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  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    Joshua- there is nothing to be seen, no messages, nothing to be approved. Please just carry on as normal.

  • TonyDPTonyDP Inside the MonolithPosts: 4,279MI6 Agent

    Speaking of spaghetti westerns, A Fistful of Dynamite (a/k/a Duck You Sucker!) is an often overlooked Leone entry which basically closed out his western phase. It follows the exploits of an Irish revolutionary hiding out in Mexico (James Coburn) and a Mexican bandit (Rod Steiger) and his family, who get mixed up in the Mexican revolution. Given the time period it's probably a bit of a stretch to call it a western but it still retains many of the classic Leone tropes. The score by Ennio Morricone is positively haunting and Leone once again makes use of extended flashbacks to flesh out the characters and their backstory as he did in Once Upon A Time In The West. The pacing is uneven in spots and there are some jarring editing cuts towards the end but like most Leone efforts there are also plenty of memorable sequences.

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent

    I have made a list of the films recommended here. I will be visiting the usual places I look for DVDs and will report back if I am successful at finding any of them.


    I should not really say this but when I am doing overtime (which is often!) and away from my normal duties, I can have many twelve hour long shifts where I have very little to do except the occasional patrol. I bought a portable DVD player with a screen attached some time ago and sometimes take it to work. I think this will now prove useful to allow me to watch these films!


    Just for my information, with the spaghetti westerns, I should then watch TGTBTU first, then AFFoD and FaFDM

  • Sir MilesSir Miles The Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 26,417Chief of Staff

    The posts were in the spam filter - about 5 of them…I’ve deleted 4 and reinstated the one above 🍸

    YNWA 97
  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    Thanks, Sir Miles- that was the one place I didn't look!

  • Golrush007Golrush007 South AfricaPosts: 3,418Quartermasters

    I agree with Gymkata. It does not really matter in which order they are watched.

    However, I do think that Fistful of Dollars is a good starting point. It is a brisk, 90 minute action filled film that does a good job of reworking the samurai plot of Kurosawa's Yojimbo for a western setting. As Leone's films went on, they became bigger, more epic, and longer. So The Good The Bad and The Ugly with its nearly 3 hour running time can be a bit intimidating for a first time viewer - well, it was for me. I tend to be put off by films with long running times, even though many of my favourite films are a bit on the long side. (After all, my favourite film of all time is the nearly 4 hour whopper, Lawrence of Arabia).

    So watching them in order of release does give you that gradual build-up from one film to the next, with each expanding on what came before in terms of ambition, scope and running time.

  • Number24Number24 NorwayPosts: 21,701MI6 Agent

    Tonight I watched YOLT to James Bond, & Friends' watchalong. It doesn't beat being a part of a watchalong, but their comments are funny, insightful and I even learn some new things.

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    THE GRUDGE (2004)

    An American remake of the cult Japanese shocker Ju-On which benefits from retaining the original director, Takashi Shimizu. Back in the day, I watched the grimy, confusing, original – rented from Blockbusters – and, like most critics and film fans, compared it unfavourably with Ring. When this came out in the cinemas, I went to see it with a girlfriend who sat through it while I eulogised about how gorgeous Sarah Michelle Gellar was. Renata was very generous in allowing me to indulge my Buffy the Vampire Slayer fascination…

    I digress.

    Karen Davis [Gellar] is an exchange student working part time as a care assistant in Tokyo. She visits an eerily infirm lady at a grey, non-descript house, unaware of the building’s murderous past. Strange apparitions materialise almost immediately and these sudden, bizarre, shocking encounters send her into a coma. When she wakes, Karen investigates the past and pieces together the mystery, but remains unable to free the raging souls trapped inside the house.

    The Grudge isn’t so much a horror as a creeping ghost story. There’s a few impressive visuals. The story’s non-linear timeframe is well presented. There was a great scene at the climax where Karen watches a ghost watching a ghost which was brilliantly presented. The photography alternates from being bright and breezy to gloomy and grimy, like the original. The sound editing effects are particularly good. I remember in the cinema auditorium the little boy’s footsteps come at you from all angles. It’s less effective on T.V.

    The movie was a spectacular success in the U.S., although it loses something in its Americanisation. It might have been better if they’d shifted the whole story to the States rather than just import a few actors; even better, just make it with an English speaking Japanese cast. Many of the main protagonists don’t have dialogue anyway and are played by the original cast members. Gellar is rather good, but then she’s had lots of practice from Buffy

     

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    BUTTERFLY ON A WHEEL (2007)

    What on earth did I just watch?

    Pierce Brosnan plays against type as a horrible man who claims to have kidnapped the daughter of two equally horrible parents played with no skill by Gerard Butler and Maria Bello. Hitchcock did this sort of thing much better and with a dash of humour. It’s such a crass exercise it was retitled for the US market, and again for continental Europe. It’s no surprise the film’s a mess if the producers can’t even figure out a title.

    I felt most sympathy for the child, poor mite, whose saddled with such awful self-obsessed parents.  

  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent

    Shade (2003)

    I had never heard of this movie before. It stars Gabriel Byrne and Sylvester Stallone with good support from Jamie Foxx, Thandie Newton, Melanie Griffith and Stuart Townsend. It’s a tale of grifters who bluff and double bluff each other.

    I enjoyed it but always laugh at the poker scenes in this and all other movies which have scenes of poker, in that to add tension, the players say “ I call that.......and raise.......”. This is known as a string bet, if you’re raising the pot you have to state “raise” and then make your play, if you said “call” and then tried to raise you would simply not be allowed to do so.

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent

    A great western that I missed out is The Big Gundown starring Lee Van Cleef. You need to see the uncut version though as the cut version reverses the whole point of the movie! It also has a superb Ennio Morricone soundtrack.

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • Golrush007Golrush007 South AfricaPosts: 3,418Quartermasters

    I'll be watching The Big Gundown soon as its currently streaming on the Criterion Channel as a limited engagement. Curiously though, I've noticed that it is presented in Italian with English subtitles. Normally I'm 100% in favour of a film being shown in the language of its origin, however with spaghetti westerns it's a bit of a unique case because they were usually filmed with actors speaking a variety of different languages with the intention of later dubbing into different languages for international distribution. As a result, the often bad dubbing of spaghetti westerns is part of their charm, and as the American west was a largely English-speaking society it doesn't feel quite right to have all the characters speaking Italian. Plus we presumably don't get to hear Lee Van Cleef's distinctive voice. Have you guys ever watched spaghetti westerns in Italian, and what are your thoughts? Does it affect the viewing experience much?

  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,238MI6 Agent

    What's going on with imdb ? It just isn't the same anymore.

    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    It's changed overnight. Looks, hmm, bigger...

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1959)

    I haven’t read any of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes adventures, so I don’t know how accurate a retelling of the story this movie is. This 1959 film comes highly recommended, both from devotees of Conan Doyle and Hammer movies. I may be missing something.

    The film kicks off with an extended prologue explaining the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles: Sir Hugo Baskerville – a tyrant of Neroesque qualities – abuses his lordly position, tortures his servants, demeans his friends, commits murder because he feels slighted and is mauled to death by a fabled big dog. There's also the unpleasant squirming suggestion of a planned gang-rape of a servant girl. This opening has all the trashy, tacky hallmarks of Hammer. It’s quite unsettling. I disliked it intensely. Not only was the acting over the top, but so was the insanely noisy music. The day-for-night shooting is far too obvious; the studio set scenes are darker than dark, the exteriors virtually sunlit. The bloody murder is high melodrama.

    Then were in Holmes’ cramped little apartment listening to a suspicious-looking doctor try to explain the relevance of this story to the death of Sir Charles Baskerville and the threat he believes it poses to his nephew, Sir Henry. That’s a lot of Baskervilles to pack into fifteen minutes. Peter Cushing is Sherlock and he’s playing the detective as facetious, irritable, impatient and thoroughly unlikeable. He treats his friend Dr Watson like a pet dog: “Fetch my tobacco – Go to Dartmoor for me – Don’t let Sir Henry out on the moor alone at night [this one twice] – Oh, well done, Watson!” Was Conan Doyle’s writing like this? Is this part of Holmes’ personality make up? When he makes conversation, it is almost always specifically to make a point. All niceties are removed from his dialogue, other than invitations and greetings. I’m not saying Cushing’s bad at what he’s doing, I simply didn’t like what he was doing. It lacks class.

    I expect most of us know the story. It’s a detective yarn with lots of hidden clues, plots twists, red herrings, sudden reveals and a worthwhile ending. There are plenty of plot holes and a tale such as this ought not to have any. Sir Henry’s non-recurring heart complaint was the most obvious – the man should have died several times, I feel – and I disliked the Spanish heritage angle as it was irrelevant [again, no idea if this was in the book]. The clue within the missing painting had to be taken with an enormous pinch of salt; I could think of at least two different and more likely ways this piece of information could have been arrived at. The production values are standard for Hammer at the time: plywood and papier mache looking outdoor studio sets, garish photography, costumes okay. Terence Fisher directs with a firm unexcitable hand. The film feels very long even at 86 minutes.

    Out of interest, did Christopher Lee ever play Holmes? I think he’d ’ve been rather good. I always liked Tom Baker in the 1980s TV version of this story and was disappointed the BBC never followed it up. I have this image of Holmes being tall. Cushing isn’t. He looks insignificant next to Lee. I am afraid I found this version of The Hound of the Baskervilles to be underwhelming.

     

      

  • Napoleon PluralNapoleon Plural LondonPosts: 10,238MI6 Agent

    Not mad about that one but not mad about the story overall personally. Lee played Holmes' brother in the Billy Wilder's underperforming film adaptation in the late 60s or early 70s, he wasn't in it that much, Robert Stephens was Holmes in that. Lee did play Holmes I think in a TV series that pops up in blurry lo-res on one of the 'other' Freeview channels from time to time, from the 1980s I think.

    "This is where we leave you Mr Bond."

    Roger Moore 1927-2017
  • caractacus pottscaractacus potts Orbital communicator, level 10Posts: 3,907MI6 Agent
    edited May 2021

    chrisno1 said:

    Peter Cushing is Sherlock and he’s playing the detective as facetious, irritable, impatient and thoroughly unlikeable. He treats his friend Dr Watson like a pet dog: “Fetch my tobacco – Go to Dartmoor for me – Don’t let Sir Henry out on the moor alone at night [this one twice] – Oh, well done, Watson!” Was Conan Doyle’s writing like this? Is this part of Holmes’ personality make up? When he makes conversation, it is almost always specifically to make a point. All niceties are removed from his dialogue, other than invitations and greetings. I’m not saying Cushing’s bad at what he’s doing, I simply didn’t like what he was doing. It lacks class.

    yes thats pretty much the way Doyle wrote Holmes. Holmes is an eccentric, obsessed with logic but only as it applies to the solving of crimes, and what we might call autistic today. He falls into a self-destructive sulk when his great brain is not occupied with a challenge (in one book he injects cocaine to alleviate the boredom). He is egomaniacal, stating shamelessly he is better than all around him. He lectures people on logic, and on first meetings typically shows off by telling people their whole life story which he has derived from a spot of mud on their shoes, a self-aggrandizing parlour trick he does nearly once in every story, to create a deliberate first impression. Watson is used to all this and puts up with a lot of abuse, because he knows his old friend's ways. In one of the later adventures, Holmes saves Watson's life and it seems like they are about to kiss as Watson is so thrilled by this sign Holmes really cares.

    I recommend first two collections of short stories (Adventures of... and Memoirs of...). And Hounds... is the best of the four novels. See if you can find the one volume hardcover edition The Original illustrated Sherlock Holmes that compiles the original plates as published in the Strand with the Sidney Paget illustrations. This volume only includes about half the Holmes books Doyle wrote, but by coincidence Paget illustrated the best ones so you see the definitive illustrations and cut straight to the best stories.


  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    Christopher Lee played Holmes at least 4 times to my knowledge, the latter two with Patrick Macnee as Watson. He was just fine as Holmes.

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    @caractacus potts thanks, that's cleared that up for me

  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    Peter Cushing later played Holmes in a BBC series, including another (and much inferior) version of "Hound".

    Many years later he played the part a final time in "The Masks Of Death", a TV movie with a starry supporting cast which I found very disappointing.

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    DONOVAN’S REEF (1963)

    John Wayne stars in this knockabout comedy as an ex-USN whose put down roots in French Polynesia, running the titular bar and brawling with Lee Marvin. John Ford is the named director, but by all accounts he was so ill during filming that Wayne did half the work. None of the major players seem to be taking more than a passing interest in proceedings; they had after all been told by Ford that the production was a good excuse for a holiday in Hawaii.

    Reunited with Marvin after Liberty Valance, Wayne gives one of his most uncomfortable looking performances of the sixties. The script doesn’t help as it isn’t remotely amusing. The plot is a hash up of misunderstanding, cute kids and comedy bar-fights. The representation of the islanders is very poor. Some of the language couldn’t be used in a movie today without provoking outrage. Some of the landscape photography is beautiful, but then if a cameraman can’t make Hawaii look beautiful, he ought to get a new job.

    The movie feels like it was perceived as a vague follow-up to Howard Hawk’s safari movie Hatari, which Wayne starred in the year before. Unfortunately Donovan’s Reef lacks animals, a decent love story and a sense of humour.

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent
    edited May 2021

    WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968)

    SPOILERS ABOUND !!!

    This historically inaccurate horror traces the career and death of Matthew Hopkins, the self-appointed ‘Witchfinder General’ of the title. Hopkins was responsible for hundreds of witch trails during the English Civil War, and the hundreds of subsequent deaths of the accused. He firmly believed he was doing God’s work. Since his assertion that a witch was anyone who disagreed with his absurdly extreme protestant views, that didn’t leave anyone else with much room to manoeuvre.

    The story is set in East Anglia where Richard Marshall, on leave from the Roundhead army, is betrothed to Sara Lowes, the beautiful niece of a local priest. Diabolical lies have been spread about the clergyman. Hopkins and his nasty, drunken assistant John Sterne [also a true character] have been summoned to deal with the errant priest. Sara allows Hopkins to seduce her, thinking it will save her uncle, but Sterne, angered by what he perceives as Hopkins dereliction of duty, rapes her and continues the torture. Chastised and blackmailed, Hopkins carries out the execution. Out for revenge, Marshall pursues the two examiners to the death, but not before both he and Sara encounter the full terror of inquisition.  

    Witchfinder General is a great and shocking film not because of its violent content – it is violent only in spasms – but because the beliefs expressed by Hopkins, the incredulous question and non-answer interrogations, the obscene methods of torture, the blind compliance of his allies, the dread of those accused, the fear of those laying charges, all of these are behaviours we genuinely believe could, and indeed did, occur at such a time of vast societal upheaval. This is the true horror. Man’s viciousness towards his fellow man.

    At the time the film is set, England has been through the Reformation, the dissolution of the monasteries, expelled or executed many prominent Catholics, inherited a Scottish king and is now being torn apart by factions opposed or supporting the monarchy. People’s possessions are being confiscated by one side or the other, spies are legion, food is scarce, war is everywhere. It is no wonder a sudden spurt of righteous anger erupts and assaults those who choose to be different, who displease the disinherited, the disenfranchised, the slighted. There are frightening parallels with the rhetoric and actions of extremists today, who seek to purge societies of all who do not conform.

    Hopkins supports these degenerate people, invariably the poor and ill-educated, with his own callous and single-minded vision. He lays markers as warnings. The opening scene describes a woman, guilty of witchcraft, being hauled up a prominent hilltop where she is hanged, her body left as a cautionary signal to others. Hopkins watches hawk-like from afar, shadowed in black. He’s the embodiment of evil, yet he claims to do good. His tongue has the persuasive silver of the devil. He has ensured the magistrates are always on his side. His arguments are fool proof because there is only one possible answer: he is right and you are wrong.

    Hopkins is played with fine restraint by Vincent Price. Along with Hammer’s Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, Price is probably the actor most associated with the horror genre during the sixties. The cycle of Edgar Allen Poe adaptations he made for Roger Corman are some of the most inventive chillers of the decade. He’s prone to overacting, to pansy things up too much. Not here. Apparently Price clashed repeatedly with young director Michael Reeves, but once he saw the finished result, he understood exactly Reeves’ intention. Hopkins is a vile sadist and a trickster. Yet he also fundamentally believes what he is doing is just and right. It is only when his own morality is tested his manner unravels. His demeanour remains unruffled throughout; only once does he hint at panic: when Sterne accuses him of cavorting with Sara, he loses control and raises his voice. Robert Russell as the accomplice remains scurrilous throughout.

    Ian Olgilvy brings a sturdy hand to the hero. He’s become a Roundhead soldier for a career, but as his search for Hopkins begins to obsess him, his comrades doubt his loyalties and his priorities. Hilary Dwyer’s Sara shows just the right mixture of innocence and permissiveness to convince us she could contemplate and succeed in seducing the repugnant witchfinder. Early on in the film, the priest knowingly leaves his niece in the company of her lover, the suggestion being he condones of their copulation. It may be this liberal attitude which has got him into trouble with the locals, it isn’t clear; although later the church appears to have been ransacked so he may have been a secret Royalist in a Roundhead stronghold. Whichever it is, Hopkins is well aware of Sara’s sexual tendencies; he spies her from the parsonage and strikes his deal with her away from Sterne’s prying eyes.

    Exquisite details such as these can get lost among the intended bloodletting, torture and burnings. We know times are hard because the Lowes eat a sparing meal, lit by two candles. There is a long shot of a squad of Roundheads before the battle of Naseby, reclining exhausted against a hillock. Villages are dirty, **** infested places. Cromwell is beset by warts. Forced conscription is in evidence. Other times the details are less accurate; flintlock pistols are close quarter weapons only but are fired with accuracy at distance; guineas were not a currency until well after the Civil War. The costumes are suitably ugly, as if everyone’s been wearing them for too long. Hair and beards are unkempt. Sets are spartan. Rooms are small. John Coquillon’s photography is excellent, highlighting the darkness of the times. The gentle music score from Paul Ferris uses medieval folk songs and dances as a counterpoint to the violence.

    The climax comes after a long chase sequence which has an overbearing sense of doom, magnified by the witches being burned in the village square. There is no escape for anyone. The whole population has turned out to watch the execution, standing as silent witnesses to a heinous crime. The lovers are caught by their own physical desire, exactly that which betrayed Hopkins’ to Sterne. Lust has broken everyone’s defences. The ensuing pricking torture is eye-wateringly gripping. Olgilvy’s eyes seem to bulge in anger as his Dwyer’s back is lanced. Price remains aloof to the proceedings. When he finally gets his comeuppance, the scene – the film – concludes devastatingly not with a reunion but with Sara’s blood curdling screams echoing throughout the chamber. There is, it seems, no end to the nightmare. It’s probably one of the greatest closing shots ever put on film.

    Witchfinder General sits easily within a group of excellent ‘breakout’ movies directed by young, brash up and coming artists: The Wicker Man from Robin Hardy, Women in Love from Ken Russell, Get Carter from Mike Hodges, Performance from Donald Cammell, Don’t Look Now from Nic Roeg, even Oh What a Lovely War from Richard Attenborough; this sudden flurry of activity marks a high watermark of achievement for British film and Michael Reeves’ movie deserves its place among them.      

       

  • BarbelBarbel ScotlandPosts: 36,053Chief of Staff

    Thank you, that was a detailed and intelligent review. It's never been a favourite of mine but I might watch it again now.

  • CoolHandBondCoolHandBond Mactan IslandPosts: 6,030MI6 Agent

    Reeves and Price did, indeed, clash repeatedly on set. One exchange was:

    Price: I’ve made 80 films, how many have you made, young man?

    Reeves: 3 good ones!

    Reeves died aged 25 from an overdose, a talent tragically lost.

    The film can now be seen in its full uncut version, the added scenes are a grimy colour but it’s worth seeing that version. American audiences know this film as The Conqueror Worm.

    The film is based on Ronald Bassett’s 1966 novel.

    A great review, chrisno1, of one of my favourite British horror films.

    Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    THE TWO FACES OF JANUARY (2014)

    A good looking thriller set in 1950s Greece / Crete and starring Viggo Mortenson and Kirsten Dunst as a husband and wife in financial difficulty. He’s a con man and an American detective is on his tail seeking compensation for the insurance frauds he’s been committing. Oscar Isaacs is the drifter who falls in with them and in love with Dunst.

    A tale of murder, cross and double-cross, I spent most of the film thinking how much like a Patricia Highsmith novel it was – and at the [end] credits learnt that, sure enough, it was based on her book. Ultimately, it is a tad under-cooked. There isn’t enough tension and it seems to lack a happy core. I didn’t have much sympathy for any of the characters. It was somewhat unbelievable that Dunst’s wife had absolutely no idea her husband was a con man. It passed a couple of harmless hours.  

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL (2017)

    Good central performances can’t hide the deficiencies in this weepy true story from director Paul McGuigan about the dying, troubled film actress Gloria Grahame.

    Annette Bening is excellent as Grahame. Jamie Bell holds his own as Peter Turner, her British toy boy lover. Bell is reunited with Julie Walters, who plays his mum, and it brings back awkward memories of Billy Elliott (Bell’s better, Walters is worse.)

    The screenplay doesn’t do enough with the characters or the situation. If you don’t know the life story of Gloria Grahame you won’t learn very much here either. Good period look (1979 – 1981) and a classy soundtrack. Interesting to note they filmed the American scenes in the UK with painted / photographed backdrops, which gives those sequences the feel of a colourised film noir of the 40s, exactly the type of movie Grahame built her reputation with.

    Oh yes and Barbara Broccoli produced it.

  • JoshuaJoshua Posts: 1,138MI6 Agent

    I did manage to get some of the films on the list of westerns that you all recommended and have been slowly making my way through the first few while on overtime night duties. I did watch my spaghetti western set and am glad that I watched them in order as I think I might have been put off if I had watched the rambling TGTB&TU first.

    I must say I have not been disappointed with any of the recommendations so far. I have watched 'High Noon' 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' and 'True Grit' (John Wayne). Not on the list but I watched this on TV yesterday was a very good western called 'The Gunfighter' with Gregory Peck. I recommend that.

    Other DVD's I got while I was searching for the westerns on the list were 'The Longest Day' 'The Battle of Britain' and 'Tora Tora Tora'. I have not watched these yet but am looking forward to seeing them for the first time.

    Although I am not particularly interested in crime films, I have been told that 'The Godfather' and 'Good Fellows'(?) are good films. They too have been added to my list.

  • Golrush007Golrush007 South AfricaPosts: 3,418Quartermasters
    edited June 2021

    You're getting through some great films there, Joshua. I'm glad you caught The Gunfighter. I wasn't familiar with that film until I came across a podcast discussion of it on the excellent 'How the West was Cast'. I immediately watched the film and it jumped straight into my list of favourite westerns.

    The Longest Day, Battle of Britain and Tora! Tora! Tora! are all terrific. They are really definitive examples of the classic world war II epic. They restage the great battles of WWII on a grand scale with wonderful widescreen cinematography and Longest Day and Battle of Britain boast incredible star studded casts. Tora's cast is a little less famous, but are all quality character actors including the likes of Martin Balsam and Jason Robards. The aerial scenes in Battle of Britain are a sight to behold, as is the impressive recreation of the Pearl Harbor attack in Tora! Tora! Tora! I hope you enjoy those films!

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    Goodfellas is overrated in my book. I like it, but Scorsese isn't doing anything here we haven't seen before. I felt he glamorised the gangster lifestyle too much. The characters are wholly unsympathetic so there's little empathy from the audience towards anyone. It does though have a brilliant sound edit at the beginning, the cut to Rags to Riches by Tony Bennett - a brilliant piece of editing and a great song which encapsulates much of the story's feel.

    The Godfather is a magnificent film. The opening monologue is superb and superbly presented, the whole of the wedding sequence is a bravura slice of filmmaking which introduces us in twenty minutes to all the characters, all their relationships, the dynamic of the Corleone family, their histories. That the film maintains this high level of standard is a tribute to Coppola and his scriptwriter Mario Puzo. The scenes in Sicily are particularly striking and demonstrate how Al Pacino's Michael Corleone comes to encapsulate the titular Godfather.

    The second film is good, but other than the flashback scenes, it basically repeats exactly what we saw in the first film. The third is a grand operatic tragedy, quite fitting as it climaxes at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo.

  • chrisno1chrisno1 LondonPosts: 3,177MI6 Agent

    THE PASSENGER (1975)

    SPOILERS ABOUND!

    Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger is one of the great unsung movies of the 1970s. For many years, due to a legal rights wrangle, the film never had a television showing and was rarely exhibited in cinemas. Recently, this has changed and this masterful film has come to be reappraised and reappreciated, much more so than it was on its initial release.

    “People disappear every day,” says the beautiful female Passenger to Jack Nicholson’s David Locke, a disillusioned journalist making a documentary about the civil war in Chad. When we join him, he is attempting to sight the rebel leaders, but each contact he meets proves fruitless. Nobody is doing for him what they claim to. Nobody communicates with him. Even his car gives up. Back at his hotel, staffed by the same uncommunicative people, Locke finds the only other guest – a businessman called Robinson – has died. The dead man bears an uncanny resemblance to Locke.

    The Passenger is a film about identity. Locke has lost his way, not only geographically, but psychologically, personally. He’s suffering depression, brought on by his wife’s affairs, is drinking hard and appears to have a form of journalistic writer’s block. His investigations have led him nowhere. His editor, Martin Knight [Ian Hendry], plays back some of his final, messy and ill-informed interviews. One with a witchdoctor is turned on its head when the native reverses the camera and interviews Locke. “Your question are much more revealing about yourself than my answer would be about me,” the witchdoctor explains.

    Uncertain of his own personal worth from these earliest moments, Locke, in attempting to reinvent himself, only reinforces the confusion in his mind. When the Passenger asks him: “Who are you?” he explains that he’s trying to be someone else: a novelist, a waiter, a gunrunner. Later she questions him directly: “Which me? […do you mean]” As the story progresses it becomes clear what Locke really wants to be is like the real Robinson: dead. “Wouldn’t it be better if we could just forget all places, forget everything that happens and just throw it all away?” he says.

    Instead of suicide, he has swapped rooms and bodies, stealing the man’s passport and luggage. He uses Robinson’s appointment diary to trace the man’s movements. In Munich he discovers a portfolio of weapons Robinson has been sourcing for the Chad revolt and meets the rebel paymaster. His paranoia increases in Barcelona when he realises Knight has flown from London to chase down ‘Robinson’ in the hope of discovering how ‘Locke’ died. He escapes discovery with the help of a beautiful student [played by Maria Schneider] and they continue to follow the itinerary, but every other contact fails to show up. She never learns exactly who he is, and he never learns her name. At one point, she suggests he’d learn more unpacking her luggage, but she carries only a small bag, deepening for him the non-communications of his past life.

    Assuming another man’s identity doesn’t help Locke to elude his past. People are still uncooperative. His unfaithful wife still pursues him. So too do the police and we learn, the Chad rebels, who are missing the armaments. He feels more hunted now than he was by the inquisitive witchdoctor. Luciano Tovoli’s stark photography highlights his state of mind. The colours are vibrant. The sun bright. Everything moves. For such a still film, there is a tremendous amount of sudden rapid progress. When night falls, everything is pitch, slow, shadowy, difficult to penetrate. The collaborative script holds the same mysteries, gentle conversation interspersed with moments of bustling energy, the characters are all searching for David Locke, but they all search in the day time.   

    Locke understands exactly what is happening, what he’s propagated. He understands his fate and he welcomes it. He knows the danger and tries to send the girl away, but she refuses to leave him. It is at this moment that Nicholson delivers one of the finest monologues of his career as Locke finally recognises the world he inhabits:

    “I know a man who was blind. When he was nearly 40 years old, he had an operation and regained his sight… At first he was elated, really high. Faces, colours, landscapes. But then everything began to change. The world was much poorer than he imagined. No one had ever told him how much dirt there was. How much ugliness. He noticed ugliness everywhere. When he was blind he used to cross the street alone with a stick. After he regained his sight he became afraid. He began to live in darkness. He never left his room. After three years he killed himself.”

    Locke is really describing himself, out of clarity, into confusion, and then trapped inside that uncertainty. The film ends in a crummy Andalusian pension near Almeria with a fantastic snail’s pace tracking shot through a window, accompanied by a single gunshot. The camera reverses, like Locke’s despairing life, so we can see his murdered body. “Do you recognise him?” asks the policeman. “Yes,” replies the girl. Locke has finally achieved his objective: in death he gains an identity.

    A magnificent achievement.

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