News: Creative Boredom

Never let it be said that boredom prevents creativity. It's quite the opposite, as Saul Steinberg describes:

The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes.

For one of my co-workers today, avoiding boredom involved "reviewing" me. Apprently my exploits in the fine-art of film criticism have spread beyond the electronic borders of this blog and into my workplace; I'm not sure exactly how I feel about this collision of worlds. With a penchant for naming me BLACKMAN (my surname, if you're wondering) and the relentless questions of "are you going to review it?" regarding everything from the latest blockbuster to the pencil I'm holding, he took it upon himself to write this awfully well-wrtten gem:

JOSHUA BLACKMAN – A HARRY LAM REVIEW

5 stars

As Tom Jones once sang, it’s not unusual to feel inadequate, inferior and insignificant in the presence of film reviewing greatness. However, due to record company pressure the Welsh crooner was forced to alter these lyrics in an attempt to appease the mainstream listener. But for anyone who has ever been involved in film or its study, dabbled in art or writing, or indeed ever picked up a pen or held an opinion, one cannot help but feel the icy, unforgiving chill under the looming shadow of one master critic. Newton once famously played down his own achievements indicating that his work was only possible by “standing on the shoulder of giants.” Undoubtedly, one such giant was Joshua BLACKMAN.

An enigma, an unsolvable riddle, Joshua BLACKMAN is a man shrouded in mystery and contradictions. His surname – changed to capitals via deed poll in 1986 – is as confronting as it is misleading. Indeed the name BLACKMAN reflects the duality in his ageless writing: ferocious yet subtle. All sightings of this genius recluse suggest that he is actually white, but is definitely a man: a thinking man’s man. He is noted for his slow leisurely gait, yet those closest to him confirm that it is the sheer weight of his movie reviewing mind baring heavily upon his frame that affects his carefree, noble stride. Constantly reviewing, everything from the quality of his coffee, the colour of his desk and even the weather is given a rating out of five. His literary force has been likened to “ten Robert Christgaus strapped to cannons, and fired relentlessly and indiscriminately into the art world”. Such is his influence, that with as little as a simple turn of phrase, BLACKMAN can reduce a multimillion dollar film into a multimillion dollar flop. A master of punctuation, Joshua BLACKMAN once submitted a critique of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet consisting only of punctuation marks. Time Magazine hailed it as the “mark of a fearless mind”. He was only three years old.

Whilst his writing has grown to the same stature as that of Wordsworth and Hemingway, it is his common touch that marks him as a peerless reviewer of films and art. When asked to describe an overcast day in three words, his now immortal response was: “cold, wet and rainy”. Such was the genius and depth of these three seemingly simple words that it has become a staple in the Australian secondary school curriculum in no less than four subjects: English, History, Religious Studies and Physics.

His confronting writing style is at once innovative, challenging and complex. BLACKMAN’s now legendary critique of Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor appeared at first to be a wordless indecipherable doodle. Fearing the backlash from a BLACKMAN obsessed public if a review not be made available that week, the editor published this seemingly crude black and white drawing under the title PEARL HARBOR: A JOSHUA BLACKMAN REVIEW. Understandably, the public was confounded by such a brash display of movie reviewing arrogance, yet this startling image was analysed and scrutinised by millions for months on end. Finally, seven months after its publication, Allan Thomas, an English major from Princeton University stumbled upon its meaning, revealing completely the true genius of its creator. Thomas found that by turning the image upside down, what was once an impenetrable jumble of lines and shapes was actually a Michelangelo-esque drawing of a chimpanzee eating its own excrement.

Perhaps it is only fitting that the final word should go to the great man himself. In a 1997 interview, a Village Voice journalist made the mistake of referring to BLACKMAN as the “Descartes of modern film critique” in an attempt to flatter his uncompromisingly temperamental interviewee. Offended at what he felt was a slight which did not truly encapsulate the breadth of his genius, Joshua BLACKMAN concluded the interview with this remark: “I think, therefore I review.”
Harry Lam


Epic, my friend. Epic.

And now, for my response:


JOSHUA BLACKMAN – A HARRY LAM REVIEW
A JOSHUA BLACKMAN REVIEW

5 stars

It was by pure chance of fate that today I stumbled across a great man. A man with so refined a writing style I feel inadequacy brewing in my very being; a life's work thrown into chaos in a second of startling revelation; a vocation so ingrained in one's existence that one feels their soul, ragged and heavy, being torn asunder.

The piece responsible is a stunning work of penmanship published in the Facebook Journal of Literary Criticism. His review of this humble reviewer is the purest expression of the reviewing art yet created by the mortal hand of man.

In it he claims that I, Joshua BLACKMAN, am "an enigma, an unsolvable riddle." And yet it is he who is this enigma. Hidden behind his undying love for the mythical Rabbitos and hatred for L.A. hip hop is a remarkable writing talent. Who knew what was hidden behind that peculiar smile and those uniquely forceful eyes.

When I muttered my description of the weather that cold, wet and rainy day, I felt I had reached the pinnacle of literary expression on a level unmatched even by Hemingway, Dickens or J.K. Rowling, And yet I have been upstaged. The phrases flow easily from his delicate keyboard: "the icy, unforgiving chill," "wordless indecipherable doodle," "a chimpanzee eating its own excrement." It is as impossible to comprehend the complex mind conjuring such sublime turns of phrase.

Goethe said that perhaps "only a genius is able to understand a genius." Accordingly I cannot be a genius, for the complexity of this master's pen is equally breathtaking and baffling, the raging fire of inspiration burning beneath untouchable and unknowable.

I once said "I think, therefore I review." I now realize such a description is inadequate. In this case of this great man, who's name is Harry Lam, it should have read: "I AM, therefore I review."


Like I say: never let it be said that boredom prevents creativity.

News: Chauvel Argento Festival Night #1

The Chauvel cinema in Sydney is having a mini-horror film festival with a focus on the movies of Dario Argento. First up was Argento's 1977 classic Suspiria , followed by George A. Romero’s zombie flick, Dawn of the Dead (1978).

I'll get to the films below, but the main disappointment of these screenings is that they seemed to be projected digitally, which is frankly blasphemous. The images were astonishingly clear, but with no visible grain or tangible film quality, one feels the experience was more clinical than it should have been and, especially for Argento, that the deep colours of 35mm would have added to the experience. A disappointment, but it's still a rare treat to be able to appreciate these movies on the big screen with other film fans.

Next week I'll report on the screenings of Tenebre (Argento, 1982) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974). Following that are Phenomena (Argento, 1985) and The Last House on the Left (Craven, 1972), and finally Deep Red (Argento, 1975) and Eaten Alive (Hooper, 1976).

Details can be found on their website under the events and festivals tab.

SUSPIRIA (1977) trailer


Before these screenings I had never seen an Argento film and I hence approached his most famous creation with great anticipation.

A surreal mind-trip of a movie, Suspiria has laughable dialogue, virtually not plot and some atrocious acting. But it’s also one of the most artful, beautiful and frightening horror movies I have seen. Argento has a way of making ever frame look like an opulently coloured painting, with vibrant use of the primary colours, especially (not suprisingly), red. Not afraid to pile on the blood (as in the famous opening slaying which involves a close up of a knife entering a girl’s heart), the scare quota is somewhat muted by the low-budget effects and too-red-to-be-real blood.

But these characteristics help give the film its disturbing hyper-real atmosphere. Instrumental is the setting of the freakish dance studio - one that could only ever exist in the movies - with its unnerving hallways and dream-like trimmings.

While the acting fluctuates between the stilted and the camp, our American heroine played by Jessica Harper, has the right mix of curiousity and vulnerability. Also in the cast is genre favourite Udo Kier, who turns up in a perfunctory and absurd exposition scene in which he explains the psychology of witches (or something).


But never mind that, with some frightening suspenseful sequences, beautiful photography and a demonic repetitve score, Suspiria is a legitimately great horror film from a period when filmmakers were not afraid to take risks.

DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) trailer

In contrast with the beauty of Suspriria are the low-budget thrills of George A. Romero's second zombie movie (the first being Night of the Living Dead). Classic zombies don't exactly make for interesting or scary villains with their trademark slow hobble and groans. Hence, despite the occasional intestine-spewing gore, much of Dead plays more like a comedy, replete with aspirations of social satire.

Four survivors of the global outbreak hole up in the ceiling of an abandoned shopping mall. With the entire complex as their playground and an impressive arsenal of weapons at their disposal (some obtained from the convenient gun store in the mall; only in America, you think...), hundreds of zombies are dispatched as the three men and one woman argue over their next move.

There's a wonderfully rebellious tone and some great one-liners that could only have come from the 70s: when discussing Franciene's pregnancy, the tough self-appointed leader Peter says proudly, "Do you want to abort it? It's not too late, and I know how."

The wacky analogies of zombies to shoppers and consumer culture set to innocuous musak is also a nice touch, as is the latter incursion by bikies that suggest the greater threat my still lie in the land of the living (an aspect also explored in Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later).


I'm no zombie movie expert, but Dawn of the Dead has clearly earned it's stripes as a seminal film of the genre. A very enjoyable, bloody piece of work.

Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

Released March 4, 2010

George Clooney and a goat seeing who will blink first

Do you believe you could stop the heart of a goat with only the power of your mind? The men in The Men Who Stare at Goats think so, and, apparently, some real soldiers in the US military believed they could too.

Based on a sort-of-true story in Jon Ronson’s book on the same name, the film depicts the bizarre training of the First Earth Battalion, a New Age version of the military dreamed up in the 70's in reaction to the Vietnam war.

George Clooney stars as one of the original members of the movement, Lyn Cassady, who is currently on a mission in present day Iraq. He claims to have psychic powers and keeps in shape by bursting clouds with his mind. In flashback we see his training under hippie flower-loving leader Bill Django (Jeff Bridges). Most seem to accept the group’s airy Earth-loving philosophy, except for Larry Hooper (Kevin Spacey), who would rather use his powers to learn the ways of the dark side.

That’s not just a snappy pop-culture reference either as Cassiday likes to call himself a “Jedi Warrior”. He speaks knowingly about his bushido to an embedded reporter, played indifferently by an American-accented Ewan McGregor, who thinks he’s stumbled upon the story of a lifetime.

I know what you’re thinking: surely this can’t be a true story? Despite a Fargo-esque claim at the outset, the farce on screen certainly isn’t. More a series of offbeat gags than a coherent satire, it’s a case where the actors seem to have had more fun making it than an audience does watching it.

It’s tricky material, and director Grant Heslov, Clooney’s producing partner, never finds the right balance between flippancy and sincerity. Clooney, however, is entertaining playing a variation of his Coen-brothers dumb guy act, and Spacey gets all the best moments as the angry rebel.

Goats is an amusing diversion (with an appropriately loopy title) but enjoyment wears thin as it becomes clear that none of the characters are keen to wake from their deluded LSD-induced slumber.

Review: Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Released March 4, 2010

Alice (Mia Wasikowska) wandering in Wonderland

Tim Burton's version of Lewis Carroll’s classic is surprising for the wrong reasons. Updating it for today’s 3D craving audience, and with a story shoehorned into the hero’s journey archetype, the director that made the near-masterpiece Ed Wood or even the overblown but terrific Sweeney Todd seems curiously absent.

His usual elements are in play: Johnny Depp as the loopy Mad Hatter, the Danny Eflman score, the emphasis of visuals over story and his wife, Helena Bonham Carter, tearing it up as the manic Red Queen. But despite them and a wonderland that looks like Pandora on acid, it's too conventional, as if Burton was reporting to a committee, rather than the other way around.

Most startling is the screenplay by Linda Woolverton. Drawing more from Through The Looking Glass than its predecessor, the curious young protagonist has been refashioned into a post-pubescent young adult. In this guise her story becomes a simple coming-of-age tale about empowerment and responsibility.

Given this approach, a Jane Austen-lite framing story, in which Alice (Australian Mia Wasikowska, vash-ee-kov-ska) is the impending victim of an arranged marriage, works well enough. But as soon as she tumbles down the rabbit hole, she – and the audience – are thrown into a deliriously excessive 3D imagining of Wonderland.

The art direction and some of the effects are magnificent but, unlike Avatar, 3D was added after principal photography and it shows. The technology has not yet been refined, or at least implemented well, and Alice is an incomprehensible, haphazard mess.

Alice encounters all the usual suspects on her journey: the evaporative Cheshire cat, the wise Caterpillar, the waddling Tweedledee and Tweedledum and, ultimately, the nasty Jabberwocky. They are voiced by luminaries – and half the fun is guessing who is who – including Christopher Lee, Stephen Fry and Alan Rickman. Some of this is wackily amusing but the finale degenerates into a CGI battle that could have been pulled from any recent fantasy blockbuster.

The only unique element is Wasikowska as Alice who, behind her pale beauty and youth, belies an emotional strength otherwise absent from the film. Other than Carter’s scene stealing monarch, it’s only she that offers a lasting impression.

DVD Review: Shrink (2009)

Released February 18, 2010

Kevin Spacey asleep on the job in Shrink

Shrink is a distinctly indie feature with aspirations of being a scathing Hollywood satire. In truth, its jabs at the industry that gave it life are less scathing than familiar and trite – we’ve seen all this before, wittier and more assured, in Robert Altman’s The Player.

From the opening montage set to an ethereal Coldplay clone it’s clear Shrink really wants to be about something, and wants us to know about it.

Henry Carter is the titular psychiatrist, played by Kevin Spacey with his usual magneticisim. When recording his new audio book “Happiness Now!” he says “Happiness is a word for a feeling. Feelings are rarely understood in the moment, they are quickly forgotten and almost always misremembered. And besides, feelings are totally full of shit...”

His misery stems from the recent death of his wife, who committed suicide, and of the frustrating self-obsessive problems of many of his patients. These include an obnoxious movie producer (Dallas Roberts), a sex and alcohol addicted celebrity (an uncredited Robin Williams) and an actress (Saffron Burrows), the most sensible of the three, but who is still struggling with her career and destructive husband.

Carter is awoken from his self-indulgent, pot-smoking slumber by the arrival of Jemma (Keke Palmer), a troubled school student with filmmaker aspirations. Will this be the trigger to make him finally stick his neck out for somebody? In a less conventional film, maybe this wouldn't happen. This is not that film.

The screenplay suffers from its parallel structure – a difficult thing to pull off – which valiantly ties its threads into a big happy knot, but the narrative lacks dramatic drive. A few of the punchlines about Hollywood’s current obsession with vampires ring true, but is it really wise to have not one or two, but three obvious references to The Graduate? (literally, as Jemma observes a revival screening) All it does it remind you of a better movie you could be watching.

Shrink did not garner a theatrical release in Australia, but is now available on DVD. It’s only notable feature is a 22 min interview with Director Jonas Pate and Producer Braxton Pope, who discuss the birth and evolution of the project. Like the film, the video quality of these special features is poor, with aliasing and artefacts in almost every scene.

Diluted by absent direction and a script that resolves everything and nothing, Shrink is occasionally funny but ultimately vapid. By trying too hard to be sincere, you sometimes end up achieving the opposite.

News: Hit Girl Kick(s)-Ass

You feeling lucky? Punk?

I’ll have my normal review up soon, but I just got back from a very early screening of the much anticipated Kick-Ass at the Entertainment Quarter in Sydney.

This is the film based on Mark Millar’s comic book of the same name, which depicts a real-world band of superheroes with no superpowers. The film is probably most widely known at the moment for the violent red-band trailers that have been floating around. You know, the one with a 12 year old girl telling a bunch of baddies "OK you cunts, let's see what you can do now," just before giving them a thorough ass kicking.

Here it is:


Kick-Ass Red Band Hit Girl Trailer - Watch more Funny Videos

That’s Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl and Nicolas Cage as her father, one of the more peculiar and hilarious father-daughter parings in the movies. Moretz was only 12 at the time of filming and predictably the right wing Australian Family Association, among others, disapprove.

But if you watch an interview with Chloe Moretz, much like when you watch the equally precocious Dakota Fanning, it’s clear she understands it is only make-believe. And once you’ve seen the movie (which I doubt any of the those upset will) it’s clear that the tone is completely irreverent and flippant. That's the real gleeful joy of the movie, and I don't think any of it - the violence or the swearing - is meant to be taken seriously.

That said, the movie is a success partly because of the teenage angst and banter reminicent of Superbad, though there's a few pop-culture references that will quickly become dated.

The cut we saw was finished except for the soundtrack and sound mix. It's an interesting experience to watch the movie temp-tracked to music from every other superhero movie - The Dark Knight, Superman, Batman, among others. The references are oddly appropriate because the movie exists in a world where everyone, especially our wannabe-superheroes, are already familiar with them. They also picked the best and most memorable cues; I can't imagine the replacement score working any better, though it will at least be more coherent.

The bottom line is Kick-Ass is a blast. You don't need me to tell you to see it, since you will anyway, but it's the funnest time I've had at the movies in ages. It's released in Australia on April 8th.

Review: From Paris With Love (2010)

Released February 18, 2010

The brainy trio of Travolta + Rhys Myers + random hooker

This movie is dumb. The bad guys are bad because they sell drugs or are from the Middle East. The good guys, if they are good, amount a body count to rival Roland Emmerich's in 2012. If only Pierre Morel's film was as entertaining or as sophisticated as that disaster epic.

At least, one might say, it has John Travolta. Here he's in screen chewing mode, swearing, flattening gangs with his fists and hookers with his...well, never mind. Essentially playing the same character as his baddie in The Taking of Pelham 123, Travolta is Charlie Wax, an American secret service agent roaming Paris with his new straight laced partner, James Reece (Jonathon Rhys Myers). What they are doing, who they are killing and why is as murky as the ugly, glum photography.

Plot is instead replaced by incomprehensible action. I can appreciate a brainless action thriller as much as the next person, but the sequences in From Paris with Love have no sense of space or tension. We see Travolta fire his gun. Cut. A baddie falls. Cut. Repeat. There's not even a Die Hard level of coherence let alone balletic Yuen Wo Ping choreography.

The pretty Kasia Smutniak plays Reece's Parisian wife who, thanks to the law of economy of characters and a lack of imagination by the screenwriters (Adi Hasak and the sometimes talented Luc Besson), quickly becomes more important that she appears.

It all leads to attempted suicide bombings and Travolta hanging out of a speeding car with a rocket launcher, and even that is, somehow, boring.

The only conceivable reason to watch this film is for Travolta’s lip-smacking murderous rouge. If you've seen Pelham 123, there is precisely none.