Blood and burnt popcorn

Here you have my opinion on the last two films I've watched! :)

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

IMDB

Country: UK / Germany

Director/screenwriter: Kim Jarmusch

Rating: 7/10

I had read this film was a ‘different take to vampires than Twilight’, and I have always loved the genre, so I decided to give it a try. It is visually very beautiful, and the music is fantastic. Tom Hiddleston (Adam) and Tilda Swinton (Eve) are two of my favourite actors, and they do a very good job in this film.

However, I couldn’t help feeling disappointed about the film overall. Yes, this is not a Twilight-like movie, but it still has some stereotypes that I wish had been taken out of the writing: mainly, that what gives ‘meaning’ to these two vampires’ lives is their love for each other. I understand that it is very difficult to imagine what can possibly keep you going after many centuries, but I kind of hoped it wouldn’t be romantic love in marriage. The other possibilities that are presented to us are Eve’s younger sister Ava, who lives out of partying, and Kit / Christopher Marlowe, who seems to live out of memories of better times.

I wish the film had let me see more of Eve’s lifestyle (when she’s not nursing her depressive and teenage-like lover or caring for her reckless sister), Adam’s involvement with music and literature (this is my professional bias), and Adam’s relationship with the outside world through rock fan Ian. Maybe this is one of the film’s achievements (that it left me wanting more), but I am inclined to feel that it is more of a limitation that they gave so much weight to ‘romantic love’.

Starter For Ten (2013)

IMDB

Country: UK / USA

Director: Tom Vaughan

Writer (novel&screenplay): David Nicholls

Rating: 3/10

First of all, a confession: I like quiz shows. I also like James McAvoy (Brian), and, having recently seen him in Filth, I thought this movie might have something in it for me. It doesn’t, or it doesn’t have much of it anyway. It is very common for comedies to exploit stereotypes (exaggerating them is one of the things that make us laugh), but this movie went past the line of what is funny (to me, of course).

The best part of this film was Benedict Cumberbatch’s character, Patrick Watts. Uptight, competitive and passionate beyond boundaries about something as silly as a TV quiz show called ‘University Challenge’, his body language and his ridiculous-looking blonde hair made him the best character in the film. His lines were also pretty good: “I might not have been entirely faultless” was his ridiculously over-British way of apologising. Mark Gatiss also appears in this film as the quiz show host, and he did a very good job of it. Hats off to the dress/clothes/makeup technicians! There’s no better way of showing you what I mean than this:

This paragraph contains spoilers, so don’t say you weren’t warned! The most unnerving bit of the film was Rebecca (Rebecca Hall). Simply put, they have written her as having no self-respect. The movie’s main plot involves Brian’s dilemma around a blonde and a brunette (first bad sign). Rebecca, the brunette, is passionate about demonstrating (yes, seemingly more about demonstrating than about the causes behind it). She is breath-takingly beautiful, but hey, how can a brunette be prettier than the prettiest blonde, Alice (Alice Eve)? After a falling out with Alice, Brian spends New Year’s Eve at home with Rebecca. They are having a good time (silly flirting, and I say silly because of it being stereotypical too), but when the clock strikes 12 and they kiss, Brian calls her by the other girl’s name. Rebecca leaves, finally seeing what she is to him (just second-best when compared to Alice). Then, she starts talking to him again (OK so far). After a row in a bar involving Patrick and Brian’s best friend, he is sitting under the rain (when there’s a bridge right next to him where he could take shelter and still be alone and melancholy…*sigh*), Rebecca goes up to him to ask him how he feels. He has the nerve to ask her about Alice, but she doesn’t show any sign of being offended by his lack of tact. He runs to Alice’s flat, only to find she has just had sex with his best friend. After this, he weighs up Alice’s pros and cons (pro: hot blonde, con: not trustworthy), and, though he keeps talking to her (and to his friend), he decides that he prefers a reliable (even though not-so-hot) brunette, Rebecca. The worst of all of this is that she takes him back!

What can I say? I was sourly disappointed in this movie. I expected to encounter a university comedy that was even slightly above the genre’s shortcomings, but I didn’t.

 Have you seen any of the two? What did you think about them? Any other recommendations? =)

Morvern Callar

Title: Morvern Callar

Author: Alan Warner
Publisher: Vintage

Year: 1995 (I read the second edition, published 1996)

During the last semester, one of my lecturers asked the class whether we had read Alan Warner’s novel Morvern Callar (1995). After our heads made a negative gesture, he said something like: “What are you doing studying in Scotland and not having read it? Get out of my class and read it now!”. He also explained most of the plot, but still I wanted to read it, he had made it sound worth it.

It definitely is. It’s gripping, macabre, funny, poetic, sexual, unpretentious, moving and, first and foremost, wildly alive. Most of these definitions also apply to the novel’s protagonist, Morvern. Her unprejudiced, wild, truthful, shameless, casual and often lyrical take on the world around her is one of the most attractive aspects of Warner’s book.

Language and slang are also in the list of the book’s appealing qualities. Warner builds personal voices that you would recognise should you encounter them again (and you can, as Morvern appears in other Warner novels). Music is a constant presence throughout the book. Someone has even gone as far as to try to build up a Spotify playlist out of all the songs mentioned! I've also found out that there was a film made out of the novel in 2002.

Publishers and literary agents are said to believe that a good opening sentence/paragraph is what makes a lot of readers decide whether or not to buy a book (along with other factors such as the author’s fame, the critical reception, the cover, the blurb, etc). Well, Warner’s first paragraph decidedly makes you want to read on, if only because of the gorey scene described:

“He’d cut His throat with the knife. He’d near chopped off His hands with the meat cleaver. He couldnt object so I lit a Silk Cut. A sort of wave of something was going across me. There was fright but I’d daydreamed how I’d be.” (1)

Morvern’s life takes a drastic turn after her unnamed boyfriend’s suicide on the first page, and the novel goes on to show us more about it. One of the first things one notices is the appalling village life. The only palliatives at hand are alcohol/drugs, sex and laughter. Morvern herself puts her possibilities very eloquently as “working in a supermarket; waking up on cold mornings knowing it’s thirty-nine years to go till pension.” (161)

Her fosterdad, Red Hanna, is also a working-class philosopher: “The hidden fact of our world is that theres no point in having desire unless youve money. […] Yet what good is all the money in the world to me now when all I want to do is stare out the bungalow window at the mountains? Money would destroy what I’ve learned to accept over the years. In plain language, I’m fifty-five: a wasted life.” (45)

But His death gives Morvern a chance at something different from the limiting village life: “The massive pale lips of a girl seemed to turn up to the night sky ready for kissing and you could see the light from the screen flicker on the leaves. I turned facing the sea. You heard a drip come offof my hair. I closed my eyes there in the quietness just breathing in and breathing in. I hadnt slept for three days so I could know every minute of that happiness that I never even dared dream I had the right.” (210) 

Have you read Morvern Callar or seen the film? If the answer's a "no", go ahead and do it! :)