Author: BRWC

Showing the intertwining relationships around shoe salesman Richard (John Hawkes) and performance artist Christine (writer/director Miranda July), Me and You and Everyone We Know is a film that explores the nature of human interaction and relationships in an increasing complicated modern (2005) world.

Hawkes as Richard and Brandon Ratcliffe as his youngest son are both stand outs, but July and her team have corralled a great cast of unknowns that bring life to every role, unless you remember Hawkes in From Dusk Till Dawn (he never said help us).

It is interesting to see the spectrum of relationships across ages that don’t necessarily mean romance. While there is some uncomfortable cross generational relationships in chat rooms, no one has the right to feel comfortable watching a film and it would not be nearly as powerful or truthful had this been omitted.

In some ways this is the definition of an indie film in the popular imagination. With a main character who creates modern video art and poetic dialogue it is quirky as hell, but you can’t get rid of it. That is just July and that’s the way she does things, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t become irritating at times.

In other ways this is utterly inimitable. It’s optimism in the face of loneliness and melancholic madness is something hard to fake, and can only be attributed to July’s sincerity behind making this. This sincerity is assisted by the score by Michael Andrews, best known for his Tears for Fears Mad World cover for Donnie Darko, is absolutely riveting and maintains the hollow but heartfelt tone perfectly.

To go back to the dialogue, it is certainly poetic and flowery and is quite wonderful, but it detracts from the truth of the interactions at times. It’s hard to believe in these characters when they have the self-awareness to call burning their hand trying to save their life.

Something that adds to the appeal is the great sense of humour throughout. It punctuates what could have been a sombre film into something far more entertaining and honest.

If you can get past the super quirk, there is bold but gentle film to be found with a real heart and a unique point of view.

Bonus Features

An interesting 30 minutes interview with July about the film’s inception and production, a 20 minute Cast & Crew interviews featuring the usual vox pox about how great the film is, a 7 Minute behind the scenes giving a little insight into putting the thing together and a theatrical/other releases trailers

Available on DVD now

Julian Barrett (Eric Roberts) was once the director of the “Summer Camp” horror franchise. Mysteriously, he accrues the funding for a reboot. The set up is a reality TV show, Dead.TV, where a group of wayward young adults are brought to the original location of Summer Camp, Camp Sunfish, counselled by the actors (Brian Gallagher & Felissa Rose) and are eliminated until one survivor is left. The only problem is the eliminations are permanent.

As far as performances, the prolific Roberts is fantastic in this more supporting role, meeting the material perfectly and is supporting solid performances from everyone else. The problem is every other role is filled with the standard quality of slasher acting; over-the-top but never truly bad.

This style that extends into almost all facets of the film, like the special (I think practical?) effects and the characters. None of them are awful, they’re just…slasher standard. Having said this, there are some things that stood out.

I was reminded of My Little Eye which, while being a different kind of horror film, found a similar connection between the faking and game playing of reality TV contestants and the evasive lying of suspects in a horror. Camp Dread delivers this well and uses it to great effect, especially for the grand and surprising ending.

Obviously the filmmakers are horror fans, lacing the film with meta ideas like reboots and knowing parallels and nods to slasher classics like Friday The 13^th and Sleepaway Camp. However despite all this meta, it never elevates over being just another slasher itself, feeling more a like a Scream sequel than the genre revitalising original. It’s a knowing that comes across as a hearkening back to old slashers in a modern setting instead of taking the genre to a new place like it thinks it is.

If you like your slashers this is on the upper end of the genre, but it goes for revolutionary and instead ends up nostalgic.

Out in Cinemas May 19^th and on DVD June 23^rd

Here’s a terrifying fact: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure came out 25 years ago. That’s right – it was 1989 when we saw a pre-charisma lobotomy Keanu Reeves play Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan and Alex Winter (in his weird crop-top thing) play Bill S. Preston for the first time. What better way to celebrate this fact than enjoy their first adventure in sparkling HD?

For those that don’t know already (and, c’mon, what have you been doing with your life?) Bill and Ted are two high school slackers, more concerned with bashing out terrible riffs in their band ‘Wyld Stallyns’  than bothering with academic work. When their History teacher threatens to fail them, they have one chance left – a History presentation in front of the whole school – in 24 hours time. It’s a beautifully simple premise – but how are these hearts-of-gold idiots possibly going to pass? With the help of a phone box of course.

You see, it turns out that Bill and Ted will eventually be the saviours of humanity. They don’t know it yet, but the music of Wyld Stallyns will unite the world and bring peace to mankind. If they fail History, Ted will be shipped off to a military academy by his Father, and the band will be no more. To stop this calamity, Rufus (George Carlin) is sent from the future to provide our heroes with the means to make a most triumphant presentation – a time machine.

Off they travel through different eras, picking up such historical celebs as Billy the Kid, Napoleon, Socrates and more, with both Reeves and Winter gamely wrapping their tongues around Bill and Ted’s wonderfully superfluous manner of speaking. Seeing an American teenager with surf-bum call something bad ‘most egregious’ is innately hilarious.

The film is somewhat dated – effects are a little wobbly in a pleasingly 80’s way, and despite Bill and Ted’s motto, “Be excellent to each other”, there is a particularly cloying moment for us 21st Century Guardian reader types when the pair warmly hug after a moment of danger, before pushing each other away and remarking “fag”.

Despite these fairly minor issues, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure can’t help but bring a smile to your face. Some great Blu Ray extras include an episode of the Bill and Ted cartoon show, with characters voiced by the principal actors from the feature, as well as interviews with the pair’s creators Chris Matheson and Ed Soloman, the original duo.

P.K. Nair, affectionately called Nair Saab (or teacher Nair) was, until his retirement in the 90’s, one of the world’s leading film archivist, a fervent lover of cinema and remains an inspirational figure to the Indian film making community. Celluloid Man shows us his story and the affect he has had as a founder and director of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) and surrogate teacher and film guru to those who entered the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII).

Firstly, the gorgeous clips of obscure films Nair has compiled in his archive is truly remarkable, made all the more so for the thought that without him these cinematic memories would have been lost forever. Through these we gain as much an understanding of the history of Indian film as we do Nair himself.

The film is complied of interviews, anecdotes and stories with Nair and others telling of his impact on and passion for cinema interspersed with classic Indian cinema that Nair has saved from destruction over his famed career. However, it is also shown that this can have it’s consequences, as the heart wrenching interview with his daughter shows, creating the balance needed to prevent this being a puff piece.

Nair is the embodiment of a certain mentality of film that is being lost. Standing against a cultural history against film preservation, even those that have replaced him at the NFAI are not as passionate as him. He is someone who was caught by the magic and now the digitisation of the medium has come taken out the magic for him. It shows cellulose film stock as something magical and the fact that director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur shot on 35mm film reflects a real understanding and kinship with Nair’s feelings.

There is real poetry in the direction that keeps this from simply being a talking heads documentary. Along with the amazing wealth of archive materials at Dungarpur’s disposal, like the montage of old Indian film company logos, this stands as a stunning film in its own right, full of visual lyricism and confidence.

The greatest lesson here to my eye is to not be judgemental on what makes a film important when it comes to its protection. Nair collected films indiscriminately, knowing that, to paraphrase him, what is a B-Movie now in 50 years will be history. Film is story telling, and the way we tell stories now will inform later generations of our attitudes and feelings towards certain issues and problems of our age. The question is whether film is worth saving at all. To some, unfortunately, the answer is no.

This is one of the most poetic looks at not just Indian, but film culture, history and the importance of its preservation ever recorded. A remarkable documentary that captures what it means to give your life wholly to something and the importance of maintaining the history of the cinema.

Bonus Features

‘In Conversation with Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’ – An insight into Dungarpur’s history with film and how he came to tell Nair’s story, acting as a personal history and mission statement rather than insight into the film’s production.

The featured booklet looks interesting, featuring an essay by fantastic film buff Mark Cousins and parts of the production diaries, though it was unavailable for this review.

Available on DVD now

After Harry (screenwriter Brian Pestos) fails to complete a task asked of him, he returns home to find his beloved dog and closest thing to a romantic relationship Jolly murdered. This so incenses him, that he enlists the help of best friend Cecil (Oscar Isaac) and takes a trunk full of guns to avenge her.

Both main characters are played well, though Pestos doesn’t find a balance of being funny and serious so despite that fact he’s supposedly a “good guy”, he just seems like a psychopath. Alongside Pestos and Isaac is a slew of supporting cast cameos from Elijah Wood, Kristin Wiig and Ryan Philleppe to name but three, all of whom bring a distinctive charisma to each role.

It is both parts ridiculous and violent, which balance well so that you don’t need worry about the morality of what you’re seeing. As the story goes on the guns may get bigger but the stakes don’t get any higher. It plateaus in as far as motivation and interest, basically meaning if you’re not in from the get go, tough. There is primal pleasure to be found in the constant stream of darkly comic murders and characters, but it doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny.

Revenge For Jolly aims for a feeling of a larger world beyond the frame, like “the thing” that wasn’t done, but it never really succeeds. It is too focused on the guns and gaining pleasure from the dispatching of various stars instead of making you care about why it was happening. Where it definitely excels is in it’s dark humour and more comedic moments (“Who throws ranch?” and Adam Brody’s hair are two particular highlights), and I was certainly laughing throughout, but I had lost all interest in why this was happening.

It is a “cool” film, not bothered with things like how 2 or 3 dimensional the characters are or their actions being likeable or even justified, instead focusing on what is immediately and viscerally fun to see. In this particular case this leads to problems like not earning its ending and the plot not quite working.

That isn’t to say it is a bad film and I did undoubtedly enjoy myself. I certainly think that, for the most part, it achieves what it set out to do, and it is knowingly short to match it’s ridiculousness, but it’s preoccupation with being cool and fun ultimately leads to the film asking, or rather begging, you to just go with it, which is it’s largest problem; expecting you to ignore all the technical faults.

The whole time I was watching this, I was torn between my 15 year old self just going with it like the film wants me to, but my degree was jabbing him in the shoulder saying “You know this is bobbins right? Why should you care? What a crap line!”. While it was a constant push and pull between visceral enjoyment and technical disjointedness, the enjoyment won out eventually, but this will certainly be the case for many.

Despite not being a technically a good film, I really did enjoy myself. While it’s ridiculous in pretty much every way, it is knowingly so and there is dark fun to be had here for those who can leave their brain at the door.

Bonus Features

None to speak of on the UK DVD release, unless you count a choice between 2.0 or 5.1 stereo. I’m unsure of whether this is different on the Blu-Ray.

Available on DVD & Blu-Ray Now.