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Reviews
Predators (2010)
Adrien Brody - Jewish action hero?
Not a great film, but something occurred to me about it that I haven't yet read about. A lot of people have commented on how Adrien Brody seems like an odd choice for the lead role as action hero. What no one seems to want to explain is why he should seem such an odd choice - the obvious reason being his peculiarly Jewish appearance. In Hollywood films Jews are stereotypically represented as victims - sensitive, artistic, intellectual, passionate maybe, but ultimately powerless in the face of big violent forces - usually Nazis. Brody's role in The Pianist is much more in this mold and served to fix his star image as the sensitive, long-faced, long-suffering Jew. Some recent films, however, have started to subvert this stereotype: Tarantino's Inglorius Basterds is the most obvious, and then there's Spielberg's Munich as well - films in which the Jews fight back, brutally.
At first sight Predators doesn't seem to have the obvious political context of these other films; but look more closely. Throughout the film, Brody's character - Royce - is cagey about giving away his background, and we never definitively discover his origins. When he meets the female character, Isabelle, however, he instinctively identifies her as "IDF" (Israeli Defence Force). They meet a whole bunch of others from different backgrounds, but Royce only bonds with Isabelle and at the end they walk off together, a semitic Adam and Eve in a hostile anti-Eden. The predators, in contrast, while being "aliens" are clearly coded as being - if not obviously "Islamic", then certainly generically "non-western" in appearance. Their desire to hunt and kill humans is almost entirely restricted to westerners - except for a token African and a Japanese character who I think speaks just once in the whole film.
With Adrien Brody - the Jew-as-hero along with his IDF sidekick, in opposition to the hordes of undifferentiated sadistic predators, the whole film then, can be read as a kind of politicised metaphor for Israel and its position in the front line of western civilisation against the forces of evil (Islam) - a kind of post-9/11 Zulu. I look forward to a sequel in which the predators and the humans agree to coexist happily in their own territories with mutually agreed boundaries . . .
Black Christmas (2006)
Disappointing remake - see the original
It was not a bad idea to attempt a remake of Black Christmas. The original, with all its scurrying around in a pre-historic telephone exchange, was ripe for updating. The new version, however, brings the technology up to date and keeps the creepy chocolate box setting, but loses just about everything else that was decent about the original. The storyline for the first film was slow, but successfully built up suspense as Billy picked off each of the girls one by one, while the police gradually tracked down his whereabouts. In the remake, the police are irrelevant - they can't help because there's too much snow - and so the whole thing after the first twenty minutes is focused on establishing a dreary line-up of red herrings while Billy, or whoever it is, quickly takes out each of the girls. One of the genuinely creepy things about the original was the way Billy's identity and motivation were never explained. Who was he? What was his connection to the house. Who is Agnes who he keeps groaning on about? The end of the film left the audience unsettled as Billy remained undetected and we still didn't know anything about him. For the new film the writers make the mistake of going all out to tell us everything and more about Billy and his uninteresting backstory. The flashbacks take us away from the tense situation in the house and are ultimately only confusing. Given their screwed up childhood, shouldn't we feel sorry for Billy and Agnes? Yes - but no, they want to eat your eyeballs.
It's not only Billy and Agnes who are one dimensional. None of the girls is given anything more than the most obvious of personality traits. Most of them even look the same, so except for the blonde "final girl," I couldn't tell you anything about what distinguishes each of them from one another. Again, this is in stark contrast with the original film in which the main characters are interesting and memorable. Margot Kidder in particular was striking as the loudmouth proto-feminist who drinks too much and suffers a memorable asthma attack. And then Olivia Hussey brought real credibility as well as a strange kind of Virgin Mary sexuality to the central role. Remarkably her arguments with her boyfriend focused on her wanting to have an abortion while he wanted to get married and start a family. Unthinkable in modern Hollywood - so this has to be turned into arguments about her boyfriend cheating on her with one of the girls. Depressingly unimaginative.
The endings of the two films are again worth comparing. The original ends with a striking but subtle twist. The ringing of the phone as the camera slowly zooms away from the attic window provided a genuinely "black" ending, signifying the death of everyone in the house even as we see a policeman guarding the front door. The new film has the predictable - "s/he's not really dead - look behind you" - moment. And then it all just ends, as if the film-makers knew that by this time no one in the audience would really care anyway.
For a movie that sends you to bed over Christmas locking your doors and shivering at the creaky sounds coming from upstairs, settle down with some sherry and mince pies with the DVD of the original Black Christmas.
Soylent Green (1973)
a great surprise - highly enjoyable.
I watched this film sort of by accident, having bought it as the B side on The Omega Man DVD. The Omega Man was a bit of a disappointment - except for the beginning, which was clearly the inspiration for 28 Days Later, the rest of it is just the stuff of TV movies. But Soylent Green is in a whole other league. I bet this is one of Tarantino's favourites. There are at least 3 scenes in the film that I've never seen anything like before. Heston casually getting into bed with the "furniture" while discussing something else completely unrelated! A whole crowd of people being scooped up by a fleet of mechanical diggers! A priest taking confession and being shot by the confessor. Ok maybe that's been done since - but there aren't many films that are so consistently original like this. And what the heck is going on between Heston and Edward G. Robinson? Is this the most unlikely gay couple ever, or what? Luckily, I saw this film without knowing the ending - which apparently is rare. Then I watched it again, and enjoyed all the little clues that make the long early scenes worthwhile. A very nice script - and some great sets too. Just when you thought you'd seen everything . . .
Birth of a Nation (1983)
Harrowingly apocalyptic representation of a British comprehensive school in the early 1980s
One of a series of films made for television, scripted by David Leland in the early 1980s - all of them absolutely classic. The most well known of the films is Made in Britain starring Tim Roth as a glue-sniffing, car-thieving skinhead going completely off his head. Another, Flying into the Wind, was until recently an English Literature examination text - about a family who take their son out of mainstream education, and the legal battle that ensues. Unlike Made in Britain, Birth of a Nation is not available on video, as far as I know. Which is a shame because I remember it as being equally powerful, and broader in scope. Jim Broadbent (Oscar winner in 2002) plays Mr. Figg, an embattled teacher in a secondary school the institutional credibility of which is rapidly falling apart. A great scene shows him teaching sex education, writing the words "W***ing" and "Masturbation" on the blackboard in huge letters and then leading a class discussion on the subject. While Mr. Figg just about makes it through the day, others are less able to take the strain. The school is besieged by ex-pupils who make periodic vandalistic raids on the buildings. Towards the end a bottle of acid is thrown from the school roof, smashing on the Chemistry teacher's head.
This was great "State of the Nation" television. Unfortunately, tv producers no longer have the guts or the inclination to sponsor this kind of provocative drama. And Mike Newell has somehow turned into the director of Four Weddings And a Funeral! Sigh . . .