Gone Girl

Today's film is called Gone Girl based on the best-selling book by Gillian Flynn (who also wrote the
screenplay) and directed by David Fincher, the man responsible for "Fight Club", "The Social
Network", "Seven" and "Alien 3". There are not many light-hearted films in Fincher's oeuvre and
Gone Girl is no exception. If you want to relax with a feel-good film at the end of a hard day's
work you're out of luck,

Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as Nick and Amy Elliott-Dunne

Gone Girl stars Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike as Nick Dunne and Amy Elliott-Dunne, two writers who have returned home to Nick's town because his mother was dying of cancer. They remain there in what is superficially a very happy marriage. However, Nick returns home one day to find evidence of a struggle in the living room and his wife is nowhere to be seen. He calls the police who initially
give him a hard time as a witness but do not take him seriously as a suspect. However, his
behaviour during press conferences and other media events is perceived by others to be eccentric,
even creepy given the circumstances. He is very tense and reserved and speaks only as much as he has to. He also has to contend with a recovered diary of his wife where she writes about serious
mental and physical abuse. The film henceforth is a game of shifting sympathies, both for the
viewing audience in the drama and for the film goers themselves. The third act contains explosive
plot twists and darkly disturbing imagery.

In terms of aesthetics, the film is well and aptly shot. The cinematography is dark with mostly
muted tones, as is most of Fincher's filmography. The performances are spot-on. Affleck is great as
a man that comes across initially as a likeable everyday schlubb who likes a cold beer and a game
of Call of Duty but his likeability fluctuates both on and off camera throughout the film.  Without
giving anything away, Rosamund Pike's performance in the film is powerful and is bound to leave a
deep impression on the film audience. A stand out performance was given by Tyler Perry as Tanner
Bolt, Nick's hotshot lawyer who is stimulated by the seemingly impossible challenge of defending
Nick, a job which boils down to media manipulation and PR. At times he's the comic relief, laughing
at the absurdity of Nick's situation.

Tyler Perry as Tanner Bolt with Nick Dunne in an interrogation scene

The film must also be given credit for grappling with difficult themes like physical and emotional abuse, failed marriages, PR, media distortion and manipulation in a way that is palatable to the average film-goer. The film works both as a serious meditation on these themes and as an effective psychological thriller/horror film.

Some people find the final act too hard to swallow. It's much faster and in-your-face than what was seen previously and is visceral and exploitative. I personally found it to be extremely effective and suitably horrific. The only issue I had with the film is that Nick Dunne does a couple of stupid things in the run up to the trial that any man with an ounce of common sense would not do, like not listening to your shit-hot attorney's advice on how to conduct oneself during an interrogation, but this did not kill the suspension of disbelief for me. Overall, David Fincher and Gillian Flynn succeeded in creating a great adaption of her book but whether it will stand the test of time like Fight Club and The Social Network remains to be seen.

Kill your Darlings

Today's film is called "Kill your Darlings" which was directed by John Krokidas and stars Daniel Radcliffe. This film centres around the Riverside Park killing which was an infamous early chapter in the story of the Beat writers.

Daniel Radcliffe as Allen Ginsberg

In the film, an adolescent Allen Ginsberg (Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe), who is caring for his mentally ill mother, is told by his father (Arrested Development's David Cross) that he is accepted into Columbia University in New York City. Upon arrival, he befriends the talented hell-raising libertine Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan) in Columbia University, New York. Ginsberg follows Carr into a circle of hedonistic writers which would ultimately become the Beat generation and includes William Burroughs (Ben Foster) and Jack Kerouac (Boardwalk Empire's Jack Huston). Fuelled by copious amounts of booze, marijuana and jazz, they try to overthrow the established norms of literature by creating a new literary movement called "The New Vision" and rail against the stifling social and sexual conformity of 1940's America.

Dane DeHaan as Lucien Carr

<SPOILER>

Among the group of writers is a childhood friend of Burroughs called David Kammerer who lectures at Columbia. According to Lucien Carr, he is blackmailing him to perform sexual favours for him in return for not being expelled from the university for copying term papers, although things may not be as clear-cut as that.

Michael C. Hall as David Kammerer

Carr eventually tries to reject Kammerer and tries to go and join the merchant marine with Jack Kerouac. However, Kammerer confronts Carr and Carr stabs him, after which he drowns Kammerer by placing stones in his pockets and placing him out to sea. He is subsequently arrested.

Carr asks Ginsberg to write his deposition for him for court where he will claim that it was an "honour killing", that is he killed Kammerer for being nothing more than a predatory homosexual who made unwanted advances. However, he discovers evidence to the contrary from Carr's mother who said there was a long history between them. Ginsberg instead writes a poem based on the events called "The Night in Question" which he submits as a term paper to his university. He is expelled but receives a letter from one of his professors encouraging him to keep writing.

Jack Huston as Jack Kerouac

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I have to say that I enjoyed Kill your Darlings and that it had some excellent performances, particularly Jack Huston as the ebullient and boisterous American football player and author Jack Kerouac.The characters are generally pompous, arrogant and self-indulgent so the film can be a difficult pill to swallow if you're not already interested in the early Beatniks. It can be argued that this is because the film is both a celebration and a critique of the culture and ideas these people propagated. More power to the filmmakers if this is true but a film cannot stand on its own as an intellectual exercise, it also has to be entertaining and engaging for the layman.

It has also been said by many who watch the film that it is a difficult business to make the act of typing on a typewriter to create a new literary movement interesting visually. The film uses jump cuts and an upbeat jazz soundtrack which just about did the trick for me but it left a lot of people feeling cold.

Bright Lights, Big City

Today's film is Bright Lights, Big City directed by James Bridges and starring Michael J. Fox and Kiefer Sutherland. I saw this film because I'm a fan of Bret Easton Ellis' books and Jay McInerney, the writer who wrote the book this film is based on, was part of the same literary clique as Ellis. Also, the film was free to watch on YouTube.

Michael J. Fox as Jamie Conway

If you're expecting a feel good light hearted comedy like Back to the Future, you're shit out of luck. This film is a comedy drama about a disaffected yuppie called Jamie Conway. He works a job he hates as a fact-checker for a highbrow New York magazine which in danger of losing because he is dragged along by his insufferably slick drinking buddy Tad Allagash (played here by Kiefer Sutherland) to nightclubs and parties late at night. On top of that, he is a habitual user of cocaine and is still reeling from his separation from his model wife Amanda (played here by Phoebe Cates) and the death of his mother a year previously.

Tad (Kiefer Sutherland), Amanda (Phoebe Cates) and Jamie (Michael J. Fox)

This film was easy to get into because it's a classic tale of a young man trying to find his place in the world and doing the juggling act of balancing work, relationships in the big city. Michael J. Fox pulls of a neat trick by making this potentially unlikeable character sympathetic. And the script, also written by McInerney, had some really witty dialogue and I laughed several times. The film didn't make a great impression on me, however. McInerney has a reputation as a voice of a generation but the film did not seem like a Catcher in the Rye for the 80's, it was just a movie about a week in the life of one miserable drug abusing alcoholic yuppie. This film gets a recommendation from me, but not a strong one.

Lawrence of Arabia

Today's film is Lawrence of Arabia, directed by David Lean and staring the great Anglo-Irish actor Peter O'Toole who tragically passed away in December 2013. This film is a biopic and centres around Thomas Edward Lawrence, the eccentric English officer who was charged with participating in the Arab revolt against the Turkish Empire in World War I by the British government. Its primary source material is "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom", a first hand account of the revolt by Lawrence himself.

Peter O' Toole as Lawrence

In the film, Lawrence is instructed by Mr Dryden of the Arab bureau (played here by Claude Rains) to inspect Prince Faisal's revolt against the Turks. He convinces Faisal to give him the leadership of a group of Arab fighters to cross the Nefud desert and mount a guerilla campaign against the Turkish empire. During the course of the film he risks his own life to save a a straggler in the desert which earns him the respect of the fighters and the friendship of a member of the Harith tribe, Sherif Ali (played here by Omar Sharif). His campaign is a success and his exploits are reported to the world by the American journalist Jackson Bentley. However, Lawrence is captured and tortured by the Turks. He returns to Cairo and is persuaded by General Allenby to lead an assault on Damascus. Along the way, he spearheads and revels in a massacre of a retreating Turkish army to the disgust of Bentley and Ali. He tries to assist in setting up a Pan-Arab Arab Council in Damascus but he fails as it is torn apart by the various warring Arab tribes. Lawrence returns to England a defeated man and dies in a motorcycle accident.

Alec Guinness as Prince Faisal

This film is a character study of Lawrence and not an altogether flattering one. In the early scenes of the film we see that his theatricality and effeminate affectations seem to irritate his fellow officers and his lack of discipline and punctuality does not impress General Murray, his superior officer. He also seems confident to the point of arrogance when he is given his mission by Mr Dryden of the Arab bureau to investigate Prince Faisal (played here by Alec Guinness) and assess his revolt, insisting that his time in the desert will be "fun".

The Nefud desert

The angle the film seems to take is that Lawrence was an attention-seeking narcissist who enjoyed the fame that his role in the revolt brought him all too much. The film also subtly and slyly suggests that he is a masochist with the famous matchstick trick scene. He was also depicted as being (perhaps understandably) vicious and bloodthirsty in the massacre of retreating Turkish soldiers. However, it also portrays him as being a courageous man with strong principles and a sincere belief in the Arab cause that is shaken by his ordeal in the desert. The screenwriters deserve praise for writing a balanced portrayal of Lawrence, but in spite of his flaws I could not help but connect with Lawrence because, for me, the film displayed the arc of maturation which we all have to go through but, in Lawrence's case, was particularly brutal. Lawrence starts off like many youths, idealistic, arrogant and adventurous but goes through trials and tribulations which harden him and he leaves the desert an older, sadder and wiser man.