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THE GAY BED AND BREAKFAST OF TERROR...
A leather daddy, a closeted
drag queen, a fag-hag, lipstick lesbians, pink pound yuppies, a sugar
daddy and his twink and a country singer and her baby-dyke girlfriend
all check in to the creepy hotel, oblivious to the peril that lurks.
A hilarious grindhouse splat-fest in the spirit of Benny Hill and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’
As we've had an enourmous upturn in subscribers recently, we thought we'd give all you frustrated movie lovers some tips to get watching/downloading our films. Especially DivX, which although great once you get going, does take a little tweaking to set you off! So DON'T PANIC - first make sure you read our 'How It Works'
Remember you can try one of our Free Films to get going! Common support issues seem to range from not having the player installed, not registering a DivX account, not having a fast enough connection, not having enough system RAM, or trying to download from outside the UK & Ireland. The latest player, version 7, has improved performance... films should start playing once the download has reached 5%! Another useful tip is if the film should hang and stop downloading then simply close the player and re-open it whereupon you can click the download mananger, highlight the film, right click and retry the download... it'll resume automatically otherwise anyway. There's a new version of the DivX player which may involve you having to re-login to your account once installed. And there's a whole range of great Video tutorials you can check out... like how to configure your PS3 or transfer media to any DivX certified device. Or how to watch on your TV.
Yes I'm afraid its all true! Here's an old friend and ex-employee's story of mis-adventures in Cannes. And just to prove that he sometimes does work for a living, check out the great photo shoot with Tippi Hedren in L.A. recently... and that trip is another story!
It was not meant to be like that. Never. If you had told me in advance how that particular Cannes trip would go, I would have said “No thanks, I’m washing my hair during those particular dates.” As I sport a permanently shaved head, you get my drift… I was determined to go to Cannes. My first visit the previous year, was nothing but a massive, eye-opening, educational and, yes, fun experience. You can’t really think of yourself as a Producer and not go to Cannes. So I picked dates around other work commitments and booked my flight to Nice. I set up a few meetings, and arranged for accommodation with a friend. I knew I was meant to get paid on the day I was leaving, so everything was on track for four days of working, drinking, networking and searching for party invites. Having thrown some stuff into my worn out travel bag at the last minute, I legged it to Kings Cross to catch the train to Luton Airport. Having paid for my train ticket, I tried to get some cash out of the ATM, and nothing happened! Gulp! I took the train. Feverish thoughts running through my head – I was meant to get paid, no money in bank, but then payments from them usually get made in the afternoon, but, it’s near the afternoon, and they’ve always paid on time, but then there’s clearly no money… hmmm… To go or not to go, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of a missed Cannes trip, or take up arms against this current financial problem?
I couldn’t get hold of the company whose payment I’ve been expecting, and decided to board the plane and call them again once I got to Cannes. I will no doubt see the money in my account in a few hours…
Land in Nice.
Other members of the film community are also waiting for the bus to Cannes. The ticket is one Euro. I put it on my card and it goes through. I put my phone on. It searches for a signal, looking to hook
it to a French network. This is the very same phone I used in Cannes the year before, as well as trips to a number of other countries. It should work. Hear me dammit? It should work! But no… it’s searching… searching and it ain’t finding nothing. It just searches. On the bus to Cannes (which was only two hours late) I ask a fellow producer if I can use her phone. I just need to call the friend I’m meant to be staying with.Naturally his phone isn’t working. I leave a message to call me (obviously my phone will be fine any minute now). We arrive. Phone or no phone, in Cannes the basic idea is to get yourself to The Grand. Arriving late at night, I dragged my bag to the hotel and immediately found a few of the people I had arranged to meet with. Within minutes I found myself with a drink in my
hand and in fun company, and got all the latest gossip from people who had been there for a few days, being updated on what’s been happening in the market, and in the festival. It’s always funny to note that there are in fact two (if not more) events happening at the same time – the festival and the market. To most people, one has nothing to do with the other (in my case, the goings on at the festival are almost irrelevant). I couldn’t spot the person I was meant to be staying with, and given that my own phone was still in search mode, I borrowed a few phones throughout the night to try and get hold of him. Nothing. At about four in the morning most people had left the bar… I know someone offered me a place to stay, but I lost sight of them, and without a phone… Damn that alcohol! Strolling the street at night, dragging my bag (thank goodness for wheels), I notice it’s starting to rain – obviously. My body is tired, as are my arms after carrying that bag all across town. Then I remember the train station. Crossing my fingers, I walked there in the hope of getting away from the rain. The relief I felt seeing it open was massive. I couldn’t see any other festival goers in there. Most of the people seemed like French locals who were stranded or were waiting for the first train.
An empty bench became my new best friend as my body rested. Rested, but crying out for something softer under it. Rested, but without really resting as I was in a constant panic that if I fall asleep someone would walk away with my bag and rucksack. So not the greatest rest ever. Never mind, tomorrow will be different, I said to myself. Tomorrow will be great! Tomorrow becomes today. It’s early in the morning and I start walking around, luggage in tow. I go to the nearest ATM. It seems to be mocking me. I’m getting hungry. After my failed encounter with the cash machine I start thinking of options of where to go. Then I hear my name being shouted. I look around – J. an old colleague from another life, is waving to me, looking swish in his Cannes outfit (you know, summer clothes and shades – everything we don’t wear in grey old London). He tells me it’s his last few hours in Cannes and invites me to breakfast. Phew. He asks me if I need a pass to the market place. Of course I do! He just needs to go in for an hour or so, and he’ll call me when he’s done. I explain the situation and we arrange to meet up. Predictably, J does not turn up. Since when does anyone arrive on time in Cannes?
Lunch is next on my mind. Thankfully I have an invite to a lunch do courtesy of the lovely people at some post-production house, and my neighbour, who has just finished his first feature film with them. I go down and hear the first pop of a champagne cork – what a sweet sound. Something no screwtop bottle will ever be able to achieve. With food and drink aplenty, I lay down on a comfy sofa, situated right on the beach, a glass in my hand and my body finally finds itself starting to relax. I then notice that this is no ordinary post-house party. There’s Billy Zane and Kelly hanging out next to me,
and when I look in the other direction, Tommy-Lee Jones is nattering with what could only be ‘his people’. My neighbour turns up and we eat and drink away.
One woman turns to me and comments that I look so relaxed on the sofa… yeah, right…
This is just relief that I’ve not had to drag my luggage for a few hours. The party is long finished, but the hardcore crowd is still drinking away. This is mainly due to the fact that the boss of said post-house is being ridiculously generous and keeps buying rounds of mojitos, and all of us are far too polite to say no. There’s mention of another party at the Weinstein headquarters, and a motley crew of semi-pissed film people (a description which applies to nearly everyone in Cannes) makes its way there. I seem to be the only person dragging their luggage. Stunning views from the penthouse, more champagne and food, lovely company, and I’m thinking – hey, it’s not all bad! We carry on to a club – by now it’s getting very late – and I’ve still not found a place to sleep for the night. Truth be told, I’ve not been looking, what with all the schmoozing and boozing. But my neighbour promises to sort something (he’s staying with the good folk from the post-house), so I’m not worried. Someone – and I really have no idea who by now – just keeps buying drinks at this very loud club. I’m seeing five of most people, but in a good way. It’s now way past two in the morning and we all start making our way toward their villa when I realise I’m not dragging anything behind me! The panic that sets in means I’m running around a bit. By the time I find my luggage I’m no longer able to spot neighbour and friends (the next day I find out my neighbour spent about an hour looking for me and probably missed me by a few minutes in every place he looked). So I drag myself and my luggage to La Petite Majestic and find myself nattering away with other night-owls, all of them asking if I’ve just arrived. Tired, still broke, and still with luggage in tow I try to find a place to rest. Petite Majestic has closed, and the streets are nearly empty. I find a café, which is open with a seat outside. After 10 minutes or so I’m told that I can only stay if I order something. I order the bill, but the joke is lost on the waitress, so I politely leave and head to the only place that will have the likes of me at this time of night– the train station. The friendly bench awaits me.
Morning. I’ve not washed in two days – something I’ve not done in quite a few years, and I need a coffee. I check the cash-machine, just in case, but the results are the same. I go back to the Grand and, having had enough of dragging my luggage around, I store it underneath the piano in the hotel. Laptop out, I manage to at least get in touch with a few people I’ve arranged to meet. A quick change of clothes in the toilet, and I’m fresh as a daisy. I sit down and someone asks if they can sit at my table. I agree, and when the waiter arrives my new tablemate insists on buying me coffee and a pastry for invading my table. Who am I to refuse? I decide I must make it into the market area and, given that I can’t buy a daily pass, I go for the oldest trick in the book – do you mind if I just nip back in? But where is your pass monsieur? I can’t find it – I think I left it inside the UK pavilion – I’ll be very quick. They let me in. Inside, a whole host of familiar faces, and I’m very kindly invited to the Kodak lunch, which just happened to be starting. Good – I’m hungry and could do with a drink (hair of the dog and all that). At the Kodak party I bump into a gang of old chums who are on the hunt for more parties and meetings. We stroll around the market and, somehow, the business card I’ve hung around my neck seems to work on all the security people. This is good as I need to be meeting one or two people there.
Later in the day we find ourselves invited to the party hosted by the Scandinavian countries. Great food and drinks, and more interesting chats with producers and financiers. What an international lot we are – a German producer, French composer, Swiss director, Italian actress (she was a bit weird), and various other folk who seemed to pop out of nowhere and joined our party. Once again I find myself on a great rooftop, with great view of the most buzzing film festival in the world. I drink a toast to the town. The French composer is horrified by the fact I’ve not found a bed and offers me his spare room! I’m determined to keep eye-contact with him! I have his phone number of course. We move to another party and, walking along La Croisette, I bump into a producer friend from China. We’ve been trying to set up a meeting for the past two days. It’s past midnight now and she’s leaving first thing in the morning. We decide to sit down and chat (I’m hoping to be invited to China to run a workshop for her). She takes me to the Chinese party. Before leaving my gang I ask where they’ll be later. They give me the name of the club. As I watch them go I wonder if I’ll ever see that spare room – but this meeting is important to me. When we get to the Chinese party I become slightly star-struck. The table next to us is playing host to two people I hugely admire – Jackie Chan and John Woo – who are getting very drunk together, which makes my meeting even more entertaining. The meeting goes well, and we plan the sort of workshop we’d like to run.
She tells me they are talking to other people about running the workshop, but I’m the person she’ll be recommending. I walk away elated. Happy about the meeting, even happier to have had a couple of words with two filmmakers I’ve admired for a long time. Was this worth losing a spare room for? Time will tell. The Grand is about to close and I just cannot be bothered to drag my luggage anymore. I decide to leave it under the piano. All my valuable things are in my rucksack, so sod it. I’m sure my luggage will be there in the morning. I start imagining various bomb-scare incidents at the hotel, but the worst that will happen is the French police will blow up some dirty underwear. C’est la vie.
More drinks at Le Petite Majestic, and when it closes I know my routine. Yes, my little train station bench, here I come. As I lay down I try to imagine that the spare room I was offered earlier was the worse possible room ever; smelly, full of bugs and far far away. Surely that must be the case. My last day in Cannes. I arrive at The Grand to see my luggage is still waiting for me where I’d tucked it away.
I finally get an e-mail from the company whose payment I’ve been expecting. There was a problem with printing out my invoice. They were very apologetic – this has never happened before etc, and the payment should be in my account by end of day. Hmmmm…. After a couple of hours of meetings and card swapping I get hungry again. I walked along La Croisette, trying to think of how best to deal with this when I bumped into an old chum outside a restaurant. After exchanging pleasantries, I asked what he was doing there. He was in charge of the guest list for The Times lunch, and asked if would I like to come in. He’d read my mind! A fantastic lunch was laid out and I found myself on a table with a few British financiers and producers. A solicitor friend is on the table next to me, which gave us a chance to catch up – something we’ve been trying to do for a couple of months. After a couple of hours of more food and wine, we – myself and all the friends at my table – are the only ones left. Everyone else has left, but we are still ordering wine, munching away, making plans, talking shop, and loving the sunshine. I only have one or two more hours before I need to be at the airport. I’ve not really given any thought to how I’ll get there, but somehow, a woman who has just joined our table tells me that she’s on the same flight as me, and that I can join her taxi ride! I just need to make it to her hotel in an hour or so where she and the rest of company are staying. Perfect! After five hours at one of
the best, and most entertaining, lunches I’ve ever had, I stagger away to retrieve my luggage from under the piano at The Grand Hotel. I say to Cannes and somehow find the hotel just as my new acquaintance and the rest of her company step into the cab for the airport. I’ll admit that after all the wine we’ve drunk, I am not all there. I fall asleep in the airport and wake up to find I can’t see my luggage. There’s only 10 minutes left to board the plane. Finally someone indicates that they may have found it and I should check with security. At security they tell me off for walking away from my
luggage (did I do that?), and hand it back to me. I make my way as fast as I can and manage to board the flight just as they’re closing the doors. Phew….
When I land in Luton I worry about getting back to London, but my card works! I can buy a train ticket! There is money in my account! Needless to say that my phone is working again. I spend the train ride to London listening to all the messages left for me over the last four days: “Where are you?” “Do you still need the room?” “Can’t find you…worried about you”. Text messages, voicemail, all of them about my sleeping arrangements. Well, I think as I prepare myself for my first night on a proper bed, at least I’m not out of pocket by much – just that one Euro I spent on the bus from the airport to Cannes. Before falling asleep on the lovely mattress, surrounded by my lovely pillows and my soft, soft duvet, I go over the last few days in my head. I had a good time, a productive
time, a lot of fun – but never, I mean NEVER again!
After a five year
sabbatical, Paul Thomas Anderson returns minus any of his usual ensemble, his
rapid editing, the Mamet-like dialogue and relocates to an epic birth of a
nation story, intensely focused on a study of an oil prospector, played by
Daniel Day Lewis.
In ever so loosely adapting Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil! he has remained in
California but not so you’d notice. To capture the turn of the century
landscape of oil prospecting he went close to Marfa, south-west Texas, where at
the very same time his main rivals at the Oscars, the Coens were shooting No
Country For Old Men. At times it feels like it could be adapted from the
biblically hewn style of Cormac McCarthy. But this is absolutely a different
beast from the Coen’s chase story from hell, and delves deep into a fallen soul
and his relationship with his adoptive son.
There’s no edge of the seat tension here, more a stately, reflective visual
sense and of course, bestriding it all a performance of such sheer elemental conviction
by Daniel Day Lewis you could be almost forgiven for overlooking the complexity
of the film overall.
Just as Punch-Drunk Love had a low-key virtuosity, after the full-on excess of
Boogie Nights and Magnolia, There Will Be Blood formally at least,
reprises its chamber intensity.
Its score by Radiohead guitarist, Johnny Greenwood, and the
cinematography by Robert Elswitt (who took an Oscar for his efforts) cry
out anything but small-scale but the film does its drilling most tellingly as a
redefinition of story-telling through the close-up, and dissolves so slow they
inhabit another time. Anderson eschews any of the wider socialist critique of
Upton Sinclair for an allegorical portrayal where the issue, as in Scorcese’s
Color of Money, becomes other than its obvious subject. Only Richard Kelly, and
Todd Haynes in American cinema today display close to this ability for skilled
dissimulation. It can feel like Adorno said: every time I go to the movies I
feel a little bit less intelligent. Thankfully, there are correctives, even
though they are sometimes wrongfully received – like Kelly’s Southland Tales.
In the case of There Will Be Blood it’s slow, harsh beauty have so much obvious
brilliance it seems for many , oddly I think, to have eclipsed his previous
work.
There is restraint but ultimately Anderson is too playful a director to resist
a joker card. It isn’t so wild as the raining frogs of Magnolia but it’s a
curve ball which can’t help but unsettle the viewer – the use of Brahms’ Violin
Concerto as the credits roll underlines this strangeness, to an extent folding
the drama into itself. You don’t have to worry about a tricksy self-referential
Charlie Kaufman-like gambit but it’s sure to stay with you as you leave the
film, nagging away.
The grand theatricality of the finish if you look too literally, will leave
you underwhelmed; why such a dramatic change of tone, bordering on
the absurd? The long final scene in the mansion of Daniel
Planview takes place a good number of years after the story began with him
prospecting for silver but finding oil instead and emerging, crawling
with a broken leg as though a man come back from hell. It sets up a
menace which the ending refuses to honour, indeed questions its
reality. Don't expect laughs but there is a comedy in the rivalry
between Plainview and the preacher, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). The
theological seriousness of Cormac McCarthy (yet to be seen on film) falls under
an irreverent gaze. Part horror villiany, part literary
adaptation, part Kubrick homage, part homage to John Huston, this truly
maverick creation is more than anything a kind of south of eden
story which aims to go past its literary inspiration to a highly
nuanced cinema of tainted reflection.
If this sounds like a disregard for story then I'd refer you
back to everything else he's done. This shouldn't come as any great
surprise. There Will Be Blood is an enigmatic
experience - I read that many feel the need to see it again - it
pays its debts to 70s film-making but it seeks to hone their
influence into a quite original statement. The realism is
overshadowed by an absurd sense of literate horror, an odd blend but
mostly compelling. I found nothing in it like the pay-off of Samuel
L. Jackson in Anderson's debut Hard 8, saying, "I know about Atlantic
City", or in Boogie Nights, "I like sunsets too, but...sunrises are
better" or Magnolia's "And the book says that we may be through with
the past but the past ain't through with us." Still, it's one of the
outstanding films of the last ten years.
Charles Maclean
Honeydripper directed by John Sayles, set in 1950 is
the story of a few days in and around the eponymous and fictional blues joint
in Harmony, Alabama. The proprietor, veteran bluesman turned club owner Tyrone
“Pine Top” Purvis played by Danny Glover is in a whole mess of money trouble.
He has Saturday night to make good his litany of debts or lose his club.
Fortunately, the cotton harvest is at its height, and the just paid pickers are
gonna be thirsty and in need of cutting loose this Saturday night and the
soldiers from the local army base will be on leave too.
Tyrone's hopes are pinned on renowned and pioneering
electric guitar player Guitar Sam whom Pine Top has booked for Saturday night
only and provided he turns up, may just be able to bring in enough money to
keep Pine Top in business which is also being lost to the Juke Joint across the
way. Aided by his wife Delilah (Lisa Gay Hamilton) who makes the best fried
chicken in town; plain or spicy, his trusty lieutenant, Maceo (Charles S.
Dutton) and delightful and very credible newcomer Yaya Dacosta as China Doll,
his daughter, he might just make it. Throw in guitar toting drifter Sonny (Gary
Clark Jr.) and there’s a hope of glory.
Although his film has great merits: sumptuous
cinematography and great visual composition, some fine acting talent including
the formidable Stacy Keach as the bigoted and morally corrupt sheriff, there
are some problems from which the film cannot extricate itself, namely its
inability to make up its mind what it is. At times it addresses most eloquently
the grinding cruelty of institutional racism, making its case implicitly and so
much more potently than if it had tried to lock horns narratively with such a
juggernaut of social evil. At other times there was dialogue so stilted and
unnatural that it truly detracted from the experience. There were though, some
great one-liners: on the Korean war ”black folks killing yellow folks to keep
white folks happy.” and of his wife’s cooking one character says it would “gag
a maggot.”. Nice touches to be sure.
Some very fine character acting in the generous and
comely shape of Devenia McFadden as the not to be scorned Nadine and Dr. Mable
John as the dignified local grand dame of song Bertha Mae lends much to a film
that struggles at times to seem truthful or real perhaps. There is an
established blues mythos which devotees of the music recognise and use to
navigate songs and in times of need, life itself. But there are times when the
characters in Honeydripper are just cyphers in an internal folklore peculiar to
the movie which can make it seem impenetrable and needlessly confusing most
notably with the character of Possum (Keb' Mo') the blind guitar player. Also
nagging at me is that in trying to conform to such a mythology Sayles gets caught
up in some clichéd characterisation, for instance Stacy Keach's sheriff whose
character is rarely permitted to be anything more than a hackneyed and
one-dimensional ogre.
However the film has some great great music. Check out
Delta Guitar Sam: Bo Diddly meets Chuck Berry and Bertha Mae, a kind of
fictionalised Bessie Smith. This seductive melodrama is as potent as any kids'
sport movie so allow yourself to be transported back the birth of Rhythm and
Blues. Crossroads for grown-ups. Great fun.
BL
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