January’s Failures

Posted on February 2, 2023 by badblokebob

I can’t speak for the whole country, but Avatar: The Way of Water seems to have still been the big title at the cinema here throughout January. By which I mean, my local still had it on their largest screen in most of the prime time-slots. But then, there’s been nothing else truly “blockbustery” to challenge its need for the grandest scale possible. There have been significant releases, sure; and there’s always the “every film should be seen on the biggest screen possible” argument; but nothing else came out in January that’s so expressly about visual spectacle. Any crowdpleasers that have turned up — horror M3GAN; Gerard Butler vehicle Plane; Tom Hanks comedy A Man Called Otto — hardly feel of the same scale.

I use the term “crowdpleasers” to differentiate those films from most of the UK’s January release slate, which is, as usual, dominated by awards season stuff that we’ve had to wait for: Babylon, Empire of Light, The Fabelmans, Tár, Till… Plus, limited releases that caught my eye included the new one from Mark “Bait” Jenkin, Enys Men (out on Blu-ray from the BFI in June), and Iranian thriller Holy Spider (which will be on MUBI in March and Blu-ray in April).

The streamers also seemed to be mainly trading in hangovers from last year, with Netflix releasing starry period mystery-thriller The Pale Blue Eye (reaction seems to have been mixed, but it looks really good), Amazon Prime offering Emma Thompson sex drama Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, Disney+ generating plenty of discourse with The Menu, and even MUBI getting in on the act with awards contender Aftersun. Netflix did premiere a few brand-new things, though I’ve not come across a single mention of Bank of Dave, word has been poor about race/generation-based comedy You People, and the new sci-fi from Train to Busan writer-director Yeon Sang-Ho, JUNG_E, didn’t receive strong notices either. This is why I ended up watching Shotgun Wedding as my new film for January…

There was the usual mass of catalogue additions across all the streamers to bulk out my never-ending watchlists. Particular titles of note included, believe it or not, Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake of Halloween, which I only note because it was on my first-ever list of 50 missed films but, in the intervening decade-and-a-half, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it on a streaming service before. Maybe it’s a sign I should give it a go. Maybe not. That’s on Netflix, along with The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (I liked the first one enough to put the second my watchlist, but not enough to rush to see it, clearly), Mars One (I’ve actually no idea what this is, but it keeps coming up on my Letterboxd under “popular films you’ve not seen”), and Vesper (a low-budget British young-adult sci-fi that I heard about somewhere and sounded quite good). Moving on to Amazon Prime were Judas and the Black Messiah and Mortal Kombat (the recent one), while I was surprised that Sky Cinema became home to David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future. I think I’ll wait for Second Sight’s 4K disc release, thanks.

A couple of the streamers boasted themed seasons this month. MUBI had a run of debuts, featuring filmmakers as diverse as Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Love Is Colder Than Death, an awesome title) and Paul W.S. Anderson (Shopping). All 4 have had a run of Steven Spielberg’s major works, all of which I’ve seen, but it did remind me that I bought his brilliant The Adventures of Tintin in 3D yonks ago and still haven’t got round to watching it. Plus I loved it, so it’s long overdue a rewatch anyway.

Talking of purchases, of course my habit continued unabated throughout January. It began with some hangovers from last year — orders from the US and Australia that took longer than expected to turn up, thanks to postal strikes and general season delays. From Oz, some new Imprint titles, including the second volume of their After Dark: Neo-Noir Cinema series, ’50s post-apocalyptic sci-fi On the Beach, and Akira Kurosawa’s Russian feature, Dersu Uzala. My order from the US was an even more ragtag bunch, starting with a few recent classic 3D releases: The Diamond Wizard and I, the Jury, the latter of which also comes with an apparently-underwhelming 4K copy. Also on 4K were George Miller’s latest, Three Thousand Years of Longing, Kino’s release of The Usual Suspects (which I never bought on Blu, so that’s a healthy upgrade), and, on something of a whim, Shout’s The Company of Wolves. Also in the box were a couple of titles I’ve had on standby for a while ready to bulk out a US order: Criterion’s edition of Harold Lloyd’s The Freshman and Warner Archive’s release of A Night at the Opera. Finally, the US-only “yellow” set from Arrow’s Giallo Essentials range, which includes Strip Nude for Your Killer, Torso, and What Have They Done to Your Daughters?

I was buying that anyway, but after deciding to make gialli a category in my 2023 Challenge, I also picked up a couple more titles that caught my eye while going through lists of the genre; namely, Death Laid an Egg and The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh. Those were both UK releases; I’ve got my eye on a couple more next time I do a US bulk order. I also upgraded my copy of Arrow’s Phenomena to the 4K version, having noticed that some of their Argento 4K sets are beginning to go out of print (replaced by standard editions, at least) and this one did look like a noticeable upgrade (I didn’t bother with Bird with a Crystal Plumage because it didn’t seem that big a jump from the existing Blu-ray).

There’s normally a trickle of 4K titles in these failure posts, and I’ve already mentioned six, but there were even more this month: Arrow’s recent-ish reissue of Silent Running; Jordan Peele’s Nope on offer; similarly, the Bad Boys trilogy and Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood all in a 2-for-1 type deal; plus nice editions of The Green Mile and Reservoir Dogs (the Steelbook with the slipcover that makes his ear come off. Hilarity). Finally, the second volume of the Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection, which I’d intended to get at some point anyway, but was on a reasonable offer and includes Shadow of a Doubt, which I’ll be watching sometime this year for WDYMYHS.

All those titles — so, so many titles — and I don’t think I’ve mentioned a single brand-new release yet. Most notable there is my first batch of titles from new label Radiance, all of which are blind-buy punts (well, so is an awful lot of what I buy, to be fair, but I don’t think I’d even heard of any of these before I dived in). They include yakuza classic Big Time Gambling Boss, Palme d’Or-winning social drama The Working Class Goes to Heaven, ‘lost’ ’60s serial killer thriller A Woman Kills, and a crime comedy from the director of the brilliant Grosse Pointe Blank, Miami Blues. They’re all very handsome editions, so hopefully the content lives up to the thoughtful packaging. I’ve already got a few more of their releases on preorder.

Talking of preorders turning up, I spent far too much money in All the Anime’s pre-Christmas preorder announcements/sale, but its finally beginning to bear fruit, with Liz and the Blue Bird and The Deer King both turning up (weeks before their official dates) this month. I didn’t realise the former was a spinoff from the series Sound! Euphonium — I’ve heard of it (and decided to buy it) because it’s a staple of the mid-range on Letterboxd’s official list of the 100 highest-rated feature-length animated films. I was briefly worried (“will I need to have seen other stuff to ‘get’ it?”), until I remembered the Letterbox list explicitly excludes “sequels to shows or anime series […] that need greater context before watching are not included”. Phew!

Finally, in the new-new pile we can also find Eureka’s editions of Sergio Sollima Spaghetti Western Run, Man, Run and — last but not least, one of the film’s in this month’s header image — Michelle Yeoh actioner Royal Warriors.

The Best of 2022

Posted on January 6, 2023 by badblokebob

And so my review of the year reaches its end in the usual fashion: with the best films I watched for the first time in 2022, plus a few honourable mentions, and a list of notable new releases I missed.

Regular readers may have noticed there’s no “worst” list this year. As I wrote last year, the idea of singling out a list of bad movies has become highly unfashionable in recent years, especially when big-name publications do it. I don’t think such lists are wholly without worth (they acknowledge that, as a film viewer, it’s not all sunshine and roses), and there’s a big difference between a major publication slagging off some recent releases (which may affect those films’ continued financial success and their makers’ careers) and a one-man blog picking a couple of lesser films from what he happened to watch that year (which rarely includes recent releases, and wouldn’t have an impact on them even if it did). Nonetheless, in the spirit of celebrating what you love and staying quiet about the rest, I’ve decided to ditch my “worst” list. (If you want, there’s still the “Least Favourite” award in my monthly Arbies.)

With that said, it’s on with…

The Eleven Best Films I Watched for the First Time in 2022

Continuing with the methodology I’ve used since 2016, this list features the top 10% of my first-time watches from the year. In 2022, the total was 111, which means there are 11 films on this year’s “top 10”.

As ever, it’s not just 2022 releases that are eligible for my 2022 list. Consequently, in recent years I’ve included a ‘yearly rank’ for films that had their UK release during the previous 12 months. However, I watched so few of the year’s big hitters in 2022 that I felt to rank what I did see would be misleading. There are too many acclaimed films omitted only because I’m not able to consider them, not because I don’t think they’re worthy. Hopefully I’ll get back on top of seeing new releases, so a yearly ranking can return in the future.

11 Mona Lisa

Take a noir storyline then run it through gritty “kitchen sink” British sensibilities, and you get this: a film that works as both a neo-noir gangster thriller and a character study of a man revising his views of the world. [Full review.]

10 Prey

Studios keep trying to rehash their ’80s sci-fi/action IPs, and they keep producing mediocre results. Thankfully, someone has finally bucked the trend. Prey works in part because it abandons continuity and takes a back-to-basics approach to its alien menace. Setting it in a completely different time period adds more opportunities for fresh perspectives and developments. It’s such a seemingly simple idea that works so well, and one that’s eminently repeatable. Predators vs knights? Predators vs samurai? Predators vs cowboys? Yes, yes, and yes, please, and anything else you can think of. [Full review.]

9 Ambulance

Michael Bay has always been a divisive filmmaker. His brash, bombastic style isn’t for everyone. But I think there’s a method to his madness (even when it results in trash) and so, when he’s on form, he remains one of the most exciting action filmmakers. Ambulance shows he’s still got the goods. You could imagine the storyline — after a bank heist goes wrong, two crooks escape in an ambulance, along with the cop they shot and a paramedic trying to save him — being from a 1940s film noir; a grim character study of men under pressure. That side of it is still in there, just dressed up with all the wildness of only-semi-restrained Bayhem. [Full review.]

8 The Ghost Writer

A thriller about… writing a book? Ah, but when the book in question is the autobiography of a disgraced, potentially criminal former Prime Minister, and the book’s new ghost writer has been brought in because his predecessor died under suspicious circumstances, well, you begin to see where there are questions to be answered. Pierce Brosnan is perfect for the role of a former politician who is 50% charming and 50% believable as a scheming villain, while Ewan McGregor leads us through the twisty plot as an everyman who needs the money but still has a conscience. Will the truth out? [Full review.]

7 West Side Story

Spielberg, man. If you’d told me a remake of West Side Story would end up in my top ten of the year, I’d have given you a funny look. I didn’t love the original film version, but I also didn’t think it could be bettered — it’s a classic for a reason. Surely any remake was doomed to be lesser? But ah, here comes Steven Spielberg, a director whose style clearly chimes with my taste (in fairness, his work helped define my taste, thanks to watching the likes of Indiana Jones, and Spielberg-produced/-emulating movies such as Back to the Future, at a formative age). His version screams Movie in a way so few films do nowadays, and the changes he and his team have made to the material elevate it even beyond the ’61 film, for my money. [Full review.]

6 High and Low

Toshiro Mifune plays a man presented with a life-changing moral dilemma in this thriller from director Akira Kurosawa. It’s a film of two halves: the first, contained almost to one room in near-real-time, sees Mifune’s business executive grapple with a conundrum that could ruin his career; the second becomes intensely procedural as it follows the police investigation and fallout from Mifune’s actions. With its precision attention to detail and healthy dose of mundanity, Kurosawa conjures an intense realism — the film could almost be a documentary; only, a documentary could never be this finely controlled. [Full review.]

5 Mass

Disappointingly relegated to “Sky Original” status here in the UK (usually a dumping ground for low-quality genre movies), Mass is a film that deserves to be more widely seen (the story of too many films buried on random streaming services nowadays, I fear — how many people have actually seen Best Picture winner CODA when it’s locked away on Apple TV+?) The less you know going in the better to be hit with the film’s full emotional weight. And it is a heavy film, but only in a way the befits its subject matter. Made up almost entirely of four people sat round a table talking, it is nonetheless “a blisteringly emotional gut-punch … but, with that, it’s ultimately cathartic.” [Full review.]

4 Encanto

I do enjoy a Disney animation, but one has never broken into my top ten before (Zootropolis was 15th in 2016 and Moana was 16th in 2017). That’s partly the luck of the draw (I watched over 50% more films in each of those years), but also something about how well Encanto works — which, frankly, I can’t quite put my finger on. I mean, all the obvious elements are there: catchy songs, likeable characters, impressively fluid animation, a strong message about what matters. But there’s something else, too; a sprinkling of magic that, for me at least, elevates the film to be something even more special. I say I like a Disney film, but I don’t revisit them too often. I’ve already watched Encanto twice. In one year? That’s not like me! So, hopefully you see my point. [Full review.]

3 Top Gun: Maverick

I feel the need — the need for actors doing their flying stunts for real! Striking usage of the IMAX aspect ratio! Memorable callbacks to the original movie! Cheesy music that fits the tone perfectly! Actual humour! Proper subplots! Top Gun: Maverick is old-fashioned blockbuster moviemaking done with modern sensibilities (can you imagine them actually putting actors in jets back in the ’80s? For one thing, where would they have put those great big film cameras?) Actor/producer Tom Cruise has spent decades now perfecting this brand of big-screen entertainment, and here he shows the next generation how it should be done — both in-film, as a pupil-turned-teacher trying to get a class of the best pilots to be even better, i.e. as good as he is; and in real life too, rocking up in an era when the box office is dominated by previz- and CGI-driven superhero theme-park-rides-as-cinema, and giving us a done-for-real spectacle that kicked all their asses at the box office. The movies, and movie stars, are only dead when Tom Cruise says they are.

2 Les Enfants du Paradis

According to IMDb, when Children of Paradise (to use its translated title) was initially distributed in the USA, it was promoted as “a sort of French-made Gone with the Wind”. It’s not a bad comparison. Not in a literal sense — this isn’t about a spoilt rich girl getting caught up in a civil war on the wrong side — but as an epic, years-spanning romantic melodrama? There are some similarities. It’s the story of a courtesan-turned-actress and the four men in her orbit — a mime artiste, an aspiring actor, a wannabe crook, and a moneyed gent — in and around the theatrical scene of 1830s Paris. It’s told with a style that feels adapted from a novel — it’s got that kind of scope, with its timespan and array of characters, and depth, which feel more like literature than something conceived directly for the screen. In fact, most of the characters are based on real people, which I suppose is neither here nor there, but does add another layer of interest. Whatever makes it work is enough to keep it thoroughly compelling even with a running time over three hours.

1 Manhunter

I first became aware of Manhunter many moons ago, as a piece of footnote trivia in the history of movies: “did you know there was a Hannibal Lector film before Silence of the Lambs?” What a crazy idea! How bad it must have been to be so thoroughly overshadowed by Anthony Hopkins’ Oscar-winning version. Well, the history of the movies is rarely so straightforward; and as the immediate acclaim for Lambs has died down, and its various sequels and prequels have petered away, Manhunter has been able to reemerge somewhat. And so it should, because this is a great movie. Maybe not a great Hannibal Lector movie (Brian Cox is very good in the role, with less of the ticks and tricks that made Hopkins so memorable, but he’s not the focus of the story), but a superb “hunt for a serial killer” thriller. It’s dripping with ’80s style thanks to a director who helped define what that even meant (via his involvement with Miami Vice), while the hero cop, played by William Petersen, feels ahead of his time, struggling with the mental toll of previous cases as he tries to do the right thing and stop another killer. Such a mix of style and substance makes for an all-round fulfilling film; one that I think deserves every bit to be celebrated alongside Jonathan Demme’s more widely-acknowledged movie.

To celebrate it topping my list, Manhunter is on BBC Two tonight at 11:05pm, and on iPlayer for 30 days afterwards.*

As usual, I’d like to highlight a few other films.

Firstly, I wrote this little paragraph not sure where to use it, but here seems a good place. That’s to say: I love a minor film noir. Just a solid, competently made, usually 60-to-80-minute programmer. The highly-regarded Classics are all well and good — I appreciate their quality; why they’re ‘better’ — but, in many respects, I get more actual enjoyment (certainly in a relaxed, easy-viewing sense) from a run-of-the-mill type film. Not bad ones, you understand, just average fare. And here seems a good place to say that because 2022’s Challenge compelled me to watch a few noirs of that ilk. All of them were on the long list for my top ten, but none quite made it. I’m talking about the likes of Christmas Holiday, He Walked by Night, Killer’s Kiss, My Name Is Julia Ross, and Repeat Performance. (I also liked The Killing, but that’s in no way a “minor” noir.) Mr. Soft Touch grew on me as it went on, too, but that’s probably one to only be watched in December.

Next, here’s a recap of the 12 films that won the Arbie for my Favourite Film of the Month. Some have already been mentioned in this post, but some haven’t… In chronological order (with links to the relevant awards), they were Mass, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, West Side Story, High and Low, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, The Ghost Writer, Ambulance, Repeat Performance, Top Gun: Maverick, The Mission, Manhunter, and Les Enfants du Paradis.

Finally, something I’ve always done in this section is list every film that earned a 5-star rating during the year. In part that’s because there’s normally far too many to include in my list, even if it weren’t for the fact 4-star films usually sneak in too. But this year, there were only six films that received full marks, and all of them made the top 10%, too. Nonetheless, they were Les Enfants du Paradis, High and Low, Manhunter, Mass, Top Gun: Maverick, and West Side Story. Additionally, there were also full marks for my rewatch of the original Scream.

I’ve been creating these “50 Unseen” (as I call them for short) lists for 16 years now, and it doesn’t get any easier to choose what to include — or, rather, what to exclude.

It became a little easier in the past few years, because I was watching so many movies that the number of wide-release titles I’d missed fell, leaving room for more arthouse-y ‘hits’ — films the masses didn’t see but Film People were chatting about. But I watched very few new films this year — just 18 with a 2022 UK release date, down from 30+ in the last few years (with a high of nearly 60 in 2019). Those are small numbers compared to people who watch multiple brand-new films every week, but it had been enough to cover a significant percentage of ‘major’ releases. 18 is… well, not.

With an initial long-list of almost 150 films, I did consider increasing this list to 100 titles. It would be in keeping with the site’s theme, after all. But 100 is such a big number… I mean, history suggests I won’t manage to watch the 50 listed films within the next decade or two, so how long would 100 take? No, 50 simply feels about the ‘right size’ for a list of this type, whereas 100 feels excessive. Besides, something is always going to get left off, it’s just how far down the list that cutoff comes.

So, with the caveat that I’ve inevitably forgotten or misjudged something really noteworthy, here’s an alphabetical list of 50 films designated as being from 2022 that I haven’t yet seen. They were chosen for a variety of reasons, from box office success to critical acclaim via simple notoriety, and hopefully represent a spread of styles and genres, successes and failures.

Aftersun
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
Babylon
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Batman
Black Adam
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Blonde
Bullet Train
Crimes of the Future
Decision to Leave
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Don’t Worry Darling
Downton Abbey: A New Era
Elvis
Empire of Light
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
Halloween Ends
Jackass Forever
Jurassic World Dominion
Lightyear
Men
The Menu
Minions: The Rise of Gru
Moonfall
Morbius
Nope
The Northman
Pinocchio
Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical
RRR
She Said
Smile
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Strange World
Thor: Love and Thunder
Three Thousand Years of Longing
Turning Red
Tár
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Uncharted
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story
Wendell & Wild
The Whale
X

And that’s another year over.

I gotta say, I’m quite pleased with how quickly I wrapped it all up — I haven’t got my “best” list out by January 6th since 2017. It shouldn’t feel like a rush to get this stuff online, but when many people are sharing their lists before the end of December (or even earlier, in the case of some publications), a week or more into January feels “late”.

Anyway, I’m going to leave a couple of days to let the end of 2022 finally sink in, and then I’ll start waffling on about my targets for 2023.

* Obviously it’s not actually because of my list, just a coincidence. ^

West Side Story (2021)

Posted on May 14, 2022 by badblokebob

I remember when I first heard about this remake, I couldn’t quite understand what they were going to add by redoing it. The original is a widely-acclaimed classic — why remake it? I should’ve remembered one of the golden rules of cinema: always trust Spielberg.

If you’re somehow unfamiliar with West Side Story, it’s a reimagining of Romeo and Juliet set in 1950s New York City, with the two warring families replaced by two warring street gangs. Although the teenage love story is still present, obv., the strength here is more in its depiction of cultural clashes between different groups of immigrants — essentially, the heart of the American experience. Like most musicals, it started out on the stage before being filmed in 1961. I’m not going to dispute the classic status of that film, but it has dated — most problematically in the use of brown face to depict Puerto Rican characters, but also in its overall style, which, though shot in part on the real streets of New York, is quite stagey. Plus it made various changes to the original work, primarily in the order and therefore context of multiple musical numbers; something that Spielberg, as a fan of the stage production, sort to restore.

In short, it worked. Well, I’ve never seen the stage production, so I don’t know if this film is more faithful to it, but it feels like a superior execution of the constituent elements. Primarily, it deepens some of the characters and their motives, most especially Tony (the Romeo figure) and Chino (his ostensible love rival, though you’d be forgiven for missing that entirely in the ’61 film). In the original film, I almost felt like Tony and Maria were a subplot, only being regarded as the leads because they’re Romeo and Juliet in what we know is an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Here, they get more screen time, both together and apart, and more shades to their characters, so it actually feels like they’re the leads. That doesn’t suddenly make them the most interesting characters, but you can’t have everything.

This added depth comes from the screenplay as much as the performances, which were great in the original but are fantastic here too. The Oscar-winning turn by Ariana DeBose as Anita is indeed the standout, but Rachel Zegler is perfectly sweet as Maria, and Rita Moreno thankfully has more to offer than just a tribute cameo in the Doc role. There was a lot of talk that Mike Faist was snubbed by awards for his Riff. He’s good, but doesn’t quite equal Russ Tambyln for me. The weak link is clearly Ansel Elgort as Tony. I had wondered if people were just saying that because of the allegations against him, but he’s not ideal for the role. That said, I do think he’s adequate, and the only reason to find his presence actively distasteful is if you can’t set aside the real-life stories.

All these comparisons are inevitable, and it’s mostly in the eye of the beholder which individual aspect is better in which version; but I think it’s undeniable that Spielberg’s film looks more cinematic. It’s not just superior to the ’61 film, but a masterclass in itself: the lighting, the shot composition, the camera moves, the blocking; several songs are more excitingly staged than in the original, not least arguably the most famous, America. DoP Janusz Kaminski has been doing sterling work with Spielberg for decades now, so perhaps it’s easy to overlook just how talented they both are. In an era when mega-budgeted films increasingly look like TV shows that lean on green screen to scrape by, this is Cinema at its purest.

Perhaps that’s why, overall, I prefer this version. Sure, the original is a classic, but Spielberg’s film is ultimately more cinematic (less stage-minded), less campy (though it doesn’t entirely ditch that aspect), and more modern, but appropriately so (with race-appropriate casting instead of awkward brownface). It’s perhaps proof that any remake can be worthwhile if done for the right reasons by the right people.

West Side Story placed 7th on my list of The Best Films I Saw in 2022.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Posted on June 7, 2021 by badblokebob

The 100 Films Guide to…

If adventure has a name,
it must be Indiana Jones.

Country: USA
Language: English
Runtime: 118 minutes
BBFC: PG (cut, 1984) | 12 (uncut, 2012)
MPAA: PG

Original Release: 23rd May 1984 (USA)
UK Release: 15th June 1984
Budget: $28 million
Worldwide Gross: $333.1 million

Stars
Harrison Ford (The Conversation, Cowboys & Aliens)
Kate Capshaw (A Little Sex, Black Rain)
Ke Huy Quan (The Goonies, Finding ‘Ohana)

Director
Steven Spielberg (1941, Hook)

Screenwriters
Willard Huyck (American Graffiti, Radioland Murders)
Gloria Katz (Messiah of Evil, Howard the Duck)

Story by
George Lucas (American Graffiti, Willow)

The Story
Escaping the evil machinations of a Chinese gangster, Indiana Jones, his child sidekick Short Round, and nightclub singer Willie Scott crash-land in India, where the fate of a blighted village points them towards an ancient palace, wherein hides a secret cult practising ritual human sacrifice…

Our Hero
Boldly billed as the definitive article ‘Hero’ in some of the film’s advertising, the man in question is archaeologist and adventurer — and, indeed, archetypical movie hero — Indiana Jones.

Our Villains
The Thuggees, an ancient Indian cult still active at the remote Pankot Palace, where they’ve kidnapped and enslaved children to work in mines, and execute elaborate ceremonies of human sacrifice.

Best Supporting Character
Indy’s pint-sized Chinese sidekick, Short Round. A child sidekick sounds like a recipe for disaster, but Short Round is actually pretty fun. Spielberg liked actor Ke Huy Quan’s personality so much that he had the boy and Harrison Ford improves scenes, such as the one when Short Round accuse Indy of cheating at cards.

Memorable Quote
“We are going to die!” — Indiana Jones
(This isn’t a particularly memorable line in isolation, but it’s all in the delivery — and the sad face Ford pulls at the end.)

Memorable Scene
The film’s opening 20 minutes are an extended action sequence — more of a mini-adventure, really (there’s an entire musical number!) — that kick off the movie perfectly. Indeed, some fans even say it’s the greatest action scene in the entire series (I say it’s a contender, but the competition is stiff). I suspect Spielberg was using it to get a few things out of his system: as well as the song-and-dance, there’s a distinct James Bond vibe to the whole thing (Spielberg had put himself forward to direct a Bond film but was rebuffed).

Memorable Music
Oh, John Williams’ main theme… Okay, it’s not new — it’s from Raiders, obviously — but by God it’s good. Did you know: Williams was Oscar nominated for each of the first three Indiana Jones films, but lost every time. Raiders was beaten by Vangelis’ music for Chariots of Fire, Temple of Doom by Maurice Jarre’s score for A Passage to India, and Last Crusade by Alan Menken’s work on Disney’s The Little Mermaid. Mad, really.

Technical Wizardry
The mine cart chase is not just another fantastic action scene, but it’s also a real showcase of filmmaking tricks. It was created with a mix of footage of the star actors, stunt people, miniatures, and stop-motion animation, but it never shows off about it — it’s cut together so well and so fast that you almost don’t notice all the different techniques that have been employed to create a wholly thrilling sequence.

Letting the Side Down
Willie Scott, the nightclub singer who’s forced to tag along on Indy’s adventure, but would rather be anywhere else. She’s not a wholly terrible character, but the only time the movie really threatens to slow down is when it indulges in her screechy, squeamish side. That said, at her best, her hot-and-cold relationship with Indy generates some classic screwball-esque scenes that really help to underscore the 1935 setting.

Making of
The dinner scene, infamous for its array of disgusting food like chilled monkey brains, came about because Spielberg, Lucas, and screenwriters Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck were concerned about keeping the audience’s attention during the expository dialogue about the Thuggee cult. Ideas such as a tiger hunt were rejected before they settled on the dinner sequence. Said Katz, “Steve and George both still react like children, so their idea was to make it as gross as possible.”

Previously on…
Indy made his debut in Raiders of the Lost Ark, although Temple of Doom is actually a prequel, set a year earlier.

Next time…
The Indiana Jones trilogy was completed in 1989 with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but that was far from the end for the character. On screen, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles traced the character’s adventures in childhood across three seasons and 32 episodes, originally released between 1992 and 1996. Over a decade later, in 2008, an older Indy returned to the big screen in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and production has just begun for an adventure starring an even older Indy, with the currently-untitled fifth film due for release next year. Away from TV and cinema screens, Indy has featured in dozens of novels, comic books, computer games, and so on, including a live stunt show at Disney World that’s now been running for over 30 years.

Awards
1 Oscar (Visual Effects)
1 Oscar nomination (Original Score)
1 BAFTA (Special Visual Effects)
3 BAFTA nominations (Cinematography, Editing, Sound)
7 Saturn Award nominations (Fantasy Film, Actor (Harrison Ford), Younger Actor (Ke Huy Quan), Director, Writing, Costumes, Make-Up)

Verdict

Whereas Raiders was balanced to perfection, Temple of Doom pushes everything that worked up to maximum: it’s more playful and it’s sillier, but it’s also more gruesome and more overtly an action movie. When it’s firing on all cylinders, it’s as good as anything else in the franchise, including scenes that stylistically evoke many a genre from classic Hollywood (there’s a hefty dash of screwball comedy in some of the relationship between Indy and Willie). Even at its worst, it’s not bad — it moves like the clappers and is committed to being almost relentlessly entertaining. Perhaps it’s a little hardcore for younger fans (and even that aspect has lessened with age, with the chest-ripping special effects looking a little ropey nowadays), but otherwise, what’s there to complain about?

100 Films in a Year’s 2,000th film is…

Posted on June 6, 2020 by badblokebob

Basic maths tells us that watching 100 films in a year should mean it takes 20 years — two whole decades — to reach 2,000 films. But nowadays I watch plenty more than 100 films each year, and so after 13 years, 5 months, and 6 days of my eponymous challenge, I have viewed my 2,000th film.

And it is E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Normally this is the kind of thing I’d announce in my next monthly review, but as I made a song and dance about #1000, I thought #2000 deserved the same. It also allows room for some reminders and explanations.

Firstly, how come I’ve only just reached my 2,000th film when my reviews archive lists 2,178 feature films? Well, this is my 2,000th “film that I’ve never seen before”, as outlined on my “about” page. In the past 13-and-almost-a-half years I’ve also reviewed sundry films that I’d seen before, not to mention alternate cuts that aren’t different enough to count as ‘new’, hence why I’ve amassed 178 more reviews than new films I’ve seen.

Secondly, I’d like to point out that which film got the honour of being my 2,000th wasn’t just dumb luck. When I realised I was approaching this milestone, I set out to choose a title of enough significance to stand alongside the film I’d chosen for #1000 (Mark Cousins’s 15-hour documentary The Story of Film: An Odyssey), as well as some of the classics I’ve watched for my yearly #100s in the past — films like Citizen Kane, Lawrence of Arabia, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, City of God, and Stalker. How E.T. squares up to those is hopefully self-explanatory.

As I said, this is my 2,000th “film I’ve never seen before” — considering my age and film-viewing experience, it seems unlikely that I’ve never seen E.T., doesn’t it? Indeed, for years I struggled to decide whether I’d seen it when I was a kid or not. I certainly spent the first few years of the ’90s using TV screenings and the local video rental shop to consume a steady diet of family-friendly adventure/sci-fi/fantasy mainstream films from the preceding decade or so. I know I saw the Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Back to the Future trilogies. I remember watching both Ghostbusters, and Flash Gordon and Clash of the Titans and The NeverEnding Story and Dune and The Princess Bride and Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Hook… I also saw more grown-up-minded sci-fi like Close Encounters and 2001. I even remember watching stuff like Return to Oz and Harry and the Hendersons. Sure, there were beloved films I know I missed — films like The Dark Crystal and Gremlins and The Goonies and Labyrinth and Willow — but they’re not on the scale of E.T. I mean, none of those overtook Star Wars to be the highest-grossing film of all time!

Searching my memory, there are only two things I really remember about E.T.: (1) the “E.T. phone home” catchphrase (but everyone knows that, thanks to ubiquitous references in other media); and (2) the ride at Universal Studios. I don’t recall any moments from the film itself. If I did see it, the impression it left on me was exceptionally small, which seems implausible. So I’m forced to concede that, as unlikely as it may seem, I never saw E.T.

Having come to that conclusion a while ago, it seemed right to hold it in reserve for a special occasion — and what better time to finally watch such a noteworthy film than as my 2,000th?

E.T. will be reviewed in due course.

The Past Fortnight on TV #46

Posted on May 9, 2019 by badblokebob

I’m throwing off the usual monthly format of these TV reviews to keep up with coverage of Game of Thrones. This time: the Battle of Winterfell and its aftermath. Next time: the series finale!

Also this fortnight: new BBC fantasy sitcom Ghosts, the first (sort of) episode of Columbo, the latest editions of Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema and Thronecast, and more of the best tales from The Twilight Zone.

Game of Thrones Season 8 Episodes 3-4
Almost two years ago, just hours after Game of Thrones’ seventh season finale aired, I tweeted the following:

“Crazy(?) Game of Thrones s8 prediction: army of the dead defeated in ep2 or 3; humans return to bickering amongst themselves for 3 or 4 eps.”

Well, reader, I’ve been feeling a bit smug for the past couple of weeks, I must admit. It was quite widely known that the big battle between the living and the dead at Winterfell was coming in episode three, but it seemed like a lot of people expected it to be a victory for the Night King, with a retreat to King’s Landing in order for the final battle to happen later. I suspected differently, and I was right. That a lot of people didn’t suspect that and were consequently outraged that the Night King and his army could be defeated so ‘early’… ugh, let’s not get into that. Other than to say: this has always been a show (a) more concerned with the politicking of humans than supernatural threats, and (b) that zigs when you expect it to zag (or does neither, if your name’s Rickon). And further to that, we’re only three episodes from the end of a 73-episode story — in percentage terms, these final few episodes are kinda the epilogue; they’re about what happens after The Great War is over.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Long Night itself was… well, it was an interesting choice of episode title, firstly, considering the Long Night is already an event in Westeros’ history and is rumoured to be the title of the in-production spin-off series. (It also sent Wikipedia editors into a tizzy, but what else is new?) More pertinent controversy was found in the way the episode was shot, i.e. very dark. Too dark for a lot of people to see, in fact. Many blamed the cinematographer, but it seems to me it was more likely HBO’s compression wiping out detail in the blacks — many other viewers who watched the episode from higher-quality sources (including myself) found no problem seeing it on correctly-calibrated televisions. And, when watching a decent copy in good viewing conditions, much of it actually looked spectacular — the darkness was effective for conveying the scariness of the events being witnessed, and it was punctuated with some beautiful moments from firelight or moonlight.

Content-wise, the episode was one long battle — the longest ever in film or TV history, apparently. More isn’t always more, mind. While I didn’t find it boring or drawn-out, it also wasn’t perfect. The battle tactics left a lot to be desired, something spotted by lay-viewers, never mind the “how it should’ve been done” articles by professional military tacticians that followed the broadcast. And the way things played out, a lot more deaths were warranted. Quite a few key characters did fall, and even more faceless masses, but the way it was staged made it a miracle that so many people escaped unscathed. There are three episodes left — you need characters to fuel the story, and major characters left to be sacrificed later too — but that doesn’t mean you have to stage it so everyone effects an improbable escape. There’s a balance to be found between “it looks like they’re all about to die” and “it seems literally impossible everyone would’ve survived those last-minute odds”. But hey, this isn’t the first time the show has succumbed to this, and there was a lot else to like: lots of effective individual sequences within the battle, great callbacks to previous lines and events, some heroic sacrifices, and a perfect ending. (I’m really not going to talk about some dickheads’ reaction to that.)

So, with the presumed Big Bad defeated with three feature-length episodes still to go, next week’s The Last of the Starks was tasked with both showing the aftermath of the battle and charting a course into the series’ endgame. As it turned out, it was much more than that, with major events all of its own. This is where the reduced episode count rears its ugly head for me because, much like in season seven, I feel like they’re rushing certain events just for the sake of getting the series finished, not because it merits a picking up of the pace. There were things in episode four that felt glossed over or skipped past; things which merited a bit more time and focus. If anything, this felt like two episodes glued together — and out of the three 80-minute episodes the show has now done (the other being the season seven finale), I’ve felt that way about two of them. Why not add another 15 to 20 minutes of scenes and split this episode in two? It wouldn’t be unnecessary padding because, as I said, there was a load of stuff just raced past. I wanted to see Arya and Sansa’s immediate reaction to the news about Jon; and Tyrion’s, for that matter. I felt like there was a lot more to be done with Missandei’s storyline this episode — in my imagined two-part version, she would’ve been captured at the end of the first episode and there’d be scenes between her and Cersei before her ending. And, yeah, I wouldn’t’ve minded seeing Jon say goodbye to Ghost properly (a massive topic of discussion on social media this week).

It’s frustrating because I liked the tone of the episode overall — as I said, the return to human conflict and schemes; also a lot of the individual scenes between characters and so on. But it needs more room to breathe. It’s especially galling after the exceptionally spacious first two episodes this season, which did exactly that. They’ve said these last two seasons have fewer episodes because of the time and money needed to film the massive battle sequences, but that’s a thin excuse. It’s clear HBO would’ve given them however much money they asked for, and allow them however much time they needed — we’ve had to wait almost two years for this final season, remember. So it doesn’t seem so ridiculous to think that this episode (and, as I said, last season’s finale) could’ve had another chunk of scenes added (which would’ve ‘just’ been characters talking, really) and been split in two. I don’t care about raising the overall episode count (though that doesn’t hurt), I just care about giving these characters and storylines their due.

Well, I guess it is what is now, but it’s a shame. Hopefully the final two episodes can bring things to a good conclusion — not necessarily a joyous one, because this is Game of Thrones after all, but one that feels suitable and satisfying. Based on the show’s current track record, I’m worried I’ll approve of where it ends up but think it was too hurried getting there. It feels like there should be more than a mere two episodes left to wrap all this up.

Ghosts Series 1 Episodes 1-3
This new sitcom from the writing and performing troupe behind the original TV iteration of Horrible Histories and the Sky One fantasy comedy Yonderland is pitched as a more adult-focused series, but it’s not exactly 18-rated stuff, just a little cheekier than they might’ve done before. Anyway, it’s about a young couple who inherit a crumbling old mansion, which is home to the ghosts of various people who’ve died there down the centuries. As the couple attempt to make a life for themselves and restore the place on a budget of nothing, the ghosts cause various issues, while also having problems of their own — turns out being dead isn’t the end of your emotional woes. I wouldn’t say Ghosts is the most hilarious sitcom you’ve ever seen, but it has a definite charm. It also surprises with genuine emotion, particularly in the third episode, where we learn about the death and family of one of the more recent ghosts.

Columbo Murder by the Book
I’ve never seen Columbo before, and despite this being the first episode (er, kind of — I believe it was preceded by two other pilots) this isn’t the start of me watching it regularly. No, I watched this for one simple reason: the director was a certain Mr Steven Spielberg, in his pre-movie days when he directed a handful of TV episodes. Unsurprisingly, such an early work contains little about its style that screams “Spielberg”, but it’s still a classily staged production, with a lot more going for its visuals than the point-and-shoot style we associate with old TV. The story’s not a bad one either, about a crime novelist who murders his co-writer following the methodology from an unused plot. He thinks he’s a clever bugger who’s got away with it easily, but Columbo seems to see through him right from the start. Well, I’m not sure dumping the corpse on your own front lawn is the best way to go about claiming “it wasn’t me.”

The Twilight Zone ‘Best Of’
With still no sign of the new Twilight Zone making its way to a UK platform, here’s another selection of some of the best episodes of the original 1959-64 series, as determined by cross-referencing the opinions of IMDb voters and an article I happened to stumble across on Screen Crush. (My previous such overviews can be found here and here.)

First up, season one’s The Hitch-Hiker is another Twilight Zone tale where we can’t be sure if the protagonist is experiencing paranoia or the supernatural — undoubtedly a recurring theme for the series, almost to the point where it’s less a “theme” more just a fact of its format. Anyway, this particular reiteration is effectively unnerving, with a scenario that’s relatable — you can just imagine how it would feel if you kept seeing the same hitchhiker by the side of the road, always somehow ahead of you, always staring at you with a despondent look… it gives me chills just thinking about it. Director Alvin Ganzer gets good mileage out of that element too, creating some effective shocks. Aside from that the execution isn’t top notch though, with Rod Serling seeming to have taken too much inspiration from the original radio play (by Lucille Fletcher) in his inclusion of some over-explanatory narration. The trademark twist ending is both altogether guessable for the savvy viewer, but also doesn’t really explain a whole lot.

Two from season two next, including another of the series’ most famous episodes, Eye of the Beholder (spookily, it’s referenced in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!, which I happened to watch last night). It’s an episode with a message, but that feels a long while coming because most of the episode clues you in to where the twist is coming from thanks to how it’s shot. Anyway, it’s a commentary on appearances and the segregation of otherness; that the enforcement of “normality”, of conformity, isn’t good. Here it’s being enacted by some totalitarian state, but that’s just a firm example for the sake of analogy — society does it anyway in our real world. The twist ending underscores this point by adding that normality, or beauty, or whatever you want to call it, is all relative anyway. It’s a worthwhile message, but even at a short 25 minutes parts of the episode felt padded.

I was more taken with Nick of Time, written by the reliably superb Richard Matheson. Starring William Shatner as a superstitious honeymooner, it’s a neat little tale about a cheap fortune telling machine that might actually predict the future. As well as a genre tale about the perils such a machine might pose, it’s really about superstition and belief in fate vs. self determination — a strong moral life lesson bundled in a quirky supernatural fable. That’s Twilight Zone at its best, really. Similarly, season five’s Living Doll is another of the series’ most genuinely unnerving episodes. Telly Savalas stars as a man whose own insecurities make him paranoid and abusive towards his wife and stepdaughter. When the kid gets a new talking doll, it begins to taunt and threaten him, but only when no one else is around to hear. Again, it’s very creepy, but has a point to make beyond that.

Finally for now, it’s back to season two for The Obsolete Man. As I mentioned at the start, I’ve been using two different “best of” lists to guide my Twilight Zone viewing, and this is the biggest disagreement between them thus far (though there are 18 other episodes with bigger differences, so it’s all relative). Whereas IMDb’s consensus-voted opinion says this is the 10th best of all 156 episodes, Screen Crush only ranks it in the middle of the list, at 68th. It’s an initially simple story about the evil and cowardice of totalitarianism: in the opening scene, a man is sentenced to death for being of no use to a fascist regime. However, he has a cunning little plan up his sleeve. As a drama it’s clearly born of an era that was still directly reacting to Hitler and Stalin, but it’s all the more pertinent today as Western societies tip dangerously towards the kind of horrendous ideologies we used to fight, blithely ignorant of the lessons of history. Many Twilight Zone episodes have aged in the sense that the narratives can seem straightforward and guessable to the modern viewer (thanks to endless imitation and our exposure to more stories of this type), but the moral lessons remain depressingly relevant over half a century later.

Also watched…

Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema Disaster Movies — Another one-off edition for this excellent series, a Bank Holiday special about that old staple of Bank Holiday TV schedules. Kermode (plus co-writer Kim Newman) is as insightful as ever about the similarities and connections between these movies across the decades. I hope we get another full series, but if it’s set to continue only as occasional specials, well, that’s good too.

Thronecast Series 8 Episodes 3-4 — I don’t know if the booker got better or just got lucky, but this picked up considerably with some improved guests. Not that I disliked the people on the first two episodes, but the ones here seemed more knowledgeable and chattier. Episode 4 was particularly good. Fingers crossed the final two editions are equally worthwhile post-episode viewing.

Things to Catch Up On
This fortnight, I have mostly been missing the fourth season of Lucifer, which just returned as a Netflix exclusive. I’ve not watched season three yet, though, so that’ll be a little while off. I’ve also successfully managed to avoid any spoilers about Line of Duty’s recently-concluded series (touch wood). I’ve got a plan to binge it in a few weeks’ time (so, not in my next TV roundup, but should be the one after) — hopefully nothing will blow its secrets between now and then!

Next fortnight… at the end of Game of Thrones, you win or you die.

Ready Player One (2018)

Posted on December 23, 2018 by badblokebob

Steven Spielberg’s latest foray into the style of popular moviemaking he helped create in the ’70s and ’80s — the summer tentpole action-adventure mega-blockbuster — is an adaptation of a novel so bedded in the popular movies of the ’70s and ’80s that the whole thing is a bit too meta: it’s a movie obsessed with the brilliance of ’80s pop culture, made by one of the primary creators of that culture. At least Spielberg insisted that all references to his own work be cut, otherwise it could’ve become a mite self-congratulatory. Though it does mean that Spielberg becomes conspicuous by his absence in a Spielberg movie. Oh, it’s enough to make your head spin…

The plot, then: in the year 2045 the real world is a mess, so people spend most of their time in the virtual reality playground of the OASIS. When the game’s creator died, he left behind the first in a series of challenges, and whoever completes them will inherit the OASIS itself. (If you’re thinking, “isn’t that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but with video games?”, I guess we’ll chalk that up as just another reference. (If you’re thinking, “isn’t that Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory but with video games?”, tsk, go read more Dahl.)) Unfortunately, no one’s even been able to crack the first clue… until someone does, of course, because this is an action-adventure blockbuster, not some existential mood piece on the futility of trying to please the dead… or, you know, something. Anyway, cue lots of whizzy CG antics, with CGI that’s actually allowed to look like CGI because it’s all set in a CG environment — I bet the animators were thrilled when that brief came along, because who doesn’t love their job being made easier?

What other car is an '80s lover gonna choose?

Unfortunately, the same amount of effort seems to have gone into the screenplay. Some of this no doubt stems from the original work: the world of 2045 makes no plausible sense (check out the ghost of 82’s review for more on this theme), and there’s the least convincing romantic relationship outside of a George Lucas movie. Worst for me was something an adaptation can readily fix, the dialogue, but which here is frequently full of clunky, hand-holding exposition. This rears its head not just when establishing the film’s world and its rules, which would be bad enough, but also for relatively minor and easily-followed plot points throughout. It’s like the film has been written so even a goldfish could follow it — you don’t need to remember the start of a sentence because its end will explain the same thing again. Equally ill-considered is the movie’s apparently pro-gaming stance. Certainly, a lot of gamers seem to have embraced it as a film that understands their culture; and yet its final message is, “go spend more time in the real world, ya nerds!”

And yet, I mostly enjoyed it. It may not hang together if you engage your brain, but as a bit of fluff it’s largely a fun virtual romp. There are more Easter eggs than a Cadbury’s warehouse in January, which are fun for geeks like me to spot, and those whooshy visuals are even more entertaining when viewed in 3D, which (as Blu-ray.com’s review put it) is “a compelling demonstration of why the format is worth keeping alive.”

But, even though I liked it overall, I can’t help feeling it was a bit of a waste of Spielberg’s time. It’s not that he’s done a bad job — he’s still a god amongst men when it comes to crafting a blockbuster movie — but I also think the end result lacks a certain something that his best work contains. I don’t really know why, but for some reason I feel like he should’ve spent the time it took to make this doing something else, and left this film to be helmed by someone… less important. I mean, there are a lot of other filmmakers who could’ve done a fine job with the material, and wouldn’t have felt the need to cut all the book’s references to Spielberg’s films either.

Ready Player One is available on Sky Cinema as of this weekend.

The Post (2017)

Posted on September 17, 2018 by badblokebob

Perhaps the timeliest historical movie ever made, The Post is, in its plot, about the publication of the ‘Pentagon Papers’, a leaked report that examined decades of US government decisions about the Vietnam war; but, thematically, it’s about press oversight of a government lying to its people to cover up their own wrongdoing, including trying to forcibly stop the press from performing that role — sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Not to mention that it also concerns itself with matters like whether sources who leak classified information are whistleblowers or traitors, and attitudes towards women in positions of power in the workplace.

For various reasons related to these elements, it’s attracted a lot of comparisons and accusations. For example, some have criticised it for being about a case in the ’70s rather than one in the present day. I guess allegory is tricky for some people to understand… Or, alternatively, that any such parallels were accidental, as if experienced director Steven Spielberg wasn’t aware of them. I think the film went from script to screen in just nine months for a reason…

Then there’s the inevitable comparison to Spotlight, another recent newspaper journalism-themed true-story movie, and a Best Picture winner to boot. Those who thought Spotlight was exceptional tend to think The Post doesn’t measure up. Personally, I thought Spotlight was good, but I didn’t love it as much as some others. I would hesitate to say The Post is better than it, but I would be equally as hesitant to say it isn’t as good. Arguably Spotlight is a better movie about journalism, focusing as it does on the everyday legwork and procedure that go into putting together a major story, whereas The Post has more on its mind than just the facts of how reporting works. There are also many comparisons to All the President’s Men, but I’ve still not seen that so can’t comment fairly (there is this rather excellent trivia/connection, though).

Relatedly, some people think this film should’ve been about the New York Times, as they were the paper that first broke the Pentagon Papers story and initiated the legal case it all led to (and, later, they were the only paper awarded a Pulitzer Prize for the publication). There’s certainly an argument for that being the real story, but, conversely, that would be to assume the focus of this movie is solely the publication of the Pentagon Papers. In fact, The Post is the story of Katharine Graham and the Washington Post, and how the Pentagon Papers changed them both. It’s the story of an underdog-like local paper making an (inter)national mark by doing something at odds with a legal ruling — the fact they chose to back-up the Times by publishing too (even if the action was instigated as much by friendly rivalry/jealousy as it was by “freedom of the press” ethics) is an important point in itself.

It’s also the story of a woman — a business owner at a time when women didn’t hold such roles; and not a woman who confidently elbowed her way in either, but one who found this position thrust upon her — going from meek and overpowered to confident in her own mind and running the show. I’ve read reviews that think this latter element is somehow forced on the film, as if the makers didn’t notice it until halfway through and only decided to draw it out when they reached a shot near the end where Streep walks past a crowd of other women with admiring expressions. That’s not the case, obviously — that’s simply not how movies are made — and that arc is clearly in mind from the very first scene where we meet Graham. Meryl Streep is excellent in the role, which is easily the film’s most fully-realised character. Everyone else is certain of themselves and what they believe is the right thing to do, but over the course of the film she goes from quiet, uncertain, and reliant on her trusted advisor, to believing in her own instincts and standing up for them. It’s a clearly-charted but believable journey.

Nonetheless, it’s somewhat hard to divorce The Post from the context of when it was made — the way it reflects the current climate in American politics and the news coverage thereof. But then, is that a problem? Are works of art not as much about the time in which they were made as the time in which they’re set? I guess that’s a whole other debate. That said, it carries a message that would be important in any era, about the need for reasoned, responsible, independent oversight of those who govern us.

The Post is available on Amazon Prime Video UK from today.

Drew: The Man Behind the Poster (2013)

Posted on May 8, 2018 by badblokebob

2017 #127
Erik Sharkey | 97 mins | streaming (HD) | 16:9 | USA / English

If you don’t know the name Drew Struzan, there’s a fair chance you know his work: he’s the poster artist behind the likes of the Back to the Future trilogy, almost everything Indiana Jones related, many iconic Star Wars posters (including the primary art for the prequel trilogy), and so many more. Even when not painted by Drew himself, his style has been a major influence on blockbuster posters across the board, even in today’s era of Photoshopped collages. Nonetheless, you may wonder if the topic can really support a feature-length documentary. How much is there to say? Turns out, plenty.

It starts out, as the title might suggest, in the form of a biography — rather than just looking at Struzan’s famous posters, it talks about his days as a struggling artist; literally starving, choosing to spend his limited money on paint rather than food. Once it reaches his move into film posters it goes more topically, covering a series at a time. He started on B-movies, which led to doing a poster for Star Wars’ 1978 re-release, which led to Indiana Jones, which was his big breakthrough: his poster for Temple of Doom established him as the Indy artist, and he went on to do video covers, book covers, and the rest.

Despite the biographical start, the film is really an appreciation, if that were a genre, but a well-deserved one. There are stories about how the posters were commissioned, or designed, or painted, or whatever, but also about their impact, effect, and significance, and what it’s like for filmmakers to work with Struzan. In that regard the list of interviewees is impressive, including the likes of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Frank Darabont, Guillermo del Toro, and more. Their presence speaks not only to the awe-inspiring people Struzan has done posters for, but also how much they admire him. As Spielberg says, he was trying to make a movie that would live up to the art they’d later commission from Drew.

Movie posters are just advertisements, really; certainly in the minds of executives — I mean, why else are the Marvel ones overloaded with every possible character and location featured in the movie? But to the public they’re more than that. Michael J. Fox makes the point very well right at the start of this film: the poster is the first part of the story; it’s where the film begins for the audience. There’s definite truth to that — the ad creates an expectation, and the resultant film has to match it. With Struzan’s work, the bar was never set higher.

Fandango (1985)

Posted on November 15, 2017 by badblokebob

In this coming-of-age comedy drama, pitched as “celebrating the privilege of youth”, a group of college buddies — two of whom are about to be drafted into Vietnam — go on a final road trip to celebrate their graduation and defer the impending seriousness of adulthood.

Fandango began life as a student short made by writer-director Kevin Reynolds that just featured the skydiving sequence. That was seen by, of all people, Steven Spielberg, who liked it enough that he gave Reynolds the money to develop a feature film around the idea. But when he saw the finished result, Spielberg distanced himself from it — he even had his name taken off the credits. No idea why — it’s a super movie. If we’re being picky then its structure is a little episodic, but the scrapes the gang get into are linked by arcs that chart their characters’ development, which is where the film has its heart. It’s also resplendent with nice little touches, like well-composed shots (for a first timer, Reynolds clearly knew what he was doing), poignant character moments, and some occasionally profound dialogue, too. A sequence that sees the guys fighting with fireworks in a graveyard, foreshadowing the war several of them are about to head off to, is a particular standout.

Kevin Costner, tearing through Texas as a free-spirited college flunk-out wearing one-armed sunglasses, an increasingly grubby tailcoat, and a shit-eating grin, has never seemed cooler. That almost masks the fact that it’s also a very good performance, actually. It might’ve been forgotten under some of the blockbusters he did, and some of the crap in more recent years, but the guy can act. The lead cast surrounding him is equally as likeable — it genuinely feels like hanging out with a ragtag gang of college mates on their last hurrah. The final act stretches credibility pretty darn thin with what those guys are able to pull off, but it’s nonetheless a suitably emotive finale.

I’d never even heard of Fandango until the ghost of 82 recommended it to me last year, which is possibly the end result of Spielberg having disowned it. The history of cinema is no doubt littered with these little gems that, for whatever reason, only resonated with some people at the time. One of the real benefits of the blogging era is that we can recommend them on.

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Tag Archives: Steven Spielberg

January’s Failures

The Best of 2022

The Eleven Best Films I Watched for the First Time in 2022

11

Mona Lisa

10

Prey

9

Ambulance

8

The Ghost Writer

7

West Side Story

6

High and Low

5

Mass

4

Encanto

3

Top Gun: Maverick

2

Les Enfants du Paradis

1

Manhunter