Recently in It's good, no? Category

I've been feeding on the cinematic equivalent of candyfloss recently; a diet consisting of summer blockbusters of varying quality (courtesy of a UGC nee Cineworld's Unlimited access card) most of which, like the confectionery, have turned out to be pretty enough to look at, briefly distracting and ultimately insubstantial. Consequently I've been hankering for something a little more filling. "Crash" - not to be confused with David Cronenberg's earlier film of the same title - proved a more satisfying treat.

Briefly, it's a series of intersecting events involving a number of inhabitants of Los Angeles. Structurally it's reminiscent of Magnolia more than anything else I can recall, even down to it's unlikely coda. On the other hand, it's really a wholly different kettle of fish altogether.

The whole film takes place over little more than 24 hours or so and principally deals with violence born out of misunderstanding - most often relating to race which seems to form predominant theme of the film - and it's ultimately tragic consequences. Despite that description, I should make it clear that it's not an overtly violent film - there's little excess of that sort shown in the screen, although what we're left with remains stark and uncompromising. There's a rich and complex set of protagonists involved. Even those you loath - and you will loath at least one of them - aren't completely devoid of redeeming virtues. Unusually, we're not given much of a chance to identify directly with them, however, rather we connect with them on an emotional level instead as we witness what they go through. This is easily the films biggest success - it's really does drag you kicking and screaming from one emotional plateau to another. In particular it features one scene that delivers a sort of catharsis to which I can't begin to do justice. To be honest, I'd praise the film as worthy of viewing for this moment alone, but the rest of it stands scrutiny too.

Crash isn't a film you'll walk away from feeling you have all the answers, but realising you've been asked the questions is as satisfying in it's own right. It's great stuff of the sort I'd like to see more.

Go see it.

Gravestones are starting to disturb me.

Not real gravestones mind you, but those of the fictional variety. I'm not certain whether that makes the situation better or worse. A few tombstones have cropped on some shows I've watched lately, and what's troubling me about them is the date of birth of the expired characters. Programmes like Buffy and Smallville feature likable characters with whom I still find it relatively easy to identify. Of course they feature people who are invariably cooler, smarter, hipper, stronger and wittier than me (and probably you too), but then isn't that the basis of escapist entertainment? Anyway, because of that identification I naturally expect the date of birth on the tombstone to be around the time of my own birth. Which makes it all the more disturbing when the date is in fact in the mid to late eighties. Children are born in the mid to late eighties. Or at least they should be. Instead it's now young adults who hail from such a time. Adults! When did that happen, from whence did this vast chasm of an age gap appear?

It seems that some part of my brain hasn't yet cottoned on to the fact that I've reached my thirties, and that my teenage years are some way distant. I do feel my responses are mitigated somewhat by the fact that many of the young adults featured in such programmes are considerably older than the characters they play. Sarah Michelle Geller and Tom Welling for example, are both 27, scarcely a stones throw away from my age. I'm not wholly certain that makes things better, but hopefully it makes my tv viewing habits seem a bit less creepy...

One of my brothers is down visiting for the weekend, so I laid all of London bare before him and asked him to take his pick of all the entertainments on offer. From some of the finest theatre, opera, and ballet companies this land has to offer, to the artiest of art house cinemas.

So we went to see Van Helsing.

I didn't know much about the film going in, save that it was a Stephen Sommers film. This I knew because I'd seen the trailer, which positively screamed Stephen Sommers at me (not necessarily in a good way) - he's a distinctive film maker, that much I'll say about him. He's also the gent responsible for The Mummy, a film I'd actually rather enjoyed. It was loud, brash and suffered from some lapses in logic that would have been unforgivable, save for the fact that the film was so endearingly good natured, you couldn't help but smile, and be carried along in the wake of it's absurdities.

Unfortunately, since then Mr Sommers appears to have become something of a Hollywood go to guy whenever a loud, brash and illogical action film is required to fill out the summer schedules - he followed the success of The Mummy with The Mummy Returns and The League of Extraordinary Gentleman. These presented ever larger spectacles, hand in hand with even greater larger lapses in logic (like taking a submarine the size of an aircraft carrier down a Venice canal. I mean, c'mon!) . And, in my estimation, they weren't quite as good natured which made their (all too obvious) flaws all that much harder to forgive.

Which brings us to Van Helsing. As you might expect, I didn't have terribly high hopes going into the cinema, but perhaps because of this I was pleasantly surprised. It still betrays the classic trademark Sommers traits of loudness, brashness and wanton nonsensicality, and I'm quite certain it won't be picking up any Oscars (outside of the technical categories at least), but it's enjoyable fare and, within the confines of it's own skewed internal logic, everything seems reasonably self-consistent (compared to The Mummy Returns and LoEG at least). It still betrays one of Sommer's greatest plotting weaknesses, namely his over-reliance on outlandish co-incidences to resolve dangling plot threads, but as with The Mummy, the whole thing trots along at such a breathlessly ludicrous pace and applies enough of a charm offensive to enable you to over look it. That said, I still can't escape the feeling that Sommers is trying to make an Indiana Jones for modern audiences. It may never happen and it certainly hasn't happened here - after all, I know Indiana Jones, and you sir, are no Indiana Jones.

I should probably mention that the effects work is of a high standard (the cgi still looks like cgi, but I consider it discourteous to complain about such things - it's good cgi after all), with possibly the best effect the film has to offer being Kate Beckinsale's corset. I mean, that was a special effect right? People in real life don't have waists that narrow surely...?

I still can't believe that anyone actually dared try to adapt "His Dark Materials" for the stage. I can only assume that the director shares in equals amounts of courage and insanity - both would certainly be required for this undertaking. I'm a big fan of the books after discovering them only last year, and it's been fascinating watching the interest in them waxing. I've read that a film version is under consideration, which makes some sense in the wake of Harry Potter, but when I heard about the National Theatres staging of the books and I had to double check to make certain that is wasn't based some other unrelated book of the same name. It just seemed an incredibly unlikely proposition. Naturally I had to go see it.

Thinking about the adaptation afterwards, the thing that most strikes me is how relentless it is. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Covering the three books in 6 hours is, like near everything about the play, hugely ambitious - there's an awful lot of (dark) material to cover, screeds and screeds of it. Going into the theatre, I expected that that plot would have to be trimmed considerably, but I was surprised at how faithful it was to the books. Of course, being faithful means that the whole thing moves along at a quite dizzyingly clip in an effort to squeeze everything in. It's not a perfect approach, since by necessity there's a lot of exposition going on in order to fill the audience in on the complex background against which the story is set, but it's difficult to imagine it being presented any other way. Whilst this is fine for anyone who has read the books, I can imagine that it might take those less familiar with the source (dark) material to become comfortable with the goings on. The other downside of this approach is that some things are painted with necessarily broad strokes and some subtlety is lost along the way. On the flipside again the sheer enthusiasm and energy of the production makes up for that.

The staging is an interesting example of economy. Considering that the settings range from the spires of Oxford to the shores of the Antartic, before veering off into further parallel worlds, the set trades spectacle for flexibility which means that many of the locations are suggested with minimal amounts of props. Some of this is fairly basic, but it's never less than effective which is what's most important. But that's not to say there's no spectacle. The Olivier theatre has a unique rotating stage which incorporates a large cylinder that can rise up to reveal a new set. It's a clever mechanism that's put to good use here, with most of the interior settings taking place on this platform. There are also several other clever tricks used to good effect, such as the tower of Citagazze rising up from the center stage, or the balloon of Lee Scoresby floating gently in the night sky.

The curious thing about the casting is that it brought home just how strong a view I had of these characters. Of them all, Lyra was closest to what I had in mind. She was played by the 20-something Anna Maxwell Martin, who managed to portray a 12 year old with (what I remember to be) remarkable accuracy. Probably the two I had most difficult adjusting too were Timothy Dalton as Lord Asriel and Patricia Hodge as Mrs Coulter. They were fine in their respective roles, but Dalton's Asriel was less imperious and more adventurous than I'd imagined whilst Hodge's Mrs Coulter was more motherly and less malevolent. Not bad casting by any means, just not what I'd envisioned. Of the remaining characters the ones I derived most enjoyment from were the non-human characters, such as the various daemons and the polar bears. If you've seen The Lion King on stage, a lot of the puppetry involved in creating these effects will be familiar to you, but they are used equally well here. That a simple effect involving a man holding a mask can manage to create the illusion that he wears the bulk of a polar bear is testament to the skills of all involved, actors and technicians alike.

Anyway, I've prattled on for long enough. I'm honestly not certain what my expectations were when I entered the theatre, but I don't think I expected the play to measure up to the books. I was wrong. They play is not perfect, but it's easy to forgive it it's flaws and in the end it manages to stand on it's own two feet, aside from it's parent, remarkably well. Of course, I've yet to witness the second half of the production, so I should probably be a little more cautious in my judgements, but I am impressed with what I've seen so far.

Good stuff.