It’s been less than a year since Gustavo Hernández’s experimental Uruguayan horror film The Silent House premiered at Cannes, but its English-language remake (starring Elizabeth Olsen of all people) has already been completed, premiered and bought for $3 million at Sundance back in January. The grand conceit – a real-time slasher movie shot in one digital take – is clearly a marketable one, and UK distributor Optimum (of Best Distributor Ever fame) seem to know it.
Much of the marketing is understandably playing up the film’s technical credentials, with lots of ‘one continuous take’ this and ‘recorded with a photo camera’ that. Sorry, did I say ‘recorded with a photo camera’? I obviously meant…
Hahaha foreign people nuh spell propa.
It’s a remarkable achievement that the film has any sense of tone or structure at all given the endless technical obstacles, and some of the camerawork on display is absolutely breathtaking. Unknown actress Florencia Colucci is equally impressive in the lead role, never once faltering despite the massive pressure put upon her by the set up.
Of course, this is 2011 and it’s almost impossible to say for sure that the film is really one take. There are plenty of whip pans and dark spots that could easily conceal cuts, so it’s really up to you whether you trust the marketing. Personally, I do. [There might be another pound in it for me.]
Unfortunately, the film’s technological integrity is largely besides the point when it’s so entirely devoid of structure, character, tension and emotion. It’s painfully evident that the concept preceded the story in the mind of director Hernández and even the film’s quasi-twist ending feels like a lame construct designed to further serve the purposes of the camera.
At just over 70 minutes, The Silent House can’t be accused of overstaying its welcome. But it’s essentially an art film, so don’t go expecting Paranormal Activity.
As you’ve probably noticed by now, there’s nothing I like more than going / to / events / sponsored / by Jameson Irish Whiskey, so I literally (not literally) jumped at the chance to attend the Empire Movie Awards last Sunday at London’s slightly fancy Grosvenor House.
Upon arrival, press were ushered into a special ‘media room’ – the ‘gift suite’ was locked unfortunately – where we could watch the show and then talk to the winners as they came off stage. There wasn’t much to see when we first got there:
The signs on the floor denoted where each media outlet would stand (YES I AM A MEDIA OUTLET NOW, THANKS FOR ASKING) and also gave a fairly good indication of who the most important people in the room were. Better luck next time, new! Magazine. Maybe people would take you more seriously if you bothered to capitalise that ‘n’.
Anyway, because most of the press were outside on the red carpet, we got into the room about half an hour before everybody else. We were worried it might be boring, but you’d be surprised how quickly 30 minutes passes when you have access to the following:
Nom nom nom, I think you’ll agree.
Eventually all the proper people came in and immediately dashed over to the sandwiches, but not before I’d licked every last one of them. (I didn’t (or did I? (No, I really didn’t))).
Before long the entire room had filled with excitable journalists, all wolfing down crisps and mainlining whiskey. There was an atmosphere of palpable anticipation – or at least that’s what I took from all the standing around waiting for stuff to happen.
One man was so enthusiastic that he was WEARING A TRILBY INDOORS for fuck’s sake:
We’d all been given cheat sheets in case we didn’t know who the famous (and less than famous) people were. Keira Knightley was there, Dustin Hoffman, Ian Hislop – the list goes on.
I didn’t speak to any of the stars for a while, because I didn’t really have anything to say to them and wasn’t quite drunk enough to start harassing people for no reason. Luckily, a couple of whiskey and cokes quickly solved that problem and before long I was having all sorts of wacky fun. Here I am standing in for the absent Daily Mail journalist:
I’m like a young Chris Tookey!
The man pictured below is Ben from HeyUGuys. He’d been lumbered with the task of maintaining their liveblog for the night, and was frantically updating every minute or so while I dossed around in the background. At one point I insisted on doing a guest post on the blog (see 19:01) which I’m sure Ben was absolutely thrilled about.
With alcohol setting up camp in my bloodstream I started to talk to the stars as they walked through. I asked Olivia Williams to marry me and she said she would if she wasn’t already taken. Bloody ‘Rhashan Stone’. Tom Felton came round and I told him he scared me. He apologised and agreed to hold up my floor sign:
Give or take a slightly-too-reflective ‘A’, that is positive proof that Tom Felton is an Ultra Culture fan.
I did my sole interview of the night with Best Director and Inspiration Award winner Edgar Wright, but he might have guessed I didn’t have all that much to say when my first question turned out to be ‘so… anything interesting?’ He did say some lovely things though:
He must have been getting a bit fed up as it went on, because later on in the interview he scratched me with one of his awards:
With the show over, we made to leave the media room, and in doing so walked straight past the King himself, Colin Firth. Turning to face him – a mere six feet away – I waved and blew a kiss. He blew me one back. It was a truly magical moment.
Leaving the Grosvenor, we hopped past security and into the main hall for one last celebrity hunt.
Stars were everywhere, but in the end I just said hello to a couple of people I already knew, shouted something at John Boyega, ran on stage and waved my arms in the air, and then left.
The after party was at Aqua. I’m not saying I don’t remember how I got there but I don’t remember how I got there. Thanks a lot, Jameson.
It’s not often you see a film that makes you think, ‘I wish I was watching Yogi Bear again,’ but when bro-with-a-budget Zack Snyder’s around, the chances are always a little higher. After Watchmen, which I’m almost certain was ‘quite good’, there were hopes that he’d matured into a director capable of more than fanboy pandering and macho posturing. Instead, it appears he’s regressed into a twelve year old boy discovering masturbation for the first time. And this twelve year old boy has $82 million and Emily Browning in a schoolgirl costume.
Browning plays a young girl who accidentally shoots her sister while she’s being molested by their stepfather. It’s a subtle, understated scene, shot like a KoЯn video and tastefully soundtracked by a ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’ cover – YEAH, I BET SOME OF THEM WANT TO BE ABUSED, THE LITTLE WHORES!!!!! She’s then taken to a mental institution where Evil Man No. 1 pays Evil Man No. 2 to get Evil Man No. 3 to give her a lobotomy. At this point, Snyder goes all Chris Nolan on our ass and we enter ‘the dream world’.
E X C E P T I T ‘ S B O L L O C K S
Browning (now known as Baby Doll because she looks about fourteen but still pretty fuckable – AM I RIGHT, FELLAS?) understandably chooses a 1950s mob-run brothel as her happy place, rather than say, somewhere where she isn’t constantly under threat of rape and murder, and we’re immediately bombarded with AND YOU WERE THERE! moments as Evil Men from the real world reappear as different Evil Men in the dream world.
Before long, everything turns into a video game, with objects to be collected, missions to be completed and tedious cutscenes to be endured. Except in this case, the entire movie is one hideously protracted cutscene with no reward beyond the thrill of realising that life can only get better from this point forward.
We’ve met our five heroes, comprised of three familiar archetypes and two spares – a bit like Girls Aloud. Cunningly, Snyder decides the only way that they can succeed in their mission to escape the brothel (itself an abstract metaphor for escaping the lobotomy – or something) is to perform sexualised dances for grossly overweight men, distracting them for long enough to steal the required key, knife, Princess Peach, whatever.
Of course, it might seem almost misogynistic to have scene after scene in which beautiful women degrade themselves in front of Keith from The Office‘s less attractive cousins, so instead we enter a second dream world where each task is portrayed as an epic battle against demonic soldiers, massive dragons and other lazy shorthands. These sequences are incredibly monotonous, and with literally nothing at stake in each one, you almost long for the slightly-real danger of the brothel level.
Still, it gives the womenfolk a chance to ‘kick some ass’ and that way Snyder doesn’t have to bother giving them actual characters. This age-old confusion as to what exactly the ‘strong’ in Strong Female Character™ means is powerfully evident in Sucker Punch, a film so cynically misogynistic that even notorious boys’ club Slash Film had to draft in a woman to get all feminist on this bitch.
More troublingly, this parade of abuse and misery has been passed at 12A (and PG-13 in the States) thanks to some of the most flagrant certificate-chasing yet captured on celluloid. The film was blatantly written as an R and later adapted to court the teen market, but if anything, softening the content makes it far more offensive. Rape is no longer rape, it’s a sort of nondescript activity where a man hunches over a woman. Mass murder isn’t so bad either when the baddies spill steam rather than blood. Even shooting two women in the back of the head doesn’t qualify as anything more than ‘moderate violence’ because, you know, you don’t actually see anything.
News of the World critic and sole defender of the film Robbie Collin has been selling it on Twitter as ‘300 meets Burlesque’, and he’s right that on paper, the premise certainly has a bit of a ‘camp classic’ vibe to it. But in practice, Sucker Punch is a life-drainingly solemn piece of filmmaking that makes The Dark Knight look like a knockabout buddy comedy by comparison. Even the action sequences, which by all accounts should be the film’s saving grace, are artless, repetitive non-events that play out beneath a bland quasi-steampunk wash of muddy brown.
In short, if you’re the kind of person who has the capacity to dislike something, chances are you’ll be exercising that particular skill with regards to Sucker Punch.
I very much enjoyed reading through all your wonderful competition entries when I gave you the chance to win those Source Code posters the other week. I haven’t had time to organise a proper prize this week but didn’t want to stop you being creative, so today I’m giving you the chance to win the packet of chalks pictured above.
You will also receive a certificate of authenticity confirming you as the rightful owner of the chalks.
To be in with that all important chance of winning, just tell me what you plan to draw with the chalks if you win them. Warning: you will be required to fulfil this commitment and send pictorial proof upon receipt of your prize. Good luck!
Comedy movies are in a state of disrepair. Bogged down by endlessly derivative stories, ‘stars’ way past their prime and a default mean-spiritedness that’s long ceased to make any kind of point at all, today’s comedies have become so identikit that audiences are starting to haemorrhage cash at anything that even slightly subverts the formula, even if it’s essentially a bit shit.
On these terms, Cedar Rapids is something of a relief. It’s got the derivative story on lock (strait-laced man goes wild on business trip) but its stars, while hardly bright young things, feel surprisingly fresh. Ed Helms proves a natural leading man (although they could have replaced him with Mark Steel at any point in the movie and I wouldn’t have noticed), Anne Heche and The Wire‘s Isiah Whitlock Jr. finally get well-deserved comic roles, and John C. Reilly’s ‘drunk idiot’ performance sits comfortably in the better half of his ‘drunk idiot’ performances.
Still, I know there’s only one thing you really want to know:
IS THE ‘GUY FROM THE WIRE TALKING ABOUT THE WIRE‘ JOKE
AS FUNNY AS IT WAS IN THE TRAILER?
The answer is of course: yes, it’s still an insult to humanity. Apparently the Omar references were written in before Whitlock’s casting, but it’s not hard to picture the producers’ self-satisfied grins when they first thought of ‘going meta’ with it. Anyway, he never says ‘Sheeeeeeeeit’ so be grateful for small mercies, I guess.
Unfortunately, Cedar Rapids won’t be rescuing Hollywood from a decade of increasingly insulting Hangover rip-offs: it’s far too forgettable for that. But with April offering you a comedy choice between this, Arthur and Your Highness, at least it’s a step in the right direction.
