I have seen it, many years ago, it's a rarity on telly. It reminds me of the kind of film BBC2 used to show starting past midnight, in a category occupied by Get Carter, The Wicker Man or Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, sort of dark, nasty, quality drama. That said, those films were imo better than The Offence which some say is a bit cold, a bit off. But see for yourself. Connery is certainly breaking away from his Bond persona here. Interesting to see Howard from Brief Encounter and The Third Man here too.
I don't know what the hell's going on at the BFI. The place seems to be under repair. It smells off. I was there to see The Power of the Dog followed by an interview with director Jane Campion. I'm not a fan, but hey...
I was lucky to get a ticket. Got one of the last dozen. When I got here I found out why: a huge table with wrist bands and a sign saying "Guest list only." Funny thing, i turn up, take my seat, and come the MC with his mic dropping a few hellos and thank-yous, I'm looking around and the cinema is only two thirds full. Was this the tube strike kicking in? Ticket touts? Some kind of reservation situation I know nothing of. To be honest, I was a bit miffed. I should have moved to one of the empty better seats in my row, but I had lots of leg room and couldn't be bothered.
The film was excellent. I'll put a review up in a few days once I've digested it.
I'm afraid to say Jane Campion was extremely boring. No sense of humour, no public speaking ability. I suspect it's a sign of a very low ego. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt as her interviewer was a last minute replacement, although they seemed to be mates and it felt like we'd all walked in and sat down in their sitting room. They discussed how she came across the novel, how she casted the movie, how she went about filming on a day to day basis. It was a very dull interview with little to nil insight. Benedict Cumberbatch's kids eat broccoli, is all I learnt. I left when the Q&A started as they began to pull pre-written questions from a bag, as if they didn't trust the audience to ask sensible questions. Still, I got home before eleven, so a win for me !
Some nice things are happening on South Bank Gardens. I remember when it was a wasteland.
Because it's a new movie and is likely to win the Oscar, I've utilised the spoiler facility.
THE POWER OF THE DOG (2021)
Director Jane Campion’s adaptation of Thomas Savage’s modern western is an intense film of beautiful landscapes, concealed loathing and a quartet of non-communicative characters who hide close secrets, their reticence leading to tragedy.
Benedict Cumberbatch is Phil Burbank, a cattle rancher in Montana who insists on living a rustic, unkempt life of the manner taught him by his mentor Bronco Henry, the greatest cow-poke of them all. The year is 1925 and Phil lives with his cautious, polite brother George in a well-appointed smallish mansion on a sprawling estate, making a good living from selling cattle, which they still drive the traditional way across the prairies. George has pretentions to marriage and respectability, a trait Phil scorns, preferring the company of the range, his animals and the rowdy cowboys. After a whirl wind courtship, George marries a widow, the timid Rose Gordon, and she comes to stay at the family ranch where her presence disturbs the natural, animalistic attitudes of the restless, stalking Phil. They share an intense, mutual dislike. The pressure to conform to an impossible marital ideal leads Rose to drink; Phil watches her demise with a studious detached air. Not once does he discuss her plight with his brother.
The siblings, as youngsters inseparable, are drifting apart, just as the old ways are being dragged kicking into the modern world. Phil is almost a Neanderthal, refusing to wash, communicating with ticks and flicks of his head and facial expression. His body language is confrontational. His demeanour hunched, yet powerful. He lives among nature and all its accustomed mysteries. He studies the landscape, seeing animal personalities among the craggy mountains. He makes leather lassoes, tying the hides thick and tight, his hands working like the prehistoric men of old, demonstrating the power of man over nature. He must assert too his power over all men and to that end Phil endlessly taunts Rose, hoping to force a violent reaction from her. He bickers with his glacial brother, a man whose thought processes seem as slow as his pace. Most provocatively, he antagonises the young medical student Peter, Rose’s son, a skinny, scrawny, bashful boy. Phil’s constant sniping leads to a curious interdependent father-son relationship, where both begin to understand more about the capabilities and desires of the other.
Peter squirrels about the ranch, the butt of jokes – the cowhands call him ‘Nancy Boy’ and laugh as he attempts to ride a horse – but this is a studious, quiet young man, assertive in his own manner, his doleful watching eyes taking in more than the vibrant surface. He is the only person able to see the ‘dog’ Phil sees reflected in the mountain range. By accident, Peter discovers Phil’s secret garden among the brush groves. The stash of muscleman magazines hidden in a cash box suggests he’s discovered more than one secret. Afraid he’s been unmasked, Phil attempts to parley with the young man, only to have Peter out-think him, seduce him, and kill him. A cattle carcass infested with anthrax is his weapon of choice. He ensures Phil spends a smoky summer night weaving the strips of hide into a lasso, his bare hands absorbing the deadly poison.
Even as murder is committed, Campion’s scene suggests a new respect between the men, a mutual longing, the unrequited secret Phil carries with him – the reason he’s so appalled by his manly space being invaded by wispy, willowy women – seems about to be revealed. We know it. Peter knows it. Kodi Smit-McPhee, inhabiting Peter’s hangdog look, his frail, rake-like posture, conveys the knowing innocent perfectly. This is an intelligent, pervasive man. He teaches himself to ride [much how Gregory Peck did in The Big Country, another western which made hay with the new world order confronting the old]; he watches after his mother, hiding her booze bottles; he deliberately shocks the maid, exactly how Phil menaces Rose, without explanation or warning; from being tentative and uncertain, his relationship with Phil proves the making of him.
Kirsten Dunst as his mother trembles and sniffs. She’s the weak link an otherwise above par ensemble cast, never quite convincing in her downward spiral. When she determines to stop Peter riding out with Phil, her hysteria seems too overwrought. It’s not clear that she ever understands her son or her husband; she never even attempts to understand Phil. Meanwhile Jesse Plemons brings a quiet dignity to the thankless task of George, a character so straight backed he’s lost both his sense of humour and his conversation skills. The film never explains why he failed at university – there’s a suggestion he’s dyslexic – while it venerates the fact Phil was a success who chose to drop out. Attempts by Phil to remind his brother of their shared companionable history fall badly flat. George is relieved to have escaped the yoke of the cattle farm. He may be awkward and almost monosyllabic, but he’s progressed from the wild, prehistory into something which resembles the modern world.
Cumberbatch’s Phil is a bristling man of might and indignation. His movements are balanced, slow, effortless. The film is intensely sensual and the director constantly offers vivid close-ups of his hands as they manipulate things: a paper flower has it’s metaphorical virginity stolen by his raking fingers; his nails pluck and pick avidly at the banjo; he caresses Bronco Henry’s old leather saddle, polishing it with the devotion afforded a saintly votive; the abrasive twisting of the lasso twine; his wonderment as a neckerchief rustles in the breeze at his fingertips. While the sexual connotations are fleeting, we do notice them. Except Campion is drawing on a much deeper theme, one of ancient man at ancient work, his hands in tune with his task and with nature: witness Phil’s swift castration of a bull, his disconcern over a broken and cut finger, the brutish manner in which he takes mud baths. By comparison, modern man’s gentle inflections are reflected in Peter: his tidy clothes picked at, the comb he thumbs, the hissing cigarette he lights, the paper roses he delicately cuts and moulds. And yet, there lurks a tangible shadow of man’s past, his unending power. This is a teenager who dissects the pet rabbit he gave his mother, who casually breaks a wild hare’s neck, who strips a dead cattle of its hide without a murmur; a man who retains the author of his rival’s demise, sliding the infected lasso under the bed, his hands covered in thick decorative Native American gloves, stolen from Rose.
“What kind of man would I be,” he says at the outset of this penetrative tale, “if I didn’t help my mother?” In the final scene, Peter watches his mother arrive back at the mansion with George; as the two embrace he turns balefully away. We begin to wonder, was she scared for Peter when screaming for his return, or was she concerned that Phil had fallen under her son’s homicidal tendencies?
There isn’t much of the mythic west here, except in the sweeping golden hazed landscape – excellently photographed by Ari Wegner, amazingly not in the U.S.A. as all but in New Zealand – and the wooden, clapboard houses, or the pulsating slow burn of the cattle drive, the dust kicking an explosion of a storm cloud on the horizon, a portent of the destruction to come. The sexual tendencies are nicely played, the eroticism palpable without being obvious. The chaste machismo of the lead character undermined by his lonely masturbatory functions, his inability to accept his homosexuality manifesting itself in misogynistic hatred of his sister-in-law, pre-empted by his tacit refusal to buy a whore at the movie’s opening chapter sequence.
The film attempts to be mystical and this is unnecessary. The detached, departed figure of Bronco Henry is framed in photograph like a Greek hero, the strange unseen demonstration of the ‘dog’ is never clear, a curious and out of place allusion to Marquez’s Of Love and Other Desires when the housekeeper tells a tale of a woman whose hair continued to grow after she died; these moments sit at odds with the all-consuming atmosphere of impending modern day doom. It isn’t the myth which is being extinguished here, but the rite of man and man’s work, its preconceptions and conventions, its thrusting physicality contrasted to the almost ungainly modern world, of manners, silken clothes, motor cars, dances and creeping death with dishonour.
60 years on from the original movie Steven Spielberg presents his remake, and what a masterpiece it is, definitely up there with the greatest films from this director genius. It’s the late 1950’s and racial tensions are high (some things never change) as two gangs battle for supremacy in their neighbourhood. Tony and Maria from the rival groups fall in love which creates even more trouble.
This is my favourite musical of all and the acting, dancing, cinematography, music and direction are flawless. Every song is a classic and newcomer Rachel Zegler is beautiful as Maria and Ansel Elgort is excellent as Tony. The supporting cast is headed by Rita Moreno who was in the original movie.
If you like musicals then you will love this, it’s an instant classic and I will be watching it many times. Will it win the Oscar?…probably not…but it should.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
The northwest passage - book 1: Roger's Rangers (1940)
Thsi colour movie is set in 1759 during the war between the British and the French in North America. It's not about the potential sea route called the northeast passage, but it sets up a sequel that never happened about crossing the continent. Two men end up in Roger's Ranger, maybe the first special operations unit in America. We see a raid on a French fort deep in the wilderness next to a village of allied Abenaki indians. This raid really happened and I understand it re-creates the raid fairly accurately even though a dramatic river crossing actually happened during a different raid. The Rangers faces many dangers, disapointments and hardships during this mission. Burning a native American village and killing all the men doesn't look to good today, and in fact some disliked this and the portrayal of indians back in 1940 either.
Rogers is portrayed as an effective and inventive leader, but the movie suggests he was too extreme at times. In a scene after the attack on the fort and village he says the French won't find food there other than "roasted indian". The rangers laugh at this. The camera focuses on a ranger who starts to laugh, but quickly finds the remark awful.
We also get to see conflicts within the unit, the effect of starvation on them and even a few men who can't deal with the hardships mentally. I liked this realism. I also liked how the rangers are different from line infantry and show flexibility and inovation.
The Rangers were one of the early units to use some form of camouflage uniform, but the uniforms in the movie look more like the Hollywood idea of a buckskin outfit and a type of headgear closer to the 1940's than 1750's.
Somewhat belated sequel sees Gene Hackman return, going after his drug king pin Fernando Rey.
It didn't sit too well with me, I'd seen it before. It's relocated from New York City to the French town of Marseilles, where Popeye Doyle is a fish out of water and not too keen on local customs. This time his trademark hat makes sense as he learns he's been sent there to as bait to lure the drug kingpin out of hiding. It irked me a bit however because he does seem to be a cop with a body count - many of the bodies his own men, and an early scene sees him chase after an informer. I was going back and forth between this and Twitter but it does seem he accidentally kills the guy and though remorseful a) He doesn't get punished for it and b) It's as if the inside man, being black, doesn't seem to count much. Perhaps I got it wrong but whether one wants to continue watching a movie like this... I sort of did, but a lot of the first half is a bit boring and there isn't Roy Schneider, soon to be doing Jaws, adding back up.
It has the balls to be boring and depressing, so props for that, but otherwise... gets better at the end though.
Caught this in the cinema earlier today. Two British agents go missing, possibly murdered (spoiler: they have been), in Jamaica while it is still under British rule. Another agent is sent to investigate.
Lots of beautiful Caribbean scenery; lots of beautiful ladies. The main character, played by a Scottish actor, was quite interesting. A sequel would be a good idea, and a series a better one.
Did the Scottish actor go on to do anything else, Barbel? And if it was a British film, I'm assuming the Caribbean scenery was actually filmed at Elstree Studios, Cornwall, and Tyneside?
Like many of us I saw this Sci-Fi blockbuster at the cinema, and like many I let the satire of war and totalitarianism pass me by unnoticed. I saw the still impressive special effects (much of it fantastic model work) blood-pumping action scenes and the hottness of Denise Richards and was in awe. As a big action film and sci-fi movie it still stands up today. The actors aren't great character actors , to put it politley. But that was done on purpose - they were cast for their looks because it was important for the message of the movie. I'm not sure a satire with a huge budget could be made today, neither the scene with the open shower for both sexes. I hope so.
It was the 2006 remastered version and it looked fantastic, better than some more recent films. No, you didn't see Fleming hiding behind the driftwood but the three blind mice were more noticeable when Bond arrives at Strangways' place.
If you get the opportunity to catch any if the older Bond movies at the cinema, please take it. That's where they were meant to be seen and that's where they look their best. Also the communal experience of hearing people laughing at lines you stopped laughing at years ago refreshes and renews those lines.
Not this movie, but try being in a cinema when the volcano set is revealed in YOLT or Bond skies off the mountain in TSWLM, for example- the collective intake of breath can be felt as well as heard. Its the closest you're going to get to seeing it for the first time
@CoolHandBond I've been lucky recently in getting to see most up till AVTAK. And it's been AJB members who've made me aware, so many thanks. It's also made me a regular at a cinema I'd otherwise have never considered.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 26,500Chief of Staff
Saw it last night. I liked it, but I had some issues.
Overall, i'm going with a 3.5 out of 5. My thoughts will, as always, be posted in spoiler tags below.
Pattinson's Batman? Loved it. He nailed the role in terms of the look, tempo, voice, and overall presence. Outstanding. Possibly the best ever.
Pattinson's Bruce? The worst ever. Hated it. It was like a goth version of Michael Corleone. I get that they wanted to play up the tormented hermit billionaire with a secret. But, Bruce has always done this by hiding behind his veneer and charm since that's all he has to sustain him when not being his alter ego. Pattinson's take on Bruce didn't work because he was devoid of that charm and the man about town element that has always been a part of Bruce's character.
The noir tone is sublime. I think this may be the first ever Batman film that is almost entirely set at night, while also being the first live-action Batman film to predominately see Bruce in the batsuit for nearly the whole film. Excellent creative choice which serviced the story.
The story: excellent. Once again, we are long overdue for a noir soaked Batman story. The pacing was what I have been wanting from a Batman film in the longest of times, while we have mostly eschewed the action-hero aspect of Batman by stripping it back to its Detective Comic roots. I will say, however, that the final act in the stadium disappointed me because we fell into old doomsday scenario habits. Up until that point, The Batman was doing its own thing by answering to its own premise. It's almost as though the film lost confidence to commit to that premise by reverting to the Nolan-verse style of showdown.
Overall, see it on the big screen. This film is soaked in atmosphere and translates outstandingly in a cinema. I don't know if the feel will be the same on a smaller screen at home with various distractions to shift your focus from the show and brooding story.
I also do have a major issue concerning the future of this trilogy, but i'll wait until more of you see it as it is spoiler heavy.
That's an interesting take. The elements of film noir are too disparate to pin down - it is not a genre-type as easily defined as say The Western or The Horror - and in fact can dovetail into and out of various genres, creating sub-genres such as the Noir Western (Rancho Notorious, etc). I've never seen it mentioned in relation to a superhero flick, perhaps because they are so recent a phenomenon. Noir wasn't accepted as a 'type' by most Hollywood filmmakers until the early seventies, so films we recognise now as being of the genre were retrospectively tagged as Noir; it is only subsequently that filmmakers have intentionally sought to associate their product with the tropes of Film Noir. However the fantasy elements, the sci-fi impossibilities of the Superhero genre do seem to reject the expected earthiness of Noir conventions. I suspect is any superhero was going to be noir, it would be Bruce Wayne / Batman. But can a superhero movie really be a film noir ? I suppose if it fulfils some of the requirements and has an overarching shadowy atmosphere, design, photography and character, we could probably accept it as such. Perhaps The Batman will be the first of a new subgenre, although a defined name for it escapes me.
the cinematic version of the comic book superhero may be too new, and tends towards scifi spectacle. but the actual comic book roots going back to the 40s have film noir influences, depending on the title and the creator. The only recent cinematic version I can think of that attempted it was Frank Miller's adaptation of The Spirit and it was dreadful
The Spirt was a comic book that ran through the 1940s, written and drawn by Will Eisner and various assistants. The postwar Spirit comics are considered some of the finest comic books of all time and are thoroughly noir drenched, Eisner would base his supporting characters on actors in the genre like Lauren Bacall or Veronica Lake.
I'm going to post some of Eisner's legendary splash panels just cuz theyre so great but they may also give a feel for this alleged noir influence.
many afficianados say Eisner's art looks better in b&w so lets start with some uncoloured examples (the 1970s Warren magazine series reprinted many of the best Spirit stories in b&w at a slightly larger scale)
and a few more in colour
one of the most famous Spirit splash panels ever. If you cant read it, she says "My name is P'gell, and zees story ees not for leetle boys"
actually here's a hirez detail
Frank Miller made a film version of the Spirit about 20 years back. Miller is a comic book artist/writer, who has worked on both Daredevil and Batman. His version of Batman is the basis for a lot of the grim n gritty cinematic version we've had over the years, and he fancies himself an Eisner disciple. anyway, his film version is both a lousy Eisner adaptation and a poor representation of typical Frank Miller, erring on the side of over stylization. so skip that, but if interested in noir influenced comic books look for reprints of the original Eisner Spirits.
Batman slightly preceded the film noir genre, but shared the influence of German expressionism and universal horror. the series was inspired heavily by the pulp fiction hero The Shadow, whereas Superman was influenced by the scifi pulps of the 30s.
Bob Kane's original art in the 1930s tried to evoke universal horror, but was rather cartoony. Batman's fifth appearance in Detective 31 September 1939 really shows that gothic influence.
In 1940 Kane hired Jerry Robinson as his ghost, and for the next five years the art was much more noirish, all ink drenched and weird angles. Here's some pages from the first appearance of the Joker in Batman 1 spring 1940
a detail from the splash
(you can read this whole story on the Great Comic Book Heroes blog. just go read it, it should be a mandatory part of the school curriculum)
here's some pages from the first appearance of Two Face in Detective Comics 66 August 1942
by the way, Bob Kane literally started as one of Will Eisner's disciples, working as part of Eisner's comic book content packaging team before kane was hired by DC, and before Eisner created The Spirit. So some of Eisner's interest in incorporating cinema influences may have rubbed off on Kane. Jack Kirby was another who got his start working for Eisner, but his comics were never noir influenced.
Wow, I just checked out the run time: 176 minutes. Goodness. Long Day's Journey Into Night was the same length, but that's a heart rending tale of alcoholism and disillusionment, which needs three hours to invent, accuse, resolve and justify its characters. This is a comic strip superhero action film. What on earth can take three hours to tell this tale? I despair at this preoccupation pop corn movies have developed with length. It is like a penis waving competition and no one ever wins those...
I remember when OHMSS was released and there was a furore about it being TWENTY minutes longer than the usual 2 hours!! Films today are bum-achingly overlong and padded out to extreme lengths whilst not forwarding the plot at all. IMO 150 minutes is the longest a film should be and ideally 120 minutes is the ideal length to ensure that pacing is efficient.
TV series are of course different animals, then multi-episodes of 45 minutes are very welcome as the plot can be more leisurely conceived in smaller doses.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
If you factored all this in, that it's maybe a bit boring and so on, too much exposition one critic said, might one still see it and enjoy it, just to soak up the cinematic side of it all?
And would it work better on a mega TV where you could just take a break whenever and spend an evening in the company of.... The Batman.
Comments
If my work allows I hope to watch it and will watch the other one.
@Joshua @Napoleon Plural This is a must see, isn't it?
I have heard so for any Connery fan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NpPiMfB9WY
I have seen it, many years ago, it's a rarity on telly. It reminds me of the kind of film BBC2 used to show starting past midnight, in a category occupied by Get Carter, The Wicker Man or Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf, sort of dark, nasty, quality drama. That said, those films were imo better than The Offence which some say is a bit cold, a bit off. But see for yourself. Connery is certainly breaking away from his Bond persona here. Interesting to see Howard from Brief Encounter and The Third Man here too.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I don't know what the hell's going on at the BFI. The place seems to be under repair. It smells off. I was there to see The Power of the Dog followed by an interview with director Jane Campion. I'm not a fan, but hey...
I was lucky to get a ticket. Got one of the last dozen. When I got here I found out why: a huge table with wrist bands and a sign saying "Guest list only." Funny thing, i turn up, take my seat, and come the MC with his mic dropping a few hellos and thank-yous, I'm looking around and the cinema is only two thirds full. Was this the tube strike kicking in? Ticket touts? Some kind of reservation situation I know nothing of. To be honest, I was a bit miffed. I should have moved to one of the empty better seats in my row, but I had lots of leg room and couldn't be bothered.
The film was excellent. I'll put a review up in a few days once I've digested it.
I'm afraid to say Jane Campion was extremely boring. No sense of humour, no public speaking ability. I suspect it's a sign of a very low ego. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt as her interviewer was a last minute replacement, although they seemed to be mates and it felt like we'd all walked in and sat down in their sitting room. They discussed how she came across the novel, how she casted the movie, how she went about filming on a day to day basis. It was a very dull interview with little to nil insight. Benedict Cumberbatch's kids eat broccoli, is all I learnt. I left when the Q&A started as they began to pull pre-written questions from a bag, as if they didn't trust the audience to ask sensible questions. Still, I got home before eleven, so a win for me !
Some nice things are happening on South Bank Gardens. I remember when it was a wasteland.
Because it's a new movie and is likely to win the Oscar, I've utilised the spoiler facility.
THE POWER OF THE DOG (2021)
Director Jane Campion’s adaptation of Thomas Savage’s modern western is an intense film of beautiful landscapes, concealed loathing and a quartet of non-communicative characters who hide close secrets, their reticence leading to tragedy.
Benedict Cumberbatch is Phil Burbank, a cattle rancher in Montana who insists on living a rustic, unkempt life of the manner taught him by his mentor Bronco Henry, the greatest cow-poke of them all. The year is 1925 and Phil lives with his cautious, polite brother George in a well-appointed smallish mansion on a sprawling estate, making a good living from selling cattle, which they still drive the traditional way across the prairies. George has pretentions to marriage and respectability, a trait Phil scorns, preferring the company of the range, his animals and the rowdy cowboys. After a whirl wind courtship, George marries a widow, the timid Rose Gordon, and she comes to stay at the family ranch where her presence disturbs the natural, animalistic attitudes of the restless, stalking Phil. They share an intense, mutual dislike. The pressure to conform to an impossible marital ideal leads Rose to drink; Phil watches her demise with a studious detached air. Not once does he discuss her plight with his brother.
The siblings, as youngsters inseparable, are drifting apart, just as the old ways are being dragged kicking into the modern world. Phil is almost a Neanderthal, refusing to wash, communicating with ticks and flicks of his head and facial expression. His body language is confrontational. His demeanour hunched, yet powerful. He lives among nature and all its accustomed mysteries. He studies the landscape, seeing animal personalities among the craggy mountains. He makes leather lassoes, tying the hides thick and tight, his hands working like the prehistoric men of old, demonstrating the power of man over nature. He must assert too his power over all men and to that end Phil endlessly taunts Rose, hoping to force a violent reaction from her. He bickers with his glacial brother, a man whose thought processes seem as slow as his pace. Most provocatively, he antagonises the young medical student Peter, Rose’s son, a skinny, scrawny, bashful boy. Phil’s constant sniping leads to a curious interdependent father-son relationship, where both begin to understand more about the capabilities and desires of the other.
Peter squirrels about the ranch, the butt of jokes – the cowhands call him ‘Nancy Boy’ and laugh as he attempts to ride a horse – but this is a studious, quiet young man, assertive in his own manner, his doleful watching eyes taking in more than the vibrant surface. He is the only person able to see the ‘dog’ Phil sees reflected in the mountain range. By accident, Peter discovers Phil’s secret garden among the brush groves. The stash of muscleman magazines hidden in a cash box suggests he’s discovered more than one secret. Afraid he’s been unmasked, Phil attempts to parley with the young man, only to have Peter out-think him, seduce him, and kill him. A cattle carcass infested with anthrax is his weapon of choice. He ensures Phil spends a smoky summer night weaving the strips of hide into a lasso, his bare hands absorbing the deadly poison.
Even as murder is committed, Campion’s scene suggests a new respect between the men, a mutual longing, the unrequited secret Phil carries with him – the reason he’s so appalled by his manly space being invaded by wispy, willowy women – seems about to be revealed. We know it. Peter knows it. Kodi Smit-McPhee, inhabiting Peter’s hangdog look, his frail, rake-like posture, conveys the knowing innocent perfectly. This is an intelligent, pervasive man. He teaches himself to ride [much how Gregory Peck did in The Big Country, another western which made hay with the new world order confronting the old]; he watches after his mother, hiding her booze bottles; he deliberately shocks the maid, exactly how Phil menaces Rose, without explanation or warning; from being tentative and uncertain, his relationship with Phil proves the making of him.
Kirsten Dunst as his mother trembles and sniffs. She’s the weak link an otherwise above par ensemble cast, never quite convincing in her downward spiral. When she determines to stop Peter riding out with Phil, her hysteria seems too overwrought. It’s not clear that she ever understands her son or her husband; she never even attempts to understand Phil. Meanwhile Jesse Plemons brings a quiet dignity to the thankless task of George, a character so straight backed he’s lost both his sense of humour and his conversation skills. The film never explains why he failed at university – there’s a suggestion he’s dyslexic – while it venerates the fact Phil was a success who chose to drop out. Attempts by Phil to remind his brother of their shared companionable history fall badly flat. George is relieved to have escaped the yoke of the cattle farm. He may be awkward and almost monosyllabic, but he’s progressed from the wild, prehistory into something which resembles the modern world.
Cumberbatch’s Phil is a bristling man of might and indignation. His movements are balanced, slow, effortless. The film is intensely sensual and the director constantly offers vivid close-ups of his hands as they manipulate things: a paper flower has it’s metaphorical virginity stolen by his raking fingers; his nails pluck and pick avidly at the banjo; he caresses Bronco Henry’s old leather saddle, polishing it with the devotion afforded a saintly votive; the abrasive twisting of the lasso twine; his wonderment as a neckerchief rustles in the breeze at his fingertips. While the sexual connotations are fleeting, we do notice them. Except Campion is drawing on a much deeper theme, one of ancient man at ancient work, his hands in tune with his task and with nature: witness Phil’s swift castration of a bull, his disconcern over a broken and cut finger, the brutish manner in which he takes mud baths. By comparison, modern man’s gentle inflections are reflected in Peter: his tidy clothes picked at, the comb he thumbs, the hissing cigarette he lights, the paper roses he delicately cuts and moulds. And yet, there lurks a tangible shadow of man’s past, his unending power. This is a teenager who dissects the pet rabbit he gave his mother, who casually breaks a wild hare’s neck, who strips a dead cattle of its hide without a murmur; a man who retains the author of his rival’s demise, sliding the infected lasso under the bed, his hands covered in thick decorative Native American gloves, stolen from Rose.
“What kind of man would I be,” he says at the outset of this penetrative tale, “if I didn’t help my mother?” In the final scene, Peter watches his mother arrive back at the mansion with George; as the two embrace he turns balefully away. We begin to wonder, was she scared for Peter when screaming for his return, or was she concerned that Phil had fallen under her son’s homicidal tendencies?
There isn’t much of the mythic west here, except in the sweeping golden hazed landscape – excellently photographed by Ari Wegner, amazingly not in the U.S.A. as all but in New Zealand – and the wooden, clapboard houses, or the pulsating slow burn of the cattle drive, the dust kicking an explosion of a storm cloud on the horizon, a portent of the destruction to come. The sexual tendencies are nicely played, the eroticism palpable without being obvious. The chaste machismo of the lead character undermined by his lonely masturbatory functions, his inability to accept his homosexuality manifesting itself in misogynistic hatred of his sister-in-law, pre-empted by his tacit refusal to buy a whore at the movie’s opening chapter sequence.
The film attempts to be mystical and this is unnecessary. The detached, departed figure of Bronco Henry is framed in photograph like a Greek hero, the strange unseen demonstration of the ‘dog’ is never clear, a curious and out of place allusion to Marquez’s Of Love and Other Desires when the housekeeper tells a tale of a woman whose hair continued to grow after she died; these moments sit at odds with the all-consuming atmosphere of impending modern day doom. It isn’t the myth which is being extinguished here, but the rite of man and man’s work, its preconceptions and conventions, its thrusting physicality contrasted to the almost ungainly modern world, of manners, silken clothes, motor cars, dances and creeping death with dishonour.
A marvellous film.
WEST SIDE STORY (2021)
60 years on from the original movie Steven Spielberg presents his remake, and what a masterpiece it is, definitely up there with the greatest films from this director genius. It’s the late 1950’s and racial tensions are high (some things never change) as two gangs battle for supremacy in their neighbourhood. Tony and Maria from the rival groups fall in love which creates even more trouble.
This is my favourite musical of all and the acting, dancing, cinematography, music and direction are flawless. Every song is a classic and newcomer Rachel Zegler is beautiful as Maria and Ansel Elgort is excellent as Tony. The supporting cast is headed by Rita Moreno who was in the original movie.
If you like musicals then you will love this, it’s an instant classic and I will be watching it many times. Will it win the Oscar?…probably not…but it should.
The northwest passage - book 1: Roger's Rangers (1940)
Thsi colour movie is set in 1759 during the war between the British and the French in North America. It's not about the potential sea route called the northeast passage, but it sets up a sequel that never happened about crossing the continent. Two men end up in Roger's Ranger, maybe the first special operations unit in America. We see a raid on a French fort deep in the wilderness next to a village of allied Abenaki indians. This raid really happened and I understand it re-creates the raid fairly accurately even though a dramatic river crossing actually happened during a different raid. The Rangers faces many dangers, disapointments and hardships during this mission. Burning a native American village and killing all the men doesn't look to good today, and in fact some disliked this and the portrayal of indians back in 1940 either.
Rogers is portrayed as an effective and inventive leader, but the movie suggests he was too extreme at times. In a scene after the attack on the fort and village he says the French won't find food there other than "roasted indian". The rangers laugh at this. The camera focuses on a ranger who starts to laugh, but quickly finds the remark awful.
We also get to see conflicts within the unit, the effect of starvation on them and even a few men who can't deal with the hardships mentally. I liked this realism. I also liked how the rangers are different from line infantry and show flexibility and inovation.
The Rangers were one of the early units to use some form of camouflage uniform, but the uniforms in the movie look more like the Hollywood idea of a buckskin outfit and a type of headgear closer to the 1940's than 1750's.
Movie:
Reality:
'Northwest Passage' (Book I -- Rogers' Rangers) (1940) - IMDb
The movie for free on Youtube: Northwest Passage 1940 - Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, Ruth Hussey, Walter Brennan, Nat Pendleton, Isabel Jewell - Bing video
The French Connection II
Somewhat belated sequel sees Gene Hackman return, going after his drug king pin Fernando Rey.
It didn't sit too well with me, I'd seen it before. It's relocated from New York City to the French town of Marseilles, where Popeye Doyle is a fish out of water and not too keen on local customs. This time his trademark hat makes sense as he learns he's been sent there to as bait to lure the drug kingpin out of hiding. It irked me a bit however because he does seem to be a cop with a body count - many of the bodies his own men, and an early scene sees him chase after an informer. I was going back and forth between this and Twitter but it does seem he accidentally kills the guy and though remorseful a) He doesn't get punished for it and b) It's as if the inside man, being black, doesn't seem to count much. Perhaps I got it wrong but whether one wants to continue watching a movie like this... I sort of did, but a lot of the first half is a bit boring and there isn't Roy Schneider, soon to be doing Jaws, adding back up.
It has the balls to be boring and depressing, so props for that, but otherwise... gets better at the end though.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
DR NO (1962) Directed by Terence Young
Caught this in the cinema earlier today. Two British agents go missing, possibly murdered (spoiler: they have been), in Jamaica while it is still under British rule. Another agent is sent to investigate.
Lots of beautiful Caribbean scenery; lots of beautiful ladies. The main character, played by a Scottish actor, was quite interesting. A sequel would be a good idea, and a series a better one.
Did the Scottish actor go on to do anything else, Barbel? And if it was a British film, I'm assuming the Caribbean scenery was actually filmed at Elstree Studios, Cornwall, and Tyneside?
Starship Troopers (1997)
Like many of us I saw this Sci-Fi blockbuster at the cinema, and like many I let the satire of war and totalitarianism pass me by unnoticed. I saw the still impressive special effects (much of it fantastic model work) blood-pumping action scenes and the hottness of Denise Richards and was in awe. As a big action film and sci-fi movie it still stands up today. The actors aren't great character actors , to put it politley. But that was done on purpose - they were cast for their looks because it was important for the message of the movie. I'm not sure a satire with a huge budget could be made today, neither the scene with the open shower for both sexes. I hope so.
💘 ❤️💘❤️💘❤️💘❤️❤️❤️💘❤️💘❤️💘❤️💘❤️❤️❤️💘❤️💘❤️💘❤️💘
Well, it looked pretty good to me! And I believe that I've seen that actor in shome filmsh, yesh.
Dudley?
@Barbel any comment on how the film looked on the big screen as opposed to a teevee set?
could you maybe spot Fleming and Noel Coward hiding behind the driftwood as Ursula Andress made her big entrance?
It was the 2006 remastered version and it looked fantastic, better than some more recent films. No, you didn't see Fleming hiding behind the driftwood but the three blind mice were more noticeable when Bond arrives at Strangways' place.
If you get the opportunity to catch any if the older Bond movies at the cinema, please take it. That's where they were meant to be seen and that's where they look their best. Also the communal experience of hearing people laughing at lines you stopped laughing at years ago refreshes and renews those lines.
Not this movie, but try being in a cinema when the volcano set is revealed in YOLT or Bond skies off the mountain in TSWLM, for example- the collective intake of breath can be felt as well as heard. Its the closest you're going to get to seeing it for the first time
There’s not much in life to make me feel envious, but watching the original 60’s Bond’s at a cinema is one of them!!!
@Gymkata , no, not at my age!
@CoolHandBond I've been lucky recently in getting to see most up till AVTAK. And it's been AJB members who've made me aware, so many thanks. It's also made me a regular at a cinema I'd otherwise have never considered.
And the OAP discount is a help 😏🤣
That's one of the few things I'm still too young for!
THE BATMAN.
Saw it last night. I liked it, but I had some issues.
Overall, i'm going with a 3.5 out of 5. My thoughts will, as always, be posted in spoiler tags below.
Pattinson's Batman? Loved it. He nailed the role in terms of the look, tempo, voice, and overall presence. Outstanding. Possibly the best ever.
Pattinson's Bruce? The worst ever. Hated it. It was like a goth version of Michael Corleone. I get that they wanted to play up the tormented hermit billionaire with a secret. But, Bruce has always done this by hiding behind his veneer and charm since that's all he has to sustain him when not being his alter ego. Pattinson's take on Bruce didn't work because he was devoid of that charm and the man about town element that has always been a part of Bruce's character.
The noir tone is sublime. I think this may be the first ever Batman film that is almost entirely set at night, while also being the first live-action Batman film to predominately see Bruce in the batsuit for nearly the whole film. Excellent creative choice which serviced the story.
The story: excellent. Once again, we are long overdue for a noir soaked Batman story. The pacing was what I have been wanting from a Batman film in the longest of times, while we have mostly eschewed the action-hero aspect of Batman by stripping it back to its Detective Comic roots. I will say, however, that the final act in the stadium disappointed me because we fell into old doomsday scenario habits. Up until that point, The Batman was doing its own thing by answering to its own premise. It's almost as though the film lost confidence to commit to that premise by reverting to the Nolan-verse style of showdown.
Overall, see it on the big screen. This film is soaked in atmosphere and translates outstandingly in a cinema. I don't know if the feel will be the same on a smaller screen at home with various distractions to shift your focus from the show and brooding story.
I also do have a major issue concerning the future of this trilogy, but i'll wait until more of you see it as it is spoiler heavy.
That's an interesting take. The elements of film noir are too disparate to pin down - it is not a genre-type as easily defined as say The Western or The Horror - and in fact can dovetail into and out of various genres, creating sub-genres such as the Noir Western (Rancho Notorious, etc). I've never seen it mentioned in relation to a superhero flick, perhaps because they are so recent a phenomenon. Noir wasn't accepted as a 'type' by most Hollywood filmmakers until the early seventies, so films we recognise now as being of the genre were retrospectively tagged as Noir; it is only subsequently that filmmakers have intentionally sought to associate their product with the tropes of Film Noir. However the fantasy elements, the sci-fi impossibilities of the Superhero genre do seem to reject the expected earthiness of Noir conventions. I suspect is any superhero was going to be noir, it would be Bruce Wayne / Batman. But can a superhero movie really be a film noir ? I suppose if it fulfils some of the requirements and has an overarching shadowy atmosphere, design, photography and character, we could probably accept it as such. Perhaps The Batman will be the first of a new subgenre, although a defined name for it escapes me.
the cinematic version of the comic book superhero may be too new, and tends towards scifi spectacle. but the actual comic book roots going back to the 40s have film noir influences, depending on the title and the creator. The only recent cinematic version I can think of that attempted it was Frank Miller's adaptation of The Spirit and it was dreadful
The Spirt was a comic book that ran through the 1940s, written and drawn by Will Eisner and various assistants. The postwar Spirit comics are considered some of the finest comic books of all time and are thoroughly noir drenched, Eisner would base his supporting characters on actors in the genre like Lauren Bacall or Veronica Lake.
I'm going to post some of Eisner's legendary splash panels just cuz theyre so great but they may also give a feel for this alleged noir influence.
many afficianados say Eisner's art looks better in b&w so lets start with some uncoloured examples (the 1970s Warren magazine series reprinted many of the best Spirit stories in b&w at a slightly larger scale)
and a few more in colour
one of the most famous Spirit splash panels ever. If you cant read it, she says "My name is P'gell, and zees story ees not for leetle boys"
actually here's a hirez detail
Frank Miller made a film version of the Spirit about 20 years back. Miller is a comic book artist/writer, who has worked on both Daredevil and Batman. His version of Batman is the basis for a lot of the grim n gritty cinematic version we've had over the years, and he fancies himself an Eisner disciple. anyway, his film version is both a lousy Eisner adaptation and a poor representation of typical Frank Miller, erring on the side of over stylization. so skip that, but if interested in noir influenced comic books look for reprints of the original Eisner Spirits.
Batman slightly preceded the film noir genre, but shared the influence of German expressionism and universal horror. the series was inspired heavily by the pulp fiction hero The Shadow, whereas Superman was influenced by the scifi pulps of the 30s.
Bob Kane's original art in the 1930s tried to evoke universal horror, but was rather cartoony. Batman's fifth appearance in Detective 31 September 1939 really shows that gothic influence.
In 1940 Kane hired Jerry Robinson as his ghost, and for the next five years the art was much more noirish, all ink drenched and weird angles. Here's some pages from the first appearance of the Joker in Batman 1 spring 1940
a detail from the splash
(you can read this whole story on the Great Comic Book Heroes blog. just go read it, it should be a mandatory part of the school curriculum)
here's some pages from the first appearance of Two Face in Detective Comics 66 August 1942
by the way, Bob Kane literally started as one of Will Eisner's disciples, working as part of Eisner's comic book content packaging team before kane was hired by DC, and before Eisner created The Spirit. So some of Eisner's interest in incorporating cinema influences may have rubbed off on Kane. Jack Kirby was another who got his start working for Eisner, but his comics were never noir influenced.
The Offence is starting Channel 82 everyone, UK I mean!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Wow, I just checked out the run time: 176 minutes. Goodness. Long Day's Journey Into Night was the same length, but that's a heart rending tale of alcoholism and disillusionment, which needs three hours to invent, accuse, resolve and justify its characters. This is a comic strip superhero action film. What on earth can take three hours to tell this tale? I despair at this preoccupation pop corn movies have developed with length. It is like a penis waving competition and no one ever wins those...
I remember when OHMSS was released and there was a furore about it being TWENTY minutes longer than the usual 2 hours!! Films today are bum-achingly overlong and padded out to extreme lengths whilst not forwarding the plot at all. IMO 150 minutes is the longest a film should be and ideally 120 minutes is the ideal length to ensure that pacing is efficient.
TV series are of course different animals, then multi-episodes of 45 minutes are very welcome as the plot can be more leisurely conceived in smaller doses.
The Offence with Sean Connery is showing again this week on Talking Pictures, Wednesday I think, so I will hold off my review until after then.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Thanks, Napoleon, I am watching it on Wednesday and will put something up soon after. Be interested to compare takes.
If you factored all this in, that it's maybe a bit boring and so on, too much exposition one critic said, might one still see it and enjoy it, just to soak up the cinematic side of it all?
And would it work better on a mega TV where you could just take a break whenever and spend an evening in the company of.... The Batman.
Roger Moore 1927-2017