BritishCinema Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Week after week, I focus on the good and/or bad concerning moviegoing and the movie theatre industry. But as passionate as I am about the subjects of this column, I've never really felt strongly enough to label any one person either a hero or a villain to moviegoers. Perhaps the closest I've come to calling someone a hero was when I finally had my first experience with an Alamo Drafthouse cinema. On the other hand, I've certainly wanted to call a lot of people villains, including whoever was responsible for my worst moviegoing experience in years and whoever came up with the awful idea to produce scented pre-show ads.

So, it was by some sort of coincidence that last week actually brought news of both a remarkably heroic moviegoer and a terribly villainous theatre owner. Of course, you're welcome to disagree with me as I celebrate the former and castigate the latter. The interesting thing about these two individuals is that some of you may see my hero as a villain, and vice versa. In fact the law has deemed the former a criminal, and meanwhile tons of moviegoers in the UK are championing the actions of the latter. No wonder film exhibition is in such dire straits when there's such disagreement about how to improve the moviegoing experience.

America is the best! Happy birthday, America! The big 2-3-0! Woooo! Okay, enough celebrating of Independence Day. Cinema has no national allegiance, even if it seems we make the most significant movies in the world. The United States may be the most powerful nation as far as its military and economy are concerned, but should it also be the most powerful in terms of film? It isn't like we produce the most films, or the best.

I noticed two stories in the news this past weekend that show Hollywood's domination around the world isn't that welcome, not because it isn't enjoyed, but because it overshadows and overpowers some countries' own films. On Saturday, in Seoul, North South Korea**, a few thousand demonstrators protested their government's elimination of a quota that required cinemas to show a minimum number of South Korean films. Thanks to pressure from the U.S. government and Hollywood, which requested the quota cut as part of free-trade negotiations between America and South Korea, fewer of their own films are likely to get proper distribution locally. Among the protesters were actors, filmmakers and film industry workers who fear their jobs will be lost. Meanwhile, in England, Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes is making a stink about the fact British audiences prefer Hollywood movies to their own country's. Although he mostly was criticizing the British industry for producing "irritating movies," his complaint still weighs in on the matter of American influence being too great.

People tend to forget that in many countries, domestic films can out-gross Hollywood movies. Seven of South Korea's top ten all-time grossers -- six of which are the top six -- are domestic releases (the other three are American imports). Unfortunately that will probably not be the case in the future. The only domestic film in Britain's top ten is The Full Monty, and only two others in its top 50 could be considered non-U.S. productions (Bridget Jones' Diary and Four Weddings and a Funeral). Comparatively, France, Thailand, Japan, Egypt, Italy and, of course, India all do pretty well domestically with their own films (I would also like to point out that Australia's all-time #1 grosser is surprisingly still Crocodile Dundee).

**(Thanks to reader greg rivera for pointing out the editorial oversight in placing Seoul in North Korea, rather than in South Korea, where it belongs. --ed.)

Cruelty is a necessary element of film noir, but it usually comes in the ending -- the last-minute reveal that he never really loved her or that she was only out for money, or that the wrong man will go down for the crime after all, because the system just doesn't care. The interesting thing about The Suspect is that cruelty is woven into the premise -- it paints the wholly improbable scenario of having a twenty-something secretary with the drop-dead movie star looks of Ella Raines (see above) fall in love with her boss, Charles Laughton. Yes, that Charles Laughton. Stop laughing, I'm serious. Laughton's character can hardly believe his good luck, and decides not to bother Ella Raines with the factoid that he has a wife at home. After what we can surmise has been a life of endless toil and trouble, he's not about to mess up this good thing that has fallen into his lap. The scenes where Laughton returns home from a hard day's work to be confronted by his shrieking horror of a wife (Rosalind Ivan) are entirely redundant -- the audience has already forgiven him for adultery, and is ready to forgive him for murder as well. In fact, we want him to murder his wife.

The blaxploitation genre started with Melvin van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song in 1971 and has influenced many an American director -- notably Quentin Tarantino and John Singleton, for example. Now the British cinema has come out with Rollin With the Nines, a raw and violent tale of gang warfare in a British ghetto. The film is directed by Julian Gilbey, a white director who made the low-budget action film Reckoning Day, and features a grime-filled soundtrack as well as cameos from famous grime musicians such as Dizzee Rascal. The film has been making the festival circuit in the U.S. and won Best UK Feature at the Raindance Film Festival last year. Maybe this is the start of something new in British Cinema. (But can you imagine a British version of something like Pootie Tang?)