David Sillén’s Movie Blog

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My teacher in film studies once warned us that we were going to hear one question many more times than we’d want: “Which is the best movie ever made?” And for a while he’d say that it depends, and they can be great in different ways and son on. But eventually he felt he had to put his foot down and declared that Hitchcock’s Vertigo is the best film ever. His lecture followed a screening of the movie, and afterwards I had no arguments against his statement. Still, he was completely obsessed about Vertigo, he told us, and I figure there has to be many such cases (and I’m not talking seeing a movie three or four times in a couple of weeks, but all the time). I think I have yet to find a movie which I just cannot stop thinking about and analyzing and pestering my friends about. I do that about new cell phones, but no movie just yet. I think.

But if I were to pick a favorite movie I think it’d be 2001. I think it’s perfect, from the little details through the whole experience. I love looking at individual scenes, like the awesome running session on the rotating deck or the space station docking. And to watch it through, with its slow but hypnotic pacing, is always wonderful. At the end, as the Star Child is looking at me to the music of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I feel humbled by the scope of this existence. I sit and think about what we are and where we’re going, where we’ll be in a hundred, thousand, million years. Then I usually have coffee and wait a while before revisiting it.

2001 isn’t the only movie to make me think about the larger issues seriously. I went to see Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain twice two or three years ago, and it still has an impact on me. I think it was the way it made me think of death; I’m always terrified of that final meeting with someone, when you know it’s the last time and it’s an everlasting farewell. It keeps me from sleeping a lot if times. Being a complete atheist, there is no help to find in any religion, either. But after The Fountain, I find myself feeling more OK about it. It’s in the title really: the water runs out, then back, then out again. In different shapes, at different times, but it’s always the same water. Maybe it’s pretentious as hell, but I think it’s really profound in its simplicity. And yes, it brings me some comfort.

And on the light note of inevitable death, there is also Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. This is more about what you do when alive than what happens to you after death, but it’s in the same ballpark as the aforementioned movies. I wrote a couple of months ago that I can’t describe it fairly, but basically it tries to tackle what a life is and what it is to live it. It does so with a plot folded on itself a number of times, and with striking imagery and performances (by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Samantha Morton among others).  I would say it is one of my favorite films ever, certainly of this decade. And if you haven’t seen it, please do.

I think I am already disagreeing with my former teacher here; I can’t pin down a best movie ever. These are just some of my favorites, in the coping-with-life/death/existence genre. There are other ways to make great movies, for instance by just commenting on recent culture like Tarantino does so well. Or by being simply technically perfect, like… well, 2001 but I guess any Kubrick film would do. Or just being hilarious, like Life of Brian. Or, they just can give you a cute overload and fill you with joy, like the one and only, wonderful, amazing Babe. Now that's a movie right there.

I’m getting real sick of this. I love writing, but I don't ever seem to find anything interesting to blog about. And if I do, someone else has already written about it (usually better than I would) so any input I make is just a waste of time and space.

But I lack the energy to care right now, and maybe there is one topic that I feel is less often discussed than I'd wish: remakes, and how they relate to the originals. Well, I guess I don't mean less often, because God knows I've had many, many conversations (mostly debates) about remakes. But I don't necessarily find those talks very rewarding, as they usually result in a general discussion about whether remaking a film are ever OK or not. I just think it depends on the quality of each movie. But sure, if basically everything is made in the exact same way as the original, one may ask if the effort's really worth it. Then again, that's where the most common point of disagreement lies. Let me elaborate.

The most recent, and most heated, topic for my part is Martin Scorsese’s The Departed and the Hong Kong film on which it based, Infernal Affairs by Andrew Lau. There are a couple of reasons to think Scorsese's film is a complete waste of time and effort; the plot is almost exactly the same, for instance. And what is it, three or four years between Infernal Affairs and The Departed? I mean, De Palma's Scarface basically has the same plot as Hawks's (with some new stuff added), but at least it's 50 years between the two. That alone would be enough to make it a different movie. Why do a remake as soon as Scorsese made The Departed?

Well, I love The Departed, though I was a bit disappointed that the plot was so similar to the original. But as I thought about it, it wasn’t so much the similarity that bothered me but that I actually hadn’t been that impressed by the plot of Infernal Affairs. What was really cool about it was the premise: bad guy good guys’ camp and vice versa. I’m not sure what I expected, but I wasn’t that blown away is all. So there, I kind of like Infernal Affairs and I think The Departed is a great film. Many people hold that, at the most, I can feel the same way about both films, and certainly not like the remake more than the original. I don’t think this can be applied as a general rule.

Before seeing The Departed, I remember hoping for a more exciting plot than the one in the original.  I didn’t get it, but a good thing about it is I can use The Departed as an example of how different the same story can be told in different ways. So why do I like The Departed so much more? To an extent I think it’s because I’m used to American movies, to be honest; I do prefer the gritty style of Scorsese’s film than the more polished and stylized of Lau’s. Also, by not knowing Cantonese, the language of Infernal Affairs, I’m sure I miss out on a lot of great writing as well (of course, that’s my problem and not Lau's...).

But I also liked the setting of The Departed. Screenwriter William Monahan really did a great job by placing the plot firmly in Boston; this is where a lot of remakes go wrong I think, because the exact same plot is simply relocated and expected to work as well. Monahan fleshes it out by giving the main characters personal histories, so that they feel like characters and not just 2-D copies. The way the actors deliver their lines from the already great script is also something I just love (I think my personal favorite is Alec Baldwin asking Matt Damon if wants to have a smoke… funnier than it sounds). And, just in case my thoughts on this aren’t clear already, a screenplay is a lot more than just plot.

I can go on and on about this so I’ll stop soon. What I want to say is just that there are many good remakes out there, as well as many bad original films. Some remakes are unintentional, like Infamous. It covered the same story as Capote, but writer-director Douglas McGrath didn’t know about that one. He was crushed when he found out that his labor of love was already being made, but went ahead anyway. I haven’t seen Infamous, but supposedly it’s a very good movie too. And I the end I think I’d rather see two good movies with similar stories than two bad with different ones.

I've been building up a rage the last couple of days since the death of Michael Jackson. I was never a real big fan, though I guess nobody could ever resist Billie Jean, Thriller, Smooth Criminal and a bunch of other songs. But he has always been present throughout my life, on posters, MTV and, of course, in the tabloids. It felt very strange too learn about his passing, almost like he was an acquaintance. Bullshit of course, but it says something about the impact the guy made on culture and society.

The tabloids, sadly, was where you saw Jackson the most during the last decade of his life. His, to say the least, interesting way of life was apparently too interesting to stay away from. Be it Darfur or Iran, nothing could be more interesting than MJ behaving weirdly. This kind of attention stands in stark contrast to the reporting of the last couple of days. Now the media just loves the guy, he was a frontrunner, a groundbreaking artist, a legend. How about telling him that while he was still alive, then?

I saw this documentary about him yesterday, where some asshole from the Sunday Mirror or whatever was talking about Jackson. This piece of shit 'journalist' was actually accepted as some fucking authority just because he thrives on gossip. Among the crap this dickweed spewed out of his rotting innards was something along the lines of "a public figure has to take the good with the bad". Why the fuck is that, exactly? Why does being well-known automatically free the press (and readers, you gossip-addict fuckers out there) of responsibility. It was like this slam-crawler was saying it was Jackson's fault that they were writing about him. And what's more, he was saying this about someone who never really had a fucking choice!

As the days go by, the media seem to have forgotten the pivotal role they played in fucking up Mr. Jackson's life. I've been listening to Scream and Tabloid Junkie, two songs that clearly pleads to the media to back off. Did they? No, no, no, they had to report these issues of infinite fucking public interest! And all the readers just had to buy this massive dump, didn't they? Do these people really think they were just observing bystanders?

It's bad enough what happened to Michael Jackson, but he's just one extreme example. There are so many people out there right now who are having their lives shattered by vulture celebrity press. And as long as people keep buying the bullshit 'news', there will be more tragic endings to many stories.

Maybe I exaggerate. In the end, who cares if someone feels a little bad, right? I mean, we've gotta have something to talk about on the coffee break. How silly of me to think people were better than that.

I haven't seen Terminator Salvation yet, and my thoughts are mainly about why I am not that keen to do so. I've seen trailers and clips of course and they look pretty cool. But I've felt really sceptical as well, for some reason which I couldn't quite identify, until today. It was kind of the same feeling that I have for the Star Wars prequels, that the whole idea feels... well, just wrong. Today I caught up with myself when I read this in an Empire review: "For 25 years fans have waited to see the future war between man and machine hinted at in The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day". And it hit me that no, I really have NOT been waiting to see the future war. To me, that future war was always just a backdrop to the stories set in present-day, nothing to be thoroughly explored. It's like The Matrix movies: the cool thing about The Matrix WAS THE FUCKING MATRIX! I thought the fights in bullet time, the philosophy of human consciousness, THAT was the movie. The whole dystopian reality was important as a contrast but not a movie in itself. By pulling that real world to the center of the action as they did in the sequels, the Wachowskis effectively made completely different movies. The first one was an awesome, thoughtful, martial-arts action flick, whereas the sequels (especially Revolutions) were simple sci-fi war with nothing new but only Star Wars and Aliens rip-offs. The backdrop, when initially made as a backdrop, simply shouldn't be dragged onto center-stage because then you'll see it was never an actual painting in its own right (ummm... metaphor). So that's why I feel the way I do towards this movie (potentially new franchise).

But another big problem I have is that it's been so long since the original movies that any attempt to continue the story would feel misguided. I guess I could have bought this if it had been part of one coherent series. Then it would have been a small but awesome action-thriller first, then the big-action freakout, and a concluding war movie finale. Now, with T3, the TV show and this new one, it all feels so arbitrary that I just don't care about what happens. "Hey, uh, this script, you think we can throw in some familiar names and call it T4?" That's exactly how I felt about Star Wars, that the original series are all of a sudden described as setups to something even bigger. Something which, as I wrote before, was never there to start with.

No, I'll stick to Transformers 2 this summer. Oh? Well, FUCK YOU TOO!

Finally. I've called Gothenburg, Los Angeles, Maine (by mistake), London, and back to Gothenburg. Funny thing, the answers I wanted could be provided by the people in Gothenburg all the time! I should forward my phone bill to them.

But first, a little teaser. I wasn't intending to do this today, call around and ask for explanations. Today I just thought I'd go to the Comedy Central website to watch some episodes of The Daily Show. Perfect breakfast TV. It's so convenient, you can choose to watch full episodes or browse youre favorite clips or interv... WTF!

"Yesterday, April 28, we restricted access to full episodes of The Daily Show for several countries outside of the U.S. We did so at the request of the content licensees who control the television broadcast rights to the show in those respective territories."

OK, this fucking does it! I called up the Swedish network that broadcasts The Daily Show over here. No one was available, at least no one who knew anything (those people seem to be absent a lot for some reason). Then I heard the hissing voice of an old friend... Paaaraamooount... Paaaraamooount. Yes, I thought. Paramount. They had nothing to do with this, of course, but I felt they embodied the kind of authority I've had it up to here with. I wanted to scream at someone.

As I mentioned earlier, there turned out to be a nice guy in Gothenburg who could answer my questions. Of course, they're kind of tied up by the national broadcasting dates. Since Paramount over here covers all the Nordic countries, the DVD can't be released until the show's been broadcast in all of these. I informed him of how long ago it's been since I visited Finland or Norway, but I guess the issue's more complicated than that. But I really was curious to know how he felt about the fact that Dexter 2 is available in the UK since March. He didn't think that March 3rd and June 24th (that's when we get it here) were that far apart. Well, since it was released in the US in August, I think even March is pretty late. Again, that's because of the broadcasting networks over here. Paramount would be very happy if the shows ran more simultaneously so that they could release it fast and get rid of parallel import (perhaps some piracy as well?).

OK, so all I've got to do now is call around to the national networks to ask them why the fuck they're lagging their asses behind. That'll be fun. But first, I'll see what this thing with The Daily Show is all about.  

Maybe it's over the top to refer to Roger and Me, as I think Michael Moore had a more serious issue to debate. Still, my attempts to get through to Paramount follow a similar dramatic pattern, so I'll go with it anyway.

If you haven't been orbiting Mars the past months, you'll know there's been a quite huge debate over illegal downloading and copyright taking place. I have issues with both sides in this debate, since I think the big media companies are acting like vicious thugs and that the "pirates" are behaving like sniveling parasites. I'm trying to annoy both parties as much as I can, which I'll get back to later. First I'd like to go through some general thoughts on the matter.

I actually think one should pay for services one uses (my day job is about that). Movies, music, basically any cultural expression takes time and effort to produce. Nowadays with the internet, distribution can be done a lot cheaper and more effectively, sure (probably why the unnecessary middlehands i.e. big corporations are acting so harshly now). But making the stuff still doesn't come easily, or to a low cost. To just dismiss that hard work by clicking, waiting, watching and deleting, well I think that's arrogant, to say the least.

I think excessive downloading is also greedy, as people seem to fill up their computers with shit they can't possibly consume in a lifetime. Why they do that is a mystery to me, but I suspect it's a status thing. The weird thing is that with that, the whole argument that immaterial goods can't be valued as material goods is undermined. You say it's just code, yet you want as much as possible of it on your hard drive. That's hypocrisy. Mind you, this is not so much about the right people getting paid as it is about pulling your own weight. I know I'm extremely lutheran for an atheist, but I think it's just about decency in the end.

Though I have real issues with the "pirate lobby", I think it's astounding how the big companies are acting. Instead of reaching out, seeing what opportunities are out there, they're unbelievably passive as to adapting to new models and technology. While ignoring popular demand, they try to shut people up with mob-like behavior towards a few. Arrogant, was the word, and in the end dangerous.

Speaking of arrogance again, that word pretty much sums up my experience with Paramount over the past four months. Trying to irritate "pirates"(by actually wanting to pay) as well as Paramount (by being a pestering consumer), I thought I'd get the best of both worlds. I'm a huge fan of Dexter, of which I've only seen season 1 (out of 3). The reason for that is that the second season aired on lousy times and the DVD won't be released until June. It's been two years since it aired in he US, aired in Sweden last fall, and still it takes an additional six months before I can buy it. There is all this talk about "legal alternatives", of which there turns out to be none. Not OK.

So, I thought I'd call up Paramount to ask them why they behave in this manner. Their Swedish headquarters in Gothenburg tells me that that decision is made in Los Angeles (they also say that "well, a decision is a decision and you can't do much about that"). Fine. So I call L.A., where I'm told they'll get back to me by phone. I can hear a collective "Yeah, right!" right now, and sure enough, no one called back. I call again a few weeks later and now I'm told I should talk to the London office. Great, I call London and get directed by the operator to an answering machine. A couple of days later, I call again. The operator asks me if I'm starting a new business. "No, no", I tell the London operator, "I'm calling as a private consumer". I realize that "international DVD distribution" can have different meanings to different people. Having settled that, the operator says that this matter has to do with licensing, something I'll have to take up with the Swedish office. I tell her I've done that, numerous times. I thank her for her time.

Still no reasonable explanation, no customer care at all. Just silence and redirecting. Thank you, Paramount.

I'm kind of pissed off today, so I thought I'd let off some steam by cursing a whole lot. Let's get started.

Why is it some words are taboo? I mean, who decided that "fuck" is a dirty word? "Cocksucker", "cunt", "shit", "asshole"? I get that some of these are found disturbing. But why are they more disturbing than, say, "vagina", "penis" "anus", "sexual intercourse", "fecies" or "oral pleasurer"? Those are words you can say on TV, but they mean the same thing. Certainly the very insulting term "motherfucker" can be found disturbing, but that's rather because of it's explicit meaning. This leads into something else: of course it's an insult to suggest that someone is having intercourse with his or her female parent (at least for sane people). But why is one to be insulted by being likened to a reproductive organ? If it hadn't been for those, or the widely practiced act of bringing them together, we wouldn't be here right? As for the "oral pleasuring", I gather that's a pleasant experience for most people involved. The fecies expression, well... sure droppings are smelly, mushy, generally nasty (boy, I had this unbelievable session on the can the other day!). But their nutrition value is high and has helped us cultivate soil and grow food, giving life! These are basically good things, then.

The only insulting thing about these accusations has to be that quite often they're just not true. They're not necissarily bad things in themselves, but calling someone a dick is just not accurate. The word itself is hardly something bad or shameful. Well... no, I think I'll hold that thought, I've written enough already.

Still, these words are all useful to underline the severity of a situation. If overused, they risk losing their, shall we say, splendor. So of course it's an enormous paradox that parents tell their kids not to use these words, or that TV companies bleep or modify them. I mean, the more you use them, the less dirty they become. Maybe that's why they're tabbo though; think of the frustration we would suffer if really angry and only able to express the equivalent of  "Now I'm really, really mad!" Wouldn't do at all, would it?

So it's as simple as that - dirty words aren't disliked at all, but quite the contrary. All the censoring and stuff is actually a way of protecting them from semantic devaluation, not protecting our youngsters from foul language. That's pretty clever, I find.

But these colorful linguistic tools are still in peril, and I think we should start thinking about saving them. The best way is to add more words to the dirty family. I think, for instance "dubya" should be one of the worst. I'll try and think of some more, and feel free to suggest some yourselves!

Well, you cocksucking asshole cunt bastard pieces of shit, take care.

I saw a documentary a couple a days ago called Not Quite Hollywood. It was about Australian exploitation movies, "ozploitation" if you will, which were pretty popular mainly in the 70's. At first I found the whole concept kind of off-putting, like trashy porn. But as I watched, I thought some of the movies actually seemed pretty good, and it once again dawned on me how easy it is to be prejudiced when it comes to film. Ever so often I've heard dismissals of movies because they're Swedish or that they are romantic comedies or whatever. But seriously, would you say Songs from the Second Floor is pretty much the same thing as this piece of shit? Or that Four Weddings and a Funeral is "just another Hugh Grant-movie" (whatever that means)? If so, I guess you make up your mind about people the same way, not by their personalites but where they're from or how they look. No? Didn't think so. See? When you judge a movie because of genre or country of origin, you're essentially a racist.

I went to see Watchmen yesterday, I'd been wanting to for some time. I hadn't read the book when I first heard of it, and I still haven't, but I was curious about it. I'd gathered that this wasn't about traditional superpowered heroes with high standards, but actually quite the opposite. That's what intrigued me, that this story seemed to take on superheroes as the deeply disturbed people they must be for dressing up and going crazy. And the visuals looked cool as well.

As we left the theater, a friend said he was pretty disturbed, that he felt dirty after watching Watchmen. And it wasn't due to the graphic violence, but rather (if I understood him correctly) the nasty personalities of most of the Watchmen. I don't want to reveal too much, but some of these guys are definitely not people you want close to you. You'd think a superhero would take some caution not to hurt innocent civilians, but to these guys that's not an issue. One of the characters says it out loud that people need protection, from themselves, and that seems to allow any means to him. That is, I think, one of the most thought-provoking aspects of Watchmen, the idea that superheroes are essentially anti-democratic vigilantes. On the other hand, people don't seem to mind that as long as they're not harmed. I think it's refreshing with a movie that actually brings this up, because you stop to think about more than just the usual good vs. evil setup.

Come to think of it, The Dark Knight did a similar thing. I remember one friend who wanted to provoke me by implying that Batman was a bit like Bush; the Big Brother device which Batman uses in the film to track the Joker is obviously meant to promote the Patriot Act. Well, I still think that's a bit too simple, but it's clear that both these movies go further than other superhero movies by questioning our love for superheroes. As to whether or not they actually advocate some disturbing ideologies, I'm not as sure.

But even if movies do contain some nasty messages, does that alone make them lesser movies? I don't think so: just look at Lord of the Rings, which holds some of the most conservative, nationalist and damn-near racist standards I've seen in any major movie the last decade. It's great entertainment nonetheless. Look at the Harry Potter story which basically states that authority is good, as long as it's the right one. Again, great fun to watch. I just think it's important to keep these things in mind while seeing movies, and not disregard uncomfortable issues by saying that it's just a movie. But that's a good thing; watching a movie should keep you thinking, it should be an interactive experience in some sense.

Just as a last thing, I just realized I wrote about two things here: movies that are openly conservative without giving it a single thought (LOTR, Harry Potter), and movies that are more like mirrors being held up to us, asking if we like what we see (The Dark Knight, Watchmen and the never-to-be-concluded The Golden Compass trilogy). I have to be honest and say while the former category can be well-made, only the latter can also be intelligent. So I will probably always like that one better.

And I'm sorry for the lack of focus in this blog post, it was written in some hurry.