Film Web Blog

Pity the poor woman competing with Monica Bellucci for a man’s heart. That’s Giulia’s (Laura Morante) predicament in this Italian drama from Pursuit Of Happyness director Gabriele Muccino. Hubby Carlo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) is a frustrated novelist having it away with old flame Bellucci while his wife, anarcho-crusty son and jailbait daughter deal with their own romantic crises. Remember Me entertains with its screaming rows and OTT dialogue (“We have castrated each other!”); if only marriage breakdown was as fun in non-Latin countries… Extras include deleted scenes.

Source: Remember Me

Bookmark it:

It’s Halloween, so the moon is clouding over, and Clip joint has assumed a sickly-green pallor as we round up our chosen excerpts of the undead.

Despite their reputation for causing mayhem all year round, the denizens of the night are actually a rigidly organised bunch, with a fully fledged hierachical class system, probably some kind of pension payment scheme and their own lawn-green bowling association too. There are aristocratic vampires on top, with the chattering classes – mostly ghosts – propping them up, then the loveable decomposing footsoldiers – zombies – at the bottom. So which are your favourites?

1) Let’s start with an easy one – who is the best Dracula? Maybe you have to go with the one you grew up with – in my case, Gary Oldman’s Transylvanian. Dark, suave, with sumptuous long tresses, an inquenchable romantic longing and an ability to induce bad acting in almost anyone around him, he’s the Mills & Boon of Draculas. But, of course, there’s always The Count.

2) Not all vampires are born with a bloody spoon in their mouths, of course. The neck-biting fraternity are a marketing man’s dream these days – rebellious individualists who seem to have filled out the long stretches of eternity by watching too many Marlon Brando movies. Near Dark’s redneck band of vampires is very much in this, er, vein.

3) Right: ghosts. No shortage of phantoms to choose from down the pictures, whether they be friendly, Japanese, or – true horror – Patrick Swayze with a penchant for phallic pottery. But I’m going to plump for Boris Karloff in The Ghoul, mostly because I want someone to explain to me the distinction between a ghost and a ghoul.

4) You’ve been dead for an eon. You’re a festering, dessicated cadaver and no one fancies you. You’re lonely, so what do you do? How about getting a pet? A werewolf, maybe – but be sure to keep them on a short liche (sorry).

5) Gordon Brown, take note – zombies have definitely been a growth industry in the last five years, for some reason more fondly remembered in the retro pantheon than other night-dwellers (are vampires fundamentally too 80s, too aspirational, too cheesy?). Zombies, thanks to sheer lack of self-awareness and any discriminatory powers, are the real masters of adapting to new times – witness the famous shark attack in Lucio Fulci’s Zombie Flesh Eaters.

Thanks for shouting the odd word of encouragement as Clip Joint took its little turn on the catwalk last week. Here are your own directional fashion tips:

1) George Harrison adds weight to the idea of the fashion industry as one big conspiracy, or consensual hallucination, in Hard Day’s Night, a notion at least as old as the Emperor’s New Clothes.

2) “Red is dead, blue is through, green’s obscene and brown’s taboo.” Kay Thompson sets the mould for the imperious magazine editor on film in Funny Face, as she dictates this season’s colour.

3) A bare-chested Clark Gable in 1934′s It Happened One Night was, it is said, a dark day for the American vest industry.

4) Plenty of sartorial crimes in The Fifth Element, courtesy of Jean-Paul Gaultier. Bruce Willis’s blonde crop and mandarin vest are straight out the designer’s own wardrobe, wethinks.

5) Brigitte Bardot’s animal-loving stance obviously came later in life: she’s wearing an ocelot coat, according to the song Stanislas.

Source: Clip joint: the undead

Bookmark it: