Down on his luck NYPD detective Nick Conklin (Micheal Douglas) and his partner Charlie Vincent (Andy Garcia) witness the murders of a Japanese criminal syndicate and apprehend the killer...a yakuza by the name of Koji Sato (Yūsaku Matsuda).
The two officers are then dispatched to Osaka, Japan to hand over the criminal to the local police authorities...but things don't go according to plan.
Conklin and Vincent now find themselves trapped in a brutal gang war between two rival clans.
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A dark and violent action thriller; beautifully filmed, with solid performances by its lead and supporting actors. An underrated gem.
Watching these out of order, but they are all the same really, so it doesn't matter:
JURASSIC PARK III (2001)
Steven Spielberg got out quick.
A dull reimagining of the original with Sam Neill returning for a quick pay day and being hunted by dinosaurs while searching for someone’s son. Uninteresting and bloated. Even the posters were crap. The best thing to be said about Jurassic Park III is that it’s only 92 minutes long.
You may have thoughts about the term "the Swedish James Bond", but this is it. The journalist Jan Guillou has written a serious of novels about the agent Carl Hamilton, and several of them were filmed. Coq Rouge is the first novel and film in the series. Hamilton is from the upper class, a count in fact. As a student he became a communist and joined a fraction that was anti-Soviet. Then he became a combat diver in the Swedish navy where he was recruited to a special project. Hamilton was then trained by the Navy SEALs and the CIA in the States while also studying computers at a university there. Sounds like he didn't have a lot of free time.
In the first two movies Hamilton is played by a young Stellan Skarsgård. At the start of the movie he works in Swedish military inteligence, but gets loaned out to the police inteligence agency Säpo when their expert on the Middle East gets murdered. A communist SEAL count sounds unconventional, and it doesn't stop there. The terrorist are not who you'd expect. Do expect a scene Skarsgård does in full-frontal nudity. Also look out for a very young Gustav Skarsgård as Carl Hamilton's nephew.
This is an espionage thriller, not an action movie even though there is some action. I think it's a solid thriller. Stellan Skarsgård is good in it. In fact I think he could've been a good Necros in TLD a couple of years earlier. If you somehow find this movie somewhere I can recomend it, but be ready for a mix of the conventional and the unconventional.
A satire on celebrity and haute cuisine. Ralph Fiennes stars as a control freak of a chef whose magnificent meals are lauded by the most conceited of guests. Anya Taylor Joy’s sveltely dressed prostitute wanders onto his private dining island without an invite and into a full on slasher feast. It didn’t make me laugh much and the ending is unfortunately bleak. Well-acted, pretentiously written codswallop, much like the food, some of which are actual dishes rustled up by the kind of up-you-arse chefs the film is ridiculing. Excellent set design.
This action movie is directed byMartin Campbel who of course also directed GE and CR. Daisy Ridley plays the window cleaner Joey. She's very good at cleaning the windows of high-rise buildings, but less good at life. The building she's working outside gets taken over by terrorists and she fights back. Basically Die Hard, but why not if it's done in an inventive and different way? I think The Cleaner succeedes in this. Daisy Ridley is a good lead here, in my opinion better than her efforts in Star Wars. She comes across as brave and recourseful, but also a failable human being. Mathew Tuck is her autistic brother also delivers a good performance. The only problem in the film is that is perpetuates the myth that radical environmentalists are very dangerous and a major threath to society. In reality the total number of people killed in eco-terrorist actions is precisely zero. That's a small detail after all. I found The Cleaner to be an entertaining popcorn movie.
Dominique Auphal, a French diplomat serving as a special representative at ODENS (Organization for the Development of North South Exchange), a multi-national organization spearheading Third World economic development, is targeted by a foreign intelligence agency.
The agency aims to recruit Auphal in order to infiltrate ODENS.
This will be done through a cold review of his life and a deep study of his emotional vulnerabilities, which will later be used to blackmail him into subservience.
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A very well written espionage film, that fans of the genre will appreciate.
This is a tame romantic comedy which, despite its claim to be daring in its approach to sex and sexual relationships, is basically an old fashioned girl-meets-boy-loses-boy-gets-boy story. It even finishes with her hopelessly over-romanticised idea of a proposal. The only caveat to the film is an off-handed bitter tone towards relationships and commitment. This doesn’t sit easily beside an overwhelming sense of regret and longing for a time [and people?] that never existed, those pre-requisite rose tinted spectacles. I laughed occasionally and the two leads [Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake] at least look the part. The film’s major issue is a complete misunderstanding of what ‘friends with benefits’ means; these two spend so much time together, albeit usually in bed, that they cannot be seen as being anything more than a couple. It isn’t casual in the least; they orchestrate every tryst; defeating the spontaneity and unconsciousness of FWB. Pleasant, I suppose, but ultimately see-through from the off.
AIR FORCE ONE (1997) President Harrison Ford battles terrorist Gary Oldman (in full nutter mode once again). Slick action thriller in the Die Hard mode. Good fun if brain is switched off. 3.5/5
SHELTER (2026) The first half is pretty good, the second half reverts to Jason Statham kicking ass. The kid looks like she could have a future film career, she’s rather good in this. 3/5
MISDIRECTION (2026) Boring, confusing and misdirected. 0.5/5
FIRESTARTER (2022) Updated version of Stephen King’s bestseller. The acting and special effects are nothing special. 2/5
THE GETAWAY (1972) Steve McQueen in Sam Peckinpah’s thriller with lots of shootouts and slow motion action. Excellent. 4/5
UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY (1995) Steven Seagal’s chef returns to stop another terrorist plot. Standard actioner. 2/5
GLENGARRY GLENROSS (1992) Superb acting as a group of salesmen try to avoid the chop. It’s kind of interesting but ultimately goes nowhere. 3/5
THE SWARM (1978) Irwin Allen produced four of the best loved television series of the ‘60’s. He went on to produce a handful of disaster movies including The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. This was a literal disaster. Allen should have stuck to producing because he cannot direct. Michael Caine shouts a lot, Richard Widmark looks bemused, and a great cast don’t seem to be able to comprehend what they’re in. The special effects are atrocious, the script is dire. The star is for Fred MacMurray and Ben Johnson vying for Olivia de Havilland’s hand in marriage. Caine obviously didn’t care about quality in those days as he came back for more in the sequel to The Poseidon Adventure. 1/5
GREENLAND: MIGRATION (2026) Gerald Butler takes his family on a European tour five years after the first movie placed them in a bunker in Greenland, after a comet collided with the Earth. Nothing new here, standard fare you’ve seen many times before. 2/5
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Starring acting legend Yves Montand, I...Comme Icare is a French political thriller directed by Henri Verneuil, that details the investigation of an assassination conspiracy led by the prosecutor Henri Volney.
Volney and his team reject the official report on the event and unveil a massive cover-up, piece by piece.
Featuring a riveting storyline, top-notch acting performances and beautiful cinematography, I...Comme Icare isin the same league as Coppola’s 'The Conversation' and Pollack’s 'Three Days of the Condor'.
Doris Day and Rock Hudson shared a famous on screen partnership, although they in fact only made three films together. Day made almost as many comedies with James Garner! Norman Jewison directs with a studied televisual air. The whole thing, other than a brief interlude on a golf links, is studio bound and feels it, as if this is a big screen adaptation of a homely US sitcom. Hudson and Day are watchable, but the situation is farcical and rather dumb, and ultimately the script does not allow them to shine as they did in the frothy Pillow Talk and the satirical Lover Come Back. Send Me No Flowers sees Hudson’s hypochondriac misdiagnosed as having two weeks to live and – as you do / don’t – immediately setting out to make sure his wife [Day] is catered for financially and erotically after he dies. It’s not a very amusing narrative. Tony Randall plays their drunken neighbour whose wife is mentioned but never seen. Characters in The Archers radio show used to have the same invisible personality. It makes scenes such as the one where Hudson shares Randall’s bed after being kicked out of his home completely ridiculous. Everything sorts itself out eventually, but they could have done it quicker and funnier in a 30-minute TV show. There’s a half cute theme song from Bacharach and David which isn’t Ms Day’s most tuneful of moments, but is welcome all the same.
Like the other night’s Friends With Benefits, this film is see-though from the start and disappointing because of it.
This is of course the sequel to the first Kingsman film. What to say ...... I didn't like it as much as the first film. Too much CGI, especially in the action scenes. I'm not (that) naive, I know there is lots of CGI in movies these days. It's okay if CGI removes asafety harness and the rope or an inconvenient building in the background. CGI can help a scene, but it becomes a real problem when CGI IS the whol scene and the actors seem to be the only real element in the shot, and I feel that happens too often in this movie.
There are positives of course. This series is best when it showes some irreverent humor or the scenes where they dig deeoer into the Kingsman "mythology". Could mathew Vaughn make a bond movie some day? I doubt it. If that would happen he would have to change or modify some elements of his style, and even then it would require the Bond films to go full Roger Moore.
Lucky Julianne Moore. She gets to say the line "Kill Elton John!". 😁👍
I watched this while cooking a lamb neck stew with suede and shallots and a red wine jus. Liam Neeson does his thing as a painter whose lost his muse. Michael Richardson is his frustrated, good-natured but immature son who needs to sell the family’s Tuscan villa so he can pay off his ex-wife. It’s all a tad mundane and cliched. Love blossoms. The scenery is nice. They make pasta. Happy endings all round. James D’Arcy, who is quite big on TV over here, and takes supporting roles in big movies over there, overstretches himself writing and directing this nonentity of a movie. Frankly, my evening meal was more enjoyable than Made in Italy.
A critical mauling but an enormous box-office hit. Dominion sees the stars of the sequel trilogy team up with the stars of the original Jurassic Park, and I don’t mean the dinosaurs. Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill and Laura Dern demonstrate that at least they can stick their tongues firmly in their cheeks. Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt share a complete humour malfunction in this overlong and overindulgent slice of monster mayhem.
Where to start? I don’t know. It’s like a cross between that teen spy thriller Hana, The Bourne Legacy and The Lost World. Fun, I suppose, if you like big things with lots of teeth. Personally, I prefer my thrills less imposing. Very loud and very silly, the screenplay needed an overhaul before the cameras rolled on this one. I felt I was watching three different films at once so desperate are the producers to accommodate the big stars they employed, and I am not talking about the dinosaurs, of which there are many.
Loopy from premise to end, I just about made it through with the supplement of cheese and the Malbec left over from dinner (see Made in Italy - above ).
Nice to see Paul Thomas Anderson finally get some Oscar love. Even if he deserved the awards sooner. Also, Adrien Brody deserved to be heckled a bit after his overlong speech for no reason last year.
1961's LOVER COME BACK was on telly last Sunday, but as I reviewed that film back in 2023, I won't bore you with a repeat. It's my fav of the Day-Hudson romcoms.
After it, the BBC showed:
PILOW TALK (1959)
Delbert Mann’s archetypal rom-com with Doris Day and Rock Hudson getting into all sorts of frothy confections as they share a party telephone line and a mutual antipathy which can only lead to love. Very enjoyable and occasionally very funny, although those moments mostly come when Tony Randall or Thelma Ritter are on the screen. If you have no memory of what a ‘party line’ is this will be something of a twentieth-century history lesson for you. Oh, those naughty days of listening in on other people’s private calls!
Hudson is exceptionally well-cast as the slimeball composer who realises the woman who he keeps off the phone line all day is the very one he most desires: and she just happens to be Doris Day, all sassy infuriation and much prettiness. Tony Randall is their mutual friend and if you can accept the fact the two 'lovers' have never met socially, you can kind of accept everything else that doesn’t make a hoot of sense in this movie. In truth, good-looking Hudson’s duplicitous pursuit of the more-than-lovely Doris doesn’t sit very well with a modern audience, but luckily the incidental conversations and the to-and-fro of unbidden love is still remarkably fresh. The sentiments and home truths have a bite that’ll never stop breaking teeth. Day was Oscar nominated, and the script won awards; its groundbreaking look made the film seem fresh and appealing in ’59 and still works a treat today. Not as good IMO as the follow up, Lover Come Back, which treads a more palatable romantic narrative, but a very jolly Sunday lunchtime’s entertainment.
CARRY ON CAMPING (1969) Like most Carry On movies it’s 10 minutes too long, but for over an hour it is top notch Carry On humour with Sid James in full cackling mode. 3/5
COP LAND (1997) Sylvester Stallone tests his acting chops against heavyweight competition, De Niro, Keitel etc. and comes out fine playing a subordinate cop who finally grows a backbone. Good stuff. 4/5
THE WILD GEESE (1978) Slam bang actioner as Richard Burton, Roger Moore and Richard Harris lead a group of mercenaries into Africa. What makes this a true classic is the support cast who are terrific, and Andrew V McClagen’s thrilling direction, he really knows how to handle action scenes. One of my favourite movies, and oh so re-watchable. 5/5
ARE YOU BEING SERVED (1977) Big screen version of the popular television comedy series. As was so often in these cinematic versions the story is taken out of their usual location and is poorer for it. Recycling skits from the series alongside a staff holiday plot line it badly lacks freshness and spontaneity, and the all important laughter track. Poor. 1.5/5
THE SHARK IS BROKEN - The stage play filmed live. Ian Shaw plays his father Robert as the lead trio from the movie Jaws talk together during breaks in filming as the shark is broken once again. The actors who play Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfus are stunningly good, as is Ian Shaw. If you like Jaws you will love this. It would have been 5/5 if I’d seen it at a theatre. 4/5
FROGS (1972) Ray Milland is patriarch of a rich family living on a plantation. Their disregard for nature leads the animals getting revenge. An early ecological film that is low budget but pretty decent. You don’t feel any sympathy for the horrendous family, which is a minus, as one by one they are killed by alligators, spiders and the like. 2.5/5
GORILLA AT LARGE (1954) A good cast in a mystery thriller which has a man in a gorilla suit being a killer, or is it the real gorilla doing it? Cameron Mitchell, Lee J Cobb, Lee Marvin, Ann Bancroft and Raymond Burr all act straight faced. The fact that the real gorilla is also obviously a man in a suit is somewhat charming. 3/5
THE BLACK WINDMILL (1974) Michael Caine directed by Don Siegel must be brilliant? Unfortunately, no it isn’t. Stodgy affair as Caine’s son is kidnapped. 2.5/5
PREY (2022) The Predator is back, or time wise is here for the first time as it comes up against an early 18th century tribe. A lot of modern films set in the past use present day speech which is jarring. I’m presuming the producers think that the target audience are not capable of understanding old fashioned speech. 2/5
THE DELTA FORCE (1986) Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin (in his final film) up against Middle East terrorists. Loosely based on a real hijacking, the first 90 minutes are pretty good but it outstays it’s welcome as Chuck aided by a James Bond style motorbike chases down the leader. Typical ‘80’s slugfest, admittedly one of the better ones. 3/5
THE MAN CALLED FLINTSTONE (1966) Big screen cartoon has Fred Flintstone impersonating injured lookalike secret agent Rock Slag. The spoof bits of sixties spy films are good but some interminable songs ruin the pacing. 2/5
THE END WE START FROM (2023) Such a disappointment watching this, as highbrow critics rave over it. It’s disjointed, badly edited and downright boring. A couple with a newborn baby escape flooded London for family in the north as the country is hit by cataclysmic weather. They couldn’t even give the characters names, they’re known by initials. Claptrap. The star is for a modicum of decent acting. 1/5
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
PROJECT HAIL MARY (2026) with Ryan Gosling and Sandra Huller
The premise: Ryan Gosling wakes up on a spaceship that's headed towards the Tau Ceti system. Why? He doesn't know...his memory has been erased for some reason. As he gets acclimated to the spaceship, his memories start to come back and he gradually recalls why he's there: an organism, called 'astrophage', is causing our sun to dim. Scientists have discovered that this astrophage has infected all other nearby star systems except for one: Tau Ceti. A longshot plan is devised to send a crew to Tau Ceti to find out WHY that star system is not infected. Upon his arrival in Tau Ceti, Gosling quickly discovers that he's not the only one there trying to find a solution to the astrophage problem.
From the book by Andy Weir (who also wrote THE MARTIAN)
It's excellent. If you've read the book, you'll be glad to know that all of the major plotpoints from the book are present. All of the emotional beats are there and, most importantly, the fantastic ending is kept. The science is streamlined quite a bit in order to focus on the 'buddy' aspects of the story, and this is a pretty smart move as the film runs kinda long as it is. Unfortunately, this streamlining means that the Eva Stratt character, played by Sandra Huller, is not utilized as much as she should be. I suspect there's a longer cut of the film that restores some of her scenes. Regardless, that's really my only nitpick. The film is pretty much a masterpiece otherwise.
I fully expect Gosling to get a best actor nom and Huller to get a best supporting actress nom. I also expect best picture, director, adapted screenplay, and other technical nominations for this. Highly recommended to be seen on the biggest screen that you can.
A daft would-be epic, hopelessly miscast, that occasionally looks quite attractive, but generally bumbles along without a clue how to create drama, tension or intrigue. Part Arabian Nights nonsense, part Norse mythology, The Long Ships is mostly just comical, that is when it isn’t being bloodthirsty. Richard Widmark is appalling, the worst I have ever seen him act. Sidney Poitier seems bemused. Everyone else is as wooden as a Viking boat. Director Jack Cardiff has done much better work than this. Apparently the film was very popular in the UK. Can’t think why.
Carol Reed’s excellent thriller, set in immediate post-war Vienna, restructures Graham Greene’s novella and screenplay into a dark, expressionist noir, all shadows and curious angles, as if he and photographer Robert Krasker prefigured The Ipcress File and cut a monochrome dash for the down at heel spy. Greene’s hero, if so disaffected a character can be called a hero, is Holly Martens, a writer of wild west pulp novels, whose childhood friend Harry Lime has sent him a ticket to Vienna, ostensibly to do some advertising and promotional work. Martens arrives to find Harry Lime has been run over by a truck, was DOA and is ready for burial. Furtive investigations suggest all is not entirely as it appears. Martens finds the British want to deport him, a trio of Lime’s business associates are tailing him and Lime’s girlfriend is beguiling and beautiful. Above everything is the suspicion Harry Lime may not in fact be dead.
Greene writes succinctly for the screen. There is a minimum of fuss over everything. So-much-so you sometimes want a little more time to have things explained to you. Still, that’s one of the joys of espionage thrillers, the slight of the pen, as it were; The Third Man, like the best thrillers of the sub-genre, deserves and rewards repeated viewing. Central to the film is the relationship between Harry Lime and the two main protagonists, Holly Martens and Anna Schmidt [Italian actress Alida Valli] – a love triangle unrequited on all fronts. Lime may be Holly’s best friend, he may be Anna’s lover, but he has no concept of loyalty. His only true love is opportunity and he seized it during the chaos of the Second World War and its aftermath. War, he claims, or evil, which is what Holly accuses him of, is the great provider:
“You know what the fellow said: in Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Orson Welles famously concocted this line on the set and it is rather dropped into the movie’s most famous scene, Lime and Holly Martens confronting each other and philosophising about life, the universe and everything on the Ferris wheel at the Prata Park. The line really ought to be spoken while the two men are inside the booth, but it isn’t, it is recited outside and in a rushed ‘afterthought’ fashion once the two men have decided to part ways. Most cinemagoers forget that.
Welles bestrides the film despite barely being in it. Harry Lime [Welles] is such a strong antagonist, a man whose name is on every lip, whose shadow falls over every room, whose hand and mind destroys everyone it contacts; you almost expect him to be monumental. He isn’t. Lime is quite small, insignificant in stature and look, and he prowls in the dirty background of Vienna’s bombed out facades, gutters and rippling sewers. Having been in business for himself and coming under British suspicion, he turns to the Soviets for assistance: the black market in penicillin, clothes or whatever he can lay his hands on will live and fester in all lands. The magnetism of Harry Lime is instead displayed in the attractive glances of Anna Schmidt, a woman who owes her temporary freedom to Lime’s inventiveness with fraudulent visas. It is unclear why she loves him so concernedly: as Holly points out, the unprincipled Lime has abandoned her. Falling in love himself, Holly, the hack scribe, sees redemption in rescuing a woman Ian Fleming may have termed a ‘bird with a wing down’. Anna doesn’t need his attentions. Abandoned, as she may or may not know, by Harry Lime, she has returned to her job in a seedy theatre, fending off the attention of admirers like Holly and investigators, like the international police services. Unbowed, she won’t be used as a pawn in anybody’s game unless it suits her. Holly misunderstands this, thinking she is loyal to Lime out of love, when in fact it is convenience and mutual need. Lime’s activities may be revolting, but not even Holly’s essential goodness can replace this usefulness. Anna understands the writer’s own grasping nature, for in surrendering his friend, in the hope of finding love, Holly displays a selfishness that matches his very counterpart.
There is of course a fourth major player in The Third Man and that is Vienna, its nooks and crannies, its rubble and dust, the divided frontiers, the trams, the theatres, the international community, the sewers, the language. In fact, director Carol Reed’s decision to have characters speak in German / Austrian without subtitles places his audience exactly in Holly Martens’s mind, that of an alien among friends. Not a linguist, Holly can’t comprehend the barrage of foreign words that assaults him; nor do we. He is stranded among the language, flailing and failing to pursue his friend, as if there is a battle still going on between allies and axis, communication breaking down with every step. Holly’s communication issues are deep set; asked to speak at a writer’s convention, he is unable to explain and justify his career, coming across as uneducated, unworldly and uninteresting. One feels Harry Lime would not have been so taunted, that he has slipped effortlessly into the scum and slime of Vienna; for the city’s people are shifty, difficult, impulsive, angry. They know they’ve lost a war, but they have not lost their personal dignity. As if to emphasise the difficulties, both of contemporary circumstance and of personal communication, Anton Karasas’s zither-infused music score keeps grating, reminding us [and Holly] that the noise of the street, the city, its people, languages and politics is everywhere.
The British are equally awkward, just more polite with it. Trevor Howard’s Major Calloway and his sidekick Sgt Paine [our own Bernard Lee] prove a good foil for Joseph Cotton’s Holly Martens, their confrontations stepping to the verge of conflict before retreating a pace or two; they also seem to have a language problem, one of spies, victims and casualties; collateral damage doesn’t mean much to Calloway – hence at the film’s end he doesn’t offer any sage advice when Holly decides to stay with Anna. His rueful expression is reflected in the eventual soundless outcome, one of the greatest final scenes in movie history, an antithesis of Casablanca. Holly Martens does all the right things, but this girl wants nothing to do with him. He is left smoking, abandoned and alone, in the same cemetery Harry Lime is buried, the two of them still joined even if one is dead.
The Third Man is a genuine monument to the achievements of post-war cinema and I urge everyone to watch it at least once. Yes, it is a little crude in its editing and storytelling, but that keeps the action moving forward swiftly where modern films seem to always tread sideways. Performances are top rank. Photography, set design and exterior location work is superb. Quite how the Academy overlooked this masterpiece will forever be a mystery. Three nominations and one win [for photographer Robert Krasker] is a very poor return. One can only assume this failure was because the film paints Americans in Europe in a very poor light. The Third Man is certainly better than Father of the Bride, King Solomon’s Mines and Born Yesterday, films that beat it to a ‘best picture’ nomination. Still, you can’t set anything by the Academy.
Yeah I saw this last week, as a lot of people have now I think which is great news, and totally agree: it's just a brilliant film. Unashamedly positive and funny, it's heartwarming and emotional as well as having a great sense of humour- one of my friends described it as being like a Spielberg movie for this generation, except without falling into the trap of trying to actually ape Spielberg's style as so many do. Kids absolutely love it- take yours.
Gosling cements his place as one of the best movie stars around... some of the science obviously needs taking with a pinch of salt, but it's a big Hollywood film, what do you expect. It's a near perfect film with a message of cooperation and friendship which feels much-needed in today's world. I've seen it getting four star reviews around, and to be honest I think if that's a four star, then what do you need to do to get five?
I originally reviewed this several years ago. One of my favourite films of the new century.
Revisit 25/3/2026:
It is interesting to watch Under The Skin so soon after Jonathon Glazer’s outstanding The Zone of Interest, chiefly to listen to the aural sounds which permeate the background noise of the film, a suggestion of the brilliance of the latter movie’s sound scape. Here, the tingling, ringing sound reminds us potently of the alien monolith from Stanley Kubrick’s monumental 2001: A Space Odyssey. Something alien is definitely afoot. Glazer abandons most of the background of Michael Faber’s book in favour of a more mysterious subject, that of assimilation and communication.
Scarlet Johansson plays an almost mute woman who trawls the streets of Glasgow looking for men to seduce, asking intimate personal questions of her potential suitors that suggest promiscuity. The men’s fate is to be embalmed in strange room of dark matter, their life held in a balance, presumably for research purposes. The fairy light version of alien nature that Kubrick hinted is entirely absent in Glazer’s dark vision of alien culture. A series of motorcycle riding Watchers ensure the alien’s activities remain closeted and remote, clearing up after her, killing relatives and escapees with a businesslike proficiency.
As she develops human behaviours, presumably from the [male] brain bank she has collected, Johansson’s alien takes pity on a disfigured victim and perfects an escape. She becomes fascinated by her reflection, her individuality, which – like an adolescent – she begins to understand has an amorous effect on men, learning this through the touching of hands, her first intimate experience. Touch plays a huge part in the alien’s learning process. Our first vision of her is when she plays with an ant, its feelers stroking her palms. It is through touch the alien begins to understand both desire and hurt. The alien’s attempt at a mute relationship is disastrous and her inability to effectively communicate leads to a self-imposed exile in the forests and a certain tragic end.
The film is itself best watched as a fully immersive artistic experience: I had the lights off; surround-sound effects would be brilliant with the strange string-based soundtrack, part-music part-sound effect, which itself feels as though the Johansson character is listening to the thoughts, appeals and pain of the men she has personally and provocatively ‘immersed’. Has she absorbed something of their life-being, we ask ourselves, is she learning about the human race? It isn’t even initially clear she is an alien, only the other-worldliness of her white room – where she strips a dead girl for her clothes – suggests it; remember the colour white in its contradictions of simplicity, depth, translucence or opaqueness can be both beautiful and eerie, of alien worlds, realities and imaginations, like Kier Dullea’s room at the finale of 2001. The room turns pitch black for her seduction scenes, the pristine white becoming an all-gathering oil-slick, as though the viscous, slippery, suffocating atmosphere of life has taken her over in these moments of mock love.
The film is beautifully photographed by Daniel Landin, almost brutally beautiful, is spell-binding in its paucity and directed with the minimum of bravura by Jonathon Glazer. It can be viewed on many levels; especially as a comment on exploitation and sexual power. So too it may be an allegory for the immigrant, the loner attempting to fit in, misunderstanding, developing a second skin, while underneath the real person still festers even as assimilation takes grip. The lack of communication between the characters encapsulates the fear both parties share of the unknown. The ending hints at the latent passion and the unbridled hostility that conflicts within an indigenous population, fascinated by but unable to fathom the nature of the foreign beast. Scarlet Johansson’s stellar performance in particular highlights the constant fear of discovery, the occasional bewildering joy of companionship, the despair of unknowing.
Under the Skin is a beautiful, thought provoking movie which after the violence of Sexy Beast and the strange reincarnation mystery of Birth, confirms Jonathon Glazer as a filmmaker of much originality, character intensity and stupendous visual dexterity.
In honor of its 35th anniversary, The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Watching it with my dad (I know, nice father-son movie, lol), I noticed this time how cinematic it truly feels. Namely with its use of camera movements and focus, often at the same time. Clarice is noticeably shown to be in the middle of a man's world in several scenes, in terms of blocking actors. As for Sir Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector, what can I say that already hasn't been said, in terms of great acting? He owns the movie. As great as the two leads are, I'd like to offer praise to the main supporting players, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Brooke Smith and Anthony Heald. They portray their characters with the right tones and moods. If you enjoyed the movie, try reading the original Thomas Harris book. It's just like reading the movie, with a few added details. All in all, SOTL is a great example of a horror story done smartly. It still stands on its own all these years later, and my mom said that this is the only movie that she saw in a theater twice. Both times the audiences were on the edges of their seats, she said. A rare horror/thriller that I can watch more than once, and a must have physical copy for me. A pretty much perfect movie for me. You just have to look CLOSER for those find details that make it great. It's a great movie to have dinner with, provided that YOU aren't the dinner.
Republic churned these kind of movies out one a month or so in the 1940s; John Wayne made three of them in 1942. In Old California is a lesser entry and from the off it creaks around the confines of the studio’s sound and exterior stages on tired horse’s legs. Wayne plays a pharmacist, which is unusual, and does not kill anybody, which for a western is certainly unusual. The humour works better than the action. He’s quite watchable and the cast list of unknowns try very hard, but it all comes to little avail. In old Sacramento, Wayne comes up against a dodgy businessman whose riches have come via the gun. Luckily, a desirous saloon singer comes between them, wins his heart and helps relieve a typhoid epidemic. Stuff happens, but the script feels written on a postage stamp and the film isn’t much bigger or better.
A United Artists B-movie with A-list pretensions, The Kansan stars an aging Richard Dix as a Civil War veteran who is persuaded to take on the role of sheriff in the frontier town of Broken Lance. He isn’t enamoured with the idea, but lovely hotel owner Jane Wyatt persuades him it is worth staying on. Villainous businessman Albert Dekker thinks he can manipulate the sheriff and Eugene Pallette has many a belly-laugh as a helpful cattle drover. The film is swifter than a whippet and equally slim. It packs an awful lot of punch for such a slender enterprise. The cattle stampede out-does those rampaging elephants the Tarzan franchise usually featured around this time. The bar brawl is a tremendous five minutes of action hokum. Gun fights come sharp and fast. Occasionally, somewhere, there is time for a romance to develop and a plot to vanish.
Beautiful Beryl Wallace sings the songs as a chanteuse in a saloon. She first came to prominence as a scantily clad chorus girl in Broadway revue shows like Vanities. She livens up the saloon scenes no end.
The Kansan was never going to win awards, it has too many errors – continuity, plot, staging, acting, costume – but it is lively and fun and inconsequential. This kind of product rolled off the production line at several Hollywood studios with the regularity of a Ford estate car. A decade later, B-movie actioners became the bedrock of television, and stuff like The Kansan would germinate a whole 26-episode series, thus ringing the death toll of the western as Hollywood’s go-to action genre.
I've seen this Hitchcock classic before, but this is the first time in a cinema. The whole movie is set in a courtyard so it doesn't benefit as much from the big scrren as many other movies do. But we did get Jim Stewart and Grace Kelly on the big screen, two of the great movie stars. Grace Kelly is a feast for the eyes! We do get the suspence we all expect, but Rear Window also offers the rich lives of the people living in the area. This is a major strength for the movie. The reason I got to see Rear window in the cinema is the local film club that has re-started after decades of being inactive. Next mointh it's "The good, the bad and the ugly" and I can't wait!
This movie was the great Oscar winner and I think it deserved it. Most know by now that Leonardo de Caprio plays Bob, a "retired" voilent extremist/terrorist on the far left whos daughter gets abducted. The abduction is done by an police officer played by Sean Penn who got an Oscar for his performance. This police officer who also tries to join an organisation of far-right shadowy elites. He also has a strange sexual attraction to the mother of the girl. I'd say both the far left and the far right are parodied in this movie, and in my opinion both are excellent targets for parody. I find it hard to see how the voilence of the far left group makes them a force for good even if you agree with them politically. Bob is also a very inefficient "hero" who fails in most things. Sean Penns character is also sometimes shown in a comical light. He is among other things awared the "Nathan Bedford Forest award" named after teh Grand Wizard of the first KKK.
As expected the production and acting is top notch. Paul Thomas Anderson is the director and he finally goth Oscars this time. He claims the only use of CGI in the movie is for the vape smoke in some scenes. Nice to know. In Adition to di Caprio and Penn we get LTK actor Benicio del Toro in a supporting role. The girl's mother is played by Teyana Taylor. She's obviously aa very good actress, but she's also very beautiful. American actresses, especially black actresses, has not showered themselves in glory in the Bond series. maybe she can buck this trend?
Hot on the heels of Susanne Collins’s dystopian future for adolescents, came Veronica Roth’s take on what the world would look like after a nuclear holocaust. Much the same basically. The human race has survived and lives in the industrial wastelands of Chicago. For two hundred years, they have been split into five Factions: Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the charitable), Candor (the honest), Erudite (the intelligent) and Dauntless (the warriors). At age sixteen, each person must submit to a serum test which identifies the Faction they will inhabit for the rest of their lives. By some quirk of writing, the individual can always choose on their own, a get out clause for writer, character and viewer / watcher. Some adolescents have too many factions in their psyche and are termed outcast or Divergent and hunted down. People who wish to leave their chosen faction are expelled and become Factionless.
It all sounds a bit Hunger Games to me.
Well, Beatrice, a not so kindly Abnegation decides she wants to be a Dauntless and undergoes a whole load of initiation training that basically turns her into a walking killing machine, if a rather pretty one. She falls for her instructor, called Four. Don’t ask. Tris’s problem – Beatrice has decided to shorten her name to a more punchy one for her new persona – is that the poor girl is a Divergent and should she be uncovered, she would be outcast. So, Tris naturally has a moral compass much more finely tuned than Kate Winslett’s fascist leader Jeanine.
It’s basically the same dumb revolution ride we went on before, only sharper in execution but more ridiculous in narrative content. The movie takes ages to get going and then resolves itself in the last fifteen minutes. Unlike The Hunger Games, which can easily stand on its own without the epic sequels, Divergent has no ambiguity about the requirements of a sequel.
INSURGENT (2015)
Swiftly following on from Divergent, Shailene Woodley’s heroine Tris cuts her hair and turns full-on rebel, inciting a series of insurgencies across the Factions which she and her lover Four hope will bring down the despotic Jeanine and the Erudite rulers.
This one is a bit more sci-fi. A magic box holds the secrets of the aftermath of the nuclear war and only a Divergent can open it. Cue Tris, hooked up to electronic tentacles and experiencing sim generated tests of her fortitude.
I was bored.
Violence a plenty, mostly for no reason. Betrayal. Emotion. Blah. Blah. Blah.
If you like this kind of stuff, good on ya, but it isn’t for me.
ALLEGIANT (2016)
Well, well, I didn’t see that coming…
(Not).
Our heroes, having usurped one totalitarian regime for another, escape the confines of Chicago, hop over the wall and encounter a third despotic, dystopian civilisation, this one phenomenally technologically advanced. This is the realm of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, who have been monitoring Chicago for two-hundred years in an attempt to wrestle back man’s genetic material. Well, they can say what they like, dress it up in all the techno wizardry they like, but they are the same old same old dictatorship packing the same old lies to ensure maximum societal control.
This film is as see-through as a rainbow.
Lots of visual trickery, but not an ounce of sense. It doesn’t help the film only covers half of Veronica Roth’s novel. It bombed so badly at the box office, the franchise was cancelled, leaving the adventures of Tris, Four and her pals unresolved.
I just watched this too; no one needs me to tell them that the Oscar-winning film is very good, but it really really is! 😁 The main thing I got from it was just the tremendous confidence and skill of Paul Thomas Anderson directing this: the changes in tone are masterful and perfectly judged, veering from slapstick to black comedy to full tension to drama... it's just so amazingly well-handled. Oscar totally deserved. All of the performances are incredible too: Sean Penn is amazing- I struggle to think of many other performances I've seen where an actor has actually taken on a style of walking and made it so characterful! Del Toro is amazing too, he paints the character so well and so efficiently.
The score is amazing too, wonderfully jazzy, sometimes just being played on single piano and yet making a scene feel large and tense. I did work out who it was before the end as there's several melodies and techniques which rather yelled Radiohead: it's, of course, Jonny Greenwood.
I totally agree with your observations about the politics too: I've seen the right wing press (which forms the majority of our print media in the UK) label this as a 'woke' film celebrating left wing warriors, but it's really not that at all. Yes, it doesn't have a very high opinion of racists, but that shouldn't be terribly controversial.
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BLACK RAIN (1989)
Down on his luck NYPD detective Nick Conklin (Micheal Douglas) and his partner Charlie Vincent (Andy Garcia) witness the murders of a Japanese criminal syndicate and apprehend the killer...a yakuza by the name of Koji Sato (Yūsaku Matsuda).
The two officers are then dispatched to Osaka, Japan to hand over the criminal to the local police authorities...but things don't go according to plan.
Conklin and Vincent now find themselves trapped in a brutal gang war between two rival clans.
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A dark and violent action thriller; beautifully filmed, with solid performances by its lead and supporting actors. An underrated gem.
(Directed by Ridley Scott - 125 minutes)
Watching these out of order, but they are all the same really, so it doesn't matter:
JURASSIC PARK III (2001)
Steven Spielberg got out quick.
A dull reimagining of the original with Sam Neill returning for a quick pay day and being hunted by dinosaurs while searching for someone’s son. Uninteresting and bloated. Even the posters were crap. The best thing to be said about Jurassic Park III is that it’s only 92 minutes long.
Codename Coq Rouge (1989)
You may have thoughts about the term "the Swedish James Bond", but this is it. The journalist Jan Guillou has written a serious of novels about the agent Carl Hamilton, and several of them were filmed. Coq Rouge is the first novel and film in the series. Hamilton is from the upper class, a count in fact. As a student he became a communist and joined a fraction that was anti-Soviet. Then he became a combat diver in the Swedish navy where he was recruited to a special project. Hamilton was then trained by the Navy SEALs and the CIA in the States while also studying computers at a university there. Sounds like he didn't have a lot of free time.
In the first two movies Hamilton is played by a young Stellan Skarsgård. At the start of the movie he works in Swedish military inteligence, but gets loaned out to the police inteligence agency Säpo when their expert on the Middle East gets murdered. A communist SEAL count sounds unconventional, and it doesn't stop there. The terrorist are not who you'd expect. Do expect a scene Skarsgård does in full-frontal nudity. Also look out for a very young Gustav Skarsgård as Carl Hamilton's nephew.
This is an espionage thriller, not an action movie even though there is some action. I think it's a solid thriller. Stellan Skarsgård is good in it. In fact I think he could've been a good Necros in TLD a couple of years earlier. If you somehow find this movie somewhere I can recomend it, but be ready for a mix of the conventional and the unconventional.
THE MENU (2022)
A satire on celebrity and haute cuisine. Ralph Fiennes stars as a control freak of a chef whose magnificent meals are lauded by the most conceited of guests. Anya Taylor Joy’s sveltely dressed prostitute wanders onto his private dining island without an invite and into a full on slasher feast. It didn’t make me laugh much and the ending is unfortunately bleak. Well-acted, pretentiously written codswallop, much like the food, some of which are actual dishes rustled up by the kind of up-you-arse chefs the film is ridiculing. Excellent set design.
The cleaner (2025)
This action movie is directed by Martin Campbel who of course also directed GE and CR. Daisy Ridley plays the window cleaner Joey. She's very good at cleaning the windows of high-rise buildings, but less good at life. The building she's working outside gets taken over by terrorists and she fights back. Basically Die Hard, but why not if it's done in an inventive and different way? I think The Cleaner succeedes in this. Daisy Ridley is a good lead here, in my opinion better than her efforts in Star Wars. She comes across as brave and recourseful, but also a failable human being. Mathew Tuck is her autistic brother also delivers a good performance. The only problem in the film is that is perpetuates the myth that radical environmentalists are very dangerous and a major threath to society. In reality the total number of people killed in eco-terrorist actions is precisely zero. That's a small detail after all. I found The Cleaner to be an entertaining popcorn movie.
LE DOSSIER 51 (1978)
Dominique Auphal, a French diplomat serving as a special representative at ODENS (Organization for the Development of North South Exchange), a multi-national organization spearheading Third World economic development, is targeted by a foreign intelligence agency.
The agency aims to recruit Auphal in order to infiltrate ODENS.
This will be done through a cold review of his life and a deep study of his emotional vulnerabilities, which will later be used to blackmail him into subservience.
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A very well written espionage film, that fans of the genre will appreciate.
Recommended.
(Directed by Michel Deville - 108 minutes)
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS (2011)
This is a tame romantic comedy which, despite its claim to be daring in its approach to sex and sexual relationships, is basically an old fashioned girl-meets-boy-loses-boy-gets-boy story. It even finishes with her hopelessly over-romanticised idea of a proposal. The only caveat to the film is an off-handed bitter tone towards relationships and commitment. This doesn’t sit easily beside an overwhelming sense of regret and longing for a time [and people?] that never existed, those pre-requisite rose tinted spectacles. I laughed occasionally and the two leads [Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake] at least look the part. The film’s major issue is a complete misunderstanding of what ‘friends with benefits’ means; these two spend so much time together, albeit usually in bed, that they cannot be seen as being anything more than a couple. It isn’t casual in the least; they orchestrate every tryst; defeating the spontaneity and unconsciousness of FWB. Pleasant, I suppose, but ultimately see-through from the off.
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AIR FORCE ONE (1997) President Harrison Ford battles terrorist Gary Oldman (in full nutter mode once again). Slick action thriller in the Die Hard mode. Good fun if brain is switched off. 3.5/5
SHELTER (2026) The first half is pretty good, the second half reverts to Jason Statham kicking ass. The kid looks like she could have a future film career, she’s rather good in this. 3/5
MISDIRECTION (2026) Boring, confusing and misdirected. 0.5/5
FIRESTARTER (2022) Updated version of Stephen King’s bestseller. The acting and special effects are nothing special. 2/5
THE GETAWAY (1972) Steve McQueen in Sam Peckinpah’s thriller with lots of shootouts and slow motion action. Excellent. 4/5
UNDER SIEGE 2: DARK TERRITORY (1995) Steven Seagal’s chef returns to stop another terrorist plot. Standard actioner. 2/5
GLENGARRY GLENROSS (1992) Superb acting as a group of salesmen try to avoid the chop. It’s kind of interesting but ultimately goes nowhere. 3/5
THE SWARM (1978) Irwin Allen produced four of the best loved television series of the ‘60’s. He went on to produce a handful of disaster movies including The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. This was a literal disaster. Allen should have stuck to producing because he cannot direct. Michael Caine shouts a lot, Richard Widmark looks bemused, and a great cast don’t seem to be able to comprehend what they’re in. The special effects are atrocious, the script is dire. The star is for Fred MacMurray and Ben Johnson vying for Olivia de Havilland’s hand in marriage. Caine obviously didn’t care about quality in those days as he came back for more in the sequel to The Poseidon Adventure. 1/5
GREENLAND: MIGRATION (2026) Gerald Butler takes his family on a European tour five years after the first movie placed them in a bunker in Greenland, after a comet collided with the Earth. Nothing new here, standard fare you’ve seen many times before. 2/5
I...COMME ICARE / I AS IN ICARUS (1979)
Starring acting legend Yves Montand, I...Comme Icare is a French political thriller directed by Henri Verneuil, that details the investigation of an assassination conspiracy led by the prosecutor Henri Volney.
Volney and his team reject the official report on the event and unveil a massive cover-up, piece by piece.
Featuring a riveting storyline, top-notch acting performances and beautiful cinematography, I...Comme Icare is in the same league as Coppola’s 'The Conversation' and Pollack’s 'Three Days of the Condor'.
An underrated gem.
Recommended.
(120 minutes)
SEND ME NO FLOWERS (1964)
Sounds like the title of a James Bond novel.
Doris Day and Rock Hudson shared a famous on screen partnership, although they in fact only made three films together. Day made almost as many comedies with James Garner! Norman Jewison directs with a studied televisual air. The whole thing, other than a brief interlude on a golf links, is studio bound and feels it, as if this is a big screen adaptation of a homely US sitcom. Hudson and Day are watchable, but the situation is farcical and rather dumb, and ultimately the script does not allow them to shine as they did in the frothy Pillow Talk and the satirical Lover Come Back. Send Me No Flowers sees Hudson’s hypochondriac misdiagnosed as having two weeks to live and – as you do / don’t – immediately setting out to make sure his wife [Day] is catered for financially and erotically after he dies. It’s not a very amusing narrative. Tony Randall plays their drunken neighbour whose wife is mentioned but never seen. Characters in The Archers radio show used to have the same invisible personality. It makes scenes such as the one where Hudson shares Randall’s bed after being kicked out of his home completely ridiculous. Everything sorts itself out eventually, but they could have done it quicker and funnier in a 30-minute TV show. There’s a half cute theme song from Bacharach and David which isn’t Ms Day’s most tuneful of moments, but is welcome all the same.
Like the other night’s Friends With Benefits, this film is see-though from the start and disappointing because of it.
Kingsman: The golden circle
This is of course the sequel to the first Kingsman film. What to say ...... I didn't like it as much as the first film. Too much CGI, especially in the action scenes. I'm not (that) naive, I know there is lots of CGI in movies these days. It's okay if CGI removes asafety harness and the rope or an inconvenient building in the background. CGI can help a scene, but it becomes a real problem when CGI IS the whol scene and the actors seem to be the only real element in the shot, and I feel that happens too often in this movie.
There are positives of course. This series is best when it showes some irreverent humor or the scenes where they dig deeoer into the Kingsman "mythology". Could mathew Vaughn make a bond movie some day? I doubt it. If that would happen he would have to change or modify some elements of his style, and even then it would require the Bond films to go full Roger Moore.
Lucky Julianne Moore. She gets to say the line "Kill Elton John!". 😁👍
MADE IN ITALY (2020)
I watched this while cooking a lamb neck stew with suede and shallots and a red wine jus. Liam Neeson does his thing as a painter whose lost his muse. Michael Richardson is his frustrated, good-natured but immature son who needs to sell the family’s Tuscan villa so he can pay off his ex-wife. It’s all a tad mundane and cliched. Love blossoms. The scenery is nice. They make pasta. Happy endings all round. James D’Arcy, who is quite big on TV over here, and takes supporting roles in big movies over there, overstretches himself writing and directing this nonentity of a movie. Frankly, my evening meal was more enjoyable than Made in Italy.
JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION (2022)
More dinosaurs on the rampage!
A critical mauling but an enormous box-office hit. Dominion sees the stars of the sequel trilogy team up with the stars of the original Jurassic Park, and I don’t mean the dinosaurs. Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill and Laura Dern demonstrate that at least they can stick their tongues firmly in their cheeks. Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt share a complete humour malfunction in this overlong and overindulgent slice of monster mayhem.
Where to start? I don’t know. It’s like a cross between that teen spy thriller Hana, The Bourne Legacy and The Lost World. Fun, I suppose, if you like big things with lots of teeth. Personally, I prefer my thrills less imposing. Very loud and very silly, the screenplay needed an overhaul before the cameras rolled on this one. I felt I was watching three different films at once so desperate are the producers to accommodate the big stars they employed, and I am not talking about the dinosaurs, of which there are many.
Loopy from premise to end, I just about made it through with the supplement of cheese and the Malbec left over from dinner (see Made in Italy - above ).
Nice to see Paul Thomas Anderson finally get some Oscar love. Even if he deserved the awards sooner. Also, Adrien Brody deserved to be heckled a bit after his overlong speech for no reason last year.
1961's LOVER COME BACK was on telly last Sunday, but as I reviewed that film back in 2023, I won't bore you with a repeat. It's my fav of the Day-Hudson romcoms.
After it, the BBC showed:
PILOW TALK (1959)
Delbert Mann’s archetypal rom-com with Doris Day and Rock Hudson getting into all sorts of frothy confections as they share a party telephone line and a mutual antipathy which can only lead to love. Very enjoyable and occasionally very funny, although those moments mostly come when Tony Randall or Thelma Ritter are on the screen. If you have no memory of what a ‘party line’ is this will be something of a twentieth-century history lesson for you. Oh, those naughty days of listening in on other people’s private calls!
Hudson is exceptionally well-cast as the slimeball composer who realises the woman who he keeps off the phone line all day is the very one he most desires: and she just happens to be Doris Day, all sassy infuriation and much prettiness. Tony Randall is their mutual friend and if you can accept the fact the two 'lovers' have never met socially, you can kind of accept everything else that doesn’t make a hoot of sense in this movie. In truth, good-looking Hudson’s duplicitous pursuit of the more-than-lovely Doris doesn’t sit very well with a modern audience, but luckily the incidental conversations and the to-and-fro of unbidden love is still remarkably fresh. The sentiments and home truths have a bite that’ll never stop breaking teeth. Day was Oscar nominated, and the script won awards; its groundbreaking look made the film seem fresh and appealing in ’59 and still works a treat today. Not as good IMO as the follow up, Lover Come Back, which treads a more palatable romantic narrative, but a very jolly Sunday lunchtime’s entertainment.
CARRY ON CAMPING (1969) Like most Carry On movies it’s 10 minutes too long, but for over an hour it is top notch Carry On humour with Sid James in full cackling mode. 3/5
COP LAND (1997) Sylvester Stallone tests his acting chops against heavyweight competition, De Niro, Keitel etc. and comes out fine playing a subordinate cop who finally grows a backbone. Good stuff. 4/5
THE WILD GEESE (1978) Slam bang actioner as Richard Burton, Roger Moore and Richard Harris lead a group of mercenaries into Africa. What makes this a true classic is the support cast who are terrific, and Andrew V McClagen’s thrilling direction, he really knows how to handle action scenes. One of my favourite movies, and oh so re-watchable. 5/5
ARE YOU BEING SERVED (1977) Big screen version of the popular television comedy series. As was so often in these cinematic versions the story is taken out of their usual location and is poorer for it. Recycling skits from the series alongside a staff holiday plot line it badly lacks freshness and spontaneity, and the all important laughter track. Poor. 1.5/5
THE SHARK IS BROKEN - The stage play filmed live. Ian Shaw plays his father Robert as the lead trio from the movie Jaws talk together during breaks in filming as the shark is broken once again. The actors who play Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfus are stunningly good, as is Ian Shaw. If you like Jaws you will love this. It would have been 5/5 if I’d seen it at a theatre. 4/5
FROGS (1972) Ray Milland is patriarch of a rich family living on a plantation. Their disregard for nature leads the animals getting revenge. An early ecological film that is low budget but pretty decent. You don’t feel any sympathy for the horrendous family, which is a minus, as one by one they are killed by alligators, spiders and the like. 2.5/5
GORILLA AT LARGE (1954) A good cast in a mystery thriller which has a man in a gorilla suit being a killer, or is it the real gorilla doing it? Cameron Mitchell, Lee J Cobb, Lee Marvin, Ann Bancroft and Raymond Burr all act straight faced. The fact that the real gorilla is also obviously a man in a suit is somewhat charming. 3/5
THE BLACK WINDMILL (1974) Michael Caine directed by Don Siegel must be brilliant? Unfortunately, no it isn’t. Stodgy affair as Caine’s son is kidnapped. 2.5/5
PREY (2022) The Predator is back, or time wise is here for the first time as it comes up against an early 18th century tribe. A lot of modern films set in the past use present day speech which is jarring. I’m presuming the producers think that the target audience are not capable of understanding old fashioned speech. 2/5
THE DELTA FORCE (1986) Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin (in his final film) up against Middle East terrorists. Loosely based on a real hijacking, the first 90 minutes are pretty good but it outstays it’s welcome as Chuck aided by a James Bond style motorbike chases down the leader. Typical ‘80’s slugfest, admittedly one of the better ones. 3/5
THE MAN CALLED FLINTSTONE (1966) Big screen cartoon has Fred Flintstone impersonating injured lookalike secret agent Rock Slag. The spoof bits of sixties spy films are good but some interminable songs ruin the pacing. 2/5
THE END WE START FROM (2023) Such a disappointment watching this, as highbrow critics rave over it. It’s disjointed, badly edited and downright boring. A couple with a newborn baby escape flooded London for family in the north as the country is hit by cataclysmic weather. They couldn’t even give the characters names, they’re known by initials. Claptrap. The star is for a modicum of decent acting. 1/5
PROJECT HAIL MARY (2026) with Ryan Gosling and Sandra Huller
The premise: Ryan Gosling wakes up on a spaceship that's headed towards the Tau Ceti system. Why? He doesn't know...his memory has been erased for some reason. As he gets acclimated to the spaceship, his memories start to come back and he gradually recalls why he's there: an organism, called 'astrophage', is causing our sun to dim. Scientists have discovered that this astrophage has infected all other nearby star systems except for one: Tau Ceti. A longshot plan is devised to send a crew to Tau Ceti to find out WHY that star system is not infected. Upon his arrival in Tau Ceti, Gosling quickly discovers that he's not the only one there trying to find a solution to the astrophage problem.
From the book by Andy Weir (who also wrote THE MARTIAN)
It's excellent. If you've read the book, you'll be glad to know that all of the major plotpoints from the book are present. All of the emotional beats are there and, most importantly, the fantastic ending is kept. The science is streamlined quite a bit in order to focus on the 'buddy' aspects of the story, and this is a pretty smart move as the film runs kinda long as it is. Unfortunately, this streamlining means that the Eva Stratt character, played by Sandra Huller, is not utilized as much as she should be. I suspect there's a longer cut of the film that restores some of her scenes. Regardless, that's really my only nitpick. The film is pretty much a masterpiece otherwise.
I fully expect Gosling to get a best actor nom and Huller to get a best supporting actress nom. I also expect best picture, director, adapted screenplay, and other technical nominations for this. Highly recommended to be seen on the biggest screen that you can.
THE LONG SHIPS (1964)
A daft would-be epic, hopelessly miscast, that occasionally looks quite attractive, but generally bumbles along without a clue how to create drama, tension or intrigue. Part Arabian Nights nonsense, part Norse mythology, The Long Ships is mostly just comical, that is when it isn’t being bloodthirsty. Richard Widmark is appalling, the worst I have ever seen him act. Sidney Poitier seems bemused. Everyone else is as wooden as a Viking boat. Director Jack Cardiff has done much better work than this. Apparently the film was very popular in the UK. Can’t think why.
THE THIRD MAN (1949)
Carol Reed’s excellent thriller, set in immediate post-war Vienna, restructures Graham Greene’s novella and screenplay into a dark, expressionist noir, all shadows and curious angles, as if he and photographer Robert Krasker prefigured The Ipcress File and cut a monochrome dash for the down at heel spy. Greene’s hero, if so disaffected a character can be called a hero, is Holly Martens, a writer of wild west pulp novels, whose childhood friend Harry Lime has sent him a ticket to Vienna, ostensibly to do some advertising and promotional work. Martens arrives to find Harry Lime has been run over by a truck, was DOA and is ready for burial. Furtive investigations suggest all is not entirely as it appears. Martens finds the British want to deport him, a trio of Lime’s business associates are tailing him and Lime’s girlfriend is beguiling and beautiful. Above everything is the suspicion Harry Lime may not in fact be dead.
Greene writes succinctly for the screen. There is a minimum of fuss over everything. So-much-so you sometimes want a little more time to have things explained to you. Still, that’s one of the joys of espionage thrillers, the slight of the pen, as it were; The Third Man, like the best thrillers of the sub-genre, deserves and rewards repeated viewing. Central to the film is the relationship between Harry Lime and the two main protagonists, Holly Martens and Anna Schmidt [Italian actress Alida Valli] – a love triangle unrequited on all fronts. Lime may be Holly’s best friend, he may be Anna’s lover, but he has no concept of loyalty. His only true love is opportunity and he seized it during the chaos of the Second World War and its aftermath. War, he claims, or evil, which is what Holly accuses him of, is the great provider:
“You know what the fellow said: in Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”
Orson Welles famously concocted this line on the set and it is rather dropped into the movie’s most famous scene, Lime and Holly Martens confronting each other and philosophising about life, the universe and everything on the Ferris wheel at the Prata Park. The line really ought to be spoken while the two men are inside the booth, but it isn’t, it is recited outside and in a rushed ‘afterthought’ fashion once the two men have decided to part ways. Most cinemagoers forget that.
Welles bestrides the film despite barely being in it. Harry Lime [Welles] is such a strong antagonist, a man whose name is on every lip, whose shadow falls over every room, whose hand and mind destroys everyone it contacts; you almost expect him to be monumental. He isn’t. Lime is quite small, insignificant in stature and look, and he prowls in the dirty background of Vienna’s bombed out facades, gutters and rippling sewers. Having been in business for himself and coming under British suspicion, he turns to the Soviets for assistance: the black market in penicillin, clothes or whatever he can lay his hands on will live and fester in all lands. The magnetism of Harry Lime is instead displayed in the attractive glances of Anna Schmidt, a woman who owes her temporary freedom to Lime’s inventiveness with fraudulent visas. It is unclear why she loves him so concernedly: as Holly points out, the unprincipled Lime has abandoned her. Falling in love himself, Holly, the hack scribe, sees redemption in rescuing a woman Ian Fleming may have termed a ‘bird with a wing down’. Anna doesn’t need his attentions. Abandoned, as she may or may not know, by Harry Lime, she has returned to her job in a seedy theatre, fending off the attention of admirers like Holly and investigators, like the international police services. Unbowed, she won’t be used as a pawn in anybody’s game unless it suits her. Holly misunderstands this, thinking she is loyal to Lime out of love, when in fact it is convenience and mutual need. Lime’s activities may be revolting, but not even Holly’s essential goodness can replace this usefulness. Anna understands the writer’s own grasping nature, for in surrendering his friend, in the hope of finding love, Holly displays a selfishness that matches his very counterpart.
There is of course a fourth major player in The Third Man and that is Vienna, its nooks and crannies, its rubble and dust, the divided frontiers, the trams, the theatres, the international community, the sewers, the language. In fact, director Carol Reed’s decision to have characters speak in German / Austrian without subtitles places his audience exactly in Holly Martens’s mind, that of an alien among friends. Not a linguist, Holly can’t comprehend the barrage of foreign words that assaults him; nor do we. He is stranded among the language, flailing and failing to pursue his friend, as if there is a battle still going on between allies and axis, communication breaking down with every step. Holly’s communication issues are deep set; asked to speak at a writer’s convention, he is unable to explain and justify his career, coming across as uneducated, unworldly and uninteresting. One feels Harry Lime would not have been so taunted, that he has slipped effortlessly into the scum and slime of Vienna; for the city’s people are shifty, difficult, impulsive, angry. They know they’ve lost a war, but they have not lost their personal dignity. As if to emphasise the difficulties, both of contemporary circumstance and of personal communication, Anton Karasas’s zither-infused music score keeps grating, reminding us [and Holly] that the noise of the street, the city, its people, languages and politics is everywhere.
The British are equally awkward, just more polite with it. Trevor Howard’s Major Calloway and his sidekick Sgt Paine [our own Bernard Lee] prove a good foil for Joseph Cotton’s Holly Martens, their confrontations stepping to the verge of conflict before retreating a pace or two; they also seem to have a language problem, one of spies, victims and casualties; collateral damage doesn’t mean much to Calloway – hence at the film’s end he doesn’t offer any sage advice when Holly decides to stay with Anna. His rueful expression is reflected in the eventual soundless outcome, one of the greatest final scenes in movie history, an antithesis of Casablanca. Holly Martens does all the right things, but this girl wants nothing to do with him. He is left smoking, abandoned and alone, in the same cemetery Harry Lime is buried, the two of them still joined even if one is dead.
The Third Man is a genuine monument to the achievements of post-war cinema and I urge everyone to watch it at least once. Yes, it is a little crude in its editing and storytelling, but that keeps the action moving forward swiftly where modern films seem to always tread sideways. Performances are top rank. Photography, set design and exterior location work is superb. Quite how the Academy overlooked this masterpiece will forever be a mystery. Three nominations and one win [for photographer Robert Krasker] is a very poor return. One can only assume this failure was because the film paints Americans in Europe in a very poor light. The Third Man is certainly better than Father of the Bride, King Solomon’s Mines and Born Yesterday, films that beat it to a ‘best picture’ nomination. Still, you can’t set anything by the Academy.
Doesn’t matter. Time told. I love it . Brilliant.
THE THIRD MAN is one of the best films ever made. Period.
Yeah I saw this last week, as a lot of people have now I think which is great news, and totally agree: it's just a brilliant film. Unashamedly positive and funny, it's heartwarming and emotional as well as having a great sense of humour- one of my friends described it as being like a Spielberg movie for this generation, except without falling into the trap of trying to actually ape Spielberg's style as so many do. Kids absolutely love it- take yours.
Gosling cements his place as one of the best movie stars around... some of the science obviously needs taking with a pinch of salt, but it's a big Hollywood film, what do you expect. It's a near perfect film with a message of cooperation and friendship which feels much-needed in today's world. I've seen it getting four star reviews around, and to be honest I think if that's a four star, then what do you need to do to get five?
UNDER THE SKIN (2013)
I originally reviewed this several years ago. One of my favourite films of the new century.
Revisit 25/3/2026:
It is interesting to watch Under The Skin so soon after Jonathon Glazer’s outstanding The Zone of Interest, chiefly to listen to the aural sounds which permeate the background noise of the film, a suggestion of the brilliance of the latter movie’s sound scape. Here, the tingling, ringing sound reminds us potently of the alien monolith from Stanley Kubrick’s monumental 2001: A Space Odyssey. Something alien is definitely afoot. Glazer abandons most of the background of Michael Faber’s book in favour of a more mysterious subject, that of assimilation and communication.
Scarlet Johansson plays an almost mute woman who trawls the streets of Glasgow looking for men to seduce, asking intimate personal questions of her potential suitors that suggest promiscuity. The men’s fate is to be embalmed in strange room of dark matter, their life held in a balance, presumably for research purposes. The fairy light version of alien nature that Kubrick hinted is entirely absent in Glazer’s dark vision of alien culture. A series of motorcycle riding Watchers ensure the alien’s activities remain closeted and remote, clearing up after her, killing relatives and escapees with a businesslike proficiency.
As she develops human behaviours, presumably from the [male] brain bank she has collected, Johansson’s alien takes pity on a disfigured victim and perfects an escape. She becomes fascinated by her reflection, her individuality, which – like an adolescent – she begins to understand has an amorous effect on men, learning this through the touching of hands, her first intimate experience. Touch plays a huge part in the alien’s learning process. Our first vision of her is when she plays with an ant, its feelers stroking her palms. It is through touch the alien begins to understand both desire and hurt. The alien’s attempt at a mute relationship is disastrous and her inability to effectively communicate leads to a self-imposed exile in the forests and a certain tragic end.
The film is itself best watched as a fully immersive artistic experience: I had the lights off; surround-sound effects would be brilliant with the strange string-based soundtrack, part-music part-sound effect, which itself feels as though the Johansson character is listening to the thoughts, appeals and pain of the men she has personally and provocatively ‘immersed’. Has she absorbed something of their life-being, we ask ourselves, is she learning about the human race? It isn’t even initially clear she is an alien, only the other-worldliness of her white room – where she strips a dead girl for her clothes – suggests it; remember the colour white in its contradictions of simplicity, depth, translucence or opaqueness can be both beautiful and eerie, of alien worlds, realities and imaginations, like Kier Dullea’s room at the finale of 2001. The room turns pitch black for her seduction scenes, the pristine white becoming an all-gathering oil-slick, as though the viscous, slippery, suffocating atmosphere of life has taken her over in these moments of mock love.
The film is beautifully photographed by Daniel Landin, almost brutally beautiful, is spell-binding in its paucity and directed with the minimum of bravura by Jonathon Glazer. It can be viewed on many levels; especially as a comment on exploitation and sexual power. So too it may be an allegory for the immigrant, the loner attempting to fit in, misunderstanding, developing a second skin, while underneath the real person still festers even as assimilation takes grip. The lack of communication between the characters encapsulates the fear both parties share of the unknown. The ending hints at the latent passion and the unbridled hostility that conflicts within an indigenous population, fascinated by but unable to fathom the nature of the foreign beast. Scarlet Johansson’s stellar performance in particular highlights the constant fear of discovery, the occasional bewildering joy of companionship, the despair of unknowing.
Under the Skin is a beautiful, thought provoking movie which after the violence of Sexy Beast and the strange reincarnation mystery of Birth, confirms Jonathon Glazer as a filmmaker of much originality, character intensity and stupendous visual dexterity.
Excellent.
In honor of its 35th anniversary, The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Watching it with my dad (I know, nice father-son movie, lol), I noticed this time how cinematic it truly feels. Namely with its use of camera movements and focus, often at the same time. Clarice is noticeably shown to be in the middle of a man's world in several scenes, in terms of blocking actors. As for Sir Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector, what can I say that already hasn't been said, in terms of great acting? He owns the movie. As great as the two leads are, I'd like to offer praise to the main supporting players, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Brooke Smith and Anthony Heald. They portray their characters with the right tones and moods. If you enjoyed the movie, try reading the original Thomas Harris book. It's just like reading the movie, with a few added details. All in all, SOTL is a great example of a horror story done smartly. It still stands on its own all these years later, and my mom said that this is the only movie that she saw in a theater twice. Both times the audiences were on the edges of their seats, she said. A rare horror/thriller that I can watch more than once, and a must have physical copy for me. A pretty much perfect movie for me. You just have to look CLOSER for those find details that make it great. It's a great movie to have dinner with, provided that YOU aren't the dinner.
IN OLD CALIFORNIA (1942)
Republic churned these kind of movies out one a month or so in the 1940s; John Wayne made three of them in 1942. In Old California is a lesser entry and from the off it creaks around the confines of the studio’s sound and exterior stages on tired horse’s legs. Wayne plays a pharmacist, which is unusual, and does not kill anybody, which for a western is certainly unusual. The humour works better than the action. He’s quite watchable and the cast list of unknowns try very hard, but it all comes to little avail. In old Sacramento, Wayne comes up against a dodgy businessman whose riches have come via the gun. Luckily, a desirous saloon singer comes between them, wins his heart and helps relieve a typhoid epidemic. Stuff happens, but the script feels written on a postage stamp and the film isn’t much bigger or better.
THE KANSAN (1943)
A United Artists B-movie with A-list pretensions, The Kansan stars an aging Richard Dix as a Civil War veteran who is persuaded to take on the role of sheriff in the frontier town of Broken Lance. He isn’t enamoured with the idea, but lovely hotel owner Jane Wyatt persuades him it is worth staying on. Villainous businessman Albert Dekker thinks he can manipulate the sheriff and Eugene Pallette has many a belly-laugh as a helpful cattle drover. The film is swifter than a whippet and equally slim. It packs an awful lot of punch for such a slender enterprise. The cattle stampede out-does those rampaging elephants the Tarzan franchise usually featured around this time. The bar brawl is a tremendous five minutes of action hokum. Gun fights come sharp and fast. Occasionally, somewhere, there is time for a romance to develop and a plot to vanish.
Beautiful Beryl Wallace sings the songs as a chanteuse in a saloon. She first came to prominence as a scantily clad chorus girl in Broadway revue shows like Vanities. She livens up the saloon scenes no end.
The Kansan was never going to win awards, it has too many errors – continuity, plot, staging, acting, costume – but it is lively and fun and inconsequential. This kind of product rolled off the production line at several Hollywood studios with the regularity of a Ford estate car. A decade later, B-movie actioners became the bedrock of television, and stuff like The Kansan would germinate a whole 26-episode series, thus ringing the death toll of the western as Hollywood’s go-to action genre.
Rear window (1954)
I've seen this Hitchcock classic before, but this is the first time in a cinema. The whole movie is set in a courtyard so it doesn't benefit as much from the big scrren as many other movies do. But we did get Jim Stewart and Grace Kelly on the big screen, two of the great movie stars. Grace Kelly is a feast for the eyes! We do get the suspence we all expect, but Rear Window also offers the rich lives of the people living in the area. This is a major strength for the movie. The reason I got to see Rear window in the cinema is the local film club that has re-started after decades of being inactive. Next mointh it's "The good, the bad and the ugly" and I can't wait!
One battle after another (2025)
This movie was the great Oscar winner and I think it deserved it. Most know by now that Leonardo de Caprio plays Bob, a "retired" voilent extremist/terrorist on the far left whos daughter gets abducted. The abduction is done by an police officer played by Sean Penn who got an Oscar for his performance. This police officer who also tries to join an organisation of far-right shadowy elites. He also has a strange sexual attraction to the mother of the girl. I'd say both the far left and the far right are parodied in this movie, and in my opinion both are excellent targets for parody. I find it hard to see how the voilence of the far left group makes them a force for good even if you agree with them politically. Bob is also a very inefficient "hero" who fails in most things. Sean Penns character is also sometimes shown in a comical light. He is among other things awared the "Nathan Bedford Forest award" named after teh Grand Wizard of the first KKK.
As expected the production and acting is top notch. Paul Thomas Anderson is the director and he finally goth Oscars this time. He claims the only use of CGI in the movie is for the vape smoke in some scenes. Nice to know. In Adition to di Caprio and Penn we get LTK actor Benicio del Toro in a supporting role. The girl's mother is played by Teyana Taylor. She's obviously aa very good actress, but she's also very beautiful. American actresses, especially black actresses, has not showered themselves in glory in the Bond series. maybe she can buck this trend?
Highly reccomended!
THE DIVERGENT SERIES
DIVERGENT (2014)
Hot on the heels of Susanne Collins’s dystopian future for adolescents, came Veronica Roth’s take on what the world would look like after a nuclear holocaust. Much the same basically. The human race has survived and lives in the industrial wastelands of Chicago. For two hundred years, they have been split into five Factions: Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the charitable), Candor (the honest), Erudite (the intelligent) and Dauntless (the warriors). At age sixteen, each person must submit to a serum test which identifies the Faction they will inhabit for the rest of their lives. By some quirk of writing, the individual can always choose on their own, a get out clause for writer, character and viewer / watcher. Some adolescents have too many factions in their psyche and are termed outcast or Divergent and hunted down. People who wish to leave their chosen faction are expelled and become Factionless.
It all sounds a bit Hunger Games to me.
Well, Beatrice, a not so kindly Abnegation decides she wants to be a Dauntless and undergoes a whole load of initiation training that basically turns her into a walking killing machine, if a rather pretty one. She falls for her instructor, called Four. Don’t ask. Tris’s problem – Beatrice has decided to shorten her name to a more punchy one for her new persona – is that the poor girl is a Divergent and should she be uncovered, she would be outcast. So, Tris naturally has a moral compass much more finely tuned than Kate Winslett’s fascist leader Jeanine.
It’s basically the same dumb revolution ride we went on before, only sharper in execution but more ridiculous in narrative content. The movie takes ages to get going and then resolves itself in the last fifteen minutes. Unlike The Hunger Games, which can easily stand on its own without the epic sequels, Divergent has no ambiguity about the requirements of a sequel.
INSURGENT (2015)
Swiftly following on from Divergent, Shailene Woodley’s heroine Tris cuts her hair and turns full-on rebel, inciting a series of insurgencies across the Factions which she and her lover Four hope will bring down the despotic Jeanine and the Erudite rulers.
This one is a bit more sci-fi. A magic box holds the secrets of the aftermath of the nuclear war and only a Divergent can open it. Cue Tris, hooked up to electronic tentacles and experiencing sim generated tests of her fortitude.
I was bored.
Violence a plenty, mostly for no reason. Betrayal. Emotion. Blah. Blah. Blah.
If you like this kind of stuff, good on ya, but it isn’t for me.
ALLEGIANT (2016)
Well, well, I didn’t see that coming…
(Not).
Our heroes, having usurped one totalitarian regime for another, escape the confines of Chicago, hop over the wall and encounter a third despotic, dystopian civilisation, this one phenomenally technologically advanced. This is the realm of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, who have been monitoring Chicago for two-hundred years in an attempt to wrestle back man’s genetic material. Well, they can say what they like, dress it up in all the techno wizardry they like, but they are the same old same old dictatorship packing the same old lies to ensure maximum societal control.
This film is as see-through as a rainbow.
Lots of visual trickery, but not an ounce of sense. It doesn’t help the film only covers half of Veronica Roth’s novel. It bombed so badly at the box office, the franchise was cancelled, leaving the adventures of Tris, Four and her pals unresolved.
I don’t think we missed much.
I just watched this too; no one needs me to tell them that the Oscar-winning film is very good, but it really really is! 😁 The main thing I got from it was just the tremendous confidence and skill of Paul Thomas Anderson directing this: the changes in tone are masterful and perfectly judged, veering from slapstick to black comedy to full tension to drama... it's just so amazingly well-handled. Oscar totally deserved. All of the performances are incredible too: Sean Penn is amazing- I struggle to think of many other performances I've seen where an actor has actually taken on a style of walking and made it so characterful! Del Toro is amazing too, he paints the character so well and so efficiently.
The score is amazing too, wonderfully jazzy, sometimes just being played on single piano and yet making a scene feel large and tense. I did work out who it was before the end as there's several melodies and techniques which rather yelled Radiohead: it's, of course, Jonny Greenwood.
I totally agree with your observations about the politics too: I've seen the right wing press (which forms the majority of our print media in the UK) label this as a 'woke' film celebrating left wing warriors, but it's really not that at all. Yes, it doesn't have a very high opinion of racists, but that shouldn't be terribly controversial.
Yeah, top top stuff.
Thanks for bringing up the music. It's really unusual at times, using modern classical music and jazz.