Patrick Wayne is so bad in this that he makes the film virtually unwatchable. I have issues with the acting in 7TH VOYAGE as well but they're not as egregious. Only GOLDEN VOYAGE really works in terms of having solid acting, with John Phillip Law doing a really solid job as Sinbad himself. Tom Baker, as the villainous Koura, is amazing. Caroline Munro (Naomi from TSWLM) is rather appealing to the eyes as well. There's a fun uncredited cameo by Robert Shaw as an oracle as well.
I watched the classic again yesterday. It certainly is ..... interesting. Let's take the positives first. It's 100% an epic with no expense spared, a great cast and sweeping music. I think the main characters are fascinating. Especially Rhett and Scarlett are complex and often dark characters. Both are narcissistic, self-serving and shallow much of the time. Scarlett is loyal to the Confederacy while Rhett is pragmatic and sarcastic. "All we have is cotton, slaves and arrogance". But they are capable of bravery and sacrifice for others too. If we compare Scarlett and Rhett to Rose and Jack in Titanic, the latter couple seem seem 2-D and and without negative qualities.
The historical side is deeply troubling. The Antebellum south is portrayed as a beautiful place populated by gallant knights, beautiful ladies and happy slaves. No-one is getting whipped, torn away from their families or hunted down by dogs at night. The Union are all portrayed as brutal aggressors. war criminals and looters - far from the noble heroes in grey. This movie celebrates the "lost cause" myth shamelessly. Most Confederate states sited slavery as the main reason for leaving the union, but here it was all about freedom and beauty. It's strange to think the civil war was closer in time in 1939 than the Third Reich is to us now, and still the movie celebrates states forcing a bloody war to keep slavery.
This movie is interesting in all sorts of ways, and well worth watching.
On the big screen! A cinema not too far away regularly revives old movies - they’ve done a Bond season which of course I went to – and this one was on today.
Clint Eastwood plays the standard Eastwood cowboy who rescues a woman (Shirley MacLaine) from being raped/killed/robbed by three bad guys, ie he shoots them. He is stunned when she dresses to find out that she’s a nun … well ….
The plot has the two of them get involved in helping the repressed Mexicans against the French colonialists but it’s really all about the dialogue and bickering between the two leads, who sparkle.
If you like Old West Action but haven’t seen this one, you won’t be disappointed. It gets a bit gory towards the end, though.
One for @Number24 - Sisu (2022). I say this because it's set in Finland in 1944 as the war nears its end. This, I admit, is a bit like Number24 recommending me Trainspotting 'because it's right up the road from you'.
A lone Finn discovers gold but finds a platoon of Nazis is on his tail and want it for themselves.
The less you know in advance about this the better. That implies there are all sorts of twists and turns to this one. There aren't. But the first 10 mins might have you thinking, what is Napoleon on about here? It seems very slow, stark and grim, just a bloke by himself against a doomy, wartorn, deserted landscape.
Then the Nazis show up. They are not just ordinary Nazis though, They try to shoot a dog. That's just how bad they are.
With a low budget, this works on the GoldenEye principal that you can, via canny use of camera angles and atmosphere, make a film seem more expensive that it is. Soon this follows the Die Hard template of one man against the others, and it escalates pleasingly. One or two early scenes are implausible, too much so, and with my Bond hat on, there is one instance of underwater escape that echoes that of Bond and the submerged Rolls in A View to A Kill - but how it is achieved in this is so sick I cannot put it in words on this website.
This movie becomes terrific fun, a beer and pizza film that begins as anything but. Latterly, it embraces the full Indiana Jones, but along the way it perhaps better resembles the zombie flick Dead Snow, though there are no zombie Nazis in this, just Nazis.
I haven't seen Sisu, but I hear it's wild. While Finland is a neighbour country it's not like me recomending Trainspotting to you. I understand about five words in Finnish and according to AI I live more than 600 km. from the Finnish border. Fellow AJB-member 073 on the other hand is a proud citizen of Finland.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,873Chief of Staff
Napoleon Plural said:-
One or two early scenes are implausible
One or two early scenes…? 😮 I’d say 90% of it is completely implausible 🤣
Ha Ha! No, latterly it is - but I meant that early on, for the first 15 mins, it is down to earth and then a couple of early scenes in the next 15 mins unnecessarily tip you off that it's not going to stay that way..
Along with conspiracy theory movies like The Conversation, The Parallax View, All the President’s Men, Executive Action and Capricorn One, Three Days of the Condor inhabits a curious period of mid-seventies American cinematic naval-gazing. Here, as in the other films, it is the trustworthiness, the honesty and the intentions of institutions which cause the central characters to revolt, large or small, against a system which is not working for them but for itself. Usually this would be the government, or a faction of government, as shown in the Kennedy inspired Executive Action; sometimes it is important men running important businesses [The Conversation]; usually it is national civil or governmental agencies, working for themselves to line their pockets financially or through influence or, as here, to lay the economic foundations of a future unknown.
Robert Redford plays the bookish CIA operative Joe Turner. He really does read books. All the time. He and his colleagues are employed purely to digest printed foreign material, run it through sophisticated computer programs and highlight possible codes, messages or theories which may endanger United States security. Despite the office being termed the American Literary Historical Society, director Sydney Pollack shows us the security guard, the cameras, the gun in the secretary’s drawer, all hints that everything is not as we perceive. This is demonstrated, fatally, when Turner returns from purchasing lunch to find the whole workforce has been murdered, seemingly for no reason. So ensues three days of whip-tight tension as Turner attempts to unravel what has happened as well as why, all the while attempting to evade not only his crooked CIA masters but also the attention of paid free-lance assassin Jaubert, a brilliant Max Von Sydow, hunting down his prey with single-minded, mannered efficiency, but without total success. Turner, not being a professional, doesn’t react in expected manners and causes Jaubert to realign his tactics.
Meanwhile, the CIA bigwigs, headed by John Houseman and Cliff Robertson, are intent on protecting their own. A failed assassination sends Turner on the run, fortuitously holing up with Faye Dunaway’s Kathy Hale, a beautiful, lonely artist, a woman who photographs emptiness. Turner sees the blank spaces on her canvases as expressions of desire, to uncover what can’t be seen; her candid artistry and his unfolding mystery intertwine and they become brief lovers – she initially reluctant, then purposeful; he always aloof, guarded, unable to fully confide despite her reticent assistance. In a bare few days, Turner has moved on from bookish ways to a killer, a kidnapper and a conspirator, his ability to trust anyone evaporating as every page turns on the script.
The film manipulates suspense brilliantly. The violence, when it comes, shocks and stuns. The plot never meanders, although it takes time for the building blocks to fall into place so you spend the first half of the film scratching your head before the inconsistencies resolve themselves. Apparently James Grady’s original novel was hacked to pieces, but I haven’t read it so I can’t comment with authority there. What I do know is that Lorenzo Semple Jr and David Reyfeil provide incident and dialogue that is believably terse. Barely a moment or word is wasted. The editing is slick, fast and assertive. Of particular note is the bedroom scene, where Pollack, Don Guidice and Fredric Steinkamp intercut Kathy’s photographs with the couple’s lovemaking, her empty spaces finally being filled [ahem!] as it were. Early doors, the switching cameras keep us interested. Owen Roizman has done his homework and plays it like Otto Heller and The Ipcress File, all clandestine views and odd angles; latterly as the plot straightens out he too is more straight forward. The film is punctuated too by a fine jazz inspired score from Dave Grusin which feels of the time yet also timeless. The opening salvo Condor! (Theme from Three Days of the Condor) is particularly fine, laying the foundations of a slick, quick and unsettling experience.
Three Days of the Condor shares a climax as bitter and open ended as any conspiracy thriller ought to be. Jaubert develops a tacit admiration for Turner and when they finally meet, he even offers him a job. The CIA merely want Redford’s blue-eyed everyman eliminated. Turner thinks he can expose the agency within the agency, but Cliff Robertson’s practical Head of Station Higgins scoffs at his naivety. Turner’s written a revalatory article for the New York Times. ‘What makes you think they’ll print it?’ Higgins asks. Deep down, thanks to director Pollack and his stealthy film crew, we already know the answer, but Turner ignores the obvious and, as his name implies, turns away, his back vanishing into the crowds.
Where did you see that, @chrisno1 ? I've never seen it on anywhere.
Alain Delon's Trois Hommes a Abbattre (Three Men to Kill) on Talking Pictures TV.
I caught on late to this Delon season on TPTV. This is a 1980 thriller set in and around Paris. Sort of conspiracy thriller. I enjoy how it looks, its Frenchness, the nostalgia of Paris of that time; it has a whiff of The Day of the Jackal about it. A terrific car chase midway through anticipates Ronin.
Delon is a very handsome fellow, with a touch of Shakin Stevens about him (which proves my point). Also like a young Tony Curtis, at a time when the actual TC's looks were starting to get frazzled (the earlier film of Delon's I saw was in the early 70s). A minimalistic actor, not much range and given what I've seen, it seems his characters, well, let's just say things don't pan out well for them. They seem to be a victim of circumstance. His nonchalant, 'don't care' persona while very cool suggests he doesn't have much agency of his own. When he stops to help a car crash victim - who is in fact the victim of an attempted assassination - and takes him to hospital, and he later finds out it's a front-page news story, he doesn't bother to go to the police. This would make sense if he felt the police were corrupt, or if he had a bad record with them, but there's none of that. He just seems like the school kid who is beaten up by the school bullies and doesn't bother to inform teacher, preferring to work it out himself. Hitchcock always made sure to have a brief scene explaining why the lead doesn't just go to the police.
Latterly, Delon seems happy to hand over his gun to his enemies, to make all sorts of wrong moves, but despite all this won't trust his street smart, sassy girlfriend enough to tell her what's going on.
Delon is a bit like an Elvis movie character, except whereas Elvis is saved from a downward spiral due to the love of a good woman, Delon usually has a good woman in tow - but it doesn't seem to do him any good.
That all said, I really enjoyed this tense thriller - being French, it never promises to go a certain way, it has a Gallic indifference to Western narratives. Again, seeing Paris at this time is great. You can't imagine a movie set in London either then or later being like this; there's no reason why this film couldn't be set in 1970s London plot wise, but it just wouldn't be the same, it would be seedy and a bit depressing. Even with a film like, oh, Gabriel Byrne and Greta Schacchi conspiracy thriller, Denholm Elliott too, y'know - what's the name, oh yes, Defence of the Realm - as good as it is, London isn't the star of the movie and nor is England.
It was tucked away with little fanfare on the Legend channel @Napoleon Plural I looked to see if it was repeated, as these films often are, but it appears not, at least not yet.
Anthony Mann’s final film is a Euro-spy thriller with a twisting plot whose chief mistake is to make its protagonist and ‘hero’ your villain. There that’s given the game away. The second mistake is to cast Laurence Harvey as this ‘romantic’ lead, which he fails to pull off, although he’s certainly intense and troubled, which is the other half of the personality coin. The third was to allow original author Derek Marlowe to adapt his own novel, providing a screenplay that lacks any tension and relies instead upon setting up singular scenes of mystery and intrigue that somehow refuse to gel. A Dandy in Aspic is a wordy thriller that, Le Carre-like, stretches the plausibility of its plot and often the patience of the watcher. You do need to be patient. Some may think it easier to only watches the excellent credit sequence which enacts the basic assumption of the lead character’s life: a puppet caught in its own strings, manipulated from above until it becomes trapped, immobile, the titular dandy in aspic.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. The film isn’t so bad. There is a down at heel vibe to the thing which nods appreciatively back to Harry Palmer and Funeral in Berlin – I think Plamer even stayed in the same West Berlin hotel; he certainly exited the same Tiergarten rail station. ‘Hero’ Alexander Eberlin gets to sleep with a sexy model in Berlin too, here Mia Farrow in kooky sixties mode, pixie haircut, flower power mini-skirts and free love n all. She’s quite cute and naïve, kitted in her swanky Pierre Cardin outfits, prettily elfin. That wouldn’t last, but her acting went up a few notches as the years went by. Harvey’s Eberlin is a mean son-of-a-bitch and you wonder why Farrow’s Caroline Hetherbridge falls for him. Eberlin has a secret to hide, hence he refuses to get too close to anyone. Ingratiated into high society and high up in the British secret service, Eberlin is in fact the Russian double agent Krasnevin and he believes he is about to be exposed. The British and the Soviets want Krasnevin dead, but all he wants is to go home to Russia. Who will get their wish first forms the heart of this dowdy thriller.
Quincy Jones is on hand to lighten the mood with a lovely, melodic and subtle music score. Hints of On Days Like These keep rearing their head a year before he wrote it for The Italian Job. The understated orchestrations make for a diverting background. Thelma Connell is on hand to edit the filmic result, attempting to inject pace. Occasional flashes of camera trickery are worth the wait but are too few and far between to hold any interest.
Mann died before completing the Berlin scenes, so Harvey took over. The change doesn’t alter the film’s dark and threatening feel. The occasional spark of humour offsets the drudgery and sadness. Peter Cook pops up in a straight role, but can’t avoid being amusing. His character seems to be obsequiously offhand, as if to emphasise this is Peter Cook! Lionel Stander is the Russian intelligence chief assigned to assist Krasnevin, a poor man’s Oskar Homolka, although the discussion about cigars, guns and war with Tom Courtney has an undercurrent of Le Carre and Deighton to it.
Rather better is this bitter exchange between Courtney’s suspicious Gatiss and Harvey’s wary Eberlin. Gatiss queries Eberlin’s dedication to the espionage career:
“I don’t like you, Eberlin. I don’t like you because you’re weak and dishonest. But even more, I don’t like you because you’re frightened of me, and that disturbs me. I want to know why. You can tell me; I’m a very understanding man.”
To which Eberline replies:
“You haven’t got an ounce of understanding or emotion in your body. You died the moment you were born. And when your heart finally stops beating, it’ll be a mere formality.”
Both men ultimately sacrifice themselves for what seems nothing more than an increasing fatal inevitability, like the gunfighters of the old west, forced to confront an enemy face-to-face, both men manipulated by their authorities until they are as stuck as the embroiled puppet in the credits. However, there is a lot of emotional cut-and-thrust going on in the background of A Dandy in Aspic, most of it about curtailed lives and lost opportunities. It probably needed a stronger hand on the script and the director’s megaphone to make it succeed without burying it beneath the almost unnecessary love story.
Look, I recognise A Dandy in Aspic isn’t a monumental slice of cinema, but it passed a couple of hours and I quite enjoyed it, despite the rather gruff leading man. The intrigues worked, just about, given time, and the film’s ending was worth the wait, drawing out the idea the real spying game was being played far beyond the auspices of Berlin and south London. Definitely worth a look if you haven’t seen it.
I keep meaning to watch A Dandy in Aspic and was wondering when you'd get round to reviewing it, @chrisno1 The thing is, if I switch on any part of the way through I find it impossible to figure out what is the point of it or get drawn in. That's a thing you rarely get with Bond films - it's not just that the pre-credits is a movie in itself, as is often said - it's that maybe every 20 mins is a mini-movie, which allows the casual viewer to enter the world and pick up roughly what is going on and follow it from there.
Aspic seems notable for these small cameo roles, often unintended at the time, of notable TV faces. There's the actor who plays Randall in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) , as a gruff Russian! There's Richard O'Sullivan, currently seen in repeats of Man About The House! Peter Cook, not being too annoying, still pretty. Michael Trubshawe, David Niven's old pal! The cast is really quite stellar but it does add to that sense that the leading man is not an agent of events, he has no charisma or inner life so the interest and jollity lies elsewhere; I was going to write the same sort of thing about Brosnan's performance in GoldenEye, it's like the focus and interest comes elsewhere, with Judi Dench's M, or Coltraine, or Cummings, while Brosnan almost sleepwalks through it, in Sir Keir Ming Vase mode.
I don't understand Legend; its so under promoted you'd think it was part of a tax dodge or something. Often I'll tune in and there'll be something I'd have like to have seen from scratch, like The Wild Geese or something.
Sometime in the future, humans are genetically modified to only live until they are 25. To live longer, they must ‘buy time’ which they do by working, gambling, stealing or borrowing from charities, banks or loan sharks. If a person’s timeclock imprint runs to zero, a heart attack is induced and the subject dies. As with all dystopian fantasies, the premise is better than the eventuality, and writer-director Andrew Niccol struggles to maintain any moral compass as his heroes turn into a Bonnie and Clyde act and his villains become one-dimensional and obviously selfish. Flashy and occasionally interesting, In Time is too self-aware to be entirely successful. The young cast – they have to be young because everybody remains looking 25 years old, even when they live to be 105 or more – don’t have the chops for spouting the language of aged people so everything falls a bit flat. Genetics must have moved on a long way to halt the aging process, but this is never explained. Nor is the fact this stunning scientific development has not allowed people to redistribute wealth, reharness the timeclock-body-clock to a later age or build better homes and facilities. It’s the same old rich vs poor scenario only this time there’s no underground revolution, juts a couple of pretty bank robbers. Justin Timberlake and Amanada Seyfried star.
Well. I haven't seen this one yet. It's a Norwegian film with the great title "Low expectations". Ironically it's doing well in Cannes. It's the acting debut of the music artist Marie Ulven Ringheim, a gay icon internationally. But I hadn't noticed the name of the director before. A direct translation of Eivind Landsvik is "Eivind Treason". 😁 I keep saying that names can be fun, even though this one doesn't work internationally.
the trailer too is a bit different from say ..... Mission Impossible:
Michael Winner went trans-Atlantic and gave the western genre a noble kick up the ass with this complex film drama.
Burt Lancaster plays lawman Jared Maddox, a man of violence and principle whose methods begin to look distinctly old school when matched beside the sedate homely townsfolk of Sabbath. He’s there on the hunt for seven cowpokes who shot up his town and killed an old man in the melee. Lee J. Cobb is the cattle baron who knows time is against him and his ways, reminiscing about fighting Comanches, striking the land and rearing cattle. He’s as lonely as Maddox, but bound by loyalty to his own ideals – those of the saddle, the trail and cowboy brotherhood. There’s Robert Ryan’s disillusioned sheriff and Joseph Wiseman’s legless brothel keeper to spout meaningful soliloquys and Sheree North’s old flame of a retired hooker to spark Lancaster’s generous spirit back to life.
The film is grisly, bloody and intense, hot, sweaty and morally ambiguous. The performances are surprisingly good, by turns reflective, angered and delicate. Michael Winner directs with a keen eye for small-time spectacle. The film generates moments of extraordinary tension out of simple confrontations, often resolved with nothing more than words. The violence when it comes is fast and nasty. The photography is as sweaty as the performances. The climax suitably robust and bleak. Interpretations of High Noon, Bend of the River, Man with a Gun and Shane abound individual scenes without reducing the overall impact.
For UK viewers, Sky Arts is showing Classic Movies: The Story of Three Days of the Condor tomorrow (Thurs) at 8pm. Still not having seen the film, I won't be tuning in!
Oh, hang on! The film itself is being shown straight after at 9pm! Hmm, think I will see the movie but not the doc, to avoid spoilers.
An A-movie masquerading as a B-movie thanks to a mostly second tier cast and crew who do sterling work, but can’t quite make everything work. The worst offence is daring to show the alien monsters with their weird slug-like bodies and enormous single eye. The shots may only be one or two seconds as the creature emerges from a roadside or a dark mine shaft, but they are enough to make us chuckle and ruin the potential of the genuinely inventive story.
Astronomer John Putnam and his girlfriend Ellen Fields witness a meteor crashing in the Mojave desert near the town of Sand Creek. Racy for 1953, they appear to be sharing a house despite not being married. This is later revealed as untrue, but if you don’t listen hard, you’ll miss the single line reference. Upon investigation of the crash site, Putnam discovers a honeycomb-like spherical space ship, before a landslide buries the evidence. However, over the next few days various inhabitants of Sand Creek start to vanish, returning later in a zombified form. Even the sceptical Sheriff begins to suspect Putnam’s stories may be true. When pretty teacher Ellen disappears, it seals the deal, forcing Putnam and the Sheriff to confront the eerie alien creatures.
Dodgy special effects can’t paper over a few dodgy cracks in the telling, but Ray Bradbury’s original screen story is inventive and plausible. It is so good various aspects of it have been stolen for film and television sci-fi adventures ever since, particularly the aspect of human impersonation. This and the townspeople’s reaction to it is, as we all know, a guarded reference to the wave of anti-communist McCarthyism which swept Hollywood in the late forties and early fifties.
Richard Carlson makes a flat hero. He was probably a little too old for playing this kind of active leading man role, but his career, which had been floundering, flourished suddenly with a slew of sci-fi and horror titles. In addition to …Outer Space, Carlson made in rapid succession The Maze, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Riders to the Stars and The Magnetic Monster. If Carlson is looking a mite tired, the screen is undeniably brightened whenever Barbara Rush appears. As Ellen Fields, Rush won the Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer of the Year 1953 and you can see why: luminescent skin, beautiful figure, an accomplished natural acting style, a piercing scream. One only wonders why her career ended buried as a supporting actress in costume flicks and in second rate melodramas. She made her biggest impression on TV in Peyton Place. Rush aside, the scenery looks great.
Easily spoofed, It Came from Outer Space is a classic slice of 1950s sci-fi which has the benefit of deceiving us by having its aliens being both threatening and benign. Jack Arnold keeps things moving swiftly along and while some of the ‘action’ is a bit superfluous – no need for the fist fight, for instance – at least we are never bored by it. It isn’t absolutely brilliant, but it is better than many offerings of the time and more inventive and influential than most too. If Universal had had the courage to invest a tad more cash, they may even have spared us that dodgy monster.
An American remake and condensing of the British mini-series State of Play. Russell Crowe plays a top Washington Globe reporter who uncovers dodgy deals in high office. Crowe mumbles his way through proceedings. Ben Affleck is a Congressman under pressure. Director Kevin MacDonald tries to bring the thing to life, but without getting his actors to speak properly, information gets lost among the background noises. Someone should have had a word in the sound editor’s shell-like. The film is reasonably entertaining, but because there are enough plot threads for a six hour mini-series, the action feels overloaded. Decent performances (mumbling aside) at least help. The twist is a bit of a let-down. The story probably needed six hours to make it clearer.
Hardly ever shown 1970s conspiracy thriller starring Robert Redford. After it popped up unexpectedly on Sky Arts, I now see why it is hardly ever shown. It's so @chrisno1 wouldn't leave a spoiler-laden review telling absolutely all, save perhaps the make of Faye Dunaway's lip gloss.
Luckily I had the sense to avoid ChrisNo1's review, and also the Sky Arts one-hour documentary before this showing.
Redford is cast against type as a low-ranking CIA staff member who reads books and summarises them lest they give away some sort of plot against the US, almost as if stumbling upon something via an algorithm. I think that's what he does. He travels to work on some kind of dinky electrical bike, almost 40-Year-Old Virgin except it's made clear he is having an affair with an attractive co-worker. As with The Sting, Redford does seem to be playing younger than his years, and not entirely convincingly.
Soon he is forced to go on the run alone in New York, presumably having stumbled upon some sort of conspiracy.
Again, Redford is hardly inconspicuous being the best-looking guy around.
An actor like Richard Dreyfuss or Ryan O'Neal might have been a better fit for this, even Elliot Gould, but a later scene involving Faye Dunaway perhaps explains why only Redford could get away with it. Hint to conspiracy theorists: do not try this at home, or in anyone else's home for that matter.
In a way, this kind of film has been done since by things like The Bourne Identity, but back then the idea that the US Govt was corrupt was still novel; now the big reveal might elicit a response such as 'Well, d'uh - of course they do that!'
It does become a bit implausible towards the end and resembled a 1980 French film I saw recently: Three Men To Kill with Alain Delon. That had a bit more kinetic direction.
But the reveal itself perhaps explains why the movie hasn't been shown too much; audiences might be tipped off as to what has really happened or, if you prefer, be convinced that something happened that didn't. The repeated shots of the Twin Towers do seem very prescient, almost trolling really.
There's an illuminating review of the film here, better for those who have seen it to avoid spoilers:
I don't know, some of these movies could still be a bit daft - think of Popeye Doyle in his distinctive and obvious pork pie hat supposedly trying to be inconspicuous while on a tail in The French Connection.
Lorenzo Semple was a co-writer on this; the producer of Never Say Never Again picked him because he did this and the Batman TV series, saying he wanted a writer who could do something in between those two films. A neat idea in theory except there's nothing in either of those things that would be any good for a Sean Connery Bond film imo. We can't blame Semple for NSNA in a way because much of his script was junked, but I would like to see what he came up with, it's another Bond screenplay that has never resurfaced, like TND and Boyle's No Time To Die.
The 1970s was a pretty depressing decade for America wasn't it - you can see why the likes of Rocky and Superman: The Movie were so welcome in reintroducing a bit of old-style patriotism.
I've been partially laid up and am catching up with some of the movies I have been watching...
HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (2003)
This is a date movie.
Kate Hudson is adorable and then becomes annoying before reverting to adorable, to annoying, to… yeh, you get it… all while writing a magazine column speculating on why some women cannot keep a man for longer than ten days. That premise is horrible enough. The storyline is then saddled with a second plot line where Matthew McConaughey’s advertising exec accepts a bet to make a woman fall in love with him in ten days. Horrible.
I last watched this movie on a date.
She liked it. I didn’t. I lied about that. However we did last longer than ten days. Maybe that’s the secret.
Saturday last was chock full of movies as I was laid up ...
First up was G.I. BLUES (1960) - the Elvis Presley musical I reviewed a couple of years ago. No need to reup. It's a good musical with lots of good tracks and some winning performances. The plot is a bit family friendly, which started a disappointing trend. One of his best sixties films.
Immediately after it BBC2 showed :
FUNNY FACE (1957)
Funny Face demonstrates that Audrey Hepburn could sing and dance. Quite why the producers of My Fair Lady had her dubbed will forever remain a cinematic mystery. That movie is one of my favourite musical films, but even I recognise the foolishness of taking your lead actress’s voice from her; still at least you can’t see the joins. No need for that here, where Miss Hepburn uses her ballet training to perform a solo dance extravaganza of free-wheeling hip-bucking artistic mambo jumbo, as well as bringing her delicate singing chops to lend character to a few light musical numbers which might otherwise have dripped into nothingness.
Miss Hepburn plays Jo Stockton, a book shop salesgirl whose elfin intelligence smittens Fred Astaire’s fashion photographer Dick Avery. Within a blink of an eye, Jo becomes the new face of Quality Magazine and is whisked to Paris to become a clothes horse for a pompous couturier. She only goes so she can meet famous philosopher Prof Emile Flostre, who turns out to be half Astaire’s age, twice as good-looking and much, much more macho. Things do not go well all-round, but resolve themselves in the simplest of romantic fashions for which we must somehow believe young, sensible, intelligent and empathetic Jo Stockton would fall in love with old, brash, stubborn and arrogant Dick Avery.
The movie is enlivened primarily by director Stanley Donen’s use of the widescreen VistaVision process and a couple of scoopingly good dance numbers. The opening gambit Think Pink is imaginatively staged, everything turning pink as Kay Thompson’s pushy magazine editor bawls out her instructions. The scene and sudden colour palette changes are fun and frolicsome. Later Thompson, Astaire and Hepburn impersonate Kelly, Sinatra and Munshin and do an On the Town whistlestop whip-around Paris while singing, you guessed it, Bonjour Paris. The split screen sequences and the location work are inventively utilised. It is a pity there wasn’t more of this sort of innovative work, for the film needs opening out more. It is mostly a studio bound project, quite small scale in terms of its design and thus less impressive than it might be. The confusion of styles rubs off on the choreography; so Astaire’s solo number sees him mystifyingly dancing like a Spanish matador – in the middle of Paris, I ask you. As the film progresses, the love story becomes unlikely and the American script writer’s attitudes towards European social philosophy don’t so much poke fun at it as insult it. By this time, it is only the clutch of Gershwin tunes that have saved the day. They save the best [S’ Wonderful] to last, but badly truncate it.
In many quarters Funny Face is held up as an outstanding fifties musical, but I’d say it is only middling. The film needs a younger star than Astaire [it really needed Gene Kelly, who would have been perfect] but Hepburn insisted on the older man being cast. It also needs a less cynical heart. For all that, Hepburn looks sumptuous in her Givenchy outfits [when doesn’t she?] and the occasional swipes at the vainness of the fashion industry keep us mostly amused. You can’t of course go wrong with a Gershwin tune, and there’s ten of them here.
Re GI Blues : I am never sure whether that or King Creole is my favourite Elvis movie. One day I'll say KC, then the next I'll think it's too depressing so I'll say GIB.
An entertaining fantasy hokum that is as bad as it is good. Gary Lockwood proves you really do need a decent accent to wield a sword and shield effectively; he sounds as if he’s just walked off the set of West Side Story. Don’t worry, he hadn’t, but you catch my drift. Basil Rathbone is marvellously villainous as the evil sorcerer Lodac, who has kidnapped a King’s daughter, planning to feed her to his dragon unless he inherits the kingdom. He’s really after a sacred enchanted ring which bad knight Sir Branton stole from him. The two are in cahoots, but then in rolls Sir George [Lockwood] with his magic steed, sword, shield and armour to scupper all beastly plans and save the princess. George’s adopted mother, the sorceress Sybil [Estelle Winwood] tries to help him, but messes everything up. It is left to George and his motley crew of knights to battle Lodac’s curses and save the beautiful princess, who as played by the lovely Anne Helm is certainly worth saving.
The production values veer from the surprisingly good to the downright ropey and the script just veers wherever it wants. The SFX are a bundle of fun, including conjoined twins, talking monkeys, ‘little people’, ogres, old hags, ghostly apparitions and a fire-breathing two-headed puppet dragon. It’s hard to know where to start describing how lame some of it looks because you suddenly recognise half of it is really decent stuff. The scene with the panther was a gory success, so too the swift transmogrification of a French beauty into a succubus of much ugliness. The ‘little people’ were cheerful mini-munchkins. The eventual confrontation with Lodac, as his army of disciples multiplies shot by shot, had a genuine sense of the spectral to it. The photography is at times quite colourful and imaginative.
Look, The Magic Sword is daft and badly thought out. The humour hints at the infantile, but the violence and many grisly deaths seem too strong for kids. Despite the silliness of much of the playing, you can at least say the film is a willing experience.
Oh, hell… I rather enjoyed it.
MEAN GIRLS (2004)
A teen comedy satire from comedienne Tina Fey that focusses on a group of nasty girls in a suburban high school. Lindsey Lohan is the pretty newbie who drops into hormonal America having been home schooled in Africa by her zoologist parents. Unsure of herself, Cady Heron amusingly compares most everyday happenings to the law of the jungle, until she is befriended by a trio of self-absorbed bitches known as the Plastics. Ingratiating and expurgating herself from the group forms the bedrock of the comedy, which is dated and unphilosophical, relying on misplaced anger, lies, apologies and embarrassment rather than any dint of sophistication. Even the ‘nice’ people sound and act horrid. Which might be the point. A sense of believability is dashed by Lohan’s character’s outsider tag being so unlikely – her African life, intelligence and prettiness would prove winners in a lot of social circles. Sporadically amusing, but resorting to cliches and insult for most of its humour, the film drags its feet to an expected conclusion and is lopsided by not featuring any male cliques. Mean Girls was, and is, phenomenally popular, however a generation earlier John Hughes did the dysfunctional popularity contest storyline better with The Breakfast Club.
This documentary doesn’t fully examine Arsenal Football Club’s 1988-89 season, when a last minute triumph at Anfield, home of their closest rivals Liverpool F.C., brought them a first title in 18 years. It prefers to skip most of the contemporary historical build-up to the rivalry, how manager George Graham revitalised a sleeping giant and gradually threatened to knock the perennial Merseyside champions off the top block. Instead, after a perfunctory scene setting series of interviews, documentary maker David Stewart gives us a blow-by-blow account of the final match. Interesting for Gooners and those who may never have seen the match, which was a live televised event and the only time in living memory two title rivals met in the season’s final match with the trophy still undecided. However, there isn’t much for the casual viewer. Interviewees are tagged, but their roles in the team or as a supporter are barely explained. Sporting clips come and go with no indication of the progression of the season. Cup matches – of which Arsenal and Liverpool played three against each other that year – are not mentioned. There is also no wider social context, not even when the tragedy of Hillsborough unravels. Still, it was decent to see the old footage again, and interesting to note the similarities between George Graham’s robust team and Mikel Arteta’s current champions, who also play a physical, rather dour game and have at times flirted with sporting disaster. I remember the occasion well and, sorry Man City fans, you can have all the “Aguero!” moments you like, but you’ll never match that 2-0 last minute victory: “It’s up for grabs now!”
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,873Chief of Staff
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Patrick Wayne is so bad in this that he makes the film virtually unwatchable. I have issues with the acting in 7TH VOYAGE as well but they're not as egregious. Only GOLDEN VOYAGE really works in terms of having solid acting, with John Phillip Law doing a really solid job as Sinbad himself. Tom Baker, as the villainous Koura, is amazing. Caroline Munro (Naomi from TSWLM) is rather appealing to the eyes as well. There's a fun uncredited cameo by Robert Shaw as an oracle as well.
Gone with the Wind (1939)
I watched the classic again yesterday. It certainly is ..... interesting. Let's take the positives first. It's 100% an epic with no expense spared, a great cast and sweeping music. I think the main characters are fascinating. Especially Rhett and Scarlett are complex and often dark characters. Both are narcissistic, self-serving and shallow much of the time. Scarlett is loyal to the Confederacy while Rhett is pragmatic and sarcastic. "All we have is cotton, slaves and arrogance". But they are capable of bravery and sacrifice for others too. If we compare Scarlett and Rhett to Rose and Jack in Titanic, the latter couple seem seem 2-D and and without negative qualities.
The historical side is deeply troubling. The Antebellum south is portrayed as a beautiful place populated by gallant knights, beautiful ladies and happy slaves. No-one is getting whipped, torn away from their families or hunted down by dogs at night. The Union are all portrayed as brutal aggressors. war criminals and looters - far from the noble heroes in grey. This movie celebrates the "lost cause" myth shamelessly. Most Confederate states sited slavery as the main reason for leaving the union, but here it was all about freedom and beauty. It's strange to think the civil war was closer in time in 1939 than the Third Reich is to us now, and still the movie celebrates states forcing a bloody war to keep slavery.
This movie is interesting in all sorts of ways, and well worth watching.
TWO MULES FOR SISTER SARA (1970) Dir: Don Siegel
On the big screen! A cinema not too far away regularly revives old movies - they’ve done a Bond season which of course I went to – and this one was on today.
Clint Eastwood plays the standard Eastwood cowboy who rescues a woman (Shirley MacLaine) from being raped/killed/robbed by three bad guys, ie he shoots them. He is stunned when she dresses to find out that she’s a nun … well ….
The plot has the two of them get involved in helping the repressed Mexicans against the French colonialists but it’s really all about the dialogue and bickering between the two leads, who sparkle.
If you like Old West Action but haven’t seen this one, you won’t be disappointed. It gets a bit gory towards the end, though.
One for @Number24 - Sisu (2022). I say this because it's set in Finland in 1944 as the war nears its end. This, I admit, is a bit like Number24 recommending me Trainspotting 'because it's right up the road from you'.
A lone Finn discovers gold but finds a platoon of Nazis is on his tail and want it for themselves.
The less you know in advance about this the better. That implies there are all sorts of twists and turns to this one. There aren't. But the first 10 mins might have you thinking, what is Napoleon on about here? It seems very slow, stark and grim, just a bloke by himself against a doomy, wartorn, deserted landscape.
Then the Nazis show up. They are not just ordinary Nazis though, They try to shoot a dog. That's just how bad they are.
With a low budget, this works on the GoldenEye principal that you can, via canny use of camera angles and atmosphere, make a film seem more expensive that it is. Soon this follows the Die Hard template of one man against the others, and it escalates pleasingly. One or two early scenes are implausible, too much so, and with my Bond hat on, there is one instance of underwater escape that echoes that of Bond and the submerged Rolls in A View to A Kill - but how it is achieved in this is so sick I cannot put it in words on this website.
This movie becomes terrific fun, a beer and pizza film that begins as anything but. Latterly, it embraces the full Indiana Jones, but along the way it perhaps better resembles the zombie flick Dead Snow, though there are no zombie Nazis in this, just Nazis.
It was on Film4.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I haven't seen Sisu, but I hear it's wild. While Finland is a neighbour country it's not like me recomending Trainspotting to you. I understand about five words in Finnish and according to AI I live more than 600 km. from the Finnish border. Fellow AJB-member 073 on the other hand is a proud citizen of Finland.
Napoleon Plural said:-
One or two early scenes are implausible
One or two early scenes…? 😮 I’d say 90% of it is completely implausible 🤣
Ha Ha! No, latterly it is - but I meant that early on, for the first 15 mins, it is down to earth and then a couple of early scenes in the next 15 mins unnecessarily tip you off that it's not going to stay that way..
Roger Moore 1927-2017
THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975)
Along with conspiracy theory movies like The Conversation, The Parallax View, All the President’s Men, Executive Action and Capricorn One, Three Days of the Condor inhabits a curious period of mid-seventies American cinematic naval-gazing. Here, as in the other films, it is the trustworthiness, the honesty and the intentions of institutions which cause the central characters to revolt, large or small, against a system which is not working for them but for itself. Usually this would be the government, or a faction of government, as shown in the Kennedy inspired Executive Action; sometimes it is important men running important businesses [The Conversation]; usually it is national civil or governmental agencies, working for themselves to line their pockets financially or through influence or, as here, to lay the economic foundations of a future unknown.
Robert Redford plays the bookish CIA operative Joe Turner. He really does read books. All the time. He and his colleagues are employed purely to digest printed foreign material, run it through sophisticated computer programs and highlight possible codes, messages or theories which may endanger United States security. Despite the office being termed the American Literary Historical Society, director Sydney Pollack shows us the security guard, the cameras, the gun in the secretary’s drawer, all hints that everything is not as we perceive. This is demonstrated, fatally, when Turner returns from purchasing lunch to find the whole workforce has been murdered, seemingly for no reason. So ensues three days of whip-tight tension as Turner attempts to unravel what has happened as well as why, all the while attempting to evade not only his crooked CIA masters but also the attention of paid free-lance assassin Jaubert, a brilliant Max Von Sydow, hunting down his prey with single-minded, mannered efficiency, but without total success. Turner, not being a professional, doesn’t react in expected manners and causes Jaubert to realign his tactics.
Meanwhile, the CIA bigwigs, headed by John Houseman and Cliff Robertson, are intent on protecting their own. A failed assassination sends Turner on the run, fortuitously holing up with Faye Dunaway’s Kathy Hale, a beautiful, lonely artist, a woman who photographs emptiness. Turner sees the blank spaces on her canvases as expressions of desire, to uncover what can’t be seen; her candid artistry and his unfolding mystery intertwine and they become brief lovers – she initially reluctant, then purposeful; he always aloof, guarded, unable to fully confide despite her reticent assistance. In a bare few days, Turner has moved on from bookish ways to a killer, a kidnapper and a conspirator, his ability to trust anyone evaporating as every page turns on the script.
The film manipulates suspense brilliantly. The violence, when it comes, shocks and stuns. The plot never meanders, although it takes time for the building blocks to fall into place so you spend the first half of the film scratching your head before the inconsistencies resolve themselves. Apparently James Grady’s original novel was hacked to pieces, but I haven’t read it so I can’t comment with authority there. What I do know is that Lorenzo Semple Jr and David Reyfeil provide incident and dialogue that is believably terse. Barely a moment or word is wasted. The editing is slick, fast and assertive. Of particular note is the bedroom scene, where Pollack, Don Guidice and Fredric Steinkamp intercut Kathy’s photographs with the couple’s lovemaking, her empty spaces finally being filled [ahem!] as it were. Early doors, the switching cameras keep us interested. Owen Roizman has done his homework and plays it like Otto Heller and The Ipcress File, all clandestine views and odd angles; latterly as the plot straightens out he too is more straight forward. The film is punctuated too by a fine jazz inspired score from Dave Grusin which feels of the time yet also timeless. The opening salvo Condor! (Theme from Three Days of the Condor) is particularly fine, laying the foundations of a slick, quick and unsettling experience.
Three Days of the Condor shares a climax as bitter and open ended as any conspiracy thriller ought to be. Jaubert develops a tacit admiration for Turner and when they finally meet, he even offers him a job. The CIA merely want Redford’s blue-eyed everyman eliminated. Turner thinks he can expose the agency within the agency, but Cliff Robertson’s practical Head of Station Higgins scoffs at his naivety. Turner’s written a revalatory article for the New York Times. ‘What makes you think they’ll print it?’ Higgins asks. Deep down, thanks to director Pollack and his stealthy film crew, we already know the answer, but Turner ignores the obvious and, as his name implies, turns away, his back vanishing into the crowds.
Excellent.
I find that movies like "Tora tora tora" or "The last detail" has even more naval gazing. 😁
Where did you see that, @chrisno1 ? I've never seen it on anywhere.
Alain Delon's Trois Hommes a Abbattre (Three Men to Kill) on Talking Pictures TV.
I caught on late to this Delon season on TPTV. This is a 1980 thriller set in and around Paris. Sort of conspiracy thriller. I enjoy how it looks, its Frenchness, the nostalgia of Paris of that time; it has a whiff of The Day of the Jackal about it. A terrific car chase midway through anticipates Ronin.
Delon is a very handsome fellow, with a touch of Shakin Stevens about him (which proves my point). Also like a young Tony Curtis, at a time when the actual TC's looks were starting to get frazzled (the earlier film of Delon's I saw was in the early 70s). A minimalistic actor, not much range and given what I've seen, it seems his characters, well, let's just say things don't pan out well for them. They seem to be a victim of circumstance. His nonchalant, 'don't care' persona while very cool suggests he doesn't have much agency of his own. When he stops to help a car crash victim - who is in fact the victim of an attempted assassination - and takes him to hospital, and he later finds out it's a front-page news story, he doesn't bother to go to the police. This would make sense if he felt the police were corrupt, or if he had a bad record with them, but there's none of that. He just seems like the school kid who is beaten up by the school bullies and doesn't bother to inform teacher, preferring to work it out himself. Hitchcock always made sure to have a brief scene explaining why the lead doesn't just go to the police.
Latterly, Delon seems happy to hand over his gun to his enemies, to make all sorts of wrong moves, but despite all this won't trust his street smart, sassy girlfriend enough to tell her what's going on.
Delon is a bit like an Elvis movie character, except whereas Elvis is saved from a downward spiral due to the love of a good woman, Delon usually has a good woman in tow - but it doesn't seem to do him any good.
That all said, I really enjoyed this tense thriller - being French, it never promises to go a certain way, it has a Gallic indifference to Western narratives. Again, seeing Paris at this time is great. You can't imagine a movie set in London either then or later being like this; there's no reason why this film couldn't be set in 1970s London plot wise, but it just wouldn't be the same, it would be seedy and a bit depressing. Even with a film like, oh, Gabriel Byrne and Greta Schacchi conspiracy thriller, Denholm Elliott too, y'know - what's the name, oh yes, Defence of the Realm - as good as it is, London isn't the star of the movie and nor is England.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
It was tucked away with little fanfare on the Legend channel @Napoleon Plural I looked to see if it was repeated, as these films often are, but it appears not, at least not yet.
I've never seen it, which is strange. I see it repeated on the film channels a lot, so it is going on the list. Great poster.
A DANDY IN ASPIC (1968)
Anthony Mann’s final film is a Euro-spy thriller with a twisting plot whose chief mistake is to make its protagonist and ‘hero’ your villain. There that’s given the game away. The second mistake is to cast Laurence Harvey as this ‘romantic’ lead, which he fails to pull off, although he’s certainly intense and troubled, which is the other half of the personality coin. The third was to allow original author Derek Marlowe to adapt his own novel, providing a screenplay that lacks any tension and relies instead upon setting up singular scenes of mystery and intrigue that somehow refuse to gel. A Dandy in Aspic is a wordy thriller that, Le Carre-like, stretches the plausibility of its plot and often the patience of the watcher. You do need to be patient. Some may think it easier to only watches the excellent credit sequence which enacts the basic assumption of the lead character’s life: a puppet caught in its own strings, manipulated from above until it becomes trapped, immobile, the titular dandy in aspic.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. The film isn’t so bad. There is a down at heel vibe to the thing which nods appreciatively back to Harry Palmer and Funeral in Berlin – I think Plamer even stayed in the same West Berlin hotel; he certainly exited the same Tiergarten rail station. ‘Hero’ Alexander Eberlin gets to sleep with a sexy model in Berlin too, here Mia Farrow in kooky sixties mode, pixie haircut, flower power mini-skirts and free love n all. She’s quite cute and naïve, kitted in her swanky Pierre Cardin outfits, prettily elfin. That wouldn’t last, but her acting went up a few notches as the years went by. Harvey’s Eberlin is a mean son-of-a-bitch and you wonder why Farrow’s Caroline Hetherbridge falls for him. Eberlin has a secret to hide, hence he refuses to get too close to anyone. Ingratiated into high society and high up in the British secret service, Eberlin is in fact the Russian double agent Krasnevin and he believes he is about to be exposed. The British and the Soviets want Krasnevin dead, but all he wants is to go home to Russia. Who will get their wish first forms the heart of this dowdy thriller.
Quincy Jones is on hand to lighten the mood with a lovely, melodic and subtle music score. Hints of On Days Like These keep rearing their head a year before he wrote it for The Italian Job. The understated orchestrations make for a diverting background. Thelma Connell is on hand to edit the filmic result, attempting to inject pace. Occasional flashes of camera trickery are worth the wait but are too few and far between to hold any interest.
Mann died before completing the Berlin scenes, so Harvey took over. The change doesn’t alter the film’s dark and threatening feel. The occasional spark of humour offsets the drudgery and sadness. Peter Cook pops up in a straight role, but can’t avoid being amusing. His character seems to be obsequiously offhand, as if to emphasise this is Peter Cook! Lionel Stander is the Russian intelligence chief assigned to assist Krasnevin, a poor man’s Oskar Homolka, although the discussion about cigars, guns and war with Tom Courtney has an undercurrent of Le Carre and Deighton to it.
Rather better is this bitter exchange between Courtney’s suspicious Gatiss and Harvey’s wary Eberlin. Gatiss queries Eberlin’s dedication to the espionage career:
“I don’t like you, Eberlin. I don’t like you because you’re weak and dishonest. But even more, I don’t like you because you’re frightened of me, and that disturbs me. I want to know why. You can tell me; I’m a very understanding man.”
To which Eberline replies:
“You haven’t got an ounce of understanding or emotion in your body. You died the moment you were born. And when your heart finally stops beating, it’ll be a mere formality.”
Both men ultimately sacrifice themselves for what seems nothing more than an increasing fatal inevitability, like the gunfighters of the old west, forced to confront an enemy face-to-face, both men manipulated by their authorities until they are as stuck as the embroiled puppet in the credits. However, there is a lot of emotional cut-and-thrust going on in the background of A Dandy in Aspic, most of it about curtailed lives and lost opportunities. It probably needed a stronger hand on the script and the director’s megaphone to make it succeed without burying it beneath the almost unnecessary love story.
Look, I recognise A Dandy in Aspic isn’t a monumental slice of cinema, but it passed a couple of hours and I quite enjoyed it, despite the rather gruff leading man. The intrigues worked, just about, given time, and the film’s ending was worth the wait, drawing out the idea the real spying game was being played far beyond the auspices of Berlin and south London. Definitely worth a look if you haven’t seen it.
I keep meaning to watch A Dandy in Aspic and was wondering when you'd get round to reviewing it, @chrisno1 The thing is, if I switch on any part of the way through I find it impossible to figure out what is the point of it or get drawn in. That's a thing you rarely get with Bond films - it's not just that the pre-credits is a movie in itself, as is often said - it's that maybe every 20 mins is a mini-movie, which allows the casual viewer to enter the world and pick up roughly what is going on and follow it from there.
Aspic seems notable for these small cameo roles, often unintended at the time, of notable TV faces. There's the actor who plays Randall in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) , as a gruff Russian! There's Richard O'Sullivan, currently seen in repeats of Man About The House! Peter Cook, not being too annoying, still pretty. Michael Trubshawe, David Niven's old pal! The cast is really quite stellar but it does add to that sense that the leading man is not an agent of events, he has no charisma or inner life so the interest and jollity lies elsewhere; I was going to write the same sort of thing about Brosnan's performance in GoldenEye, it's like the focus and interest comes elsewhere, with Judi Dench's M, or Coltraine, or Cummings, while Brosnan almost sleepwalks through it, in Sir Keir Ming Vase mode.
I don't understand Legend; its so under promoted you'd think it was part of a tax dodge or something. Often I'll tune in and there'll be something I'd have like to have seen from scratch, like The Wild Geese or something.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Sisu is reshowing tonight if anyone's interested - it's up against Eurovision and The Batman - and GoldenEye, however.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
IN TIME (2011)
Sometime in the future, humans are genetically modified to only live until they are 25. To live longer, they must ‘buy time’ which they do by working, gambling, stealing or borrowing from charities, banks or loan sharks. If a person’s timeclock imprint runs to zero, a heart attack is induced and the subject dies. As with all dystopian fantasies, the premise is better than the eventuality, and writer-director Andrew Niccol struggles to maintain any moral compass as his heroes turn into a Bonnie and Clyde act and his villains become one-dimensional and obviously selfish. Flashy and occasionally interesting, In Time is too self-aware to be entirely successful. The young cast – they have to be young because everybody remains looking 25 years old, even when they live to be 105 or more – don’t have the chops for spouting the language of aged people so everything falls a bit flat. Genetics must have moved on a long way to halt the aging process, but this is never explained. Nor is the fact this stunning scientific development has not allowed people to redistribute wealth, reharness the timeclock-body-clock to a later age or build better homes and facilities. It’s the same old rich vs poor scenario only this time there’s no underground revolution, juts a couple of pretty bank robbers. Justin Timberlake and Amanada Seyfried star.
Well. I haven't seen this one yet. It's a Norwegian film with the great title "Low expectations". Ironically it's doing well in Cannes. It's the acting debut of the music artist Marie Ulven Ringheim, a gay icon internationally. But I hadn't noticed the name of the director before. A direct translation of Eivind Landsvik is "Eivind Treason". 😁 I keep saying that names can be fun, even though this one doesn't work internationally.
the trailer too is a bit different from say ..... Mission Impossible:
One of the very best spy thrillers ever made. Everything in the film feels authentic, believable, and compelling.
LAWMAN (1971)
Michael Winner went trans-Atlantic and gave the western genre a noble kick up the ass with this complex film drama.
Burt Lancaster plays lawman Jared Maddox, a man of violence and principle whose methods begin to look distinctly old school when matched beside the sedate homely townsfolk of Sabbath. He’s there on the hunt for seven cowpokes who shot up his town and killed an old man in the melee. Lee J. Cobb is the cattle baron who knows time is against him and his ways, reminiscing about fighting Comanches, striking the land and rearing cattle. He’s as lonely as Maddox, but bound by loyalty to his own ideals – those of the saddle, the trail and cowboy brotherhood. There’s Robert Ryan’s disillusioned sheriff and Joseph Wiseman’s legless brothel keeper to spout meaningful soliloquys and Sheree North’s old flame of a retired hooker to spark Lancaster’s generous spirit back to life.
The film is grisly, bloody and intense, hot, sweaty and morally ambiguous. The performances are surprisingly good, by turns reflective, angered and delicate. Michael Winner directs with a keen eye for small-time spectacle. The film generates moments of extraordinary tension out of simple confrontations, often resolved with nothing more than words. The violence when it comes is fast and nasty. The photography is as sweaty as the performances. The climax suitably robust and bleak. Interpretations of High Noon, Bend of the River, Man with a Gun and Shane abound individual scenes without reducing the overall impact.
One of the decades best westerns.
I agree, Lawman is a very good western. Michael Winner was a very much underrated director, sure he had his stinkers, but so did every other director.
For UK viewers, Sky Arts is showing Classic Movies: The Story of Three Days of the Condor tomorrow (Thurs) at 8pm. Still not having seen the film, I won't be tuning in!
Oh, hang on! The film itself is being shown straight after at 9pm! Hmm, think I will see the movie but not the doc, to avoid spoilers.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953)
An A-movie masquerading as a B-movie thanks to a mostly second tier cast and crew who do sterling work, but can’t quite make everything work. The worst offence is daring to show the alien monsters with their weird slug-like bodies and enormous single eye. The shots may only be one or two seconds as the creature emerges from a roadside or a dark mine shaft, but they are enough to make us chuckle and ruin the potential of the genuinely inventive story.
Astronomer John Putnam and his girlfriend Ellen Fields witness a meteor crashing in the Mojave desert near the town of Sand Creek. Racy for 1953, they appear to be sharing a house despite not being married. This is later revealed as untrue, but if you don’t listen hard, you’ll miss the single line reference. Upon investigation of the crash site, Putnam discovers a honeycomb-like spherical space ship, before a landslide buries the evidence. However, over the next few days various inhabitants of Sand Creek start to vanish, returning later in a zombified form. Even the sceptical Sheriff begins to suspect Putnam’s stories may be true. When pretty teacher Ellen disappears, it seals the deal, forcing Putnam and the Sheriff to confront the eerie alien creatures.
Dodgy special effects can’t paper over a few dodgy cracks in the telling, but Ray Bradbury’s original screen story is inventive and plausible. It is so good various aspects of it have been stolen for film and television sci-fi adventures ever since, particularly the aspect of human impersonation. This and the townspeople’s reaction to it is, as we all know, a guarded reference to the wave of anti-communist McCarthyism which swept Hollywood in the late forties and early fifties.
Richard Carlson makes a flat hero. He was probably a little too old for playing this kind of active leading man role, but his career, which had been floundering, flourished suddenly with a slew of sci-fi and horror titles. In addition to …Outer Space, Carlson made in rapid succession The Maze, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Riders to the Stars and The Magnetic Monster. If Carlson is looking a mite tired, the screen is undeniably brightened whenever Barbara Rush appears. As Ellen Fields, Rush won the Golden Globe as Most Promising Newcomer of the Year 1953 and you can see why: luminescent skin, beautiful figure, an accomplished natural acting style, a piercing scream. One only wonders why her career ended buried as a supporting actress in costume flicks and in second rate melodramas. She made her biggest impression on TV in Peyton Place. Rush aside, the scenery looks great.
Easily spoofed, It Came from Outer Space is a classic slice of 1950s sci-fi which has the benefit of deceiving us by having its aliens being both threatening and benign. Jack Arnold keeps things moving swiftly along and while some of the ‘action’ is a bit superfluous – no need for the fist fight, for instance – at least we are never bored by it. It isn’t absolutely brilliant, but it is better than many offerings of the time and more inventive and influential than most too. If Universal had had the courage to invest a tad more cash, they may even have spared us that dodgy monster.
Ah well. Very good.
STATE OF PLAY (2009)
An American remake and condensing of the British mini-series State of Play. Russell Crowe plays a top Washington Globe reporter who uncovers dodgy deals in high office. Crowe mumbles his way through proceedings. Ben Affleck is a Congressman under pressure. Director Kevin MacDonald tries to bring the thing to life, but without getting his actors to speak properly, information gets lost among the background noises. Someone should have had a word in the sound editor’s shell-like. The film is reasonably entertaining, but because there are enough plot threads for a six hour mini-series, the action feels overloaded. Decent performances (mumbling aside) at least help. The twist is a bit of a let-down. The story probably needed six hours to make it clearer.
Three Days of The Condor (1975)
Hardly ever shown 1970s conspiracy thriller starring Robert Redford. After it popped up unexpectedly on Sky Arts, I now see why it is hardly ever shown. It's so @chrisno1 wouldn't leave a spoiler-laden review telling absolutely all, save perhaps the make of Faye Dunaway's lip gloss.
Luckily I had the sense to avoid ChrisNo1's review, and also the Sky Arts one-hour documentary before this showing.
Redford is cast against type as a low-ranking CIA staff member who reads books and summarises them lest they give away some sort of plot against the US, almost as if stumbling upon something via an algorithm. I think that's what he does. He travels to work on some kind of dinky electrical bike, almost 40-Year-Old Virgin except it's made clear he is having an affair with an attractive co-worker. As with The Sting, Redford does seem to be playing younger than his years, and not entirely convincingly.
Soon he is forced to go on the run alone in New York, presumably having stumbled upon some sort of conspiracy.
Again, Redford is hardly inconspicuous being the best-looking guy around.
An actor like Richard Dreyfuss or Ryan O'Neal might have been a better fit for this, even Elliot Gould, but a later scene involving Faye Dunaway perhaps explains why only Redford could get away with it. Hint to conspiracy theorists: do not try this at home, or in anyone else's home for that matter.
In a way, this kind of film has been done since by things like The Bourne Identity, but back then the idea that the US Govt was corrupt was still novel; now the big reveal might elicit a response such as 'Well, d'uh - of course they do that!'
It does become a bit implausible towards the end and resembled a 1980 French film I saw recently: Three Men To Kill with Alain Delon. That had a bit more kinetic direction.
But the reveal itself perhaps explains why the movie hasn't been shown too much; audiences might be tipped off as to what has really happened or, if you prefer, be convinced that something happened that didn't. The repeated shots of the Twin Towers do seem very prescient, almost trolling really.
There's an illuminating review of the film here, better for those who have seen it to avoid spoilers:
I don't know, some of these movies could still be a bit daft - think of Popeye Doyle in his distinctive and obvious pork pie hat supposedly trying to be inconspicuous while on a tail in The French Connection.
Lorenzo Semple was a co-writer on this; the producer of Never Say Never Again picked him because he did this and the Batman TV series, saying he wanted a writer who could do something in between those two films. A neat idea in theory except there's nothing in either of those things that would be any good for a Sean Connery Bond film imo. We can't blame Semple for NSNA in a way because much of his script was junked, but I would like to see what he came up with, it's another Bond screenplay that has never resurfaced, like TND and Boyle's No Time To Die.
The 1970s was a pretty depressing decade for America wasn't it - you can see why the likes of Rocky and Superman: The Movie were so welcome in reintroducing a bit of old-style patriotism.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I've been partially laid up and am catching up with some of the movies I have been watching...
HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (2003)
This is a date movie.
Kate Hudson is adorable and then becomes annoying before reverting to adorable, to annoying, to… yeh, you get it… all while writing a magazine column speculating on why some women cannot keep a man for longer than ten days. That premise is horrible enough. The storyline is then saddled with a second plot line where Matthew McConaughey’s advertising exec accepts a bet to make a woman fall in love with him in ten days. Horrible.
I last watched this movie on a date.
She liked it. I didn’t. I lied about that. However we did last longer than ten days. Maybe that’s the secret.
Saturday last was chock full of movies as I was laid up ...
First up was G.I. BLUES (1960) - the Elvis Presley musical I reviewed a couple of years ago. No need to reup. It's a good musical with lots of good tracks and some winning performances. The plot is a bit family friendly, which started a disappointing trend. One of his best sixties films.
Immediately after it BBC2 showed :
FUNNY FACE (1957)
Funny Face demonstrates that Audrey Hepburn could sing and dance. Quite why the producers of My Fair Lady had her dubbed will forever remain a cinematic mystery. That movie is one of my favourite musical films, but even I recognise the foolishness of taking your lead actress’s voice from her; still at least you can’t see the joins. No need for that here, where Miss Hepburn uses her ballet training to perform a solo dance extravaganza of free-wheeling hip-bucking artistic mambo jumbo, as well as bringing her delicate singing chops to lend character to a few light musical numbers which might otherwise have dripped into nothingness.
Miss Hepburn plays Jo Stockton, a book shop salesgirl whose elfin intelligence smittens Fred Astaire’s fashion photographer Dick Avery. Within a blink of an eye, Jo becomes the new face of Quality Magazine and is whisked to Paris to become a clothes horse for a pompous couturier. She only goes so she can meet famous philosopher Prof Emile Flostre, who turns out to be half Astaire’s age, twice as good-looking and much, much more macho. Things do not go well all-round, but resolve themselves in the simplest of romantic fashions for which we must somehow believe young, sensible, intelligent and empathetic Jo Stockton would fall in love with old, brash, stubborn and arrogant Dick Avery.
The movie is enlivened primarily by director Stanley Donen’s use of the widescreen VistaVision process and a couple of scoopingly good dance numbers. The opening gambit Think Pink is imaginatively staged, everything turning pink as Kay Thompson’s pushy magazine editor bawls out her instructions. The scene and sudden colour palette changes are fun and frolicsome. Later Thompson, Astaire and Hepburn impersonate Kelly, Sinatra and Munshin and do an On the Town whistlestop whip-around Paris while singing, you guessed it, Bonjour Paris. The split screen sequences and the location work are inventively utilised. It is a pity there wasn’t more of this sort of innovative work, for the film needs opening out more. It is mostly a studio bound project, quite small scale in terms of its design and thus less impressive than it might be. The confusion of styles rubs off on the choreography; so Astaire’s solo number sees him mystifyingly dancing like a Spanish matador – in the middle of Paris, I ask you. As the film progresses, the love story becomes unlikely and the American script writer’s attitudes towards European social philosophy don’t so much poke fun at it as insult it. By this time, it is only the clutch of Gershwin tunes that have saved the day. They save the best [S’ Wonderful] to last, but badly truncate it.
In many quarters Funny Face is held up as an outstanding fifties musical, but I’d say it is only middling. The film needs a younger star than Astaire [it really needed Gene Kelly, who would have been perfect] but Hepburn insisted on the older man being cast. It also needs a less cynical heart. For all that, Hepburn looks sumptuous in her Givenchy outfits [when doesn’t she?] and the occasional swipes at the vainness of the fashion industry keep us mostly amused. You can’t of course go wrong with a Gershwin tune, and there’s ten of them here.
Worth a look.
Re GI Blues : I am never sure whether that or King Creole is my favourite Elvis movie. One day I'll say KC, then the next I'll think it's too depressing so I'll say GIB.
Still catching up from Saturday last:
THE MAGIC SWORD (1962)
An entertaining fantasy hokum that is as bad as it is good. Gary Lockwood proves you really do need a decent accent to wield a sword and shield effectively; he sounds as if he’s just walked off the set of West Side Story. Don’t worry, he hadn’t, but you catch my drift. Basil Rathbone is marvellously villainous as the evil sorcerer Lodac, who has kidnapped a King’s daughter, planning to feed her to his dragon unless he inherits the kingdom. He’s really after a sacred enchanted ring which bad knight Sir Branton stole from him. The two are in cahoots, but then in rolls Sir George [Lockwood] with his magic steed, sword, shield and armour to scupper all beastly plans and save the princess. George’s adopted mother, the sorceress Sybil [Estelle Winwood] tries to help him, but messes everything up. It is left to George and his motley crew of knights to battle Lodac’s curses and save the beautiful princess, who as played by the lovely Anne Helm is certainly worth saving.
The production values veer from the surprisingly good to the downright ropey and the script just veers wherever it wants. The SFX are a bundle of fun, including conjoined twins, talking monkeys, ‘little people’, ogres, old hags, ghostly apparitions and a fire-breathing two-headed puppet dragon. It’s hard to know where to start describing how lame some of it looks because you suddenly recognise half of it is really decent stuff. The scene with the panther was a gory success, so too the swift transmogrification of a French beauty into a succubus of much ugliness. The ‘little people’ were cheerful mini-munchkins. The eventual confrontation with Lodac, as his army of disciples multiplies shot by shot, had a genuine sense of the spectral to it. The photography is at times quite colourful and imaginative.
Look, The Magic Sword is daft and badly thought out. The humour hints at the infantile, but the violence and many grisly deaths seem too strong for kids. Despite the silliness of much of the playing, you can at least say the film is a willing experience.
Oh, hell… I rather enjoyed it.
MEAN GIRLS (2004)
A teen comedy satire from comedienne Tina Fey that focusses on a group of nasty girls in a suburban high school. Lindsey Lohan is the pretty newbie who drops into hormonal America having been home schooled in Africa by her zoologist parents. Unsure of herself, Cady Heron amusingly compares most everyday happenings to the law of the jungle, until she is befriended by a trio of self-absorbed bitches known as the Plastics. Ingratiating and expurgating herself from the group forms the bedrock of the comedy, which is dated and unphilosophical, relying on misplaced anger, lies, apologies and embarrassment rather than any dint of sophistication. Even the ‘nice’ people sound and act horrid. Which might be the point. A sense of believability is dashed by Lohan’s character’s outsider tag being so unlikely – her African life, intelligence and prettiness would prove winners in a lot of social circles. Sporadically amusing, but resorting to cliches and insult for most of its humour, the film drags its feet to an expected conclusion and is lopsided by not featuring any male cliques. Mean Girls was, and is, phenomenally popular, however a generation earlier John Hughes did the dysfunctional popularity contest storyline better with The Breakfast Club.
89 (2017)
This documentary doesn’t fully examine Arsenal Football Club’s 1988-89 season, when a last minute triumph at Anfield, home of their closest rivals Liverpool F.C., brought them a first title in 18 years. It prefers to skip most of the contemporary historical build-up to the rivalry, how manager George Graham revitalised a sleeping giant and gradually threatened to knock the perennial Merseyside champions off the top block. Instead, after a perfunctory scene setting series of interviews, documentary maker David Stewart gives us a blow-by-blow account of the final match. Interesting for Gooners and those who may never have seen the match, which was a live televised event and the only time in living memory two title rivals met in the season’s final match with the trophy still undecided. However, there isn’t much for the casual viewer. Interviewees are tagged, but their roles in the team or as a supporter are barely explained. Sporting clips come and go with no indication of the progression of the season. Cup matches – of which Arsenal and Liverpool played three against each other that year – are not mentioned. There is also no wider social context, not even when the tragedy of Hillsborough unravels. Still, it was decent to see the old footage again, and interesting to note the similarities between George Graham’s robust team and Mikel Arteta’s current champions, who also play a physical, rather dour game and have at times flirted with sporting disaster. I remember the occasion well and, sorry Man City fans, you can have all the “Aguero!” moments you like, but you’ll never match that 2-0 last minute victory: “It’s up for grabs now!”
Not sure I’ll watch this…I remember exactly where I was when I watched this game…and I remember exactly how I felt 😣