Taken 2

From the get go I was disappointed that they were going to sequelize the almighty film that is Taken. Firstly because it seems a bit dubious that the poor bloke would be that unlucky to have another family member kidnapped. But secondly because sequels are, in general, shit. And I'm afraid I was disappointed with the rushed and run of the mill result.

Taken 2 (Oliver Megaton) shares a lot of the techniques which made the original edgy and exciting: choppy editing, melodramatic sound effects, and a handheld camera that shakes like the cameraman was doing the gangnam style. This contributes to and is accompanied by a fast-paced, thriller aesthetic.

Narratively the flick focuses on the same theme as before - the awkward line in a parent-child relationsip between keeping your child safe from abduction and forced prostitution... and being overprotective. Liam Neeson takes the role of the concerned father and Maggie Grace is the daughter who the viewer must decide is either deserving of more independence or as being too dumb to survive on her own. From watching the first movie alone I'd choose the latter, but in this sequel Kim actually is of some use, frolicking around Turkish rooftops with grenades as a means of locating her kidnapped dad (don't ask).

But what seems to me to have been Taken from this film, or probably was never there to begin with, is an engaging plot line, the suspenseful, keep-you-guessing-and-in-complete-awe-of-Liam-Neeson which was the essence of the first. Instead the narrative seems to have edged into the very much safe area of the archetypal Hollywood action thriller nowadays.

The basic plot is that the people Neeson pissed off in the first film have now come back to bite him in the ass and 'claim revenge' for their deceased and beloved human trafficker family members. But the unfolding of events here are much less complex than the predecessor and much less fun to watch. I also noticed a number of moments the audience is expected to suspend their belief, like when Neeson is captured by the baddies, and they literally just stand there politely and watch as he rings up his daughter and has a natter, 'Oh hey there how's it going? Yeah I'm good, just about to be dragged away by some crazy Albanians and was wondering whether you fancied popping to the American Embassy.' Really?
























                                                                                                                                                               
Complete with a lame two-dimensional villain and his gaggle of Eastern Europeon expendable morons, the film subtracts from another element of the first which made it so much more of a challenge, and therefore more satisfying to watch - the overwhelming sense of a unity of opposition against Neeson's character Bryan. For instance, in Taken the film builds the impression that Bry has unearthed a can of worms with the intricately corrupt Europeon institutions. He can't trust anyone, the police, not even his own old friend and this makes him truly alone which ultimately sets up his success as heroic.

But in this second the bad guys seem a lot more meek and ineffectual, far less daunting than the first. This is only enhanced by the fact that we know the film is a 12A and therefore nothing too bad or un-P.C. can happen. Another big fat mistake by the filmmakers, this move was obviously a stab at widening the film's audience but in doing so has taken a hacksaw to the project's integrity and the sense of terror and realism which was so tenable in the original.

Don't get me wrong, Liam Neeson is still cool as ever, and there are some intense fight scenes in which I actually found myself worried the sixty year old would rupture a hip or something filming, but then I remembered he is a perpetual bad ass (and has a stunt double). Still, there is less of the:



























and in its absence drab screenwriting and a dodgy plot. I'm sorry Liam, Taken was always going to be a tough act to follow, however Taken 2 really is average at best.


But what do I know? Since its release the film has already grossed over $86 million worldwide, clearly people like it. Once again Hollywood proves its ability to make money by throwing money at a previously successful concept, yet in doing so simultaneously proves its increasing inability and indifference to making good films.

Sex and Alien

Halloween's on the horizon so I thought I'd topically freak you out.

What I found quite interesting  (and slightly unnerving) was that apparently Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) - here I'm talking the original, but I'm pretty sure this applies to the entire pervy franchise - is loaded with sexual imagery. 

Yes, I was once like you. 'No way, it's just a science fiction film about an alien! Next you'll be telling me Animal Farm isn't just about the farm animals!'. How innocent I was. 

This is a direct quote from the film's screenwriter, Dan O'Bannon:

"One thing that people are all disturbed about is sex... I said 'That's how I'm going to attack the audience; I'm going to attack them sexually. And I'm not going to go after the women in the audience, I'm going to attack the men. I am going to put in every image I can think of to make the men in the audience cross their legs. Homosexual oral rape, birth. The thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number.'"

But once I had it pointed out to me, once I began to see it, I could not then unsee it...

1

2

3
yeah.

4

5

The crashed Alien space-ship is modeled over an enormous hermaphroditic body. The skeletal inner workings resemble bones, blood vessels, etc. This creates the impression that the team are entering the 'belly of the beast', which of course could not be more true as this is the start of all their troubles (euphemism, anyone?). The ship also appears to have both phallic and yonic-connotative structures; the latter being significant as, shown in picture 2, the unfortunate astronauts enter this figurative anatomy into the 'womb' (4), if you like, and one of the team (poor sod) unwittingly plays a key role in 'fertilizing' an alien egg (picture 3, and picture 6 as the 'birth').

  

6
gutted.

If this scene (picture 6) doesn't make you feel sick you are a cyborg. And if you haven't seen it John Hurt, the guy who became impregnated by the Alien infant, finally experiences the horrific and ultimately fatal birth of the hideous sprog. This scene really plays upon what the screenwriter was saying about the male fear of giving birth, because obviously it is an entirely alien (ha) concept to the sex (bar Tom Beattie...) which makes for an inability to empathise with the experience. 

Rewinding back a bit in the 'pregnancy' to pictures 3 and 5, these instances are subsequently an allusion to the masculine fear of rape, specifically orally (5). That is not to say that a women wouldn't freak out if that absolute abomination was attached to their face, but the fact is that the filmmakers actively chose a male character to incubate the verminous organism because it would specifically ignite these fears. This was, and still remains, a particularly subversive idea in horror film, a genre which archetypically punishes the female audience by, for instance, terrorizing a slutty female character until she encounters a highly sexualised death. Take Paris Hilton in House of Wax, who is impaled through the head by a noticeably phallic pole. By contrast, Alien making the men victims of sexual destruction was different and all the more shocking because of this.

7

8

Meanwhile, the fully formed Alien itself is pretty blatantly phallic, what with the shape of its head (7) and that thing it does with its mouth (8), which only serves to enhance the rapey vibe. 

Where does this leave us? Unfortunately, most people who study film find themselves in these messed up analytical situations. But it's like in that film, The Ring, you have to pass on this weird knowledge, otherwise Samara gets you.

Hitchcock

Genius, bad ass, perfectionist, misogynist, weirdo... Alfred Hitchcock remains one of the most iconic and highly debated film makers of the history of the art.

Considered in his time a popular film maker - ie not an indie, artsy, you-need-to-prepare-your-Oscar-speech type - Alf's films have aged to be considered the greatest ever made. Psycho (1960) is his most famous, scandalous piece, probably something do with that dischordant string motif which sounds like you've walked in on a junior school violin concert; or the poor sod that gets stabbed to death in the shower (no way is this a spoiler, everyone knows about that scene); or that lovely young man Norman and his controlling but well-meaning mother. But his lesser known, more critically acclaimed films include Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and The Birds (1963). 

Hitchcock didn't want a shot to just be a shot, he wanted it to be creative, expressive and entertaining. For example, the opening of Psycho starts like an ordinary film. You have your establishing shot of the city, then we focus in on the first two characters in a hotel room. But instead of cutting between these two scenes, Hitchcock integrates them by taking a fantastic sweeping long shot of the Phoenix skyline, before gradually zooming in to a particular window and continuing this impossible zoom through the window and into the room, simultaneously establishing the location and two main characters in a single exquisite take. 

Moreover Hitchcock was one of the most effective filmmakers to use cinematography to infer meaning. If Psycho is a film about male sexuality, the camera frequently implies this through, for example, shooting Marion languishing on a bed while her lover stands over her, with only his bottom half in the shot.

A boundary-pusher, the shower scene of the same film induced a frenzy of outrage against Hitchcock because viewers were sure it contained nudity. Furthermore, although the scene shows little physical violence, the expertise displayed in its use of intercutting and rapid editing (the short scene apparently two an entire week to film), including the final fatalistic shot of the blood swirling down the drain, create a strong impression that we as viewers have witnessed a horrifically violent act -disturbing now, and groundbreaking at the time. The film was also the first to ever show a toilet being flushed on screen (shock horror). All of this contributed to Hitchcock's status as the Master of Suspense and the further attribution of the adjective Hitchcockian to any modern filmmaker who attempts similiar terror-inducing techniques.

And it is evidently Psycho which the new semi-biographical flick Hitchcock (set for release in the UK early 2013) has centred its plot around. Anthony Hopkins, accompanied by an assortment of prosthetics and possibly a fatsuit (unless he actually has put on weight, which would be awkward), plays the man himself, accompanied by Helen Mirren as the sidelined wife and Scarlett Johansson as muse Janet Leigh.

I've got mixed feelings about the premise of this new film. I thought the trailer was cheesy, and the narrative spiel seems to want to focus on the 'cutesy' romance between Hitchcock and Alma Reville when word is old Alf was a bit of a ladies man. If by ladies man you mean someone who, in order to encourage a greater peformance from his actresses, allegedly terrorized them on set. One example of this being his ordering a live bird to be tied to Tippi Hedren in the filming of The Birds and obliterating her career when she (shockingly!) refused his advances.

Suddenly the birds in her hair seem less symbolic...

So, what do you think? The sneak-peeks certainly look promising - there's a definite sense of deserved praise to be awarded to the makeup team, but I'm not going to go Pscyho to get a ticket.

The Graduate

Since I'm just starting uni and Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) has just left, I already felt an abstract sense of duality with The Graduate (1967) from its quiet opening.

Everyone should see this film. Firstly, because it's hilarious. The screenplay, direction (Mike Nichols), and acting here are really second to none, Hoffman makes Ben so cringe-inspiringly awkward in almost every scenario he faces. Inspired directly by the Charles Webb novel of the same name, the dialogue itself is fast, witty and unexpected. The resulting form of the film is comedic yet realistic, laughing at life but with a sense of self consciousness and intelligence.

Ben's character, played flawlessly by an (almost oxymoronic) youthful Hoffman, is the indelible anti-hero who reminded me of directionless Holden Caulfield from J.D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. Ben Braddock has, at the risk of stating the obvious, just graduated from university, with seemingly excellent prospects, and accompanied with a mountain of expectation from his well-to-do parents. However our protagonist seems to have lost all his drive and has no idea what to do with himself. We come across Ben in this indecisive state when he is preyed on by his parent's friend and apparent cougar Mrs Robinson. The narrative becomes even more conflicted when Mrs Robinson's daughter Elaine shows up and suddenly Ben decides he wants to marry her.

"Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs Robinson?"

Set and released in the late 60s, The Graduate was one of a number highly influential pictures released in this time period, which would dramatically change the concept and subject of film for future audiences. This film reflects upon the upheaval of the swinging sixties, satirizing the upper middle classes as corrupt and ignorant  but also embodying the sense of experimentation and psychedelia that is of course associated with its time.

Graduate's narrative plays with a number of binary oppositions, most potently between youth and age, innocence and experience. This is embodied perfectly by Elaine Robinson and her mother Mrs Robinson, and conflicted by Ben's somewhat incestuous relationship with both. It has been argued that this stark generational juxtaposition represents the collapse of the old Hollywood studio system and its subsequent metamorphosis into a more youthful system, an aforementioned revolution which changed Western cinema indelibly.

Cinematography here elevates Graduate to a higher platform, with the pool scenes accentuating Ben's listlessness and disorientation with corporate life as he lazes around on a lilo. In one of the opening scenes Ben is shot close up against his fish tank, appearing submerged amidst the fish. These water references throughout the film are perhaps connotative of the protagonist's chaotic and isolated mindset throughout. Moreover the garish burst of 60s colour, incepted from the first meeting with devilish Mrs Robinson, is expressive of Ben's submersion into a more radical, dangerous way of life. Framing throughout the film is experimental and quirky, shots are pushing boundaries constantly, such as a shot from inbetween Mrs Robinson's legs. What this adds to the look of the piece is a dynamic aesthetic, maintaining the audience's interest but also applying a subjective and suggestive character to the camera which often results in humour.

Finally, what I feel wraps this work up, is of course the chilling soundtrack produced by Simon & Garfunkel. You'll have no doubt heard the unintentionally iconic 'Mrs Robinson', referring to the film's character of the same name, but it is 'The Sound of Silence' with its bittersweet, ethereal acoustics which is the film's motif and masterpiece.

The Graduate closes on this shot, at once absurdly humorous and bleak, which I feel completely encapsulates the randomness, uncertainty and turbulence of both the film and its contemporaries.