What a subtext, Mark! My (Tommy-approved) interpretation of Guerrero St

This week I was fortunate enough to catch a screening of Best F(r)iends, a new film reuniting The Room duo Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero on screen for the first time, at the Prince Charles Cinema (read my review). I decided to ask Tommy and Greg a question in the pre-film Q&A.

I related to the pair my interpretation of the story Mark tells Johnny about a woman whose cuckolded lover “beat her up so bad she ended up in a hospital on Guerrero St.” (I previously posted this theory on the sadly now-defunct The Room Fan Group on Facebook.) That scene opens with Johnny denying having hit Lisa. What if Mark was, by telling that story, trying to see Johnny’s reaction to domestic violence? And, when Johnny reacts so callously–“haha, what a story Mark!”–Mark takes this to mean that maybe Johnny did hit Lisa, and Mark loses all respect for his best friend and decides it’s fair game to sleep with Johnny’s future wife?

Like many people on the Facebook group, Greg thought I was reading too deep into the scene. But Tommy said he loved the theory and my analysis, encouraging me to write about it, which is what I’m doing here. He agreed with it 100%, but then quite fairly reduced that to 99.9%.

To tell an artist your take on their work, and for it to resonate with them, is a pretty fantastic thing. All the more so considering that the last time I asked Tommy a question, back in 2013, he said he couldn’t understand my accent and asked if I was from North Hollywood.

Best F(r)iends (2017) film review

Tommy and Greg’s reunion film offers both Room-esque laughs and a very watchable thriller.

If you’re not familiar with the 2003 Tommy Wiseau movie The Room, you soon will be. The so-bad-it’s-good cult favorite is about to gain even more notoriety, as James Franco’s film adaptation of its making-of memoir, The Disaster Artist, tours the festival circuit and gears up for general release in December (watch the new trailer).

Having read The Disaster Artist, I’ve been looking forward to seeing its story brought to life on screen. It chronicles not only the making of The Room but also the growth of the friendship between writer/director/star Tommy Wiseau and line producer/co-star Greg Sestero. But perhaps even more exciting is another film whose announcement came out of nowhere last year. It’s the pair’s first collaboration since The Room: a low-budget thriller called Best F(r)iends, written by Sestero and directed by Justin MacGregor (himself a fan). Its gory, surreal trailer had fans wondering what to expect. Would it be like The Room? Would it try too hard to be funny (as Wiseau’s painfully unamusing The Neighbors sitcom did)?

Watching a work-in-progress cut of Best F(r)iends at the Prince Charles last week, I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, mostly as a Roomie but also for its rather intriguing story.

The Los Angeles-set story centers on a homeless drifter (Sestero) who starts working for a reclusive mortician (Wiseau). They go into business together with a lucrative but questionable venture. A friendship starts to blossom, but differences over the money they amass quickly breed distrust, descending into a web of lies, manipulation and death masks. At times, the drama can be more amusing than threatening, but I found myself drawn in by the dark, original plot and the authentic rapport that builds between the two characters.

Wiseau’s mortician — disarming and full of life in a macabre setting (with hints of a darker backstory) — is a delight to watch. He is clearly having a ton of fun in the role, and while his lines and delivery may evoke laughter, it totally fits this oddball character. Sestero’s drifter is less interesting. He casually mentions having “worked in the army” but you’d never know it from his behaviour; he presents more as a youth in need of a carer. A “babyface”, you might say.

The film is artfully put together and often very beautifully shot. Out-of-place cuts to nighttime vistas of Santa Monica Pier or downtown LA threaten to be this movie’s “meanwhile in San Francisco”, but they create atmosphere, as does the music by Imagine Dragons’ Daniel Platzman. It makes for some surprisingly emotive moments, particularly when the pair goes on a road trip — though I’m not sure if this is more the fact that I have just grown very fond of Wiseau and Sestero over the past four years.

That’s the nub of it really — Best F(r)iends is very much a film for The Room fans. Though it does not explicitly reference that film (other than a couple of little homages), it has a very similar feel in that it is a serious dramatic story that just happens to be written and performed in unintentionally hilarious ways.

And just as The Room was inspired by some of Wiseau’s own experiences (with some Talented Mr Ripley thrown in), it is hard not to see an autobiographical streak in Sestero’s script: a young man comes to LA penniless and falls in with an unconventional and strangely appealing older brother figure, joins in his oddball venture and tries to make his own mark with it.

Best F(r)iends is a worthy successor to The Room, capturing some of its riotous magic while also offering something new and memorable.

Dear Brexiteers: Don’t Blame the Judges. Blame our Politics.

The PM wanted to sidestep Parliament using a royal decree because she cannot guarantee that her governing party, the MAJORITY in that parliament, will vote for Brexit. And people are angry with judges?

Full disclosure: I voted remain. And I think the debate during the referendum was shoddy, and the majority far from overwhelming. BUT I have made my peace with the result, and I think that if this many people want to leave the EU, business as usual doesn’t cut it. For us to have been given this vote, such as it was, and for it to then not count for anything is insulting and dangerous.

On Thursday the High Court ruled that the ministers of the Crown cannot unilaterally trigger the process of withdrawing from the EU — they must first obtain the consent of Parliament. However you voted in the June referendum, I promise you this outcome is the right one for democracy. The court upheld a rule that our forebears fought a civil war and revolution to establish — that powers left over from the days of autocratic Kings cannot be used to nullify rights that we have under the laws of the land, i.e. Acts of Parliament.

To say the judgment has been criticised would be an understatement. The three judges have been branded “Enemies of the People”, traitors, and subjected to personal attacks in the press. The papers are being massively disingenuous and irresponsible — as are the PM and cabinet, for that matter. If you voted Leave in June and feel that the wishes of a majority of the people are now being stymied — that, like Bush v Gore in 2000, a choice that was supposedly democratic is now being decided by a bunch of judges — I understand your concerns, and believe me I would be as outraged as you if a court were being used to subvert the democratic process, even to reach a result I might like. But that’s not what’s happened here. What’s happened is actually far more important than the EU. We’ve been members of the EU for 44 years. What was at stake in yesterday’s case goes back more than 300 years.

“Essentially, they tax us relentlessly, then King George turns around and runs a spending spree” -Alexander Hamilton (sort of)

In 1688, James II was booted out of England, and his daughter Mary and Dutch son-in-law William the Conqueror were invited to take his place. That invitation was from Parliament, and it came with certain conditions, which are in the 1688/9 Bill of Rights. The first and perhaps most important:

That the pretended Power of Suspending of Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regall Authority without Consent of Parlyament is illegall.

That the pretended Power of Dispensing with Laws or the Execution of Laws by Regall Authoritie as it hath beene assumed and exercised of late is illegall.

As you can see from the second line, this clause was motivated by then-recent grievances. James II had by decree dispensed with statutory requirements that certain public officials be Protestant. Charles II before him had purported to suspend all laws penalizing religious dissenters. And their father Charles I had been beheaded after a civil war that started because, among other things, he’d disbanded Parliament for over a decade and widely extended taxes without their consent. You can arguably even go as far back as Magna Carta, which arose out of barons requiring the King to get their consent before levying taxes.

All this is to say that a balance of power between the King and Parliament has always been the bedrock of our unwritten constitution. While councils of barons initially arose as a check on an otherwise sovereign King, modern times have marked a shift of power to the elected legislature. The net result is that Acts passed by both Houses of Parliament and (as a formality) signed by the Queen are the supreme law of the land. We talk about Parliament as sovereign; technically it’s the “Crown-in-Parliament.” And the Crown-outside-of-Parliament, i.e. the monarch (or her agent, the Prime Minister) still has some residual powers known as the Prerogative. Those powers used to include dissolving Parliament, but now primarily concern foreign affairs — declaring war and signing treaties.

“But your Majesty, be realistic! They will force you to sign the treaty” -Senator Palpatine

The Crown alone retains the power to enter into treaties. But those treaties cannot impose any obligations on (or give rights to) British subjects unless Parliament passes an Act that turns the provisions of that treaty into enforceable rules of UK law. So in 1972, after the Crown signed the Rome Treaty Establishing the European Communities, Parliament passed the European Communities Act.

The question for the court was: after Parliament has done that, can the Crown use its prerogative power to un-sign the Treaty and leave? The court decided that no it can’t. The 1972 Act that Parliament passed conferred rights on Brits that come from the European Treaties and the smorgasbord of EU laws passed since the 1950s; for example the right of businesses to trade freely and equally in other member states, and to sue those states if they’re treated less favourably than their nationals. For the Crown to deprive Brits of those rights without Parliament’s consent would be unconstitutional.

Does it make a difference that in this particular case the executive is taking an action that a majority of voters asked for? Well, when Parliament didn’t say (or decide) what status or weight that referendum decision was supposed to have, no, legally speaking it doesn’t make a difference. But that’s not the judges’ fault. That’s Parliament’s fault.

Watering down our constitution to get a superficially democratic result on this occasion would create a much bigger threat to democracy that’d continue even when the EU is a distant memory. Nobody should want a precedent that hands such unchecked power to the executive. If the Prime Minister is permitted to take unilateral actions that essentially nullify Acts of Parliament, who’s to say it won’t happen in a future instance where it doesn’t coincide with popular will. For instance, remember TTIP? The massive US-EU free trade treaty being negotiated in secret? Something that reportedly would allow privatization of the NHS, weaken food and banking regulations, cede British jobs to the US with its laxer employment laws and permit companies to sue the UK in foreign tribunals for compensation because democratically passed laws cut away at their profits. If you start carving away at the rule that international dealings can’t change domestic law without Parliament’s consent, you can bet a government will jump to push the boundaries of any exceptions it can.

“Power resides where men believe it resides.” – Lord Varys

Remember that our executive branch is not separate from parliament like a medieval King or the President of the USA. In the US, the independently elected president has his or her own mandate (and so for instance, the US Supreme Court did not stop Jimmy Carter from taking the US out of a treaty without consulting the Senate). The UK prime minister and government’s mandate comes from the fact that they hold a majority in the Commons. So why do Theresa May and Brexitary David Davis think they have to use royal powers and sidestep the very institution that enables their government to exist? Partly perhaps to create that sneaky precedent for unilateral action. But mostly because they’re not sure Parliament will vote for it. They’re not sure their own governing party, by definition the majority in that parliament, will deliver the votes on a policy it said it would carry out (though the referendum was not legally binding, the official pamphlet stated “the government will implement what you decide”).

Since the government took sides and advocated Remain but it lost, you might normally expect it to be met with a no-confidence vote and an election. But the referendum was not fought along party lines. There were leavers and remainers on all sides. So while the government lost (and the PM felt the need to resign), its party as a whole has still clung to power, and someone who really believed we should Remain is now the Prime Minister vehemently leading the charge to Leave. She is apparently so eager to leave that she doesn’t want the parliament that her party controls to vote on it.

We know many MPs are not happy with the referendum result, much like half the country. This referendum, unlike the 2011 one to change the voting system, was not set up to be binding (so who knows why the official pamphlets said “the government will implement what you decide”). And MPs aren’t there simply to be mouthpieces of the electorate. As parliamentary legend Edmund Burke put it in 1774:

To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,–these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.

Our representative, Burke said, owes us “his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” If we don’t like his or her decision, we get rid of them at an election. Well, except the Lords.

It is legitimate for MPs to air and act on their genuine concerns about what kind of Brexit options can be achieved that will do justice to everybody including the half of the country who didn’t want it (especially Scotland), and the EU citizens who didn’t get to vote but whose lives are hugely affected by it. It is also legitimate for MPs to oppose it (but they have to give some weight in their minds to the outcome of the vote rather than writing it off as “madness“). Parliament should debate and vote on a bill empowering the government to trigger Article 50. The government should whip its members in both Houses in favour of triggering it (I’m going to focus on the Commons here; if it passes there we can assume they’ll use the Parliament Acts to override a Lords veto; that’s why I say it has to be a bill). If their majority carries it, or a combination of pro-leave Tories and Labourites do, great. If Tories rebel and it fails, then the government has lost the people’s confidence and there needs to be a general election. Every mainstream party should grapple with the fact that pledging to Remain could result in incompetent single-issue parties taking their seats, and think about just setting out a vision for the best version of Leave.

Those three judges did nothing more than apply the most obvious rule of the British Constitution. If Parliament seems poised to act in a way that makes the referendum it gave us a dead letter, that’s not the judges’ fault. It’s the fault of the legislature and specifically, the fault of the entity that controls it — the very government that’s gleefully and irresponsibly watching as the judges take insane levels of hate.

Why I’m voting REMAIN

This Thursday, I’ll be voting to remain in the EU. Head and heart are in total agreement on this one.

To me it is clear that we’re economically better off in the EU. Almost half of all our trade is in that common market, and so many British businesses and jobs depend on it. If we leave but seek to continue trading in the single market like Norway, we’ll still have to pay fees (which may well be higher than ours are now because we’ll lose the rebate Thatcher negotiated for us), we won’t receive the funding the EU pumps back into its members, and we’ll have to adhere to all the same rules on free movement (including immigration)—only we will have given up any say in those rules. Talk about self-defeating.

I am sympathetic to the arguments about sovereignty, and the fear that we the British people have ceded our rights to self-govern to faceless bureaucrats. And I’m just as wary as anyone of the power creep of the EU, particularly its Court of Justice* that is hugely trigger-happy when it comes to declaring new powers for itself. But, firstly, we have always quite competently exempted ourselves from the biggest power grabs—the Euro, the Schengen protocol, and the common justice and home affairs policy. And secondly, the EU is fairly democratic. In many ways its proportional representation-based Parliament is more representative than our own with its first-past-the-post system. And so when the EU passes regulations that, for instance, protect workers from severe exploitation—something our own government would tear up in a heartbeat—I’m all for it. We’re a comparatively lightly regulated country, and it seems that our densest regulations are not due to Brussels but our own domestic lawmakers.

This is not to deny that there are EU laws that many of us might legitimately have huge problems with. But I don’t think that justifies washing our hands of it and saying adiEU.

Being part of the EU means being part of something bigger. It’s saying yes to an expansive, outgoing worldview where our own value as a global player is reflected by the respect and value we place in our neighbours. Where we collaborate to come up with ideas we could never have even imagined on our own. And though we’re too young to personally remember, the EU was founded after World War II upon the idea that mutual interdependence between countries, based on trade and economic cooperation, was the surest guarantor of a fragile peace. In a time where rampant hate has infiltrated even mainstream politics, we must not forget that. Plus, the simplest benefits are the coolest—the right to freely travel, study, work and live in a multitude of awesome countries. My own life in the UK is hugely enriched by the presence of so many European friends, colleagues and creative collaborators. We get all this, plus the vital economic gains and opportunities, for about £9 per month per person. As someone else has said, it’s better value than Netflix.

This is a momentous, once in a generation decision. For me the answer is clear.

* Note this is the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice, not the unfairly-hated-on European Court of Human Rights, which has nothing to do with the EU. <Back>

Movie Review: Hitchcock / Truffaut (2015)

Respected critic Kent Jones’s documentary about the book of conversations between the two directors serves as an engaging introduction—or, if you’ve read the book, a worthwhile companion that offers added value.

When I first heard of this film about the conversations that took place between directing giants Alfred Hitchcock and François Truffaut about the former’s body of cinematic work (collected in a great 1966 book), I wondered if it was going to be a dramatization, a la Frost/Nixon. The interviews Truffaut conducted with his directing hero were of course far less combative and prosecutorial than those between the BBC reporter and disgraced former President, and so it’s hard to see where the dramatic conflict would lie. (So, for instance, the French stage play inspired by the book seemingly needed to add violence into the meeting, which it turned into a “confrontation”.)

That’s all irrelevant, because Hitchcock/Truffaut is not a dramatization; it’s a documentary—and one clearly made with love for Hitchcock’s work. It’s narrated by actor/filmmaker Bob Balaban, who got on famously with Truffaut while shooting Close Encounters of the Third Kind (read his excellent production diary), but it’s really the audio of the H/T interviews (overlaid with footage from Hitchcock films) that drives the film forward, along with pieces to camera from directors who were inspired by the book. Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, Peter Bogdanovich and Richard Linklater are only a few among those on the roster here, and what they have to say is often tremendously insightful. Far from simply extolling Hitchcock as an inspiration to them, they all comment substantively on his work. Jones said in a Q&A at the BFI that he was interested not simply in Hitchcock’s technical style as the “master of suspense”—something he felt had been talked about enough already. He wanted to explore Hitchcock the man and the things that motivated him as an artist. Since Hitchcock opened up to Truffaut considerably in the interviews, they offer the best vehicle for exploring those things.

The film uses excerpts of the interviews, and words from the various directors, to provide a whistle-stop tour of interesting themes or questions in Hitchcock’s career. From his childhood fear of police influencing his perennially making “wrong man” thrillers, to his use of physical objects because of their often fetishistic symbolic meanings, and (although not covered in as much detail as it could have been) his working relationship with actresses.

It also does a great job of giving us the historical context attendant to Hitchcock’s career. The film reminded me of the rigors of purely visual storytelling involved in silent era films. It casts Hitchcock’s “actors are cattle” view of directing actors against the evolution of the star system and the rise of schools of acting that made it a serious discipline, and asks whether Hitchcock could have directed a Pacino or Hoffman in his typical way! It also quite interestingly asks what role Hitchcock’s style of filmmaking plays today, when multitudes of stories on different media compete for our attention, and when audiences’ expectations of storytelling have changed–we perhaps expect faster and more intense visual stimulation. Jones points his sights at The Fast and the Furious as an easy target here.

At 79 minutes’ length, the film breezes by. Personally I would have liked it to further develop some of the interesting questions it raised, but having said that, it probably strikes the right balance in terms of making the film interesting to a wide audience. I read the book exactly ten years ago and it’s inspired me to dig it out and re-read. By giving it some context and sharing with us some of the things that great filmmakers got out of reading the book, it offers some new perspectives with which to look back at the book and Hitchcock’s oeuvre.

P.S.: The audio of the conversations between Hitchcock and Truffaut has been available online for the past five years!

Music Theory with John Williams

I recently wrote a guest blog post for Spielberg/Lucas/Williams fansite The Bearded Trio, exploring some music theory concepts using some of John Williams’s best-loved film themes as examples.

Head on over to The Bearded Trio and check it out!

How secret is too secret? GCHQ surveillance and government of laws, not of men

A pedestrian is hit by a car. He sues the driver, seeking compensation for his injuries. He wins that compensation. Does this now mean the accident never happened? Of course not. Well, not unless you follow the strange logic that the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal did when, in December 2014, it found that GCHQ’s involvement in NSA surveillance was sufficiently transparent—when the only thing that made it transparent enough was information the agency disclosed, in court, after being sued.

Indiana Jones 5: Lessons from the Crystal Skull

Earlier this week, Deadline reported that Steven Spielberg wants to direct Disney’s reboot of Indiana Jones, with Parks and Recreation and Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt donning the legendary fedora. There’s no confirmation, but another Indy film is pretty much guaranteed. In December, Disney CEO Bob Iger tweeted that the Mouse House intended to revisit the franchise at some point.

With this news, I decided to go back and re-watch the last Indy instalment, the much-derided Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Thoughts on Her (2013) and Consciousness

For me, Her is the best film of 2013. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for days. It was an engrossing, original piece of cinema that delivered an ingenious concept in an emotionally authentic way. It’s the very best kind of sci-fi—one where the premise serves the growth of the characters. Spike Jonze has rightly been honored by the WGA for the script, and by rights he should be getting an Oscar on March 2.

Creatives at the Cinema: Walter Mitty, Llewyn Davis and Mr. Banks (Review/Essay)

During the farewell fortnight of 2013, I watched three films released during or immediately before the holiday season: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (dir: Ben Stiller), Inside Llewyn Davis (dirs: Joel and Ethan Coen) and Saving Mr Banks (dir: John Lee Hancock). In that order (which, incidentally, is also the ascending order of how highly I rate them). They’re distinct movies that take place in varied settings, but what unites them is that each tells a story about creative people and (perhaps more obviously with the latter two than Walter Mitty) sheds light on some aspect of creativity and living the life of one who creates. I’ll review each film in turn and talk a little about what each has to say about creativity. Mild to moderate spoilers present.