Last Movie You Watched.

This year sees the centenary of Poirot first appearing in print, which makes it somewhat of a pity that the release of Branagh's Death On The Nile is now delayed until next year.

Operation Kid Brother - well, this was a ... thing that happened. One of the odder results of 'Bondmania', for sure. No wonder Seanery lost it with Lois Maxwell when he heard she was going to be in it.

Life Of Brian - annual Easter rewatch. Still a hoot.

Machete - bullets, blood and boobies as the awesome Danny Trejo embarks on a roaring rampage of revenge.

I need to see this Kid Brother so I can go all Bill Murray and say "it slimed me."

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After a couple of Biblical epics yesterday, onto Evil Under the Sun

Well, I forgot Guy Hamilton directed this for a start, nigh on six years after TMWTGG. I read that it had a shocking box office but I found it bubbled along nicely. Splashes of humour amidst the usual crime solving.

Prize draw methinks was the late Dame Diana, living it up as (in her words) "the archetypal bitch" and looking alright whilst she does it. The cast was not quite on par with Death on the Nile (honourable mentions though to Roddy McDowell and Maggie Smith) but Peter Ustinov is imperious. Though I was surprised to see his Poirot clouted.

It did tickle me that it was meant to be set in the Adriatic but was filmed off Spain (as Hamilton lived nearby or some such). Bar the odd mention of this fictional nation, it made no difference. Saying the book was based in Devon, just say it was Spain. Franco's dead, big deal.

An American Werewolf In London - this comedy-horror classic is now a mind-boggling 40 years old. The transformation and make-up effects were groundbreaking back then, and mostly hold up pretty well today.

The likes of British 'stalwarts' like Brian Glover, John Woodvine, David Schofield and Alan Ford (and an early film appearance by Rik Mayall) plus the utterly gorgeous Jenny Agutter all add to the fun. Griffin Dunne's reappearing dead character (in a worse state of decomposition each time) is a hoot.

Slaughterhouse Rulez - reasonably amusing comedy-horror in which fracking close to an English public school causes a sinkhole from which aggressive creatures emerge. With Finn Cole, Asa Butterfield, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Michael Sheen and Margot Robbie. Directed and co-written by Crispian 'Kula Shaker' Mills.

Fatal Attraction - in which Michael Douglas fails to keep it in his pants and lives to regret it (didn't he see Play Misty For Me, lol?). Influential (amongst other things, it's where 'bunny boiler' came from!) and enjoyably melodramatic thriller, flashily directed by Adrian Lyne.

Law, busy weekend as it were.

Ben-Hur

film that slaps the epic into epic and then some. Define of course by the chariot race which is made all the more thrilling by no fancy trickery and seeing, in close-up, Heston being flung over and climbing back on. A prior highlight is Jack Hawkins' Roman getting the slaves to effectively wear themselves out -"Ramming speed!"

The Vikings

As Kirk Douglas is in it (indeed, Kirk Douglas Productions did it), the title must be said in your best Douglas impression teeth bared. It starts off well enough, an Orson Welles narration, pillaging (the raping is implied I suppose) and they come home and what have you with more intrigue back in Northumbria. Except it sort of bubbles away midway with this love story and supposed intrigue between Douglas and Curtis.

Brannigan

John Wayne's second cop film and in spite of its ratings and reviews bit of relatively harmless fun. The Duke comes this side of the Pond and in that it's a revelation. Much of the locales he was filmed at have changed massively since. Dickie Attenborough heads the British side of things as a Scotland Yard inspector.
Majority of the British cast are the villains four of which appeared in the Sweeney that same year all, unsurprisingly perhaps, playing villains. The most high profile perhaps was James Booth (I mean he was in Zulu so that's high profile).
Other faces include Anthony 'father-in-law of Tony Blair' Booth and Tony Robinson who gets the honour of being thrown into the Thames by Wayne.
John Vernon is the head villain proving my semi-theory that no film with Vernon is a total dead loss. Mel Ferrer is a surprising feature.
Judy Geeson is the female copper assigned to both drive Duke about and sort of be his love interest. I say sort of as it...well sort of fizzles into nothingness.

I read online that Diana Rigg was considered for the film. That would've been something.

Some very amusing stuff in Tony Robinson's autobio about how everyone on Brannigan was told that under no circumstances were they to draw attention to Wayne's wig.

Not surprising though unlike others, Wayne was a bit more open about it. Some university I think he went to, he was asked is that your real hair or something and he said: "It's not mine but it's real hair."

Cromwell

Liberally sprinkled with Bond alumni this is an, er, liberal retelling of Cromwell's life or rather the pre-Civil War/Civil War/Regicide years. It's not quite accurate and I can only wonder if the original 3h plus cut would've rounded things out. It is of course anchored by two powerhouse performances. Richard Harris as Cromwell and Alec Guinness as Charles I (complete with faint Scottish accent).

I find it ironic that an Irishman plays Cromwell considering what Cromwell got up to but Harris is full of fire and brimstone. His world weariness as at the end Parliament is starting to get carried away by its own self-importance before Cromwell removes it by force.

Same time, Guinness brings this human side to Charles. Granted the man genuinely, like most monarchs did until then, that he was effectively sent by God to rule over people but the scenes towards the end are dynamo. How he took on Parliament (in reality, high treason was a crime against the sovereign and Charles is said to have remarked "How can I commit a crime against myself?") but also his death. Having seen To Kill a King (still on All4) recently, it's interesting to contrast the two.

As I say there are Bond alum (and next to no female cast members) and chief of the pile is our Timothy Dalton as Prince Rupert, equal ham and equal flair (I believe via IMDB he caused a right ruckus on set). Geoffrey Keen, Douglas Wilmer and Charles Gray as well. All we needed was Roger Moore as a Cavalier, George Lazenby as a cad and Diana Rigg as someone and this would be a delight.

A Night to Remember

Though much written in the past, every viewing is always the same and it's hard to fault the film. The technical factors such as the ship's structural sinking are beside the point. Nnow that we know that though she split in two, she was still held at the keel keeping the bow section reasonably static for a few moments before pulling the stern and this you assume look to survivors that she was sinking in one piece.
It doesn't hang about in comparison with Cameron's work. The first few days are condensed into half an hour or so and then we're on the night and iceberg hits. The sinking makes up the majority of the film.
Moments still produce a lump in throat -James Merivale's first class passenger kissing his sleeping son goodbye as More's Lightoller looks on wanting to get the boy into the boat but allowing that last moment. The little boy who is crying for his mother (and whose floating body is effectively cut from copies of the film now) and is briefly rescued by an old chap who worked in the dining room.
And indeed, whereas Cameron's film made it all vivid (and there was attention to detail) especially the last moments, this film manages to convey that terror of the end simply by zooming in slowly on the faces of men and women as they recite the Lord's Prayer. The horror summed up by the old chap who hides the boys face into his coat and says: "Oh my God!" as the end approaches.

The cast is incredible. Though only a couple remain nowadays each one in their way pulled themselves up to produce bits that make up the grander picture. We know the ending by now of course but the journey is still deeply fascinating.

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The Final Countdown

A silly enough film that was one of those VHS taped off the TV films we had as a family back in the 90s (still remember the yellow label on the spine and the old ITN news idents where Dad hadn't cut the ads out totally. Must've been c1989).
My first Kirk Douglas film and ditto for Sheen and Ross. Though the time travel story almost gets lost in what is effectively seen as a recruitment film for the US Navy, it is somehow still intriguing if to think about and a spectacle to watch. The film is really a case of non-temporal what if's in terms of how they could've done it. Sending the Nimitz back to 1941 realistically would've changed history. Enough firepower in aircraft alone to sink the Japanese fleet and probably end WWII in a matter of months.
Anyway, it has a decent score and the cast -though I'm sure none of them probably rate it high on their CV's, though Douglas seemed to like doing it- do their best. As I get older, I now see more in the dynamics between Sheen's oft-pain in the arse Lasky and Fiorentino's by the book CAG. Certainly the last exchange of expressions seems to suggest a final meeting.

Film did give me a little crush on Katharine Ross. Brunettes and all that. It's incredible in fact to realise of the main cast only Sheen and Ross remain.

Our Bond connections are Soon-Teck-Oh five years on after abandoning 007 to karate wielding goons and Maurice Binder, looking at images it's hard to see his influence...

A night to remember is a classic I much prefer it over James Cameron's effort, after reading about
it in a few sci-fi reference books. I got to see The final Countdown a few years ago. Thought it had
a lot of potential but came across as an over long outer limits or twilight zone episode.
    I've just watched  The Invasion, the fourth film based on the book " Invasion of the Body snatchers"
Not a great film, my favourite is the 1978 film with Donald Sutherland, although Veronica Cartwright
from it does pop up in The Invasion just as Kevin McCarthy from the 1956 film did a guest spot in the
1978 version.

I've only seen A Night to Remember once but I was more engrossed in that than Cameron's version, the latter often feeling too melodramatic.

I watched A Most Wanted Man recently. A very fine spy thriller. Hoffman's understated performance is one of his best, and his anguish toward the end is quite powerful. Robin Wright and Dafoe are reliably excellent. McAdams perhaps needed a bit more work with a dialect coach to iron out the American.

Anyone read the book it was based on?

I finally got it on BLu-ray recently after enjoying it in theaters. I really loved what Corbijn did before on The American and have followed his photography since I was a kid. Been meaning to read the book and do a complete LeCarre readthrough for some time.

Can't remember The American so I might have to revisit that. I've been thinking about A Most Wanted Man quite a bit since rewatching it.... In terms of it's photography though I'm still not sure I like its griminess or not. I suppose it's perfect for the type of story being told.

28 Days Later - animal rights activists inadvertently release a 'rage virus' (which drives those infected into murderous bloodlust) in their attempt to free chimps from a research lab, and it sweeps through the country. A small band of survivors hit the road in search of sanctuary and a cure.

19 years on, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's take on the zombie genre still packs a visceral and gritty punch. With Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Glesson and Christopher Eccleston.

Overlord - US troops parachute into occupied France in WW2 in order to take out a Nazi communications 'hub', but discover horrors that are much more than they'd bargained for.

Probably the closest we'll ever get to a movie version of the Wolfenstein video games, this pretty gory action-horror moves at a fair old lick and is solid entertainment.

Sunday watched The Cruel Sea

Like OHMSS, he says, a film that is as close to the source material as possible. The book, which I recommend, drags you along through the Battle of the Atlantic and doesn't let up. It's unforgiving, it's unrelenting and in a way the film is too. In this age of wokeness, this film might cause trouble as what female characters there are, are somewhat relegated.

As Hawkins intones in the intro, it's about ships, men and the sea ("a cruel sea").

As with most war films of the period like Dam Busters, the film is aided by getting its hands on ships relevant to the story (i.e a Flower class corvette). This lends an authenticity that modern films decidedly lack. Plus, they filmed down Weymouth way in the Portland Race which impressively doubles for shit Atlantic weather. Furthermore the black and white means that archival footage is seamlessly blended in.

Cast-wise damn solid. Jack Hawkins was always worth his salary, Donald Sinden is in a rare serious role (saying he did Doctor in the House year after and then films like Captain's Table and so on), Denholm Elliott, Stanley Baker, Virginia McKenna (probably the only surviving cast member) and so on. I always give it a 10/10, few films have this effect.

For Your Eyes Only - 40th anniversary rewatch, a very wet Bank Holiday seemed an ideal opportunity. Nothing much new to say, it's still one of Moore's best ... although this was the first time I noticed little pinpricks of red light reflected in not-Blofeld-honestly-it's-not-Mr-McClory kitty's eyes. Not sure if it was from the wheelchair's control panel or a camera light. In the battle of the nip-slips, I'd have to hand it to the girl with the goon over Lisl ... the latter is so quick as to be barely noticeable.

Star Trek III : The Search For Spock - is this the odd-numbered Trek film that defies the consensus about those franchise entries? I'd say so ... you get old-school Enterprise crew camaraderie, humour, effects that for the most part still stand up and an excellent bad-guy performance from Christopher Lloyd as a suitably nasty Klingon commander.

First Blood - the Rambo 'one-man army' thing is considerably less ridiculous when it's being directed against the nastily over-zealous law enforcement types in one small town as opposed to, oh, the entire 80s Vietnamese army for example. Brian Dennehy gives good adversary, and Chris Mulkey and David Caruso pop up in early roles.

Brannigan, 1975. Basically John Wayne is a Chicago cop sent to England to bring back
a famous gangster. Things go wrong and he has to become a bit of a Dirty Harry in London.
It’s an average 70s thriller and I do think John Wayne looks odd in a contemporary film, he suits being a cowboy

I do like Brannigan, guilty pleasure film.

Dunkirk (1958)

Still, for my money, the go-to film for Dunkirk. For its threadbare budget and basic effects compared to any modern film not just Dunkirk 2017, it does a job. On one side you have John Mills' corporal and his little band who get cut off when their unit retreats without them and so they play cat and mouse with the Germans until they reach the beaches. On the other, you have Bernard Lee's newspaperman who along with Dickie Attenborough's slightly uptight belt buckle manufacturer first volunteer their boats then end up taking them over to Dunkirk.

Growing up you see the landscapes and beach and think, well that looks like France but of course it's Kent and Camber Sands.

It always has this air of the desperate state things were once the Germans invaded on May 10th. How against any odds and logic (the British had several chances, and the arms, to turn the tide if they stopped to think) the Germans reached the channel in 10 days, slapping up Boulogne and Calais before surrounding Dunkirk. It helps that archival footage is blended into it (such as the Stuka attack on the rearguard camp or the ships returning to England) as well as a couple of animated maps showing the frontline.
As the film picks up pace, you sense the peril the BEF were in. The beach shots show hundreds if not more scattered about, you see boats off the coast and in the background, you see more than one ship attempt an evacuation from the Mole whereas the Nolan film has this empty feel, men congregated in one part, no ships out, the odd air attack. Dunkirk '58 at least often has artillery rumbling in the background, shows the rearguard fighting the Germans in the streets of Dunkirk and on top of that, Ramsey at Dover pleading for more help to get men off (and showing at various ports, the mustering of any craft not just the little boats).

Cap it off, a stirring main theme and score by Malcolm Arnold. Granted it's a variation of his River Kwai and Heroes of Telemark but it works.

Run All Night - this addition to Liam Neeson's roster of 'Jason Bourne : The Retirement Years' flicks is fairly decent action entertainment, as his embittered former Irish mob enforcer Jimmy Conlon goes on the run with his son because his old boss (Ed Harris) wants them both dead due to Conlon having had to kill Harris' own son.

Blunt Instrument wrote:

For Your Eyes Only - 40th anniversary rewatch, a very wet Bank Holiday seemed an ideal opportunity. Nothing much new to say, it's still one of Moore's best ... although this was the first time I noticed little pinpricks of red light reflected in not-Blofeld-honestly-it's-not-Mr-McClory kitty's eyes. Not sure if it was from the wheelchair's control panel or a camera light. In the battle of the nip-slips, I'd have to hand it to the girl with the goon over Lisl ... the latter is so quick as to be barely noticeable.

One of Moore's best? Which do you rank higher, BI?

A trio of films this weekend veering from the great to the nutty to the modern epic.

Citizen Kane

Partly because it's the films 80th other day and partly that wretched story that Paddington 2 supplanted it on Rotten Tomatoes or whatever, I delved into my Tower of Pisa-esque pile and pulled this out.
I pretend to be no expert on films but in spite of the hefty legend that had built up by the time I first watched this five years ago, each viewing just makes me marvel. Welles might not have invented the wheel but it has this singular feel to it -the way its filmed, the newsreel for a fictional man that takes up the first 10mins, Welles as an actor, the ensemble cast and everything else.
Is this the greatest film ever made? Who am I to say.
A favourite film is what we make of it, hence why for whatever reason I say the League of Gentlemen (1960) is mine. But Welles was magnetic, certainly in his heyday.

Who Dares Wins
The Final Option in the US. Seen as a propaganda piece at the time it's a nutty if guilty pleasure type of film. Lew Collins (around the time he was considered for 007 and just after Professionals) masquerading as a discredited SAS trooper who infiltrates a Commie band of brothers who oppose THE BOMB(!).
I would say this is Collins' best film which might not be the seal of approval but Wild Geese II was shocking and we'll leave it there. It's well known ol' Lew wanted to join the SAS, passed all the relevant tests with flying colours but was denied as he was too well known (this could've worked. Lull the terrorist into a false sense of awe then Bob's your uncle). It's hard not to get around the fact he knew how to handle himself on film. I did a thread about would he make a good 007, who knows? I think he would've been quite close to Lazenby.
Film bubbles along and a few familiar faces from sitcoms and later films such as Titanic (chap who plays first officer Murdoch) then of course you get a couple of set pieces. The smaller one but no less great is when the SAS bust into Collins' house to rescue his wife and baby from the insane Ingrid Pitt (following the most epic of cat fights) and her mate. Then the greater piece of course is when the boys are sent in to free the hostages at the American ambassador's house.
Boom, boom, boom, all terrorists dead. (After the 1980 embassy siege, the Thatchers went to meet the troopers and Dennis remarked: "Still, you let one of the bastards live!")

Actor wise there's some calibre. Edward Woodward is worth his salary as a senior copper, jaw-of-steel and voice artist supreme Patrick Allen in a brief shot ("THIS...IS E4!"), the great Tony Doyle (who I later knew for Ballykissangel) as the no nonsense SAS boss, Richard Widmark (along with the Swarm this was my first taste of this great actor, can't imagine he remembered this film afterwards), Robert Webber (as with Widmark), Norman Rodway, Kenneth Griffiths Judy Davis isn't too bad and then Ingrid Pitt. Pitt still having this fantastic element of beauty about her and as I say playing her terrorist with this thinly held back insanity.

Two Bond faces, cameo faces. Bob Sherman (USS Wayne's Exec, TSWLM and a Superman film), Glyn Baker (TLD) and Christopher Muncke (TSWLM as the Wayne officer who oversees Bond's nuke surgery, and reporting to Vader by the Falcon in Star Wars).

Behind the scenes: Syd Cain, Maurice Binder, Bob Simmons

Trivially, incredible how little are left from the cast. The most recent to pass was Maurice Roeves.

Gladiator

First time on blu and first viewing in a few years. I think personally, though a great film, it suffers from 21st Century overhype through 'memes' and so on but strip that aside it is a decent film.
Russell Crowe is solid, Phoenix deliciously slimy as Commodus but dare I focus on the two old hellraiser, drinking buddies the late Richard Harris and Oliver Reed?

Yes.

Obviously you can't not watch this and not consider Reed's premature demise aged 61 during the making. From the sounds of it he gave in to peer pressure to do some booze and arm wrestle the navy lads, after promising Scott he wouldn't drink (not too much!).
Was Reed a damn good actor? I believe so. Sure, like Harris and most great actors did, he did some questionable films but when he got a good film, it was sublime. For instance, that first sighting of him in the film, the way his eyes move, how he keeps his voice measured ("You sold me queer giraffes!") and then as the film proceeds, how he can do so much by doing so little. I couldn't help but think that back in the day, Crowe would've slotted in quite well with Burton, Harris, Reed etc.

Richard Harris in his few scenes is excellent. I watched the making of on the bonus disc and he remarks that every time he's on a film set he is in awe, this lad from Limerick who wanted to be in films. Did he think that for Juggernaut? Pfft.
God, what actors we used to have. I for some reason thought Plummer was in this but imagine had he been. He could drink some people under that was for sure.

Aside, Zimmer has done a good score but something I'm dreading for NTTD, he like Horner could often do variations on other stuff and so there's shades of his Pearl Harbour score here.

And a last. In the past year I've now seen two films portraying the historical Marcus Aurelius, Commodus and Lucilla. Of course Gladiator and the Fall of the Roman Empire. Interesting to contrast the 'couples'. Aurelius being Harris and Alec Guinness, Commodus Joaquin Phoenix and Plummer and Lucilla being Connie Nielsen and Sophia Loren. Plummer hammed it a little in FOTRE but there are shades of his Commodus in Phoenix.

End.

Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wrote:

Blunt Instrument wrote:

For Your Eyes Only - 40th anniversary rewatch, a very wet Bank Holiday seemed an ideal opportunity. Nothing much new to say, it's still one of Moore's best ... although this was the first time I noticed little pinpricks of red light reflected in not-Blofeld-honestly-it's-not-Mr-McClory kitty's eyes. Not sure if it was from the wheelchair's control panel or a camera light. In the battle of the nip-slips, I'd have to hand it to the girl with the goon over Lisl ... the latter is so quick as to be barely noticeable.

One of Moore's best? Which do you rank higher, BI?

Wellllll ... I don't know about HIGHER, but the other Moores I enjoy the most are LALD (a lot of what was used to introduce Connery is also used to introduce Moore (seeing where Bond lives, Caribbean setting, Quarrel/Quarrel Junior, bad guy using supernatural/mythical hokum to keep superstitious locals in their place and so on). But there are also variations ... Moore isn't seen gambling or in a tux, for example. Moore being young enough to still be amongst the action a lot helps (there's visibly more of him in the boat chase that would've been the case in his latter films). And there's one of the series' best theme songs gracing this film into the bargain (McCartney clearly being a forgiving sort after the crack about the Beatles in GF, hehehe).

And TSWLM ... big, 'OTT', comic-strip Bond done so, so right (MR goes too far). A retread of YOLT it may be (complete with the same director), but that scarcely matters when you have the stand-up-and-cheer pre-credits sequence, the megalomaniacal Stromberg, Jaws (his early vampire-esque attack on Kalba and Anya discovering him in the train cabin closet are both brilliantly effective), the gorgeous Caroline Munro ('such lovely lines'), the Lotus Espirit and its mightily impressive box of tricks, the genuinely suspenseful removal of the warhead detonator, the excellent 'Bond moment' that is Moore riding atop the CCTV doodah with said detonator positioned in such a way that the cameras can't see him with the Bond theme twanging away there on the score. And then there's the no-small-matter construction of the 007 Stage (one of the largest soundstages in the world) to house the interior of the Liparus.

OK, so Bach is more decorative than anything else ... eh, not the first actress to be so in the series (or the last ... plus, her shower scene goes a long way to making amends ). And the LALD theme song thing also applies here ... Carly Simon gave us an absolute belter.

Saboteur

In tribute for the late Norman Lloyd, a wartime Hitch. Some of the imagery is incredible, early on when the poor chap is consumed by the flames, seeing him topple into them must've been quite something in 1942. Or the conclusion with the Statue of Liberty.
Hitchcock could do the wronged, innocent, man well and I think he did it well here. Cumming is a decent lead and Priscilla Lane was a knockout in the day. Saw the villains are sort of typical 1940s fare (Big Bad Fascists) but it's Hitchcock, he can do it. What makes Lifeboat one of my favourite Hitchcock's.