George Peppard, Debbie Reynolds and Carroll Baker head an enormous and enormously starry cast for this Cinerama epic western whose story is told in its title. Five segments of narrative stitched together by the overarching history of the fictional Prescott – Rawlings family and a consistently gripping palate of glorious colour and rippling music. The story, frankly, is pants.
Three directors were recruited to film this spectacle and orchestrate the host of alumni. Henry Hathaway starts the ball rolling with The River and The Plains, as Karl Malden’s Zebulon Prescott takes his family out of the east and into the frontier. Along the way they encounter river pirates and James Stewart’s friendly fur trapper, who spends a night with Carroll Baker and is instantly in love. Well, you would be wouldn’t you, with the comely Miss Baker making you a bed of leaves? Later Gregory Peck impersonates himself badly as a river boat gambler who romances Debbie Reynolds’s showgirl. Hathaway also commands the concluding The Outlaws section, which proves tedious despite its intent to crowd please. Generally, the performances are a bit stagey. The lesser artists perform best, guys like Baker, Lee J. Cobb or Robert Preston. The really big stars go through the usual emotions with barely a hint of effort. Peck, Malden, Stewart, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach, the list is endless and there is barely a surprising performance among them. Peppard and Reynolds do try, but they are not given much support.
John Ford took control of the middle The Civil War segment, the most poignant, while George Marshall helmed The Railroad with a confrontational Richard Widmark verbally whipping it to a young George Peppard. A whole subplot starring Hope Lange caught in a love triangle between the two men was edited out when Richard Thorpe was recruited to insert new footage of Peppard and his family for the final segment; with Lange now unavailable Carolyn Jones replaced her and The Railroad episode was shortened. That’s disappointing, as this is by far the most interesting and visceral segment of the film, touching on issues of homesteaders, western expansion, the plight of the Native Americans, corporate greed, etc. The climatic buffalo stampede is quite something and its impact – not only stunningly visual but aurally impressive – must have contributed to the movie winning its Film Editing and Sound Recording Oscars.
Other than that and the scenery there isn’t much to entertain us except star-gazing. The music score from Alfred Newman is bright and the costumes gaudy. Louis L’Amour wrote the outline story and a spin off novel, but not the finished script, a document he lamented over for its lack of authenticity, which is by James R. Webb. It didn’t matter, that too won an Oscar. Unusually, the film opened in London, at the UK’s only Cinerama Cinema, where it ran for over two years. The film didn’t have its US premiere until 1963. It was phenomenally successful and much praised for everything I have praised above, derided for the same.
I last watched this in a pan-and-scan effort when I was about twelve years old. I thought it tremendously dull. It has improved with age [like me!] but still feels like an elementary school lesson, with Spencer Tracy offering a headmasterly narration. At least I got to see it in proper letterbox fashion, giving me an idea of how spectacularly immense it must have looked on that huge Cinerama screen. If I am honest, despite enjoying it, How the West Was Won felt as if it should have been a big, bustling all-star television series. Eventually there was one, in the late seventies, starring James Arness.
Directed by Anthony Page, 'The Missiles of October' is a made-for-TV docudrama starring William Devane as President John F. Kennedy, which was first broadcast on Dec 18, 1974 by ABC-TV.
Reconnaissance flights over Cuba by U-2 stealth planes in Oct 1962 reveal the presence of a Soviet missile base capable of ballistic strike against the mainland. This alarming news prompts President Kennedy to hold emergency meetings in the Oval Office with key national security advisors in order to formulate a strategy against this offensive move by the USSR.
This 150 mins docudrama, reveals in detail, the behind the scenes negotiations between President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (Howard da Silva) over the next two weeks and how this issue was resolved through intelligent diplomacy and consensus agreements.
One of the finest TV docudramas ever made and without any doubt the very best portrayal of President John F. Kennedy by an actor to date.
We all have films we love so much that we watch them repeatedly to the point where we have to put them aside for a time (maybe years) before we can watch them again. Sometimes we've watched a film so often we can say the dialogue along with the cast and think we'll never again receive the same enjoyment we used to. I'm sure you all agree, though the exact films may be different.
The solution to this is very simple: watch the film with your children as they see it for the first time. You'll see their reactions and sense their enjoyment, and your love for said film will be renewed.
Last night this happened for me, the only difference being that it's grandchildren these days. A film that many if not most of us could recite regained at least some of the old pleasure and I had a far better watch of it than I've had for a long time. I recommend this method to all who have kids. The clichés and over familiar scenes were irrelevant; if your kid is enjoying the film, you will too.
I've killed several films to the point that I can't watch them again unless it's under unique circumstances such that the experience becomes fresh. THAT film that you mention is very close to being killed but I was able to see it last year with a full orchestra doing the musical score. It was awesome, and we're going to do the same for the next installment later on this year.
@Barbel entirely agree [not about grandchildren] that films can be 'over watched'. Why dilute one's enjoyment? These days, for me, I am creating great memories of great films and great experiences of films by writing my reviews on AJB. I know I piss some people off with my rhetoric, but when I reread the pieces, I get a warm feeling [or a cold one, like my miniscule take on The Beach] that takes me back to the viewing. I have almost never rewatched a film I have reviewed in the past 5 years.
Thanks, glad we agree. And I may not comment much (I do have stuff to do in the real world) but I read and enjoy your reviews though not necessarily agreeing with them.
Generously advertised as an action comedy, Mr & Mrs Smith sees Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play out a guarded version of eventual real life as two assassins married to each other who have managed to keep home life and work entirely separate and secret – until they are given commissions to eliminate each other. The basic conceit is so daft you can’t take the thing seriously, but the humour count is too low to make us laugh very much. For all that, it is a reasonable couple of hours entertainment although the movie has not weathered well, like the Branjolina marriage itself. Doug Liman, who did superb work on The Bourne Identity, is a sure hand, but nothing really sparkles. The writers / producers should have thought carefully about what kind of product they wanted to make, because the premise has legs; but presented like this they are rather short legs. Angelina Jolie’s rather magnificent legs deserved better.
Jeremy Renner plays Wyoming wild game ranger Cory Lambert who on a winter’s track and hunt on the Wind River Indian Reservation discovers the corpse of a raped teenage girl half buried by a snow storm. The local Indian Police seem only half interested until Elisabeth Olsen’s greenhorn FBI detective Jane Banner takes control. Investigations do not run smooth and the plot thickens when they discover the body of the girl’s boyfriend.
An excellent screenplay from writer / director Taylor Sheridan aids the flavour and atmosphere of the film, ensuring we empathise with Renner’s grieving hunter – whose daughter was murdered in similar circumstances – as well as Olsen’s difficulties managing the local, almost lawless, townspeople – a lawlessness that includes a hands off style of local tribal policing. The plight of Native Americans in modern society is addressed: little money or prospects, poor education, drugs, disinterest, disillusion and a conspicuous dignity at odds with the world outside their traditional instincts. There is a keen sense of place and character, especially from Renner who, for an actor I rarely warm to, is exceptional here, a laconic, intense and rueful man clinging to his past while living in the present. The scene where he discusses grief with Gil Birmingham’s tormented father is particularly affecting. Ben Richardson’s photography and Gary Roach’s assured edits ensure we are never confused but stay interested and alert. The melancholy music was partly scored by Nick Cave.
While clearly modern, the film follows the tropes of a western. Renner’s buffalo hunter, Olsen’s frontier marshal, Graham Greene’s town sheriff, the gang of hoodlums, an Arapaho reservation, wintery Wyoming locations, a killing, a hunt, a stand-off, even the seeming slow tick-tock as time ekes away to an approaching storm. The film is tense when it needs to be, philosophical too, and doesn’t waste energy on unnecessary sentiment. If the final confrontation isn’t quite up to a classic cowboy movie, it has the same cyclical sense of vengeance portrayed in many an Italian western.
Billy Wilder's relaxed comedy Avanti with Jack Lemon and Juliet Mills.
I thought this film was late 60s but it's 1972. It has a soft-edged feel to it and goes on long - 2 and a half hours - a bit like movies of the late 60s such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Thoroughly Modern Millie and - dare I say - On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Now, Wilder is a comedy genius given he is responsible for Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, and that's before you get to stuff like Double Indemnity, but it does seem in the 70s someone said to him, 'Hey, why so genius? Take it easy from now on...' and the result is things like Avanti.
It's about a middle-aged, top ranking American executive who heads to a remote Italian island after he's informed his father has died in a car accident there during one of his annual trips for rest and recuperation. En route he encounters Juliet Mills, who is a stereotypical English woman seen through American eyes, sort of like the geese with bonnets in The Aristocats, but her comedy routine is just okay, you find yourself thinking Julie Andrews might have played it better. Likewise, Lemon's grouchy schtick seems better written for another Wilder stalwart, Walther Matthau. Or maybe the UK's Harry H Corbett would be better at conveying his indignation and exasperation as he realises that his respected father was using his annual trips to indulge in an ongoing fling with someone - that someone also died in the accident, and Ms Mills is the daughter also arriving to ID the body. It's not your usual opening to a romantic-style comedy.
There then appears the reason why the role couldn't be given to Matthau - Lemon's character has to get his kit off a bit, and play the romantic lead at one point and I'm not sure Matthau ever really did that. And Andrews couldn't have taken the role because an unhappy running joke references the Mills character as 'chubby' or 'fat' and Andrews never had that about her, either. Aspects of the film haven't aged well.
In the 60s, native roles of hotel staff might have been given to Warren Mitchell (there is one lookalike here) or Peter Sellers as the maitre d' (though it would be beneath his pay grade) and kudos for Wilder for not going that, but... ultimately nobody in the film is really that likeable in that you want to spend two and a half hours in their company, even though the sunny locations are lovely, though I didn't think it a great movie paradoxically I'd quite enjoy watching it on a dull afternoon in the cinema, it would transport you.
The poster implies that Avanti! is more of a madcap comedy than it is, or that it's a Blake Edwards film, and Edwards would have been better at handling the farcical aspects of the film, he had a warm-hearted tone that softens the cynicism of things like Breakfast at Tiffany's, which deals with quite adult themes. Anyone would prefer the sharper, more sarcastic and wittier humour of Some Like It Hot but in that and The Apartment, Lemon's character is up against some significant challenges where he occupies the high moral ground and we don't get that here, he comes across as more of a whiner exasperated by foreigners. There are topical aspects of the post-war American feeling that Europe owes him some special dispensation... Also a very smart gag with a coffin that recalls Diamonds Are Forever a year earlier, though here's the thing - Diamonds works better as a comedy than Avanti! in that it simply has more jokes that work and it's enjoyable on that basis, just not enjoyable for Bond fans expecting a thriller. Likewise, Casablanca is a comedy if you count the jokes, which are brilliant, but then again we don't call it a comedy.
But generally the snap and wit of earlier Wilder is replaced with broad comedy, indulgent smiles and a film in which the characters are meant to be stereotypes, the events supposed to be predictable, that's where the enjoyment lies - leavened by some black humour, 'adult' attitudes to extra-marital affairs (that Glenda Jackson comedy with the American actor from Quiller, Lord, I don't know have I got Long Covid or is it just age - did better). Mills also gets her tits out in this, if @chrisno1 is interested, though it seems a bit gratutitous and not as good as Susan Penhaligan's I dare say, she also waves her naked feet about at one stage...but I'd prefer the gags, really.
Wilder is just too cynical or straight-eyed to do a film like this, where ultimately we are meant to celebrate the fact that [spoiler alert] Lemon's married man leans towards the same arrangement as his late father, and that of Fred MacMurray's morally disgraced character in The Apartment. I sort of recall Tony Curtis' sour anecdote about how in the late 60s or 70s he encountered Wilder in a restaurant and knelt before him in grief, saying 'Billy, my son has just died of drugs...' and an unmoved Wilder replied 'You taught him it...' Again, Edwards would have been better at handling this kind of material in a way that allows the audience to overlook or find funny the moral ambiguities - to put it mildly. In the film's running time I'm not sure we ever find out if Lemon's father was married at the time of his death, I'm guessing he wasn't, but the adulterous aspects are unconvincingly glossed over - Lemon's character is married, and I'm not sure Juliet Mills' character gets such a good deal at the end of it, either. Again, for such a long film with unnecessary farcical elements that could have been solved had the characters just been straight with each other, you don't feel Wilder has the inbuilt sympathy or charity towards his own material, while two key plot points involving romance and the deceased are handled very briskly. Ultimately there isn't much sexual tension between Lemon and Mills throughout the movie.
Worth watching over a bottle of white wine, for all that.
That not withstanding, your pieces have been ripping of AJB for some time now, tolerated by a succession of weak moderators who have failed this website so comprehensively over the decades, so I will be imposing tariffs of 50% on your reviews, starting at midnight tonight.
Any attempts to retaliate by posting even better movie reviews will be met with even higher tariffs.
All we are looking for is a level-playing field for reviewers on this site. This is going to be a new golden age for AJB007...It's going to be beautiful to see.
Richard Burton is very good in this downbeat thriller that trawls familiar territory to Performance and Get Carter. He plays vicious homosexual gangster baron Vic Dakin, a man who is as much in love with beating people up as he is caring for his ailing old Ma. If the storyline of police pursuit and bank robbery doesn’t quite hold up, Villain’s subplot surrounding Dakin and his young lover, who share a sadomasochistic master and servant relationship, more than compensates. What particularly enthrals throughout is the almost genial nastiness, a sense of men almost permanently on the edge of losing control to violence, while maintaining a semblance of normality. Unlike Michael Caine’s obviously single minded psychotic Jack Carter, Burton’s character has an almost homely presence, only broken by his steely blue eyed gaze that manipulates and terrifies. His actions start off horrific and barely let up. Intimidation is his forte and that usually involves his ring finger knuckle duster or a cut throat razor. Nasty indeed. Nigel Davenport makes a decent stab at the detective on Vic’s trail, prowling the same strip clubs, pubs and casinos as his quarry. Josh Ackland is a nervous hood. Donald Sinden enjoys himself as a pervy MP who gets blackmailed sleeping with teenagers at posh sex parties. I enjoyed Villain’s sleazy atmosphere even if the violence felt over exaggerated.
Burton’s Dakin is a not very subtle characterisation of Ronnie Kray and the story mirrors some events in the Kray twins criminal career. Very much underrated and seldom seem for a very long time after release. One of Burton’s finest performances.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Written by NSNA scribes Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais - isn't that Nigel Davenport having a very small and pointless role in the Bond film, as one of the English Whitehall suits? Perhaps that's how he got the job.
THE AMATEUR (2025) with Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Laurence Fishburne, and several other people you'd recognize.
The premise: Rami Malek is Charlie Heller, a CIA analyst working in encryption/decryption at the CIA. His wife, Brosnahan, goes off to London for a work trip and gets killed in a hostage event by a team of four assailants. Using his analysis skills, he figures out who the assailants are and presents his findings to his superiors...who opt to do nothing. Angry, he blackmails his boss with information he's received, forcing him to put him through training to go and kill the bad guys himself.
This is pretty solid. Heller is very good at what he does but isn't a killer. He figures this out pretty quickly so he uses the skills that he DOES have to great effect. He's intelligent and the film lets him BE intelligent while also making mistakes that feel reasonable. The good news is that everyone else in the film is intelligent too. Everyone...good and bad...is good at their job, and most of the events in the film happen as the result of logic vs 'because movie' plotting. It's fun to see people write off Malek and then come to kinda admire him for what he's actually accomplished.
The film is better acted than it needs to be. Everyone puts in solid work. The film also takes advantage of real European locations vs soundstages, giving the proceedings a great sense of realism and immersion. To that end, it reminded me a lot of the BOURNE films in terms of utilizing real locations. I would not put it in the same league as the BOURNE films but it's much better than the trailers would indicate.
If you're looking for a good throwback thriller, you can do a lot worse than this. This feels like a film that people will be discovering for a couple of years and will develop a following.
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 9,317MI6 Agent
Are we talking about Trump's real-world tariffs or my fictional attempt to impose tariffs on ChrisNo1's reviews?
In any case, lest @chrisno1 took offence, I was only joking - his reviews are one of the main reasons for logging onto this site esp given the paucity of James Bond news, though other incentives include the saucy book covers thread and probably the Fictional Conversations, though I don't visit that one too often, I feel a bit intimidated by it.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 9,317MI6 Agent
I was of course referring to the real-world tariffs. However, best say no more about them. @chrisno1's reviews are legendary and I agree that he is a great asset to the site. Such a prolific reviewer and writer.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
I think we should have high tariffs on Chrisno's movie reviews. They are unfairly long and well-written, and this has been going on for far too long.! If he doesn't cut the length of his reviews by half and the time he spends working on them by 95% we will deny him the right to watch 150% of the movies he watches. I considered a tariff where we wrote at least as long reviews as him, and at our current level of quality and thoughtfulness, but then I realised this would require more work from us.
Actually I did a massive review of the Beatles' second album - probably two thousand words long - and it could have done with some tariffs because nobody commented on it.
This movie shows the terrorist attack and hostage crisis during the 1972 Olympics from the point of view of the ABC sports news team. This was the first Olympics broadcast via satellite all over the world, and it turned out to also be the first terrorist attacked broadcast live all over the world. When the attack happened the sports news team were near the scene of the hostage crisis and had cameras while the news journalists were to far away to get there in time, so the sports journalists had to report the very sensitive events. They decided on very difficult ethical issues such as what to show, how did their reporting influence what happened, what to call the attackers and if they should report on something with only one questionable source or wait for multiple trustworthy sources and risk not being first with the story.
This feels like the best thrillers of that age such as The Parallax View, The Jackal, All the President's Men and so on. But this time the events take place in one day and the tension rarely lets go. The movie has a claustrophobic feel since almost all of it takes place inside the ABC studio in Munich. Nearly all the footage from outside and on the TV screens is real footage from the event. Other things I like is how the technology of the time is focused. Yet another positive is how the (at the time) recent history of Jews in Germany is shown as a backdrop. In 1972 WWII was only thirty years ago many survivors of the Holocaust were still alive and most old German men had served in the war.
In my opinion the acting is very good. Peter Sarsgaard, Ben Chaplin, John Magaro and Leonie Benech play the most important parts. I suspect I'll list this as one of the best movies of 2025 at the end of the year, and I'll be disappointed if it's not rewarded with at least some nominations for Oscars. I a time when the cinema is dominated by superhero movies and other flashy "content" it feels great to find a smart drama based on real events and tackling important issues.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,890Chief of Staff
Tbf, I wrote it late at night and it comes across as a bit wired, it's the sort of review that says so much there's nothing anybody could possibly add to it. A good many digressions, in particular into how the Beatles coordinated their single releases in relation to their albums.
Hi @Number24 I was going to see that but it didn't last too long at my local. It did remind me of a famous documentary from 1999, One Day in September, which of course covered the same events.
Then again, that's quarter of a century ago, that doc. It's similar to me thinking, why has this issue been covered again? Forgetting that for a new generation, this is the first time they're hearing about it.
Thanks @Napoleon Plural although it’s not really a review of the album 🤗 which is a shame as it IS a good album…but, as I think you said, the US version is better.
Plus Rain is a fantastic track…played faster in the studio but then slowed down for the actual record - poor Ringo having to keep a high tempo going all the way through 😅 and Rain was the original name of Oasis 🤨
For some reason the link I posted was that of the very first page of the vinyl thread - I have now corrected that.
That post is indeed not much about With the Beatles - but you underestimate how much my post goes on; read on to the post after that and it tackles the album itself.
Comments
HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1962)
George Peppard, Debbie Reynolds and Carroll Baker head an enormous and enormously starry cast for this Cinerama epic western whose story is told in its title. Five segments of narrative stitched together by the overarching history of the fictional Prescott – Rawlings family and a consistently gripping palate of glorious colour and rippling music. The story, frankly, is pants.
Three directors were recruited to film this spectacle and orchestrate the host of alumni. Henry Hathaway starts the ball rolling with The River and The Plains, as Karl Malden’s Zebulon Prescott takes his family out of the east and into the frontier. Along the way they encounter river pirates and James Stewart’s friendly fur trapper, who spends a night with Carroll Baker and is instantly in love. Well, you would be wouldn’t you, with the comely Miss Baker making you a bed of leaves? Later Gregory Peck impersonates himself badly as a river boat gambler who romances Debbie Reynolds’s showgirl. Hathaway also commands the concluding The Outlaws section, which proves tedious despite its intent to crowd please. Generally, the performances are a bit stagey. The lesser artists perform best, guys like Baker, Lee J. Cobb or Robert Preston. The really big stars go through the usual emotions with barely a hint of effort. Peck, Malden, Stewart, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Thelma Ritter, Eli Wallach, the list is endless and there is barely a surprising performance among them. Peppard and Reynolds do try, but they are not given much support.
John Ford took control of the middle The Civil War segment, the most poignant, while George Marshall helmed The Railroad with a confrontational Richard Widmark verbally whipping it to a young George Peppard. A whole subplot starring Hope Lange caught in a love triangle between the two men was edited out when Richard Thorpe was recruited to insert new footage of Peppard and his family for the final segment; with Lange now unavailable Carolyn Jones replaced her and The Railroad episode was shortened. That’s disappointing, as this is by far the most interesting and visceral segment of the film, touching on issues of homesteaders, western expansion, the plight of the Native Americans, corporate greed, etc. The climatic buffalo stampede is quite something and its impact – not only stunningly visual but aurally impressive – must have contributed to the movie winning its Film Editing and Sound Recording Oscars.
Other than that and the scenery there isn’t much to entertain us except star-gazing. The music score from Alfred Newman is bright and the costumes gaudy. Louis L’Amour wrote the outline story and a spin off novel, but not the finished script, a document he lamented over for its lack of authenticity, which is by James R. Webb. It didn’t matter, that too won an Oscar. Unusually, the film opened in London, at the UK’s only Cinerama Cinema, where it ran for over two years. The film didn’t have its US premiere until 1963. It was phenomenally successful and much praised for everything I have praised above, derided for the same.
I last watched this in a pan-and-scan effort when I was about twelve years old. I thought it tremendously dull. It has improved with age [like me!] but still feels like an elementary school lesson, with Spencer Tracy offering a headmasterly narration. At least I got to see it in proper letterbox fashion, giving me an idea of how spectacularly immense it must have looked on that huge Cinerama screen. If I am honest, despite enjoying it, How the West Was Won felt as if it should have been a big, bustling all-star television series. Eventually there was one, in the late seventies, starring James Arness.
Worth a look, I’d say, but don’t expect too much.
THE MISSILES OF OCTOBER (1974)
Directed by Anthony Page, 'The Missiles of October' is a made-for-TV docudrama starring William Devane as President John F. Kennedy, which was first broadcast on Dec 18, 1974 by ABC-TV.
Reconnaissance flights over Cuba by U-2 stealth planes in Oct 1962 reveal the presence of a Soviet missile base capable of ballistic strike against the mainland. This alarming news prompts President Kennedy to hold emergency meetings in the Oval Office with key national security advisors in order to formulate a strategy against this offensive move by the USSR.
This 150 mins docudrama, reveals in detail, the behind the scenes negotiations between President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev (Howard da Silva) over the next two weeks and how this issue was resolved through intelligent diplomacy and consensus agreements.
One of the finest TV docudramas ever made and without any doubt the very best portrayal of President John F. Kennedy by an actor to date.
Exceptional teleplay.
We all have films we love so much that we watch them repeatedly to the point where we have to put them aside for a time (maybe years) before we can watch them again. Sometimes we've watched a film so often we can say the dialogue along with the cast and think we'll never again receive the same enjoyment we used to. I'm sure you all agree, though the exact films may be different.
The solution to this is very simple: watch the film with your children as they see it for the first time. You'll see their reactions and sense their enjoyment, and your love for said film will be renewed.
Last night this happened for me, the only difference being that it's grandchildren these days. A film that many if not most of us could recite regained at least some of the old pleasure and I had a far better watch of it than I've had for a long time. I recommend this method to all who have kids. The clichés and over familiar scenes were irrelevant; if your kid is enjoying the film, you will too.
Oh, the film?
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
I've killed several films to the point that I can't watch them again unless it's under unique circumstances such that the experience becomes fresh. THAT film that you mention is very close to being killed but I was able to see it last year with a full orchestra doing the musical score. It was awesome, and we're going to do the same for the next installment later on this year.
@Barbel entirely agree [not about grandchildren] that films can be 'over watched'. Why dilute one's enjoyment? These days, for me, I am creating great memories of great films and great experiences of films by writing my reviews on AJB. I know I piss some people off with my rhetoric, but when I reread the pieces, I get a warm feeling [or a cold one, like my miniscule take on The Beach] that takes me back to the viewing. I have almost never rewatched a film I have reviewed in the past 5 years.
Thanks for that @Sonero It is a new one on me, so I may give it a glance.
Thanks, glad we agree. And I may not comment much (I do have stuff to do in the real world) but I read and enjoy your reviews though not necessarily agreeing with them.
MR & MRS SMITH (2005)
Generously advertised as an action comedy, Mr & Mrs Smith sees Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie play out a guarded version of eventual real life as two assassins married to each other who have managed to keep home life and work entirely separate and secret – until they are given commissions to eliminate each other. The basic conceit is so daft you can’t take the thing seriously, but the humour count is too low to make us laugh very much. For all that, it is a reasonable couple of hours entertainment although the movie has not weathered well, like the Branjolina marriage itself. Doug Liman, who did superb work on The Bourne Identity, is a sure hand, but nothing really sparkles. The writers / producers should have thought carefully about what kind of product they wanted to make, because the premise has legs; but presented like this they are rather short legs. Angelina Jolie’s rather magnificent legs deserved better.
WIND RIVER (2017)
An excellent modern western.
Jeremy Renner plays Wyoming wild game ranger Cory Lambert who on a winter’s track and hunt on the Wind River Indian Reservation discovers the corpse of a raped teenage girl half buried by a snow storm. The local Indian Police seem only half interested until Elisabeth Olsen’s greenhorn FBI detective Jane Banner takes control. Investigations do not run smooth and the plot thickens when they discover the body of the girl’s boyfriend.
An excellent screenplay from writer / director Taylor Sheridan aids the flavour and atmosphere of the film, ensuring we empathise with Renner’s grieving hunter – whose daughter was murdered in similar circumstances – as well as Olsen’s difficulties managing the local, almost lawless, townspeople – a lawlessness that includes a hands off style of local tribal policing. The plight of Native Americans in modern society is addressed: little money or prospects, poor education, drugs, disinterest, disillusion and a conspicuous dignity at odds with the world outside their traditional instincts. There is a keen sense of place and character, especially from Renner who, for an actor I rarely warm to, is exceptional here, a laconic, intense and rueful man clinging to his past while living in the present. The scene where he discusses grief with Gil Birmingham’s tormented father is particularly affecting. Ben Richardson’s photography and Gary Roach’s assured edits ensure we are never confused but stay interested and alert. The melancholy music was partly scored by Nick Cave.
While clearly modern, the film follows the tropes of a western. Renner’s buffalo hunter, Olsen’s frontier marshal, Graham Greene’s town sheriff, the gang of hoodlums, an Arapaho reservation, wintery Wyoming locations, a killing, a hunt, a stand-off, even the seeming slow tick-tock as time ekes away to an approaching storm. The film is tense when it needs to be, philosophical too, and doesn’t waste energy on unnecessary sentiment. If the final confrontation isn’t quite up to a classic cowboy movie, it has the same cyclical sense of vengeance portrayed in many an Italian western.
As I said, excellent.
Billy Wilder's relaxed comedy Avanti with Jack Lemon and Juliet Mills.
I thought this film was late 60s but it's 1972. It has a soft-edged feel to it and goes on long - 2 and a half hours - a bit like movies of the late 60s such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Thoroughly Modern Millie and - dare I say - On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
Now, Wilder is a comedy genius given he is responsible for Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, and that's before you get to stuff like Double Indemnity, but it does seem in the 70s someone said to him, 'Hey, why so genius? Take it easy from now on...' and the result is things like Avanti.
It's about a middle-aged, top ranking American executive who heads to a remote Italian island after he's informed his father has died in a car accident there during one of his annual trips for rest and recuperation. En route he encounters Juliet Mills, who is a stereotypical English woman seen through American eyes, sort of like the geese with bonnets in The Aristocats, but her comedy routine is just okay, you find yourself thinking Julie Andrews might have played it better. Likewise, Lemon's grouchy schtick seems better written for another Wilder stalwart, Walther Matthau. Or maybe the UK's Harry H Corbett would be better at conveying his indignation and exasperation as he realises that his respected father was using his annual trips to indulge in an ongoing fling with someone - that someone also died in the accident, and Ms Mills is the daughter also arriving to ID the body. It's not your usual opening to a romantic-style comedy.
There then appears the reason why the role couldn't be given to Matthau - Lemon's character has to get his kit off a bit, and play the romantic lead at one point and I'm not sure Matthau ever really did that. And Andrews couldn't have taken the role because an unhappy running joke references the Mills character as 'chubby' or 'fat' and Andrews never had that about her, either. Aspects of the film haven't aged well.
In the 60s, native roles of hotel staff might have been given to Warren Mitchell (there is one lookalike here) or Peter Sellers as the maitre d' (though it would be beneath his pay grade) and kudos for Wilder for not going that, but... ultimately nobody in the film is really that likeable in that you want to spend two and a half hours in their company, even though the sunny locations are lovely, though I didn't think it a great movie paradoxically I'd quite enjoy watching it on a dull afternoon in the cinema, it would transport you.
The poster implies that Avanti! is more of a madcap comedy than it is, or that it's a Blake Edwards film, and Edwards would have been better at handling the farcical aspects of the film, he had a warm-hearted tone that softens the cynicism of things like Breakfast at Tiffany's, which deals with quite adult themes. Anyone would prefer the sharper, more sarcastic and wittier humour of Some Like It Hot but in that and The Apartment, Lemon's character is up against some significant challenges where he occupies the high moral ground and we don't get that here, he comes across as more of a whiner exasperated by foreigners. There are topical aspects of the post-war American feeling that Europe owes him some special dispensation... Also a very smart gag with a coffin that recalls Diamonds Are Forever a year earlier, though here's the thing - Diamonds works better as a comedy than Avanti! in that it simply has more jokes that work and it's enjoyable on that basis, just not enjoyable for Bond fans expecting a thriller. Likewise, Casablanca is a comedy if you count the jokes, which are brilliant, but then again we don't call it a comedy.
But generally the snap and wit of earlier Wilder is replaced with broad comedy, indulgent smiles and a film in which the characters are meant to be stereotypes, the events supposed to be predictable, that's where the enjoyment lies - leavened by some black humour, 'adult' attitudes to extra-marital affairs (that Glenda Jackson comedy with the American actor from Quiller, Lord, I don't know have I got Long Covid or is it just age - did better). Mills also gets her tits out in this, if @chrisno1 is interested, though it seems a bit gratutitous and not as good as Susan Penhaligan's I dare say, she also waves her naked feet about at one stage...but I'd prefer the gags, really.
Wilder is just too cynical or straight-eyed to do a film like this, where ultimately we are meant to celebrate the fact that [spoiler alert] Lemon's married man leans towards the same arrangement as his late father, and that of Fred MacMurray's morally disgraced character in The Apartment. I sort of recall Tony Curtis' sour anecdote about how in the late 60s or 70s he encountered Wilder in a restaurant and knelt before him in grief, saying 'Billy, my son has just died of drugs...' and an unmoved Wilder replied 'You taught him it...' Again, Edwards would have been better at handling this kind of material in a way that allows the audience to overlook or find funny the moral ambiguities - to put it mildly. In the film's running time I'm not sure we ever find out if Lemon's father was married at the time of his death, I'm guessing he wasn't, but the adulterous aspects are unconvincingly glossed over - Lemon's character is married, and I'm not sure Juliet Mills' character gets such a good deal at the end of it, either. Again, for such a long film with unnecessary farcical elements that could have been solved had the characters just been straight with each other, you don't feel Wilder has the inbuilt sympathy or charity towards his own material, while two key plot points involving romance and the deceased are handled very briskly. Ultimately there isn't much sexual tension between Lemon and Mills throughout the movie.
Worth watching over a bottle of white wine, for all that.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
That not withstanding, your pieces have been ripping of AJB for some time now, tolerated by a succession of weak moderators who have failed this website so comprehensively over the decades, so I will be imposing tariffs of 50% on your reviews, starting at midnight tonight.
Any attempts to retaliate by posting even better movie reviews will be met with even higher tariffs.
All we are looking for is a level-playing field for reviewers on this site. This is going to be a new golden age for AJB007...It's going to be beautiful to see.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I could get really upset about this, but really, what's the point?
Backhanded compliments are as appreciated as front facing ones IMO 😉
"Faker reviews! Fake reviews!"
Roger Moore 1927-2017
After some voiced concern, I have decided to suspend tariffs on reviews for three months...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cp8vyy35g3mt
Roger Moore 1927-2017
VILLAIN (1971)
Richard Burton is very good in this downbeat thriller that trawls familiar territory to Performance and Get Carter. He plays vicious homosexual gangster baron Vic Dakin, a man who is as much in love with beating people up as he is caring for his ailing old Ma. If the storyline of police pursuit and bank robbery doesn’t quite hold up, Villain’s subplot surrounding Dakin and his young lover, who share a sadomasochistic master and servant relationship, more than compensates. What particularly enthrals throughout is the almost genial nastiness, a sense of men almost permanently on the edge of losing control to violence, while maintaining a semblance of normality. Unlike Michael Caine’s obviously single minded psychotic Jack Carter, Burton’s character has an almost homely presence, only broken by his steely blue eyed gaze that manipulates and terrifies. His actions start off horrific and barely let up. Intimidation is his forte and that usually involves his ring finger knuckle duster or a cut throat razor. Nasty indeed. Nigel Davenport makes a decent stab at the detective on Vic’s trail, prowling the same strip clubs, pubs and casinos as his quarry. Josh Ackland is a nervous hood. Donald Sinden enjoys himself as a pervy MP who gets blackmailed sleeping with teenagers at posh sex parties. I enjoyed Villain’s sleazy atmosphere even if the violence felt over exaggerated.
Burton’s Dakin is a not very subtle characterisation of Ronnie Kray and the story mirrors some events in the Kray twins criminal career. Very much underrated and seldom seem for a very long time after release. One of Burton’s finest performances.
Written by NSNA scribes Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais - isn't that Nigel Davenport having a very small and pointless role in the Bond film, as one of the English Whitehall suits? Perhaps that's how he got the job.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
THE AMATEUR (2025) with Rami Malek, Rachel Brosnahan, Laurence Fishburne, and several other people you'd recognize.
The premise: Rami Malek is Charlie Heller, a CIA analyst working in encryption/decryption at the CIA. His wife, Brosnahan, goes off to London for a work trip and gets killed in a hostage event by a team of four assailants. Using his analysis skills, he figures out who the assailants are and presents his findings to his superiors...who opt to do nothing. Angry, he blackmails his boss with information he's received, forcing him to put him through training to go and kill the bad guys himself.
This is pretty solid. Heller is very good at what he does but isn't a killer. He figures this out pretty quickly so he uses the skills that he DOES have to great effect. He's intelligent and the film lets him BE intelligent while also making mistakes that feel reasonable. The good news is that everyone else in the film is intelligent too. Everyone...good and bad...is good at their job, and most of the events in the film happen as the result of logic vs 'because movie' plotting. It's fun to see people write off Malek and then come to kinda admire him for what he's actually accomplished.
The film is better acted than it needs to be. Everyone puts in solid work. The film also takes advantage of real European locations vs soundstages, giving the proceedings a great sense of realism and immersion. To that end, it reminded me a lot of the BOURNE films in terms of utilizing real locations. I would not put it in the same league as the BOURNE films but it's much better than the trailers would indicate.
If you're looking for a good throwback thriller, you can do a lot worse than this. This feels like a film that people will be discovering for a couple of years and will develop a following.
The saying "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread" comes to mind regarding these tariffs and the U-turn on them.
Are we talking about Trump's real-world tariffs or my fictional attempt to impose tariffs on ChrisNo1's reviews?
In any case, lest @chrisno1 took offence, I was only joking - his reviews are one of the main reasons for logging onto this site esp given the paucity of James Bond news, though other incentives include the saucy book covers thread and probably the Fictional Conversations, though I don't visit that one too often, I feel a bit intimidated by it.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I was of course referring to the real-world tariffs. However, best say no more about them. @chrisno1's reviews are legendary and I agree that he is a great asset to the site. Such a prolific reviewer and writer.
I think we should have high tariffs on Chrisno's movie reviews. They are unfairly long and well-written, and this has been going on for far too long.! If he doesn't cut the length of his reviews by half and the time he spends working on them by 95% we will deny him the right to watch 150% of the movies he watches. I considered a tariff where we wrote at least as long reviews as him, and at our current level of quality and thoughtfulness, but then I realised this would require more work from us.
Actually I did a massive review of the Beatles' second album - probably two thousand words long - and it could have done with some tariffs because nobody commented on it.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
September 5 (2024)
This movie shows the terrorist attack and hostage crisis during the 1972 Olympics from the point of view of the ABC sports news team. This was the first Olympics broadcast via satellite all over the world, and it turned out to also be the first terrorist attacked broadcast live all over the world. When the attack happened the sports news team were near the scene of the hostage crisis and had cameras while the news journalists were to far away to get there in time, so the sports journalists had to report the very sensitive events. They decided on very difficult ethical issues such as what to show, how did their reporting influence what happened, what to call the attackers and if they should report on something with only one questionable source or wait for multiple trustworthy sources and risk not being first with the story.
This feels like the best thrillers of that age such as The Parallax View, The Jackal, All the President's Men and so on. But this time the events take place in one day and the tension rarely lets go. The movie has a claustrophobic feel since almost all of it takes place inside the ABC studio in Munich. Nearly all the footage from outside and on the TV screens is real footage from the event. Other things I like is how the technology of the time is focused. Yet another positive is how the (at the time) recent history of Jews in Germany is shown as a backdrop. In 1972 WWII was only thirty years ago many survivors of the Holocaust were still alive and most old German men had served in the war.
In my opinion the acting is very good. Peter Sarsgaard, Ben Chaplin, John Magaro and Leonie Benech play the most important parts. I suspect I'll list this as one of the best movies of 2025 at the end of the year, and I'll be disappointed if it's not rewarded with at least some nominations for Oscars. I a time when the cinema is dominated by superhero movies and other flashy "content" it feels great to find a smart drama based on real events and tackling important issues.
Really…post a link to it for me please - because I’m too lazy to go search for it 🤗
It's here, about sixth post down - With the Beatles
https://www.ajb007.co.uk/discussion/44140/why-i-love-collecting-vinyl-records/p11
Tbf, I wrote it late at night and it comes across as a bit wired, it's the sort of review that says so much there's nothing anybody could possibly add to it. A good many digressions, in particular into how the Beatles coordinated their single releases in relation to their albums.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Hi @Number24 I was going to see that but it didn't last too long at my local. It did remind me of a famous documentary from 1999, One Day in September, which of course covered the same events.
Then again, that's quarter of a century ago, that doc. It's similar to me thinking, why has this issue been covered again? Forgetting that for a new generation, this is the first time they're hearing about it.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I guess a big part of the reason "September 5" was made is the press angle, how the event changed journalism and the ethical challenges they faced.
Thanks @Napoleon Plural although it’s not really a review of the album 🤗 which is a shame as it IS a good album…but, as I think you said, the US version is better.
Plus Rain is a fantastic track…played faster in the studio but then slowed down for the actual record - poor Ringo having to keep a high tempo going all the way through 😅 and Rain was the original name of Oasis 🤨
For some reason the link I posted was that of the very first page of the vinyl thread - I have now corrected that.
That post is indeed not much about With the Beatles - but you underestimate how much my post goes on; read on to the post after that and it tackles the album itself.
Roger Moore 1927-2017