Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 20-10-2016

Right … 

Today … is a day off!

And frankly?

It’s one where I’m going to be busy, I think.

After all, I’m heading for my local community hospital’s radiology department: for an x-ray on my shoulder.

Lord knows what I’ve done, but something’s not right.

~≈Á≈~

The Road: Talk About Bad Marketing

1st June, 2010.

Once in a blue moon, there comes a film that marketing departments love.

They’re the kind of films that sell themselves, in other words.

Many films strike me as being easy to market.

Well …

Maybe not easy to market, but certainly easy enough to put through the marketing mill: insert actors, posters, marketing — and the movie — in one end, and sell tickets at the other.

They will possibly an Oscar or two, if you’ve get it right: which only adds to the marketing buzz.

But Movie Night Adrian and I watched possibly the one film, tonight, that its producers marketing department must have had nightmares about.

Well …

Possibly not nightmares, but certainly went in the wrong direction with.

I know.

I’ve actually looked for the relevant trailer on YouTube.

And — if you believe what you saw — you’d expect that The Road — with Viggo Mortenson and Kodi Smit-McPhee — was a thrilling action adventure, with bombs, sex, cannibals and Charlize Theron, on every spare surface.

Well …

Charlize Theron’s in it: but the trailer doesn’t tell you everything.

Let me re-phrase that: the shop-window trailer is definitely a bit of misapplied hype.

The Road see’s Viggo Mortenson and Kodi Smit-McPhee as an unnamed father and son, trying desperately to reach the coast, after an unspecified apocalypse.

And having to cope with what has to be the most realistic post-apocalypse I think I’ve seen in some time …

~≈†≈~

Do you remember the last time I mentioned Kevin D, and his wife, Sarah … ?

They were down, a couple of weeks ago, and managed to bring a copy of The Prestige along with them: certainly a film that’s worth watching, I think.

We actually managed to have an interesting natter about Avatar: my point was that Cameron and co could have spent a touch more time thinking through one or two details about the Na’vi home-world’s ecology a little better.

To quote Terry Pratchett — the only writer to include a sewer system as part of a fantasy world’s background — “Sometimes, you have to do these things from the bottom up.”

You have to think these things through, logically, in other words

~≈†≈~

Which is sort of my point, about this film.

Going by what we saw on-screen tonight, The Road isn’t a big budget, effects laden blockbuster.

Well … not one that’s full of obvious special effects.

The Road is not Star Wars: it’s a low budget drama that actually tries to look long and hard at the effects of a major disaster*.

By looking at how a father and son try to cope with living in a world that’s dramatically changed from how it was.

~≈†≈~

Very much so, actually.

This is not a post-apocalyptic action film in the style of Mad Max.

Not at all.

The Road is a film that sees two people who’ve survived a huge tragedy and find hope in small miracles: finding an expected supply of food, meeting someone non-threatening, finding a thief who isn’t as bad as they’d thought.

But also magnifies the obstacles they face: ravaging gangs of people not afraid to be cannibals, a climate that’s against them.

~≈†≈~

I’m going to be honest, here.

I’m going to get myself off to bed, in a few minutes.

But I’ll leave you with an opinion, before I do.

The Road isn’t going to be a film that grabs everyone.

But I think that if you liked Moon or Valhalla Rising … ?

Then The Road could well have a lot of appeal.

Just ignore the trailers for it, though. They really aren’t a good advert.

* One which isn’t specified, as I think I mentioned, but looks to me as if it’s either a nuclear winter, or some form of environmental disaster thats produced a similar result.

Eastern Promises

My word, I think I’ve just seen one of the most deeply ambiguous gangster films it’s been my pleasure to watch.

I’ve had a quiet night in, with fellow movie fans, and nearish neighbours, Paul and Adrian — and I’ll confess there’s others I’d like to ask along, as well, as soon as they’ve got the chance to take me up on it — and Adrian, managed to bring along the David Cronenberg directed mobster flick that is “Eastern Promises”.*

I was impressed.

Definitely, impressed!

Usually, a gangster film isn’t my first choice of film for the evening.   That’d usually feature a lot of either aliens, tentacles, lesbians, or all three.   (I really should catch up on Japanese manga and animé, I really should!)

But this seriously dark grey film had me riveted to my seat … and, as many of my friends will tell you, a film that does that has got something going for it.

I’ll try not to spoil it for you, and warn you about the link to its entry on IMDb, coded into the title.

But it is a very Russian feeling picture; — I think I can safely speak for myself, Adrian, Paul and I, in saying that we’ve all collectively had the impression that the Russians are a very direct people, who, in a crisis, don’t muck about.

I’m thinking of the incident, a few years ago, now, when Chechen terrorists hijacked a Moscow cinema, and held the audience hostage.

The Russian army’s reaction was extreme; – according to the quick bit of reading I’ve managed to check, something like sixty-seven of the hostages were killed.

By the Russian Military.

That’s just an example, but one hear’s stories —possibly apocryphal— of Russian atrocities that probably have their roots in the communist run regime of Joséf Stalin.

Who wasn’t an especially nice chap, it must be said.

And, certainly, towards the end of World War Two, the Soviet military weren’t exactly well behaved …

But I’m digressing, here.

The point I’m trying to make is that, with this film, David Cronenberg has captured the howling storms, and darkness, the snow and ice, and threatened darkness, that one seems to have filtered into the impression one gets of Russian, in pop culture.   Mussorgsky’s “Night On A Bare Mountain” has it as well.   (Just as a contrasting point, here, one of my neighbours, Olga, is Russian, and has one of the sexiest accents I’ve ever heard!)

That’s the feel I get from “Eastern Promises”; — it feels very Russsian, if you get me?

I’ll try to contrast it with others, if you’ll bear with me … ?

The classic DePalma/Al Pacino version of “Scarface” is great, but very American, I feel: loud, in-yer-face, and with tons of bullets flying everywhere.

And “Snatch” and “The Long Good Friday” are very English feeling films.   And not in a “tea with the Vicar” way either … loud, certainly, plenty of flying ketchup and brass, but wordier and wittier than their US counterparts.   Certainly, for out and out humour value, Bricktop’s pig monologue, in  “Snatch”, ranks as one of the funniest, and scariest, movie speeches I’ve seen in a long time.   And a large dollop of that scare factor is the humour of it.

I’m digressing, again, aren’t I?

Here’s my point.

“Eastern Promises” is a very different mobster movie; – dark, doomy, Russian, even.

And well worth watching …

*I’d like to thank him for that, and to thank Paul, as well, for the chocolate fingers, as well.   Hell, the diet can wait.   Paul managed to put a smile on my face, with that and the incense, bless him.