapter in the temporal displacement hi-jinx factory that is the Back to the Future trilogy. We’ve seen Marty get up to some very crazy stuff, haven’t we? Over the course of two movies, he’s lived a little over a week, spanning 60 years, and all within the space of a couple of days. During that time, he’s been hit by a car, stopped his parents from meeting, inadvertently caused an alternate 1985, made out with his mother, invented skateboarding and rock n’ roll, and saved his own son from jail. And Doc, well he’s… been there, too. Come to think of it, Doc has never had much in the way of development, other than getting to see that his life’s work towards travelling through time would indeed be realised. He’s always just been an agent of the plot, someone to keep things going in the background. In that case, it seems only right that we now look to him for our third time out – Back to the Future Part III.

Stranded in 1955, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) received written word from Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) that he is in the Old West, 1885. Instructing him as to where he can find time machine, he asks to be left where he is and for Marty to return home. However, a discovery about Doc’s fate prompts Marty to go travel back to 1885 and save his friend from local bad guy, ‘Mad Dog’ Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson). As Marty tries to bring him back, Doc falls for the new schoolteacher, Clara (Mary Steenburgen). Doc then must choose whether to stay or return home.

Have you ever had to answer the question, ‘if you could visit any historical time period, when would that be?’ If not, you need to get some more imaginative friends. Well, back when the first Back to the Future film was still in production, Zemeckis apparently asked Michael J. Fox this very question. His answer was that he would like to visit the Old West, meet some real cowboys. When the call came for there to be some sequels to follow up the huge success of that first film, this seed of an idea stayed with Zemeckis and Gale. Another seemingly throwaway line was placed into Part II, along with the odd subtle hint, that this would perhaps be a direction to go in. When Doc decides in Part II that the time machine should be destroyed, he mentions that his biggest regret would be that he never got to see his favourite time period, the Old West. He goes on to say, “time-travelling is just too dangerous. Better that I devote myself to study the other great mystery of the universe… women.”

It’s important that these words that form the basis of the third Back to the Future film come from Doc because, as I said before, we’ve never got as much of a journey from him as we have from Marty or George or Lorraine. It’s only down to how well the character is written and performed that you don’t seem to notice that he spends most of his time acting simply as a functionary of the plot. But it’s about time we got to know him better. We know he’s got a crazy passion for science, and that his home is littered with bizarre half-finished contraptions and framed pictures of great scientists of the past, but what else is there to him? Why does he have such a strong urge to pursue science as a career? Does he have anything else he would like to pursue? We get a sort of answer in those couple of lines from Part II, but it’s about time he got the spotlight.

Doc’s initial decision to remain a blacksmith in 1885 becomes compromised because Marty finds out that, not long after sending his letter to 1955, Doc is killed by local gunman Buford ‘Mad Dog’ Tannen. As such, Marty goes back to save him from this fate. Doc is willing to go along with it, mainly to help Marty get home, until he rescues Clara Clayton from a runaway wagon. The two instantly spark and Doc finds it harder to leave, knowing that Clara is perhaps the Jennifer to his Marty. Doc and Marty have a few days until they are set to leave, so Doc spends as much time with Clara as he can, the two clearly in love with each other, brought together by passion for science and a love of Jules Verne. Earlier, 1955 Doc mentions that when he read Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, that was the moment he decided to become a scientist. Not only does this act as a commonality between Clara and he, but also it completely opens up so much about Doc. The giddy scientific enthusiasm, the completely off-the-wall theories and pursuits, the sheer awe at the nature of the universe. It all comes together, and Doc seems to shine all the brighter for it. Christopher Lloyd’s performance takes a boost for these new aspects, too. And Clara is such a sweet character, played wonderfully by Mary Steenburgen, and so well suited to Doc that you do feel how torn he is between his head and heart, which is clearly not a decision he is used to.

This is not to say that the film is all about Doc and Clara. There is still the shenanigans with Marty, who comes to town and almost instantly runs afoul of Biff’s ancestor, Buford Tannen. Marty is almost successfully hanged (which actually rendered Michael J. Fox unconscious), though he is saved by Doc. When Marty then saves Doc and Clara at the town dance later on, Buford challenges him to a gunfight. Marty accepts, thinking he’ll be gone by the time the Monday deadline rolls up, but seeing as how Doc is now so smitten with Clara, he isn’t sure he’ll join him getting out of town. The typical relationship between Doc and Marty has now been reversed, with Doc trying to follow his heart, and Marty trying to follow his head. It’s a nicely underlined moment when they also exchange catchphrases:

Marty: Great Scott!

Doc: I know, this is heavy.

Zemeckis does a great job of transposing the Hill Valley that we’ve come to recognise into its beginnings of 1885, locating the familiar places like the diner into the saloon, and showing the first ticks of the courthouse clock, which would come to have such significance for these characters. Zemeckis has also utilised the vistas and the iconography of westerns to great effect. There’s also several nods to westerns of the past, such as giving Marty the alternative name Clint Eastwood, and then having him use the stove hatch/bulletproof vest trick Eastwood used in A Fistful of Dollars. The shot that sees Marty enter the township for the first time is itself an allusion to a similar shot in Once Upon a Time in the West. Even the casting of Dub Taylor, Pat Buttram and Harry Carey Jr., three actors who are as synonymous with westerns as John Wayne, is an inspired touch. And a very interesting part comes from the moment when ‘Mad Dog’ fires into the saloon floor, calling for Marty to dance. Not only is this a reference to the 1903 Edwin S. Porter western The Great Train Robbery, which contained a similar scene, but it is actually one of two big films from 1990 to have this reference, the other being Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.

I know I’ve said very little about Alan Silvestri’s music over the series. In fact, almost nothing at all, so I’ll mention it now. From beginning to end over the course of the whole trilogy, Silvestri’s music has been one of the most enduring elements of the films. It’s a shimmering, soaring, absolutely superb work. I actually have the soundtrack to all three films, and I tell you this – it is very difficult to be driving on a long journey, have the Back to the Future theme come on, and try to not instantly aim the speedometer for 88mph. It is very difficult indeed. And in Part III, Silvestri conducts all of the energy and spirit of the originals into a new vein, channelling it through the likes of Elmer Bernstein and Alfred Newman, creating a sound that is at once familiar and distinctive. As far as I’m concerned, Silvestri could have screwed up everything else he ever did, because the music for the Back to the Future trilogy is his pass to permanent fame. Of course, just to show off, he did other excellent work in other films. Some people are just show-offs like that.

Back to the Future Part III was received much better than Part II, largely because it seemed to recapture the heart that seemed to be missing from that previous instalment. It’s also much less convoluted than Part II, although I did enjoy the interweaving nature of that film. It more clearly mirrors the simplicity and fun of the first film, whilst still very much having its own personality. What’s more, it feels like a proper ending to the series. The characters have made their journeys and come good. They have come through it all, and what makes it better is that we were with them through it all. It’s always great to be able to part ways with the characters you’ve come to love on such amiable terms. Between you all, you’ve got some fond memories.

So many people say they long for a fourth film; I don’t. I’m honestly okay with no continuation of this series. Not that I don’t wonder about where the characters went and what else happened to them, but I’m happy with having that exist solely in my head. To bring out another one would be an uncomfortable stretch. These characters have been through so much, and us with them, that to drag things out further would feel like an act of cruelty to them. I don’t want Marty and Doc to be subjected to more temporal displacement lunacy for my amusement, or the amusement of others. I’ve grown to care about them too much for that. I’m sure that what they would want is to sit back with their lives as they are now and happily recollect the ups and downs, the scores and near misses of their adventures. Who are we to shake them out of that?

Back to the Future Part II (1989)

GETTING BACK WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING

As we have come to learn, with great box office comes great opportunity for sequels. As I mentioned yesterday, Back to the Future was the most successful film of 1985, turning a simple $19,000,000 budget into just over $380,000,000 of box office gain. That’s some fine business. These are the kinds of numbers companies like to see, so plans for sequels were put into development, hoping that lightning would once again strike the clock tower, this time with a budget of just over double the first. Zemeckis and Gale returned, and reassembled most of the original cast, for another dose of time-skipping wonder in Back to the Future Part II.

Having just returned from mending his parents’ relationship, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his girlfriend Jennifer (Elisabeth Shue) get dragged to the future by Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). In 2015, Marty has to save his son from turning to crime, but afterwards buys a sports book so he can make money in the past. When Doc throws it away, old Biff Tannen (Thomas J. Wilson) takes it, steals the time machine and gives it to his own past self. On discovering the changes, Marty and Doc have to travel back again to set things right.

It should be understood from the outset that there was never any intention for there to be a sequel to Back to the Future. When word came that another film or two were to be made, decisions had to be made about the direction of the story. At this point, Zemeckis had his hands full with his next film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, so Bob Gale became the sole writer on the film, working on an idea that had its origins in a throwaway line from Doc Brown the first time out. When Doc first reveals the time machine to Marty in the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall, he jokingly mentions that he could use the time machine to acquire future knowledge for personal financial gain in the present. From this, Gale spun the plot of Part II, where Marty is the one who plans to make money gambling with future knowledge, thus triggering a temporal paradox that he and Doc must rectify before they can return home. As such, the story jumps from 1985 to 2015 to an alternate 1985 to 1955 and back to 1985, and manages to run parallel to, and even intertwine with, events from the first film. Given the amount of jumping around and alterations in time, you’d think that it would be confusing and easily unravelled. As it is, it’s all very well played out. In fact, Carl Sagan, noted scientist and all-round incredibly smart guy, said at the time that Back to the Future Part II was the greatest time-travel movie ever, saying that the folding and overlapping of timelines was presented in a way that was very close to what it would be like if time-travel were possible.

Given this kind of praise, it’s difficult to start trying to pick holes in the fabric of the film. In fact, some of what happens in Part II intentionally apes what occurred in the previous film, which gives the film something of a nice feeling of déjà vu about it. It all seems new, but also very familiar. As such, when the film begins to deviate from this familiar pattern, as in when 2015 Biff travels back in time to give 1955 Biff the sports book, the resulting changes feel awkward, unfamiliar, wrong. When George Lucas was making his Star Wars prequels, he told his production team that the similarities between events in the original trilogy and the new one were intended as some kind of temporal rhyming scheme, like history has a poetic structure to it. As far as I’m concerned, it didn’t work for Star Wars, but this idea is probably the best way to describe the occurrences in Back to the Future Part II and, eventually, Part III.

There is one thing that does rather unsettle me in this film. Gale and Zemeckis are smart enough to know that characters need some kind of motivating factor to drive them into action, rather than just acting because the script told them to. And Marty has these motivations to get things going, to take action. We can all understand why Marty tried to take back the sports book, why Doc said no, why Biff went back in time, why Marty and Doc tried to reset things. What I never really took to was this new facet of Marty’s character where he doesn’t like to be called chicken. Now, it’s a perfectly understandable trait in itself, but I’ve never thought it sat right with Marty. Look at him in the first film. He’s confident and capable, but his flaw was always that he couldn’t quite put himself on the line, like with his demo tape. He feared rejection by those that held the keys to his future, and would shrink from the challenge. That he learns to overcome this because he taught his dad to find his own confidence is part of what makes it all so special. However, this new aspect of Marty being easily goaded into doing stupid things because he doesn’t want people to think he’s a wimp seems ill-fitting. By this measure, all someone needed to do in the first film was tell him he was chicken for not sending in his demo tape. On hearing this, he’d send it in, problem solved. The whole thing about his dislike of being called chicken does set up obstacles in Part II and III, but it compromises the original film. Original Marty was a stronger person than this.

I think part of this may have come from the fact that there was never a sequel intended. Both Gale and Zemeckis said that, had they known that a sequel was on the cards, they would not have had Marty’s girlfriend get in the car at the end of the first film. However, that’s how it ended, and so she had to be there in the future, too. She’s rendered unconscious almost instantly, but this then leads to them going to the McFly family home, and having to explain that Marty and Jennifer hit the skids, and that Marty’s music career never took off because someone called him chicken, which would become a trait to recall later on and in the next film. If the character of Jennifer hadn’t been there, it would probably be very different. It’s not Jennifer’s fault, or rather the fault of Elisabeth Shue who plays here. Nor is it entirely the fault of Gale, although he does have to accept some credit on it. Simply, it’s just an unfortunate side effect of trying to deal with the sequel status.

Outside of this, the film is actually pretty decent. The rest of the script works itself around the various timelines with great skill; Zemeckis’ direction is still great, particularly when roaming around 1955 again; and the actors are still on great form. On the point of the actors, there are two changes in the line-up. First off, as I mentioned, Jennifer is played by Elisabeth Shue, as opposed to Claudia Wells, who played the part in the first film. The reason for this is that, by the time filming began for the sequel, Wells had left acting to look after her mother, who had fallen ill. Shue was brought in to replace her, leading to the final scene of the first film to be reshot for this one. On a weird note of trivial linkage, this would mean that Shue was the movie girlfriend of two beloved 80s characters – Marty McFly in Back to the Future Part II and III, and Daniel LaRusso in The Karate Kid. And to further the link, Ralph Macchio, who played Daniel LaRusso, was briefly considered for the role of Marty McFly. Ain't life weird?

On the second point of casting shake-ups, despite appearing in Back to the Future Part II, Crispin Glover never actually signed on for the film. Anytime you see George McFly, it’s either footage from the original film or a different actor shot from a different angle. Glover was approached about being in the film, but apparently asked for such a ridiculous fee that he was turned down and effectively written out of things. He did try to sue on the grounds that they used his image without permission, but the case went nowhere and was eventually dropped. Shame, really.

In the same way that Back to the Future had a cultural impact, so did Part II. This generally has to do with some of the cooler aspects of future technology and prediction that the film made for the 2015 sequences. People really wanted some of that stuff, but nothing more so than the Hoverboard. I was six when this film came out, and you best believe I still want one now. There was something of a backfiring prank about this item. On a behind the scenes feature for the film, Zemeckis said that the Hoverboards used in the film were real, and had existed for years, but parent groups were holding them back over safety concerns. He was only kidding, but this opened a door you can’t easily close again. Toy stores and companies were inundated with calls and letters wanting to know where and how people could get them, but to no avail. Thanks a lot, Zemeckis.

Back to the Future Part II is generally regarded as inferior to its predecessor, which it rather is. It’s doesn’t really capture the same spirit, but being fair, the first film was brilliant. Besides, I love the way the timelines break off in this one, and the way the new storyline crosses over with the old, creating a very textured feel to proceedings. Plus, it does mean that you can go back and watch the first film, looking for the stuff they picked up on here (do it, they really have lifted a few things nicely). My biggest complaint is the alteration made to Marty’s character, which comes off more as a convenient tool for the plot rather than a recognisable trait from someone we already know. It’s not really enough to completely sully the enjoyment of the film, but it doesn’t do it any favours. Overall, it’s still an enjoyable film, with good work and memorable scenes, and with some actual thought put into how events play out. Honestly, you all know it could have been so much worse.

Back to the Future (1985)

HE WAS NEVER IN TIME FOR HIS CLASSES... THEN ONE DAY HE WASN'T IN HIS TIME AT ALL

What happens when you mix together time-travel, terrorism, high school, theft, science, murder, assault, attempted rape, incest, alcohol, drugs and rock n’ roll? You get one of the most beloved films in history, that’s what happens. You get a film that spawned two sequels, an animated series and a theme park ride, not to mention turning some weird-looking stainless steel car from Belfast into one of the most iconic vehicles in the world. It would also properly launch the career of a relatively unknown director, Robert Zemeckis, who had only a few films to his name at the time. With a guiding hand from Steven Spielberg, the film was the most successful film of the year of its release, and it’s a film that actually almost never got made. That film is Back to the Future.

In the year 1985, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) receives a message from his friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) that he needs help with his latest invention - a time machine built from a DeLorean and powered by plutonium stolen from Libyan Nationalists. After the Libyans gun down Doc, Marty escapes in the time machine, accidentally sending himself back to 1955. There, he meets both of his teenage parents, unintentionally interrupting their first meeting and endangering his own existence. He then finds the younger version of Doc and together they try to find a way to get Marty back home.

A few days ago, when talking about Away We Go, I asked to whether or not you had ever considered what your parents were like before you showed up. Well, as it turns out, this was the genesis of Back to the Future. Bob Gale, producer and co-writer of the film, was going through some things in his parents’ basement and happened upon his father’s high school yearbook. Finding his dad’s picture, and seeing that he was the president of his class, Bob wondered if he and his dad would have been friends had he met him in his youth. When Gale told his friend Zemeckis about his idea, they both began constructing a story. It would seem that in the beginning, it was a very different idea. The time machine was a fridge; the main characters were into pirating films; Doc’s pet was a chimp; and it required crashing an atomic test site to get home. It’s really difficult to try to reconcile those things into the film as it exists today.

Many of the main plot points were already in place (kid accidentally goes back in time and gets caught up in his parents’ courtship), but Gale and Zemeckis had problems finding someone to pick it up. Despite the stuff about the mother unwittingly falling for her son, most thought it was too light, citing the much more brazen antics of movie teenagers in the Porky’s series as an example of what was expected from such characters... I'll stop and let you get to grips with the creepiness of the implications of that. As it is, Gale and Zemeckis did not follow such examples, and the better for it. Over all these attempts to find the desired green light, the script was revised and altered to make things better or more cost-effective. The fridge became a DeLorean sports car; the characters became slightly less criminal… ish; the chimp became a dog; and the atomic test site was dropped altogether.

The script that would ultimately become the one we know today is some damn fine work. The characters are so well defined and memorable. Marty is actually cool as all hell, but he’s got his fair share of teenage worries and self-esteem issues, and his relationship with Doc Brown is kind of weird and yet makes sense, in that 80s movie sort of way. Doc Brown himself is brilliant and has become the standard definition of Zany Scientist – smart, absent-minded, enthusiastic, and just downright eccentric. The three different incarnations of George McFly, Lorraine Baines and Biff Tannen are excellent. In each reality we meet them, they are so different from the other, and yet so obviously the same.

And considering how easy it to stumble on time-travel, the story has been thought through with great care and consideration. There’s a dramatic principle that’s called Chekov’s Gun, named for playwright Anton Chekov, which says that if a gun appears in the first act, it should be used by the final act. Back to the Future uses this principle superbly, so every little thing has some significance to it, and most of it comes from such small, seemingly insignificant things. For example, the flier that tells Marty when the clock tower will be struck by lightning. The only reason he kept it was because his girlfriend wrote on it. If she hadn’t been going away, she wouldn’t have written anything on it, he wouldn’t have kept it, and so never have known about the lightning strike. But he wouldn’t have had that if some old woman hadn’t come up to him rattling a can about saving the clock tower, which was damaged because of the lightning strike. And there are the endlessly mind-boggling considerations, outside of the main plot, about how much of Marty’s reality was influenced directly by him, like Goldie Wilson deciding to become mayor, or the Twin Pines Mall becoming the Lone Pine Mall, or the invention of rock n’ roll. It’s all woven together so damn well.

Something to really appreciate about Back to the Future is that, although it is very much an sf romantic comedy, it takes so much of the story seriously. Beyond figuring out timelines and cause and effect issues, it remains a solid piece of work. If you removed all of the time-travel stuff, you’d still have something that works, and that resonates with so many people. It doesn’t mock its characters, it doesn’t belittle their plights, it doesn’t act like it’s all a bit of fun and that’s all there is to it. It acknowledges the darker aspects of things, which gives it all a greater sense of weight and purpose. When I said at the top about the murder and terrorism and attempted rape… all of that is in this film, and it’s not really shied away from too much either. However, the characters rise to their respective challenges. They all come good.

What makes Back to the Future so special, aside from the great blend of genres and themes, is that it all comes with a genuinely heart-warming central arc. And no, I don’t mean Marty. The real hero of this film is George McFly, who grows from someone who is virtually crippled by his lack of self-esteem to become an actual hero. He spends the whole film being so pathetic that you can only pity the poor guy, but he finds in himself the balls to stand up to his chief tormentor, and he does it when it counts the most. That’s the real test of a hero. I tell you now, if every bit of you isn’t one hundred percent behind George at his moment of triumph, you are dead inside.

Back to the Future actually had its 25 year anniversary last year, and so got a special digital re-release in cinemas, which I was most definitely there for. Now, I’ve seen the film more times than I can count, so watching on it the big screen, I was able to pay less attention to the story, and focus on the more technical things about the film. And by that, I mean Zemeckis’ direction. Good lord, it’s some fine work. He’s found such nice little touches here and there to help complete the world, and so much actually happens in the background. A lot of directors are content with working within the foreground of a shot, with the background filled random extras that either sit or walk and that’s about it. Zemeckis has got things going on back there. He’s not just directing his actors; he’s directing the film, and that’s so much rarer than you think.

One of the other things I was able to appreciate more was just how good everyone is in the film. No one is playing a role; they all simply are their roles. Pretty much every single person in Back to the Future is remembered for their work in it, and for damn good reason. Just look at the pretty much effortless cool of Michael J. Fox, how quickly it dissolves in front of 1955 Lorraine. Look at the wild-eyed, wild-haired eccentricity of Christopher Lloyd. And look at the multi-stranded performances of Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson and Thomas F. Wilson. Wilson’s Biff is every inch an imposing guy, a real threat in both his original 1985 and 1955 forms; but his new 1955 persona is all awkward and softly polite. Thompson is superb as Lorraine, a very promiscuous girl in her school days, who can become either a rather unhappy and alcoholic frump or a lively and active older woman. And Glover is just peerless as George McFly. In his 1955 self and original 1985 self, he’s so ill at ease that he virtually apologises for existing in every gesture and waver of his voice. Then look at his new 1985 version, a completely confident and strong-willed guy.

Just to illustrate what kind of effect Back to the Future had at the time, there’s a story about what happened a little while after its release. Despite the film beginning on October 25^th 1985, the release of the film actually came on July 3^rd. Such was the overwhelming popularity of the film that, in the early morning of October 26^th, the date of the initial time-travel, a group of people went to the Twin Pines Mall location to see if Marty would turn up in his DeLorean. Of course, he didn’t. And of course, no one actually thought it would happen… probably. However, that’s how much this film meant to people at the time. So much that a bunch of them would travel to some empty parking lot in the middle of the night on some October night on the pretence of seeing if the movie’s main character would blast into the night, leaving two lines of fire behind it.

And yes, I kind of wish that Michael J. Fox had shown up in a DeLorean just for the sake of it, too.

Back to the Future isn’t just one of those 80s films that hangs around because people are nostalgic about it. It’s a genuinely excellent film. The script is outstanding, the direction is great, Alan Silvestri’s music is spot on, the cast is on fire, and it’s a superbly engaging and wonderful watch. It really is difficult to think of a more inventive and joyous film experience than this.

Atonement (2007)

JOINED BY LOVE. SEPARATED BY FEAR. REDEEMED BY HOPE.

Have you ever done something that you’re not particularly proud of? Something you’re downright ashamed of? Something that you wish more than anything you were able to make up for, but couldn’t? Such is the basis for Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement, wherein a young girl’s mistake crushes the happiness of the two people closest to her, and brings her a lifetime of shame and repentance. She spends the remainder of her life trying to make up for what she did, knowing full well that she probably won’t ever do so. The novel was a great success, winning several awards, and even making it onto more than one list of Greatest Books Ever. Six years after its publication, the inevitable big screen adaptation landed.

13-year-old aspiring writer Briony Tallis (Saoirse Ronan) sees an encounter between her older sister Cecilia (Keira Knightley) and Robbie Turner (James McAvoy) at the fountain in front of her home, and misinterprets what she sees. From this incident, and another where Briony reads a letter from Robbie to Cecilia, Briony concludes that Robbie is a deviant. When her cousin is raped, Briony lies to the police, telling them it was Robbie. Over the years, Briony comes to realise the gravity of her lie, effectively destroying the lives of those most directly connected.

I actually read the original novel not too long ago, a few years after the film was released. Honestly, I didn’t care for it. It’s become another item to add to the pile of things that I can appreciate intellectually, but to which I felt little emotional connection. I can understand and recognise the value of the writing, the characters and the themes it discusses. However, I simply couldn’t get past the fact that I never felt the tremendous emotive qualities and, though I did get to the end of the book, it was honestly like drawing blood trying to get there. That said, I don’t really think it’s a bad book, just one of the many things I didn’t take to. Perhaps I would have felt differently if I had read the book first, but we’ll never know now.

One of the most consistent themes of the book is the manner in which life can affect fiction, and fiction can affect life. The character of Briony is intrinsically connected to this theme. From a young age, Briony has wanted to be a writer, regularly making up stories with elaborate plots and characters, with a final positive moral lesson at the end. Being such a highly imaginative but still very immature girl, she has a tendency to conjure up a world of drama in real life, seeing conflict and obstacles where there are none. It’s due to her misinterpretations of half-seen events that lead her to fill in the blanks with the same over-dramatic arcs and motivations that populate her fictional stories. Effectively, through her desire to instil a clean and logical (by her own standards) narrative on things, she ends up twisting her reality into something built on a cruel fabrication. Although she forces herself to believe it as a youngster, growing older makes her realise the true weight of her act of deceit, and she subsequently makes attempts to redeem herself, to atone for her mistake through acts of compassion, both in life and in fiction. Briony’s love of literature and her ability to tell a story are her only true gift, and she seeks to make some sort of amends in the only way she can. Like McEwan, Briony knows that literature has a lasting power, although it does fall regrettably short sometimes.

The literary sensibilities don’t just revolve around Briony and her love of a good story. The novel itself is strewn with literary references, drawing on previous works to aid in characterisation and thematic depth. Mention is made of Nabokov’s Lolita for Briony’s cousin Lola, and Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa as a parallel of a young girl’s quest for righteousness against her family’s efforts. There’s also a deeper comparison drawn between Briony’s own novel and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Not only is Northanger Abbey concerned with writing and authorship in the same manner as McEwan’s Atonement, but Northanger Abbey was the first book Austen wrote and the last published, much like Briony’s own final work. There’s also a significant mirroring placed between a fleeting moment between Robbie and Cecilia in the library, surrounded and supported by books, and their lasting togetherness provided by Briony.

Given the thematic concern of literature’s effects on life, not to mention the more significantly heavyweight notions of love, death and redemption, Atonement would have proved a challenge to adapt. As such, the task was handed to Christopher Hampton, a regular writer of period drama of grand profundity, and who won an Oscar back in 1989 for Dangerous Liaisons. Much of the musing on what it is to write and create worlds through decisions and actions has been greatly subdued, allowing for an easier flow of narrative. The characters have also been transported very well, which is, of course, incredibly important considering how their complexity is the thing on which the whole endeavour hinges. Briony is precocious and purposeful, but also immature, jealous and somewhat arrogant. As she grows, the immaturity fades, as does the jealousy, but some of the arrogance still hangs around, although it now comes from a completely different place. Robbie is bright, good-natured, and possessed of a great passion, though it remains somewhat subdued, partly by manners and partly by some hangover of the class system. However, events make him more bitter and angry, as well they would. Cecilia begins rather cold and somewhat curt, but she too holds a great passion and sense of affection, coupled with a feisty stubbornness that she carries through everything.

Director Joe Wright assembles a fine cast for his drama. Young 13-year-old Briony is played by Saoirse Ronan, an incredibly capable actress for such years. Her face and eyes are a constant stream of emotion, conflict, and information on what she’s thinking and feeling. The 18-year-old Briony is taken on by Romola Garai. Garai struggles a bit more with her side of things, although it’s not entirely her fault. Abbie Cornish was set to assume this role, but had to drop out due other commitments, so Garai was sort of a last minute replacement. She did what she could to adapt to the style of performance already in place, but it’s still not entirely there. When left to her own manner of performance, however, she does fair much better. The Briony of later age is played by Vanessa Redgrave, who more than matches the character we come to know, giving so much in such short space of time.

Robbie Turner is played by James McAvoy, who is on fantastic form. He is fresh-faced and charming, but can summon up a great intensity when needed, which he can control very well. He really is excellent in this film. Then there’s Keira Knightley. Knightley gets a lot of flack for her acting skills, or lack of as many people will regard. And whilst I don’t really agree with this, a lot of which amounts to cheap jibes, I’ve never been entirely convinced by her in most things. I’ve always thought that she can convey emotion and act, but only on a ‘one thing at a time’ basis. There’s rarely any sense of duality, nuance or undertone. However, she really does bring something here. She seems to be channelling Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter, which is rather appropriate. It may be subtle, but you can see hints of something beneath the surface. It’s not the best performance of the film, but it’s perhaps Knightley’s best work.

There’s also a great supporting turn from Benedict Cumberbatch as Paul Marshall, offering an uneasy charm amongst the players. He seems amiable enough, and people seem to like him, but you still can’t shake the feeling that there’s something off about him. It’s in his stares that go on too long, and his smile that seems a little forced. It’s a nicely layered performance of someone you feel you shouldn’t really trust.

And Joe Wright brings a superb vision to the fore in this film. He knows just where to point his camera to find the small details of character and performance, picking out the minutiae from the novel and making it feel like a much cleaner adaptation. Coupled with this is a frankly exceptional sense of scale, and nowhere is it more evident than in the awesome (and I use that word in the classical sense) five-minute, single-take tracking shot of Dunkirk, following Robbie and his two companions as they wander the hellish, slightly surreal beach scene, littered with soldiers, vehicles, horses and machines, all in varied states of disrepair. The popular perception of Dunkirk is of some kind of triumphant regrouping before an even more triumphant return to push back the Nazi forces in France; the reality is a much bleaker affair. And this single shot, full of such a mix of melancholic beauty and brutality, is truly something to behold. It remains one of the most ambitious and amazing sequences in cinema for a long, long time (although, there’s another shot from 2005’s Warrior King that’s equally impressive, but for completely different reasons).

When I saw Atonement in the cinema, the theatre was pretty packed. By the film’s end, a significant portion of that audience had been reduced to tears, or at least watery eyes and sniffling. Now, I certainly don’t wish to assert that this film is some sort of chick flick or “weepy”, because I don’t think it is. Those two monikers tend to suggest an easy simplicity designed to go after those with a hair-trigger on the tear ducts... Atonement is anything but easy. The final scene of the film delivers such a heavy hit of dramatic irony and emotional weight that it’s rather on par with the sucker punch ending of The Usual Suspects. It’s heavy with implication, and soaked in aching regret, with just that slight tinge of hope. I don’t really wish to overstate things, I only mean to impress on you that I understand the fullness of the story and what it means. And I wish to do that to give a balance to things when I say that I was not amongst those with tears in my eyes at this one. To this day, I’m still not sure if I can say that I really loved this film, or even really liked it. It didn’t leave me completely cold, but it didn’t knock me over either. I understand the film’s meaning, I believe the characters’ journey, I was very impressed with the filmmaking I saw, and certainly don’t regard my time watching it as a waste. It just didn’t strike me like I know it wanted to.

When I look at all of the different elements in the film, considering each one separately, I can see a great feat of filmmaking on show. But a film has to be more than just the sum of its parts and, although many people loved this film deeply, I can’t really count myself with them. I’m not entirely self-centred enough to think that this is the fault of the film, because it did everything right. This is likely just down to me. Perhaps I’m too distant, or I lack some level of emotional maturity to really get this film’s full effect. Maybe I’ll get it in a year or two or ten or twenty. Or, most likely, maybe it will simply always remain just out of my reach. Sometimes when you dislike a film, it’s not the films fault; it’s yours.

Atonement really is a superb film, even though I can’t really claim to have been knocked over by it with the same intensity that so many others felt. The script is a fine work, managing to transpose the characters and themes of the source, whilst leaving the more laborious aspects behind. The direction borders on the virtuoso, confidently handling small details and epic scale. The music and cinematography are excellent and the performances are, mostly, outstanding. It may seem like I’m trying to placate some people by saying it’s great when I wasn’t too bothered with it myself. But it was really very well done, and I have don’t have any major issues with it. It seems that, much like the book, this one will always remain just beyond me.

Apollo 13 (1995)

"HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM."

There was a time when the whole world looked to the skies in the spirit of adventure and hope, not for reasons of religion, but because mankind had shaken off the bonds of Earth and travelled beyond the limits of our atmosphere – space exploration had begun. Though this spawned the rather paranoia-tainted Space Race between the US and Russia, both trying to conquer the outer limits first, the advances of humanity were of greater import. In 1969, this led to one of the truly great achievements of the 20^th Century (or any Century) as the crew of Apollo 11 landed on the surface of the moon. There, astronaut Neil Armstrong produced one of the most famous quotes in history: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” In 1970, the world would receive another now famous quote from another Apollo space mission: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

Less than a year after man first walked on the Moon, Apollo 13 was sent back on another lunar-landing mission. However, before the craft even got there, a catastrophic technical malfunction effectively crippled them. Stranded hundreds of thousands of miles from Earth, the Apollo 13 flight crew, Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Fred Haise (Bill Paxton) and Jack Swigert (Kevin Bacon), and the NASA technicians fight desperately to bring the craft back to life and bring the astronauts home safely.

Before we even begin to look at the mission at the heart of this story, we are told of a previous mission that went horribly wrong, Apollo 1, which killed its three crew members. The point is being made very clearly – tragedy can happen at anytime, even to those who prepare for it. If there’s one thing that the film of Apollo 13 wants to do in the first forty-five minutes or so, it’s build up a sense of foreboding, a sense of sinister premonition, a sense that this mission was doomed from the start. It’s something that some of the superstitious folk among us have often said about the Apollo 13 mission itself. There’s the fact that it was the 13^th mission in the Apollo program, that it launched at 19:13pm (13:13 by North American Central Standard Time), that the rupture of the oxygen tanks occurred on the 13^th of April (again, Central Standard Time), that there was a change in the crew a week before blast-off. The film itself builds on this by highlighting other things, too. Crew Commander Lovell’s wife lost her wedding ring down the shower drain before the launch date. Lovell’s car had been having some technical difficulties recently and stalling without warning. These ominous concerns were not lost on the crew, who joked about breaking mirrors and black cats and walking under ladders in preparation for the flight. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’re a superstitious person or not (I’m certainly not), because the film does makes its point that some of these characters may be somewhat superstitious themselves, even if it’s merely a case of not wanting to tempt fate. For example, Gene Kranz, the no-nonsense flight director, maintains a simple ritual of wearing a crisp white waistcoat with mission patch on the lapel for the duration of the assignment.

Although these nods towards less rational sensibilities are important, they take up only a little bit of time in the build up to the film’s central crisis. Much more attention is paid towards the establishment of the characters who must deal with it when it comes. Working from a script by William Broyles Jr. and Al Reinert, director Ron Howard develops a fine array of individuals for us to follow along this perilous journey. Jim Lovell was part of the Apollo 8 mission, the first to orbit the moon, though never got a chance to actually walk on its surface. We feel his awe of such a feat, his sense of mild disappointment that he got so close before without touching it, his humble joy at finally being given the chance to achieve his goal. His wife, Marilyn, is so loving and supportive of her husband and his dreams. She’s a veteran of watching her husband go off into space, so she also remains a firm support for other wives who are new to the whole experience, although she is still uneasy about it herself. Fred Haise is a family man and southern country boy, a fun guy of simple tastes, a little rough around the edges, but a fine pilot. Ken Mattingly is a straight arrow and a driven perfectionist, always pushing himself to get it right. Jack Swigert is a ladies man, a slight outsider as the late addition to the crew, and also with great flight skills and instinct. Gene Kranz is a man who commands respect, but through an understated resolve and calm under pressure. The film builds these characters, and their families (or lack of), so well that when things start to go wrong, you are completely invested and feel genuinely taken by their plight. As things progress, the characters are treated with a great dignity and respect, their actions developed with tight and utterly believable motivations. Even better is that no one is ever given to the overly dramatic bouts of hysteria, with someone eventually cracking up, screaming and crying that they don’t want to die up here. It’s made very clear that these people are who they are and where they are precisely because of their heroic levels of self-control, that they know their best chance to survive is to remain composed and work together. We should all be so controlled as these people.

Howard is also well aware that the greatest dramatic draw is the crisis itself. Of course, how could it not be? A less assured director would have perhaps tried to cram in more subplots and storylines underneath the main one in order to add even greater weight and complexity to the piece. It speaks greatly that Howard did not do such a thing. The film is complex enough, built out of a tight sense the technical issues that must be tackled on Earth, and the delicate relationship of the three men on board the ship. The level of technical detail itself is enough to create a heavy sense of realism, making it all so absorbing. The script is full of technical jargon and astro-speak, but it never overwhelms the audience, still remaining somehow accessible, even if just in a basic sense. It’s from this kind of realism and adherence to detail that we get some moments of drama and concern in the film. When the crew have to turn off most of their equipment in the hope of conserving battery life and fuel, the possibility for the condensation build-up to short out the electrical instruments becomes another concern to deal with. It’s really a case of one thing leading to another, and it makes for really great drama.

And it’s not even just in the technical side of things that there’s a great sense of detail. The period is evoked so well, with the fashions, the music, the cars. Lovell’s eldest daughter initially doesn’t want to watch her father’s flight broadcasts (all before the disaster strikes, of course) because she’s so upset that The Beatles have broken up. That actually happened, the day before Apollo 13 launched. It’s the small details throughout the film that make it all so immersive and wonderful to watch.

The cast do a superb job throughout. Tom Hanks is able to bring his typical Everyman-ness to Lovell, but yet still make him someone of great poise and character. Ed Harris’ Gene Kranz is a performance of superb control and reserve, delivering lines like “Failure is not an option” with great solid conviction. Kathleen Quinlan also gives a great show, steering clear of the weepy astronaut’s wife thing, showing a core of strength and restraint. She’s not above letting the tears come, but she knows better than to let them take over. Paxton, Bacon and Sinise provide great support, too.

Apollo 13 is a genuinely thrilling, tense and really rather emotional experience, which remains unaffected by whether or not you know how it all turns out. The direction is firmly controlled and incredibly well detailed, with solid performances from everyone involved. It’s often overlooked or forgotten about today, but this is an exhilarating experience and a fine tribute to those involved in a great pursuit of exploration.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF ANIMAL HOUSE -- A DIFFERENT KIND OF ANIMAL

Horror and comedy have a lot in common, and it rises beyond the attempt each genre makes to provoke a specific, though very different, physiological reaction in its viewer. The success of these endeavours rests on a very particular relationship it has with its audience. Things like melodrama or musicals or thrillers or adventures asks the audience to engage with the action onscreen on a level of cohabitation. It wants you to want to go along for the ride, be part of the process, enjoy the vicarious nature of the piece. Both comedy and horror work a bit differently. You’re not a cohort; you’re a target. Both attack the audience, rely on a degree of victimisation. It’s really no coincidence that people so often look at moments from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and There’s Something About Mary and say the same thing… “I’m glad that isn’t me.” So, given this deep-rooted connection between these two generic concerns, it’s no surprise that the two often cross paths in the same work.

Two American students, David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne), are on a walking tour of Britain. Despite the cryptic warnings of the local villagers, they find themselves lost in the moors, and they are attacked by a werewolf. Jack is killed, but David survives. Coming to in London hospital three weeks later under the care of Nurse Alex Price (Jenny Agutter), David begins to have horrific nightmares of violence. On top of that, his dead friend begins to appear to him, telling David that he is now a werewolf and must kill himself before he hurts someone else.

If you’ve ever seen John Landis be interviewed, the one thing that comes across about him is his enthusiasm, so energetic that it borders on hyperactive. The other thing that comes across is his love for classic horror movies, the kind that Universal made back in the day. As such, it seems fitting that he should be the one to bring us one of the most successful horror-comedies ever in An American Werewolf in London. Supposedly, Landis began writing it whilst working as an assistant on Kelly’s Heroes in Yugoslavia, making him 20 at the time. One day, he saw a gypsy funeral in progress, the body bound in garlic and then buried in a very large hole, so as to prevent the corpse from rising again. Between this scene, the Yugoslavian countryside harkening back to the Universal monster movies, and his general feeling at the time of being a foreigner in a strange land, the young Landis resolved to make classic monster picture that played on these themes of superstition and alienation.

These influences are very clear in the script Landis produced. The stereotypical nature of the English people, both rural and urban, may seem to be unnecessarily broad, but that’s exactly the point. Not only is this just the kind of thing that typified films like Dracula and Frankenstein and The Wolf Man (the alien weirdness of those of a foreign locale), but it does serve to effectively heighten the uneasiness of David and Jack. Have you ever walked into a pub and had everyone stop and look round at you? I have. It’s very unnerving. And that was just in a different town, never mind a different country. This sense of exaggeration in the rendering of, for example, the locals that fill the Slaughtered Lamb pub is entirely fitting with the tone of the piece. There’s also the great touch of having the victims of David’s lupine alter ego appear to him as mutilated spirits, not as the moaning, chain-rattling prophets of doom, but as people who have suffered something of an inconvenience by being killed and who now seek appropriate reparations in the form of David’s suicide. How typically British. Even Jack feels sympathy for David’s supernatural predicament, despite being a walking member of the undead and missing a sizeable portion of his face. It’s not without some holes, though. It does seem kind of weird that, considering what happened to David and how long he was unconscious, his parents never go to London to visit him or bring him back. That he decides to stay on in London is rather odd. Then there’s the romantic subplot, but I’ll get to that later.

Landis does have some great skill as a director. American Werewolf has a very good sense of pace. For the first hour, before David’s initial transformation, the film has a fairly slow pace, giving David a chance to consider whether or not he's a newly initiated member of the werewolf club or just going insane. However, following David’s change, the film rockets forward, a new sense of the inevitability driving the film. Landis’ sense of humour is also very apparent throughout. It should be, since Landis’ four films prior to this were all comedies (Shlock, Kentucky Fried Movie, National Lampoon’s Animal House and The Blues Brothers). Rarely does he let any moment go by without having some sort of absurd joke thrown in for good measure. A classic example of his absurd humour can be seen in the film within the film, See You Next Wednesday, the porno that’s showing in the theatre where David has his last transformation. The couple onscreen are interrupted mid-coitus by another man entering the room, saying that he told them not to do this again. The couple tell the man that they’ve never seen him before, so he sheepishly apologises and leaves. It’s utterly pointless, but very funny. That the couple are interrupted again later by a wrong number phone call is equally amusing. Also, the rapidly deteriorating vision of the undead Jack is wonderfully undercut by his perpetually cheery demeanour. The first time we see him as a mangled walking corpse his first words are, “Can I have some toast?” That’s pure Landis right there. The moments of humour are met with some rather unsettling scenes of horror, too. David’s dream of being home with his family before a squad of machine gun-toting, Nazi demons burst through the door, laying waste in a frenzy of bullets and fire. It’s sheer over-the-top nature makes it both darkly funny and rather horrifying. In fact, the whole film is surprisingly gory, especially considering the clampdown on “video nasties” that would kick in soon afterwards. There are also numerous other touches that show a more subtle hand as well. That Landis has assembled and effectively used a selection of songs that all contain the word moon in the title is a nice touch. Also, in the scene where David accidentally locks himself out of Alex’s flat, he sees two little girls laughing at him. These two girls are wearing the same colour coats that he and Jack wore when they were attacked, bright red and dark green. That the girl with the red coat, David’s colour, has a dog on a leash is a very subtle indicator of David current situation. In a manner of speaking, he too is holding back an animal. In fact, just consider the prevalence of the colour red as the film progresses.

Of course, what we cannot fail to mention is the famous transformation scene, in which David turns into a wolf right in front of us, in full light. Rick Baker, really a god in the movie makeup world, did an unbelievable job in this film. It’s a marvel of practical special effects as we watch David’s body elongate, contort and shift into the form of a supernatural beast. His hair grows, his teeth and eyes change, his nose flattens, and none of it is encased in shadow or hidden behind a desk. It all happens right in front of us in bone-cracking, skin-stretching detail. The editing around it is superb, with every cut revealing a new change. It’s seamless. To this day, it’s effectively unnerving and rather uncomfortable to watch, especially at one point when David looks pleadingly into the camera for help we can’t give. Fun fact: Baker was actually the first person to ever win Best Makeup at the Oscars in a competitive manner (this was the first time a makeup category was created, though honorary awards were given in 1964 and 1968). It’s easy to see why.

If there is a real misstep of sorts in proceedings, it’s the rather rushed feel to the romantic subplot between David and Alex. Both Naughton and Agutter do their best with it, but it does still seem rather improbable that the two would indeed fall in love so quickly. Call it the Florence Nightingale effect, whereby, in this case, the nurse develops romantic feelings for one of her patients, but that is still a fleeting notion. That Alex later confesses to David’s wolf form that she loves him does little to assuage the thinness of this ideal. Then again, perhaps this is the point. In one scene, David begins talking about The Wolf Man, suggesting that, by the lore espoused by the film, in order to be cured of his newly acquired lycanthropic ways, he must be killed by someone who loves him, which he believes could be Alex. However, there is already evidence that this is not true. The werewolf that attacked David and Jack is killed without any such concerns, and when David talks to Jack’s corpse about whether or not he needs silver bullets to kill himself, Jack dismisses this as nonsense.

All of this somewhat relates to how the film ends, which seems to have two different opinions concerning the motivation behind it. When David, as a werewolf, is cornered in an alleyway by armed police officers, Alex runs to meet him and tries to get him to… calm down? Anyway, after she tells him she loves him, he makes a lunge and is shot and killed. From what I’ve seen, some people believe that David was still in there somewhere, recognised Alex and purposely made a jump in order to get himself killed, lest he continue his murderous rampage. Others believe that, in his wolf form, David was consumed by the beast and was unaware of anything Alex said to him. He made his lunge to kill her, but was stopped by a hail of bullets. Love, real or imagined, had no effect either way. Personally, I go with the latter reading. I’m frankly a little perplexed that some consider the former theory as possible, given what seems to be such a relatively flimsy romantic relationship

An American Werewolf in London is, to this day, still funny and scary in equal measure. It’s a classic story updated to a more contemporary setting, but it’s lost none of its subtextual concerns of culture shock and feeling misplaced in alien surroundings. The effects, as well, remain something to behold. It’s also constantly marked with a degree of wit and self-awareness, shown in the dismissal of Hollywood-esque lore, its use of certain musical cues and in the directorial flourishes of colour and pacing. There has been many an imitator since, but few have managed to come near the potency of this film.