Wages Of Fear

During my recent Delon sessions, I had a quick word with my Dad about other films he was in.

"The Wages Of Fear, definitely, he is definitely in that one. I'm sure. He's the suave one in it Will, I think you'll like it."

Well, I did like it, but it wasn't Alain Delon, it was another Gallic actor Yves Montand (resembling a flat topped Nick Knowles). You can tell he's French because he has the innate French quality of having a 99% smoked cigarette permanently hanging out of his mouth, be it laughing, talking, whistling or humming, that cigarette will remain stuck there without the slightest intention of dropping. I always wonder if there are reams of French film piled up on cutting room floors consisting of ruined shots because a cigarette has dropped out of someones mouth. I doubt it, they're too cool for that. Yves Montand while not as weirdly other-worldly as the young Delon is still a pretty smooth character, he can get away with wearing a fruity neckerchief without the slightest whiff of fruit about him. Good talent to have, especially if you insist on sporting one.

Now the film. Its set in a shitty little South American town (you know it's shitty because peasants occasionally trot past on donkeys in the back ground), work is scarce but European immigrants looking to earn a crust are plenty. French, Italian, German and English all congregate in the one saloon, beating animals and referring to the locals as 'savages'. Good times. The only work available comes from the local American oil company who need to drive highly volatile nitroglycerin across bumpy country roads. The pay is $2000, and everyone is desperate to do it to buy a plane ticket and get the hell out of there. The four characters who are lucky enough to get the opportunity to risk their lives are, Yves Montand, his ex-gangster mate, a fat Italian stereotype who's dying of lung cancer and a German (who looks totally Aryan super-race but tells of how he was tortured by the Nazis, I didn't understand that bit.)

The second half of the movie consists of the group pootling along in two trucks full of explosives, petrified they will blow up at any moment. Tense. Super tense. Hitchcockian tense? No Clouzot tense. Hitchcocks European rival and the man who snaffled the rights to Les Diaboliques before old wobble chops could get them, prompting him to up his game and make Psycho. If you have never seen Les Diaboliques, you really should, it's totes awesome and really does have an ending that should not be revealed. Really. Do not google anything about it, just get it and enjoy. Clouzot seems to dabble in endings where the viewer feels like they have just been totally sucker punched. Thoughts, of 'What? No! Really?Jeez.' scamper through your mind. Always good in my opinion and Wages Of Fear has a doozy.

Although the grimness of reality is nothing new to us in this day and age (thanks 60s film revolution), I can't imagine how audiences felt 50 years ago. I doubt there were many movies were a guy would purposely run over his friends legs, screaming as they snap and leave him face down in crude oil, just to finish a job. High fives to Clouzot for that. Themes of friendship, bravery, greed and who we think we are all come to the fore in the movie. Mental and physical limits are tested and although character development is a little languid at the start, the second half really steps it up a gear. Though not perfect I give it 8 sobering slaps to the face and screams of 'calm down you'll kill us all' out of 10.

The Black 'Falling Down'

When I heard they were doing an urban version of Falling Down I thought man, this is going to be off the fucking bog-chain! Mad gangsta slang spat at the white mans system? Turning a notoriously kinda racist(ish) film (it really isn't) on it's head, this I gotta see. Fuck the system, fuck society, and fuck Ronald McDonald. I couldn't wait to see that scene where D-Fens shoots the place up with an uzi because he can't get a Mc-breakfast or whatever. This is gonna be some real shit. Turns out, it's just embarrassing.

Bawownk Bass

Delon'd out my noggin

After the smoothness of Alain Delon in girl on a motorcycle I needed confirmation that this was not a one off. I plumped for Plein Soleil and by Jove he only went and out dapper'd himself. Made in 1960, six years previous to girl Delon was only 25 and still resembled more of a boy than a man (I'm thinking this is because he is pipe-less the entire time), oddly looking like a walking doll than a real human being (I also think he's one of those men who only has to shave under their nose, like once every two months). It's odd from a distance he's kinda James Dean-ish, I'd like to think without the propensity for getting bummed while having cigarettes put out on him, crossed with Zack Efron (who I totally would believe likes to get bummed while having cigarettes put out on him, though this has yet to be confirmed). By 'from a distance', I mean when he is framed in a long shot, not that I went into another room to squint at the TV.
The story is the same as The Talented Mr Ripley with Jude Law and Matt Damon, but the gay undertones of that version are pretty much muted here. Delon is only after one thing, rich pussy and the playboy lifestyle. And by rich pussy I mean killing his super rich friend, framing him for a murder, stealing his identity, writing a will to his grieving, not rich girlfriend making her super rich so he can sneak in, do the old concerned friend trick and pocket the cash. A bold plan. Good plan in fact, except things don't go at all tickety boo. I won't spoil this one for you, but it has some amazing little directorial touches where you're kind of like 'a-ho-ho-ho nearly Delon, nearly got caught you little murdering scamp'. Good job Rene Clement, have an onion on me! Man, I've written a lot. And not about Alain Delon. My point was going to be he wears a suit like a fucking champ, and his hair is immaculate (again). He also seems to have invented that rolled up trouser, deck shoe thing that I keep reading so much about lately. It does help that he gets to swan about the Mediteranean, bronzed by the sun, fag lolling out his mouth and not trudging around TK Maxx deciding whether a McDonalds would be OK because you still have that chicken breast in the fridge, but you had chicken for lunch and it's boring to have it twice in one day, but it really needs eating, perhaps you could make some pasta and cut it up and pop it in with it because there's also half a jar of Dolmio in the fridge too, yeah have pasta, sorted. Delon doesn't think like that, he thinks, 'man I wanna nail that girl, how could I do it? Perhaps murder her boyfriend? Yeah, think I'll do that'.
I'll tell you what is a bit of a mind fuck though, French actors, playing Americans, in Italy, talking (dubbed) English, writing French and spouting Italian phrases. Don't let that put you off though, it isn't that confusing, you can handle it I'm sure. Umm' I'll wrap this up by saying I wish we all dressed like Alain Delon, and not like Rodney from the first series of Only Fools and Horses (plaid shirt, drain pipe jeans, short back and sides, plimsols). The end.

Jaded

I don't know if you are aware, but Jade Goody has died. It's a shame that a woman who consistently shied away from public view has passed on with the minimum of fuss. She helped create a better world for us all, she was our princess. It's hard to put your finger on exactly why she was a hero as there are just too many selfless works to choose from. The mind becomes clouded sifting through her actions and thoughts to actually pick out one instance that deserved her amassed fortune and a grieving nation (mostly just Essex though). Thank goodness the Prime Minister stepped forward and has given his thoughts, I was dying to know his opinion and he hasn't got much on his plate at the moment, so why not take time out to reflect on the importance of Jade Goody? He praised her for all her efforts in bringing awareness to Cervical cancer. It's funny that, because before she contracted it, I didn't hear a peep from her on the subject. Perhaps just getting cancer now constitutes bringing awareness to it. I just hope Gordon Brown will be offering condolences to each and every single woman in this country that dies from cancer and praises their efforts to bring awareness to the disease.
In all fairness anyone dying young is a tragedy, especially if they have children. But let's all just calm down. This woman was a fucking idiot and nothing more. When we laughed, we laughed at, not with. But she's gone now, so let's just move on, I hear Jeremy Spake has got Parkinsons and Kinga got a bottle stuck up her shitbox after another drunken session.

Lily Allen

There are some pop stars that you just like. Everything about them should be totally repugnant to you, but then that little voice in your head says 'come on now, give the lil fella a go' and against all your bodily control you let go, shake out the hate and embrace the three minutes of care free moozak parped into your ears. A smile drags itself like a legless D-day soldier scrounging for his shins across your lips and you forget how utterly shit your life is for that brief moment thanks to that burbling moron on the radio. Lil Chris and his genius two singles a few years back were a case in point as is generally anything Timberlake moonwalks across. Lily Allen is not one of those pop stars. I hate everything about her, starting with her Pug Dog face, sassy tell it like it is attitude (she does not care. I mean it. She doesn't care, really. No. fuck off, she doesn't, get out my face yeah?), and lets not forget she came from Keith Allen's scrotum. Her twee pop tunes coyly fluttering their eyes in a pink tutu innocently eating an ice cream while hiding a darker truth about relationships and life, yeah, make me want to perforate my own eardrums with knitting needles so I was horrified to find myself enjoying her new video. I don't feel too bad, because the song itself (her boyf needs some Performa dunkies or think about piles of bodies being shifted after the holocaust or something) is shit, IE her involvement, while it's more the video itself, the filmatismisticness that was better. Its a trick done before, making the video look as though it was made in the 70s or 80s with muted colour and cleverly crap editing, both the Strokes and Arctic Monkeys have done it previously, but damn it works well. Like the formulaic structure of pornos, what you see is nothing new but it doesn't mean you won't enjoy it. I just wish when a promo director gets a good idea, to not waste it on someone whose audience isn't going to appreciate it. Snobbery, I hate it but y'know, do as I say not as I do.

Villains.

As great as the Red Riding series was, it highlighted the dangers of having a well known actor playing the part of a villain whose identity is meant to remain a secret until *gasp* an astonishing reveal. As soon as Peter Mullen turned up with his ruddy whiskery face and gargling lava voice in episode one, it was obvious that he was going to be the/a main man. It was no surprise come paedo-geddon that he would be first in line for a right ol' shotgunning. Why would an actor of such renowed calibre (not by me, I reserve the same amount of unqualified loathing for him as I do Judi Dench) take anything but a key role? The same can also be said for the BBCs recent grimathon Wallander (starring the corpse of Kenneth Brannagh), when in the episode entitled 'Sidetracked' we had a fleeting glimpse of Nicholas Holt (played by the drummer from White Lies). Why would the star of Skins accept such a tiny role, surely he's the killer? Correctamundo. Ayyyyyyyyyyyyy! This is an easy concept to grasp; any actor who has had national recognition should not be a character who is suspiciously kept offscreen and is a) hiding something later to be revealed or b) the killer in a mystery. I'm trying to think of other examples as I've ranted about this shit before, but now I can't think, hmm maybe Patrick (Swayzdog) Swayze in Donnie Darko? You catch my drift, now beat it.

The Girl On A Motorcycle

I just watched the movie girl on a motorcycle. Its always good when you expect to hate something then find out you know what, it's not that bad. I'd read a lot about the movie, it's always referenced in fashion mags and the posters are pretty sweet but I had dismissed it as simply style over substance. However my tiny brain had got it all wrong, it's the style that makes this film. Particularly Alain Delons. Dude makes smoking an old mans pipe sexy, no mean feat. There used to be a lad in Nottingham who'd turn up at clubs smoking a pipe when he was like 25, there are only a few people who can carry a pipe off, number one being Delon, number two being Sherlock Holmes, and he's a work of fiction, you can't even compete. Especially if you sit on your own looking wistfully into the distance in a nightclub puffing away like pop punk Werthers Original advert. But I digress, back to Delon. He's boned Marianne Faithful and she keeps day dreaming about the perfect French reamings she's recieved from him while razzing around Europe on her bike. I think the bike is meant to represent sexual freedom, or something like that as close up shots of her ass and crotch bobbing up and down on it are interspersed with the Franco-rut memories. Who cares? Certainly not Delon, he's more interested in spouting post-coital gems like 'love does not exist' read: 'get out'. I don't think I'm ruining it by saying theres a pretty sweet crash at the end (chill out this is not Usual Suspects) and the moral seems to be; don't cheat on your husband even if he is a nerd. Anway, I'm losing the point here, what was it? Hmm oh yeah, you should watch it if it's on TV or something. I give it 7 shrugging French men out of 10.