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Tuesday, March 22, 2005
9 Songs
9 Songs is the latest film to get the Daily Mail and the Crazy Christian Voice in a tizzy - a low-budget, low-on-plot account of two people who meet, have some sex and watch some bands. And thats about it really as far as plot goes, and it pretty much sums up the execution too. The two people are an average looking british guy and a young skinny american girl, and the film intersperses scenes of them having sex with scenes of them watching bands at the Brixton Academy. Its the sex scenes that have of course caused all the fuss rather than the shaky footage of the Dandy Warhols, and there is a lot of sex, and yes, the odd shot of an erection or penetration or even ejaculation. Its hardly porn though, more like low-budget art-house sex where the performers tried method acting instead of pretending. Its "shocking" in the sense that its not the kind of thing you'd see in a mainstream film, yet even more bizarre for me was the fact that despite seeing countless sex scenes in countless films, an erect penis is somehow "groundbreaking". I don't know 'bout you, but one usually features in most of the sex i've had. (As for the other times, I was very drunk, OK?) For me, whilst not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, 9 Songs worked as a different take on a relationship movie. There were no "misunderstandings", no "will they-wont they" moments, no stutterings as a good-natured but nervous english guy tried and failed at first to seduce an attractive american woman - instead he just put his tongue to much better use. In describing a relationship in such a way, just through sex and music, there was an air of realism, with only a few scenes not ringing true. Much of this is down to how you relate to it - its quite an empty and voyeuristic experience and you either fill in the blanks yourself or simply get bored - for example Ruby was utterly bored throughout and declared it to be possibly the worst film she'd ever seen. I thought it wasn't too bad, and either way, I quite enjoyed the music in between the shagging. Whether this sort of explicitness will creep into the mainstream remains to be seen, but I for one look forward to the days when no romantic comedy will be complete without Sandra Bullock gnoshing off Hugh Grant whilst Meg Ryan has a real orgasm  Constantine Basically, Ted has to go on a Bogus Journey, visiting Hell several times in order to save the world from the son of satan. Unfortunately, Bill is nowhere to be seen, so Ted has to make do with Rachel Weisz, who accompanied him on Ted & Rachel's Ludicrous Nuclear Fusion Adventure . In this film, Ted plays Neo from the Matrix, except in this film he smokes a lot to show he is even more tortured - however, his expression remains the same, as if frozen in Bullet-Time forever. Its seems he still can't seem to quite remember where he put his keys or how to express emotion. He can however, wear black and wield weapons as well as ever as he rescues fesity yet lonely female cop Rachel from the forces of CGI hell (otherwise known as Gavin Rossdale from Bush). Yep, its a load of supernatural nonsense, catholic guilt and computer generated monsters. Think The Matrix meets End of Days and you've pretty much got it. If that sounds appealing to you, then it could be just the instantly forgetable, dumb-ass, almost-so-bad-its-good, comic-book movie that you're looking for, dude! |
