I can't say I saw all of Jonathan Miller's TV movie Alice in Wonderland (1966) shown this morning on Talking Pictures TV at 10am. Initially I thought, wow, this really is mad... it's in lovely black and white, puts me in mind of the cover of the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society, or one of the LP's covers anyway. Wonderfully evocative not just of the 60s but the turn of the century... hardly any dialogue at first, just oddness, it's clear it's meant to be all a dream, as Alice goes around encountering various characters, or actors meant to be Lewis Carroll's characters.
What a line-up! Steptoe's Wilfrid Brambell, Leo McKern, Peter Sellers, Peter Cook doing a Derek Nimmo impersonation, John Guilgud, Alan Bennett... That all said, it was so dreamlike, with the lead actress directed to look wholly out of it, that it felt too odd, much of it making no sense, like being stuck in a nursing home where ther residents talk gibberish. One year before the Beatles presented us with Magical Mystery Tour as a Christmas 'treat' for viewers, at least that had some decent songs and was in colour (though the BBC put it out in black and white first showing). The Fab 4's notorious bomb was the model of good humour and coherency compared to this, they probably thought they might get away with it if Miller did, and you can see it was part of the the zeitgeist, esp with Ravi Shankar doing the lovely understated Indian music on it.
It's all very Strawberry Fields and I'm glad it exists - it conjures up a nightmare dream world but the sort where you wouldn't want to live there or sit through it or revisit it imo.
It’s nearing Halloween and that means every film channel is revisiting horror movie favourites. We had Halloween itself on the other night, but I didn’t watch it. Instead I stumbled over this late night retro slasher blood fest from writer / director Ti West.
Mia Goth, Brittany Snow and Jenny Ortega play wannabe porn stars in Bible Belt Texas 1979 who spend a weekend ***ing black stud Scott Meascudi in an attempt to make the most artistic hardcore film ever. It isn’t that. Tawdry, cheap and tasteless springs to mind. Meanwhile, the ancient couple who live up on the hill take a creepy and intense interest in the clan of young filmmakers, as does a rogue crocodile. Killings galore and a final twist that I didn’t see coming make an eventful and entertaining film, even if it is a tad too long. Some neat editing tricks keep us visually interested even if the gore count is as by the numbers as you can get. X is rather predictable until the end, but quite enjoyable, well photographed and at times distinctly uncomfortable viewing – one does feel we shouldn’t enjoy the sex stuff too much, given we are watching the same rutting antics of these naked young things as the wrinkly old voyeurs on the hill. A nice ironic touch unusual in the horror genre.
It wasn’t until I saw the cast list that realised Mia Goth plays both the sexy heroine Maxine Minx and – thanks to some superb prosthetic make up – the decrepit old crone Pearl, both women ram packed with overactive hormones and capable of murder like the best of seventies horror victims and heroes. Director and star quickly made a prequel and a sequel, of which I will review Pearl tomorrow.
Ms. Elizabeth Lipp, a brilliant jewel thief has her eyes set on the emerald dagger of Sultan Mahmud I, held secure in the Topkapi Palace museum in Istanbul, Turkey.
With the help of her former lover Walter Harper, they assemble a team of amateurs to steal the dagger.
Muscle man Hans Fischer, gymnast Giulio, tinkerer Cedric Page and the height phobic Arthur Simon Simpson.
Hot on their trails is the Turkish police, who still cannot figure out the motivations of this group.
Stylishly filmed and wonderfully paced, Topkapi is a visual treat.
PS: If you ever get a chance to visit the beautiful Topkapi Palace, be sure to visit the Istanbul Archeological Museum, which is situated just behind it. The museum contains some of the finest antiquities in the world, dating back to the time of the Sumerians.
As you say, a delightful film. A remake was planned about 20 years ago after the success of Pierce Brosnan's "The Thomas Crown Affair", with Brosnan again starring as Crown, but it never happened.
Made on the quick hoof immediately after X, Ti West and Mia Goth’s neatly constructed horror bloodbath is based vaguely on The Wizard of Oz, with antiheroine Pearl impersonating dreamer Dorothy, who dances to escape the confines of her dreadfully dull 1918 farmhand existence. Pearl is married, but her husband, Howard, has gone to war and she has fallen again under the abusive yoke of her German immigrant mother, Ruth. Her dad is in the last stages of multiple sclerosis and needs constant care. Pearl’s incentive for marriage was less to do with love than social ambition, but minus her husband she begins to suffer from an overactive imagination that funnels itself into sexual fantasy – she waltzes and masturbates with a scarecrow, idolises the cinema projectionist ‘wizard’, takes baths infront of her father. Her psychopathic tendencies stem from enormous regret and low self-esteem. She considers her husband [the lion] a coward and a failure for wishing to support her family farm instead of living the life of luxury the in-laws do, as exemplified by blonde confident Mitsy [Glinda, Good Witch].
Mia Goth is well-watchable as the tortured and trembling Pearl, whose desperations turn homicidal. The monologue she delivers confessing her sins and explaining her motivations is a superb five minutes of growing tension and character realisation. The nuances of her tetchy and nervous character are well presented. The explosive confrontation with her mother across a dinner table reveal their shared primal instincts.
In fact, having watched X (the film’s pre-sequel – is that a word?) the most interesting facets of Pearl are the manner in which the writers blend the characters across both movies. So here we see the nature of Pearl’s wrinkly self in X instigate itself in a youthful bride; similarly Maxine Minx displays many of the tendencies and ambitions of young Pearl; the aged Pearl’s voyeuristic activity is reflected in her mother’s aggressive snooping [we learn she watches Pearl’s sensual fantasies]; the older film producer Wayne seduces Maxine with similar Yellow Brick Road stories to David Corenswet’s Projectionist. Here, it’s a pity Ti West couldn’t have cast the same actor in both roles, squaring the circle as it were.
The killings come with a certain wit and some clinging tension. Mia Goth channels an inner Shelley Duvall, so demented does she seem to become, her face creasing into the ugliest shapes, cheeks popped, teeth gnashing, eyes bulging, sobbing, enormous wails of frustration emitted from her throat. She even runs in that strange duck like fashion Ms Duvall did in The Shining.
The photography is full of vivid primary colours emphasising the blood reds, the dark of the house and the brightness of the outside world, so Pearl is pretty to look at, which is odd for a horror film, before charging into bloody violence. It’s pretty good entertainment too and a more mindful movie than most in the genre.
Edgar Wright's time-warp psychological thriller was flagged up to Bond fans thanks to this flashback set, though I'm not sure the 1966 Bond film (well, it was released well into December 1965) would have been showing on Shaftesbury Avenue.
It stars Thomasin McKenzie - I had to look up her name several times - as a new London fashion student from Cornwall who has a 1960s fetish; one advantage of the film is the many 1960s actors who pop up, the first being Rita Tushingham as her grandmother, another being the late Terence Stamp and the somewhat later Diana Rigg.
McKenzie was the Jewish hideaway in the excellent Jo Jo Rabbit, but she is a very different character in this, out of her depth against the posh arrogant clique at fashion school.
To get away from them she moves into a top floor bedsit in Soho, where the landlady is Rigg. This seems to offer a portal to past times, or at least a flashback to the past, not unlike the sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart or the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris, if I recall the title. However, unlike these two examples, Last Night in Soho is a more trepidatious tale, more Alice Through the Looking Glass, and after the initial thrill of the young girl finding herself back in the 1960s, somehow in the guise of the outgoing good time girl Anya Taylor-Joy, being dated by club owner Matt Smith, things take a dark turn.
It's entertaining, somehow it doesn't always quite work. Terence Stamp shows up, but is it just me or does he sometimes seem like an awful actor, his line readings not convincing at all? It may be his trying to sound working class, even though he was that originally. The 1960s sets look good, only a whisker away from not being convincing, I don't now why - as ever maybe the cars are too shiny, or it's too on the nose, of course much of the 1960s looked like the 1950s or 40s - the decades don't just switch automatically like the clocks going forward. You'd have seen 1940s cars on the roads of course, maybe even a rag and bone man. Similarly the student's 1960s LPs all seem to be mint.
Some of the style and set ups seem a bit made for TV, and the overall vibe is a bit Inside No 9 which should be a compliment but perhaps not for a movie. It doesn't always convince, from a student somehow paying for a Soho room by working as a bar maid, to her going off the rails without an immediate consequence (her kindly black suitor would not be seen for dust after some of his mistreatment) and while the denouement was unexpected, it also sought for our mixed sympathies over who is the villain and who is the victim, and who is both.
The soundtrack pulls it along - it's that area of the 60s that operates in the shadows - Cilla Black, The Searchers, Petula Clark's Downtown, also The Who's brilliant version of Heatwave, and the vinyl LP is going for £60 or so on eBay but I think I'll give it a miss, it has a melancholy feel to it.
I had nightmares of a kind after watching this, possibly a glass of wine on an empty stomach contributing to it. I do recommend it, but some scenes did have an amateurish air to them, possibly due to it being filmed around lockdown; it does have that vibe to it, or maybe it was just to make the whole thing haunting.
I have to admit I hadn't seen this modern classic before, but this weekend I did the right thing. 😊
Spike Lee's film takes place on a street in Brooklyn on the hottest day of the year. The residents are mainly African- American, but with some Puertoricans and Caucasians. There is a Korean-owned grocery store and Sal's Famous Pizzaria owned and run by an Italian- American and his two sons. The relationship between the locals and the police is tense. The racial tensions rise as the temperature rises.
Despite the heavy subject we get comedy along with the drama. to convey the heat Spike Lee uses strong colours:
While the movie tries to show the realities of living in one of these neighbourhoods, the film feels stylized - sometimes even theatrical, We are always aware of the very active camera. Dutch angles, sudden zooms and whip-pans are often used. But this isn't a criticism on my part, I think it works very well. The movie has both a strong message and a strong style, and it's very entertaining.
Thanks @Number24 DO THE RIGHT THING is a great film, packed full of social and cultural comment. It also doesn't forget the origins of theatre, with the 'Greek Chorus' of dudes hanging out, watching and doing nothing. Sadly, Spike Lee has never quite touched on the heights since, but his movies are generally watchable and politically astute, if somewhat heavy handed.
I often have that reaction to Edgar Wright's stuff: it pretty much always nearly but doesn't quite hit the mark for me, and there's often a feel of being made for TV somehow.
Later this year the Norwegian disaster move "Kraken" will be released. It's based on legends from Norwegian folklore.
More recently the Kraken had a supporting role in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man's chest", but the upcoming movie will be the creature's first leading role. Norwegian disaster movies like The Wave (2015) and Troll (2022) has done really well internationally, so watch out!
Norway, snore way! What's the Krakon gonna do, sting you for £9 for a pint of beer?
I really enjoyed Meghan (2022) , a quirky horror film which wears its influences on its sleeve, be it Chucky or Terminator or Exorcist. It's about an unspecified European Royal family that finds a playmate for its son Harry, but this initially welcome fresh injection soon wreaks havoc on the family, trying to take over to the point where... okay okay. @emtiem echoes how Last Night in Soho has a TV feel, well, much of this could be on telly, it seems low budget but it only ever feels like a movie.
If they wanted a template for the new Bond franchise, I'd probably take this - it's slick, funny, lean - no fat on the story at all - and toys with your sympathies. You know things might be up when a newly orphaned child is sent to live with her young aunt who is Alison Williams from Get Out, a good fit as the young career woman with a neurotic edge, still grieving the recent death of her sister. The story - she is able to invent a new playmate for her adoptive daughter, a female robot who acts as a playmate but soon adopts a bossy tone - is simple but it toys with your sympathies, as quite often Mehgan's useful side is something you can root for. Everyone in the cast is pitch perfect, the humour carries it along but it's probably Williams who gives the whole thing gravitas and credibility.
What's more, it doesn't outstay its welcome - though its brevity means you might feel cheated at the cinema, where you might feel like questioning one or two far-fetched plot points.
A very curious attempt by John Wayne to break new career ground in the wake of Dirty Harry. Wayne had been offered the role eventually immortalised by Clint Eastwood. The Duke turned it down – rightly, in my opinion – and this attempt to make good a perceived wrong isn’t all bad, but it does feel like a western in modern dress.
Jim Brannigan is a Chicago cop sent to London to extradite big time gangster Ben Larkin [John Vernon]. Curiously, the film plays out a little like another Eastwood picture, Coogan’s Bluff, where Clint’s Stetson wearing Texan came up against the flower power drugs and sex community of sixties San Franscisco. The fish-out-of-water scenario plays reasonably well here too with smatterings of humour, mutual respect lost and gained and a few passable action set pieces, mostly set in recognisable London landmarks. A pub in Leadenhall Market is on call for a huge bar fight; chases take place south of the river; the derelict docklands provides the climax; the Garrick Club, the RAC Club and Piccadilly Circus feature heavily.
While Big John, sorry Big Jim, rubs diminutive police chief Richard Attenborough up the wrong way, a misfit bunch of chancers kidnap Larkin to extort money from his powerful gangland bosses. Shady lawyer Mel Ferrer is on hand to assist and hinder. For the good guys, Judy Geeson looks suitably seventies as a sexy though chaste driver on loan from the vice squad. Everyone talks in cliches. It’s a fun watch, reasonably well made, and diverting enough to be a half-decent success. Unfortunately, that success doesn’t quite tip to John Wayne, who is too long in the tooth for the part and he knows it. “I like a solid man,” chirps Judy Geeson, to which Wayne replies: “You mean fat.” Too darn right she does, but the script is too polite to tell us.
Of note to British audiences watching in 2025 might be the long list of support and bit players who were half-way famous or would become famous through television. Lesley Anne Down plays an abused hooker, Brian Glover an informer, Don Henderson one of the kidnappers, Tony Booth an informer and Tony Robinson is a motorcycle courier who Wayne chucks in the Thames. Among the pugilists in the pub fight are Nosher Powell, George Leech and Nigel Planer. If you get fed up trying to spot stars, you can spot scenery and figure out how the cars are supposed to travel from one part of London to another; geographically the film makes no sense whatsoever.
I hadn’t watched Brannigan since I was an adolescent, so it was fun to return to one of Wayne’s lesser movies and, like most of his seventies output, it was a pleasant, untaxing evening’s entertainment.
I sold Megan short a bit - it's also a far-sighted, scary take on AI and how it can infiltrate all aspects of life and take over. Oddly, given the film takes from movies like Hal in Space Odessy (how the hell do you spell that) and the other ones mentioned, it's also as if the movie could have been scripted by AI, which gives it a double creeping sense of dread, similar to how I felt watching No Time To Die in a crowded cinema when a) Lockdown had been recently lifted and Covid wasn't really over and b) The theme of the movie is all about deadly infection. It feels like being covertly trolled.
Well made spy thriller B-films, starring Howard St. John as David Harding, chief of a US counterspy agency, as he uncovers various schemes of espionage in the homeland.
DAVID HARDING, COUNTERSPY (1950)
Commander Phil Iverson, naval observer stationed at the Mileno torpedo plant is found dead in his apartment, apparently from fume inhalation due to a lit cigarette in the hand.
Iverson was investigating an espionage ring working at the plant.
His course mate Commander Willard Parker is now recruited by the counterspy agency to figure out how the espionage ring works.
(Directed by Ray Nazzaro - 1 hour 11 minutes )
COUNTERSPY MEETS SCOTLAND YARD (1950)
Somebody is leaking top-secret guided missile research details from a military facility.
The counterspy agent investigating this case is found dead. With the help of Scotland Yard's top agent Simon Langton, Harding uncovers a notorious ring of spies, who are using mind control to tap information out of an unsuspecting person.
(Directed by Seymour Friedman - 1 hour 7 minutes)
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Based on the radio show created by Phillip H. Lord, both counterspy films are well worth your time and give a unique insight into the world of counter-intelligence.
Recommended.
PS: You can find the radio show episodes at the link below:
THE THIRD SHADOW WARRIOR (DAISAN NO KAGEMUSHA) 1963
Directed by Umetsugu Inoue, Daisan no Kagemusha is a bleak Japanese samurai film, which details the rags to riches to madness story of a young farmer Kyonosuke Ninomiya, who dreams of becoming a samurai one day.
Kyonosuke bears an uncanny resemblance to the local war lord Yasutaka and is recruited as his body double, to replace him in battle and public appearances.
So begins his training...from mimicking his composure to his slight limp, from violent laughs to personality quirks, Kyonosuke learns and incorporates every detail about Yasutaka and imitates him so well that even the feudal lord's personal servant cannot distinguish between the two men.
Kyonosuke and his fellow shadows also get to experience the bitter side of being body doubles, when Lord Yasutaka is blinded in the left eye by an arrow in battle. All three body doubles are forcefully blinded in the left eye, in order to mimic their master's injury.
In another bad twist of fate, Yasutaka's palace is taken under siege by his enemies and the feudal lord narrowly escapes with his body doubles; two of whom are killed in the conflict.
Yasutaka, grievously injured in the left arm now orders Kyonosuke to cut it off.
Knowing very well that his left arm will also have to be amputated to match Yasutaka's injury in the future, Kyonosuke murders Yasutaka and assumes his identity. The story does not end here, as a new chapter of misery begins in Kyonosuke's life, which will eventually sink him further into the depths of madness.
This very fine film, now out of print, is considered a classic in Japanese cinema.
The actor Raizo Ichikawa, who plays both Kyonosuke and Yasutaka, is simply electric and delivers a powerhouse of a performance.
I watched M3gan (it's on Channel 4 at the moment) and I thought it was absolutely terrific. Maybe it's missing a really killer set piece, but I thought the shifts in tone, from the playful gleeful horror of the titular character, to the really quite intensely sad situation of the child co-lead, were incredibly deftly handled where elsewhere it could have felt jarring. Really great stuff.
As it's Halloween I decided to also watch The Reanimator from 1985 as I'd heard it was a bit of fun. I really struggled with it however. Although there's some entertainingly silly moments in it, it just lost my attention as I couldn't really care. M3gan just knocks it into a cocked hat.
Produced and directed by future Carry On duo Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas I watched this purely to see a pre-Bond Sean Connery. Made in England, but set in Canada, and based on Arthur (Airport) Hailey’s play, it concerns the rescue attempt of a six year old boy who has accidentally been locked in a banks vault which is time locked to 63 hours, meaning that he will suffocate long before the doors are able to be opened. Thomas must have recruited virtually every available Canadian/American actor in the UK for this tight little drama. Sean turns up as a rough and ready welder looking like he could knock out lead rescuer Robert Beatty given the script opportunity. (SPOILER) It’s lacks tension simply because you know that the kid isn’t going to die. The few exterior scenes are so obviously filmed in England you wonder why they didn’t just set the movie there anyway. It passes 70 odd minutes pleasantly enough and it’s nice to see Sean before he became the sophisticated James Bond.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
There was some chat on here about this movie, so i thought I'd give it a go.
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (2021)
A grubby little horror film with big intentions but more pretentions set in a grim 1960s Soho when the rest of London was swinging.
Tomasin Mackenzie is a fashion student who obsesses over the music and culture of the 1960s. Her studies in London take her away from a protective Grandmother, who passes a remark about young Eloise “seeing” her mother. So we know there is something not quite right with young Ellie. Other than that peculiar 60s obsession, of course. Struggling to fit in with her fellow students in halls, Eloise rents a dodgy looking sixties throwback of a bedsit from chirpy Mrs Collins [Diana Rigg, in her final role]. Ms Collins passes an ambiguous comment about the room having witnessed many things [or something like that] which raises our early alert system. Sure enough, Eloise starts to have dreams which appear too real to not be true, as she shares an other-body experience with singer turned whore Sandie [Anya Taylor Joy], whose once confident demeanour is subdued by an abusive boyfriend who also acts as her pimp. The scenes of confusion where Eloise witnesses Sandie’s gradual grooming are quite powerful, but as the film progresses and the images become more horror-orientated and less psychological, the reality of the Sandie’s story becomes less of a focus and the movie switches to the nervy desperation of Eloise, whose hallucinogenic paranormal experiences are starting to overwhelm her.
Visually, Last Night In Soho is impressive. The sixties is recreated in dreamlike vividity, especially the costumes. There should have been more smoking however and the 1960s Soho looked too clean. The editing has enough cut and thrust to keep us on our toes. The acting is half way decent for the most part. The problem is the story itself which simply doesn’t approach Eloise’s ‘gift’ or ‘curse’ of second sight with anything like the necessary depth. Hence the climax, while a good wheeze, doesn’t feel believable. We want something deeper than what we got.
Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now was on the other night and that film demonstrates how to use extra sensorial perception to create tension and gather character insight. All Edgar Wright and cowriter Krysty Wilson Cairns use it for is shock value. Ultimately, disappointingly, the movie becomes quite hard to accept.
I wouldn’t say Last Night In Soho is a bad film, but it isn’t a consistent film and like most horror movies it confines itself to asking questions but answering them with only death, blood and gore. The soundtrack is jam packed full of good sixties tunes which helps immeasurably to entertain us when the screenplay stops doing so.
British spy thriller, directed by David Greene and starring cinema legend Bette Davis and Robert Wagner.
Madame Sin, an international criminal runs a mind control laboratory in the Scottish Highlands and traps an ex-CIA agent Anthony Lawrence (Wagner) to do her bidding.
The plan...to abduct a British naval officer and use him to steal a polaris submarine.
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If you could blend a James Bond film with the Prisoner TV series, you would get this film.
A decent spy film to watch on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
An intense psychological thriller directed by David Fincher.
Nicholas Van Orton (Micheal Douglas), a successful investment banker, is gifted a game-voucher on his birthday from his younger brother, from a company called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS).
Considering it to be an elaborate prank, Van Orton goes to CRS's corporate office to apply for this 'game', only to be told that his application has been rejected.
Here is where reality turns upside down for Van Orton...
The 'game' completely consumes the man and pushes him to the point of madness.
Directed by Joseph Ruben, Dreamscape is an American science fiction film dealing with dream manipulation and psychic control.
Telepath Alex Gardner is recruited by a research group headed by Dr. Paul Novotny, which uses people with psychic abilities to help people suffering from nightmares. By entering the dream state with the patient, the telepath helps the person achieve victory over their fears.
When the President of the United States starts having recurrent nightmares, the same organization is sought to aid him in curing his malady.
But behind the scenes, a rogue agent has infiltrated the program with a malefic agenda.
Starring Dennis Quaid, Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer, Dreamscape is an entertaining sci-fi film with impressive special effects and a very unique story.
Anyone into M3GHAN on this board and living in the UK, tonight's repeat of Gogglebox on whatever channel it is, has the commenting on the film along of course with a whole load of other stuff.
Directed by Byron Haskin, Robinson Crusoe on Mars is a retelling of the classic Daniel Defoe story.
Commander Kit Draper and Colonel Dan McReady, along with Mona the monkey, on an exploration mission to Mars, have to abandon their space ship, after it runs out of fuel while trying to avoid collision with an incoming meteor.
Unfortunately only Kit and Mona survive the crash landing and now have to figure out how to survive on the red planet. They also discover that they are not alone and that an evil alien force is busy using humanoid labor for mineral extraction on the planet.
Starring Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, Adam West and Barney the Woolly monkey, Robinson Crusoe on Mars is an excellent science-fiction film and a cult classic.
Comments
@chrisno1 You are most welcome.
I can't say I saw all of Jonathan Miller's TV movie Alice in Wonderland (1966) shown this morning on Talking Pictures TV at 10am. Initially I thought, wow, this really is mad... it's in lovely black and white, puts me in mind of the cover of the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society, or one of the LP's covers anyway. Wonderfully evocative not just of the 60s but the turn of the century... hardly any dialogue at first, just oddness, it's clear it's meant to be all a dream, as Alice goes around encountering various characters, or actors meant to be Lewis Carroll's characters.
What a line-up! Steptoe's Wilfrid Brambell, Leo McKern, Peter Sellers, Peter Cook doing a Derek Nimmo impersonation, John Guilgud, Alan Bennett... That all said, it was so dreamlike, with the lead actress directed to look wholly out of it, that it felt too odd, much of it making no sense, like being stuck in a nursing home where ther residents talk gibberish. One year before the Beatles presented us with Magical Mystery Tour as a Christmas 'treat' for viewers, at least that had some decent songs and was in colour (though the BBC put it out in black and white first showing). The Fab 4's notorious bomb was the model of good humour and coherency compared to this, they probably thought they might get away with it if Miller did, and you can see it was part of the the zeitgeist, esp with Ravi Shankar doing the lovely understated Indian music on it.
It's all very Strawberry Fields and I'm glad it exists - it conjures up a nightmare dream world but the sort where you wouldn't want to live there or sit through it or revisit it imo.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
X (2022)
It’s nearing Halloween and that means every film channel is revisiting horror movie favourites. We had Halloween itself on the other night, but I didn’t watch it. Instead I stumbled over this late night retro slasher blood fest from writer / director Ti West.
Mia Goth, Brittany Snow and Jenny Ortega play wannabe porn stars in Bible Belt Texas 1979 who spend a weekend ***ing black stud Scott Meascudi in an attempt to make the most artistic hardcore film ever. It isn’t that. Tawdry, cheap and tasteless springs to mind. Meanwhile, the ancient couple who live up on the hill take a creepy and intense interest in the clan of young filmmakers, as does a rogue crocodile. Killings galore and a final twist that I didn’t see coming make an eventful and entertaining film, even if it is a tad too long. Some neat editing tricks keep us visually interested even if the gore count is as by the numbers as you can get. X is rather predictable until the end, but quite enjoyable, well photographed and at times distinctly uncomfortable viewing – one does feel we shouldn’t enjoy the sex stuff too much, given we are watching the same rutting antics of these naked young things as the wrinkly old voyeurs on the hill. A nice ironic touch unusual in the horror genre.
It wasn’t until I saw the cast list that realised Mia Goth plays both the sexy heroine Maxine Minx and – thanks to some superb prosthetic make up – the decrepit old crone Pearl, both women ram packed with overactive hormones and capable of murder like the best of seventies horror victims and heroes. Director and star quickly made a prequel and a sequel, of which I will review Pearl tomorrow.
TOPKAPI (1964)
A delightful heist film directed by Jules Dassin.
Ms. Elizabeth Lipp, a brilliant jewel thief has her eyes set on the emerald dagger of Sultan Mahmud I, held secure in the Topkapi Palace museum in Istanbul, Turkey.
With the help of her former lover Walter Harper, they assemble a team of amateurs to steal the dagger.
Muscle man Hans Fischer, gymnast Giulio, tinkerer Cedric Page and the height phobic Arthur Simon Simpson.
Hot on their trails is the Turkish police, who still cannot figure out the motivations of this group.
Stylishly filmed and wonderfully paced, Topkapi is a visual treat.
A very entertaining and enjoyable film.
Highly recommended.
(Run time 120 minutes)
PS: If you ever get a chance to visit the beautiful Topkapi Palace, be sure to visit the Istanbul Archeological Museum, which is situated just behind it. The museum contains some of the finest antiquities in the world, dating back to the time of the Sumerians.
As you say, a delightful film. A remake was planned about 20 years ago after the success of Pierce Brosnan's "The Thomas Crown Affair", with Brosnan again starring as Crown, but it never happened.
As promised...
PEARL (2022)
Made on the quick hoof immediately after X, Ti West and Mia Goth’s neatly constructed horror bloodbath is based vaguely on The Wizard of Oz, with antiheroine Pearl impersonating dreamer Dorothy, who dances to escape the confines of her dreadfully dull 1918 farmhand existence. Pearl is married, but her husband, Howard, has gone to war and she has fallen again under the abusive yoke of her German immigrant mother, Ruth. Her dad is in the last stages of multiple sclerosis and needs constant care. Pearl’s incentive for marriage was less to do with love than social ambition, but minus her husband she begins to suffer from an overactive imagination that funnels itself into sexual fantasy – she waltzes and masturbates with a scarecrow, idolises the cinema projectionist ‘wizard’, takes baths infront of her father. Her psychopathic tendencies stem from enormous regret and low self-esteem. She considers her husband [the lion] a coward and a failure for wishing to support her family farm instead of living the life of luxury the in-laws do, as exemplified by blonde confident Mitsy [Glinda, Good Witch].
Mia Goth is well-watchable as the tortured and trembling Pearl, whose desperations turn homicidal. The monologue she delivers confessing her sins and explaining her motivations is a superb five minutes of growing tension and character realisation. The nuances of her tetchy and nervous character are well presented. The explosive confrontation with her mother across a dinner table reveal their shared primal instincts.
In fact, having watched X (the film’s pre-sequel – is that a word?) the most interesting facets of Pearl are the manner in which the writers blend the characters across both movies. So here we see the nature of Pearl’s wrinkly self in X instigate itself in a youthful bride; similarly Maxine Minx displays many of the tendencies and ambitions of young Pearl; the aged Pearl’s voyeuristic activity is reflected in her mother’s aggressive snooping [we learn she watches Pearl’s sensual fantasies]; the older film producer Wayne seduces Maxine with similar Yellow Brick Road stories to David Corenswet’s Projectionist. Here, it’s a pity Ti West couldn’t have cast the same actor in both roles, squaring the circle as it were.
The killings come with a certain wit and some clinging tension. Mia Goth channels an inner Shelley Duvall, so demented does she seem to become, her face creasing into the ugliest shapes, cheeks popped, teeth gnashing, eyes bulging, sobbing, enormous wails of frustration emitted from her throat. She even runs in that strange duck like fashion Ms Duvall did in The Shining.
The photography is full of vivid primary colours emphasising the blood reds, the dark of the house and the brightness of the outside world, so Pearl is pretty to look at, which is odd for a horror film, before charging into bloody violence. It’s pretty good entertainment too and a more mindful movie than most in the genre.
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Edgar Wright's time-warp psychological thriller was flagged up to Bond fans thanks to this flashback set, though I'm not sure the 1966 Bond film (well, it was released well into December 1965) would have been showing on Shaftesbury Avenue.
It stars Thomasin McKenzie - I had to look up her name several times - as a new London fashion student from Cornwall who has a 1960s fetish; one advantage of the film is the many 1960s actors who pop up, the first being Rita Tushingham as her grandmother, another being the late Terence Stamp and the somewhat later Diana Rigg.
McKenzie was the Jewish hideaway in the excellent Jo Jo Rabbit, but she is a very different character in this, out of her depth against the posh arrogant clique at fashion school.
To get away from them she moves into a top floor bedsit in Soho, where the landlady is Rigg. This seems to offer a portal to past times, or at least a flashback to the past, not unlike the sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart or the Woody Allen film Midnight in Paris, if I recall the title. However, unlike these two examples, Last Night in Soho is a more trepidatious tale, more Alice Through the Looking Glass, and after the initial thrill of the young girl finding herself back in the 1960s, somehow in the guise of the outgoing good time girl Anya Taylor-Joy, being dated by club owner Matt Smith, things take a dark turn.
It's entertaining, somehow it doesn't always quite work. Terence Stamp shows up, but is it just me or does he sometimes seem like an awful actor, his line readings not convincing at all? It may be his trying to sound working class, even though he was that originally. The 1960s sets look good, only a whisker away from not being convincing, I don't now why - as ever maybe the cars are too shiny, or it's too on the nose, of course much of the 1960s looked like the 1950s or 40s - the decades don't just switch automatically like the clocks going forward. You'd have seen 1940s cars on the roads of course, maybe even a rag and bone man. Similarly the student's 1960s LPs all seem to be mint.
Some of the style and set ups seem a bit made for TV, and the overall vibe is a bit Inside No 9 which should be a compliment but perhaps not for a movie. It doesn't always convince, from a student somehow paying for a Soho room by working as a bar maid, to her going off the rails without an immediate consequence (her kindly black suitor would not be seen for dust after some of his mistreatment) and while the denouement was unexpected, it also sought for our mixed sympathies over who is the villain and who is the victim, and who is both.
The soundtrack pulls it along - it's that area of the 60s that operates in the shadows - Cilla Black, The Searchers, Petula Clark's Downtown, also The Who's brilliant version of Heatwave, and the vinyl LP is going for £60 or so on eBay but I think I'll give it a miss, it has a melancholy feel to it.
I had nightmares of a kind after watching this, possibly a glass of wine on an empty stomach contributing to it. I do recommend it, but some scenes did have an amateurish air to them, possibly due to it being filmed around lockdown; it does have that vibe to it, or maybe it was just to make the whole thing haunting.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Do the right thing (1989)
I have to admit I hadn't seen this modern classic before, but this weekend I did the right thing. 😊
Spike Lee's film takes place on a street in Brooklyn on the hottest day of the year. The residents are mainly African- American, but with some Puertoricans and Caucasians. There is a Korean-owned grocery store and Sal's Famous Pizzaria owned and run by an Italian- American and his two sons. The relationship between the locals and the police is tense. The racial tensions rise as the temperature rises.
Despite the heavy subject we get comedy along with the drama. to convey the heat Spike Lee uses strong colours:
While the movie tries to show the realities of living in one of these neighbourhoods, the film feels stylized - sometimes even theatrical, We are always aware of the very active camera. Dutch angles, sudden zooms and whip-pans are often used. But this isn't a criticism on my part, I think it works very well. The movie has both a strong message and a strong style, and it's very entertaining.
Thanks @Number24 DO THE RIGHT THING is a great film, packed full of social and cultural comment. It also doesn't forget the origins of theatre, with the 'Greek Chorus' of dudes hanging out, watching and doing nothing. Sadly, Spike Lee has never quite touched on the heights since, but his movies are generally watchable and politically astute, if somewhat heavy handed.
I often have that reaction to Edgar Wright's stuff: it pretty much always nearly but doesn't quite hit the mark for me, and there's often a feel of being made for TV somehow.
Later this year the Norwegian disaster move "Kraken" will be released. It's based on legends from Norwegian folklore.
More recently the Kraken had a supporting role in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man's chest", but the upcoming movie will be the creature's first leading role. Norwegian disaster movies like The Wave (2015) and Troll (2022) has done really well internationally, so watch out!
Norway, snore way! What's the Krakon gonna do, sting you for £9 for a pint of beer?
I really enjoyed Meghan (2022) , a quirky horror film which wears its influences on its sleeve, be it Chucky or Terminator or Exorcist. It's about an unspecified European Royal family that finds a playmate for its son Harry, but this initially welcome fresh injection soon wreaks havoc on the family, trying to take over to the point where... okay okay. @emtiem echoes how Last Night in Soho has a TV feel, well, much of this could be on telly, it seems low budget but it only ever feels like a movie.
If they wanted a template for the new Bond franchise, I'd probably take this - it's slick, funny, lean - no fat on the story at all - and toys with your sympathies. You know things might be up when a newly orphaned child is sent to live with her young aunt who is Alison Williams from Get Out, a good fit as the young career woman with a neurotic edge, still grieving the recent death of her sister. The story - she is able to invent a new playmate for her adoptive daughter, a female robot who acts as a playmate but soon adopts a bossy tone - is simple but it toys with your sympathies, as quite often Mehgan's useful side is something you can root for. Everyone in the cast is pitch perfect, the humour carries it along but it's probably Williams who gives the whole thing gravitas and credibility.
What's more, it doesn't outstay its welcome - though its brevity means you might feel cheated at the cinema, where you might feel like questioning one or two far-fetched plot points.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
BRANNIGAN (1975)
A very curious attempt by John Wayne to break new career ground in the wake of Dirty Harry. Wayne had been offered the role eventually immortalised by Clint Eastwood. The Duke turned it down – rightly, in my opinion – and this attempt to make good a perceived wrong isn’t all bad, but it does feel like a western in modern dress.
Jim Brannigan is a Chicago cop sent to London to extradite big time gangster Ben Larkin [John Vernon]. Curiously, the film plays out a little like another Eastwood picture, Coogan’s Bluff, where Clint’s Stetson wearing Texan came up against the flower power drugs and sex community of sixties San Franscisco. The fish-out-of-water scenario plays reasonably well here too with smatterings of humour, mutual respect lost and gained and a few passable action set pieces, mostly set in recognisable London landmarks. A pub in Leadenhall Market is on call for a huge bar fight; chases take place south of the river; the derelict docklands provides the climax; the Garrick Club, the RAC Club and Piccadilly Circus feature heavily.
While Big John, sorry Big Jim, rubs diminutive police chief Richard Attenborough up the wrong way, a misfit bunch of chancers kidnap Larkin to extort money from his powerful gangland bosses. Shady lawyer Mel Ferrer is on hand to assist and hinder. For the good guys, Judy Geeson looks suitably seventies as a sexy though chaste driver on loan from the vice squad. Everyone talks in cliches. It’s a fun watch, reasonably well made, and diverting enough to be a half-decent success. Unfortunately, that success doesn’t quite tip to John Wayne, who is too long in the tooth for the part and he knows it. “I like a solid man,” chirps Judy Geeson, to which Wayne replies: “You mean fat.” Too darn right she does, but the script is too polite to tell us.
Of note to British audiences watching in 2025 might be the long list of support and bit players who were half-way famous or would become famous through television. Lesley Anne Down plays an abused hooker, Brian Glover an informer, Don Henderson one of the kidnappers, Tony Booth an informer and Tony Robinson is a motorcycle courier who Wayne chucks in the Thames. Among the pugilists in the pub fight are Nosher Powell, George Leech and Nigel Planer. If you get fed up trying to spot stars, you can spot scenery and figure out how the cars are supposed to travel from one part of London to another; geographically the film makes no sense whatsoever.
I hadn’t watched Brannigan since I was an adolescent, so it was fun to return to one of Wayne’s lesser movies and, like most of his seventies output, it was a pleasant, untaxing evening’s entertainment.
😁
That’s a good review @chrisno1 I love The Duke in London, it’s a smashing fun movie shot in locations I know very well.
Oh yes I must see this, apparently the sequel was bonkers fun.
I remember enjoying Brannigan too. John Wayne, in a Ford Capri, in a skip. What's not to like?
I sold Megan short a bit - it's also a far-sighted, scary take on AI and how it can infiltrate all aspects of life and take over. Oddly, given the film takes from movies like Hal in Space Odessy (how the hell do you spell that) and the other ones mentioned, it's also as if the movie could have been scripted by AI, which gives it a double creeping sense of dread, similar to how I felt watching No Time To Die in a crowded cinema when a) Lockdown had been recently lifted and Covid wasn't really over and b) The theme of the movie is all about deadly infection. It feels like being covertly trolled.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
M3GAN is very good.
THE COUNTERSPY FILMS (1950)
Well made spy thriller B-films, starring Howard St. John as David Harding, chief of a US counterspy agency, as he uncovers various schemes of espionage in the homeland.
DAVID HARDING, COUNTERSPY (1950)
Commander Phil Iverson, naval observer stationed at the Mileno torpedo plant is found dead in his apartment, apparently from fume inhalation due to a lit cigarette in the hand.
Iverson was investigating an espionage ring working at the plant.
His course mate Commander Willard Parker is now recruited by the counterspy agency to figure out how the espionage ring works.
(Directed by Ray Nazzaro - 1 hour 11 minutes )
COUNTERSPY MEETS SCOTLAND YARD (1950)
Somebody is leaking top-secret guided missile research details from a military facility.
The counterspy agent investigating this case is found dead. With the help of Scotland Yard's top agent Simon Langton, Harding uncovers a notorious ring of spies, who are using mind control to tap information out of an unsuspecting person.
(Directed by Seymour Friedman - 1 hour 7 minutes)
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Based on the radio show created by Phillip H. Lord, both counterspy films are well worth your time and give a unique insight into the world of counter-intelligence.
Recommended.
PS: You can find the radio show episodes at the link below:
THE THIRD SHADOW WARRIOR (DAISAN NO KAGEMUSHA) 1963
Directed by Umetsugu Inoue, Daisan no Kagemusha is a bleak Japanese samurai film, which details the rags to riches to madness story of a young farmer Kyonosuke Ninomiya, who dreams of becoming a samurai one day.
Kyonosuke bears an uncanny resemblance to the local war lord Yasutaka and is recruited as his body double, to replace him in battle and public appearances.
So begins his training...from mimicking his composure to his slight limp, from violent laughs to personality quirks, Kyonosuke learns and incorporates every detail about Yasutaka and imitates him so well that even the feudal lord's personal servant cannot distinguish between the two men.
Kyonosuke and his fellow shadows also get to experience the bitter side of being body doubles, when Lord Yasutaka is blinded in the left eye by an arrow in battle. All three body doubles are forcefully blinded in the left eye, in order to mimic their master's injury.
In another bad twist of fate, Yasutaka's palace is taken under siege by his enemies and the feudal lord narrowly escapes with his body doubles; two of whom are killed in the conflict.
Yasutaka, grievously injured in the left arm now orders Kyonosuke to cut it off.
Knowing very well that his left arm will also have to be amputated to match Yasutaka's injury in the future, Kyonosuke murders Yasutaka and assumes his identity. The story does not end here, as a new chapter of misery begins in Kyonosuke's life, which will eventually sink him further into the depths of madness.
This very fine film, now out of print, is considered a classic in Japanese cinema.
The actor Raizo Ichikawa, who plays both Kyonosuke and Yasutaka, is simply electric and delivers a powerhouse of a performance.
An excellent film and a true hidden gem.
(1 hour 44 minutes)
I watched M3gan (it's on Channel 4 at the moment) and I thought it was absolutely terrific. Maybe it's missing a really killer set piece, but I thought the shifts in tone, from the playful gleeful horror of the titular character, to the really quite intensely sad situation of the child co-lead, were incredibly deftly handled where elsewhere it could have felt jarring. Really great stuff.
As it's Halloween I decided to also watch The Reanimator from 1985 as I'd heard it was a bit of fun. I really struggled with it however. Although there's some entertainingly silly moments in it, it just lost my attention as I couldn't really care. M3gan just knocks it into a cocked hat.
TIME LOCK (1957)
Produced and directed by future Carry On duo Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas I watched this purely to see a pre-Bond Sean Connery. Made in England, but set in Canada, and based on Arthur (Airport) Hailey’s play, it concerns the rescue attempt of a six year old boy who has accidentally been locked in a banks vault which is time locked to 63 hours, meaning that he will suffocate long before the doors are able to be opened. Thomas must have recruited virtually every available Canadian/American actor in the UK for this tight little drama. Sean turns up as a rough and ready welder looking like he could knock out lead rescuer Robert Beatty given the script opportunity. (SPOILER) It’s lacks tension simply because you know that the kid isn’t going to die. The few exterior scenes are so obviously filmed in England you wonder why they didn’t just set the movie there anyway. It passes 70 odd minutes pleasantly enough and it’s nice to see Sean before he became the sophisticated James Bond.
There was some chat on here about this movie, so i thought I'd give it a go.
LAST NIGHT IN SOHO (2021)
A grubby little horror film with big intentions but more pretentions set in a grim 1960s Soho when the rest of London was swinging.
Tomasin Mackenzie is a fashion student who obsesses over the music and culture of the 1960s. Her studies in London take her away from a protective Grandmother, who passes a remark about young Eloise “seeing” her mother. So we know there is something not quite right with young Ellie. Other than that peculiar 60s obsession, of course. Struggling to fit in with her fellow students in halls, Eloise rents a dodgy looking sixties throwback of a bedsit from chirpy Mrs Collins [Diana Rigg, in her final role]. Ms Collins passes an ambiguous comment about the room having witnessed many things [or something like that] which raises our early alert system. Sure enough, Eloise starts to have dreams which appear too real to not be true, as she shares an other-body experience with singer turned whore Sandie [Anya Taylor Joy], whose once confident demeanour is subdued by an abusive boyfriend who also acts as her pimp. The scenes of confusion where Eloise witnesses Sandie’s gradual grooming are quite powerful, but as the film progresses and the images become more horror-orientated and less psychological, the reality of the Sandie’s story becomes less of a focus and the movie switches to the nervy desperation of Eloise, whose hallucinogenic paranormal experiences are starting to overwhelm her.
Visually, Last Night In Soho is impressive. The sixties is recreated in dreamlike vividity, especially the costumes. There should have been more smoking however and the 1960s Soho looked too clean. The editing has enough cut and thrust to keep us on our toes. The acting is half way decent for the most part. The problem is the story itself which simply doesn’t approach Eloise’s ‘gift’ or ‘curse’ of second sight with anything like the necessary depth. Hence the climax, while a good wheeze, doesn’t feel believable. We want something deeper than what we got.
Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now was on the other night and that film demonstrates how to use extra sensorial perception to create tension and gather character insight. All Edgar Wright and cowriter Krysty Wilson Cairns use it for is shock value. Ultimately, disappointingly, the movie becomes quite hard to accept.
I wouldn’t say Last Night In Soho is a bad film, but it isn’t a consistent film and like most horror movies it confines itself to asking questions but answering them with only death, blood and gore. The soundtrack is jam packed full of good sixties tunes which helps immeasurably to entertain us when the screenplay stops doing so.
Not bad.
MADAME SIN (1972)
British spy thriller, directed by David Greene and starring cinema legend Bette Davis and Robert Wagner.
Madame Sin, an international criminal runs a mind control laboratory in the Scottish Highlands and traps an ex-CIA agent Anthony Lawrence (Wagner) to do her bidding.
The plan...to abduct a British naval officer and use him to steal a polaris submarine.
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If you could blend a James Bond film with the Prisoner TV series, you would get this film.
A decent spy film to watch on a rainy Saturday afternoon.
Recommended.
(1 hour 27 minutes)
Anyone interested in the M3GHAN reviews and hasn't seen it yet, it's on again tonight on Film4 at around 9pm if you're interested.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
THE GAME (1997)
An intense psychological thriller directed by David Fincher.
Nicholas Van Orton (Micheal Douglas), a successful investment banker, is gifted a game-voucher on his birthday from his younger brother, from a company called Consumer Recreation Services (CRS).
Considering it to be an elaborate prank, Van Orton goes to CRS's corporate office to apply for this 'game', only to be told that his application has been rejected.
Here is where reality turns upside down for Van Orton...
The 'game' completely consumes the man and pushes him to the point of madness.
Peak 90's cinema and a brilliant film.
Highly recommended.
(128 minutes)
DREAMSCAPE (1984)
Directed by Joseph Ruben, Dreamscape is an American science fiction film dealing with dream manipulation and psychic control.
Telepath Alex Gardner is recruited by a research group headed by Dr. Paul Novotny, which uses people with psychic abilities to help people suffering from nightmares. By entering the dream state with the patient, the telepath helps the person achieve victory over their fears.
When the President of the United States starts having recurrent nightmares, the same organization is sought to aid him in curing his malady.
But behind the scenes, a rogue agent has infiltrated the program with a malefic agenda.
Starring Dennis Quaid, Max von Sydow and Christopher Plummer, Dreamscape is an entertaining sci-fi film with impressive special effects and a very unique story.
Recommended.
(1 hour 39 minutes)
Anyone into M3GHAN on this board and living in the UK, tonight's repeat of Gogglebox on whatever channel it is, has the commenting on the film along of course with a whole load of other stuff.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
ROBINSON CRUSOE ON MARS (1964)
Directed by Byron Haskin, Robinson Crusoe on Mars is a retelling of the classic Daniel Defoe story.
Commander Kit Draper and Colonel Dan McReady, along with Mona the monkey, on an exploration mission to Mars, have to abandon their space ship, after it runs out of fuel while trying to avoid collision with an incoming meteor.
Unfortunately only Kit and Mona survive the crash landing and now have to figure out how to survive on the red planet. They also discover that they are not alone and that an evil alien force is busy using humanoid labor for mineral extraction on the planet.
Starring Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin, Adam West and Barney the Woolly monkey, Robinson Crusoe on Mars is an excellent science-fiction film and a cult classic.
Recommended.
(1 hour 40 minutes)