Preposterous and preposterously enjoyable sequel that pretty much repeats what we saw in the first Taken movie, only this time with Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills being the kidnappee and his daughter coming to the rescue. Blood and thunder in Istanbul ensues. Taken 2 is at its best during the tense early sequences of kidnap and rescue as Maggie Grace’s Kim Mills clambers over hotel balconies and rooftop walkways setting off grenades and following her Dad’s aural mapping, all the while kitted out in little more than a bikini – I exaggerate, but the filmmakers really missed an eye-candy trick there. The second half of this revenge themed thriller is more cliched and less interesting. Apparently it was rewritten and reshot as the original ending made Neeson’s character appear even more the vigilante, wiping out rogue Albanian gangsters left, right and centre despite saving wife and daughter. Here, the verbal interplay with emptahetic villain Rade Serbedzija heavily suggests that Neeson's avenging angel is no better than the men he is killing, which seems a valid point and is well made. After that, director Olivier Megaton and writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen just let Bryan Mills kill everyone anyway, pretty much. Critical response was mixed, the box office was good, I rather like it despite the dip in the latter half. Certainly no worse than many run-of-the-mill thrillers.
The movies that should be re-made are the ones that had the potential to be great, but weren't. These are often the movies that had a good plot or central idea, but the casting, directing etc. wasted the potential.
Ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills, in the startlingly serious guise of Liam Neeson, returns for a final instalment of a trilogy that brings a long story arc to a neat close. Unfortunately when watched back-to-back the frays in the plot threads between the movies show; most notable is a cast and character change for one of the key players. Killing off another seems rather mean and there is a ‘new mother’ angle to the whole which feels unwarranted. Other than that, standard fare for the franchise, aided by a decent supporting turn by Forrest Whittaker as an evidence eating cop and the fact Mills spends most of his time evading the California police, so the body count is far lower than normal as a CIA agent would obviously never kill a policeman. The stunts are spectacularly stupid and overall the film is so much more silly than numbers one and two in the series and therefore far less watchable.
A computer game that effectively reinvented Indiana Jones for adolescent boys who fantasised about big boobed girls in tight shorts and tops, Tomb Raider was ripe for cinematic adaptation. This version sticks to the well-tried treasure hunt formula and just about succeeds by sheer will power and visual excess. Angelina Jolie makes a good impression as the titular heroine, even if her fake English accent occasionally slips. Pre-Bond Daniel Craig makes no impression at all as her ex-love interest; he doesn’t so much slip as wallow in his fake US accent: just dire. There are a couple of villains, one played by Richard Johnson who was once considered Bond material himself. If Bond ever had to be recast as a woman, I would have given dear Angelina a shot back in 2001. She looks attractive, physically fit and has a neat line in eyebrow raising attitudes.
Smatterings of humour among all the episodic violent excesses are welcome. Watching this brought back memories of Ray Harryhausen and Sinbad; I couldn’t help remembering how good those fantasy films were. The same kind of creatures and bizarre traps and villains are attached to this project, but there is none of the wonder, which is a shame. The thing looks good even if it makes no narrative sense – if the prize being searched for is so easily obtained by Miss Croft, why does it take so long for everyone else – if the artefact is so dangerously powerful, why doesn’t Miss Croft just destroy it when she has the chance – if the Illuminati are so powerful, how come they don’t rule the world already – these questions are only three of many and suggest that these fantasy treasure hunts will always succumb to the same basic problem: of leaving the character’s logic well outside the home of their brain. The Indiana Jones movies are chock with the same kind of head scratching circumstances.
Did I enjoy it? Well, I did, once. Not so much now.
In honor of its 50th anniversary last month, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).
Jack Nicholson has never been better. The acting is top notch all around.
Louise Fletcher gives us one of cinema's greatest villains. What makes her acting great (for me, at least) is how lifeless her eyes look more often than not. It shows us how much she takes advantage of her power: her eyes have a hard look. I know that Louise Fletcher wasn't a mean lady in real life, but her eyes in this movie have a cold hard stare that not many can pull off so well.
Brad Dourif gets his career off to a great start, and shows range that he wouldn't as well known for later on. Lots of great character actors get an early start in their careers here (Danny Devito, Christopher Lloyd, in his first movie role, and our own man Vincent Schiavelli, who probably has more screen time, yet less lines than in TND, just to name a few).
For a movie that could easily seem boring, it's not. The acting truly helps the movie move forward at a fair pace. The screenplay and direction mix well in this regard, making the movie feel flawless. The plot twist with a certain character may have upset the author, and I understand his feelings. However, it worked for the movie.
It was a nice father-son movie for my dad and me. He got to watch it in a college psychological class, and he and his classmates laughed more than once. In the present, we laughed at certain moments as well. While mainly a drama, there is some dark humor spread around. That's one of the things that makes this so great. If Michael Douglas hadn't become a great actor, he truly could have been a great producer as well, and this proves it. The Oscars were right with this one that year, and it was a tough year for all (Jaws, Dog Day Afternoon, Barry Lyndon, just to name a few) but I'm glad that this came ahead of them all with the Oscar wins. So all in all, if you haven't watched One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest in 5 years or more, I'd recommend a re-watch. It proves with a bit of encouragement from others, you can find potential in yourself that you never knew you had.
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 9,316MI6 Agent
LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE (2003)
An inconsequential sequel that does exactly the same as the first episode only without the silly accents. Decent villainy from Cairan Hinds helps. The thing looks good even if it loses its momentum half way – the Shanghai and Kilimanjaro sections lack any of the tongue in cheek humour, effective plotting and rampaging action which makes the first half so appealing. Angelina Jolie is fine as the heroine, given she has nothing to work with. Like the computer games it is based on, The Cradle of Life is best appreciated with as little thought as possible
@chrisno1 that Nicholas Cage film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent or whatever it's called is on Film4 tonight (Wed) at 9pm - you were annoyed you'd missed it last time.
I watched Daniel Craig's latest Benoit Blanc mystery, WAKE UP, DEAD MAN. It's another good show, with a Christie-like setup and a good cast. I also found it interesting that the film kind of took issues of religion seriously. And I'll be hornswoggled if Craig's southern-fried accent ain't starting to grow on me.
Vox clamantis in deserto
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,869Chief of Staff
A Christmas Story Christmas (2022). A decent legacy sequel to one of my favorite movies. It was a play by play sequel (in particular with referencing the first movie's iconic gags), but it was worth it. It did deserve a chance in theaters. I'm surprised that it took me this long to see it, as the original is one of my favorite movies. It was also great to see legacy characters, there are no missteps with where their characters end up. Enjoyable, but still not much compared to its iconic predecessor. So, not a true new Christmas classic, but worth it if you are bored. I do recommend the original novel by Jean Shepherd: In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. A quick, humorous read. As for A Christmas Story Christmas, it doesn't feel commercialized. A nice early movie present for me, but give me the timeless classic original Christmas Story, anytime.
Comedy writer Nancy Myers had a mixed early career until the Disney remake of The Parent Trap launched her as a director / writer of [again] reasonable success. She never does anything very exciting or innovative and her movies tend to be cheerful fluff with strong central female characters and a high degree of what can only be described as schmaltz. The Holiday is an English-centric Christmas set romance with bouts of silly humour. Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz swap houses and continents for Christmas in an attempt to spice up dreadful lives. They end up discovering more about themselves, fall out of and in to love and basically have a chick-lit good time. Meyers doesn’t really get English people, so Winslet, Jude Law, Rufus Sewel, etc, all sound like Americans with a plummy accent. The acting is mostly crass. Erstwhile octogenarian Eli Wallach as an elderly L.A. neighbour is the best thing in it, although Diaz is always watchable in her dumb-but-brainy-blonde-with-a-heart-of-gold act which she pulls off to a greater or lesser degree in almost every film she makes. The film ends happily, but it drags. There is an unnecessary voice over. Meyers seems uncertain of the type of film she wants to make and it tumbles along well-enough without ever rewarding the viewer with anything other than romantic sentiment. It doesn’t help we don’t believe the couplings or the excuses everyone makes for not doing or saying the bloody obvious.
Back in 2006, I watched The Holiday in the cinema with my girlfriend of the time because the previous week we had eaten in the White Horse in Shere and been told the pub scene was filmed there. I’m not sure it was, but you can certainly see the village high street and the pub sign in an snowy exterior shot. Lucy cried a lot towards the end and that set me off as well. Time for a sentimental night cap as it were… Nice memories but this isn’t a great film.
A yearly re-watch of Home Alone (1990). One of the most unique things about this year's re-watch is that I read one of John Hughes' original screenplays for it. As many others in the media industry have said, many screenplays truly shape overtime. A lot of gags and characters are switched around in this script. Harry and Marv are a bit more sympathetic, actually. The word "sh*t" is used quite frequently. For some reason, Old Man Marley is called "Harley" for a few pages. All the traps are there and portrayed roughly the same as in the final movie. It was a truly unique way of looking at how different the movie could have turned out. If they released this screenplay version of the movie, it would have been rated PG-13, (in the US, at least). Overall, a great read of a screenplay, that it could have still been a great movie. Highly recommended reading.
As for the finished movie itself, like A Christmas Story, for me it's a timeless classic from childhood. While growing up, I always looked forward to the booby trap scenes. As I got older, I got more of the humor throughout the movie. That's a sign that it is aging well, for my generation. I think that it has a truly powerful third act, from the talk with Marley, the traps and the family finale. As for the acting, some great acting from the kids. It was a great character arc for Kevin, with Macaulay Culkin owning his part perfectly. As for Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as Harry and Marv, they prove one thing: They should be in bigger named projects, even though both are generally retired. Or that Pesci retired early, and Stern didn't get a lot of bigger named projects, unfortunately. But, this is some of their best work. They can still make me laugh, all these years later. So, all in all, like A Christmas Story, Home Alone, is a timeless classic from childhood that I can watch year after year. It can make me laugh, almost tear up, and be more grateful for family and friends. Like its screenplay, it is worth a re-watch, it's as great as a cheese pizza for yourself.
Gosh. This was good. At least the first two hours was. After that, like all superhero movies, Matt Reeves turns his take on the Caped Crusader from a dark and noirish detective thriller with a twist to a superhero spectacular that ticks all the boxes of heroism without ever seeming to resolve the plot.
At almost three hours I was investing a lot of time in this and while I was rewarded for the most part, I just wanted something less like Earthquake and more like Bullitt. The film seems to be heading that way, with questions asked of the titular hero about his attitudes towards authority, relationships and his ego. The destruction of Gotham City’s sea wall defences is at least an original and believable design, but the horrifically villainous Riddler doesn’t seem capable of recruiting all the disaffected hoodlums to carry out his multifaceted plan – but maybe in this day an age the power of the online media and the dark web to generate mass followings of homicidal weirdos proves this out.
The film is startling in its presentation of the action as if we are watching a comic book; not in the dialogue or the action, but the carefully framed sequences which look as if they have been drawn on the screen as they might on the pages of a graphic novel. The intense voice over is not intrusive, generating extra depth to the character of Bruce Wayne as he struggles to understand himself, the world he lives in and how he and his alter-ego fit in it. I was disheartened Reeves chose to have his version of Wayne look so pasty and dishevelled. At times Robert Pattinson looks as if he mistakenly thought himself cast as the Crow, all that messy, greasy hair, leather and accompanying grunge music. The film – like all recent attempts at Batman reinvention – is uniformly dark, grimy, rainy, overcast and nighttime set. There is not an ounce of sunlight in the thing. Tim Burton, despite the overt comedy of his two capers, at least ensured his Batman had a daytime existence, making his and Keaton’s Bruce Wayne an insomniac to explain the dual-life. Here Batman exists like a rat in a cave, ironic given the chief riddle set by his antagonist is about a Rat, or stool pigeon. Too many villains blur the focus, but the acting is top notch from Pattinson, Colin Farrell [unrecognisable as the Penguin] and Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman. The action is secondary to the investigative work [Detective Comics, right?] and the horrible occurrences are mostly framed away from the screen. It is humourless.
I really enjoyed this one until that slow tsunami of the seawater climax. Still, for the much maligned DC Films Company, a much better effort than most of the dozen or so MCU films of recent years.
In a cinema near you, this new release is terrific codswallop and greatly recommended. It's about a deadbeat young woman (Sydney Sweeney) who applies for a job as a housemaid cum au pair and all-round factotum to Amanda Seyfried's perky young mom, who is married to rich all-American brawn Brandon Sklenar - against her expectations, she gets the post and then the fun starts.
To reveal more would mean you're enjoying the review rather than the movie - there is a switchback plot development half way through which seems to make a nonsense of the preceding half, while explaining some of the plot inconsistencies, until you sort of realise walking home afterwards that it also does kind of makes sense too.
It seems to be in the same class as M3GHAN in that it takes a load of things you've seen before, chucks it in the blender and serves it up fresh, with a dash of knowingness. It's not as good as M3GHAN but it's the same ballpark.
Steven Spielberg’s incredibly tense sci-fi thriller stars Tom Cruise as an American everyman who finds himself reunited with his son and daughter during the midst of an alien invasion. Based fleetingly on H.G. Wells’s celebrated novel, the film at least retains the journey to safety narrative and the bacteriological fightback for its climax. Almost everything else is booted into touch, including the purpose of invasion itself, which is bafflingly never revealed and apparently had begun millions of years ago – which begs the question why did the aliens wait so long? It doesn’t help matters that visually these whippet thin creatures with big heads resemble Geiger’s sketches for the Alien in Alien. Even their tripod machines have the same bullet-headed shaped. Quibbling aside, one can’t fault the steady increase in suspense and the terror and helplessness wrought by a well-armed and organised invasion is excellently presented. Cruise stays relatively lowkey for a change. He is aided by a superb performance by the juvenile Dakota Fanning as his daughter. The extended sequence where the two hide out in a cellar with Tim Robbins’s potential sex offender is marvellously restrained and also deliriously taut. There isn’t anything particularly new for cinema or for Spielberg, but The War of the Worlds is eminently watchable.
For the eagle eyed, Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, the stars of the George Pal produced 1953 version of the novel, have brief cameos as Cruise’s character’s in laws.
Great stuff, great songs, great laughs. This is a strange one for Doris Day because it's the one time she used that outlaw persona, so when you saw her being interviewed beforehand, well, she didn't look like she did in many of her movies before the 60s, but you couldn't quite believe she was Calam either - you wished the interviewer would ask her to do the Calam voice just to see if she could.
I like the sparring between her and Keel, though arguably the ultimate romantic chemistry wasn't 100% but it was near enough. That said, I don't know why Annie Get Your Gun with Keel is never ever shown, not saying it's as good as this but even so, I'm not sure I've ever seen it.
The Pope dies and the cardinals meet to chose the new one. Edward Berger was often mentioned as a possible director for Bond26 before Villeneuve was named for the job. I think Berger would've been, and can become in the future, a very good Bond director. He has a very good eye for visuals. In "All quiet on the western front" he showed us he can do big spectacle and intense action. In Conclave there is close to no action scenes, but he shows us he can maintain a tense thriller without using action scenes. He also does characters and exotic and luxorious locations (the Vatican) very well too. Like Villeneuve he has yet to show us he can do humor and sexy scenes, but I'm willing to give both the benifit of doubt. My favourites to direct Bond27 are now Edward Berger or Edgar Wright. The movie come highly recomended by the way.
A movie musical based marginally on disputed real events in the life of frontierswoman Martha Jane Canary, nicknamed Calamity Jane. The movie mixes several story threads about her character and greatly exaggerates most of them while ignoring others. The storytelling [read: lying] of her exploits is well documented, and the movie labours the fact to both comic and dramatic effect. Doris Day, taking a big sideways step in her career to perform the role, over acts throughout, but it is one of those enjoyable overacts, her emphasis on Calamity’s goodness and generally naive outlook come across in her overeager playing. A more sophisticated actress might have gone for subtlety but might also not have delivered the necessary pathos because they’d missed the extensive, boisterous comedy. Day could do both. Howard Keel is a fine foil as Wild Bill Hickock.
The movie role involves Calamity hightailing it to Chicago to fetch songstress Adelaid Adams and drag her all the way to dreary Deadwood to perform at the local saloon. By accident, she returns with chamber maid Katie Brown [Allyn Ann McLerie, very good] and all sorts of romantic and musical confusions ensue. The film rollocks along at a rapid pace and there is barely a break for breath. Day strides like a cowboy, slaps her haunches and scowls disdainfully at man and woman; best of all though is her singing and dancing. The songs, from Paul Francis Webster and Sammy Fain are cheeky, energetic and finally romantic [The Deadwood Stage, The Windy City, I Can Do Without You, A Woman’s Touch, The Black Hills of Dakota, Secret Love] and the choreography is restrained enough to fit in with the basic narrative.
Direction is genial, photography bright, costumes excellent, screenplay a little cliched, but this isn’t really a film about outstanding production values – there are only five sets used in the whole film – it is set out to do nothing more than entertain and it does by the bucket load. Secret Love won an Oscar, the film made a chunk of cash and Doris Day solidified her gradually rising star. The film was likeable enough to foster a stage adaptation which proved popular, the reverse of Annie Get Your Gun. In later years the friendship between Calamity and Katie has been reinterpreted as having lesbian undercurrents. I see that, but like Ms Day, I didn’t see it when I first saw it some fifty years ago – too young at the time, watching it now in future times, it is a fairly obvious subtext, although it appears entirely unintentional.
There were many great film musicals made in the 1950s, probably Hollywood’s greatest decade in terms of artistic output for the genre, and Calamity Jane sits well among the best of them, primarily because Day is so watchable, the songs so catchy and the presentation so cheerful. A lovely Christmas Eve afternoon’s entertainment.
I was working in Godalming when they shot it: Church Street had been beautified and covered in snow, it really was very pretty! I don’t know why some of the shops didn’t keep their new picturesque signs. Saw Diaz and the red Mini from a distance, it was fun. I know what you mean about the Shere pub: it’s more Georgian style whereas the film one is a proper old oak beams one. I bet it’s busy this time of year!
Film-wise, finally saw Wake Up Dead Man, which I’d been saving to watch with the larger family at Christmas. Absolutely terrific stuff: funny, thoughtful, clever- just hugely entertaining. I hope they never stop making these. Craig is a real delight in them, and I love the extravagant wardrobe they give him!
I also think Josh O’Connor would make a good Bond.
After making Harry Brown in 2009, Micheal Caine declared he was too old to play leading men and expressed a wish to perform only supporting roles. On-and-off this ran true for the next dozen or so years and cameos or bit parts in blockbuster movies were interspersed with a series of films reflecting the [his] older generation, their thoughts and feelings about the modern world and the people who inhabit them. In many ways, Harry Brown – about a military veteran who disposes of a vicious criminal gang in estate riven south London – started the ball rolling, although the violence turns it into a thriller-by-numbers. However, despite statements to the contrary, Caine did continue to play leading roles, or support roles big enough to give him top billing. Youth concerned two aging writers uncertain about their histories or futures; Mr Morgan’s Last Love was about the personal connections between young and old; Best Sellers saw Caine occupy a Salingeresque role as a lonely, but sympathetic author; Going In Style is perhaps the outlier here, a broad comedy about men recapturing their past. Caine’s final role is Bernie Jordan, a D-Day veteran, who gets up one morning in June and decides to leave his ailing, but proud and supportive wife – played with marvellous self-effacement by Glenda Jackson – also a final performance – and take a trip to France for the 70th Anniversary D-Day Commemorations. On the way he meets other veterans and survivors, young and old, British, French, American and German, treats them with respect and humanity and on the way unbeknown to him becomes a newspaper good news story dubbed ‘The Great Escaper’.
Caine is simply brilliant in The Great Escaper, cheeky, concerned, slightly standoffish. The affection he shares with his wife and with those he meets is demonstrated not in constant hugs and broad cheerfulness, but in discreet hand holding, squeezes, considerate silent glances and an at times wistful downward expression, something of the careworn look. This genuinely is an old man. We recognise Caine is playing someone very much like himself. He is aided by Glenda Jackson, who offers her own sparkling and spunky take on aging by confronting her character’s prescribed death in private and with graceful assertiveness. Despite their own personal preoccupations, both characters take time to understand, accept advise on the problems of others. Rene Jordan’s seemingly nosey behaviour hides a subtle and caring interest in those around her. Bernie’s more quiet and observational conduct comes from the war experiences we witness in vivid sepia flashback.
A devoted romantic partnership of seventy years, the couple are presented lovingly by director Oliver Parker as the Jordan’s share and reminisce of their lives – although everything from 1944 to 2014 is skipped baring a few gibbets of background – with a charm and gentleness rarely seen on screen these days. William Ivory’s script unfortunately includes a number of profanities which seem out of character and suggest an unnecessary dissimilar mood [if Bernie isn’t swearing while terrified as bombs rain down during the war, he wouldn’t include the ‘f’ word to chastise an invalid veteran]. Importantly, Parker and Ivory demonstrate that even as Bernie and Rene reminisce separately, their recollections are of the same moments: this is a couple inseparable, by time and place, past and future. They both hold damaging personal secrets, which they both reveal, a catharsis in old age, yet those misdemeanours do not affect their love and care for each other, or for those around them, bonded over decades; the revelations, mild or monumental in scope depending on a character’s point of view, age and association, come quietly, as they might in older age, and are resolved with a frankness and practicality unfettered by the fussy self-ego of modern eras.
Good support is provided by John Standing, as an alcoholic veteran, and Danielle Vitalis as Adele, a young nurse at the couple’s care home. The script perhaps tries too hard to be jokey when it doesn’t need to be and the gaps in the couple’s life history feel like a cheap get-out. There is also some noticeable slips in editing and consistency – Caine’s walker comes and goes, as does his overcoat, and if he needs a walker to get around Brighton and Calais, I couldn’t see how he is supposed to be strong enough to push his wife in her wheel chair – but these are fairly minor slips compared to the overriding incidents of forgiveness, responsibility, blameworthiness and dignity.
The Great Escaper is a fictionalised account of a true story. Putting aside the truth of the tale, it is a welcome, thoughtful and considered film that brings the curtain down on two brilliant acting careers. Both Caine and Jackson give possibly their most natural and empathetic performances ever and the audience sides with them and believes in them as they may not have done over some of their earlier more flashy fare. It is also a rewarding happy film, despite reflecting on difficult contemporary and historical times, and that is a difficult trick to pull off. I applaud it whole heartedly.
The 1970s was chock full of big screen adaptations of TV situation comedies and dramas. Porridge, which was one of the decades best sitcoms, translates reasonably well to the cinema but the laughs are hard to come by and sending the cast out of prison changes the claustrophobic dynamic of the setting and the character interactions. Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais over reach themselves by writing, producing and directing. They have oodles of talent, but Powell and Pressburger they are not. Ronnie Barker proves watchable in his greatest character, the cynical Norman Stanley Fletcher, but the story can’t support the runtime and it peters out into predictability. There is decent support from most of the actors who transferred from the TV version to the cinema one. Porridge is probably the best of the comedy spin offs but nowhere near as spot on as the tight-as-a-whistle TV series.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,869Chief of Staff
Diverting from the 30 min run time (probably closer to 25 mins really) most of these film spin-offs struggle to match the tv shows they came from…most are still entertaining though…for some reason Porridge and Steptoe & Son seem to have their films shown at Christmas 🤗
Australian Baz Luhrmann brings a flashy non-stop pop video style landscape to this biopic of Elvis Presley, a film edited to within a millimetre of its life. The story doesn’t rely very much on informed historical accuracy and prefers to perpetrate the established myth that Colonel Tom Parker, a voracious and incompetent manager who had never promoted anything more than second rate carnival shows, was responsible for the King’s downfall. It certainly looks that way, even though Parker himself is the nominal narrator and attempts to justify his actions and pass the blame to everyone but his own black heart. It is fair to say that Elvis certainly executed a very poor series of choices about his management team in the early seventies, but he didn’t take any advice other than from those around him who were leeches equally as culpable as the fat, unsympathetic Parker. The film also neglects to show the genuine influence Elvis had over his early career choices – music especially – and concentrates on the ‘comeback’ period of 1968 – 1973 when suddenly life looked rosy again. It is very sketchy though on Elvis’s love of crooners, classical singers and country balladeers, preferring to emphasise only the gospel and blues roots.
Elvis is a short film when you consider the material available and whole sections are skipped to move the narrative on, so you never get any idea of Elvis changing as an individual; outwardly, other than Austin Butler’s hair style changing, he looks as slender and healthy in 1976 as he did in 1956. The filmmakers make two significant decisions: concentrating on three formative extended moments in Elvis’s life to cut the narrative; and chopping and changing songs and timeline, so in terms of musical chronology, the film is a dead loss. Elvis’s own vocals accompany some of the music, at others it is Mr Butler’s. Documentary excerpts from the Elvis concert films That’s the Way It Is, On Tour, In Concert and Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite are blended into the actual film, and Luhrmann matches the look and production of the accompanying new footage to seamless advantage.
In technical terms, the film is a masterpiece. In terms of storytelling, it is shorn of character and personal drive, so we marvel at the interpretations, not at the character behind the mimic. Despite that, if you didn’t know the history of Elvis, his mother and father, Pricilla and that Lord of Leeches Colonel Parker, you’d probably learn something. I was entertained by Elvis, but I wouldn’t salute it as a best-this-and-that although it is very good in a flashy pop video style way.
Comments
TAKEN 2 (2012)
Preposterous and preposterously enjoyable sequel that pretty much repeats what we saw in the first Taken movie, only this time with Liam Neeson’s Bryan Mills being the kidnappee and his daughter coming to the rescue. Blood and thunder in Istanbul ensues. Taken 2 is at its best during the tense early sequences of kidnap and rescue as Maggie Grace’s Kim Mills clambers over hotel balconies and rooftop walkways setting off grenades and following her Dad’s aural mapping, all the while kitted out in little more than a bikini – I exaggerate, but the filmmakers really missed an eye-candy trick there. The second half of this revenge themed thriller is more cliched and less interesting. Apparently it was rewritten and reshot as the original ending made Neeson’s character appear even more the vigilante, wiping out rogue Albanian gangsters left, right and centre despite saving wife and daughter. Here, the verbal interplay with emptahetic villain Rade Serbedzija heavily suggests that Neeson's avenging angel is no better than the men he is killing, which seems a valid point and is well made. After that, director Olivier Megaton and writers Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen just let Bryan Mills kill everyone anyway, pretty much. Critical response was mixed, the box office was good, I rather like it despite the dip in the latter half. Certainly no worse than many run-of-the-mill thrillers.
Agreed 100%.
I've read that a remake of "Witness For The Prosecution" is in the pipeline. I hate it when perfect (or nearly perfect) movies suffer that treatment.
The movies that should be re-made are the ones that had the potential to be great, but weren't. These are often the movies that had a good plot or central idea, but the casting, directing etc. wasted the potential.
@Barbel I take it you are speaking of Witness for the Prosecution not Taken 2 ?
Neither- I was speaking of "The Ipcress File" and hadn’t noticed the "Taken 2" review.
Then that 100% agreement is well merited 😁
TAKEN 3 (2014)
Nasty things abound in Los Angeles.
Ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills, in the startlingly serious guise of Liam Neeson, returns for a final instalment of a trilogy that brings a long story arc to a neat close. Unfortunately when watched back-to-back the frays in the plot threads between the movies show; most notable is a cast and character change for one of the key players. Killing off another seems rather mean and there is a ‘new mother’ angle to the whole which feels unwarranted. Other than that, standard fare for the franchise, aided by a decent supporting turn by Forrest Whittaker as an evidence eating cop and the fact Mills spends most of his time evading the California police, so the body count is far lower than normal as a CIA agent would obviously never kill a policeman. The stunts are spectacularly stupid and overall the film is so much more silly than numbers one and two in the series and therefore far less watchable.
LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER (2001)
A computer game that effectively reinvented Indiana Jones for adolescent boys who fantasised about big boobed girls in tight shorts and tops, Tomb Raider was ripe for cinematic adaptation. This version sticks to the well-tried treasure hunt formula and just about succeeds by sheer will power and visual excess. Angelina Jolie makes a good impression as the titular heroine, even if her fake English accent occasionally slips. Pre-Bond Daniel Craig makes no impression at all as her ex-love interest; he doesn’t so much slip as wallow in his fake US accent: just dire. There are a couple of villains, one played by Richard Johnson who was once considered Bond material himself. If Bond ever had to be recast as a woman, I would have given dear Angelina a shot back in 2001. She looks attractive, physically fit and has a neat line in eyebrow raising attitudes.
Smatterings of humour among all the episodic violent excesses are welcome. Watching this brought back memories of Ray Harryhausen and Sinbad; I couldn’t help remembering how good those fantasy films were. The same kind of creatures and bizarre traps and villains are attached to this project, but there is none of the wonder, which is a shame. The thing looks good even if it makes no narrative sense – if the prize being searched for is so easily obtained by Miss Croft, why does it take so long for everyone else – if the artefact is so dangerously powerful, why doesn’t Miss Croft just destroy it when she has the chance – if the Illuminati are so powerful, how come they don’t rule the world already – these questions are only three of many and suggest that these fantasy treasure hunts will always succumb to the same basic problem: of leaving the character’s logic well outside the home of their brain. The Indiana Jones movies are chock with the same kind of head scratching circumstances.
Did I enjoy it? Well, I did, once. Not so much now.
In honor of its 50th anniversary last month, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).
Jack Nicholson has never been better. The acting is top notch all around.
Louise Fletcher gives us one of cinema's greatest villains. What makes her acting great (for me, at least) is how lifeless her eyes look more often than not. It shows us how much she takes advantage of her power: her eyes have a hard look. I know that Louise Fletcher wasn't a mean lady in real life, but her eyes in this movie have a cold hard stare that not many can pull off so well.
Brad Dourif gets his career off to a great start, and shows range that he wouldn't as well known for later on. Lots of great character actors get an early start in their careers here (Danny Devito, Christopher Lloyd, in his first movie role, and our own man Vincent Schiavelli, who probably has more screen time, yet less lines than in TND, just to name a few).
For a movie that could easily seem boring, it's not. The acting truly helps the movie move forward at a fair pace. The screenplay and direction mix well in this regard, making the movie feel flawless. The plot twist with a certain character may have upset the author, and I understand his feelings. However, it worked for the movie.
It was a nice father-son movie for my dad and me. He got to watch it in a college psychological class, and he and his classmates laughed more than once. In the present, we laughed at certain moments as well. While mainly a drama, there is some dark humor spread around. That's one of the things that makes this so great. If Michael Douglas hadn't become a great actor, he truly could have been a great producer as well, and this proves it. The Oscars were right with this one that year, and it was a tough year for all (Jaws, Dog Day Afternoon, Barry Lyndon, just to name a few) but I'm glad that this came ahead of them all with the Oscar wins. So all in all, if you haven't watched One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest in 5 years or more, I'd recommend a re-watch. It proves with a bit of encouragement from others, you can find potential in yourself that you never knew you had.
I very much agree on that. Sadly, this is very rarely the case with film remakes.
LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE (2003)
An inconsequential sequel that does exactly the same as the first episode only without the silly accents. Decent villainy from Cairan Hinds helps. The thing looks good even if it loses its momentum half way – the Shanghai and Kilimanjaro sections lack any of the tongue in cheek humour, effective plotting and rampaging action which makes the first half so appealing. Angelina Jolie is fine as the heroine, given she has nothing to work with. Like the computer games it is based on, The Cradle of Life is best appreciated with as little thought as possible
@chrisno1 that Nicholas Cage film The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent or whatever it's called is on Film4 tonight (Wed) at 9pm - you were annoyed you'd missed it last time.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Thanks @Napoleon Plural ! I'll tape it as I am out Christmas celebrating 🎄🎄🎄😵💫😵💫😵💫🥳🥳🥳🧑🎄🧑🎄🧑🎄
I watched Daniel Craig's latest Benoit Blanc mystery, WAKE UP, DEAD MAN. It's another good show, with a Christie-like setup and a good cast. I also found it interesting that the film kind of took issues of religion seriously. And I'll be hornswoggled if Craig's southern-fried accent ain't starting to grow on me.
I watched that last night too…it was enjoyable and didn’t drag despite its 2hr 24min run time…
And that Nic Cage film is on Film4 tonight (Tue) around 9pm too!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
A Christmas Story Christmas (2022). A decent legacy sequel to one of my favorite movies. It was a play by play sequel (in particular with referencing the first movie's iconic gags), but it was worth it. It did deserve a chance in theaters. I'm surprised that it took me this long to see it, as the original is one of my favorite movies. It was also great to see legacy characters, there are no missteps with where their characters end up. Enjoyable, but still not much compared to its iconic predecessor. So, not a true new Christmas classic, but worth it if you are bored. I do recommend the original novel by Jean Shepherd: In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. A quick, humorous read. As for A Christmas Story Christmas, it doesn't feel commercialized. A nice early movie present for me, but give me the timeless classic original Christmas Story, anytime.
THE HOLIDAY (2006)
Comedy writer Nancy Myers had a mixed early career until the Disney remake of The Parent Trap launched her as a director / writer of [again] reasonable success. She never does anything very exciting or innovative and her movies tend to be cheerful fluff with strong central female characters and a high degree of what can only be described as schmaltz. The Holiday is an English-centric Christmas set romance with bouts of silly humour. Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz swap houses and continents for Christmas in an attempt to spice up dreadful lives. They end up discovering more about themselves, fall out of and in to love and basically have a chick-lit good time. Meyers doesn’t really get English people, so Winslet, Jude Law, Rufus Sewel, etc, all sound like Americans with a plummy accent. The acting is mostly crass. Erstwhile octogenarian Eli Wallach as an elderly L.A. neighbour is the best thing in it, although Diaz is always watchable in her dumb-but-brainy-blonde-with-a-heart-of-gold act which she pulls off to a greater or lesser degree in almost every film she makes. The film ends happily, but it drags. There is an unnecessary voice over. Meyers seems uncertain of the type of film she wants to make and it tumbles along well-enough without ever rewarding the viewer with anything other than romantic sentiment. It doesn’t help we don’t believe the couplings or the excuses everyone makes for not doing or saying the bloody obvious.
Back in 2006, I watched The Holiday in the cinema with my girlfriend of the time because the previous week we had eaten in the White Horse in Shere and been told the pub scene was filmed there. I’m not sure it was, but you can certainly see the village high street and the pub sign in an snowy exterior shot. Lucy cried a lot towards the end and that set me off as well. Time for a sentimental night cap as it were… Nice memories but this isn’t a great film.
A yearly re-watch of Home Alone (1990). One of the most unique things about this year's re-watch is that I read one of John Hughes' original screenplays for it. As many others in the media industry have said, many screenplays truly shape overtime. A lot of gags and characters are switched around in this script. Harry and Marv are a bit more sympathetic, actually. The word "sh*t" is used quite frequently. For some reason, Old Man Marley is called "Harley" for a few pages. All the traps are there and portrayed roughly the same as in the final movie. It was a truly unique way of looking at how different the movie could have turned out. If they released this screenplay version of the movie, it would have been rated PG-13, (in the US, at least). Overall, a great read of a screenplay, that it could have still been a great movie. Highly recommended reading.
As for the finished movie itself, like A Christmas Story, for me it's a timeless classic from childhood. While growing up, I always looked forward to the booby trap scenes. As I got older, I got more of the humor throughout the movie. That's a sign that it is aging well, for my generation. I think that it has a truly powerful third act, from the talk with Marley, the traps and the family finale. As for the acting, some great acting from the kids. It was a great character arc for Kevin, with Macaulay Culkin owning his part perfectly. As for Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern as Harry and Marv, they prove one thing: They should be in bigger named projects, even though both are generally retired. Or that Pesci retired early, and Stern didn't get a lot of bigger named projects, unfortunately. But, this is some of their best work. They can still make me laugh, all these years later. So, all in all, like A Christmas Story, Home Alone, is a timeless classic from childhood that I can watch year after year. It can make me laugh, almost tear up, and be more grateful for family and friends. Like its screenplay, it is worth a re-watch, it's as great as a cheese pizza for yourself.
THE BATMAN (2022)
Gosh. This was good. At least the first two hours was. After that, like all superhero movies, Matt Reeves turns his take on the Caped Crusader from a dark and noirish detective thriller with a twist to a superhero spectacular that ticks all the boxes of heroism without ever seeming to resolve the plot.
At almost three hours I was investing a lot of time in this and while I was rewarded for the most part, I just wanted something less like Earthquake and more like Bullitt. The film seems to be heading that way, with questions asked of the titular hero about his attitudes towards authority, relationships and his ego. The destruction of Gotham City’s sea wall defences is at least an original and believable design, but the horrifically villainous Riddler doesn’t seem capable of recruiting all the disaffected hoodlums to carry out his multifaceted plan – but maybe in this day an age the power of the online media and the dark web to generate mass followings of homicidal weirdos proves this out.
The film is startling in its presentation of the action as if we are watching a comic book; not in the dialogue or the action, but the carefully framed sequences which look as if they have been drawn on the screen as they might on the pages of a graphic novel. The intense voice over is not intrusive, generating extra depth to the character of Bruce Wayne as he struggles to understand himself, the world he lives in and how he and his alter-ego fit in it. I was disheartened Reeves chose to have his version of Wayne look so pasty and dishevelled. At times Robert Pattinson looks as if he mistakenly thought himself cast as the Crow, all that messy, greasy hair, leather and accompanying grunge music. The film – like all recent attempts at Batman reinvention – is uniformly dark, grimy, rainy, overcast and nighttime set. There is not an ounce of sunlight in the thing. Tim Burton, despite the overt comedy of his two capers, at least ensured his Batman had a daytime existence, making his and Keaton’s Bruce Wayne an insomniac to explain the dual-life. Here Batman exists like a rat in a cave, ironic given the chief riddle set by his antagonist is about a Rat, or stool pigeon. Too many villains blur the focus, but the acting is top notch from Pattinson, Colin Farrell [unrecognisable as the Penguin] and Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle, aka Catwoman. The action is secondary to the investigative work [Detective Comics, right?] and the horrible occurrences are mostly framed away from the screen. It is humourless.
I really enjoyed this one until that slow tsunami of the seawater climax. Still, for the much maligned DC Films Company, a much better effort than most of the dozen or so MCU films of recent years.
The Housemaid (2025)
In a cinema near you, this new release is terrific codswallop and greatly recommended. It's about a deadbeat young woman (Sydney Sweeney) who applies for a job as a housemaid cum au pair and all-round factotum to Amanda Seyfried's perky young mom, who is married to rich all-American brawn Brandon Sklenar - against her expectations, she gets the post and then the fun starts.
To reveal more would mean you're enjoying the review rather than the movie - there is a switchback plot development half way through which seems to make a nonsense of the preceding half, while explaining some of the plot inconsistencies, until you sort of realise walking home afterwards that it also does kind of makes sense too.
It seems to be in the same class as M3GHAN in that it takes a load of things you've seen before, chucks it in the blender and serves it up fresh, with a dash of knowingness. It's not as good as M3GHAN but it's the same ballpark.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005)
Steven Spielberg’s incredibly tense sci-fi thriller stars Tom Cruise as an American everyman who finds himself reunited with his son and daughter during the midst of an alien invasion. Based fleetingly on H.G. Wells’s celebrated novel, the film at least retains the journey to safety narrative and the bacteriological fightback for its climax. Almost everything else is booted into touch, including the purpose of invasion itself, which is bafflingly never revealed and apparently had begun millions of years ago – which begs the question why did the aliens wait so long? It doesn’t help matters that visually these whippet thin creatures with big heads resemble Geiger’s sketches for the Alien in Alien. Even their tripod machines have the same bullet-headed shaped. Quibbling aside, one can’t fault the steady increase in suspense and the terror and helplessness wrought by a well-armed and organised invasion is excellently presented. Cruise stays relatively lowkey for a change. He is aided by a superb performance by the juvenile Dakota Fanning as his daughter. The extended sequence where the two hide out in a cellar with Tim Robbins’s potential sex offender is marvellously restrained and also deliriously taut. There isn’t anything particularly new for cinema or for Spielberg, but The War of the Worlds is eminently watchable.
For the eagle eyed, Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, the stars of the George Pal produced 1953 version of the novel, have brief cameos as Cruise’s character’s in laws.
Calamity Jane
Great stuff, great songs, great laughs. This is a strange one for Doris Day because it's the one time she used that outlaw persona, so when you saw her being interviewed beforehand, well, she didn't look like she did in many of her movies before the 60s, but you couldn't quite believe she was Calam either - you wished the interviewer would ask her to do the Calam voice just to see if she could.
I like the sparring between her and Keel, though arguably the ultimate romantic chemistry wasn't 100% but it was near enough. That said, I don't know why Annie Get Your Gun with Keel is never ever shown, not saying it's as good as this but even so, I'm not sure I've ever seen it.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Conclave (2024)
The Pope dies and the cardinals meet to chose the new one. Edward Berger was often mentioned as a possible director for Bond26 before Villeneuve was named for the job. I think Berger would've been, and can become in the future, a very good Bond director. He has a very good eye for visuals. In "All quiet on the western front" he showed us he can do big spectacle and intense action. In Conclave there is close to no action scenes, but he shows us he can maintain a tense thriller without using action scenes. He also does characters and exotic and luxorious locations (the Vatican) very well too. Like Villeneuve he has yet to show us he can do humor and sexy scenes, but I'm willing to give both the benifit of doubt. My favourites to direct Bond27 are now Edward Berger or Edgar Wright. The movie come highly recomended by the way.
CALAMITY JANE (1953)
A movie musical based marginally on disputed real events in the life of frontierswoman Martha Jane Canary, nicknamed Calamity Jane. The movie mixes several story threads about her character and greatly exaggerates most of them while ignoring others. The storytelling [read: lying] of her exploits is well documented, and the movie labours the fact to both comic and dramatic effect. Doris Day, taking a big sideways step in her career to perform the role, over acts throughout, but it is one of those enjoyable overacts, her emphasis on Calamity’s goodness and generally naive outlook come across in her overeager playing. A more sophisticated actress might have gone for subtlety but might also not have delivered the necessary pathos because they’d missed the extensive, boisterous comedy. Day could do both. Howard Keel is a fine foil as Wild Bill Hickock.
The movie role involves Calamity hightailing it to Chicago to fetch songstress Adelaid Adams and drag her all the way to dreary Deadwood to perform at the local saloon. By accident, she returns with chamber maid Katie Brown [Allyn Ann McLerie, very good] and all sorts of romantic and musical confusions ensue. The film rollocks along at a rapid pace and there is barely a break for breath. Day strides like a cowboy, slaps her haunches and scowls disdainfully at man and woman; best of all though is her singing and dancing. The songs, from Paul Francis Webster and Sammy Fain are cheeky, energetic and finally romantic [The Deadwood Stage, The Windy City, I Can Do Without You, A Woman’s Touch, The Black Hills of Dakota, Secret Love] and the choreography is restrained enough to fit in with the basic narrative.
Direction is genial, photography bright, costumes excellent, screenplay a little cliched, but this isn’t really a film about outstanding production values – there are only five sets used in the whole film – it is set out to do nothing more than entertain and it does by the bucket load. Secret Love won an Oscar, the film made a chunk of cash and Doris Day solidified her gradually rising star. The film was likeable enough to foster a stage adaptation which proved popular, the reverse of Annie Get Your Gun. In later years the friendship between Calamity and Katie has been reinterpreted as having lesbian undercurrents. I see that, but like Ms Day, I didn’t see it when I first saw it some fifty years ago – too young at the time, watching it now in future times, it is a fairly obvious subtext, although it appears entirely unintentional.
There were many great film musicals made in the 1950s, probably Hollywood’s greatest decade in terms of artistic output for the genre, and Calamity Jane sits well among the best of them, primarily because Day is so watchable, the songs so catchy and the presentation so cheerful. A lovely Christmas Eve afternoon’s entertainment.
I was working in Godalming when they shot it: Church Street had been beautified and covered in snow, it really was very pretty! I don’t know why some of the shops didn’t keep their new picturesque signs. Saw Diaz and the red Mini from a distance, it was fun. I know what you mean about the Shere pub: it’s more Georgian style whereas the film one is a proper old oak beams one. I bet it’s busy this time of year!
Film-wise, finally saw Wake Up Dead Man, which I’d been saving to watch with the larger family at Christmas. Absolutely terrific stuff: funny, thoughtful, clever- just hugely entertaining. I hope they never stop making these. Craig is a real delight in them, and I love the extravagant wardrobe they give him!
I also think Josh O’Connor would make a good Bond.
THE GREAT ESCAPER (2023)
After making Harry Brown in 2009, Micheal Caine declared he was too old to play leading men and expressed a wish to perform only supporting roles. On-and-off this ran true for the next dozen or so years and cameos or bit parts in blockbuster movies were interspersed with a series of films reflecting the [his] older generation, their thoughts and feelings about the modern world and the people who inhabit them. In many ways, Harry Brown – about a military veteran who disposes of a vicious criminal gang in estate riven south London – started the ball rolling, although the violence turns it into a thriller-by-numbers. However, despite statements to the contrary, Caine did continue to play leading roles, or support roles big enough to give him top billing. Youth concerned two aging writers uncertain about their histories or futures; Mr Morgan’s Last Love was about the personal connections between young and old; Best Sellers saw Caine occupy a Salingeresque role as a lonely, but sympathetic author; Going In Style is perhaps the outlier here, a broad comedy about men recapturing their past. Caine’s final role is Bernie Jordan, a D-Day veteran, who gets up one morning in June and decides to leave his ailing, but proud and supportive wife – played with marvellous self-effacement by Glenda Jackson – also a final performance – and take a trip to France for the 70th Anniversary D-Day Commemorations. On the way he meets other veterans and survivors, young and old, British, French, American and German, treats them with respect and humanity and on the way unbeknown to him becomes a newspaper good news story dubbed ‘The Great Escaper’.
Caine is simply brilliant in The Great Escaper, cheeky, concerned, slightly standoffish. The affection he shares with his wife and with those he meets is demonstrated not in constant hugs and broad cheerfulness, but in discreet hand holding, squeezes, considerate silent glances and an at times wistful downward expression, something of the careworn look. This genuinely is an old man. We recognise Caine is playing someone very much like himself. He is aided by Glenda Jackson, who offers her own sparkling and spunky take on aging by confronting her character’s prescribed death in private and with graceful assertiveness. Despite their own personal preoccupations, both characters take time to understand, accept advise on the problems of others. Rene Jordan’s seemingly nosey behaviour hides a subtle and caring interest in those around her. Bernie’s more quiet and observational conduct comes from the war experiences we witness in vivid sepia flashback.
A devoted romantic partnership of seventy years, the couple are presented lovingly by director Oliver Parker as the Jordan’s share and reminisce of their lives – although everything from 1944 to 2014 is skipped baring a few gibbets of background – with a charm and gentleness rarely seen on screen these days. William Ivory’s script unfortunately includes a number of profanities which seem out of character and suggest an unnecessary dissimilar mood [if Bernie isn’t swearing while terrified as bombs rain down during the war, he wouldn’t include the ‘f’ word to chastise an invalid veteran]. Importantly, Parker and Ivory demonstrate that even as Bernie and Rene reminisce separately, their recollections are of the same moments: this is a couple inseparable, by time and place, past and future. They both hold damaging personal secrets, which they both reveal, a catharsis in old age, yet those misdemeanours do not affect their love and care for each other, or for those around them, bonded over decades; the revelations, mild or monumental in scope depending on a character’s point of view, age and association, come quietly, as they might in older age, and are resolved with a frankness and practicality unfettered by the fussy self-ego of modern eras.
Good support is provided by John Standing, as an alcoholic veteran, and Danielle Vitalis as Adele, a young nurse at the couple’s care home. The script perhaps tries too hard to be jokey when it doesn’t need to be and the gaps in the couple’s life history feel like a cheap get-out. There is also some noticeable slips in editing and consistency – Caine’s walker comes and goes, as does his overcoat, and if he needs a walker to get around Brighton and Calais, I couldn’t see how he is supposed to be strong enough to push his wife in her wheel chair – but these are fairly minor slips compared to the overriding incidents of forgiveness, responsibility, blameworthiness and dignity.
The Great Escaper is a fictionalised account of a true story. Putting aside the truth of the tale, it is a welcome, thoughtful and considered film that brings the curtain down on two brilliant acting careers. Both Caine and Jackson give possibly their most natural and empathetic performances ever and the audience sides with them and believes in them as they may not have done over some of their earlier more flashy fare. It is also a rewarding happy film, despite reflecting on difficult contemporary and historical times, and that is a difficult trick to pull off. I applaud it whole heartedly.
Excellent.
PORRIDGE (1979)
The 1970s was chock full of big screen adaptations of TV situation comedies and dramas. Porridge, which was one of the decades best sitcoms, translates reasonably well to the cinema but the laughs are hard to come by and sending the cast out of prison changes the claustrophobic dynamic of the setting and the character interactions. Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais over reach themselves by writing, producing and directing. They have oodles of talent, but Powell and Pressburger they are not. Ronnie Barker proves watchable in his greatest character, the cynical Norman Stanley Fletcher, but the story can’t support the runtime and it peters out into predictability. There is decent support from most of the actors who transferred from the TV version to the cinema one. Porridge is probably the best of the comedy spin offs but nowhere near as spot on as the tight-as-a-whistle TV series.
Diverting from the 30 min run time (probably closer to 25 mins really) most of these film spin-offs struggle to match the tv shows they came from…most are still entertaining though…for some reason Porridge and Steptoe & Son seem to have their films shown at Christmas 🤗
ELVIS (2022)
Australian Baz Luhrmann brings a flashy non-stop pop video style landscape to this biopic of Elvis Presley, a film edited to within a millimetre of its life. The story doesn’t rely very much on informed historical accuracy and prefers to perpetrate the established myth that Colonel Tom Parker, a voracious and incompetent manager who had never promoted anything more than second rate carnival shows, was responsible for the King’s downfall. It certainly looks that way, even though Parker himself is the nominal narrator and attempts to justify his actions and pass the blame to everyone but his own black heart. It is fair to say that Elvis certainly executed a very poor series of choices about his management team in the early seventies, but he didn’t take any advice other than from those around him who were leeches equally as culpable as the fat, unsympathetic Parker. The film also neglects to show the genuine influence Elvis had over his early career choices – music especially – and concentrates on the ‘comeback’ period of 1968 – 1973 when suddenly life looked rosy again. It is very sketchy though on Elvis’s love of crooners, classical singers and country balladeers, preferring to emphasise only the gospel and blues roots.
Elvis is a short film when you consider the material available and whole sections are skipped to move the narrative on, so you never get any idea of Elvis changing as an individual; outwardly, other than Austin Butler’s hair style changing, he looks as slender and healthy in 1976 as he did in 1956. The filmmakers make two significant decisions: concentrating on three formative extended moments in Elvis’s life to cut the narrative; and chopping and changing songs and timeline, so in terms of musical chronology, the film is a dead loss. Elvis’s own vocals accompany some of the music, at others it is Mr Butler’s. Documentary excerpts from the Elvis concert films That’s the Way It Is, On Tour, In Concert and Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite are blended into the actual film, and Luhrmann matches the look and production of the accompanying new footage to seamless advantage.
In technical terms, the film is a masterpiece. In terms of storytelling, it is shorn of character and personal drive, so we marvel at the interpretations, not at the character behind the mimic. Despite that, if you didn’t know the history of Elvis, his mother and father, Pricilla and that Lord of Leeches Colonel Parker, you’d probably learn something. I was entertained by Elvis, but I wouldn’t salute it as a best-this-and-that although it is very good in a flashy pop video style way.