A Tale of Two Cinemas or The Fine Art of Cinema Programming

When I first moved to the West Midlands in 1998, I discovered Birmingham's most famous repertory cinema - The Electric in the heart of Birmingham. Tickets were cheap, especially for double-bills and particularly for the large category of concessions, of which I wasn't one. The seats were slashed, both auditoriums smelt of wee (there were occasional tramps in for the afternoon double-bills, presumably for the warmth), the raking on the ground floor left quite a lot to be desired (leading to largish audiences - of which there were admittedly few - sitting in that weird chequerboard pattern that seems to form quite naturally) and the toilets were pretty horrid. I didn't care a jot of course. I watched all but two of Pedro Almodovar's movies in a huge celebration leading up to the release of his new movie, 'All About My Mother' (still one of my favourites of his). I watched 'Once Upon a Time in The West' on the big screen (and on film at that), an experience that no home viewing experience can ever quite replicate. I saw Marx Brothers movies ('A Night at The Opera' and 'Duck Soup') that I couldn't remember seeing before, although I probably had when I was too young to either remember or appreciate them. The same guy used to sell me my ticket, take a pittance for a fantastically stodgy slice of cake and then tear my ticket. And probably ran upstairs to turn the projector on. For a cinephile, the place was as close to heaven as it got. I loved it.

The then-Virgin chain opened a cinema that was less than ten minutes walk from my flat: twelve screens with perfect air conditioning, THX-certified sound, perfect raking & legroom. The programming included both blockbusters and indie movies from all over the world (Almodovar's newer releases, Susanne Bier, Lars von Trier, Studio Ghibli, you name it). A (then available) four-weekly or eight-weekly pass cost next to nothing. My monthly cinema bill went down from £100-£150 to less than a tenth of that. My visits to the Electric dropped to zero.

A few years later, The Electric closed and the building was left derelict. I felt a slight pang of remorse on my way to air-conditioned luxury and a perfect view as I knew that it was people like me who were responsible, but how could The Electric compete with great facilities and note-perfect programming? Sure, I had to go out and moan occasionally about an out-of-focus picture, missing sound or noisy patrons as opposed to The Electric's silence and rock-solid projection, but this was a small price to pay; a very small price (see above: less than a tenth).

My Cineworld went all digital; the first conversions were pretty obviously funded by European grant money, judging from the first movies shown on those two screens (10 & 12 for detail obsessives). But once whatever contractually-obligated minimum period had expired and as it started to make commercial sense to convert all the other screens, the cinema discovered the commercial benefits of Bollywood movies, a category I have absolutely no interest in. All of a sudden the cinema effectively lost two or three screens to me and the indie movies I loved were nowhere to be found.

The Electric meanwhile reopened as some kind of luxury cinema with leather sofas, stuffed olives and various flavours of gin. Both screens are now digital and look pretty good (the digital vs. film is a topic for another time). But I noticed that one week in 2009, one screen was playing the new 'Star Trek' movie while the other was playing 'Angels & Demons', both of which I'd assumed might be generally pretty accessible elsewhere. On one particularly memorable occasion, I went to see a one-off screening of 'The Spy Who Loved Me' (the first movie I can remember seeing at the cinema) with Richard Kiel who plays Jaws in attendance. My boyfriend was pretty ill and I was fairly drunk, but the main reason I walked out was because after presumably failing to get hold of a print, the cinema was projecting the DVD. The DVD. Not a blu-ray. The DVD. No-one else with their olives, their gin or their sofas seemed to mind. Needless to say I've never been back. And I'm never going to go back. I can't really think of a reason to pay to watch a movie on someone else's home cinema set-up when I have a perfectly good one at, well, home.

As far as repertory cinemas go, "there is... another..." and that would be the Light House in Wolverhampton: well-behaved audiences (well, when there are other people in the audience!), gorgeous projection and sound and - above all - absolutely perfect repertory programming, balanced by the odd, presumably-out-of-commercial-necessity mainstream film. I go whenever I can, which is not that often, but I try; I guess I've learned something.

Do I blame myself for the fact that a lot of my movie-watching nevertheless now has to be done at home, courtesy of LoveFilm? Of course I do; I'm not an idiot. There are many lessons to be learned from this story, lessons about the power of monopoly, the true price of short-term financial gain, that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, that you get what you pay for. But the main lesson? Never just walk out of a movie and run outside to get a cab, always stop and moan at the staff for projecting a ruddy DVD first; you'll never want to speak to them again after you've left.

So-Called Director's Cuts & Revisionism

The archetypal Director's Cut was released in 1992.

The joke of course was that this was no such thing, as the vast bulk of the large list of edits that Ridley Scott had specified while he went to finish '1492: Conquest of Paradise' were ignored, as detailed in Paul Sammon's excellent book 'Future Noir'. Nevertheless, the trend started with that release became increasingly prevalent, with Special Edition cuts of 'Aliens' & 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' getting prominent home video (remember that phrase?) releases and cinematic re-releases of 'Spartacus', 'The Abyss', 'E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial', 'Alien', 'The Exorcist' and 'Apocalypse Now' among many, many others all featuring new versions. Editing between cinema and home video releases (there's that phrase again: home video releases. Is there something wrong with DVDs or blu-rays?) was nothing new even prior to this trend. Minor reframing, correction of continuity errors, slight edits were all fairly de rigeur; 'Batman' (1989) was made to look considerably brighter on home video compared to its original cinema release, at least partly due to the difference in projection mechanism.

Nowadays alternate cuts on even the initial blu-ray/ DVD release are commonplace, giving directors & studios the freedom to cut initial cinema releases for maximum commercial impact while retaining the ability to take a second bite at the cherry for reasons of artistic satisfaction or even just allowing audiences a peek behind the scenes of the creative process.

So where did this freedom get us? Greedo shooting first, of course. The best known example of creative revisionism (and one that I personally loathe) acts as the poster boy for why movies should be left alone. But the problem with this latter idea is that it implies that every movie has a definitive version. A few years ago, a small crew tried to finished 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' as originally envisaged and without over-reliance on newer techniques and technology. In what way is the painstakingly finished result (the "Director's Edition") worth any less than the originally released movie? The 'Redux' of 'Apocalypse Now' feels like a totally different movie to the original, but not one that I could suggest was  comparably beter or worse. James Cameron (director of 'The Abyss' and 'Aliens') studiously rejects the notion that any of the secondary releases constitute Director's Cuts in any way; he sees them as interesting alternates.

I'm hoping that the blu-ray of 'Star Wars' or 'Episode IV' or whatever we're supposed to call it today doesn't reveal that the Stormtrooper who hits his head on the door frame magically misses it. But equally well 'The Final Cut' of 'Blade Runner' really is my favourite take. The recent iteration of 'I Am Legend' would have been far stronger with its original ending. I like the inhabited base scenes in the newer take of 'Aliens' but the sentry guns add nothing that I find interesting. And just so we're really, really clear, Han shot in cold blood. The plethora of alternative versions of any movie out there has made the concept of a definitive version pretty much meaningless; figure out which one you like and stick with that!

Why Do People Make Bad Movies? And Who Are Critics to Judge?

A common criticism aimed at film critics themselves is that their opinion is worth no more than anyone else's. This is absolutely true. I need hardly add 'in my opinion', but I will anyway. Another frequent criticism is that critics know absolutely nothing about actually making movies and certainly very little about how difficult it can be. And with the exception of Truffaut, Godard and others in the French New Wave who are helpfully facetious exceptions, this is usually true as well. I for one know pretty much diddly about actual movie making. Sure I can spot great technique, cheerfully dissect the precise reasons I love or loathe something, look at the rhythm of the editing, analyse the cinematography and production design and figure out how the performances are working (or not). But I'm not a professional critic and neither do I pretend to actually know anything about film making or its trials. In a recent Vanity Fair profile, writer/ demi-God Aaron Sorkin suggested that director/ A N Other demi-God David Fincher doesn't like most movies, very possibly a little more eloquently than that. But he goes on to say that David Fincher doesn't talk badly of films he doesn't like as he respects just how difficult making movies is. So who are critics to judge movies and why on earth would anyone make bad ones?

The answer to the first of those questions is pretty easy. No matter how clear a director and crew are in their intentions for a movie, it doesn't amount to anything (not even the proverbial hill of beans) until someone views it - the 'art' actually happens in the screening process. An unscreened movie is just the cat in the box, waiting for us to figure out whether or not it's alive. And since everyone's experience is subjective, that make everyone a critic. Even you. And me. And yes, that does actually make me you. Scary, huh? As long as no-one pretends that their opinion is actually worth any more than any other then I think we'll be OK.

As for bad movies? Interesting. Francis Ford Coppola said in an interview promoting The Godfather Part III ("not the best one" - even advert copywriters are critics apparently, see?) that there was no such thing as 'good' and 'bad' art, that the only possible categorisation of art was as either 'sincere' or 'insincere' and that all sincere art should be considered of value. Although this was pretty ironic considering it's been suggested that he instigated that movie at least partially to ward off the fallout from a second bankruptcy, I think the comment has a lot of truth to it. For the record, I still love that chapter of The Godfather, albeit no, nowhere near as much as the first two, but then again I vastly prefer interesting or ambitious failures over mediocre successes any day of the week. I don't think anyone actually sets out to make bad movies, but sadly there's a lot (and by that I mean a LOT) of film making where the only apparent motive appears to be selling tickets. It's this kind of movie that I think we can safely describe as insincere art; many of these movies seem to be made under the ethos that audience enjoyment or artistic merit aren't remotely important. And before you accuse me of snobbery or elitism, I love at least as many blockbusters as you do and would happily defend their artistry to the hilt.

Personally, I've never been much of a believer in 'best' movie lists of any description or star ratings, even when I've found myself using the latter when both reading and writing about movies. I absolutely adore 'Citizen Kane', but it doesn't make me laugh anywhere near as much as 'When Harry Met Sally' or excite me as much as half a dozen Bond movies I could mention. And does it really matter whether the lobotomising 'Transformers 2' - see above - is described with half a star or no stars at all? I think it's safe to say that a lot of lists and comparisons, whether positive or negative, aren't always helpful when talking about movies.

Hence I'd suggest that one of the only valid criteria against which a movie can be evaluated is probably how successfully each member of the audience feels it measures up to the filmmakers' original intentions. And the only person that can determine that is, well, you. I'll let you be the judge of that.

Skyfall

The consensus seems to be that Quantum of Solace was a relatively poor sequel to a modern classic and although I wouldn't really argue with that take on Casino Royale, I think the follow-up's a little unfairly maligned. Casino Royale's certainly my favourite Bond movie by a long shot, but it's by no means perfect: the whole stock market manipulation MacGuffin is still lost on me after 20+ viewings,  the Prague-for-Miami location work, well, doesn't and neither does the Michael Mann-inspired cinematography in the airport action sequence. We can talk about the good bits some other time. Quantum of Solace meanwhile isn't given enough credit for the extraordinary amount of location work (probably the best presented locations of the series), ace production & costume design and some of the best cinematography the series has ever seen. [I have to admit that I didn't quite expect this post to resemble '"Friends, Romans, Countrymen" to quite the extent to which it's turning out, but that's classic for a reason, right?] The key issue with the sequel seemed to be its action sequences; both their sheer amount in the finished movie as well as their editing came in for criticism and it was suggested more than once that Bond must have felt Bourne nipping at his heels to have stolen his second unit director.

I personally love the sequel. Not as much as its immediate predecessor and admittedly at least partially out of the contractual obligations of fandom, but I love it nonetheless. And one of the main  reasons I love it is because it does feel so dissimilar. It must be so tempting to trot out only slight variations on things that work over and over again - particularly in something so formulaic as a Bond movie - that as a member of the audience I appreciate creatively interesting failures that much more. And whereas Casino Royale was almost the quintessential Bond movie, Quantum of Solace really was just so different.

So key cast & crew have been announced for Skyfall and the list of names suggests that the usual post-mortem has thrown up some interesting lessons for the producers. The big news is of course Sam Mendes, without doubt the most prestigious director ever to have taken the reigns of a Bond movie and one with whom Daniel Craig already has experience, thanks to the excellent adaptation of Road to Perdition. But with him seems to have arrived an absolutely killer cast: Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes & Albert Finney are much bigger names than Bond films can usually attract and even smaller names (Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw & Helen McCrory) are way more accomplished actors than is typical. Some serious money's also been spent on the script again. After the producers' annoyance at Paul Haggis over the latter's involvement in the writers' strike (contributing to uncredited, on-set rewrites as well as the reduction in the drama to action ratio) other big names were engaged: Peter Morgan apparently did a little work on top of the basic Purvis & Wade draft, but John Logan of The Aviator & Gladiator renown has since completed it. The other really big creative name is legend Roger Deakins as director of photography; probably best known for his longstanding work with the Coen Brothers, he's also filmed modern classics like Revolutionary Road & The Reader.

Quantum of Solace's production designer's been retained, but the other key names (special effects supervisor, stunt co-ordinator, second-unit director and editor) all seem to be returning from Casino Royale. Contrary to moronic UK tabloid suggestions of no action, these names actually suggest that Skyfall will feature a return to the more tightly integrated blend of action and drama of that movie, which is reinforced by the drop in budget from $250m (!) to $200m (action's expensive, drama's relatively cheap). And - assuming I've got the girls the right way around! - a French Bond girl is of course only the icing on the cake.

The marketing onslaught is of course going to be relentless for the 50th anniversary movie and - for this fan at least - ruddy expensive. The good news is that the talent involved so far strongly suggests that the film's going to be worth it.

Wide Screens (& Their Dimensions)

Lots of things go around in circles over time. You could cite so many examples of your own, that I'm not even going to bother quoting any. Television of course became popular long after cinema had become commercially established, so it made sense that the original aspect ratio of the former was based on the prevalent ratio of the latter. By aspect ratio I am of course talking about the width to height ratio, but you knew that otherwise you wouldn't be reading this. Right? You can read the slightly dry Wikipedia-type of technical histories or you I can give you a slightly simplified overview. So as I said, telly intentionally aped a common cinema format known as Academy, so that movies would look good when shown on the telly, the ratios of which were pretty constant until widescreen took off.

When cinema attendances started to go down in the late 40s & 50s, film studios freaked and started to look for ways to differentiate the cinema-going experience from television in order not to lose custom to it. They experimented with things like ultra-wide ratios (of which there were a huge variety) and, er, 3D. If you're not sure, then yes, this is the point where you're supposed to think "Hang on a minute!" as we could very well be talking about today. Anyway, two basic ratios survived from that era, which are commonly albeit technically incorrectly referred to as Standard and the much wider (Cinema)Scope. [Before the pedants get at me, I do know much of the detail and I'm picking my language very, very carefully in order to simplify this story as much as possible.] Here's another point where we go in circles: with the rise of home video in the 80s & 90s, studios encouraged their filmmakers to shot in Standard so that the resulting movie would look better on home video without all that pan-and-scanning (a good example being Jurassic Park). Then of course widescreen TVs came out, so we'd get much smaller versions of those annoying black bars when watching movies in the right ratio.

Recently, cinema's felt threatened by the home cinema experience (as well as piracy of course) so again the film industry is trying to differentiate the experience on the big screen to that at home. Hence we have, um, 3D and more use of Scope than previously. Oh, and special Imax sequences.

So why the history lesson? I just finished watching Andrea Arnold's new and absolutely superb take on Wuthering Heights at my local multiplex. Artistically, the film was outstanding and will almost certainly be the subject of other posts. But one of the must curious attributes of the movie was its shooting ratio; it looked like it was filmed in Academy. Yes - that really, really old, squarish, upright format. When the film started I wondered if it would move into one of the wider ratios as the story jumped forward through time, a little like Pedro Almodovar's 'Bad Education' (not that it did). And I could see straight away that the framing would allow for a lot more intimacy than a wider ratio, a promise that the film more than lived up to - the love story was absolutely beautiful. But what I hadn't counted on was just how good the moors would look and how epic the film would feel, at least partially as a result. The framing (which got broken continuously, adding to the sense of repressed feelings bursting out everywhere) seemed to extend the visual scope vertically. The only thing I can liken it to are the tremendous Imax sequences in The Dark Knight; my favourite of those were the epic, Michael Mann-inspired cityscapes. It doesn't take a genius to work out that although the frames in those were huge, their ratio was of course almost square. Strange then that the most striking new movies in some ways resemble some of our oldest movies, just bigger. As Elektra King pointed in 'The World is Not Enough', "We ignore the old ways at our peril".

Not Your Regular Bond Fan

- Oh! You're into [Star Trek/ James Bond/ Dr Who/ thinking with your brain  *delete as appropriate]? You should really talk to [Insert name here]. (S)he's really into [Star Trek/ James Bond/ Dr Who/ having thoughts  *delete as appropriate] as well!

This line will be instantly familiar to anyone who has any geek tendencies whatsoever. You're artificially introduced to this person that you're alleged to have something in common with, following which you end up doing this weird kind of mating ritual where you verbally circle each other, trying to figure out what level of geek the other is to see if you have any kind of connection at all. Not that the non-geeks ever seem to understand that there might in fact not actually be any.

I've been a Bond fan since I was very small. I actually still remember my mum taking me to the cinema when I was five to watch 'The Spy Who Loved Me' on a Monday night at a cinema (now a pool hall) a tube stop away from their house in London. I must have had some serious pester power, as my folks really didn't have much money when we were younger so this turn of events was pretty much unprecedented. Fandom can have many reasons; not everyone affected always knows why they've been blessed with whatever their particular pleasure is, even if the effects are often similar. I suspect that I became a Bond fan because I enjoyed the escapism. But that's not the reason I'm still a fan today. This may or may not be something I have any control over, but it feels like the latter. For me now, being a Bond fan is a thread that runs through my life. The first time I see a Bond movie relates to every other first time I saw a Bond movie, all of which I can of course remember in pretty good detail. Being a fan is about a completely irrational passion. Like a mad crush you can't or just plain won't grow out of. Being a fan is about knowing in as-close-to-an-objective-opinion-as-you-can-muster that a film isn't very or sometimes even any good, but loving it anyway.

If nerds truly rules the world, as I've read two or three times in the last couple of days, then surely the world can respect us enough to recognise that we're all different. Geekdom doesn't just come in levels, it actually comes in flavours. You wouldn't just say "You'd like X, he's gay too!" would you? Although actually someone would, as I'm embarrassed to admit that I was once on the receiving end of that particular line. For the record, I'm into Bond movies way more than I'm into the novels (my favourite of which wasn't even written by Ian Fleming - Colonel Sun was actually by Kingsley Amis).

Star Trek fans are a lot of fun, as are Whovians. And both sets always seem to be into a lot of other things too. Star Wars fans seem to take it all a bit more seriously even though (in my very limited experience) they don't actually seem to have quite as much fun with it. But Bond fans? I have to admit that I often don't like the Bond fans I meet. A few have been absolutely wonderful. But most of them are quite dull and occasionally slightly unhinged men. And they nearly always seem to be men. Well apart from my sister, but you get the general drift. I suspect that many of them secretly really think they either are or just want to be James Bond. I mean, like, REALLY.

I was once introduced to to an alleged Bond fan who was wearing £1100 of watch as per the latest Bond movie, but who didn't own any of the films on DVD and who loved "which was the one with that huge volcano?". How could my heart not sink? I mentioned that I'd blagged my way into a Goldeneye press screening thanks to being such a fan, but that I just didn't like it. Although after a few weeks had passed, I had gone to see it at the cinema again. Another twelve times. Did I mention that I'm not your regular Bond fan?

I guess that this probably won't be the last time I write about being slightly obsessed with Bond movies. In which case, *arches eyebrow* James Bond will return.

Sacred Cows

Many years ago, when I first left college, I used to review movies for a magazine called 'Movie Collector'. The magazine had a fairly small circulation for something nationally published, but a strangely vociferous readership. Being younger and even stupider than I am now, I used to write with enthusiasm but not really understanding; I was by far the youngest of the critics and had ridiculously little context to bring to bear. I figured that the older guys would be interested in reviewing the classics and I'd be doing 'The Fugitive' and 'The Specialist' on laserdisc. Yeah, not so much. They took those particular gems and I got all this stuff by these people called Fellini & Ingmar Bergman. I am of course being a little bit disingenuous in that I knew who they were; I just had no clue what they were about. I don't have sacred cows; not then, not now. I certainly wouldn't be embarrassed about any opinion I expressed, as I suspect that I'd have been pretty honest about it. There's a good chance that many of those opinions won't have changed in the meantime; I just hope that I'd be a little more erudite about them if I was given the same job now. I'm a big believer that everyone's entitled to their opinion if they're honest about it. I'm ambivalent about - I believe it's attributed to Harlan Ellison - the idea that everyone's entitled to an educated opinion. Anyway, when it comes to how you feel about a movie, no-one else is allowed to tell you you're wrong as I just don't think that there's any objective truth to it.

Try telling that to the readership of the magazine. If memory serves (I could just go over and pull old copies of the magazine out from the racks, but I can't be bothered) the first letter written about me claimed that the author "treasured every copy of Movie Collector, except for the articles by J K Fouzder, which I cut out and burn". This was genuinely - I was told - signed 'A McLoone, Dublin'. But my favourite still has to be "Dear Movie Collector, J K Fouzder. Why? Yours sincerely" etc. At first, I was  - no, not petrified - ruddy offended. But then I thought if those people aren't smart enough to respect other people's opinions or insecure enough to feel quite so threatened by someone who doesn't share their own feelings then they deserve their own misery. And it's misery that's entirely of their own making. And another thing, I laughed at them because it was funny. And still is.

I still feel this way, but the strength of vitriol I received doesn't come anywhere near what it turns out happens on forums nowadays all over the place. For those of you who know about it, I am indeed alluding to something currently going on all over the blogosphere. The people who wrote to me are probably progenitors of the trolls we see everywhere nowadays. Actually, they probably are some of those trolls. What is the world coming to?

The Supplemental Social Network (No, not G+)

So, the main reason I bought 'The Social Network' on blu-ray was for the extras. I figured for some reason, that David Fincher wouldn't allow one of his movies out on disc with a duff selection. I'd love to say it's because I bought all his previous movies on disc (I have) and enjoyed them thoroughly (but actually in most cases I haven't bothered). I sat down last night to watch the centrepiece, a feature-length documentary called 'How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook?' and saw the rest tonight. I'm very pleased to say that all the extras were superb & just the kind of makings-of a film nutter dreams of. Very little by way of talking heads and instead an extraordinary insight directly into the creative process as you actually feel like you're watching the movie getting made, without an artificially-overlaid narrative or irritating voiceover. You get to see why Aaron Sorkin's scripts are so revered, exactly how David Fincher's direction redefines the word meticulous and why having one of the Cronenweths on the slate as director of photography is such a terrific idea. Great drama. A ridiculously hot (oh, and very talented) cast. It made me fall in love with the movie all over again.

















But. Remember I said I just bought this for the supplemental stuff? I really struggle with this movie. It is superb, there's no denying it and I admire the hell out of it. But personally speaking, it plays like a horror film for me. The characters are so hopelessly irredeemable that it's almost untrue. Even the Eduardo Saverin character (I'm not stupid enough to think that any of these characters are necessarily like their real-life counterparts) only stumbles across his soul after getting royally screwed over. I really do find this movie gut-wrenchingly depressing, maybe because of the universality of its themes, maybe because the characters' foibles are the same as those we encounter in people every day. Including ourselves. Quite how I'm going to watch it again or manage the remaining extras (the two commentaries on the movie) I don't know. Maybe they'll make the experience a bit more palatable to me.
I felt so revolted when I saw the movie that it contributed to me coming off Facebook permanently. Clearly I'm better off with The Supplemental Social Network. That'd be G+ then after all.