Archive 5, Vol.9

Posted on March 15, 2024 by badblokebob

I have a backlog of 525 unreviewed feature films from my 2018 to 2023 viewing. This is where I give those films their day, five at a time, selected by a random number generator.

Today, a couple of Agatha Christie adaptations from very different eras; plus a heist, a horror, and a Hong Kong love story for the ages.

This week’s Archive 5 are…

Evil Under the Sun (1982)

Sneakers (1992)

Us (2019)

Crooked House (2017)

In the Mood for Love (2000)

Evil Under the Sun

(1982)

The third in the run of Poirot adaptations that began with Murder on the Orient Express and continued with Death on the Nile — no, not the recent Branagh ones: this is the first time they did exactly that. But, funnily enough, both third films in their respective series (i.e. this and Branagh’s A Haunting in Venice) take a UK-set Christie and relocate it somewhere more exotic, to fit with the style of the rest of the series. So, rather than a small island off the north Devon coast (which likely stretches the definition of “under the sun”, based on my experience of Devon), here the action is located to the Adriatic Sea, although actually filmed on Mallorca.

All of which is incidental when the rest of the movie is, at best, fine. It doesn’t help that the storyline is ultimately very similar to Death on the Nile, making the whole affair feel like more of a rehash than it needs to. Guy Hamilton’s direction underwhelms, giving a TV movie-ish feel, which is only exacerbated by the less-starry cast — there are recognisable names and faces here (James Mason, Diana Rigg, Maggie Smith), but, in totality, it’s not in the same league as the previous two films. It rather prefigures where Ustinov’s Poirot would appear next: literally, TV movies.

Evil Under the Sun was #2 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

Sneakers

(1992)

I never paid Sneakers any attention (not that it came up often) — I think, because it’s an American movie called Sneakers, I assumed it was about shoes — until indie magazine Film Stories announced a Blu-ray release (long since sold out, I’m afraid). I’m always keen to support small/new labels doing interesting things. And thank goodness for that, because, turns out, it’s actually very much my kind of film and good fun.

So, turns out, in this context, “sneakers” are not an Americanism for trainers, but good-guy hackers who test security systems. When the team are hired to steal a code breaking device, they get suspicious about the setup and, of course, it turns out they’re right to be. Thus unfurls a tech-based heist thriller with a strong vein of humour, but without tipping over into being an outright comedy. Stylistically and tonally, that’s right up my street — I love a heist movie, and that kind of tone (funny without being silly; what I think of as a ‘real world’ awareness of humour) often works for me. It’s the kind of film that’s just a lot of fun to watch. I can imagine it being highly rewatchable; a go-to favourite for people who do that kind of thing.

Sneakers was #132 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

Us

(2019)

Part of what made Jordan Peele’s debut feature, Get Out, such a success was the way it chimed perfectly with the cultural zeitgeist of 2017; indeed, of the whole decade (time may yet add “of the whole century”). This immediate followup doesn’t benefit from a similar boost, but it’s a strong work of horror cinema in its own right.

Us follows a family who are attacked by a group of doppelgängers. That’s the most basic version, anyway — Peele seems to have a lot of ideas he wants to mix in here; almost too many. It seems to operate on the level of a home invasion/slasher kind of movie much of the time, but having more on its mind means it’s a bit too slow to satisfy as something so viscerally straightforward. Thus, all the Meaningful stuff ends up crammed into the third act, which perhaps leaves it feeling back-heavy. There’s also a big twist, naturally. On one hand, it seems really obvious, pretty much from the beginning; but on the other, it does cast the rest of the movie in a different light, which is quite interesting.

If all that sounds rather negative… I blame my notes (I’m writing this review over four years later based solely on what little I wrote down at the time). Us is imperfect, but it’s also great in places, and is at least passably interesting to reflect on in light of the final reveal.

Us was #23 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

Crooked House

(2017)

Despite a moderately starry cast (Glenn Close, Terence Stamp, Gillian Anderson, Christina Hendricks fresh from Mad Men; plus Brits of varying degrees of recognisableness) and a screenplay by Julian “Downton Abbey” Fellowes, this Agatha Christie adaptation was virtually dumped straight to TV here in the UK (apparently it did have a theatrical release, but the TV premiere was less than a month later — and on lowly Channel 5 at that). Of course, some of the best Christie adaptations have been made for TV; but when something’s designed for theatrical and ends up skipping it, it’s never a good sign.

Fortunately, Crooked House isn’t a disaster, though it’s far from a resounding success. Quite what attracted the big names I don’t know — it’s a reasonable setup (big dysfunctional family), but the screenplay isn’t exactly sparkling, aside from one or two moments or scenes. There is, at least, one helluva resolution. It also feels disjointed thanks to poor editing and/or direction. If the aim was to keep the pace up, it failed, because it begins to drag after a while. All of this is only partially masked by decent cinematography from Sebastian Winterø, which is the only thing that saves it from looking very TV-ish. Maybe it found its rightful home after all.

Crooked House was #1 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

In the Mood for Love

(2000)

aka Fa yeung nin wah

If my four-years-late review of Us was hampered by largely-negative notes, my four-years-late review of In the Mood for Love is in even worse shape: no notes at all. Some trivia? I can do that! An interesting quote from the director? Got it saved! But anything on my own thoughts beyond settling on a five-star rating? Nope. I would try to repurpose my Letterboxd review, but all I wrote was: “I mean nothing but respect when I pithily describe this as Brief Encounter in Hong Kong.” Accurate but, indeed, pithy.

On the bright side, this is a widely-acclaimed film, so if you’re after in-depth writing I’m certain you’ll find some somewhere else. Indeed, even if I did have more fulsome notes, I doubt I’d contribute anything more insightful. This is a subtle, almost delicate work, and that’s the kind of thing I feel I often struggle to properly get to grips with in my short, usually spoiler-averse reviews. Suffice to say, I concur that this is a very good film indeed; although, as with any understated work, some might prefer if the feelings and emotions were more overt. Each to their own.

In the Mood for Love was #200 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020. It was viewed as part of Blindspot 2020.

2024 | Week 3

Posted on February 12, 2024 by badblokebob

I’ve already covered Barbie, so here are the other films I watched during Week 3…

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)

The Best of the Martial Arts Films (1990)

Chicken Run:
Dawn of the Nugget

(2023)

I wasn’t a massive fan of the original Chicken Run (it’s not bad, but it pales in comparison to some of Aardman’s other works, not least any of the main Wallace & Gromit films), so I approached this belated sequel more with trepidation than excitement. You could interpret a near-quarter-century wait as indicative of holding off until someone had a genuinely good idea; or you could see it as a shameless effort to generate a hit by tickling childhood nostalgia through a return to a cult-ish favourite. Behind-the-scenes stories of unnecessary cast changes (the primary offender: apparently 55-year-old Julia Sawalha is now too aged (for a voice role as a hen?) so they recast her with 51-year-old Thandiwe Newton) did nothing to bring confidence.

Anyway, setting all that aside, the end result is… adequate. I’d probably have said the same of the first one, so maybe that’s no surprise. But even that felt like it had some moments that stood out, whereas this is just unrelentingly fine. The plot concerns the chickens having to break in to a farm — yes, it’s taken 25 years to have the genius idea of “what if we just reversed the story?” The immediate point of reference for break-in-type movies nowadays is the Mission: Impossible franchise, which features a noteworthy heist a least once per film. And so Dawn of the Nugget references M:I, and the gag goes thus: “It’s an impossible mission.” “Uh, shouldn’t it be the other way around?” That level of underscored bluntness is about the level all the humour operates at: unsubtle, unsophisticated, unvaried, and uninspired.

The arguable exception in terms of quality is the animation itself. That it’s done well almost goes without saying — Aardman remain one of the masters of stop-motion (Laika having challenged them in recent years) — but, on the other hand, there’s nothing to wow you. It’s more than competent, slick and expressive and so on, but there’s no imagery you’ll take away; no shot or sequence that would make you reach for adjectives like “beautiful” or “stunning”.

Aardman’s next major effort (it’s a bit unclear if it’s a feature or a short, as it’s going direct to the BBC in the UK) is a return to Wallace & Gromit, planned for later this year (no doubt a Christmastime treat, as usual). As I said, I prefer that duo, so I’m always excited to see them back on the screen. I just hope that belated sequel (almost 20 years since their feature film and 16 since their last short) doesn’t feel this… unnecessary.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is the 5th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024.

The Best of the Martial Arts Films

(1990)

aka The Deadliest Art

Originally released on VHS (back when martial arts films weren’t necessarily easy to come by for consumers, so I’m told), this hour-and-a-half selection of fight scenes is now available remastered / reconstructed in HD, with all the film clips also in their original aspect ratios, included on Eureka’s When Taekwondo Strikes Blu-ray. Hurrah!

It is, primarily, a showcase for fight scenes. Whole uninterrupted sequences are shared, which is at least the right way to do it if that’s what you’re doing; unlike modern TV clip-show compilations, which seem to feel the need to cut the scenes to shreds and intersperse them with inane talking heads. There are a few interviews included here too, but rather than early-career comedians who’ll discuss anything for a paycheque, the interviewees include stars Sammo Hung, Jackie Chan, Cynthia Rothrock, and, er, Keith Cooke; plus Robert Clouse, director of Enter the Dragon.

“Best Of” is more a titling convention than a fact, considering the film was co-funded by Golden Harvest and so only has access to their back catalogue, thus skipping entirely the output of the legendary Shaw Brothers studio. But then, what else would you expect them to call it — Some Pretty Good Bits of the Martial Arts Films We Had the Rights to Include? Of course, however you look it, 90 minutes of fight scenes is a pretty hollow experience — there’s no narrative; even the interviews offer mostly behind-the-scenes anecdotes rather than, say, a “history of the genre” approach. But if that’s all you expect, you get your money’s worth, because there are some stunners in here.

Mind you, as well as being mostly limited to one studio, it’s also limited by time: having been made in 1990, there’s no Jet Li, no Donnie Yen; Van Damme is mentioned as a “rising star”… You could do the whole film over again — several times — if you were able to encompass a wider spread of studios and stars. But nowadays there’s no need: we can just head to YouTube for our out-of-context fight scene fulfilment… so long as you know what you’re looking for, anyway. That will always be the value of a curated experience.

The Best of the Martial Arts Films is the 6th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2024.

Archive 5, Vol.8

Posted on January 26, 2024 by badblokebob

I have a(n insanely huge) backlog of 533 unreviewed feature films from my 2018 to 2023 viewing (not to mention the 77 shorts, but they’re a problem for another day). This is where I give those films their day, five at a time, selected by a random number generator.

Today, it’s killers galore with Korean zombies, comical hitmen, rampaging security robots, and plain ol’ murderers. Plus, dying of boredom in Saturday detention.

This week’s Archive 5 are…

One Cut of the Dead (2017)

The Breakfast Club (1985)

Chopping Mall (1986)

Dead Man’s Folly (1986)

Wild Target (2010)

One Cut of the Dead

(2017)

aka Kamera o tomeru na!

You know, it’s not just my reviews that are tardy: I bought this because it was hyped up, both as “good” and as “see it knowing as little as possible”, and it went on my “must watch soon” pile… where it sat for 14 months. And that’s far from the most egregious example of “ooh, I must get round to that” equally a long, long delay.

Now, it’s taken me another 46 months to write this review. Eesh. On the bright side, perhaps I shouldn’t be so worried about spoilers anymore. I mean, if you’ve not seen it by now, whose fault is that? And it definitely is the kind of film where the less you know the better, because it’s going to pull the rug out from under you. Of course, even knowing that means you’re on the lookout for what’s going to happen; and the film gives you a helping hand, because right from the off there are nods to the conceit. Still, I’ll try to be fairly vague.

It’s a film of three parts. The first is, with hindsight, an establisher; setup and groundwork for what comes next. Alternatively, some genre fans will take that as the purpose of the movie, and what follows as extraneous. Then there’s a long, slow middle section. Again, no direct spoilers, but we know where this part of the narrative ends up, so it feels like it’s over-expounding stuff (we don’t need as much backstory as we get) and consequently goes on a bit. Halfway through, I began to wonder what all the fuss was about. I worried that I’d left it too long to see it and let the hype get the better of me.

But, ultimately, it’s all setup for the final half-hour, and it pays off in hilarity. The middle could still do with a trim, but it’s worth sticking with for the payoff.

One Cut of the Dead was #54 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020.

The Breakfast Club

(1985)

Is The Breakfast Club the definitive ’80s high school movie? It’s got to be on the shortlist, right? Personally, I preferred Heathers, or, if you want to stay within the John Hughes universe, Ferris Bueller, but that doesn’t mean this is without its qualities.

If you’re unfamiliar, it’s about a gaggle of misfits in Saturday detention. Over the course of the day, the unlikely group form a bond — well, there’s a surprise. One thing I did like about that: even after they’ve become ‘friends’, the slightest thing can still set off their animosity to one another. They’ve not really changed and it’s a fragile allegiance. The stuff about how they’d never talk to each other in real life after this rings true. So, I don’t want to come down too heavily in the region of the idea that the film might be clichéd. I’ve read other modern reviews criticise it for that, and you have to wonder: when you’re writing about a popular movie 35 years after it came out, was the film clichéd or did it create the clichés? That said, my favourite observation in this sphere was: “if this is cliché, then life is too.” Oh boy is that a sentiment I agree with about so many fictions that are deemed “cliché”.

That said, I guess we’re beyond the film’s era of influence now. I mean, if you made something like this today, it would probably be an arthouse-aimed indie production (in fairness, the original is also an indie), probably produced for a similar (or lower) budget than it was almost 40 years ago; and it would be adored and analysed by 30- and 40-something-year-old cineastes while actual teenagers were at the multiplex watching MCU XXIV. (You can tell I wrote these notes four years ago, because I would not now suggest the latest MCU release as a default popular success.)

On the other hand, I know we all look down on remakes, but if you’re going to remake any popular film, this is the kind of thing that would withstand it. It’s so much about its era that if you took the basic concept and remixed it for the 2020s, there are a several interesting avenues to be explored. I’m sure cliques still exist in American high schools (based on media depictions, they never seem to go away), so you’d still get the contrasting personalities; and you could shift the sexual dynamics, the way different groups view each other, and sort out the ending (the way certain characters are ‘fixed’ is very of its time, and not in a good way); and put a modern spin on it all, of course, with some race and LGBT points. You know, make it “woke”, as dickheads say. That would be a pretty different film, but that’s entirely the point: if you’re going to remake something, make it different, make it new. (To be clear, I’m not criticising the original film for not including those elements — it’s a product of its time and it’s not choosing to be about those things, which is entirely valid.)

I appreciate I’ve talked more about what the film could be today than what it is. Oops. But, look, this is the kind of film where I can’t remember any of the characters’ names — if I wanted to talk in specifics, I’d have to refer to them by their actors (or do a bit of googling, of course). That’s another way of saying I did like it, but it’s not a film that’s stuck with me in the way it has for its many fans.

The Breakfast Club was #56 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2020. It was viewed as an additional film in my Blindspot 2020 project, after I failed to watch it for Blindspot 2019.

Chopping Mall

(1986)

Blood, boobs, and berserk ’bots are the order of the day in this campy sci-fi actioner.

That’s right: “sci-fi actioner”. I don’t know where I’d heard about this, or if I’d just made inferences from the title and poster, but I’d assumed it was a regular slasher whose USP was simply “it’s set in a shopping mall”. But nope, it’s actually about security robots who go barmy and start killing a bunch of young people who’d locked themselves in a mall overnight. According to IMDb, it was originally released as Killbots — a more to-the-point title — but it performed poorly, and the producers’ reasoning was the title had made audiences think it was a Transformers-like kids movie (if anyone did take their kids to see it, boy, were they in for a surprise!) So, after cutting over quarter-of-an-hour, they re-released it with the more-clearly-exploitation-y title and… well, I don’t know if it as a major success or anything, but I guess it performed better and that’s the version that has endured.

I don’t know what was in those deleted 15 minutes, but presumably nothing of great import. Indeed, the short running time is a blessing: it gets on with things at the start, and doesn’t try to drag them out later. It knows what we’ve come to a movie like this for, and it delivers that with admirable efficiency. What’s left is so barmy and schlocky that it’s kinda fun, even if most of it doesn’t make a lick of sense. Even allowing for the implausible setup (lightning sends robot security guards berserk), there’s little to no logic in what follows (the robots have turned murderous? Fine, but why are they such shit shots? And why, when they have an easy shot, do they suddenly stop shooting? And so on).

Chopping Mall is no lost gem, although it may make you nostalgic for an era when they actually made stuff like this. Would the world be a better place if people were still churning out low-budget schedule-fillers full of gratuitous-but-clearly-fake violence and unnecessary-but-welcome nudity? I don’t know, but I doubt it could be any worse. At least it might’ve desensitised younger generations enough that we wouldn’t have to suffer endless rounds of “sex scenes are bad, actually” discourse on Twitter…

Chopping Mall was the 13th new film I watched in 2023.

Dead Man’s Folly

(1986)

This second of three TV movies starring Peter Ustinov as Poirot marks the fourth of his six appearance as the character overall, and it might be the low point of the generally-underwhelming bunch. Ustinov was no doubt a quality performer, and I know his version of Poirot has its fans, but, for me, he remains a lesser interpreter of the Belgian sleuth.

This particular film does nothing to outweigh his shortcomings. I don’t know if it’s the fault of the original story, this adaptation, or just me, but I didn’t feel there was enough provided for the the viewer to join in with the whodunnit guessing game, which I think is half the fun of a murder mystery. Events just unfurled until, eventually, Poirot explained it all. Add to that a portrayal of Poirot’s sometime-sidekick Hastings by Jonathan Cecil that verges on the lascivious, and production elements (costuming, hairdos, music) that are painfully ’80s, and the recipe is all-round distasteful.

Dead Man’s Folly was #154 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

Wild Target

(2010)

In this remake of French comedy-thriller Cible émouvante, Bill Nighy plays an ageing hitman who falls for his latest target, pretty young thief Emily Blunt. Romance blossoms, in what must be one of the most implausible storylines ever committed to film. That’s partly because of the 33-year age gap between 26-year-old Blunt and 59-year-old Nighy (who, frankly, seems even older — the age gap may be roughly father/daughter, but she feels more like his granddaughter), but also because the movie does little to overcome this blatant shortcoming. If it wants us to buy it, it needs to sell it, but instead it half-arses it. When you learn that Helena Bonham-Carter was originally cast in Blunt’s role (but had to pull out due to commitments to Alice in Wonderland), it all begins to make sense: you can imagine a relationship between her and Nighy working on screen, and presumably they didn’t bother to retool the screenplay in between actor changes.

All of which says, the film just about survives because there’s enough else going on. The hitman and thief wind up on the run from the people who want her dead, with a young apprentice (Rupert Grint) in tow, and the ensuing farcical hijinks are all daft fun, with the great cast (which also includes Martin Freeman, Eileen Atkins, and Rupert Everett, among others) clearly having a good time. Sometimes that’s off-putting, but here it’s infectious.

Wild Target was #59 in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2021.

2022 | Week 35

Posted on December 23, 2022 by badblokebob

When I revived 2007’s weekly(-ish) review compilation format at the start of 2022, the main objective was to write shorter reviews (not necessarily as short as the couple-of-sentences-per-film I wrote back in 2007, but not worrying about trying to do full write-ups for everything), which would help enable me to stay more up-to-date. Well, the former has only been partially successful, and that means the latter has slipped, too: here we are, rapidly heading towards the end of December, and I’m only just posting reviews of films I watched at the end of August / start of September. I’m certainly not going to have 2022 finished before 2023 begins.

Hey-ho, there’s nothing to be done about it — other than remind myself I was intending to be more concise and more on top of things, and continue to try to push myself in that direction. In the meantime, on we go, with…

Mona Lisa (1986)

Mirror (1975), aka Zerkalo

Clerks (1995)

Persuasion (2022)

He Walked by Night (1948)

Mona Lisa

(1986)

Neo-noir filtered through a British sensibility — which means you get a character study merely garnished with genre thrills, especially when the character in question is played by Bob Hoskins, adding depth and complexity to your could-be-straightforward protagonist.

Said protagonist is George, a recently-released minor gangster looking for work. He’s an interesting mix of a character: streetwise but also kinda naïve; racist and judgemental, but without really meaning it. It’s like he’s just reciting stuff he’s heard from everyone else, rather than it being stuff he really believes. Well, isn’t that true of so many with horrendous opinions? These days they just get them from YouTube. George’s prejudices are somewhat challenged when he’s assigned to drive around a high-class call girl, Simone, who happens to be black. Although Hoskins took most of the plaudits (including an Oscar nomination and BAFTA win), as Simone, Cathy Tyson breathes an equal amount of life into a character that, similarly, in lesser hands could’ve just been a plot-driving mystery. (She was also nominated for a BAFTA, incidentally.)

The film’s style is an interesting mishmash, in that it has an element of British grit and groundedness — especially being shot on grainy film, all on location in London, in a world of everyday gangsters and prostitutes — but with fantastical and/or genre flourishes — George’s friend Thomas creates weird art stuff and engages in literary discussions; nighttime London is shot to look like a vision of Hell; and then there’s all the noir stuff in the construction of the story. There’s a version of this film that fully gives in to that genre, but the comedy and ‘fantasy’ dilutes the neo-noir aspects, making the film more unique, and distinctly British.

The fact Arrow initially released Mona Lisa as the de facto lesser half of a double-bill with earlier Hoskins-starring gangster flick The Long Good Friday does it something of a disservice (though it’s also is the primary reason I had it in my collection to prompt me to watch it, so swings and roundabouts). This is a film more than worthy of standing on its own; and one that, while not poorly regarded or completely forgotten, merits a wider rediscovery.

Mona Lisa is the 53rd film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022. It was viewed as part of “What Do You Mean You Haven’t Seen…?” 2022. It placed 11th on my list of The Best Films I Saw in 2022.

Mirror

(1975)

aka Zerkalo

Andrei Tarkovsky’s poetic evocation of memory and mid-20th-century Soviet history. If that sounds a bit Arty, just wait ’til you hear Criterion’s blurb, which says it’s “as much a poem composed in images, or a hypnagogic hallucination, as it is a work of cinema.” Oh dear, sounds like Hard Work, right? Well, it is.

Calling it “visual poetry” might sound like pretentiousness, but it really isn’t — Mirror definitely plays more like that than a traditional narrative film. And, just like most poetry, I didn’t really get it. I must confess that I was tuning out by the end; partly due to tiredness, which is my own fault; but partly that the film gave me nothing to really latch on to; no (clear) narrative or character or anything for me to focus on to keep my wavering attention in the right place. On the bright side, it avoided being a total disaster in my eyes by having some nice-looking bits, and individual scenes or sequences that kinda work. But I absolutely do not “get it” as a whole cohesive piece of art.

Clearly, this kind of thing works for some people — Sight & Sound’s most recent poll ranked it 31st, and the director’s poll (which I would normally argue errs slightly more mainstream) went even better and placed it 8th. Each to their own. Based on his work that I’ve seen so far, I just don’t think Tarkovsky’s for me.

Mirror is the 54th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022. It was viewed as part of Blindspot 2022.

Clerks

(1994)

Kevin Smith | 88 mins | DVD | 1.85:1 | USA / English | 15 / R

There’s no escaping the fact that Clerks is very much a product of its time, both in itself as a work of art, and in how it became a breakout success. (Can you imagine a film like this launching a career like Kevin Smith had (for a bit) if it was made today? Best you could hope for now is being seen by half-a-dozen festival-goers before the director gets tapped to be Kevin Feige’s puppet on some Marvel content.) That said, for all its ’90s-time-capsule-ness, it holds up pretty well as a piece of entertainment. By which I mean, I laughed multiple times and was never bored.

The story, such as it is, concerns a pair of convenience store workers hanging out for a day, and the various little dramas and incidents that occur to and around them. Serving as both writer and director, Smith quite cleverly turns bugs into features. No budget? Make that the whole aesthetic, with grainy 16mm photography and an everyday setting in which ‘nothing’ happens. Non-pro actors? Have everyone deliver all their lines mile-a-minute, thus making the whole thing feel kinda heightened and stylised, to the point where you can’t be sure if most of the cast can’t act or it was all a deliberate choice. This is further fed by Smith often letting scenes play out in long takes with no cuts — if these guys can remember all their lines to do a whole scene in a oner, they must be pretty professional, right?

Impressively for a first-timer behind the camera, Smith doesn’t go overboard with directorial flourishes. There’s the occasional shot or sequence with some extra pizzazz to keep up the visual interest, but he seems to know that less is more; that this is the kind of film that plays best in medium shots. This might sound like basic stuff, but evidence shows that first-time filmmakers with something to prove are regularly tempted to go all-out and make something that feels Directed. That might be nice for a showreel, but for an actual film, restraint goes a long way.

Technique aside, the content just works. These characters are likeable enough to hang out with for 90 minutes, because that’s effectively all we’re doing. But there’s enough variety in their conversations and situations, and enough genuinely funny lines and moments, that it works and is enjoyable, rather than being a dull or directionless slice-of-life piece.

Clerks is the 55th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

Persuasion

(2022)

Jane Austen adaptations appear to be perennially popular, so it was probably only a matter of time before Netflix attempted one. Here, they’ve retained the original setting but given proceedings a modern-ish wash, apparently influenced by their hit series Bridgerton style (I’ve never seen Bridgerton, so this is based on the trailers and that others have made the same comparison). The result? A trailer that met with a great deal of displeasure from Austen fans, not keen on the apparent irreverence to the source material. I’ve never read Austen, either, so I’ll leave exact comparisons to the more knowledgeable.

That said, I can’t say the trailer fully won me over, but I thought I’d allow the film its chance. And it’s not terrible — there are lots of nice scenes and moments to be found. Unfortunately, they’re undercut by the bits everyone talked about from the trailer: the clearly-Fleabag-inspired gurns to camera; the banal and misplaced modern-style dialogue. The really sad thing is that there aren’t actually very many of those bits — the ones that were widely cited as “examples” are nearly all of them, in fact — and so there is nearly a very nice film here.

Dedicated fans of Austen’s original work, and those who prefer their period dramas played straight and faithful, will likely still find those moments off-putting. If you’re prepared to overlook the missteps, this Persuasion is largely likeable.

Persuasion is the 56th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

He Walked by Night

(1948)

“A film that started as a humble low-budget offering from a second-tier studio, but wound up being one of the most influential films of its era” is how ‘Czar of Noir’ Eddie Muller describes He Walked by Night in his introduction for TCM’s Noir Alley strand. That’s partly because it inspired the radio series Dragnet, which was immensely significant in the development of police procedural series, a genre that remains a bread-and-butter staple of TV entertainment to this day. But also because it was shot by cinematographer John Alton — “the greatest noir stylist of all time”, says Muller, and here he produced “one of the most dramatically photographed film noirs ever”. There’s debate over whether the film was actually helmed by its credited director, Alfred Werker, or if Anthony Mann actually did most of the work. “It doesn’t really matter,” says Muller, “because the picture’s held together by the stunning visual style of its singular cinematographer”.

Well, I can’t disagree. This is a gorgeously shot film, and a concise exemplar of all we know of film noir style — primarily, abundant shadows. But it’s not just the imagery that makes it work. There are multiple tense suspense sequences, often making great use of silence — this is a film not afraid to be quiet when it’s effective — climaxing with an incredibly atmospheric chase and shootout in the LA storm drain system. We spend a lot of time with the villain, Roy Martin — the film is definitely a howcatchem; no whodunit mystery here — who’s superbly played by Richard Basehart. Coming back to the point about silence, Martin is a loner, so he doesn’t get much dialogue a lot of the time, but Basehart still effectively conveys how smart and cunning he is. Also worthy of note is Whit Bissell as an electronics dealer who unwittingly sold on ‘inventions’ that Martin had in fact stolen. The poor guy is clearly innocent and been duped, but he ends up between a rock and a hard place when the police aren’t sure they believe that.

The overall style of He Walked by Night is intensely procedural and serious about it, but it still finds room for glimpses of character, both from the cops and the criminals; and there’s humour, too. That helps give it a bit of light and shade, and also genuine reality — you’ll find humorousness everywhere in real life, however serious events may be.

He Walked by Night is the 57th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

2022 | Week 34

Posted on December 3, 2022 by badblokebob

Skipping week 33 (when I didn’t watch anything), here are all the films I watched in week 34 — which, if anyone’s interested, was back in August. Somehow, I don’t think I’m going to get caught up on my 2022 reviews before the end of the year…

The Winter Guest (1997)

Repeat Performance (1947)

Carousel (1956)

The Winter Guest

(1997)

The writing and directing debut of actor Alan Rickman, The Winter Guest follows four loosely-connected pairs of characters through a day in their lives, all confined to a small Scottish seaside town where the stark winter has turned the sea to ice. It’s the kind of film where nothing happens: the characters hang out with each other and talk, basically, with their issues ranging from bereavement to stereotypical teenage sex obsession (one boy played by a young Sean Biggerstaff wants… a bigger staff, wink wink. Sorry, the pun was too tempting to avoid).

The confined setting and characters means the end result feels theatrical in both style and content — it’s basically just a series of two-handers, with quite mannered dialogue. And yet its staging isn’t so limited, because Rickman and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey do an excellent of of evoking the chilly surroundings (most of the film is set outside), giving the scenery a painterly feel. That’s probably in part due to using digital matte paintings to convey the frozen ocean, but it extends to the beaches and town buildings, too. Or it could just be an unintended side effect of the smoothing conferred by watching in digitally compressed SD; but as it’s just about my favourite aspect of the film, let’s assume it was intentional and skilfully done.

Repeat Performance

(1947)

Alfred Werker | 93 mins | Blu-ray | 1.37:1 | USA / English

On the eve of 1947, actress Sheila Page (Joan Leslie) shoots dead her husband (original Saint Louis Hayward). She flees, ending up at the home of her producer (second Falcon Tom Conway) in the early hours of New Year’s Day… 1946. Given the chance to re-live the past year, can she make things right?

Repeat Performance gets classified as film noir, but I feel like it’s one of those films that sits on the periphery of what qualifies for the genre. The opening — in which a woman shoots dead her husband, in New York City at night — yes, very noir. But what unfurls over the next 90 minutes is more of a backstage romantic melodrama by way of Twilight Zone-style fantasy. But that’s the thing with noir: as a movement that wasn’t recognised and codified as a genre until after it was over, what ‘counts’ can be a very broad church.

Here, the odd combination of styles makes for an unusual and mostly entertaining film. My only real gripe is that we’re given very little idea what went on in the ‘original’ 1946, so it’s hard to tell how much effort Sheila is actually making to change it, or to follow how successful she’s being. This kind of perspective is perhaps the benefit of a further 75 years of development and refinement in the field of fantastical storytelling — Repeat Performance isn’t a Fantasy film in the true genre sense, more a Thriller with a neat inciting twist, a la Sliding Doors (my go-to example of a Fantasy film that doesn’t care it’s a Fantasy film!)

The plot is bolstered by strong or likeable performances across the board. Some of the lead cast may be better known for starring in B-movie schedule-fillers, but this is proof if proof were needed that to interpret that as a sign of limited skill on their part would be an incorrect conclusion. Which is a rather torturous way of saying “Hayward and Conway were quite good actors, actually”. Hayward is particularly good here, getting to show off his range from loving husband to psychopathic abuser, plus a few other stages in between. Conway is more at the likeable end of the spectrum as Sheila’s kindly producer, while Richard Basehart’s performance (in his movie debut) as queer-coded poet William Williams (in the original novel, the character is a transvestite) was so impressive that the producers gave him more scenes with Leslie and bumped up his billing.

Repeat Performance is the 52nd film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

Carousel

(1956)

Carousel is a spectacularly odd entry in the Rodgers & Hammerstein canon of musicals. Based on a play called Liliom (which was previously filmed by Frank Borzage in 1930 and Fritz Lang in 1934), it tells the story of a carnival barker (Gordon MacRae) who’s been dead 15 years, but in flashback we learn of how he fell in love and married, and how he died, and why he now gets a chance to go back for a day to make amends. That almost makes the film sound focused. As it plays out, the storyline has a weirdly aimless quality, not helped by songs that are mostly mediocre or bizarre. That’s before we get to the horrendously outdated views on domestic violence, or the fact that it’s not actually got very much to do with the titular fairground attraction.

The darker material and themes could work in the right setting, but here they clash with the sunny seaside photography and stereotypically cheerful musical numbers. I mean, this is a story about a physically abusive husband and wannabe small-time crook, who can’t even change his ways when the afterlife gives him a second chance, and we have songs about the beauty of summer and the joys of a clambake (the latter may haunt your memories…)

A strange film, and not in the good way. At least it’s made me curious to see the Borzage and Lang versions — perhaps as a straight drama it will be more obvious why this has merited adaptation so many times.

2022 | Weeks 29–32

Posted on November 25, 2022 by badblokebob

2022 may be rushing headlong towards its final stretch (only one month ’til Christmas, people!), but my reviews are lagging behind somewhat: this update takes us all the way back to July and August.

That said, there’s quite a long spread covered here, because I only watched one film in each of these weeks: 45 Years in week 29, The Bucket List in week 30, previously-reviewed Prey in week 31, and Tintin and the Lake of Sharks in week 32. That’s definitely not the right way to go about watching 100 films in a year, but there we go.

45 Years (2015)

The Bucket List (2007)

Tintin and the Lake of Sharks (1972), aka Tintin et le lac aux requins

45 Years

(2015)

Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay star as a couple preparing for their 45th wedding anniversary party, when their comfy relationship is rocked by news that brings to the surface events from his past.

What could have been a histrionic drama about the nature of trust in a relationship instead takes its cue from the characters’ advanced age, and so is a more understated consideration of the same. The length and passage of time is relevant, too: if something happened a long time ago but you only just learnt about it, does that change how you react to the news? Should it? And is the real revelation not the news itself, but the realisation that, even if you’ve lived closely with another person for decades, you can never be truly sure you know them. Another person’s true self is fundamentally unknowable, for any one of us.

All of which might sound a bit highfalutin, but 45 Years is the kind of film that revels in ambiguity, with characters who never let on their true feelings — in that sense, it feels like a deliberate Acting Showcase for Rampling — and a vague ending, all of which invites you to draw your own conclusions. The final moment feels pointed, but the openness of what went before means it’s up to you what it means. There’s something truthful about that, but also something frustrating.

The Bucket List

(2007)

I may have written before (but not recently, so let’s do it again) about how Rob Reiner’s directorial career baffles me. He had an incredible run in the ’80s and ’90s — almost back to back he helmed This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, and A Few Good Men — but then his career suddenly nosedives into a bunch of stuff you’ve mostly never even heard of. What happened? Is there some “John Landis on Twilight Zone“-style ‘secret’ I’m unaware of?

One of the very few exceptions in his later career (which certainly didn’t lead to that being revived) was this, a breakout hit 15 years ago (yes, it’s 15 years old) of the kind they don’t make so much anymore: a mainstream comedy-drama aimed at adults. It’s about two old men (pure star power in Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman) with only months left to live, who decide to spend their final days going on a tour of… green screen studios and kinda-low-res stock footage, apparently. I guess you didn’t get location filming on the kind of budget a film like this was made for even back in 2007.

Cheap production values aside, it has an insistent sentimentality — undercut with just a big enough dose of snark to stop it becoming too saccharine — that, unsurprisingly, played well with general audiences but, equally unsurprisingly, doesn’t seem to be to the taste of many cinephiles (just look at the middling-to-low scores on Letterboxd, especially of the most-liked reviews, and contrast with its sturdy 7.4 score on IMDb). While I wouldn’t go quite as harsh as many of my fellow Letterboxd users, I do think it’s not that good — it’s broadly likeable, a generally pleasant way to pass 90 minutes, rather than in any way exceptional.

Tintin and the Lake of Sharks

(1972)

aka Tintin et le lac aux requins / The Adventures of Tintin: The Mystery of Shark Lake

Raymond Leblanc | 74 mins | DVD | 4:3 | Belgium & France / English | U

Having adapted several of Hergé’s Tintin books for TV and film, Belgian animation outfit Belvision for some reason opted to create an original story for their second big-screen outing with the character (it was later retrofitted into book form, using frames from the film as the illustrations). Written not by Hergé but his friend, fellow Belgian comics creator Greg (aka Michel Regnier), Lake of Sharks feels like exactly what it is: an imitation of a Tintin adventure rather than the real deal.

Events start out in a typically Tintin fashion, with some crooks after an invention of Professor Calculus’s; but later things take a turn for the Bondian, including an elaborate underwater lair that owes a debt to the imagination of Ken Adam. Eventually it all gets a bit silly, with stuff like an ever-expanding bouncy 3D photocopier, or the villain’s elaborate “you will die in one hour” execution method for Tintin. That kind of adventure serial writing has been so widely mocked at this point (the Austin Powers movies took aim at it 25 years ago; others may have done so before then) that it’s hard to remember there was ever a time when it was still played with a straight face.

The animation is mostly of a slightly higher quality than Belvision’s previous efforts, but the quality of the designs is variable. The regular cast feel faithfully copied from Hergé, and most other characters are in the right style; but there are a couple of major child characters who look out of place, along with their pet dog. It’s a bit like when you were a kid and mixed action figures from different ranges into the same game: yeah, they’re all still plastic figurines (or, in the case of the film, hand-drawn 2D characters), but stylistically they don’t line up.

The English dub is an American effort, and far from ideal. None of the voices are great, but most suffice once you get used to them. The exception is Captain Haddock, who is egregiously bad throughout. That said, we’re also subjected to the kids singing a song about a donkey that is unspeakably awful. Couldn’t they have cast actors who could sing? At least that would’ve taken the edge off it.

Tintin and the Lake of Sharks is the 50th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

2022 | Week 22

Posted on July 8, 2022 by badblokebob

Maybe I should’ve called this post “Weeks 21–22”, to ensure that the titles of these roundups had a complete run of weeks throughout the year. But I didn’t actually watch anything new in Week 21 (my only film that week was the Challenge-qualifying rewatch of On the Town), so it seemed inaccurate to include it.

Week 22, on the other hand, was moderately busy, with this lot…

This Means War (2012)

To Be or Not to Be (1942)

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1982)

The Pajama Game (1957)

The Contender (2000)

This Means War

(2012)

McG | 98 mins | digital (HD) | 2.35:1 | United States / English | 12 / PG-13

I bet whoever came up with this thought they were a genius: “spyfi action-adventure + rom-com? It’s the perfect date movie!” Of course, what you actually end up with is a film that struggles to do either part well.

It stars the unlikely combo of Chris Pratt and Tom Hardy (you definitely can’t imagine Hardy doing a movie like this today) as BFF CIA agents who independently fall for the same woman, played by Reese Witherspoon. Uh-oh. Hilarity ensues as the guys deploy their CIA tricks and tech to influence the relationships. Yeah, it’s the kind of concept that once upon a time sounded like a fun and quirky rom-com, but nowadays seems at best morally dubious, at worst downright creepy. And, indeed, that’s how it plays out, with situation after situation that’s played for laughs but feels a little uncomfortable.

Of course, the big question is “who ends up with who?” This is one of those films so committed to its storyline, so structured to lead to one correct answer, that… they shot multiple endings so they could decide in post. The one they went with doesn’t feel quite right, but, if you imagine the alternatives, most of them don’t either. Well, I say that: I don’t think it’s really a spoiler to tell you that Witherspoon ends up with one of the guys, when the correct choice would’ve been “neither of them. Run from the stalker-ish CIA agents! Find a normal man!”

To Be or Not to Be

(1942)

Ernst Lubitsch’s satire concerns an acting troupe in occupied Poland who become mixed up in a soldier’s efforts to capture a German spy before he can undermine the resistance. Made while World War II was still in full force, the film attracted criticism in some quarters for being a comedy about such tragic and ongoing real-life horrors. Lubitsch defended his work, writing to one critic to say, “What I have satirized in this picture are the Nazis and their ridiculous ideology. I have also satirized the attitude of actors who always remain actors regardless how dangerous the situation might be, which I believe is a true observation.” He’s right, of course; at least about the first part. Ridiculously, such debates about whether you can satirise the Nazis persist to this very day — just look at some of the responses to Jojo Rabbit.

Lubitsch’s film is subtler than Waititi’s, though still undoubtedly a comedy. I mean, with its plucky resistance members taking occupying Nazis for fools, I couldn’t help but think of this as a classier version of ’Allo ’Allo… but I’ve never actually seen a whole episode of that show, so don’t hold my comparison in too high a regard. Whereas that sitcom is famous for its catchphrases and bawdy gags, To Be or Not to Be is less overt, preferring to paint the Nazis as fundamentally incompetent and derive its humour there.

Despite the distaste some felt, it obviously works for most people, as it appears on several “great movies” lists, not least both the IMDb and Letterboxd Top 250s. To be honest, I feel like I need to give it another spin to digest it more fully, but these thin thoughts will have to suffice for now.

To Be or Not to Be is the 35th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022. It was viewed as part of Blindspot 2022.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

(1982)

I’ve never read the P.D. James novel on which this is based, but I’m assured it’s longer and more complex — the film rather lacks for plausible suspects, making the central murder mystery thoroughly guessable.

That said, I’m not sure co-writer/director Christopher Petit is all that concerned with producing a true whodunnit. Put another way, I think he’s more interested in the characters, who happen to be involved in a mystery, than in the mystery itself. Which is fine, but I’m also not sure the film does as good a job as it could digging into those characters. I mean, the way the kinda-naïve young investigator becomes obsessed with the deceased subject of her inquiries — almost falling in love with him, it seems, like some kind of gender-flipped riff on Laura — is more nodded at than explored.

In the end, I felt like I wanted to like the film more than it was actually giving me things I needed to really like it. It’s not bad, but perhaps it could have been great.

The Pajama Game

(1957)

This minor musical is primarily of note for two things: the original Broadway staging featured the choreography debut of one Bob Fosse; and it features the song Hernando’s Hideway — if you don’t recognise the title, I’m sure you’ll recognise the tune. I had no idea this is where it originated.

The story is about a pay dispute in a pyjama factory (given the current strikes and arguments here in the UK, you might think I watched this deliberately. Nope, total coincidence). On one side there’s the leader of the union’s grievance committee (Doris Day, one of just a handful of replacements made to the original cast when they transferred the stage production to the screen). On the other, the new superintendent (John Raitt, clearly a success on Broadway but less so on film). Of course, they fall for each other, before the pay conflict tears them apart. Can their love overcome such trials? What do you think?

I saw someone describe The Pajama Game as an overlooked classic, which is taking things a bit far. It’s mostly likeable and quite fun, but rarely transcends that level. The undoubted highlight is Fosse’s choreography, which gives even the lesser numbers a polished dynamism. There are a couple of decent songs, but nothing really stands out, bar the aforementioned. It gets a bit too farcical in places, with some of the storylines ultimately taking a turn into very broad territory that feels misjudged. One primarily for genre fans only.

The Contender

(2000)

I only picked this up on disc because it was part of a bundle of other titles I really wanted, but it also sounded like the kind of thing I’d like. Strange that I’d not heard of it before, then. I guess some films just get lost in movie history, especially when they’re a lesser member of a whole wave of movies. This is a political thriller of the kind they seemed to make quite a few of during the ’90s and into the early ’00s, but don’t really do anymore. I guess they exhausted the well, especially after 156 episodes of The West Wing.

In this case, the story revolves around Laine Hanson (Joan Allen), the first woman nominated to be Vice President (it only took another two decades for that to happen in real life). There’s the familiar battle between the Democrats to get her confirmed, and the Republicans who’d like to do anything to thwart the Democrats. Amongst the scheming between the two sides, the big revelation is that Laine possibly engaged in a scandalous sex act while in college. She refuses to confirm or deny the rumour — it’s her personal business and shouldn’t affect her appointment. Except, of course, it does.

Various other allegations come and go throughout the confirmation process, the two sides continuing to go back and forth in their attempts to win. It’s not necessarily the point the film is making, but it’s a reminder that politics is all a game to those involved, even as it can have serious effects on the lives of the rest of us. More overtly, the film tackles the different standards a woman is held to when trying to take public office. Fortunately, it’s not as overbearing with that as it could be. Indeed, all round the film is fairly understated. It’s a solid, unflashy, procedural-based kind of thriller.

That is until the end, when it throws away the understatement for a grandstanding speech based around a fundamental belief in the greatness and goodness of the American political system. It would be heavy-handed in any circumstance, but the past few years (if not longer) of American politics have shown it for the total lie it always was. It doesn’t wholly undermine what’s gone before, but it does end the film on a sour note.

Bank Holiday (1938)

Posted on July 6, 2022 by badblokebob

aka 3 on a Week-End

You’ll be forgiven for not having heard of this one, even though it’s directed by Carol Reed (The Third Man, Oliver!, etc) and stars Margaret Lockwood (The Lady Vanishes, etc), because it seems to be pretty obscure. I only discovered it when browsing the online offering of UK digital channel Talking Pictures TV, and it mainly caught my attention because that was just before the weekend of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, when we had a double Bank Holiday. “What appropriate viewing,” I thought. Well, sometimes chance smiles on us, because this definitely doesn’t deserve to be so overlooked.

As the title indicates, the film is set on a Bank Holiday weekend — the August one, to be precise — and, this being the interwar years (i.e. well before the ease of popping overseas for a quick holiday), city folk flock to the seaside en masse. In terms of the film, a variety of melodramatic and comic plot lines unfurl for an array of characters. The primary one follows a nurse (Lockwood) getting away for a rare holiday with her young fella (Hugh Williams); but he’s not planned it very well, and she’s distracted by thoughts of a man (John Lodge) who was suddenly made a widower on her last shift. That particular storyline gets a bit heavy (death in child birth; attempted suicide), but its balanced by comic antics in other plot lines. Overall, the mix of drama and humour gives a “something for everyone”, all-round entertainment feel that you tend not to get within a single work anymore.

Nowadays, the film arguably has greatest value as a snapshot of 1930s British society. There’s a degree to which it feels ‘of its time’ as a work of cinema, but not in a terribly dated way. Indeed, while some things have changed a lot in the ensuing nine decades, but there are definitely behaviours, attitudes, and meteorological phenomena that’ll be familiar to any British viewer and their experience of a summer holiday weekend. And it remains entertaining in its own right. The comic bits still mostly work. Even when they’re not hilarious, at least they’re not embarrassing. The drama is similarly solid: the handling of romantic relationships remains relatable, rather than feeling terribly old fashioned (in fact, it had to be edited for release in the US due to its implication that an unmarried couple had a sexual relationship. And they think us Brits are the prudish ones…)

To call Bank Holiday a “forgotten classic” or similar would be to overstate the point somewhat, but it does seem to be a largely forgotten film that merits being better known.

2022 | Weeks 14–15

Posted on May 26, 2022 by badblokebob

Only four reviews this time, taking us up to April 17th. It was going to be five, but then Spider-Man got far too long. So, we’re left with…

Withnail & I (1987)

Munich: The Edge of War (2021)

tick, tick… BOOM! (2021)

Move Over, Darling (1963)

Withnail & I

(1987)

This may be a beloved cult comedy in its own right, but I can’t help but make comparison to a certain other British cult property. You see, each of the three primary cast members — Richard E. Grant (Withnail), Paul McGann (‘I’), and Richard Griffiths (Uncle Monty) have an atypical relationship to the lead role in Doctor Who. That has no bearing on the film itself, not least because their involvement (or non-involvement, in one case) took place years later, but it’s a correlation I can’t shake. I mean, what other work can claim to star the man who was simultaneously the shortest and longest serving Doctor; the man who was definitely, officially the new canonical Doctor, until he wasn’t; and a man who might well have been the Doctor if things had gone to plan? Nothing else that I can think of, that’s for sure.

Setting all that aside, everything about Withnail & I screams “cult favourite”, and I guess that’s what it is — not a film that started out with a dedicated fanbase before being subsumed into the mainstream, but one that remains beloved of a relatively few devotees. Perhaps that explains why it’s one of those films I thought would’ve wound up on my Blindspot list by now, but never has: because it lacks that crossover appeal. (Maybe I need to factor in some lists of cult and/or British movies when compiling my Blindspot choices.) Coming to it afresh in 2022, aware of that rep it’s built up over the last 35 years, does it no favours. The characters aren’t likeable or interesting enough to truly enjoy hanging out with (even as they’re convincingly brought to life by the talented cast); the “gay panic” stuff that drives several sequences lands differently now than I suspect it did in 1987; and the supposedly never-ending quotable lines didn’t materialise (there are a small handful of memorable ones, at least). That said, there are quite a few lines that would be fun for a game of “did Paul McGann say this in Withnail or in Doctor Who?” (Oops, sorry to bring that up again.)

The best bits of Withnail have been dulled by repetition out of context (variations on “we’ve gone on holiday by mistake” are a certifiable meme at this point), and I suspect I personally left it too long to see it, allowing it to build up too much of a reputation. I didn’t dislike it, I just wasn’t won over.

Munich: The Edge of War

(2021)

Robert Harris has been a best-selling author for decades, but his works have had a rockier reception on the screen; perhaps not helped by the fact a couple have been helmed by director non grata Roman Polanski. Harris’s stock in trade is fictionalised tellings of historical events — the eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii; the politics behind the invasion of Iraq in The Ghost; and so on. His 2017 novel Munich is set around war-avoiding negotiations between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain that took place in the titular city in 1938. This film adaptation gains a subtitle, presumably to differentiate it from Steven Spielberg’s Best Picture nominee, which retold entirely different historical events.

The big names aren’t the main characters, however. Those would be a pair of low-ranking civil servants from the opposing sides: Brit Hugh Legat (1917‘s George MacKay) and German Paul von Hartmann (Jannis Niewöhner), former university chums who fell out when Hitler came to power. Now, von Hartmann is disillusioned with the Nazi regime and wishes to pass information to the British, but will only make contact with Legat, thus roping the inexperienced diplomat into the world of espionage, untrained. If the storyline is ringing bells, perhaps you too recently watched The Courier with Benedict Cumberbatch. It’s not an identical narrative — I’m not accusing anyone of plagiarism here — but there are definite parallels. Legat even has a strained relationship with his wife, who he has to leave at home and not tell the truth.

But where the story in The Courier was true, and thus lent an inherent fascination, the story of Legat and von Hartmann is fictionalised. That’s not necessarily a problem — most thrillers are entirely made-up, of course — but Munich is hampered by feeling kind of muddy. It’s not so bad as to be described as muddled, but does seem like it’s perhaps the victim of being badly truncated from the book, or possibly just in its own edit. It’s not always clear what the point is of what we’re watching, or where certain characters have disappeared off to. That makes the overall experience longer and, occasionally, more plodding than it needs to be.

That said, though it takes time, it does eventually develop the tension it needs; and it has definite merit for depicting a bit of history that’s normally relegated to footnote status. Indeed, it makes an interesting argument for “what Chamberlain did was good, actually”, which is not the normal point of view on politicians’ pre-WW2 actions.

Munich: The Edge of War is the 27th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

tick, tick… BOOM!

(2021)

Rent was one of the definitive Broadway musicals of the ’90s, but its creator didn’t live to see its success: composer, lyricist, and author Jonathan Larson died, with poetic timing, the night before the show’s premiere. It came after years of Larson struggling trying to break into the industry, much of which was documented in his semi-autobiographical (almost-)one-man show, Tick, Tick… Boom! This film adaptation broadens out and adds additional detail to become a more direct biopic of Larson, albeit one with musical numbers.

Struggling musical theatre people in Manhattan… Yes, some people are going to find this insufferable. Others will look upon it as a dream life, especially as any actual hardship (Larson’s apartment didn’t have heating, for example) is played down or romanticised. Even setting that side, it remains the kind of movie that will speak to anyone who’s dreamt of making art (especially if that art is musical theatre), but might leave others (primarily those without such ambitions) identifying more closely with some of Jonathan’s friends — “there are bigger things to worry about,” they say.

In the centre of it all is a pitch perfect performance from Andrew Garfield. He throws himself into the role, transformatively so: his Larson seems to be powered by a restless enthusiasm that I don’t think I’ve seen the actor portray in anything else. In the musical numbers, he holds his own against much more experienced singers (Garfield couldn’t even sing before production began — he spent a year learning and practicing).

This is more than just a ‘one good performance’ film, though. Although based on a stage show, the screen version certainly doesn’t feel stage-bound, coming to cinematic life through Alice Brooks’s photography and Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum’s editing as if it had always been meant for the screen. However, many people have been critical of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s direction. While I wouldn’t shout it out as anything amazingly special, I also don’t think it’s bad. You routinely see lesser work in Marvel movies, for example.

Move Over, Darling

(1963)

Doris Day and James Garner star in this remake of My Favourite Wife, one of the trio of screwball comedies Irene Dunne and Cary Grant made together, and which I watched back in May 2020. Two years ago?! Time flies. Despite which, I’ve not reviewed it yet.

Well, Move Over, Darling is an incredibly close re-envisioning. If someone authoritative told me it used the same screenplay with only minor tweaks, I’d believe them. I’m sure it’s not that close, in actual fact, but it’s darn near it. Certainly, one bit is definitely new: a fun sequence that sees Day recount the plot of the earlier film. Very meta. Alongside the screenplay, the remake also carries the original’s primary flaw, which is that they both lack the pace and snap of the very best screwball comedies. Day does her best to enliven the material, being a consistent source of fun and clearly game for a laugh — a sequence where she goes through a car wash in a convertible is a highlight. Garner can’t manage to equal Cary Grant, but who can?

Nonetheless, on balance, I slightly preferred this version. That might just be due to my lowered expectations — knowing it had the double drawback of being (1) a remake, and (2) of a film I hadn’t particularly loved the first time, it was able to overcome that by simply being not too bad.

2022 | Weeks 9–11

Posted on April 5, 2022 by badblokebob

Right, let’s try (again) to get things back on track.

These compilations were/are meant to keep my reviewing roughly up-to-date with my viewing, but I don’t think stuffing them with too many films at once is the right way to go. I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel like five or six per post is about right (with some leeway, of course — I’m sure four or seven would be fine too). However, dividing like that means getting out of sync with Real Life, so I suppose I should clarify when “weeks 9–11” were: Monday February 28th to Sunday 20th March, to be precise. And back then, I watched…

Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (1969), aka Tintin et le temple du soleil

Los Olvidados (1950), aka The Young and the Damned

The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee (2020)

The King’s Man (2021)

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

Nothing Like a Dame (2018)

Tintin and the Temple of the Sun

(1969)

aka Tintin et le temple du soleil / The Adventures of Tintin: The Prisoners of the Sun

Eddie Lateste* | 75 mins | DVD | 4:3 | Belgium & France / English | U

This fourth big-screen outing for the Belgian reporter also continues the popular TV series, Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin, made by Belgian studio Belvision from 1957 to 1962. Having adapted ten of Hergé’s volumes for TV, here they tackled two more: two-parter The Seven Crystal Balls and Prisoners of the Sun. The story sees Tintin and chums head to Peru on the trail of their kidnapped friend, Professor Calculus, and to investigate an Incan curse that has befallen a previous party of archaeologists.

Trekking up mountains and through jungles, with nefarious agents in pursuit, plus all the to-do with ancient curses and whatnot, this is chock-a-block with good old “Boy’s Own Adventure” stuff. As with so many of those, the joy lies in being swept along with the adventure rather than thinking about it too hard (our heroes are saved at the end because the Captain happens to have a scrap of newspaper that Snowy happens to steal that Tintin happens to fancy having a look at that happens to mention a handy forthcoming event). By the same token, there’s also the unavoidable effects of time: some of it feels a teensy bit racist nowadays; Tintin makes his way through the jungle merrily murdering animals left, right and centre. The animation itself is fine, with designs and an overall visual style that emulate Hergé well, but it does have a certain TV-ness.

It’s also not available in the greatest of copies, at least to English-language viewers. Reportedly the original version contains two songs, both of which were cut from the UK video release, but only one of which has been restored for the DVD (and, I presume, the version currently available to stream from Apple, etc). Although most of the film is dubbed, the song is in the original French, unsubtitled; and has clearly been edited, because there are digital freeze frames around it. At the start of the film, the title card has been replaced in a similarly awkward fashion. Then there’s the 5.1 remix, which seems to be missing some effects and music cues. You can still enjoy the majority of the film despite these distractions, but it’s disappointing that we still have to put up with such palaver nowadays.

Tintin and the Temple of the Sun is the 19th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

* Many (but not all) online sources list Lateste as the director, including IMDb, but the film itself doesn’t actually credit him — the only director-like credit is for “Belvision”. Lateste is credited as one of the screenwriters, at least. ^

Los Olvidados

(1950)

aka The Young and the Damned

Combine the literal translation of the film’s title — The Forgotten Ones — with the US retitling — The Young and the Damned — and you build a sense of what Los Olvidados (as it’s been released in the UK) is about. To be clearly, it’s a socially-realist depiction of life for children in the slums of Mexico City. Although initially condemned (according to IMDb, it only played for three days in Mexico before the “enraged reactions” of the press, government, and upper- and middle-class audiences caused it to be pulled), it’s since been reevaluated as one of the greats of Latin American cinema. Certainly, watching it after films like The 400 Blows (made almost a decade later), City of God (over 50 years later), and Capernaum (almost 70 years later), its influence is felt.

The downside to that is the film feels somewhat less fresh and more worthy than the later efforts. It’s got an overt anti-poverty message that is admirable but sometimes heavy-handed (a school principal character feels like he’s been inserted just to state the film’s thesis out loud) or naïvely optimistic (the opening voiceover asserts that child poverty will ultimately be solved by progress. Over 70 years later, I don’t think progress is doing a great job…) While much of the movie works at its intended goal, when aspects like these intrude it stops feeling like a realistic depiction of poverty and more like a straightforward polemic about how it should be fixed. On the bright side, it avoids the lure of a pat happy ending — although one was actually discovered in 2002, apparently shot to appease Mexican censors. Clearly they managed to get the film released without having to cave on that point, and it’s better for it.

Los Olvidados is the 20th film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022. It was viewed as part of Blindspot 2022.

The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee

(2020)

Not a fourth Crocodile Dundee film, but rather a depiction of the accidentally-chaotic life of that series’ leading man, Paul Hogan, the archetypal Aussie now living in LA and, reaching his 80s, somewhat bemused by the modern world.

Even from that quick summary, you can tell it’s not a terribly original premise. Couple that with a clearly small budget and you have a recipe for many dismissing the film out of hand. Personally, I found it to be surprisingly enjoyable, in a laidback, undemanding way. None of it is properly hilarious (though a bizarre musical sequence comes close), but it’s kinda amiable, and almost heartwarming at the end. Discerning viewers should perhaps not apply, but if you have any affection for the second or third Crocodile Dundee films (again, widely maligned instalments that I found passably entertaining), this is worth a punt.

The King’s Man

(2021)

Co-writer/director Matthew Vaughn expands the Kingsman universe with this World War I-era prequel that delves into the backstory of how the eponymous organisation was founded. Unlike so many prequels, this does feel like a story worth telling — we don’t necessarily need it, but it’s not merely an exercise in visualising events we’ve already been told, or coming up with over-elaborate reasons for people’s names or whatever (why couldn’t Han Solo’s birth name have just been Han Solo, hm?)

The story begins with Europe on the brink of war, and our heroes — led by the Duke of Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) — attempting to stop it. History tells us they fail, and so the narrative unfurls across WWI as they try to bring it to a close. That will see them come up against the manipulations of Rasputin (Rhys Ifans), who’s part of a secret organisation plotting to bring down the great empires.

Let’s cut to the chase: the Kingsman films have a rep for elaborate fight scenes set to pop music. One of the major villains is Rasputin. You only need a passing familiarity with the disco hits of the ’70s to know what I was looking forward to here. Well, it doesn’t happen. Indeed, that stylistic calling card is more or less entirely abandoned (the fight does happen, of course, but it’s set to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture — kind of like era-appropriate ‘pop’ music, I guess?) Apparently Vaughn did originally intend the sequence to be set to an orchestral version of the song in question, but ultimately felt it didn’t work.

This, perhaps, speaks to another concern I had going in, which was that Kingsman’s highly irreverent, almost satirical tone might clash with the all-too-real WWI setting. Such an historical tragedy doesn’t feel right to be made light of in that way, even over a century later. So, as if to compensate, Vaughn and co have toned down the humour, making The King’s Man fairly serious… but without fully sacrificing the near-whimsy at other times, because, well, it’s part of the franchise. The result is a little awkward, tonally, swinging back and forth between historical seriousness and franchise-establishing fun. Put another way, it’s hamstrung by being an entry in a series known for its irreverence that feels the need to show due reverence to WWI. That’s a clash of values it struggles with, some might say admirably, but can’t quite reconcile. In short, it’s too serious to be a Kingsman film, but too Kingsman-y to be a standalone WWI-set action-adventure.

I wouldn’t say it’s a disaster, by any means — but then, I enjoyed The Golden Circle when many lambasted it, so make of that what you will. Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to the next film getting back to Eggsy & co in the present day.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

(1988)

Michael Caine and Steve Martin star as a couple of chalk-and-cheese con men, pilfering the fortunes of wealthy single ladies on the French Riviera, in this fun con caper with a neat sting in its tail.

Caine hits just the right note as a charming con artist, his manner inspired by David Niven, who played the role in the original, 1964’s Bedtime Story. I was unaware the film was a remake until after watching it, though I did know it was itself subject to a gender-bent do-over in 2019, The Hustle. I don’t know how similar Bedtime Story and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels are, but, based on its trailer, The Hustle seems to be a direct lift from this, albeit peppered with the kind of pratfalling that’s de rigueur in modern big screen comedy.

Marlon Brando was Niven’s co-lead, whereas here Caine gets Steve Martin as the very embodiment of a brash American — a little too brash, if anything, though reportedly there were bits he actually reined in. The running time could have done with a similar consideration, because it’s a little long for its breezy premise and tone (running 110 minutes, it would be better nearer 90), but that’s a minor complaint — it rarely feels too slow or draggy, just a little long overall.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is the 21st film in my 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2022.

Nothing Like a Dame

(2018)

aka Tea with the Dames

Four thespian friends, Dames all — Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, and Maggie Smith — gather for a natter about their careers and lives. That’s it, that’s the film.

Given the setup, plus the style of advertising and US retitle, you’d be forgiven for expecting a gentle bit of fluff; eavesdropping on a pleasant chinwag with four venerable British actresses. The film is that, in places, but it also has a surprising undercurrent of sadness running throughout, as these ageing ladies reflect on the ups and downs of their careers and personal lives now that they’re (shall we say) closer to the end than the beginning. It rarely bubbles to the surface, but it always feels like it’s there, somehow inescapable.

If that gives proceedings more texture than you might’ve expected, then the film’s biggest flaw lies elsewhere. For me, it’s that it wasn’t long enough. The conversations are often delightful and occasionally insightful, but you feel like there’s so much more to be gleaned from these women. The film chops about between topics and pairings, always feeling like we’re getting snippets of the full conversation, never the true depth; like we’re watching a highlights reel of what should be a three-hour series, or something like that. I know it’s an old theatrical adage to “leave ’em wanting more”, but I really did want some more.