"Hitchcock", zero suspense, dull biopic

Hitchcock

Biopics can be a real torture or, when memorable, a fantastic excuse to discover or re-connect with the film's subject. But there's a third "category", which is usually the most common: a movie that leaves you completely indifferent. Not annoying, but really insipid. "Hitchcock" could be the perfect example. Reminded me to "My Week with Marilyn". Take a cultural myth/icon and put it on an unsubstantial movie.

In this sort of films, it doesn't really matter if you are a fan or a hater, because there's not a real attempt of offering any insight of the biopic's character. That is the case of "Hitchcock". Worse, this film doesn't want to talk about the way Sir Alfred Hitchcock approached cinema, being labelled as the "Master of Suspense" (not me). Doesn't aim to show his peculiar relations with her cast (particularly women), wife, or studios. Doesn't pretend to offer any real tension or obsessions. It's just a expensive tv movie, suitable to anyone. Entertaining enough to keep you going, but nothing else.

"Hitchcock" biggest failure is the lame plot. The whole movie is focused on the director's battle to make "Psycho". Yep, director Sacha Gervasi probably believed that having such a movie classic (not for me) as the plot's subject he didn't have to care about the screenplay. Wrong. From the very beginning we are in front of a game of incoherencies, plotholes. Gervasi chooses a supposedly very dramatic scene that should justify why Hictchcock needed to do "Psycho"... forgetting that before that moment all we had was a triumphant director presuming of their latest success, "North by Northwest". Gervasi gives Vera Miles a shot, on which we assume there was a very "special" issue regarding her relation with the director, then her character gets almost abandoned. I could go on. And the nightmarish scenes on which Alfred "lives" inside the novel that inspired the film are ridiculous.  

With such an empty script, what keeps the movie alive is the marital/work tension between Alfred and his wife Alma. Not because it has any particular strength, but at least it does have coherency and a very solid actress, Helen Mirren, carrying the weight of the film on her reliable shoulders. The rest of the impressive cast does what they can. Good actors on secondary roles like Toni Collette or Michael Wincott have very unrewarding lines. Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh and Jessica Biel as Vera Miles have barely no space to be more than mannequins. On a side note, its a crime that two of the most beautiful actresses look that unattractive on screen. 

And of course, Anthony Hopkins as the "great man himself". Well, he looks like a perfect caricature of the man. You can put all the prosthetics you can, gain weight, and perfect voice and mannerisms as much as you can. That will only mean a fantastic recreation of the person's aesthetics. But you still need a direction, a purpose, a turmoil to get the character alive. Hopkins tries, and as the gifted actor he is, he saves dozens of scenes... but it's still an artifice. He is the epitome of the whole movie, pointless, weak, lifeless. Doesn't harm, but save it just for killing time.  

SCORE: 5/10

"Sunset Strip", on entertainment street

Sunset Strip  
Beefeater In-Edit 2012, Chapter IV

Our fourth music documentary during the In-Edit Festival was the one with less expectations as, being honest, we didn't have any clue about what we were going to find. In that sense "Sunset Strip" was a nice surprise, quite fun and smooth entertainment on one of the most famous (arguably the most) streets on the planet, Sunset Strip, aka The Strip.
 
The documentary proposes a historical ride through the quite wild story of The Strip. From its origins, the not so glamorous road that connected Hollywood studios to a developing area that soon would become Beverly Hills in the roaring '20s, to the new Millennium. There's music, cinema stars, gangsters, hippies, drugs, hair metal, decadence, counterculture, glamour, scary parties, comedy, more drugs, and neon lights.... All is narrated in a very lightweight way, just a glimpse, a little bit of the whole, so the film can keep flowing, peppered by the comments of an impressive number of celebrities (even too many in my opinion) and people who were there (and others who weren't).

"Sunset Strip" doesn't offer any real insight or much substance. For the good and the bad. Some of the opinions are more passionate, amusing or significant than others. It's not the same hearing former mobsters talking about that policeman who made their life impossible than hearing Kelly Osbourne (what?). It's not the same hearing Lemmy or Billy Corgan than Slash (uggh). Johnny Depp (at least he used to be interesting) than Keeanu Reeves. I think you get it now. Also, some parts are way more absorbing than others. The mafia, the story of the clubs or the bloom of live music is much more engaging than the Chateu Marmont's or the comedians parts. But despite being somewhat uneven in the weight of its parts, or its unconventional mixture of footage, opinions, storytelling, live music and animations, it keeps going with fluency. It would be close to being confusing or chaotic, but believe it works because its doesn't attempt to go deeper. 

If something is made clear on the documentary, is that Sunset Strip's story is made by cycles. It's arguable if there's space for a new rebirth of the street today, despite director Hans Fjellestad tries to convince us that the new generations of artists and club owners are injecting new life to The Strip. That sort of latest minute eulogy looks forced, as the director doesn't show us the reasons behind that argument, and doesn't help the film coherency either. But I don't think "Sunset Strip" deserves to be blamed at all. It works just fine as a quite entertaining and pleasant, unpretentious carousel of stories on a very particular street.

SCORE: 6/10

"Killing Yourself To Live", Myth America?

Killing Yourself To Live: 85% of a True Story- Chuck Klosterman

Misleading advertising on a book again. After enjoying "Fargo Rock City", a work where auto-biography and music are blended with pleasant results (yet also some concerns) it was a matter of time I was going to read another Klosterman's. "Killing Yourself To Live" seemed the ideal choice, being built around the premise of Spin's magazine feature on death rock icons. A road trip through "Myth America" by a passionate music commentator looked great. But that's not what the book exactly offers.

Unfortunately, America's most famous rock and roll death places, from where the plane with Big Bopper, Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly crashed to where Kurt Cobain's shot himself, is a mere excuse to talk, primarily, about something else.

That something else is, of course, Chuck Klosterman. "Killing Yourself..." is in reality a not very subtle dose of the writer's obsessions, in particular his troubled relationships and the confusion provoked by them. This might sound like Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity", this time on a car through the States, but believe me, it doesn't have the British's book charms. And no, I won't say this can be compared to gonzo journalism either, even if there's some booze and drug situation involved. No way.

Don't get me wrong, the book is very enjoyable and, thanks to his recognisable prose and what he is talking about, meaningful to many. But Klosterman has a serious issue with digression. "Fargo Rock City" suffered from that. But this one has several parts where its practically ruined because of that. The reader will quickly have the feeling there's no focus.
 
And damn it (sorry) but Klosterman can really be engaging when he talks about music. The best parts on "Killing Yourself..." to me are about Radiohead's Kid A (spectacular), the Chelsea Hotel or the brave (and so true) comment on Nirvana's end and the creation of Kurt Cobain's myth. But he shifts, better said hides, these sorts of opinions in between an overwhelming amount of pages that go back and forth through his three most significant relationships by then.... and the music becomes just the background of the book, sadly.

Why the death of a rock star is the "smartest" move any musician can do? Why do they matter that much to us? I'm afraid we didn't know. Klosterman wasn't that interested in his own premise.

SCORE: 5,75/10

"Everyone Loves You When You're Dead", inside celebrities' mind

Everyone Loves You When You're Dead:  Journeys into Fame and Madness- Neil Strauss

Can you imagine? Having the chance of interviewing every major star of the music industry, among many other celebrities. Writing articles/critics/reviews on music and being read by milions and respected by thousands. I would love to have Neil Strauss' job. I would kill for it. That was my thought... until I read this book.

"Everyone Loves You..." is a collection of snippets from Strauss' most significant interviews (up to 228), to an impressive amount of music superstars from all times, other icons of popular culture and some other people, in one way or another related with them. This book might be then, although heavily deconstructed (again, this are just parts of interviews) one of the most amazing works of modern journalism. It is.

But even despite the numbers of surreal conversations, unbeliavable situations, unexpected adventures or grotesque, absurd moments Strauss' witnessees or takes part on it justifies the reading,  as it is amusing and immensely entertaining book, that wouldn't do complete justice to "Everyone Loves You...". This work offers a lot more.

Strauss' work is even more significant as an outstanding, gigantic task, on deconstructing the minds of celebrities. In his interviews, the author is not behaving just as a journalist, but more like a psychologist. And what he shows is basically, that fame and happiness are not synonymous. At all. As a matter of fact, the majority of celebrities on the book are suffering the consequences of their fame. Some (many) are "spoiled brats", pretentious and, quite frankly, unbearable. A few are directly stupid (look among the younger stars, wannabe celebrities or gangstas). Some built themselves an "Ivory Tower" from where nobody can disturb them (sometimes seems to work). But many are heavily traumatised people, with huge inner conflicts derived from a difficult past, familiar troubles, drugs, alcohol, etc. In a vast amount of these situations, fame didn't help a bit to deal with their issues. With the few exceptions of musicians that were capable to deal with their demons and now are looking fine, I would say the regular trend is the contrary: troubled person + fame= utter chaos. Among this "madness parade", the few "sane" celebrities interviewed on the book, happy people at control of their life, are wonderful and interesting counterpoints. Leonard Cohen, David Bowie, Springsteen, Bono, Sacha Baron Cohen or Jay Leno were among this "category".

Several interviews were just amazing (hilarious, compelling, moving, deep, shocking...). The level of intimacy that Strauss' achieves with his counterpart, or just the genuine interest of the conversation will blow your mind. The ones with Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails, Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum (desperate loneliness of the two), Marilyn Manson, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, John Hartford, the aforementioned Baron Cohen, Slipknot, Curtis Mayfield, Herny Grimes. I could go on and on... If I had to make a little complaint, is that there were too many hip-hop/artists (the gangstas) and a couple of weird coverages, the one about the wax figures in particular, that could have been dropped from the compilation, so the reading would have been even more vivid with less pages. But I do understand why are they included and that this is just my opinion.

In the other hand, there's the end of the book. I'm still mesmerized by the story of Paul Nelson (looking for his biography right away). That and the epilogue summarizes the brilliance of this book. Must-read, for music lovers, celebrity lovers, celebrities and wannabes. For anyone.

SCORE: 8,75/10

"My Week with Marilyn", being seduced by a myth

My Week with Marilyn

If Marylin Monroe was really such a star, icon, celebrity, myth, (add your own here) etc., she deserves a much much better film than this one. Even the brilliant performances of Michelle Williams and Kennet Branagh cannot save "My Week with Marylin" from being a very flat, seriously unsubstantial movie.

I have read several reviews and opinions criticising Michelle Williams's cast as Marilyn. Many silly arguments of her not being "fleshy enough" (comparisons of breasts and bottoms included), "not radiant enough" (is that supposed to mean anything?), or not having the "bigger-than-life-aura" she had. This sort of statements are enormously interesting for a sociological study, as they reveal the amount of damage "the creation of myths" has had in society, in particular the American (think of Elvis, Sinatra, JFK, Michael Jackson). But they are completely ridiculous if we are really trying to review this film, with people talking about Marilyn as if they really met her and knew how she really was (physically and personally). Seriously people, we all know her thanks to her movies (which I remember you aren't real).

No, the issue in "My Week with Marilyn" is not Michelle Williams. On the contrary, she, together with Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier, plus the secondary role of Judi Dench as Dame Sybil, are the only remarkable of the film. Director Simon Curtis has to be so grateful to Williams and co. They simply save his movie from being a disaster. But even their performances cannot help the occasional (and recurrent) feeling we are watching a luxurious but empty TV movie. There's not a lot of interest on the main plot following Colin Clark's platonic affair, played by Eddie Redmanyne, with the "blonde myth". The film-within-the-film sub-plot, that could have been much more attractive is only exploited as a mere context, and the rest of secondary actors are unused resources.

We get the premise of the film, really. This is not a film on Marilyn, but one about being seduced by Marilyn, by then already an unparalleled a myth. But with such a premise then, why is Curtis so scared to proposing something new to us? He only offers us a bunch of flat screen recreations of what's supposed to be the real-life of celebrities while they gathered in order to make a movie, the lightweight comedy "The Prince and the Showgirl", filmed in the UK in 1956. It is slick, way too polished (unrealistically polished) and very superficial. There's zero depth on the contrived script, and despite Michelle Williams efforts of looking vulnerable despite her sensuality and ability to enchant the camera (as the blonde sex symbol did) while reflecting the contradictions between her frustrations and needs of being accepted, between self-pity and manipulation, she doesn't have many lines that aren't cliché-bounded.

So, "My Week with Marilyn" is a pointless, obviously failed film, even despite Michelle Williams. Quite a shame if we consider the potential the story could have had.

SCORE: 4,75/10

"As Themselves", absurdly funny celebrities

As Themselves (Ellos Mismos, Spanish original title)- Joaquín Reyes

Making people laugh is a very difficult to achieve. Besides, humour is a very personal thing, so there are (almost) as many opinions on what's funny and what's not as humans on the planet. In Spain, there's a crude, prudish humour, rancid, that has to do more with the ancient regime and those who would not want to move from it. I could name some TV channels or programs, but if you live here, you know which ones I'm referring. But there's also another type of humour, way more recommendable and for the one that is writing, of course, amusing.

One of his most notable exponents of this humour is Joaquín Reyes, author of "As Themselves", that together with his troupe of buddies has offered us refreshing comical TV shows like "La Hora Chanante" or "Muchachada Nui (¡Nui!)", or more recently (and less remarkably) "Museo Coconut". These very recommendable shows (the first two mentioned) had a unique style of humour mixing the absurd (frequently delirious) with childish jokes (those costumes) and demanding a lot of complicity with the audience. To achieve that connection, they created several characters the public easily recognized/sympathised with, and used the imitation of celebrities as a common resource, with hilarious, sometimes unforgettable results. What Joaquín Reyes offers in "As Themselves" is the translation of that celebrity parodies to a cartoon.

This book is a compilation of these cartoons, previously published on nation-wide newspapers El Periódico and El País, creating some new ones as links to give some coherency to the whole product. The structure is pretty simple, the caricatured celebrity introduces himself/herself, and with a disarming and surreal sincerity, show us a mundane, zero-glamour revelation. This sort of "public scrutiny" brings some screamingly funny and completely unexpected situations, with shocking one-liners and/or side notes by the "Cactus" (yes I said Cactus) or the author himself. It's quite amazing to see how Reyes is capable of making the celebrity confess his/her exaggerated defect/current situation, one that easily connects with the reader (as we already knew it, or at least suspected), in such a condensed space. Even the same cartoonist doesn't escape from this scrutiny (so we can empathise with him). 

Some might say not every celebrity is equally accomplished, or, in my opinion, the monkey character that connects the cartoons is not as entertaining as the stories itself. But cartoons like Giménez Losantos, Sánchez-Drago, Lenny Kravitz, Nicolas Cage, David Hasselhoff, Fernando Alonso, Pitita Ridruejo, Matthew McConaughey, Bono, Manu Chao, and a long etc, are reason enough to justify checking "As Themselves". Laughs are granted.

SCORE: 7/10