A year or two back, I saw Paddy Considine’s short film Dog Altogether and was lucky enough to attend a Q&A with Considine afterwards. He mentioned at the time that he hoped to expand the short into a feature-length film and that we was working towards that.

Well, Dog Altogether was a brilliant piece of work (the BAFTA people agreed with me) and I’ve been looking forward to seeing what Considine would do with a full-length film.

Tyrannosaur is what he’s come up with and, Christ, he hasn’t disappointed.

If you’ve heard anything about Tyrannosaur, you’ve probably heard about the violence. There is violence. It’s real and it’s unflinching and it’s harrowing. Tyrannosaur has a huge, savage, streak all through it and it can’t fail to affect you.

What I hope you’ve also heard, though, is that it’s a brilliantly beautiful film. Ugliness and grime has never looked so beautiful.

Peter Mullan plays Joseph, a man with serious anger-management issues. It would be incredibly easy for that the slip into one-dimensional raging but Mullan’s skill as an actor—as well as Considine’s writing and directing—never allows this to happen. That Joseph is capable of extremes of violence is clear from the beginning but his regret and his desire to change is beautifully and subtly drawn too. The simmering of Joseph’s rage—the hair-trigger that could release at any point—keeps you glued to him all through the film.

Olivia Colman too, is truly excellent. In common with many, I know her mostly from Peep Show and Mitchell and Webb sketches. Her performance here couldn’t be farther from that world. Hannah, Colman’s character, has her own problems with violence. A devout Christian in an abusive marriage, the humiliation and suffering she undergoes is almost beyond belief but it’s so real, so authentic, that we’ve no choice but to believe it.

It’s hard to watch Tyrannosaur. Very hard. But you can’t take your eyes off the screen. To do that would be to let down these characters.

Considine has created something amazing here. The last time I saw the bleakness and griminess of human-nature so beautifully captured on film was probably the Red Riding films based on David Peace’s books. Tyrannosaur doesn’t have the same nihilism and darkness as those, though, and despite its seriously disturbing subject matter, actually leaves you with a little hope at the end.

Astonishingly well-written, wonderfully filmed and acted. If you haven’t seen Tyrannosaur, remedy that. I want to see it again.

Blue and cloudless skies and the warmest day of the year for the day I planned to spend about five hours in the cinema.

Caught Malick’s The Tree Of Life to see what all the fuss was about. And I count myself in the ‘impressed’ column. I feel the film worked on a number of levels, none of which I understood. I’m pretty sure I saw Sean Penn at one stage though so, you know… there’s that.

As you’d probably expect if you’ve seen the trailers, The Tree Of Life is visually stunning. The imagery and cinematography are among the most beautiful I’ve ever seen and, even if you don’t want to concentrate on metaphors of life and death and rebirth and denial and religion and twenty-seven other concepts, you can probably sit back and let the visuals blast over you as you bask in the glorious soundtrack. The comparisons to 2001 are a bit lazy but understandable (Malick probably owes the Hubble guys some cash for a bundle of images he’s used). It’s probably possible to accuse The Tree Of Life of being slightly self-indulgant but it’s so beautiful and moving and confusing and affecting and memorable that it gets a pass on that. From me anyway.

Go see it.

In the cinema.

Later that day, after a fish supper and a couple of pints, it was back to the Irish Film Institute for a talk by Clive Barker. Yeah, the Hellraiser bloke. He was to chat for a bit and then we’d see a couple of his short films.

To be honest, I was a little unsure before this. I worried it could go the way of the horror geek and just become a dissection of some esoteric point of Weaveworld or something. I was very wrong. Barker was inspiring. He discussed, in a pleasantly self-deprecating manner, the two short films in question—Salome and The Forbidden—and talked about how he’d made them for no money with friends and borrowed equipment when he was at school. He talked about how the current state of technology should have completely revolutionised the idea of ‘doing it yourself’—your mobile phone has better video capabilities than the equipment he used. For some reason though, we’re not all making films.

It’s odd, isn’t it?

We got to see the shorts. Neither has dialogue and, he tells us, a South Bank show episode on Barker undertook to tidy them up and add music. Salome contained some strong images. The Forbidden contained an erect penis. I mention this because Barker did (it was his, apparently), inadvertently providing a penis-spoiler as we all spent the whole time waiting for it to appear.

Penis aside, Barker was great. Really got me thinking.

Incidentally, the photo accompanying this post was taken at the Natural History Museum. Stopped by for a visit before seeing Malick. Never tire of the place. This one is called Irked Thrush.

“Pah!” I say, “Pah!”

I Sat Through That? – King Kong.

I Sat Through That? The Matrix Revolutions (the third one) – the Wachowskis stick a rancid, faeces-filled cherry on top.

Firstly, I watched Moon, Duncan Jones’ film about an astronaut working on a lunar mining base.  Sam Rockwell plays the lone-caretaker, Sam Bell.  He’s been alone for three years but is nearing the end of his contract, and looking forward to going home to his wife and child, when he’s involved in an accident and wakes up in sick-bay with no idea how he got there.  Things get weirder for him when he encounters another person on the, supposedly empty, base.  Weirder still, the other person is himself.

Moon’s a very enjoyable film.  Rockwell is excellent as both the newer, cockier, Sam and, even more so, as the ‘original’, possibly-losing-his-mind, falling apart Sam.  His deterioration, physically and mentally, is brilliantly portrayed and it’s impossible not to feel for him as his world crumbles.  A couple of, very minor, unresolved threads don’t detract and Moon is a clever, ultimately moving, film.  Well worth a trip to see.  Oh and Kevin Spacey voices the base’s computer, only able to visually express itself in emoticon form.

Secondly, Antichrist.  Ooohh, feel the controversy.  You’ve probably heard the rumours – disgusting, it’s just porn, I hate penises, etc. – and, to be fair, it does have some penis in it.  And some girly bits too.  At one point there’s a slow-motion, swinging scrotum (there’s one for the search engines) but that bit’s in black and white so it’s art and therefore ok.

Ok, I’m being a bit fatuous and, to be honest, Antichrist doesn’t deserve it.  It is an immensely powerful film.  Dafoe and Gainsbourg, as the parents of a recently-deceased child are excellent.  They retreat to their cabin in the woods so Dafoe, a therapist, can help his wife through her grief.  Once there things spiral into a dark, tangled mess of tension, dread, animal-symbolism and sexual-obsession.

It’s not perfect – the monochrome prologue, for me, felt a little cheesy but it was so beautifully filmed that I was more than happy to go with it – but there is no denying that this is a powerful film.   Antichrist is brilliantly scripted, filmed and acted and, if you’re interested (and unperturbed by what is, in parts – and in many senses – quite graphic) it’s a film you should see in the cinema.

Antichrist is arresting and intelligent and, supremely, dark.  I think it’ll stay with me for a long time.

So you see, I haven’t completely wasted the last couple of days.  Now, what time is Loose Women on?

*I did bottle a load of beer that I’ve been brewing.  Oh yes, now I’m brewing my own beer.  It can’t end well.

The plot?  Simple.  Giant killer rabbits terrorise a small town.

Rory Calhoun, Janet Leigh and, a very snappily-dressed DeForest Kelley star (and I do mean star).  Great plot and great dialogue.  Some of my favourite lines:

As Janet Leigh shoots at a giant rabbit that’s attacking a bloke, it scarpers, leaving him all bloody and with shredded clothes.  She rushes to him saying, “It’s ok John, the rabbit’s gone”.

As a white-coated lab guy examined some debris before the rabbits were discovered, he mentioned that it had been gnawed and had traces of saliva.  “Like a vampire?” someone asked him.  “Possibly”, he said.

As a military policeman addressed people at a drive-in movie, “There is a herd of giant, killer rabbits heading this way”.

Overall, it was amongst the funniest films I’ve ever seen and I urge you to see it if you can.  Night of the Lepus, people.  Make it so.

Incidentally though, it was made in 1972 on a very small budget and has a distinct lack of ‘no rabbits were hurt in the making of this film’ disclaimers.  I’m pretty sure there was a rabbit on fire at one point.

Behold, the terror that is Night of the Lepus:

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