Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. I just loved this. Tarantino captures the era so well. Brad Pitt delivers a superb performance and Leo is excellent as usual. I think it does help if, like me, you lived through this period, it enables you to recognise how bang on this movie gets it right. I remember Lancer very well even though I have never seen it since the original run.
I read that Tarantino is making a TV series of Bounty Law, the fictional TV series portrayed in the movie.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
The Graduate
that Mrs Robinson was one intimidating seductress!
Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Buck Henry, Mike Nichols, Simon and Garfunkle, even Mr Roper from Threes Company is in this one!
That's some very funny people responsible for this, so even though it doesn't look like a comedy, the most awkward or disturbing scenes lead to gutbustingly funny payoffs, very cathartic when those laffs come.
The premise is correct: leaving university and being stuck in the real world sucked.
Yesterday. Another Richard Curtis scripted movie which is pretty good, relating a world where The Beatles never existed through a worldwide electricity burnout which changes history. One musician remembers the songs and becomes famous. Robert Carlisle portrays a stunningly convincing John Lennon. Worth watching but I don’t think a repeated viewing will be on the cards.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
This is another British classic I've watched for the first time. For those who haven't seen it Brief Encounter is about a married woman with children who falls in love with another man. In some ways it's about big feelings meeting ordinary life. I think it's a well-made and smart movie that's also emotional. A love drama. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think I'll see it again.
This was an East German/Polish production based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem, who wrote Solaris- a highly regarded Russian movie which was much later remade in the USA starring George Clooney (the remake is ok, but I prefer the original). The book was fascinating.
Unfortunately, the version I watched was cut, missing key scenes, and poorly dubbed, to the point of incoherence. I can't recommend this and can only hope to see the full version one day.
German members- the original title was Der Schweigende Stern (The Silent Star) which apparently is far better than what I got to see.
We watched SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS. This was everything that I was hoping that the first film would be.
I had almost no interest in Sherlock Holmes when I went to see A Game of Shadows in the cinema when it came out, but I really enjoyed that film. I think Jared Harris' performance as Moriarty was one of the things I really liked about it. It felt at the time that he should be a Bond villain. Since seeing that film I went on to watch all of the Basil Rathbone Holmes films, the Jeremy Brett and Benedict Cumberbatch TV series and read all of the Conan Doyle books. That's quite an impact for one film to make!
a 1965 Spanish/Italian ultra low budget spy thriller starring Luis Dávila as Agent S 077 Mike Murphy (Marc Mato in the undubbed version)
available streaming here on Shout! Factory TV's website.
Mike Murphy is sent to Tangiers to recover stolen plans for a secret weapon that will bring world peace, on my terms, ha hoo haha.
He gets in nasty fistfights every five minutes or so. As the "plot" develops, he is drawn into the schemes of two competing sexy enemy spies who are also after the plans (José Greci and Perla Cristal). He gets to slap both of these ladies around with extra slappy sound effects while they each ooh and ahh as they are hit, before making love.
He himself, our hero, tortures one of the bad guys with a blowtorch to the foot, then later witnesses one of the lady spies torture another man by tightening a loop of wire through his belly.
All the various villains have met Murphy before (so he must have lots of Unseen Missions), and all brag about being double agents for sale to the highest bidder. This is actually a philosophical theme developed through the plot!
One villain says something to the effect of there being no point working for less than two employers at the same time. Whereas our hero repeatedly states he is motivated by "Loyalty", while the rest of the characters in his world mock him for his naivete.
Some online commentary claims Lazenby has a cameo in this film, but I didn't notice him, and the 1965 timeline doesn't make sense.
Probably mixing it up with some other lowbudget eurospy cash-in, which is understandable, because...
...I'm real confused about Agent 077. There seem to have been at least five Italian made 077 films made almost all round the same time. see wikipedia.
Three Italian films starring Ken Clark as Agent 077 Dick Malloy. I guess these are the official series and the others the near simultanous ripoffs?
Then the film I saw, Espionage in Tangier, about Agent 077 Mike Murphy/Marc Mato,
and also Espionage in Lisbon, a Spanish/Italian/French film starring Brett Halsey as Agent 077 George Farrell
Could anybody in the Mediterranean make a Agent 077 adventure in 1965 and it was all legal just so long as they didn't accidentally call it 007?
The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1934
Hitchcock's first spy film, and Peter Lorre's first English language film.
Lorre plays the big baddy and steals every scene he's in.
A young family vacationing in the Alps witness the murder of a man they've just met, who secretly slips the wife a note: he's a spy, investigating a planned assassination in London. The young daughter is kidnapped before the parents can contact the authorities, and they have to rescue their daughter and stop the assassination on their own.
Involves a trip to the dentist, a scene at a cult temple, a big scene at the Royal Albert Hall, and a prolonged bloody police siege in a dense neighbourhood in London. Dozens of police are mowed down in the street, while a huge mob of looky-loos crowds in behind for a better view.
The husband (Leslie Banks) does most of the investigating, and gets himself captured, while it is the wife (Edna Best) who does the heroic deeds and twice saves the day before the film ends.
At the film's start, we first see the wife in a rifle shooting competition, but losing to another man because her daughter distracted her. That same man later turns out to be the assassin.
in the Royal Albert Hall sequence...
...she correctly spots the target of the assassination attempt, then in the vast space spots the assassin's rifle and spoils his shot with a well timed scream
you see the symmetry?
(incidentally, I think the end of the Manchurian Candidate owes something to this scene)
Then at the end of the siege sequence, the daughter escapes her captors, and is spotted trying to climb a steep roof high above the street, while the assassin follows close behind...
...the police snipers are afraid to take the shot for fear of hitting the child, so the wife grabs one of their rifles and plugs the assassin with one bullet. The films closes with her killing the same man she lost the competition to in the opening scene, and this time she was not distracted by the presence of her daughter!!!
I've seen some feminist critiques of Hitchcock, particularly over Vertigo.
But in this one it is the Hitchcock blonde does all the heroics and saves the day!
A mid-70s Britcom, with stalwarts Terry-Thomas and Leslie Phillips.
It's the sort of post-Brexit film that pops up on new knackered old channels like Talking Pictures.
It exerts a grim fascination though I've seen worse...
The stars seem to play two salesmen of the kind who get to travel abroad and bed young lovelies half their age by dint of having a car, a blazer and the ability to pay their way.
Phillips - it is a given - will bed all the women thrown his way by the company on his travels, it is odd but then not dissimilar to a plot line in Love, Actually when young Kris Marshall unexpectedly gets to bed all the women thrown at him while abroad. Difference is, perhaps, in the earlier film it's almost 'expected' while in Curtis' film the joke is that it goes against all expectations. It's all in the nuance.
In one scene the Aussie lady gets in the shower and we from the front see her knockers (it's the lingo for the times) in all their bouncy, unabashed glory but of course, really how is that worse than any modern day porn? It isn't, it's quite wholesome. The fact that Phillips is urged to soap her down - her back, anyway - while being bashful and at arms length means it's actually social distancing, so quite in vogue.
Amazingly, Phillips is still going in his 90s, last was heard he married his East European carer - if the cynics thought it would lead to him being knocked off his perch in a year while she copped the money, well, seems it gave him a new lease of life!
The same year as Roger Moore dodged a helicopter in his white Lotus in The Spy Who Loved Me, Clint Eastwood starred in this low-budget romp about a cop who finds he's being fitted up by his own side AND the mob.
In some ways it anticipates Midnight Run, released just over a decade later, though it's not as funny nor meant to be, and less long-winded I guess.
It turns into a bit of a road film, albeit not a very long road, being set in Arizona and going from one state to another. Eastwood - not as different an actor to Moore as you might think, both have a limited if effective range - is joined by his then partner Sandra Locke whom he has to turn in to bear witness, of course she knows too much.
What is interesting is that Clint plays a cop who is not the sharpest tool and she - a prostitute - has to fill him in on what is going on and how he is being set up. There's some very good dialogue here. 'Welcome to the ranks of the disenchanted!'
It isn't quite as right on as it seems, he doesn't seem too grateful to her.
It's disturbing how straightforward it is that of course cops are bent, I guess it's the same here now but not openly acknowledged as a narrative by the press, same with social services. You have to read between the lines - see Haringey Council and paedophile abuse in today's press - basically a lot of local authorities appear complicit in various paedophile rings but all family court judges have to express 'incomprehension' at all this - but I digress!
The action in The Gauntlet becomes more incredible as it goes on for the kind of film it is, and while it fits the imperialistic idea of the film - the Enemy shooting at our heroes from on high, never from on the ground where they might get a decent shot - it is rather implausible.
The chopper/chopper chase is good fun but a bit implausible.
The mega OTT shoot outs echo the finale of Bonnie and Clyde, as if to make a point.
That said, our hero is no member of the counterculture, as an encounter with a bunch of hippies/hells angels reveals.
I first saw this film as a scout - they showed it in the early 80s on a small portable colour TV - a treat! Looking back, it does seem 'inappropriate' for 11 year olds, lots of raunchy talk and so on. I lobbied for a Bond film to be shown - Live and Let Die to be precise - but I'm not sure it was available on video back then.
A lavish and outlandish fantasy that delighted me a lot more than I went in expecting it to. The stunning visuals and effects are all the more impressive considering they were made in the pre-digital age, and I suspect that the film might not be as charming were it made with all the modern CGI effects possible today.
I am not well versed in the work of Terry Gilliam apart from his Monty Python contributions, but my experience with Baron Munchausen will certainly encourage me to watch more of his films.
First up: Gemini Man, with Will Smith as an assassin and his clone. For about the first hour I wondered what all the bad reviews were about: it seemed a nifty spy thriller with a sci-fi premise. Then, once Will meets his clone and starts talking to him it becomes a weird family melodrama. Clive Owen is also aboard as the villain, doing his godawful attempt at an American accent. There are so many great actors from the UK (and Australia as well) who can do flawless U.S. accents; Owen typically tries to mix up Brooklyn and Chicago accents and then mumble throughout.
Next: Parasite, the South Korean film that surprised everyone by winning the Best Picture Oscar. What surprised me by this is that it's actually a dark comedy that skewers class relations. Is it the Best Picture? Who knows? Who cares? I enjoyed it.
I am not well versed in the work of Terry Gilliam apart from his Monty Python contributions, but my experience with Baron Munchausen will certainly encourage me to watch more of his films.
Be sure to watch Brazil,
my personal subjective opinion: it might just be the finest motion picture ever filmed!
Also be sure to watch The Fisher King, with Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges. its the one that came in between. 12 Monkeys is going to mean something different in these coviddy times. Interesting context to watch it in. No further spoilers on that one!
He's released several films over the last couple decades I didn't even realise had come out.
The most recent one I saw starred Christopher Waltz (he's one of ours) as a sort of mathematician who has delved too deep.
But definitely watch those other three first, especially Brazil.
This Charles Dickens novel was filmed by David Lean in 1946. I'm trying to watch some British cinema classics during the Corona lockdown, but I have to admit I was unsure about this one. I expected a slow-moving costume drama with few qualities other than being "worthy". Thankfully that didn't happen. Great Expectations isn't as epic as most David Lean movies, but it's still a great movie. The story and characters is interesting and captivating, and the story has momentum all the time. Lean also shot this in a exciting and stylised way that I suspect was inspired by German cinema in the 1920's. This is a classic that's classic for good reason.
A very moving film, with a superb supporting cast. It really is Dickensian, unlike a good many other adaptations. Edit: I mean Great Expectations, not Lethal Weapon, I took so long writing this another review got in between!
The 'what have I done?' line by Miss Haversham is echoed by Alec Guinness - also seen in this film - in Lean's Bridge Over The River Kwai.
The film isn't perfect, but it feels it. I mean, Mills is really too old to be playing Pip in his 20s. Valerie Hobson is nothing like the young Estella - couldn't they have got Vivien Leigh? She would have been a better match for the young actress - although that would have been ironic as both were involved with Laurence Olivier.
The movie is more a gothic melodrama and mystery rather than a tale of social climbing, snobbery, sexual jealousy and misplaced ambition that the book was (though I've not really read it). Mills is too mature and dignified to look like he could be tormented by the wiles of the grown-up Estella.
None of that stops the film being hugely entertaining, impressive and moving.
The Woman in Black
Talking of gothic melodrama, I caught this recent film for the first time on the Horror channel, it went out under the Hammer name but I'm not sure what happened with that. It is worthy of Hammer, though lacking the touch of the bizarre or sex that Hammer had.
It's about a young widower, a solicitor, whose grieving means he might get the push from his law firm, so he must make good on his new assignment in another part of the country, a long train ride away.
This really did make the hairs on my neck stand up - maybe I'm more susceptible in lockdown, I don't know. Proper frights. But they're not 'funny' frights. Daniel Radcliffe is v good as the lead, can't fault his acting in this.
I expected another story, thinking it was The Woman in White! Perhaps that helped wrong foot me.
Only the closing scene didn't quite make sense in view of what had come before; I would have opted for something different.
PS I agree with Gymkata about the Lethal Weapon series. The third one really palled and the main problem is you have too much baggage by that point, plus you know that neither Riggs nor Murtaph will ever die, nor Joe Pesci, so it becomes a bit sitcom. The villain in it was no great shakes, nothing compared to Joss Ackland.
Lethal Weapon 2, like so many films that year - Batman, Indy and Last Crusade - had many scenes that could have been from Bond films, while License to Kill just wasn't Bond enough, ironically.
This film isn't a British classic, but some of you know it's of special interest to Bond fans. One of the two producers is Cubby Broccoli , the director is Terrance Young, Richard Maibaum wrote the script, the film was shot by Ted Moore and many of the stunts were done by Bob Simmons.
The Red Beret is about the British Parachute Regiment during WWII, a unit Terrance Young actually served in. This doesn't mean the fim is realistic. The British usually hit and the Germans usually miss. Paras pull the pins of hand grenades with their teeth and when they hit their target (they always do) the grenades seem to hold gallons of petrol.
Land mines also seem to be filled to the brim with petrol when they clear a mine field with a bazooka (as a former combat engineer I can only say … 8-) )
But so what if this isn't Saving Private Ryan? The Red Beret was entertaining enough and offers a glimps of the origns of the James Bond series. Speaking of: In a scene an officer enters his office and tosses his hat across the room where it lands on a hat rack :007)
Is The Red Beret available for viewing online anywhere? I haven't come across it before, and I've always been keen to watch it. Letterboxd just has a link to the DVD on Amazon.
This Charles Dickens novel was filmed by David Lean in 1946. I'm trying to watch some British cinema classics during the Corona lockdown, but I have to admit I was unsure about this one. I expected a slow-moving costume drama with few qualities other than being "worthy". Thankfully that didn't happen. Great Expectations isn't as epic as most David Lean movies, but it's still a great movie. The story and characters is interesting and captivating, and the story has momentum all the time. Lean also shot this in a exciting and stylised way that I suspect was inspired by German cinema in the 1920's. This is a classic that's classic for good reason.
I watched the 1974 version this week. Can't say I was impressed. I watched it as it has James Mason in (as Magwitch) and I am on a JM binge at the moment.
BIG TAMWrexham, North Wales, UK.Posts: 773MI6 Agent
A mid-70s Britcom, with stalwarts Terry-Thomas and Leslie Phillips.
It's the sort of post-Brexit film that pops up on new knackered old channels like Talking Pictures.
It exerts a grim fascination though I've seen worse...
The stars seem to play two salesmen of the kind who get to travel abroad and bed young lovelies half their age by dint of having a car, a blazer and the ability to pay their way.
Phillips - it is a given - will bed all the women thrown his way by the company on his travels, it is odd but then not dissimilar to a plot line in Love, Actually when young Kris Marshall unexpectedly gets to bed all the women thrown at him while abroad. Difference is, perhaps, in the earlier film it's almost 'expected' while in Curtis' film the joke is that it goes against all expectations. It's all in the nuance.
In one scene the Aussie lady gets in the shower and we from the front see her knockers (it's the lingo for the times) in all their bouncy, unabashed glory but of course, really how is that worse than any modern day porn? It isn't, it's quite wholesome. The fact that Phillips is urged to soap her down - her back, anyway - while being bashful and at arms length means it's actually social distancing, so quite in vogue.
Amazingly, Phillips is still going in his 90s, last was heard he married his East European carer - if the cynics thought it would lead to him being knocked off his perch in a year while she copped the money, well, seems it gave him a new lease of life!
A nice wry review of a film from a bygone age. Phillips did alright for himself in real life. He was married to Angela Scoular (Ruby Bartlett in OHMSS). She also appeared in 1967 farce, CASINO ROYALE as Buttercup.
I've recently watched a few films by Peter Bogdanovich, who is a director that I've known about for a long time but whose works I've never checked out. I knew him primarily as an interviewee on dozens of DVD special features that I've watched, usually talking about the works of great directors like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles. Having now watched several of his films I see that he has clearly learnt a good deal from his studies of those great artists.
The film that I watched today was Paper Moon, and it is probably my favourite Bogdanovich film so far. It's structured like a road movie, centered around a pair of characters played by father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O'Neal. Their journey is based around Ryan O'Neal delivering the recently orphaned Tatum to the girl's next-of-kin, and the pair scamming a few dollars along the way. Their relationship develops along the way, although they do attempt one scam too many and find themselves pursued by a lawman who bears more than a passing resemblance to our friend Higgins.
The film is a charming and witty comedy-drama, beautifully photographed in black-and-white. As I mentioned before, Paper Moon is probably my favourite Bogdanovich film that I have seen, although the best film of the bunch is probably The Last Picture Show.
Comments
I read that Tarantino is making a TV series of Bounty Law, the fictional TV series portrayed in the movie.
that Mrs Robinson was one intimidating seductress!
Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Buck Henry, Mike Nichols, Simon and Garfunkle, even Mr Roper from Threes Company is in this one!
That's some very funny people responsible for this, so even though it doesn't look like a comedy, the most awkward or disturbing scenes lead to gutbustingly funny payoffs, very cathartic when those laffs come.
The premise is correct: leaving university and being stuck in the real world sucked.
Escape from P.O.W. camp film with Bernard Lee and Richard Attenborough. Different angle to this type of film.
This is another British classic I've watched for the first time. For those who haven't seen it Brief Encounter is about a married woman with children who falls in love with another man. In some ways it's about big feelings meeting ordinary life. I think it's a well-made and smart movie that's also emotional. A love drama. I'm glad I saw it, but I don't think I'll see it again.
This was an East German/Polish production based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem, who wrote Solaris- a highly regarded Russian movie which was much later remade in the USA starring George Clooney (the remake is ok, but I prefer the original). The book was fascinating.
Unfortunately, the version I watched was cut, missing key scenes, and poorly dubbed, to the point of incoherence. I can't recommend this and can only hope to see the full version one day.
German members- the original title was Der Schweigende Stern (The Silent Star) which apparently is far better than what I got to see.
With Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum. Also Yaphet Kotto (Mr. Big in LALD) A group of card players lynch a cheating player and face the consequences.
I had almost no interest in Sherlock Holmes when I went to see A Game of Shadows in the cinema when it came out, but I really enjoyed that film. I think Jared Harris' performance as Moriarty was one of the things I really liked about it. It felt at the time that he should be a Bond villain. Since seeing that film I went on to watch all of the Basil Rathbone Holmes films, the Jeremy Brett and Benedict Cumberbatch TV series and read all of the Conan Doyle books. That's quite an impact for one film to make!
a 1965 Spanish/Italian ultra low budget spy thriller starring Luis Dávila as Agent S 077 Mike Murphy (Marc Mato in the undubbed version)
available streaming here on Shout! Factory TV's website.
Mike Murphy is sent to Tangiers to recover stolen plans for a secret weapon that will bring world peace, on my terms, ha hoo haha.
He gets in nasty fistfights every five minutes or so. As the "plot" develops, he is drawn into the schemes of two competing sexy enemy spies who are also after the plans (José Greci and Perla Cristal). He gets to slap both of these ladies around with extra slappy sound effects while they each ooh and ahh as they are hit, before making love.
He himself, our hero, tortures one of the bad guys with a blowtorch to the foot, then later witnesses one of the lady spies torture another man by tightening a loop of wire through his belly.
All the various villains have met Murphy before (so he must have lots of Unseen Missions), and all brag about being double agents for sale to the highest bidder. This is actually a philosophical theme developed through the plot!
One villain says something to the effect of there being no point working for less than two employers at the same time. Whereas our hero repeatedly states he is motivated by "Loyalty", while the rest of the characters in his world mock him for his naivete.
Some online commentary claims Lazenby has a cameo in this film, but I didn't notice him, and the 1965 timeline doesn't make sense.
Probably mixing it up with some other lowbudget eurospy cash-in, which is understandable, because...
...I'm real confused about Agent 077. There seem to have been at least five Italian made 077 films made almost all round the same time. see wikipedia.
Three Italian films starring Ken Clark as Agent 077 Dick Malloy. I guess these are the official series and the others the near simultanous ripoffs?
Then the film I saw, Espionage in Tangier, about Agent 077 Mike Murphy/Marc Mato,
and also Espionage in Lisbon, a Spanish/Italian/French film starring Brett Halsey as Agent 077 George Farrell
Could anybody in the Mediterranean make a Agent 077 adventure in 1965 and it was all legal just so long as they didn't accidentally call it 007?
Hitchcock's first spy film, and Peter Lorre's first English language film.
Lorre plays the big baddy and steals every scene he's in.
A young family vacationing in the Alps witness the murder of a man they've just met, who secretly slips the wife a note: he's a spy, investigating a planned assassination in London. The young daughter is kidnapped before the parents can contact the authorities, and they have to rescue their daughter and stop the assassination on their own.
Involves a trip to the dentist, a scene at a cult temple, a big scene at the Royal Albert Hall, and a prolonged bloody police siege in a dense neighbourhood in London. Dozens of police are mowed down in the street, while a huge mob of looky-loos crowds in behind for a better view.
The husband (Leslie Banks) does most of the investigating, and gets himself captured, while it is the wife (Edna Best) who does the heroic deeds and twice saves the day before the film ends.
At the film's start, we first see the wife in a rifle shooting competition, but losing to another man because her daughter distracted her. That same man later turns out to be the assassin.
in the Royal Albert Hall sequence...
(incidentally, I think the end of the Manchurian Candidate owes something to this scene)
Then at the end of the siege sequence, the daughter escapes her captors, and is spotted trying to climb a steep roof high above the street, while the assassin follows close behind...
But in this one it is the Hitchcock blonde does all the heroics and saves the day!
I watched that the other day too. I found it very watchable. Jared Harris would be excellent in a Bond film in some form or other.
Just watched London Has Fallen Another enjoyable romp.
A mid-70s Britcom, with stalwarts Terry-Thomas and Leslie Phillips.
It's the sort of post-Brexit film that pops up on new knackered old channels like Talking Pictures.
It exerts a grim fascination though I've seen worse...
The stars seem to play two salesmen of the kind who get to travel abroad and bed young lovelies half their age by dint of having a car, a blazer and the ability to pay their way.
Phillips - it is a given - will bed all the women thrown his way by the company on his travels, it is odd but then not dissimilar to a plot line in Love, Actually when young Kris Marshall unexpectedly gets to bed all the women thrown at him while abroad. Difference is, perhaps, in the earlier film it's almost 'expected' while in Curtis' film the joke is that it goes against all expectations. It's all in the nuance.
In one scene the Aussie lady gets in the shower and we from the front see her knockers (it's the lingo for the times) in all their bouncy, unabashed glory but of course, really how is that worse than any modern day porn? It isn't, it's quite wholesome. The fact that Phillips is urged to soap her down - her back, anyway - while being bashful and at arms length means it's actually social distancing, so quite in vogue.
Amazingly, Phillips is still going in his 90s, last was heard he married his East European carer - if the cynics thought it would lead to him being knocked off his perch in a year while she copped the money, well, seems it gave him a new lease of life!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The same year as Roger Moore dodged a helicopter in his white Lotus in The Spy Who Loved Me, Clint Eastwood starred in this low-budget romp about a cop who finds he's being fitted up by his own side AND the mob.
In some ways it anticipates Midnight Run, released just over a decade later, though it's not as funny nor meant to be, and less long-winded I guess.
It turns into a bit of a road film, albeit not a very long road, being set in Arizona and going from one state to another. Eastwood - not as different an actor to Moore as you might think, both have a limited if effective range - is joined by his then partner Sandra Locke whom he has to turn in to bear witness, of course she knows too much.
What is interesting is that Clint plays a cop who is not the sharpest tool and she - a prostitute - has to fill him in on what is going on and how he is being set up. There's some very good dialogue here. 'Welcome to the ranks of the disenchanted!'
It isn't quite as right on as it seems, he doesn't seem too grateful to her.
It's disturbing how straightforward it is that of course cops are bent, I guess it's the same here now but not openly acknowledged as a narrative by the press, same with social services. You have to read between the lines - see Haringey Council and paedophile abuse in today's press - basically a lot of local authorities appear complicit in various paedophile rings but all family court judges have to express 'incomprehension' at all this - but I digress!
The action in The Gauntlet becomes more incredible as it goes on for the kind of film it is, and while it fits the imperialistic idea of the film - the Enemy shooting at our heroes from on high, never from on the ground where they might get a decent shot - it is rather implausible.
The chopper/chopper chase is good fun but a bit implausible.
The mega OTT shoot outs echo the finale of Bonnie and Clyde, as if to make a point.
That said, our hero is no member of the counterculture, as an encounter with a bunch of hippies/hells angels reveals.
I first saw this film as a scout - they showed it in the early 80s on a small portable colour TV - a treat! Looking back, it does seem 'inappropriate' for 11 year olds, lots of raunchy talk and so on. I lobbied for a Bond film to be shown - Live and Let Die to be precise - but I'm not sure it was available on video back then.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
A lavish and outlandish fantasy that delighted me a lot more than I went in expecting it to. The stunning visuals and effects are all the more impressive considering they were made in the pre-digital age, and I suspect that the film might not be as charming were it made with all the modern CGI effects possible today.
I am not well versed in the work of Terry Gilliam apart from his Monty Python contributions, but my experience with Baron Munchausen will certainly encourage me to watch more of his films.
Next: Parasite, the South Korean film that surprised everyone by winning the Best Picture Oscar. What surprised me by this is that it's actually a dark comedy that skewers class relations. Is it the Best Picture? Who knows? Who cares? I enjoyed it.
my personal subjective opinion: it might just be the finest motion picture ever filmed!
12 Monkeys is going to mean something different in these coviddy times. Interesting context to watch it in. No further spoilers on that one!
He's released several films over the last couple decades I didn't even realise had come out.
The most recent one I saw starred Christopher Waltz (he's one of ours) as a sort of mathematician who has delved too deep.
But definitely watch those other three first, especially Brazil.
This Charles Dickens novel was filmed by David Lean in 1946. I'm trying to watch some British cinema classics during the Corona lockdown, but I have to admit I was unsure about this one. I expected a slow-moving costume drama with few qualities other than being "worthy". Thankfully that didn't happen. Great Expectations isn't as epic as most David Lean movies, but it's still a great movie. The story and characters is interesting and captivating, and the story has momentum all the time. Lean also shot this in a exciting and stylised way that I suspect was inspired by German cinema in the 1920's. This is a classic that's classic for good reason.
The 'what have I done?' line by Miss Haversham is echoed by Alec Guinness - also seen in this film - in Lean's Bridge Over The River Kwai.
The film isn't perfect, but it feels it. I mean, Mills is really too old to be playing Pip in his 20s. Valerie Hobson is nothing like the young Estella - couldn't they have got Vivien Leigh? She would have been a better match for the young actress - although that would have been ironic as both were involved with Laurence Olivier.
The movie is more a gothic melodrama and mystery rather than a tale of social climbing, snobbery, sexual jealousy and misplaced ambition that the book was (though I've not really read it). Mills is too mature and dignified to look like he could be tormented by the wiles of the grown-up Estella.
None of that stops the film being hugely entertaining, impressive and moving.
The Woman in Black
Talking of gothic melodrama, I caught this recent film for the first time on the Horror channel, it went out under the Hammer name but I'm not sure what happened with that. It is worthy of Hammer, though lacking the touch of the bizarre or sex that Hammer had.
It's about a young widower, a solicitor, whose grieving means he might get the push from his law firm, so he must make good on his new assignment in another part of the country, a long train ride away.
This really did make the hairs on my neck stand up - maybe I'm more susceptible in lockdown, I don't know. Proper frights. But they're not 'funny' frights. Daniel Radcliffe is v good as the lead, can't fault his acting in this.
I expected another story, thinking it was The Woman in White! Perhaps that helped wrong foot me.
Only the closing scene didn't quite make sense in view of what had come before; I would have opted for something different.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Lethal Weapon 2, like so many films that year - Batman, Indy and Last Crusade - had many scenes that could have been from Bond films, while License to Kill just wasn't Bond enough, ironically.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
This film isn't a British classic, but some of you know it's of special interest to Bond fans. One of the two producers is Cubby Broccoli , the director is Terrance Young, Richard Maibaum wrote the script, the film was shot by Ted Moore and many of the stunts were done by Bob Simmons.
The Red Beret is about the British Parachute Regiment during WWII, a unit Terrance Young actually served in. This doesn't mean the fim is realistic. The British usually hit and the Germans usually miss. Paras pull the pins of hand grenades with their teeth and when they hit their target (they always do) the grenades seem to hold gallons of petrol.
Land mines also seem to be filled to the brim with petrol when they clear a mine field with a bazooka (as a former combat engineer I can only say …
But so what if this isn't Saving Private Ryan? The Red Beret was entertaining enough and offers a glimps of the origns of the James Bond series. Speaking of: In a scene an officer enters his office and tosses his hat across the room where it lands on a hat rack :007)
The film is also on Youtube without subtitles, but that version is postedin many parts. Here is part 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1LRmA9iUmg&feature=emb_logo
I watched the 1974 version this week. Can't say I was impressed. I watched it as it has James Mason in (as Magwitch) and I am on a JM binge at the moment.
A nice wry review of a film from a bygone age. Phillips did alright for himself in real life. He was married to Angela Scoular (Ruby Bartlett in OHMSS). She also appeared in 1967 farce, CASINO ROYALE as Buttercup.
The film that I watched today was Paper Moon, and it is probably my favourite Bogdanovich film so far. It's structured like a road movie, centered around a pair of characters played by father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O'Neal. Their journey is based around Ryan O'Neal delivering the recently orphaned Tatum to the girl's next-of-kin, and the pair scamming a few dollars along the way. Their relationship develops along the way, although they do attempt one scam too many and find themselves pursued by a lawman who bears more than a passing resemblance to our friend Higgins.
The film is a charming and witty comedy-drama, beautifully photographed in black-and-white. As I mentioned before, Paper Moon is probably my favourite Bogdanovich film that I have seen, although the best film of the bunch is probably The Last Picture Show.