Look what the cat dragged in and pissed all over, I'm back! Going to attempt to be more disciplined with my whole watching things and then writing about them thing that I do hopefully, so let's get right to it. Broadening my horizons (and hopefully yours as well) I've begun Adventures into Anime. This is where I was so interested in a new medium I made an exciting title about it. Got a list of Japanese-y or at least Eastern anime TV series and films to fuel this here blog. Open to any more suggestions if they can be given, but I'm doing fairly well known series from the anime community TV series wise and mainly Studio Ghibli films and shouting about what I like about them. So saddle up for part 1 of an indeterminate amount of numbered posts. Reviewing HO!
First I need to incriminate myself by saying I watched this series on Youtube, so I can be sent to jail for some piracy bullshit. Yet more incrimination in the fact, for this series at least, I stuck with the English dub, a cardinal anime sin if the 'otaku' devils are to be believed. If this little blog whets your brain appetites enough to check them out (and why wouldn't it?) this would probably be the best, cheapest place to watch them, as the DVDs come in awkward 'volumes' costing about a tenner each and are mostly not region 1. Also, DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS!. There are unsavoury types who type the endings on each and every video and spoiled this particular prog for me when I was less than halfway through. Conduct all sorted? Cool. Let's talk about Death Note.
Light Yagami, an honour role high school student, stumbles upon a note-book lying on the grass outside. On the inside cover, there is a long list of instructions, principal among them 'Whoevers name is written in this note shall die'. At first sceptical, he soon finds that the book does what it says as he writes the name of an escaped convict he sees on the news died of a heart attack 40 seconds after his name was written in the note book. He is then approached by the owner of the Death Note, the Shinygami Ryuk, a god of Death. Ryuk left the book for Light, sheerly to see what he'd do with it. Light quickly comes to the only logical conclusion; he'll use the book to kill every criminal in the world and become the God of a new world free from evil. Once the police realise what's going on, they bring in the bizarre, genuis detective known only as 'L' to help catch the perpetrator of these crimes. Light must then assume the identity of Kira, a vengeful God with the power to kill anyone, anywhere with only their name and their face in his mind, outmaneuver L and maintain his regular life whilst reaching ever closer to his goal of Godhood.
Probably the most enjoyable thing about the series is the subtext. In the information age, where anyone can collect facts enough to claim they know the truth of the world and use this knowledge along with their anonymity as a weapon against anyone who might disagree, there would be no stopping someone with the kind of power the Death Note can give to do exactly as Light does. In fact, Light uses forthcoming information on the internet to kill any criminals, even if they've already been arrested, along with anyone who tries to stop him from doing so whilst not revelaing himself in any other way than the hand of a pissed off God. Killing from a distance as he does is also endemic of the desensitisation to crime and violence present in todays culture, making the Death Note a very easy fantastical instrument to envision and for the audience to buy overall. Exemplarily, many of the Youtube audience were rallying behind Light and the morality that, as soon as someone commits any crime, they have forfeited their life. Admitedly, it's quite hard not to stick to someone with this kind of staunch belief in their own morality but when one of the comments was 'I'd use the Death Note to kill people in all kinds of really fucked up ways', you get some perspective.
The strength of the subtext is equal to the strengths of Light as a character. While not explored vastly, the rapidity in which he jumps to wanting to become an all powerful deity is as intimidating as the brave choice of subject matter. In much the same way as Sherlock does with it's titular character, the strength of the character is grasped upon so much you're engaged by their thought processess as much as them as a person which provides a more inventive guide through the series. From his perspective, all the people in his life are dialled back to simply obstacles or pawns to be manipulated in his battle against L. As both L and Light share this perspective, a carefully plotted and very intelligent story ensues. At times, though, this gets very frustrating, as we're only really engaged by the twists and turns of how others are being used by L and Light, meaning we don't really care about them if they end up hurt or dead. This is a majorish downgrade as the writers are consumed by this perspective as well. Any character death, irrespective of their presence in the series, is instantly glossed over to get right back to the battle of wits between Light and L, when more emotion would have proven an interesting test for Light maintaining his appearence of control against his ever growing insanity.
Furthering this, the writing throughout, literally start to finish, is so content with itself in the questions it raises and the webs it weaves that it comes off very smug and patronizing. Refering back to Sherlock which brakes up it's little clues with always fresh, pertinant and mostly hilarious character interaction (especially between Sherlock and John), Death Note deviates from this so much it's hard to get as engrossed as your being told to be. One such example of this is, while trying to shake off an FBI investigator following him, Light organises an extremly convoluded plan to manipulate a criminal into hijacking a bus, touching a page in the Death Note and making him go insane. While interesting and gratifying to watch when in the aforementioned Light-mindset, afterwards the show takes great pleasure in minutley explaining what they just did. It's exactly the same as having an over the hill cynical magician pull a rabbit out of his hat and tell you it was in there the whole time. While you may not have understood what you'd seen totally, you'd build on the evidence you had to come to a reasonable conclusion without needing to be told. Knowing the rules of the Death Note (there's lots of them and they're very hard to follow at times) we could have figured out what was done on our own. While the exposition is helpful when the show invariably backs up with convoludedness from the inventive rules of the world it's created, it leaves you feeling hollow and disengaged.
A fix is attempted in the admittedly catch-y music to draw you back in, but, again, there's so much focus on getting to the next convuluded scenario that the gap between you and the show becomes desperate, resulting in incredibly, sometimes laughably, melodramatic sequences. The final episode does this particularly badly, with rampant, grizzly blood effects going from dramatic to outright ridiculousness once the expositon has been so carefully layed out in front of you. These moments are pretty enjoyable, I have to say, but for the wrong reasons, which cheapens the amazing precision of what came before it.
Even so, the very fact that this has parellels to Sherlock gives this series it's worth and can be easily prided on it's unashamed intelligence, ambition and lack of deference to ambiguity as we've become accustomed to from Inception and Prometheus styles. If you're a fan of crime drama, this is a very fresh and worthwhile watch. Even when it leaves you behind, you'll always make the effort to catch back up.
There's 37 episodes, each 20 minutes long. If you've got a free weekend, marathon viewing is most effective and hard to resist.
Saturday, 7 July 2012
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Avatar
And no we're not talking about the intergalactic smurfs and red-neck piloted robots acting out the plot of Pocahontis. This is Avatar: The Last Airbender, a series of such quality it seems impossible that it is a Nickolodeon cartoon intended for children.
For hundreds of years there has been a balance between all five continents of the world; the Northern and Southern Water tribes, the Eastern Earth Kingdom, The Western Fire Nation and the central abode of The Air Nomads. Taught by the observation of nature, residents of each culture have learned to manipulate the elements to their will. Each element is exclusive to the country of origin of the user or 'Bender'. As all the elements work in harmony, so do the continents. That is until the Fire Nation launch a massacre against the rest of the world and desemate the Air Nomads, beginning a horrendous war. Only the Avatar, the only one capable of mastering all of the four elements, can stop the advancement of destruction but in the planets hour of need, he is nowhere to be found. A hundred years later, Sokka and Katara, a brother and sister from the Southern Water tribe discover the Avatar, Aang, frozen in a block of ice off their villages shore. To their surprise, he is just a 12 year old boy who is more concerned with fun than his century old destiny. But when an exhiled Fire Nation prince comes to capture the Avatar to rid the Fire Nation of their only obstacle in conquering the rest of the world, Aang must reluctantly step into his fate as the worlds saviour and travel to each continent to master all four elements with the company of Katara, Sokka and his 200 ton flying byson, Apa before the passing of a meteorite that will embalm the Fire Benders with infinite power that not even he can stop.
After we've all stopped giggling that they're all calling each other 'benders' as terms of endeerment, the characters become incredibly 3 dimensional for a childs cartoon series. which tend to retain the schematic assumption everything that happens is there to make you laugh/learn. This show scraps these trivialities and tells a unique, Eastern orientated epic,referencing the concepts of yin and yang and rich culturalism. And all the more surprisingly for a kids cartoon; it works to a conclusion and ends. WELL.
With all the formatting amazement aside, Avatar: The Last Airbender does everything a good show should. It has characters that can be sympathised with, a captivating and unpredictable story, a beautiful soundtrack and (to a slightly lesser extent) ninjitsu action mixed with shooting fire,water,earth and air out of characters hands in battle. This doesn't mean it's just been rammed onto Nickolodeon as no other networks would pick it up, as it balances out the abundance of subject matter with surprisingly high quality humor as none of the characters do what they're supposed to for quite a while. Aang takes breaks from saving a world in peril to ride giant coyfish on an outset island inhabitated by Geisha like warriors, Sokka (the secondary hero) is a sexist, food obsesed idiot, being constantly flumoxed by Katara who advocates strength in women and saying it's okay to be a bit of a hippy (take notes, children, this is an important trait for you!) to become the comic relief character and, of course, each of them engage in many (usually ill advised) pre-pubescent love affairs along the way. At the other end of the spectrum, the drama is also very highly crafted with perilous emotional struggles between and for the characters creates fluent empathy and adds to the enjoyment so much more when you are given the respect to deal with genuine emotion instead of any seriousness being smothered by a sublimonal flash of 'KIDS, DON'T DO DRUGS!' or a fart joke.
Forget HBO, it's time you reconnected with Nickolodeon. Spongebob will forgive your absence. Sit back and enjoy a cartoon like when you were a child when the weight of the world hadn't crushed all the wonder out of your spirit like a steroid induced grizzly bear squeezing the pulp out of a pomegranate
For hundreds of years there has been a balance between all five continents of the world; the Northern and Southern Water tribes, the Eastern Earth Kingdom, The Western Fire Nation and the central abode of The Air Nomads. Taught by the observation of nature, residents of each culture have learned to manipulate the elements to their will. Each element is exclusive to the country of origin of the user or 'Bender'. As all the elements work in harmony, so do the continents. That is until the Fire Nation launch a massacre against the rest of the world and desemate the Air Nomads, beginning a horrendous war. Only the Avatar, the only one capable of mastering all of the four elements, can stop the advancement of destruction but in the planets hour of need, he is nowhere to be found. A hundred years later, Sokka and Katara, a brother and sister from the Southern Water tribe discover the Avatar, Aang, frozen in a block of ice off their villages shore. To their surprise, he is just a 12 year old boy who is more concerned with fun than his century old destiny. But when an exhiled Fire Nation prince comes to capture the Avatar to rid the Fire Nation of their only obstacle in conquering the rest of the world, Aang must reluctantly step into his fate as the worlds saviour and travel to each continent to master all four elements with the company of Katara, Sokka and his 200 ton flying byson, Apa before the passing of a meteorite that will embalm the Fire Benders with infinite power that not even he can stop.
After we've all stopped giggling that they're all calling each other 'benders' as terms of endeerment, the characters become incredibly 3 dimensional for a childs cartoon series. which tend to retain the schematic assumption everything that happens is there to make you laugh/learn. This show scraps these trivialities and tells a unique, Eastern orientated epic,referencing the concepts of yin and yang and rich culturalism. And all the more surprisingly for a kids cartoon; it works to a conclusion and ends. WELL.
With all the formatting amazement aside, Avatar: The Last Airbender does everything a good show should. It has characters that can be sympathised with, a captivating and unpredictable story, a beautiful soundtrack and (to a slightly lesser extent) ninjitsu action mixed with shooting fire,water,earth and air out of characters hands in battle. This doesn't mean it's just been rammed onto Nickolodeon as no other networks would pick it up, as it balances out the abundance of subject matter with surprisingly high quality humor as none of the characters do what they're supposed to for quite a while. Aang takes breaks from saving a world in peril to ride giant coyfish on an outset island inhabitated by Geisha like warriors, Sokka (the secondary hero) is a sexist, food obsesed idiot, being constantly flumoxed by Katara who advocates strength in women and saying it's okay to be a bit of a hippy (take notes, children, this is an important trait for you!) to become the comic relief character and, of course, each of them engage in many (usually ill advised) pre-pubescent love affairs along the way. At the other end of the spectrum, the drama is also very highly crafted with perilous emotional struggles between and for the characters creates fluent empathy and adds to the enjoyment so much more when you are given the respect to deal with genuine emotion instead of any seriousness being smothered by a sublimonal flash of 'KIDS, DON'T DO DRUGS!' or a fart joke.
Forget HBO, it's time you reconnected with Nickolodeon. Spongebob will forgive your absence. Sit back and enjoy a cartoon like when you were a child when the weight of the world hadn't crushed all the wonder out of your spirit like a steroid induced grizzly bear squeezing the pulp out of a pomegranate
Monday, 6 September 2010
In Treatment Series 1
A TV show about psychotheapy. Two people. In a room. Talking. The simple and unanthralling basis of the show may put off some, but this same simplicity is where the true beauty of this show comes in.
Paul Weston's (the incomparable Gabriel Byrne) nerves are breaking. His patients are growing more and more demanding and breaking the key indifference that makes him such a high quality therapist. Throughout the week, he is confronted by the lusting Laura; the hard core fighter pilot Alex; Sophie, a 16 year old olympic hopeful who may or may not have attempted suicide and Jake and Amy, a couple on the brink of divorce who see no reason that being in the marriage counsellors office should put an end to their fighting and looking for advice on whether to abort the baby it took their entire 4 year relationship to conceive. Alienated from his family and suspicious of his wife's frequent disapperances, Paul gets into contact with Gina, his own ex-therapist, to talk things through.
Each episode is one session on a corresponding day of the week, allowing access to Paul's struggle with the heavy wear of routine. Not to say this is repetitve. In fact, the opposite, with each new angle or perspective a patient takes revealing more about themselves and attempting to manipulate Paul into some reaction, positive or negative to get some solid advice instead of the constant implications and faseesious questioning that is offered them.
Paul's office becomes a chamber of pent up emotion, bleeding through the screen and creating fluent empathy with all characters, with even the simplest movement or sound (a blink, a change in seating, a dog barking outside) shifting the entire balance between patient and therapist to explosive degrees, countered masterfully with pauses and heavy silences creating a kind of delicate, lyrical power struggle between the two.
The heavenly writing literally brings tears to the eye, with the relay of events becoming yet richer coming from the character's perspective, incorporating their thought processes and emotions.
You'd need the worlds largest Venn diagram to explain how all of Paul's patients, possesions and relationships present his personality, but, early on, this is what is needed to gain anything from the therapist until all his underlying inadequacies and rage boil over his calm exterior and shape events to come. The result is a flawed God figure, who we see at near omnipotent power and soul crushing weakness throughout the series.
All these factors contribute to the tension and addictivness of the show, a poetic thriller.
Paul Weston's (the incomparable Gabriel Byrne) nerves are breaking. His patients are growing more and more demanding and breaking the key indifference that makes him such a high quality therapist. Throughout the week, he is confronted by the lusting Laura; the hard core fighter pilot Alex; Sophie, a 16 year old olympic hopeful who may or may not have attempted suicide and Jake and Amy, a couple on the brink of divorce who see no reason that being in the marriage counsellors office should put an end to their fighting and looking for advice on whether to abort the baby it took their entire 4 year relationship to conceive. Alienated from his family and suspicious of his wife's frequent disapperances, Paul gets into contact with Gina, his own ex-therapist, to talk things through.
Each episode is one session on a corresponding day of the week, allowing access to Paul's struggle with the heavy wear of routine. Not to say this is repetitve. In fact, the opposite, with each new angle or perspective a patient takes revealing more about themselves and attempting to manipulate Paul into some reaction, positive or negative to get some solid advice instead of the constant implications and faseesious questioning that is offered them.
Paul's office becomes a chamber of pent up emotion, bleeding through the screen and creating fluent empathy with all characters, with even the simplest movement or sound (a blink, a change in seating, a dog barking outside) shifting the entire balance between patient and therapist to explosive degrees, countered masterfully with pauses and heavy silences creating a kind of delicate, lyrical power struggle between the two.
The heavenly writing literally brings tears to the eye, with the relay of events becoming yet richer coming from the character's perspective, incorporating their thought processes and emotions.
You'd need the worlds largest Venn diagram to explain how all of Paul's patients, possesions and relationships present his personality, but, early on, this is what is needed to gain anything from the therapist until all his underlying inadequacies and rage boil over his calm exterior and shape events to come. The result is a flawed God figure, who we see at near omnipotent power and soul crushing weakness throughout the series.
All these factors contribute to the tension and addictivness of the show, a poetic thriller.
Clerks
Having gotten into Kevin Smith through watching Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and working backwards through Mallrats and Dogma, this didn't register with my preconcptions of this movie since I associated KS with crude but hilarious comedy. Made on a single credit card budget, Clerks captures more depth than many other highly payed and special effect concerned directors manage to create. I'm looking at you M. Night Shyamalan.
Dante and Randall run a Quick Stop Groceries in New Jersey. There they run into conflicts with customer on such subjects as whether complacency is an excuse for selling cigarrettes to 6 year old girls, whether the storm troopers on the Death Star knew what they were getting into and the uselessness of being a job advisor at a high school whilst Dante trys to remain 'normal' and acheive what is expected of him, much to Randall's annoyance, who instead chooses to spout profanitys at a family video store and close the Quick Stop for a hockey game on the roof .
The philosiphical and psychological issues raised were shockingly well put forward. This definatley isn't average in any way, casting critical eye over such things as allotments in life, the points of view of happiness between the apparently autonomous and their counter parts and the true meanings behind romance.
Not to say this is an overly artsy flic. All the issues are best to reflect on afterwards whilst enjoying the deliciously irreverant glue that holds each scene together on the solid concrete of Jersey humor. One line I think that sums up the entire movie: 'You self-analysing is about as natural as an oral bowel movement'
A teen comedy with a big brain and glasses
Dante and Randall run a Quick Stop Groceries in New Jersey. There they run into conflicts with customer on such subjects as whether complacency is an excuse for selling cigarrettes to 6 year old girls, whether the storm troopers on the Death Star knew what they were getting into and the uselessness of being a job advisor at a high school whilst Dante trys to remain 'normal' and acheive what is expected of him, much to Randall's annoyance, who instead chooses to spout profanitys at a family video store and close the Quick Stop for a hockey game on the roof .
The philosiphical and psychological issues raised were shockingly well put forward. This definatley isn't average in any way, casting critical eye over such things as allotments in life, the points of view of happiness between the apparently autonomous and their counter parts and the true meanings behind romance.
Not to say this is an overly artsy flic. All the issues are best to reflect on afterwards whilst enjoying the deliciously irreverant glue that holds each scene together on the solid concrete of Jersey humor. One line I think that sums up the entire movie: 'You self-analysing is about as natural as an oral bowel movement'
A teen comedy with a big brain and glasses
Taken
I'd have liked to see this film earlier in my life so I might have enjoyed it more. In aid of universal understanding, Taken is what I imagine 'McBain' from the Simpsons would be like.
Liam Neeson plays Brian, a retired special ops agent who just wants to get along with his ex-wife and her irritating new husband enough to catch up on the years he missed with his daughter. But when the fruit of his loins runs off to Paris and is kidnapped by slave traders, Brian has to cast off his zimoframe and pump up the 12-gauge to get her back, leaving the loving embrace of the US of A to the dank and evil streets of France to kick some serious Euro ass!
I stumbled onto this searching for other work from the cast of Lost, in this case Maggie Grace, who plays the (so I guessed) over emotional 4 year old trapped in a 17 year olds' body daughter of Neeson, whos' drunken stumbling through every scene she's in somehow causes him to be endlessly devoted to her. Although the action is at least decent, it just seems to be there for the sake of it, as we never really feel a proper emotional connection between father and daughter, making the murder and torture of near every cliche, unthreatening 'bad guy' (aka everyone who isn't American) seem incredibly unneccesary.
The 'unique set of skills' Brian uses to find his daughter are very unique indeed, in the respect he always knows what he is doing and comes up against no obstacles whatsoever in his search, garnering no sympathy for his plight. This is not helped either by Neeson dancing a knife edge between gritty realism and stone faced and empty styles of acting.
After the apparent 'hell' this adventure contains it is wrapped up far too nicely making the kidnap, slavery and gruesome deaths of many innocent girls seem like one of Jack the Ripper's bedtime storys, glazing over any subject depth to give a 'happy ever after'
If the Bourne Identity made your head hurt, this is just the ticket. A thriller that ticks all the boxes but nothing particularly captivating
Liam Neeson plays Brian, a retired special ops agent who just wants to get along with his ex-wife and her irritating new husband enough to catch up on the years he missed with his daughter. But when the fruit of his loins runs off to Paris and is kidnapped by slave traders, Brian has to cast off his zimoframe and pump up the 12-gauge to get her back, leaving the loving embrace of the US of A to the dank and evil streets of France to kick some serious Euro ass!
I stumbled onto this searching for other work from the cast of Lost, in this case Maggie Grace, who plays the (so I guessed) over emotional 4 year old trapped in a 17 year olds' body daughter of Neeson, whos' drunken stumbling through every scene she's in somehow causes him to be endlessly devoted to her. Although the action is at least decent, it just seems to be there for the sake of it, as we never really feel a proper emotional connection between father and daughter, making the murder and torture of near every cliche, unthreatening 'bad guy' (aka everyone who isn't American) seem incredibly unneccesary.
The 'unique set of skills' Brian uses to find his daughter are very unique indeed, in the respect he always knows what he is doing and comes up against no obstacles whatsoever in his search, garnering no sympathy for his plight. This is not helped either by Neeson dancing a knife edge between gritty realism and stone faced and empty styles of acting.
After the apparent 'hell' this adventure contains it is wrapped up far too nicely making the kidnap, slavery and gruesome deaths of many innocent girls seem like one of Jack the Ripper's bedtime storys, glazing over any subject depth to give a 'happy ever after'
If the Bourne Identity made your head hurt, this is just the ticket. A thriller that ticks all the boxes but nothing particularly captivating
My Best Friend
It's always dangerous territory approaching foreign cinema. All the subtitle reading replacing the need to notice what's going on puts many off. A clever way around this many foreign film writers use is to create such a good script you puposley lean back in your seat to capture more of the action. 'Mon Meilleur Ami' feels this is unneccesary.
Stereiotypically named Francois, a hard nosed antique dealer who tends to prefer things of value to people, is shocked to find no-one actually likes him. After visiting an associates funeral to close a deal with his next of kin (this is apparently acceptable in France) and finding only 7 people attending and relaying the events to his gallery's co-owner, she tells him that, at Francois funeral, nobody will turn up as he has no friends. Francois immediatley sets out to prove her wrong and hunts the Paris streets for a friend with the aid of a know-it-all socialite taxi driver. Little do they know friendship is closer than it seems...
I gagged a bit typing that last sentence. That being said, it perfectly captures the cheezy cliched nature this entire film unashamedly throws at you for a very long seeming 93 minutes. I can vouch for the accuracy of that time estimation, as I was watching the minutes tick by on the DVD player instead of paying attention to the film. Luckily, I had figuring out everything that would happen in the film in the exact right order within the first twenty minutes.
The philosophical depth that the French usually try to provide skids down a slippery slope and punctures a lung on the sharp icicle pit below throughout, as the definition of friendship is never found. It also isn't really Francois fault that he has no friends as everyone in Paris seem to be the rudest people in the world, walking away and shouting at him whenever he attempts conversation, but as all his social interactions are filmed from a very long way away, he could have said something that caused their apparently default hatred of him. This technique both robs these scenes (about a quarter of the movie) of any comedy or sympathy with him.
Another thing 'My Best Friend' attempts to do is explore the recently popular concept of 'bromance', a loving fraternal yet plutonic friendship between men. For the first hour, Francois suffers a serious case of bromance blindness, not even acknowledging his taxi driver as an eligible candidate for a friend. Fortunatley we know it's going to happen anyway. Sadly, it doesn't last long, but we knew that was going to happen to.
The final sequence is one of the most bizarre conclusions to an emotional exchange to any film I've ever seen, with the taxi driver (I've tried but I can't remember his name) gets on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and has Francois as his phone-a-friend. They then lay their feelings out on national television while the presenter listens intently, as if he were deeply involved in their affairs. It's a bit like if a member of Hell's Angels was on weeping on his hog while Leonardo DiCaprio sinks into the sea at the end of Titanic before patting Kate Winslet on the arm and riding off to Valhalla.
After a pridictable conclusion, the taxi driver loses all his money in one year and said it brought him no happiness, which Francois agrees with ferverently as they sit at a resturant booth girning at each other like lobotomized hyenas. It was good to finally discover that all the unimaginitive, completley foreseeable straight man romance was just critiquing capatalism. Very subtle
Stereiotypically named Francois, a hard nosed antique dealer who tends to prefer things of value to people, is shocked to find no-one actually likes him. After visiting an associates funeral to close a deal with his next of kin (this is apparently acceptable in France) and finding only 7 people attending and relaying the events to his gallery's co-owner, she tells him that, at Francois funeral, nobody will turn up as he has no friends. Francois immediatley sets out to prove her wrong and hunts the Paris streets for a friend with the aid of a know-it-all socialite taxi driver. Little do they know friendship is closer than it seems...
I gagged a bit typing that last sentence. That being said, it perfectly captures the cheezy cliched nature this entire film unashamedly throws at you for a very long seeming 93 minutes. I can vouch for the accuracy of that time estimation, as I was watching the minutes tick by on the DVD player instead of paying attention to the film. Luckily, I had figuring out everything that would happen in the film in the exact right order within the first twenty minutes.
The philosophical depth that the French usually try to provide skids down a slippery slope and punctures a lung on the sharp icicle pit below throughout, as the definition of friendship is never found. It also isn't really Francois fault that he has no friends as everyone in Paris seem to be the rudest people in the world, walking away and shouting at him whenever he attempts conversation, but as all his social interactions are filmed from a very long way away, he could have said something that caused their apparently default hatred of him. This technique both robs these scenes (about a quarter of the movie) of any comedy or sympathy with him.
Another thing 'My Best Friend' attempts to do is explore the recently popular concept of 'bromance', a loving fraternal yet plutonic friendship between men. For the first hour, Francois suffers a serious case of bromance blindness, not even acknowledging his taxi driver as an eligible candidate for a friend. Fortunatley we know it's going to happen anyway. Sadly, it doesn't last long, but we knew that was going to happen to.
The final sequence is one of the most bizarre conclusions to an emotional exchange to any film I've ever seen, with the taxi driver (I've tried but I can't remember his name) gets on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and has Francois as his phone-a-friend. They then lay their feelings out on national television while the presenter listens intently, as if he were deeply involved in their affairs. It's a bit like if a member of Hell's Angels was on weeping on his hog while Leonardo DiCaprio sinks into the sea at the end of Titanic before patting Kate Winslet on the arm and riding off to Valhalla.
After a pridictable conclusion, the taxi driver loses all his money in one year and said it brought him no happiness, which Francois agrees with ferverently as they sit at a resturant booth girning at each other like lobotomized hyenas. It was good to finally discover that all the unimaginitive, completley foreseeable straight man romance was just critiquing capatalism. Very subtle
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