Liv-ing It Up

Liv Tyler is a strange one, isn't she? She's beautiful, likable, a fairly good actress... and yet I can't imagine anyone becoming as devoted a fan to her as people are to the likes of Winslet (guilty as charged) or Streep or Moore or... you get the picture. Liv Tyler just seems to... exist. She's kind of always there, but has never really made much of an impact, despite being in big (budget) films like Armageddon and The Incredible Hulk. I doubt anyone really dislikes her, either... she gives perfectly proficient performances but there's just nothing to get excited about.

I say all this because, by pure coincidence, I saw Liv in a film for two days in a row: Lonesome Jim, a 2005 American indie film that was finally released on these shores this year, which I snagged on DVD from the library, and then, the following day, I checked out The Strangers in the cinema (mainly because The Duchess started a bit too early for me to get into that). I had high hopes for Lonesome Jim- mainly because it stars Casey Affleck, who's become a favourite of mine- but it ended up being a bit of a damp squib. It trots along just as expected, not really making much of impression. All the kernels of observation have been made before, the quirky plot twists are unsurprising, the technical work unexciting. I did like the initially unusual line it took between Tyler and Affleck's characters- it didn't put on a flirtatious premise as they met, simply going straight from their awkward meeting to uncomfortably quick sex in the hospital where Tyler works, not having this central pairing dance around each other. Things peter out after that, and, while good work from Mary Kay Place and a scene-stealing Jack Rovello (as Tyler's son) keep interest afloat, I ejected the DVD afterwards with an impassive sense of disappointment. C

The Strangers is an entirely different kettle of fish, but strangely enough I found myself to it reacting in much the same way- initial interest and promise slowly coming to nothing. I always find myself questioning, when I go and see this type of movie (i.e. scary horror thriller types), why I'm putting myself through the ordeal, so I spent the first half of the movie or so fearful of what the film was going to do to me later, as I expected the scare quotient to up itself considerably (I was very jittery during the early shocks, but then I jump at a knock at the door in reality so I'm surprised I didn't actually leap out my seat when the same happened in the cinema...) in the latter half. Instead, I just got quite bored as Liv scrambled around on the grass trying to avoid stepping on her twisted ankle (you can observe this above). This is hardly the type of film that really demands anything particularly spectacular from its cast, so to say Liv was quite good here is actually quite a compliment. She has to hold up much of the film on her own and she really does the paranoid despair thing very well. And I must say, I can't remember being so convinced (and therefore panicked) by a scream as I was when she let out her belter of one (and thankfully kept it there, unlike Jamie Lee). But as it went on the scares just kept repeating themselves ('OMG they're there! Oh, wait, no, they're not. *bang bang* Oh, crap.') and the ending(s) was completely bizarre. However- I thought the sound was super (LOVE vinyls jarring) and I was probably more frightened that I'd admit to anyone's face. So, after much deliberation, it's a B-.

My favourite Liv film, by the way, is probably Inventing the Abbotts, which more people should watch. It also has Joaquin Phoenix in it!

Victim's Gold Stars: #10: Deeper Underground

THE TOP TEN: #10: The Descent

I saw The Descent way back in 2005, when the DVD was released in the autumn, after a summer run that I was unable to participate in (I wasn't old enough for the 18 certificate), and I have no shame is saying that the film terrified me, even on the miniscule screen in my bedroom on that spinning disc. The Descent is as dark as horror films come, not least because most of it takes place deep underground, where it was ensured there was no light bar what the potholing girls had brought with them. The Descent's underground labyrinths are entirely false, but you'd never guess; so tight is Neil Marshall's directorial control over these tiny spaces that the feeling of claustrophobia and panic is utterly palpable. The film doesn't even let you in easily: a quick introduction to the clan of girls whom we'll be following into the darkness is a tense, unspoken suspicion of betrayal, topped off by a sudden and horrifying car accident, the backlash of which feeds cleverly into the later machinations. In essence I suppose The Descent is nothing new, really, but how often do you come across a horror film- and a British one no less- that's this tightly controlled, this committed to its convictions, and this atmospheric? The Descent still lives with me almost a year and a half after seeing it, and surely that's some kind of power.

Little Children, Scenes of a Sexual Nature and Slither

[Little Children (Todd Field, 2006): The initially middling grade I gave Little Children probably sprung for my intense desire to want to like it, to admire it, to say that the acting here covers up the horrendous mess of the script and direction. Kate Winslet is undoubtably my favourite modern actress, and maybe it just wounds me too much to say that even she can't make up for the deficencies here. There's nothing particularly wrong with her performance here; indeed, it's probably as good as it could have been, save perhaps for the scene where, ironically, she shows the most emotion. (The moment feels so odd, fitting in I suppose with the histrionics the script constantly visits; but in the context of repressed surburban housewife, it's jarring.) There's little, indeed, wrong with most of the performances here: Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Phyllis Somerville, Jane Adams, and particularly Jennifer Connelly (able, as always, to mine so much out of an underwritten and marginalized role) are all fine, often excellent- only Noah Emmerich is bad, a garish performance which suits the film around him better than do the other actors- but they're all slaving away in service of a confused, puzzling mess of a film which thinks it knows so much when it knows so little. It throws you off right from the beginning, the stale, sage narration of some always-unknown quantity striking up at irregular intervals and never, really, serving a purpose apart from highlighting things the audience should be left to understand on their own. But what's worst about Little Children is it's smugness- Todd Field and Tom Perrotta's script (adapted from Perrotta's well-recieved novel) sits there, laden with a strange bitterness and pessimism that is never explained, winding it's way through a serious of rather unexciting events concerning- and how ironic this is- adults acting like "little children", selfish and irresponsible, all wanting to feel needed and loved, trying to make their lives worthwhile. Even before it reaches it's bizarre and conflicted climax, Little Children navigates various levels of over-egged histrionics and self-involved events, abandoning all sense of balance to the talented cast to try and sort out- it's not their fault, I cry, vainly trying to convince myself that it deserves attention; but really, there are better performances out there that warrant attention, and Kate the Great will have to wait a few more years for that thin golden statuette. Grade: D+]

[Scenes of a Sexual Nature (Ed Blum, 2006/7): Even worse than the smugness of Little Children is the smugness of Scenes of a Sexual Nature, which has even less claim to the idea of knowledge than Todd Field's unweilding mess. No, here is a film which, like Little Children, has employed a talented cast- Ewan McGregor, Polly Walker, Sophie Okonedo, Andrew Lincoln, Eileen Atkins, et al- to act out its complacent "ideas" about sexuality, this time in the form of seven criss-crossing vignettes between various couplings. The first false note is struck by the sickeningly twinkly and whimsical score, which, as one review I read commenting, "will make you want to kill yourself". The script is hollow and empty, full of cliched lines and situations- most of the vignettes seem like the more boring scenes from a common romantic comedy, the bits you'd sit sighing through waiting for the amusing comedic side-kick to re-appear, because they're the real reason you paid the ticket price. The talent of the cast, and the reasonable performances they give, somehow makes the whole thing even worse- how, I ask loudly, could all these actors be conned into starring in this horrific mess? Oh, and I never, ever want to go to Hampstead Heath, thanks. Grade: F]

[Slither (James Gunn, 2006): The delirious joys of Slither take a while to kick in, but when they do, oh-ho-ho, they don't let go. In the spirit of '80's alien horrors, but without their laughable effects (Slither looks, at times, frighteningly realistic), James Gunn's debut is a witty, exciting ride, expertly balancing comedy and horror and never over-dosing on either. The cast is game, with Serenity's Nathan Fillion playing the hero with a reluctant gusto, and Elizabeth Banks is both a funny and sympathetic straight-face as the wife of the man-turned-monster (and, naturally, the object of Fillion's affections). Overall, Slither's narrative goes in a predictable direction, but Gunn has a lot of fun in the intermediate scenes, constantly springing gory surprises that provide for some hilarious lines. To use a familiar expression: no, it's not Citizen Kane, but there's a lot of fun to be had by all. Grade: B]