Pseudo-geordie boy

Spoilers I suppose… So yeah I guess you could say I didn't like it. It had some good moments but they were few and far between, and I'm not sure if I was supposed to laugh as much as I did when all the main characters kept dying, sorry but I found them funny. Son: You hate me don't you? Dad: yeah I hate you: always have. Son: I always loved you… then he shoots himself, sorry and all but this is very very funny. Admittedly I was the only one laughing in the cinema, but that's irrelevant, isn't it? Woman loses husband in electric chair, fat son gets run over (he's fat therefore lets mock him, fat kids great for comedy: not a good idea though) and then he dies and Halle Berry cries a lot; and with lots of crying comes an Oscar; if she were retarded in some way too then well she'd probably be acclaimed as the greatest actor ever to live. And Billy Bob, well he's okay as ever, though in this one it's like he's still in The Man Who Wasn't There Mode; which should be a good thing but it's just dull: just not the Coen's I suppose. Plus and this bit really amused me but you know he can't be that racist since he likes chocolate ice cream and black coffee. Please shoot me now if this is acclaimed as the best film of the year. For me this was a not very good continuation of Dancer in the Dark.

Anyway, I can't be bothered saying anything more about this film, disappointing in the end, (and the middle and beginning too) but hey it doesn't really matter, does it.

There is a major, major plot hole in this film: still a great film though. However, if you think about it the reason the Battle Royale law is introduced is to curb youth rebellion and truancy; yet if all the kids skive off school no one will be able to take part in the bloodthirst so the law becomes essentially useless. So rebel kids! Bunk off school. It's the only way to survive. But just a little point really. As it is though this is still a great film: all the deaths are hilarious, but then I am sadistic! I laughed all the way through, you will too: though I'm still not sure if it is actually supposed to be as funny as I found it. The more violent the deaths the funnier they were to me; the scene in the lighthouse is perhaps the funniest thing in the world! Just classic paranoia: how I laughed!!

It is easily as good as the American indie film `Series 7: The Contenders' which is pretty similar in content, though that's a parody of American tv and Big Brother style shows in general: still have to kill everyone else to survive though. The real difference between this film and Series 7 is this depicts young adults as opposed to adults, plus there are 40 in this and six in Series 7. From that you'd think there is less scope for character and stuff due to so many more people but I found the conceit of portraying school kids instead of adults genius as they all know each other, have fully formed attachments and so killing your friends to survive is much more shocking than killing strangers to win a gameshow as in Series 7. And that holds its punch as it means betraying friends to survive: friends they've known and loved for most of their lives. Think about: could you?

This film isn't perfect though, the end is very poor: the last ten minutes make no sense, but you'll see what I mean when you see it. Series 7 at least has a twist as well as an amusing ending; this just annoyed and disappointed me. It's also a little too long, but that's perhaps due to the end not being very good, drying up and dragging along. More could have been made of the psycho-woman character too (I forget her name:Mitsuko i think), she was cool. But other than that it is a good film. So go see it. Me? I'm waiting for `Ichi The Killer', promises to be even more bloody and violent: Japanese films are so cool! Don't even get me started on Odishon!!!!

Together is a good film. It has no plot to speak of, but hey plots are overrated anyway, especially as most of them have so many holes it's impossible to make sense; Together bypasses this by not having one. But instead what we have is a beautifully observed and a very subtle intelligent comedy. Together (initially ironic) follows the discordant inhabitants of a hippie commune in the mid-seventies. It begins with them all literally jumping for joy at the news of Franco's death: so yeah they have their beliefs, where much of the comedy is derived coming as we do from an apathetic cynical new-millennium perspective. Well I laughed: an example; one of the children is called Tet after the Tet offensive during Vietnam!!. And there's the free love, the radical politics, and the ostracisation towards them by their neighbours. All the clichés, but clichés do happen: and as with Show Me Love the writer/director Lukas Moodysson manages to somehow freshen and make them no longer clichéd at all: a very good skill he has.

Coming from the position of being a very big fan of Lukas' first and better film Show Me Love/ Fucking Åmål it's easy to see the similarities between the two. The similarities are what make Together less impressive, that and the story is less interesting: it's not dull but there are just too many characters, it's hard to connect with any one of them. I've seen Show Me Love perhaps too many times, what keeps me coming back again and again is that I really connect with and love the main characters, it's like they are versions of who I once was. Additionally, there are essentially only two of them for Lukas to focus on, whereas with Together there are at least ten. I don't think it's the age thing either as I'm closer to those in Together than Show Me Love (depressingly). There are just too many characters and he can't focus on them all, the film is essentially a snapshot of their lives over the space of a turbulent few weeks. Similar to Show Me Love, only with the same duration: Together needed to be longer. However at the close it does all come together, you begin to feel for the characters. You come to understand and witness some growth in them: they lose some of their radicalism and begin to actually like each other becoming more synergistic as the staunchly dogmatic members leave for more idealistic communes or the Baader Meinhof! I think the point is that the remaining characters may be similar to me, I may have found a connection only there is no time to show this as they only get a few moments of focus each.

There are also some annoying directorial techniques (the same ones as in Show Me Love) like the fast-zoom to close-up where sometimes a static shot would have been better, I hoped he'd learnt to use it sparingly but obviously he loves it too much to ever part. But this is a tiny point, the biggest drawback is that I can see all the characters from Show Me Love transposed onto this film; different ages, different settings but essentially the same: it's like we're watching the parents of the kids in his earlier film. It's not enough to annoy me, but it does detract, it's what makes this film only a nine rather than the definite ten that Show Me Love deserves. Finally, I hope Lukas will make a film better than Show Me Love so he'll not have it like a millstone, but first he has to find different voices for his characters. I hope everything he does will not be compared to that film, but it is a very good film indeed. However, Together, as it stands, is just too similar not to compare it with his earlier film.

After seeing Together I left the cinema smiling and, if nothing else, it managed to make me sing ABBA's SOS all the way home, and I hate ABBA, being a man and all! And I'm still deciding about seeing it again, so it is a good film and I did enjoy it, the difference being that I wanted to see Show Me Love again immediately and then over and over and over: and do. Maybe after a second viewing I'll feel something more for the characters? I'll let you know!