Film Review - Behind The Candelabra

Its strange that in the 70's the world seemed to suffer from a collective gaydar malfunction. The UK for instance had popular entertainers like Frankie Howerd, Larry Grayson and John Inman who were as camp as a row of frilly, pink tents yet they weren't seen as homosexual.

Society felt more comfortable placing them in the less threatening "eccentric" category to make them more digestible to unsophisticated mainstream audiences. The performers in question had no intention of upsetting the applecart of their sexuality as gay bashing was still an operational hazard.

In the early 80's the spectre of AIDS ravaged the gay community and the public were forced to face facts: homosexuals existed and the public needed to take their heads so out of the sand and deal with it. It's a pity it took a devastating disease to change public perception but sadly we didn't always live in such enlightened times.

Steven Soderburgh's Behind The Candelabra is the biopic of Liberace and deals indirectly with such weighty issues. The larger than life showman was a huge star for the best part of three decades yet kept his homosexuality secret, even going so far as suing and winning a case against the Daily Mirror for even implying he was gay.

The self proclaimed "One man Disneyland" was a flamboyant entertainer and pianist whose kitschy showmanship made Elton John look like Nick Drake. He stage shows were an overdose of furs, sequins and gold that reflected his love of excess in both his professional and personal life.

Soderburgh picks up his story in the 70's with Liberace (Michael Douglas) ensconced in Las Vegas and selling out shows to an exclusively female audience. Matt Thorson (Matt Damon) is a naive country boy from California (whose tell all book the film is adapted from) who, once introduced to Liberace, is quickly seduced by his champagne lifestyle and soon becomes his assistant and lover.

Life, for a while, is great. Their relationship allows them both to fill a void (Liberace, despite his wealth, is a lonely man and Thorson is missing a father figure) and the blur of Jacuzzis, champagne and sex glosses over the rest.

Thorson: How do stay so hard for so long?
Liberace: I've had implants

However once the honeymoon period is over the egos, superficiality and jealousy poisons their relationship and results in dramatic consequences for them both. Liberace's penchant for younger boys doesn't help matters.

Liberace: I have an eye for new and refreshing talent.
Thorson: You have an eye for new and refreshing dick.

You know you are in for an entertaining couple of hours when a movie's opening scene involves Quantum Leap's Scott Bakula, sporting a lustrous handlebar moustache, cruising for sex in a gay bar. The film is at times very funny and at other times cringe worthy and I don't just mean the sight of Matt Damon in a sequined thong. Non-gay viewers of a certain generation may struggle to sit through some of the more risqué scenes.

Having two straight actors playing two raging queens is something of a novelty but Douglas and Damon take all the nudity, mincing and snogging in their stride and do a wonderful job conveying the couple's multi-layered relationship with a refreshing humility of performance. Douglas has never been shy of sex scenes but Liberace is polar opposite from the alpha males he normally portrays.

There is top notch support in the shape of Dan Akroyd as ball-busting manager Seymour Heller who tries to keep a lid on Liberace volatile private life with mixed results. Rob Lowe delivers some well judged comic relief as celebrity plastic surgeon Dr Startz whose face has been pulled so tight by plastic surgery he looks Chinese. Liberace and Thorson have a lot of work done and Liberace has concerns:

Liberace: "Will I ever be able to close my eyes?"
Dr Startz: "Not exactly. You'll always be able to see people's reactions when they see how wonderful you look."

Soderbergh is a director with many more hits than misses and lately he has become remarkably prolific, churning out five films in under two years including the excellent Magic Mike and Side Effects. His treatment reminds me a lot of Boogie Nights whose central character also rapidly descends from carefree 70's naviete into cocaine-fuelled 80's paranoia. They both depict the entertainment industry as minefield of back stabbers and burnouts although here the bitchiness is ramped up a notch.

I do feel Paul Thomas Anderson's film is more rounded and does a better job of conveying the highs and lows of life in the fast lane. The melodrama in Behind The Candelabra does tend to grate after a while (there is only so much squabbling about who gets which fur coat and who is shagging who I can tolerate). That said

Soderburgh goes to town on the make-up, effects and set design making Liberace's world of "palatial kitsch" a reality. The movie's tone is fair and even and Soderburgh goes out of his way not to exclusivley turn it into a chance to gawp and laugh at the dysfunction. Liberace may be a famous, talented millionaire but he has the same hang ups (if not the same penchant for chandeliers and jailbait) as the rest of us.

Liberace's epitaph that "Too much of a good thing is wonderful." sums up the film perfectly. In these austere times the movie, like the sentiment, is definitely a guilty pleasure.

TV Review - The Call Centre - BBC3 9pm

The much maligned call centre: a 20th century institution that everyone despises, especially the people that work there. Even though it isn't the most glamorous of careers over a million people work in call centres in the UK, that despite their bad reputation, provide the public with all manner of essential services from sorting out your gas supply, providing legal advice to organising a tow truck when your stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Useful they may be but their very impersonal and sometimes labyrinthine set-up can make contacting them a f*cking nightmare.

However, there are call centres and then there is the lowest of the low: the cold-calling telesales call centre. These are the type of organisations who will interrupt in the middle of your dinner and try and sell you PPI insurance or persuade you to put in a personal accident claim for an accident you’ve never had. They are the human equivalent of pubic lice and are about as welcome.

One such parasitic battery farm, going by the name of Save Britain Money, is the setting for new docusoap The Call Centre BBC3 9PM. It is managed by Neville "Uncle Nev" Wilshire a self styled "Napoleon" who is the real life embodiment of everything that was excruciatingly wrong with David Brent. Such are the similarities, after watching Ricky Gervais tweeted:

“I honestly don’t remember writing it but I must have surely. I think it’s my best work but I can hardly watch it”

Nev is a balding blowhard of a boss full of motivational baloney like "Smile When You Dial", "Glide In Your Stride" and " PPPPPP -Proper planning prevents piss-poor performance!". He seems hell-bent on creating an office environment that is a cross between a school playground, a night down the pub and 2AM fumble behind a nightclub.

"I'm like Napoleon. His troops loved him"

Do be fair he has a tough job on his hands trying to motivate the predominately young, dumb and lairy staff from remaining in their jobs when they are routinely abused by disgruntled punters who don't appreciate having an episode of Eastenders interrupted by their requests to buy cavity wall insulation.

"I've been told to f*ck off a lot of times."

Says perma-tanned Jenni.

"An old woman once told me she hoped I get killed. I thought that was a bit much."

Says another staff member who goes by the name of Chickenhead.

Whilst you may be able to excuse the mass sing-along’s during induction meetings "I've sacked two people for not singing", the jokey "banter" and informal ambience as an unconventional means of ensuring his staff stay positive and motivated (SBM motto "Happy People Sell"), his incursions into their private lives are harder to justify.

After seeing that admin assist Kayleigh was recently dumped by her cheating boyfriend, Nev steps in to turn her frown upside down in his own unique way. First of all he parades her up and down the office asking if any of lads fancy her.

"Any single blokes? I've got a desperate female here"

He then organises a speed dating event subtitled GKL (Get Kayleigh Laid) where staff members are invited to get drunk and cop off with each other. Showing that she isn't the best judge of character she selects South African sleazeball Dwayne but before he is allowed to break her heart again Nev wades and threatens to "throw him down the stairs" if he messes her about. Dwayne sensibly cuts his loses and bails.

Nev is easy to caricature and a documentarians dream, just turn on the camera and let it roll. Despite being a colossal d*ck is heart seems to be in the right place and he engenders a remarkable amount of affection from his staff despite his short-comings. There was a brief glimpse into his soul when his laugh-a-minute persona dropped for a moment as he described his bankruptcy and subsequent divorce as a "hurtful" period in his life.

Don't worry though he was quickly back into a swing with some gentle sexual harassment and mild ABH with new staff members shortly after. One of these newcomers is asked how she feels about her new boss after he parades her through the office with shouts of:

"Make way, good looking Welsh girl coming through!!"

"He seems really cool...a great guy...unless it carries on"

Personally, I think Nev’s enforced hilarity would make working at SBM my idea of purgatory but amazingly it was ranked 2nd in the Sunday Times list of "Best Companies To Work For 2013". For now, the bland politically correct tentacles of human resources haven't penetrated as far as Swansea thus guaranteeing Nev's place a micro celeb for the foreseeable future. Tune in next week to see how much "fun" you are missing out on.

Film Review - Mud

Someone must have a had a quiet word with Matthew McConnaghey around 2010 and told him he was in danger of becoming a joke. Lampooned in Family Guy and mocked on YouTube he was quickly transforming into the male version of Sharon Stone, a rent-a-pecks coasting along on his southern charm and displaying very little in the way of actual acting ability.

Whether the blame lies with him or his agent is a moot point. Movies such as Failure To Launch, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Fools Gold cemented him as the go-to-guy for casting directors wanting to populate their lame Rom-Coms with a bit of male eye candy.

Apropos of nothing McConnaghey suddenly started making films worth watching. Whatever the reasons for his Damascene conversion McConnaghey's star has now never been brighter. After a string of great performances in The Lincoln Lawyer, Magic Mike and Killer Joe people have started to realise there is more to McConnaghey than tousled hair and a killer six-pack .

In Mud, McConnaghey completes his artistic renaissance by playing the titular fugitive on the run from police and bounty hunters out to avenge Mud's crimes of passion. He cuts a desperate, weather beaten figure as he lays low on a tidal island deep in the Arkansas woods with little more than the shirt on his back and pistol in his waistband. A hopeless romantic he is awaiting the arrival of the flighty love-of-his-life Juniper (Reece Witherspoon), the reason he finds himself physically and emotionally marooned in the first place.

Two local teenagers Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) cruise upriver in search of a boat that is rumoured to be stuck in a tree and stumble across Mud and decide to help him out him. Their own home lives are far from idyllic and Mud's "badass" credentials make him an exciting male influence. With Mud unable to show his face in town they are sent on errands to sneak food, contact his girlfriend and scrounge the necessary parts to turn the stranded tree-boat into Mud's ticket to salvation.

Mud may be part coming of age tale and part slow burn thriller but fundamentally it is a story about heartbreak: marital heartbreak, childhood heartbreak and regular common or garden heartbreak. A character driven small town story told mostly from the point of view of the 14yr old Ellis its no surprise that writer/director Jeff Nichols struggled to get a Hollywood studio to fund the project. It’s completely devoid of sort of cliché and sentimentality you would expect from mainstream cinema and as a result is a huge breath of fresh air.

Beautifully shot by cinematographer Adam Stone and languidly plotted the movie is much like the Mississippi river it showcases. A real character piece, the eternity Nichols spent sweating over the script has paid handsome dividends. The cast of backwater hicks, small town bullies and strangers with dark secrets is thoroughly fleshed out and Nichols genuinely manages to convey a sense of authenticity that runs through this slice of rural Americana like the fluid and beguiling river at the centre of the story.

Nicholls wrote the part of Mud specifically for McConnaghey seeing him an untapped quality perfectly suited to this role. It was a gamble that has paid off. He is superbly supported by the modern Huckelby Finn/Tom Sawyer pairing of Sheridan (who was excellent in Terrence Malick's Tree of Life) and Lofland (amazingly appearing in his first movie) acting futures look bright. These three anchor the film but are surrounded by a talented ensemble with Sam Shepard as secretive neighbour Tom and the ever watchable Michael Shannon as Uncle Galen.

It is hard to imagine this type of film being made here in over populated Britain yet the central ethos that life is hard, and love is complicated will resonate with the residents of DeWitt, Arkansas as much as it does in Coventry, Calcutta or Cape Town . There will always be room in our hearts for dreamers.

I struggle to find any fault with this film which excels in virtually all areas. Arkansas-born Nichols delivers the sort of storytelling its impossible not to become enraptured by and this masterpiece marks him out as one to watch. One of the finest movies I have seen in the last few years I recommend this to anyone who has a heart.

Film Review - Exploding Helicopter - Iron Man 3

Let's face facts, once they hang up the cape most superheroes are as dull as ditch water. Clark Kent is a socially inept wet blanket. Bruce Wayne a reclusive misery guts. Peter Parker a dweeby geek. You'd have to have a cavernous hole in your diary to be desperate enough to invite them out for beers. 

Tony Stark on the other hand would be a riot. Not only is he is charismatic, loaded and has more one liners than Tommy Cooper but he is to women what the BBC is to paedophiles (look it up).

The success of the Iron Man is due in no small part to Robert Downey Jr,'s suave, sardonic portrayal of the millionaire playboy.  You feel he isn't acting so much as portraying a slightly exaggerated version of himself.  Downey cocks a perpetual eyebrow at the more po-faced excursions into this comic book universe and as a result the first film felt like a breath of fresh air.

Sequels rarely improve on the predecessors and Iron Man 2 was a case in point, foregoing some of the knockabout fun of the original in order to set up the convoluted plot for Stark's appearance in franchise crossover The Avengers Assemble. There he battles an alien invasion with his superhero buddies and now Iron Man 3 sees a shell-shocked Stark suffering from burnout in the aftermath.

Holed up in his Malibu mansion he spends all his time tinkering with an army of Iron Man suits, arguing with his missus Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and suffering from panic attacks. As Stark licks his wounds a string of terrorist bombings perpetrated by flamboyant Osama-like The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) causes chaos in the US and injures Stark's head of security (Jon Favreau).

In Stark's agitated state he misguidedly goads the terrorist into challenging him personally and after giving out his address live on air The Mandarin is only too happy to oblige.  He sends a trio of heavily laden attack choppers to Stark's hillside hideaway to, lets say, "redesign" Stark's premises through the medium of missiles.

The lead chopper flies in over the sea and fires off a couple of missiles that blow a huge hole into the property's art deco frontage. The explosion catches Stark in the blast radius but he quickly dons his suit and returns fire by launching a huge chunk of masonry at the helicopter. He hits his target but the chopper does not explode and flies out of shot.

A second chopper goes in for the kill but Stark hits the jackpot when another piece of hurled debris hits its target. The impact causes the helicopter to spin in classic whirly-bird fashion but unfortunately the stricken chopper crashes straight into the mansion's supporting structure. As a result the entire building then tumbles down into the sea below with only a miracle saving Stark from being crushed in the carnage. The last chopper pilot thinks his work is done and pootles off for a well earned pint.

Artistic Merit

Its a juicy set piece, nicely shot and with plenty of destruction but the helicopter explosion is delivered with a reddish glow which betrays its CGI origins. The mansion tumbling into he sea after succumbing to the helicopter wreckage is a nice touch.

Exploding Helicopter Innovation

Whilst the destruction of the chopper is pretty routine its not often you see a helicopter reduce a mansion to rumble.

Do Passengers Survive

Unusually the first chopper pilot, despite being hit by a massive slab of concrete, looks like he may have been able to make an emergency landing. The 2nd chopper pilot would have definitely came a cropper though.

Positives

As to be expected for a Marvel adaptation action fans will feel as satisfied as Lindsay Lohan on holiday in Colombia with the Green Bay Packers.  All the set pieces are executed with aplomb (I particularly enjoyed the skydiving sequence) and there is more shiny CGI than you shake a stick at.

The studio has also managed to corral a great acting ensemble together so Downey is not left to prop up the picture on his own. Guy Pearce delivers another convincing performance as evil mastermind Aldrich Killian that continues to make his time as Mike Pearce in Neighbours seems like a cheese induced dream. Ben Kingsley as always is a delight and delivers an unexpected character twist that is usually absent in this genre .  To top it off we get ultimate movie asshole Miguel Ferrer, of Robocop fame, pop up as the crooked Vice President Rodriguez.

Negatives

Despite the acting chops not everything is rosy in the Iron Man universe.

Director Shane Black may be responsible for writing the classic Lethal Weapon series but its wise-cracking buddy formula doesn't work so well here.  Stark befriends a precocious brat (Ty Simkins), whilst investigating the dubious explosions that maybe linked to the accident that befalls his head of security . Their "banter" feels forced and not a little ridiculous.

The pacing of this film is also questionable lurching as it does between knock about one liners to gruesome deaths in the space of a minute. Whilst the original film had its moments of levity rooted in Downey's louche portrayal of Stark, here the "comedy" is overdone and borders on the schizophrenic.

Also, the technology in the original movie was reasonably grounded in reality but here the audience is required to take a greater leap of faith. Stark's new remote control Iron Man suits and Killian's DNA regeneration programme feel like one step too far and possibly a case of jumping the shark.

Overall the film is more enjoyable than Iron Man 2 but fails to live up to the alchemy of the original. I wouldn't go out of your way to see it.

Favourite Quote

Brandt: Is that all you've got? A cheap trick and a cheesy one-liner?


Tony Stark: Sweetheart, that could be the name of my autobiography.

Interesting Fact

Shane Black is a bit of a jack of all trades. Not content with being a mere screenwriter or director he has also dipped a toe in the acting world. Keen eyed exploding helicopter fans might recognise him as the bespectacled radio operator Hawkins from the classic Predator. This bit of trivia is just an excuse for me me to quote the following lame joke

Hawkins: Billy. Billy! The other day, I was going down on my girlfriend, I said to her, "Jeez you got a big pussy. Jeez you got a big pussy." She said, "Why did you say that twice?" I said, "I didn't."

[Billy stares blankly]

Hawkins: See, cuz of the echo.

BONUS FACT

Hang about until the credits have rolled to see Stark on the psychiatrist couch with Dr David Banner. Worth waiting for.

High Street Fashion - Cheap Clothing At What Cost?

In the last few days it has been impossible to avoid the terrible scenes in Dhaka, Bangladesh where 360 people are dead and hundreds more still missing, presumably under tons of twisted steel and concrete, following the collapse of a clothing factory.

Despite cracks appearing in the structure on Tuesday, management ignored concerns and forced staff to carry on working the following day or have their pay docked. Company stooges then approved building safety the day before the collapse. Building owner Mohammed Sohel Rana has now been arrested along with three factory owners and two engineers but surely this is just the tip of the iceberg.

This tragedy isn't just another far off disaster we can shake our heads and go back to our cornflakes. The factory has links to well established high street retailers Primark, Matalan and Mango so there is a good chance you may have some of the offending factory's handiwork hanging in your closet.. It highlights a thorny issue, one which the West has gamely ignored for years, namely that the sweat shops of the 3rd World make most of the clothes on our backs.

Is this disregard for workers safety a byproduct of the West's insatiable appetite for disposable fashions or is the developing world's desperation to better itself by exploiting its workers the root cause?


I am reminded of the Panorama documentary Primark On The Rack, originally aired in 2008, which conducted an undercover investigation on the ubiquitous high street fashion retailer's dubious manufacturing processes.

Primark are a fashion success story with over 160 stores in the U.K and boast a rapid expansion throughout Europe. Famed for "disposable fashion", items are so cheap they can be worn once and thrown away, T-Shirts sell for £3 and jeans for £8. The are quick to ape cat-walk fashions and can do so for a fraction of the price.  Some of their range isn't actually that bad and I'll be honest, in my moments of weakness I have bought the odd pair of pants.

Many say Primark are a prime example of West's penchant for waste and disregard for worker exploitation in far off lands.  To commemorate their status as the Cruella De Vil of the retail world they were awarded the dubious accolade of "Least Ethical Retailer 2005" by Ethical Consumer Magazine. But who cares about a no-name award given out by a bunch of hippies? We all want cheap clothes right?

Rattled by this bad P.R, Primark trumpeted a change in their policy and proudly display their commitment to ethical standards at the entrance to their stores. The documentary exposes this as empty rhetoric. Reporter Tom Heap went undercover in the Indian textile industry to shine a light on the seedy sweatshops whose slavelike conditons are the sole reason you can buy embroidered dresses for £15.

In the labyrinthine slums of Delhi mass produced garments are ordered with very little lead time forcing Indian suppliers to get shipments ready using illegal outsourced child labour. According to Heap, who posed as an industry buyer, children as young as ten have to work long hours in squalid conditions for peanuts (17p/35c an hour was the wage quoted). India has a huge problem with poverty and many of the population live conditions that those in the West would consider subhuman. With wages this paltry it is hardly surprising.

I remember being at my folk's house when I watched this and whilst I pontificated on my best Guardianista soapbox about the appalling conditions and sub-standard pay my mum came up with a couple of salient points. First of all, one could argue that if these big retailers didn't place orders in third world countries they would literally have no jobs and no income whatsoever. Bangladesh for instance relies almost exclusively on its textile industry to supports its economy. Primark itself says it creates work for about 2 million workers in the developing world in one form or another. If they thought conditions were bad now what position would countries like India, Honduras or Vietnam be in without any western investment?

When I complained about the fact that these kids should be in school I was told that we shouldn't expect our values to be reflected in our cultures in the same way. We have the luxury of legislation forcing kids to go to school and a social system that helps the margins of society. In effect we have it very easy in the West. With no social services, Indian parents see large families as an insurance policy to help earn money and look after them when they get old.

The answer to these cultural and socio-economic problems could possibly lie in the Fairtrade model. Start paying a bit more for our clothes and instead of the money going to the multi-nationals the locals could get a fair wage and afford for their kids to go to school. Despite fair trade coffee and sugar being available on most supermarket shelves I have yet to see a Fairtrade clothing shop.

Its easy to see why Primark, with their emphaiss on low prices, take the lion's share of abuse on the topic of fair trade but take a second to look at what you are wearing today. I just did. Topman jeans made in India. North Face fleece made in Indonesia. Berghaus jacket made in Thailand. Onisuka Tiger/Asics made in China. Its not just the cheap brands that contract out developing nations. Everyone is at it.

Personally I feel it is unjust to pin all the blame on the West for outsourcing its manufacturing processes.  Local governments shoulder some of the responsibility for their absence of regulation and paucity of labour law that effectively puts the interests of the manufacturers above that of their citizens. Comprehensive, well policed employment regulations what stop abuses fairly quickly, but they would drive up production costs and in turn that would drive business elsewhere.

Banning products from countries with questionable safety records is not the answer as this would be a case of throwing the baby out with the bath water? If things are this bad now what kind of conditions would Bangladesh's workers would have to endure if Primark et al pulled out?

I'm not naive. I look for a bargain like the best of them. The reality is that in these credit crunching times there is even less inclination for the West to change the status quo and for the likes of you or I to start paying more for our clothes, shoes or electronics. If Primark step out there a long line of retailers waiting and willing to fill the void.

TV Review: Panorama - North Korea Undercover

As undercover reporting goes its hardly up there with Donal MacIntyre's tattooed two year infiltration of the Chelsea Headhunters or Antonio Salas learning Arabic, converting to Islam and getting circumcised in order to infiltrate terrorist organisations.

No, in Panorama - North Korea Undercover (BBC1) shouty documentarian John Sweeney manages to impregnate the secretive womb of communism by growing a bit of a beard and nodding his head in a professorial manner. Let's hope North Korea's long distance nukes are as effective as their border controls.

Judging by the media furore generated by his masquerading as LSE history teacher on a study trip, I was half expecting Sweeney to have offered up LSE students as free labour for the Korean gulags. The reality is much more prosaic. Sweeney just went along for the ride on the same lame coach tour as the students and filmed it. His guide offers words of reassurance for those tourists worried about security.

"Our bus has the mark of the Korean International Travel Company so the Americans won’t strike our bus. Ha ha .  .  .’

Despite Sweeny's attempts to ramp up the jeopardy,

”We’ve seen loads more soldiers in town today...you can feel the tension rising”

no one seemed to be in the least bit of danger during his eight day visit.

In fact for such a secretive society they seem relatively lax in their security. On the bus, despite repeatedly being asked not to take photos of the poverty stricken Koreans scrabbling about the drab countryside (they do anyway) the tour group are free to wave their cameras about during the scheduled stops and video whatever they like.

Some of these stops are laughable staged. A farm devoid of animals or crops, a bottling plant without any bottles or a pristine hospital that doesn't actually have any patients in it. This was the only point where Sweeney has the balls to conduct any challenging journalism.

‘Tell the doctor we’re not fools. We haven’t seen any patients."

Whilst their enemies to the South offer all the trapping of a prosperous, free western society North Korea's tin pot regime isn't even able to keep the lights on. Pyongyang suffers constant city wide power outages on a daily basis. Is this really a country we should be worried about?

Yes, according to North Korean expert, Professor Brian Myers, who suggests we should take them seriously in case their rhetoric inadvertently turns to war by accident.

‘We may see a thermo-nuclear war but it wouldn’t be because the North Koreans wanted it. It’s not their plan to unleash that, but it might come to that as a result of a disastrous miscalculation.’

Most telling are the stories from defectors talking about the work camps where bodies are buried in mass graves and the reality of living in this totalitarian regime is chilling. In South Korea Sweeney interviews an escaped doctor who explains that rank is no guarantee of protection in this oppressive society.

‘If you as a doctor had said, “We need more money for medicine for the patients”, what would have happened?’ ‘They would kill me that very day"

Offering a peak into this Orwellian country, Sweeney documentary is interesting enough from a voyeuristic prospective, but it's hardly ground breaking. Yes, Kim Jong Un comes from a long line of despotic nutcases. Yes, North Korea is a paranoid and warlike state. Yes, its inhabitants are routinely brain washed by 24hr propaganda. This is all common knowledge.

North Korea's "mystery" may have more to do with the fact it is such an utterly depressing place, very few people have actually bothered to visit it.

You can watch it on iPlayer for the next 12 months

Exploding Helicopter - The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

Bill Murray is Steve Zissou, a puffed up Jacque Cousteau wannabe, who was once the toast of the movie world but whose star status is on the wane. His glamorous undersea adventures had transformed him into a public figure with cover stories and celebrity endorsements (Adidas no less). His “Team Zissou” membership rings were more sought after than Blue Peter badges (ask your Dad).


Fame is fickle and the shine then began to peal from his celebrity once his films lost their allure with an increasingly disinterested public. Now cutting a pitiful figure he scrounges around for funding and releases his kitschy documentaries to ever diminishing returns. His wife (Angelica Houston) is on the verge of leaving him and his successful nemesis Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum) seems to pop up everywhere just to rub his nose in his decline.

To make matters worse, during the making of his latest documentary his best friend (Seymour Cassel) is eaten by the elusive, and perhaps even fictional, Jaguar Shark. This leads Zissou and his ragtag crew of oddballs on one last adventure to track down the mysterious creature, avenge his friend and perhaps offer them a chance at redemption.

Director Wes Anderson follows Rushmore and The Royal Tenebaums with another bittersweet comedy/drama dealing with his usual preoccupations of age and strained family relationships albeit this time set on the high seas and coloured with his usual off kilter sensibilities.

The story’s gentle humour and trademark quirks won’t be to everyone’s tastes and the plot does kind of meander along but it’s rather like being on a rolling river in a foreign country looking at the strange flora and fauna passing by. You end up being pleasantly surprised by every quirk that emerges from around the bend.

One such curveball is the helicopter explosion that graces the finale. Zissou and his long lost “son” Ned (Owen Wilson) fly out to sea in search of the Jaguar Shark from the deck of their ship, the Belafonte, in a bright yellow sea chopper.

Due to Zissou’s funding problems it seems the helicopter has not been maintained in quite a while and as soon as it is at cruising altitude they hear a snap which Ned believes is the pin on the rotor mechanism. There are no histrionics or flashy pyrotechnics, just a shot of Zissou’s Adidas as the sea looms up from below them. The stricken chopper and its passengers are then on a one way journey to Wetsville.

Artistic merit

As to be expected from Wes Anderson the scene is chock full of imagination. Rather then the easier and obvious ways to destroy a helicopter, be that CGI or old school explosives, Anderson chooses to try the less is more approach.

As the chopper crash lands in the water instead of the normal fire/flame combo the explosion is depicted using an avant garde fast cut of bubbles fizzing and filling the screen spliced with flashes of red and a bizarre a flash back sequence of the Owen Wilson in a cinema auditorium.

Instead of the usual crash/bang of an explosion there is just a high pitched hum and some weird atmospherics. Once the chopper has “exploded” we cut to Murray, cradling a stricken Wilson as burning debris bob around them. Exploding helicopter purists may be aghast at this unconventional direction but I found it all rather refreshing.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Its not often we see choppers go down due to inadequate maintenance. Not sure the insurance company will pay out on this one.

Do passengers survive?

Tragically, and in contravention of Exploding Helicopter’s Second Law of filmmaking, one of the good guys gets killed. Ned drowns after a head injury overcomes him, after first making a few oblique indie references, in the arms of the helpless Zissou.
Positives:

On top of fabulous performance by Murray and Goldblum this is an ensemble piece for which you would struggle to put together a better cast. Zissou’s crew of misfits includes a rare comic role for Willem Defoe as German engineer Klaus and Cate Blanchett as a National Geographic reporter imbedded within the team. Michael Gambon pops up as louche film producer and musician Seu Jorge appears as safety expert Pele dos Santos, who spends most of his time randomly playing samba versions of David Bowie songs on deck. It is completely bizarre but it works.

Mercifully this film is a CGI free zone with Anderson aiming for a hand made look with his emphasis on colour saturation and stop motion animation for the undersea elements. The whole thing feels like a pop-up movie made in kindergarten by skilled toddlers with film degrees.

I found it charming but could easily see why would not appeal to mainstream audience. You either buy into Anderson’s whimsy or you don’t. For those who didn’t enjoy it I’m sure another Adam Sandler movie will stink along in the near future which better satisfies your tastes.

Negatives:

When a movie shows this much charm and innovation it would be churlish to criticise it. So I won’t.

Favourite Quote:

Festival Director: (asking a question about the Jaguar Shark): That's an endangered species at most. What would be the scientific purpose of killing it?

Steve Zissou: Revenge.

Interesting Fact:

Most of the film was shot on the Italian Riviera where Bill Murray became a certified diver during the filming of the movie, logging over 40 diving hours between takes.