A cavalcade of horrors
September 16th 2002 -
Scary Movie 2
I was slightly un-nerved by my enjoyment of Kung Pow, so when Anna rented out Scary Movie 2, I figured: what the hell. Let’s give those good-taste circuits a real workout. So I sat down with her to watch it.
Godawful. I didn’t laugh once. Not even the slightest twinge of guilty pleasure. I was bored and fidgety. Admittedly, I had a runny nose and a bit of a cold, but I really can’t see how that would have made the slightest difference. This was probably the worst film I have ever seen.
Black Hawk Down
So I figured, what the hell, let’s see if we can’t get the bad memes out of our brains by watching the other video Anna got: Black Hawk Down. And it was good. All the criticisms I’ve read – that it portrays the Somalians fundementally the same way as Aliens – are correct, but that wasn’t what the movie about. Actually, now I think about it, what the movie *was* about I dislike as well: the mantra “leave no man behind”, that whole spirit of brotherhood that has been getting increasing prominence in recent war movies. It’s all true, but they’re treating that whole brotherhood thing as a *positive*, y’know, because it makes men into heroes and it’s all about love, innit? Which is what I find disturbing about the whole thing. Armies are able to exploit this noble impulse (which is right next to “I did it because all the other guys were doing it” and “Not dobbing on your mates”) in order to make wars work. I’m not sure people would go to war otherwise.
Um, anyway, I’m not really as fanatical as this sounds, but it does disturb me a bit. I’ve never really enjoyed group dynamics, of which this is one of the stronger ones. It always feels manipulative (especially when applied to a volleyball game, for example).
Where was I? Oh yeah, Black Hawk Down. Given all of those caveats above, it was well-made, thrilling, disturbing, all those good emotional buttons hit square on. Would have been even more powerful at the cinema. Some exceptional cinematography – a shot from above of soldiers descending a rope from a helicopter, in the middle of a street with the wind blowing the dust off the road in an expanding circle, the soldiers running away from the copter in another circle… very stylish. But we expect no less from a collaboration between Ridley Scott and the guy who always did the cinematography for Krzysztof Kieslowski, Slavomir Idziak.
Bengal Boogie: Manly by foot, 3:45pm
I forgot to mention in the last episode of Bengal Boogie that by the time we had finished in the underground carpark, the backup battery of my camera was also completely done. In these kind of circumstances, you can usually get another five minutes out of the big battery – when you leave it for a while it’ll not exactly recharge, but shuffle stuff around a bit. Five minutes. So for the next location, somewhere near Manly beach apparently, though obviously we weren’t given the address – I’d have to be very picky. After that, we were filming indoors so I’d be able to plug the camera in. Yay!
So Paul and I set off in Paul’s car, a really old junkmobile like the ones I used to drive, with instructions to meet at the wharf at Manly beach. I figure, we’ve all got mobile phones, no worries. I get a first glimpse of Pete’s car at this point. It’s actually some kind of jet engine with wheels, one of those two seaters that looks like it’s a ramp for other cars to fly off. I mention this purely as a character note.
The drive to Manly is quite pleasant. Paul and I are amused by the whole series of events so far. We wander what is to come, and whether, for example, we’ll manage to get much filming done before it gets dark.
“No worries,” we eventually concur. “We’ll have about an hour and a half. Even if the dancers can’t get their acts together, it should be enough time.”
How naive we were.
So we find a park in Manly, then wander on down to the beach and look for the wharf. No wharf. Paul remembers that the wharf is actually on the other side of the spit. We walk over. The steadicam and camera bags are heavy. I hope that it isn’t too much of a walk from the meeting place to the filming location. We arrive, find the others sitting around near the fountain, but none of the dancers present. We sit and wait for a while, and eventually they wander up. There is tension in their muscles, glowering looks. Most of the dancers for this location have been waiting here for an hour and a half. They are angry at our Indian dancing choreographer. She is stressed to the max.
Bengal Boogie: Further co-ordination required, 4:15pm
Pete stands up and gives a magnificent speech that draws everyone together to a common purpose and fills us with joy at the film-making process. Unfortunately I did not record the occasion, but I think you may get a picture of the tone of the speech in that he calls the film “A piece of shit” about three or four times, is relentlessly condescending towards the dancers, and to sum up, says “You’re all here anyway, you might as well come along.” There was some other stuff that I think he genuinely meant to be encouraging, and might have been if it hadn’t been preceded by the “Piece of shit” comments.
Anyway, energised, we are ready to start filming. Unfortunately, our choreographer doesn’t know the exact address of where we are going. However, if we follow her, she will lead us to it. Fair enough. So, everyone back to their cars!
Huh? What do you mean, everyone back to their cars? Well, the plan is that we meet at the wharf, and then we go away to our cars and drive back to the wharf, and then set off in a biglong convoy to the true filming location, which is only about five minutes away, no worries. I am slightly flabberghasted at this organisational excellence, it having never occured to me that three meeting points are better than one. I must therefore lug the steadicam and camera back to the car. I think we’ve fully covered inner Manly now, not much left of it that I haven’t walked.
So. The wharf is clearly not a good place for a whole bunch of cars to meet up, but our choreographer suggests that we meet just a bit further up the road in…that… direction, where there’s a place we can stop the cars.
Trundle back to the cars. I want Paul to pick me up from the wharf but he discovers that we’re actually quite close to where we parked, so lug, lug, lug.
Bengal Boogie: Manly by Car, 4:30pm
We drive to the wharf across the confusing cross-streets, and then go up to where we suspect the meeting place must be. Nobody there. We were pretty slow, so must be the wrong place. Go a bit further. Nobody there. A bit further. Nobody there. Turn around and go back to the original suspected-meeting-place and call up Pete. Pete is not sure where exactly she meant. Pete however knows where we are, so we converge, park the cars, sit around waiting for the other cars to turn up. There are several mobile phone calls, consulations of the map, much shaking of heads and amusement from Paul and self, faintly contained rage from Pete. Pete reveals his management techniques in another conversation I wish I had recorded: the gist is, if Pete blows his top at the dancers, we are to not take it seriously, as he is not really angry, just manipulating them into feeling shame which will make them try harder to please him. This is his preferred management technique inanutshell. He also reiterates that we are not to question him in front of the dancers. My fingers itch for a notebook.
Our choreographer shows up. We take off again, having established that the cars of dancers are just a bit further up the road. Yes! There they are! That this is a minor triumph, speaks volumes. So, we follow our choreographer. She drives for a few minutes, until we get to a roundabout, at which point she does *a complete U-turn*. We follow her. Obviously there has been a bit of a minor wrong turning. We get to an intersection that we originally turned left at. “Please don’t turn right,” I say out loud. She turns right. We drive on a little, passing where she had originally been parked. “Please don’t turn left,” I say with a sinking feeling. Left would take us right back to where we were waiting. She turns left. Paul grins. We go past where we were waiting. Then, we go past the wharf in the opposite direction. A right turn here would take us back to the carpark where Pete and I had originally parked. “Please don’t turn right,” I say. She turns right, goes past our carpark, ends up at Manly beach. “Don’t turn left,” I say, feeling strangely anti-omnipotent. Left would mean that she is now going along the length of the beach, instead of heading away from it in a mildly plausible direction. She turns left. We parade along the
length of Manly beach. Very pretty. At the end, she slows down and stops. “This can’t be it,” I say. And for once, I’m right – she’s just waiting for all the cars to catch up. We continue onwards. As it turns out, our initial drive was in precisely the wrong direction. We drive for almost twenty minutes, the sky getting steadily darker. “Not much filming time left now,” says Paul. “At least there won’t be any problems with my batteries running out,” I say. Periodically, we stop, thinking that this is finally it, only to restart once all the cars have caught up.
I am absolutely determined to be insanely cheerful. “What a lovely location!” I say, as indeed, it is rather pretty. A bit of a pity we couldn’t have converged on this location before, as we have now wasted one hour and five minutes meeting at two entirely un-necessary meeting places. The location is a rocky headland, waves dashing against it.
Also much too wet and dangerous for any dancing.
Bengal Boogie continues later at the headland, as dusk approaches! Will we get any useful footage? Will we care? Find out next episode of:
Bengalll Boooogieeeee!