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I pondered about the first listing here - but it looks like they've had a festival release.
XXIII: Red Riding - Nineteen Seventy-Four (Julian Jarrold, 2009)
A decade or so back, a long in gestation drama was produced by the BBC, Our Friends in the North, centered on the friendship of characters played by Mark Strong, Christopher Ecclestone, Daniel Craig and Gina McKee. (McKee went on to Brass Eye, I'm not sure what happened to the others.) It wove together the collapse of the industrial north, political and police corruption, as well as family relationships, with the cream of British tv actors. Red Riding seems to be treading similar ground if only covering a decade, and focusing on Yorkshire rather than Newcastle. It's based on three books of a tetralogy by David Peace, which I've picked up before, but never read.
rather then make claims for its originality, you might see this as Life on Mars (minus the fantasy) crossed with The Long Firm (minus the cool). Eddie (Andrew Garfield - who was in Nho Who and is American) is a young journalist, back in Yorkshire for a new job on the Yorkshire Post and his father's funeral. He is investigating the story of a kidnapped girl, which he links to other cases, and suspects the trail point to a local property developer, as played by Sean Bean. But the police aren't so keen for him to investigate, and he rather foolishly falls into bed with the mother of the latest victim.
You can feel the character disintegrate, as the rain pours down and the Yorkshire Tourist Board weep into their puddings. At times - especially with the sex scenes - the editing is Roegian - and the chronology isn't as linear as it appears. The ending is - way hay - amphicatastrophic, although I believe Garfield reappears in future episodes. I can't see any consolation here - I was reminded at times of Get Carter, but that is a much lighter work with the casting of Caine (imagine if it had been Kenneth Cranham or Tom Courtney or even Ken Stott instead) and the leavening of one liners. This is never cool, never nostalgic, there no sense of the soundtrack album being flogged.
The script, by the way, is by Tony Grisoni, who has worked with Gilliam, especially the extraordinary Tideland
Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)
Like many people, I came to this with some trepidation, and with regret that Gilliam never made it - and I kind of felt that Gilliam was right not to. This is an awful lot of narrative to fit into a feature film, and the sort of miniseries that Channel 4 do over Easter feels more appropriate (except that they have been much fluffier). This clocks in at just shy of three hours - and it is not long enough. It is, however, long enough for a movie, and my main criticism of it is the sort of broken backed baggy monster that comic adaptations have become. It doesn't even really have the excuse that it needs the origin story and the adventure, as Iron Man did. Set piece - set piece - escalate. Computer game violence.
It a very neat credit sequence we note the emergence of vigilante justice which turns to masked avengers, the love-hate relationship of the American people to this, and the repeated election (contrary to US constitution, surely) of Richard Nixon. The sequence has some neat visual jokes - such as Andy Warhol and Truman Capote on superheroes. As the US teeters on the edge of nuclear war in the mid-1980s, someone is murdering retired superheroes. Rorschach (former child star Jackie Earle Haley) investigates and warns other superheroes, including Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson). As the nuclear clock ticks closer to midnight, the superheroes need to get their acts together to save the world.
I wasn't a fan of 300 (that many men in tight leather shorts should not have been so dull) and the fascist politics made me uncomfortable - here that's part of the point, as Alan Moore crtiques the superhero. The ending here has its cake and eats it - it's too long since I read the source material to see how far that's true there. I get the sense here that the end justifies the means, although maybe Nixon won't have it all his own way. I note also that in the original it was Robert Redford running for president, not Ronald Reagan, although a reference to a cowboy in the White House is timely, if too late. It's also a post 9/11 movie, with the twin towers of the World Trade Center surviving the attacks on New York.
The cast of unknowns keeps the costs down - Billy Crudup is an indie darling, Matt Frewer has never really topped Max Headroom - but much of the time it does feel like they are reading the dialogue off boards. But the seductions of comic relief are avoided (or are very dark and hardly comic) and all in all a lot better than I could have hoped.
I note the trailer for Lesbian Vampire Killers - that's the strongest language I can recall in a trailer. Will it come out before the Corden/Horne backlash?
Edit - no, this started with the reviews of their tv show.
Totals: 24 - Cinema: 6; DVD: 17; Television: 1
XXIII: Red Riding - Nineteen Seventy-Four (Julian Jarrold, 2009)
A decade or so back, a long in gestation drama was produced by the BBC, Our Friends in the North, centered on the friendship of characters played by Mark Strong, Christopher Ecclestone, Daniel Craig and Gina McKee. (McKee went on to Brass Eye, I'm not sure what happened to the others.) It wove together the collapse of the industrial north, political and police corruption, as well as family relationships, with the cream of British tv actors. Red Riding seems to be treading similar ground if only covering a decade, and focusing on Yorkshire rather than Newcastle. It's based on three books of a tetralogy by David Peace, which I've picked up before, but never read.
rather then make claims for its originality, you might see this as Life on Mars (minus the fantasy) crossed with The Long Firm (minus the cool). Eddie (Andrew Garfield - who was in Nho Who and is American) is a young journalist, back in Yorkshire for a new job on the Yorkshire Post and his father's funeral. He is investigating the story of a kidnapped girl, which he links to other cases, and suspects the trail point to a local property developer, as played by Sean Bean. But the police aren't so keen for him to investigate, and he rather foolishly falls into bed with the mother of the latest victim.
You can feel the character disintegrate, as the rain pours down and the Yorkshire Tourist Board weep into their puddings. At times - especially with the sex scenes - the editing is Roegian - and the chronology isn't as linear as it appears. The ending is - way hay - amphicatastrophic, although I believe Garfield reappears in future episodes. I can't see any consolation here - I was reminded at times of Get Carter, but that is a much lighter work with the casting of Caine (imagine if it had been Kenneth Cranham or Tom Courtney or even Ken Stott instead) and the leavening of one liners. This is never cool, never nostalgic, there no sense of the soundtrack album being flogged.
The script, by the way, is by Tony Grisoni, who has worked with Gilliam, especially the extraordinary Tideland
Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)
Like many people, I came to this with some trepidation, and with regret that Gilliam never made it - and I kind of felt that Gilliam was right not to. This is an awful lot of narrative to fit into a feature film, and the sort of miniseries that Channel 4 do over Easter feels more appropriate (except that they have been much fluffier). This clocks in at just shy of three hours - and it is not long enough. It is, however, long enough for a movie, and my main criticism of it is the sort of broken backed baggy monster that comic adaptations have become. It doesn't even really have the excuse that it needs the origin story and the adventure, as Iron Man did. Set piece - set piece - escalate. Computer game violence.
It a very neat credit sequence we note the emergence of vigilante justice which turns to masked avengers, the love-hate relationship of the American people to this, and the repeated election (contrary to US constitution, surely) of Richard Nixon. The sequence has some neat visual jokes - such as Andy Warhol and Truman Capote on superheroes. As the US teeters on the edge of nuclear war in the mid-1980s, someone is murdering retired superheroes. Rorschach (former child star Jackie Earle Haley) investigates and warns other superheroes, including Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson). As the nuclear clock ticks closer to midnight, the superheroes need to get their acts together to save the world.
I wasn't a fan of 300 (that many men in tight leather shorts should not have been so dull) and the fascist politics made me uncomfortable - here that's part of the point, as Alan Moore crtiques the superhero. The ending here has its cake and eats it - it's too long since I read the source material to see how far that's true there. I get the sense here that the end justifies the means, although maybe Nixon won't have it all his own way. I note also that in the original it was Robert Redford running for president, not Ronald Reagan, although a reference to a cowboy in the White House is timely, if too late. It's also a post 9/11 movie, with the twin towers of the World Trade Center surviving the attacks on New York.
The cast of unknowns keeps the costs down - Billy Crudup is an indie darling, Matt Frewer has never really topped Max Headroom - but much of the time it does feel like they are reading the dialogue off boards. But the seductions of comic relief are avoided (or are very dark and hardly comic) and all in all a lot better than I could have hoped.
I note the trailer for Lesbian Vampire Killers - that's the strongest language I can recall in a trailer. Will it come out before the Corden/Horne backlash?
Edit - no, this started with the reviews of their tv show.
Totals: 24 - Cinema: 6; DVD: 17; Television: 1
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