Carrie (1976)

“Thou shall not suffer a witch to live!”

This is a superb film. It really is. But it’s reputation as a horror film is not quite right. I don’t care how scary Sissy Spacek looks, emotionless and demonic as she gracefully, calmly and indiscriminately kills people , and in slow motion. At the dance. This isn’t a horror film. It’s a tragedy. And Carrie’s tragic flaw, sadly, is both her abusive upbringing and the savage bullying she endures. Abuse of children behind closed doors, and bullying in schools unchecked by adults, are two great evils of this and every age.

The film is shot superbly, with camera angles, viewpoints and (during the prom climax) slow motion being used to an effect of both suspense and beauty. I can understand why this is considered Brian De Palma's masterpiece, although one has to question why it was necessary to have a slow motion tour of the naked bodies of characters who are eighteen-ish years old, even if the actresses playing them are not so young. As a 42 year old man I'm not entirely comfortable with being forced like this to be a voyeur in a school changing room for girls.

That aside, though, the film is a faultlessly unfolding tragedy. Teenagers can indeed be that evil, and adults that negligent of the consequences- although, of course, Miss Collins in particularly doesn't deserve to die so horribly, which itself is the point. And, were I a religious man- which I am not- I would reserve a particularly nasty bit of Hell for people like Margaret White, religious fanatics who abusively raise their children in fear and a life-hating aversion of "sins" which hurt no one. Margaret is filled with a burning disgust of sex which, at first, makes me suspect an abusive past but no- from what we're told it's all fanaticism. The worst thing about her ex-husband having sex with her was that "I liked it". And the religion is no excuse for her being such a terrible mother, any more than it excuses sexism, homophobia or anything of the sort. Plenty of highly religious people are capable of doing none of these things. Interesting, though, that we are presented with no external tragedy in Margaret's life. I wonder whether the novel was any different?

A superb and very well directed tragedy that I had no business waiting until now to see, however weird it is to see a very young Nancy Allen as a bullying schoolgirl.

The Punisher (2004)

“Frank Castle is dead. Call me... the Punisher.”

Come back, Dolph Lundgren; all is forgiven.

The previous, straight-to-video outing for the Punisher may have been a bit silly, but it had charm and unwitting silliness beneath its po-faced veneer. This film isn’t and while, to those who are themselves po-faced, it may appear to be the better action film, it’s far more forgettable.

Oh, the set pieces are good; the big fight with the Russian, the opera scene, Howard Saint’s “Revenge” against his best friend and his wife; his fiery comeuppance. There’s lots of spectacular violence here. Trouble is, the film has three glaring faults.

The first is the casting. It’s harsh to say, but while Thomas Jane certainly has the acting chops he simply doesn’t have the charisma to be a leading man. Compare him to John Travolta, who does nothing but chew scenery all the way through but does so with real charisma- and in a role that sort of works when played as a cartoon baddie. There’s a charisma vacuum in the heart of the film.

Then there’s the fact that this is yet another bloody origin film, with far too much time spent on the deaths of Castle’s family including an interminable car chase. And that leads us to the third and most serious fault; by making this a film about Castle avenging his family, we lose everything about the Punisher as a character and his troubled morality as a bloodthirsty vigilante. The element of personal revenge takes this away and only at the end does he announce his “mission”. The film comes across as a generic revenge-themed action film and, when you play on this territory, there are better films around. A much more interesting film would have skipped the origin and addressed the issues around law and order vs. crude vigilantism that go right back to the Oresteia; this film fails to address that obvious theme at all.

A fairly decent action film, then. But a wasted opportunity.

Pulp Fiction (1994)

"I'm gonna get mediaeval on your ass!"

This is, quite alarmingly, the 384th film I've done for this blog. Just as alarmingly, it's the first of those 384 films to have been directed by Quentin Tarantino. The odds were against this- I'm quite a fan of his, and this is THE film for those of my generation- but here we are; I've finally got around to blogging the finest film of the '90s.

So what makes Pulp Fiction so superlatively good? Well, part of it is just bloody good directing- take the syringe sequence- but there's more to it than this. Tarantino famously appeals both to the Cannes-attending intellectual crowd and to those who just like to be entertained by a couple of hours of violence and cool, two things which Tarantino is very good at. How does he keep both groups happy?

Well, I tend to say that Tarantino is the Jimi Hendrix of cinema- a true virtuoso, but you could never call him pretentious. Clever though he is, he always retains that lightness of touch. There's a line he doesn't touch. So Pulp Fiction may have a non-linear narrative and a complex ensemble plot with multiple perspectives, but at the same time it manages to be easy to follow, an achievement in both scriptwriting and directing which is not easy. Also, the allusions to cinematic history may be many, but they never overshadow the film itself.

But, I think, what Tarantino does with Pulp Fiction in particular is to use dialogue differently. It's not just that the dialogue is cool and quotable, although it's both of those things, but that it is allowed to breathe. Conversations are allowed to meander and reach a natural end, as per real life, from that first conversation between Jules and Vincent about Amsterdam through the entire film. They are not truncated to fit the narrative and rhythm of the plot; rather, the dialogue sets the rhythm and is used to make sudden moments of action more dramatic.

So many performances deserve praise- Uma Thurman as the tantalising Mia, Samuel L. Jackson as the compelling Jules, comeback kid John Travolta actually being quite good (and getting top billing after all those years of obscurity), Harvey Keitel doing the cool character that probably inspired those recent insurance adverts (something I've only just realised). Not only that, but even Bruce Willis manages to be more-or-less acceptable.

This is one of the greatest films ever, end of. It shouldn't be so long until I blog my next Tarantino film...

Grease (1978)

"Rock Hudson lost his heart to Doris Day."

Yeah, right. Suuure he did.

I'm sure I'm not the only man to have been forced to watch this film by my better half but, cliched though it may be, that is how I came to see this, a film I wouldn't normally watch. You can thank Mrs Llamastrangler for this post.

First impressions are that this is a fairly straight-up romantic musical. There's a lot of humour, but none of it is metatextual; its a fairly straight take on the tropes of high school romance with songs. And there's nothing wrong with that; it works, although the ending, in which our lovers finally get together, feels somewhat rushed.

Second impression is that this may be set in the 1950's but, like Happy Days, it's giving us a very '70s version of the '50s, something not quite like the '50s as they were or, indeed, the '50s as shown in popular culture today. But for Grease, of course, the '50s were only as long ago as the '90s are to us, with the gap in social mores not looming so large.

Oh, and there's a certain obvious debt to Romeo and Juliet, although perhaps in this case more through the medium of West Side Story.

I won't say much about the songs; they do what they're supposed to do, but they're not really my think, and don't really evoke '50s rock 'n' roll, not even Greased Lightning. They're show tunes mixed with s little disco, which fits just a little oddly with the setting. But I'll make a load of observations...

1. So that's why Lauren Laverne called her band "Kenickie" back in the '99s. The penny drops. This is why all films that have permeated popular culture to this extent need to be watched, or pop culture references will go unrecognised.

2. I'm surprised they let Olivia Newton-John use her natural Aussie accent, especially as the script and characterisation make no real reference to her Antipodean origins.

3. American high schools seem to be conformist hells anyway. '50s American high schools are seemingly much worse.

4. The Blob is on at the drive-in. Nice!

5. Fanny Flagg!!! Titter. Chortle. Etc.

6. It's refreshing to see a PE teacher- Sud Caesar's Coach Calhoun- not being portrayed as a thug for once.

Musicals are not my thing, unless there a quirkiness to them, and this is a straight-aged musical. Still, it's well enough made, and at least I've finally ticked this film off. Just never make me watch it again.