Frost/Nixon

The experience for an audience when watching films that are ‘based on a true story’, such as Frost/Nixon, is often fraught with questions of ‘what is ‘true’’ or ‘is this constructed to serve and propel the drama?’ (I think less coherently when watching films of course and the questions more often occur as ‘did this really happen’ or ‘are they lying to me’?). This experience is often problematic because it distracts from the ‘story’, which, after all, is the god that must be obeyed of Hollywood film-making. The film was initially a stage play, (both stage-play and screen-play was written by Peter Morgan) which explains its development into a perfect example of finely honed classic Hollywood storytelling. And as audiences, we have come to expect nothing less from likes of director Ron Howard.

It’s a character driven, well-balanced narrative that continually plays with your allegiances. It depicts the famous David Frost interview with Richard Nixon after his resignation and controversial pardon for his Watergate crimes. ‘Interview’ is also a theme that is used as a mode of address and as a battle ground of the minds and personalities of Front and Nixon. The perception of ‘interviews’ is to uncover a ‘more real’ or to gain a deeper insight in the person being interviewed. It’s an act of uncovering and exposing. The film plays with this idea as the interview uncovers and exposes both the interviewer and the interviewed.

As characters, both Front and Nixon are unlikeable yet sympathetic at different intervals. And both have discernable character arcs and journeys where their interaction with one another affects the other; they learn and grow from their experience with each other. To its credit the film seamlessly guides you in rooting for the underdog despite his flaws but leaves you with an unlikely allegiance at the end.

There is a plot device that if it is ‘based on a true event’ then it is a fascinating insight into Nixon’s plagued conscious. If it is only a plot device to motivate Frost’s turning point then it feels artificial and you start to mistrust the narrative, the verisimilitude is broken, the disbelief is grounded instead of suspended – you begin to feel that their lying to me.
The film-makers acknowledge the “this is not real” problem, through the direct to camera ‘interviews’ with characters who are apparently fictional. Direct to camera interviews are a mode of address commonly associated with documentaries – a genre of film, which assumes factual authority. Through the use of these ‘interviews’ they are saying - Yes, they are lying to you. But does it matter?

Does it matter if they’re “lying to me” – no because truth is the ground on which fact falls, slain by the soldiers of storytelling. It doesn’t matter because history is merely the collection of human stories, biased and emotional as only they can be, poising as fact. Thus Frost/Nixon is a modern parable about the human need to exorcise the burden of guilt through confession and how the weight of responsibility lingers without reprieve.

Movie Club Movie of the Year Poll

Sarah lounges in a mahogany coloured chesterfield basking in the glow of an open fire. She is wearing a black and gold tartan satin robe with a cravat and open heeled slippers. She is nonchalantly puffing on a Cuban cigar and occasionally nips her cognac from an oversized balloon glass; mulling over the taste with poise and reflection.

SARAH

2006. The year that was. And what a year it was. From humble beginnings Movie Club sprung and blossomed through international political turmoil, racial angst, coupled attendances, frosted conditions, misjudged Bolognese, lonely hearts of gold, heroine addictions, teen incest, poisoned leis, trout fishing, and people turning into whales. Quite a year.

Throughout the year we have bared witness to the befuddled delineation of a burgeoning cinematic genre, the expose of a husband’s true identity, the expose of Melquiades Estrada’s true identity, badly delegated nick names, ballerina’s who probably should be dead and unconvincing elections regarding the vice presidency.

Despite the hardships, the good times ran like a river of joyous over consumption as the booze flowed freely after the block party, love’s heart ache made for bittersweet melancholics to well up most Monday nights, brothers were released from institutions and found an endearing and charmingly hilarious sense of belonging amongst movie club as the numbers of swelled and bloated like Bukowski’s grog-rouged face.

And, as always, fantasy and reality have intertwined themselves so completely within my memory that it is nearly impossible to untangle the messy chaos that is the pieces of my mind.

And so I welcome one and all to the Movie Club Movie of the Year Poll for 2006.

Below is a complete list of every film we, (the collective and wide spread ‘we’ of the Movie Clubbery caliber) attended in 2006. If you wish to refresh your memory of said films please take your delicately clicking little mousey wowsey and lightly rap a tap tap the title below and it will spin you across a webbed and cybered universe, gently coming into land at the appropriate review which will also contain a link to the film’s website.

But now please enjoy, what has taken quite a number of leisure hours to compile, the movie club movie of the year poll list…

Sarah nips her cognac thoughtfully as we fade to black.

1. Syrianna
2. Crash
3. March of the Penguins
4. A History of Violence
5. The Squid and The Whale
6. The Manual of Love
7. Tsotsi
8. Dave Chappelle’s Block Party
9. Drawing Restraint #9
10. Neil Young: Heart of Gold
11. Candy
12. Three burials of Melquiades Estrada
13. Ballet Russes
14. The Chumbscrubber
15. So I Married an Axe Murderer and The Labrynith
16. Factotum
17. Ten Canoes
18. Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (check out this website its pretty cool)
19. Jindabyne
20. Beyond the Sea
21. Funny Ha Ha
    
22. Tideland
23. Sticky Carpet
24. Meredith Music Festival
25. Seven Swords
26. Miami Vice
27. 2:37
28. Snakes on a Plane
29. Thank You For Not Smoking
30. Kenny
31. C.R.A.Z.Y
32. Marie Antoinette
33. Offside
34. little miss sunshine
35. Children of men
36. Wordplay
37. A guide to recognising your saints
38. Borat

With an uncomfortable style and genre jump, we cut back to Sarah who is standing in front of a local skate park. She is wearing a tight boob tube and is wearing sunglasses. Her hair keeps getting blown into her mouth by the wind. She has an annoying forced enthusiasm for the blather she is sprouting.

SARAH

Wasn't that cool? These guys behind me at the local skate park are pretty cool too. Cause skating's cool, its so 1979.

So guys, all you have to do to vote in the Movie Club Movie of the Year Poll is click on the link that says ‘post a comment’, down below, then like type your top five, High Fidelity style, movies of the year in no particular order into the comment box. You can post your Top Five anonymously or hit the circle that says ‘other’, then type your name in then hit ‘publish comment’. Easy as pie, ey?

You can see my illuminating Top Five by hitting the comments link! Knock yourselves out! Or click here!

Ok guys that’s all for this week. When Movie Club returns good and

proper well into the new year, we’re going to be expanding, with more guest reviewers lined up and, well, a movie once a week as usual. Catch ya then! Bi-eye.

Sarah waves annoyingly and frantically at the camera.

Credits roll with soft nu punk emo esque music playing, cause we're hip and trendy at Movie Club!

Post Script…
One quality of my writing which I have noted whilst compiling this comprehensive list is that of frank and occasionally brutal shitness. The log line to the blog reads ‘rambling movie reviews from an ex-arts student with nothing better to do with her time’...I view this statement, no longer as witty self deprecation and sardonic yet sophisticated humour as originally intended. Instead, it proclaims the upfront cruelty that only the cold slap with the wet fish across the face of reality provides. The reviews themselves are misguided, rambling and often confusing. I have an annoying habit of starting one sentence structure then ending with an entirely different one which is an annoying habit I have (get it?).

Thus, dear readership, my New Years Resolution is to provide you with well informed, grammatically correct (to the best of my ability) and just plain non-crap reviews.

fin.

WORDPLAY by Virginia Kay

Wordplay was fun and informative - made me want to get hardcore into puzzles
and become super intelligent - nerd style.

CHILDREN OF MEN by Virginia Kay

'Children of Men' was incredibly well shot (battle scenes shot on one
hand-held camera news-footage style), brought the war home, very clever,
moments of humour - thus not too wanky, Clive Owen and Michael Caine were
totally rad, it's really just like the movie of our time man and everyone
should totally see it (NOTE: All the dumb things in the last sentence were Sam's points, for example "...brought the war home...". All who were there
agreed (that it was a great film - not that Sam is dumb, though I haven't
asked them).

TIDELAND

Made by Terry Gilliam , animator of Monty Python, director of fear and loathing in las vegas and 12 monkeys. Weird, surreal-esque film based on the open wheat field plains of somewhere USA. Little girl, Eliza Rose: Mom dies of something, Her father and her return to grandmother's house, Dad dies of a heroin overdose (Jeff Daniels as the father: genius) girl left on her own with the crazy neighbours. I kinda liked being on this bizarre and weird journey and getting a little freaked out. I much preferred it to a David Lynch weirdness. Matt didn't like it and Sam thought it was weird for weird sake which is a good point.

STICKY CARPET

Good, worthy film about Melbourne's rock scene and our independent media. Finally a film about this stuff; good. I applaud it. However, it did feel a little exclusive and only for the people who are involved in this community. So its whole premise was the wonderful non-mainstream music and culture we have and the community which is built around it the importance of being apart of that community and of community in general, yet was made by and for people of this community and no one beyond that. Felt like it needed more of a thorughline something to pull me through, but its hard to judge this film in the relation to structure cause that's not what it's about. Quite a difficult thing to do I would imagine, make a film about community for a wider community without betraying the heart and soul of what made the first community great in the first place. Didn't feel like I got a feeling of what Melbourne is and I think sometimes the film had trouble defining what it was trying to say. Good to see the wasted old rockers on screen and the young eloquently and poetically angry about the world.

(CLICK THE IMAGE FOR LINK TO SITE)

FUNN Y HA HA

I think movie club cherry popper SophieQ summed it up by stating whilst we were dodging old women in the foyer of the Regent Theatre..."I can't believe that I enjoyed that movie so much and it was so boring"...I'm paraphrasing of course but it was along those lines anyway (I'm sure Sophie will correct me pretty quickly). Funny Ha Ha, wasn't funny ha ha or funny peculiar, it was real. It was very American in the vain of Kevin Smith's Clerks and other talky films of the early 90s, where nothing at all happens its just a snap shot of the protagonists life. Its remarkably well done. All the characters are recognisable and awkward and things feel and look the way things feel and look in real life. Wonderful performances by unknown actors. there are some really great moments in the film and some funny lines which might as well have come out your best fiends mouth. Its only until you get to know the characters that their trivial and almost banal lives become interesting. Makes you realise how trivial and banal your life really is, which is always a comforting fact! Filmnut Gin Rummy liked it and the networking cherry popper SophieQ liked it too, I just think, I like films that take me away from my trivial and banal life.