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Dearest Non-Spammers (in other words, my relatives and Big Dave) FBH has sold out. Yes, we've joined Shitter and are planning on royally clogging up the immense Shitterscope with day long ramblings on all kinds of film shenanigans so find us on @FilmBeefHash

We're sorry Bibi...we wholly agree with you...

Gatsby? Yes. Great??? My arse.

Following a generous outburst of donated Orange Wednesday tickets (many thanks to all who replied!) I went against all my principles and instincts and went to see ‘The Great Gatsby’. On leaving the cinema, I felt like I’d been slapped in the face with a sequinned, intoxicated fish by an Australian gigolo. The music may have been banging but my analysis is not. It wasn’t so bad as to make me raging mad at having spent my emergency beer fund money but it will still pretty awful. I could have seen ‘The reluctant fundamentalist’ for Christ’s sake! Although given the horrific events of yesterday, maybe it wouldn’t have been the most appropriate choice…

Back to the beef! My main beef with the whole project is: it just doesn’t work. I can see what Luhrmann was trying to do in adapting this classic of American literature for the YouTube generation, but do we really give a shit? It’s a cracking book, great story with phenomenal characters. In other words, a gift and dream for those fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to adapt it for the screen.  The end result leaves one feeling like they’d asked for fine French pastry and had been presented instead with cheap candy floss: empty and thoroughly dissatisfied. The first hour and half of the film is nothing but a bombardment of Disney-style fakery accompanied by wholly inappropriate music, diminishing any sense of the time in which the book is set. The music transforms the film into an incredibly elaborate and expensive fancy dress party, saturated with clichés of this infamous period of decadent American history. The extremely high quality of television offerings of a similar time period such as ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and ‘Mildred Pierce’, both dense, rich portrayals, makes Gatsby seem even more bawdy and cheap than it already is.

 The acting is decent but nothing special, with the exception of Isla Fisher who brings Myrtle to life with exceptional Technicolor vulgarity. ‘Home and Away’ was obviously just an elaborate warm up for this role. DiCaprio is good but not great in this role. He is mostly saved by the figure he cuts in the immense Brooks Brothers suits. Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan are both spectacularly annoying – they don’t ever seem to bring anything new to the screen. She’s always a mouse who can’t string a sentence together and, when she does, ends up crying buckets. He is wimpy and dull. Ugh, I’m getting fed-up and angry just thinking about it. Let’s move on…

Cannes, Cannes, Cannes – can anybody get me ticket for next year? If the line-up is anything like this year’s, I’m prepared to offer my services as a red carpet cleaner just to peek through the great doors during the films. Particularly looking forward to the release of Paolo Sorrentino’s ‘La grande bellezza’, ‘Only God Firgives’ (come on, Kristin Scott Thomas as some brassy American bitch in a blonde wig??? Deal breaker!!)...

...Alec Baldwin’s documentary ‘Seduced and abandoned’ and James Grey’s ‘The Immigrant’. Grey is never really talked about but his last film, ‘Two Lovers’, was truly brilliant -  an unusual and deeply moving love story with a fantastic cast which evoked a different side of New York family life. As for Sorrentino, I would give my right arm to work with/for him so please, Paolo, get in touch – I make a very decent pasta con piselli which could be adapted to an industrial scale to feed the crew of your next project. Think about it.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many trailers/preview videos for a lot of the “big boys” at Cannes  but we can expect tonnes of fascinating material to emerge in the forthcoming months – so, Harvs – GET FINANCING B-CLAT!!

I (was) so excited...

So, here I am: piña colada in one hand, crisp and dry in the other - yes, I have arrived at the Festival de Cannes...I may, of course, be following it from the Cote de tosseur (or Bournemouth as it is known in more worldly circles) but still - at least I won't risk running into Brigitte Bardot (who gives children nightmares...)

The main gossip so far (courtesy of Guardian Film - no, not a partner of film/beef/hash#...) is that Baz Lurmann's Gatsby is shite. I could have saved them the Ryanair fare - Carey Mulligan??!! PUR-LEASE!! The trailer alone reduces one of the most fascinating pieces of 20th Century literature to an, admittedly epic, fancy-dress car park rave. I have, of course, yet to see it but to be honest, it's not one I'll run to see. 

Whilst on the subject of disappointments, I went to see 'I'm so excited' last week. It would be fairer to surmise that I was so excited...

I'm a massive Almodovar fan, particularly of his earlier films which are tremendous, pant-wet tingly hilarious affairs with a nice dollop of black humour for good measure. I know they don't appeal to everyone...but to those people I reply - what's not to like? Great dialogue, some of Spain's greatest acting talent, incredible detail and a fantastic eye for colour. He's not afraid to poke fun at any aspect of life and will often turn it around to create extremely moving portraits of family life. 'I'm so excited' was pretty thin in comparison to his other films. The story follows a group of wacky mile-highers on their way to Mexico and the way in which Captain and crew attempt to calm them down when the plane runs into trouble over Toledo leading them to land in the abandoned La Mancha Airport (a mere notch on Spain's list of colossal financial cock-ups) 

It had some funny moments, but not enough to sustain it. Admittedly I missed the first 5 minutes due to a pint of beer, which bothered me. In my defence, it had been a hot day and I had been training in a call-centre, a fact which would justify the consumption of an entire bottle of vodka in my book. Back to the film...there was nothing wrong with the acting but I got the feeling that the dots didn't connect as far as character development and interaction as concerned. I seemed pretty random, even by Almodovar's standards. You never got the feeling that they were travelling in a plane. There was a deep sense of them being trapped in a Madrid studio which had been tarted up to look like a plane. In brief, I wish that I, like the characters, had been high on mescaline as it would have improved this mediocre offering no end. Sorry Pedro. I still love you!

From the King of Soho to the King of Swedish Cinema

It’s been a week of betrayal, Beecham’s 2-in-1, UKIP and dodgy sandwiches. Fear not, dear readers, the betrayal was taking place only in Westminster and at the Duke of York Theatre in the magnificent ‘Passion Play’ which I was fortunate enough to get a cheap ticket to on Friday. Once I had got over my amazement at actually being able to see the actors’ faces from my seat (an unusual occurrence!) I was able to sit back and get uncomfortable as a marriage broke down in spectacular fashion right in front of my very eyes. Brief plot summary: A couple who have been happily married for 25 years find themselves plunged into crisis when a saucy widow (with a penchant for stripping off) seduces the charming but rather clueless husband. The genius of this play is that the characters of husband and wife are also represented by two other characters who represent their inner selves creating a rich and contrasting notion of the inner struggles of the couple as they struggle to come to terms with the notions of betrayal, forbidden lust and boredom which has occurred within their unit. The acting is tremendous. The husband and wife teams have a great fluidity in the communication of movements, expression of feelings and humour. Although it may sound pretty dyer, the play is extremely entertaining and a great night out as well as a great piece. The set is perfect in its simplicity, allowing the actors to really let rip. The only let down was the hairstyles given to Zoe Wanamaker and Samantha Bond which were bloody awful. I know that this point is obscenely frivolous, but it bothered me. 'Passion Play' comes out this week and is on until the beginning of August – go and see it!

Following this pleasant distraction, I must return to the task in hand – ‘The Look of Love’! Well, more like ‘The Look of Drugs’ – I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much cocaine on screen, it makes Jack Nicholson’s character in ‘The Departed’ look like a casual sniffer. The film is essentially the story between the father and daughter pair of Paul and Debbie Raymond. He was an entrepreneur who was instrumental in the increased distribution of “Lad’s mags” and one of the great movers and shakers in the Soho club scene of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Through property ownership he became the richest man in Britain, a fact which occurred after the death of his beloved daughter to a drugs overdose in 1992. The film itself is extremely entertaining with a script as sharp as a butcher's knife, featuring some cracking one-liners delivered by the hilarious Steve Coogan. The only reservation I have about Coogan is that I sometimes find it difficult to separate his performances in other people’s work and his great comic alter-ego, Alan Patridge – I’m sure it’s something to do with the voice. I digress…the film itself is magnificent as Michael Winterbottom perfectly captures the glamorous yet seedy and almost claustrophobic world of the Soho club scene, complete with crappy dressing rooms and dusty furnishings.  Anna Friel gives a classy yet brassy performance as Raymond’s wife, Jean and Imogen Poots does a great job at capturing the fragile character of Debbie; a girl who, deep down, is painfully aware of her lack of talent yet constantly encouraged by the love of her father. Bottom line: if you enjoy a good biopic go and see ‘The Look of Love’ – you won’t be disappointed!

So, from the King of Soho to the King of Swedish cinema…it feels a little strange to discuss two such figures within the same post – I don’t think they can in anyway be compared except in their love and fascination with beautiful women and their immense success in their respective careers; Raymond as a porn and property baron and Bergman as one of the leaders in the change in the grammar of cinema in the 20^th Century. I must admit that, given the choice, I find Bergman the more fascinating of the two. I cannot believe that in my years of watching pretty much anything that passed in front of me, with a particular emphasis on European cinematic movements, Bergman was still one of the few that I had yet to discover. He is often compared with Antonioni due to the time span in which they operated, their daring and original approach to cinema, which continues to perplex audiences and scholars alike, and for their tendency to portray subjects related to women. This is, at least, how I perceive it.

Bergman is a rare beast, as are his fine team of actors. For the record I have only seen a few of the more mainstream films (Persona, Cries and whispers, Scenes from a marriage, Autumn Sonata and two thirds of Face to face (this was until the soundtrack became skewed and transformed a terrifying psychological exploration into a Swedish farce)). The dialogue is magnificent and utterly engaging. The characters reveal all facets of human existence. In the case of the films I have seen, family is at the heart of the drama. The characters in ‘Cries and whispers’ and ‘Autumn sonata’, for example, are emotionally frozen by their incapability to communicate their greatest frustrations, fears and injustices to those who should know them best. Even the rapport between husband and wife in ‘Scenes from a marriage’ is painfully ambiguous. Their declaration as a seemingly ideal couple in the opening scene of the film inevitably sets them up for failure as cracks start to show: the husband reveals that he is to leave his wife for another woman, they argue to the point of physical violence, they find it impossible to agree or, really, communicate on any level. Yet, despite the animosity which has grown between them, they are endemically linked. They are still intimate with each other and share a common feeling of a love which they cannot find with other partners.

This notion of “can’t live with them, can’t live without them” is also particularly strong in ‘Autumn Sonata’. The mother, played by Ingrid Bergman in one of her greatest performances, is a vile and selfish character who has completely abandoned her two daughters in her blind pursuance of a career as a classical pianist. The confrontation scene initiated by the daughter, played by Liv Ullmann, is thrilling and provides the audience with a real insight to Bergman the actress as opposed to Bergman the Hollywood beauty and legend. She reveals a palate of emotions and colours which she had, in my opinion, only reached touched on in the collaborations with Rossellini. It is certainly not the best of the (Ingmar) Bergman bunch, yet still a fascinating insight into the effects a great director can have on an actor. 

One must also admit that Bergman was incredibly lucky to have such a talented team surrounding him. The actors alone are incredible – their faces, voices and mannerisms are quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen whether it be in choral pieces such as ‘Cries and Whispers’ or maintaining the excruciating tension between two characters in ‘Persona’ or ‘Scenes from a marriage’. I have merely scratched the surface in my brief ideas and perceptions about Bergman but I would encourage anybody who is a sceptic to watch some of the above mentioned films. He has a reputation for turgidity and depression yet the dialogue and performances paint quite a different picture, capturing the humour and sometimes uncomfortable truth of human relationships.

Next time pills, spills and aeroplanes: YES!! THE NEW ALMODOVAR HAS LANDED!! I’M SO EXCITED!!