Robert Pattinson and Daniel Defoe are practically the only actors in this film as they play two lightkeepers on a remote island off New England in the 1890's.
Daniel Defoe? Did he make this between Robinson Crusoe and (appropriately) Journal of the Plague Year?
Anyway, I saw it a couple of months ago and thought it was creepy and atmospheric. And I agree with you about Pattinson, though I'm not sure I see him as Bond.
Stardust - a story of rock n roll excess directed by TWINE's Michael Apted - a director I like and who has a certain integrity and story-telling ability but not one I associate with joy or visual flair necessarily.
It's written by journalist Ray Connolly who was a bit of Beatles nut and the story is so modelled on the rise of the Beatles - while not actually being the Beatles of course, so that it becomes a bit distracting. The film is a sequel to That'll Be The Day, which told of a high-school drop out who runs off to flog deckchairs on the beach and join the fun fair riding the dodgems before pop stardom beckons. He's played by David Essex, who would in the 70s go on to be a pop star in his own right so the thing does feel authentic - there's never a point where you think, oh, this is an actor trying to pass himself off as a pop star.
The rest of the cast rocks too - you have 60s pop star Adam Faith as the group's manager, and never at any point do you think, oh he's a pop star trying to pass himself off as an actor.
The rest of the fictional band has Paul Nicholas, who went on to be a 70s pop star like Essex, albeit not a very good one (Grandma's Party, anyone?) and probably did the Godspell circuit like Essex I imagine. There's the guy of Brush Strokes looking young, also Peter Duncan who went on to be one of the less appealing Blue Peter kids TV presents. But best of all, you have Who drummer Keith Moon, as the band's drummer of course. This is odd, as Moon popped up in That'll Be The Day as a rocker drummer in leathers and greased hair, and seemed too old, like co-star Billy Fury, but you sort of let it slide. Here he seems slimmer, with a Beatles haircut and really looks the part - it helps of course that when the Who got going in 65 he looked all of 14, but still. It's hard to see how Moon would turn bloated and boozy in a few years, and be dead by 1978 or thereabouts. Moon puts in a good turn, too.
The downside is that this is a cautionary tale about the protagonist's fall from grace, but he doesn't have much grace to start with. At the time this would have been a novel and risqué approach to exposing the seedy side of pop, but now it seems relentlessly negative. Essex's character seems largely modelled on Lennon (underachieves at school, turns to pop, gets married, ignores his kid, disapproving Mum/Aunt Mimi) but looks like McCartney, which seems a bit unfair - he seems to have Macca's bad traits too, but none of either songwriters' charm, wit or way with a melody - the songs are either covers or largely generic and of course it's a bit unreal to have a mega 60s band breaking America and no mention of the Beatles at all, it becomes an alternative reality.
Really this film should be part of a trilogy because there's just too much ground to cover here. This film should be like That Thing You Do, and the third should be about the really bad hangers on and bad trips.
I should say that the soundtrack to Stardust, a double album, is brilliant, solely made up of songs from the era of course, such as Whiter Shade of Pale, My Generation, Eve of Distruction, White Rabbit, All Along the Watchtower, Layla (sans coda, sadly), She's Not There - no Beatles of course unless one includes Cocker's cover of With a Little Help from My Friends, or Billy J Kramer's Do You Want to Know a Secret? The vinyl sound is great, too.
Some of the excess on film seemed to inspire the Elton John biopic Rocketman, which did have real flair to it. This film is a bit heavy and long-running, I do wonder what John and Paul made of it, though of course their mate Ringo popped up in That'll Be The Day but declined to be in this, possibly it was a bit close to home.
This classic was the movie that made Hollywood notice Alfred Hitchcock. A young woman is traveling in continental Europe in a dictatorship that couldn't be named in 1938, but they'd be happy to name a year later :v
The young woman gets to know a nice elderly woman on the train. Suddenly the elderly lady .... vanishes and everyone else onboard claims never to have seen her. This is a good premise and the plot works well, at least as soon as it starts rolling. It starts rolling when the train starts rolling and what happens earlier isn't too interesting. But if you give the movie the time you'll experience one of the great train movies.
It starts rolling when the train starts rolling and what happens earlier isn't too interesting. But if you give the movie the time you'll experience one of the great train movies.
I fully agree with you Number24. I saw The Lady Vanishes for the first time about a year ago, and I went in with high expectations and before the train departed I found myself fearing that I would be underwhelmed, but once it started 'rolling' I really got into it and thoroughly enjoyed the film. Having said that I did really enjoy the long model shot that opens the film, and much of the Charters and Caldicott stuff is quite amusing, even before the train's departure.
Jaws 2...... Obviously not as good as the first, But not as Bad as some might say
It's way better than Jaws 3 and watching paint dry is better than watching Jaws 4
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
I had watched AVTAK the night before watching this, and one of the scenes in this film was very similar to a scene in that. A fight next to a conveyer belt complete with boxes to be secured and a guy ending up on it and being packaged up and Z logos everywhere reminded me of Zorin. Later, comes a scene with a rocket similar to Moonraker.
There’s a funny part where Flint does ballet. I can’t see Bond doing that! A scene with Flint on the roof hiding from the bad guys reminded me of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel.
Jaws 3 came out in the UK the same time as Never Say Never Again, and indeed bounced it into the second screen in an era where fleapit cinemas only had one big screen, the other was the poxy smaller one.
That said something about attitudes to the commercial viability of Connery's comeback picture in a market dominated then by kids and teenagers who'd never heard of poor old Sean.
A channel devoted to creaky old films Talking Pictures reveals that M star Bernard Lee had a steady career in the 50s and indeed pops up in all sorts of things. That he could have been so skint as to need to do Operation Big Brother becomes less plausible unless he had a bad accountant or gambling habit, or was fond of the bottle (the latter is true I think)
I watched The Purple Plain in which Gregory Peck stars and Lee has a sizeable role - almost co-stars up to the point when Maurice Denham takes over as co-star (Denham also was a prevalent character actor but many remember him as the Judge forced to share a cell with Fletch in the sitcom classic Porridge.) The Purple Plain is set in Burma and written by the guy who went on to do Bridge Over The River Kwai. It's not as good, Peck is the bomber pilot burnt out and taking unnecessary risks (while still being brilliant at his job, natch). Lee is the one who takes him to onside. There's a love interest (not Lee) who is always in soft focus to the point where it's distracting.
It's an okay film, quite engrossing but not quite on target for some reason.
Deadlier Than the Male
(as found streaming here, or in better quality here)
a Bulldog Drummond adventure released at the height of SpyMania, 1967!
This turns out to be pretty darn good, one of the better Bond-imitations. May well be the sexiest, in terms of female flesh flaunted and some of the situations. Also more violent than most.
Richard Johnson plays Drummond, bashically doing a Connery impershonation, even shlurring hish esshesh.
In the books, Drummond was a military veteran bored in peacetime, who placed an ad in the paper seeking adventure. Here, Drummond is an insurance investigator, which brings him into the world of industrial espionage and blackmail. Though you have to pay close attention to the dialog to get that, because superficially it sure looks like he's a glamourous 60s superspy.
Film however is dominated by Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina as a pair of sexy assassins, threatening seducing then murdering a series of corporate board members. They do all their best work dressed in skimpy lingerie and transparent blouses, which they frequently have to change in front of us as they squabble over their girlish jealousies. The two of them have a hilarious comic rapport and are the best part of the film, our nominal hero basically appearing between their scenes to advance the formulaic plot structure then disappearing again.
Big baddy is Carl Peterson, as in the novels, played by Nigel Green: Dalby from the Ipcress File!
I would like to see some fanfic where these actors who appear in two or more 60s spyflicks are revealed to be the same character in a shared universe.
Speaking of which, I have one last Matt Helm film still to watch, and I see both Elke Sommer and Nigel Green are in that one too!
There was a sequel called Some Girls Do in 1969, but unfortunately I can't find that one online.
This cinema classic by Sergeij Eisenstein was made when the Soviet Union was threathened by the Japanese in the east and nazi Germany in the west, so a 13th century hero from a time Russia was under threath by the Golden Horde (Mongols) and Teutonic knights (Germans) was perfect. The propaganda is heavy handed: the church is everywhere on the German side while only one cowardly priest is seen among the Russians, the German infantry's helmets seem very familiar and there is a lot of talk about defending the motherland. The scene where craftsmen in Novgorod promise to make weapons for the forming Russian army is funny to anyone who's read about Soviet history and is familiar with the five year plans and their increasingly unrealistic promises -"I pledge to make five hundred swords! No, a thousand!"
The script can't escape the fact that Alexander Nevsky was a prince, but here he is the kind of prince who fishes with the people. I can't really criticize a Soviet movie too much for this since Braveheart and Kingdom of Heaven are even worse offenders in doing the same thing. The acting is often stiff and theatrical, but this was typical of the time. Where this movie shines is the battle scene. The battle on the ice is way before its time and superior to anything Hollywood did back then. One can see simularities to Braveheart, LotR and many other famous cinema battles and and that's because Eisenstein was studied by many directors in the west. He really brings the camera and the viewer into the battle.
Doctor Zhivago, Conan, The Million Dollar Brain, The Empire Strikes Back and Mulan all have sequences clearly influenced by Alexander Nevsky.
JAWS 3...there's a very noticeable plunge in quality but it's also semi-watchable...
I remember Michael Caine being asked if he had ever seen Jaws 3. His answer was something like “No - but I see the house it bought me in the Bahamas every morning!” ) )
I remember reading that Caine came from a very, very poor background, and didn't
know how long his acting career would last. So Took every role offered to him, But
I'd have thought after a few decades he'd be a bit more selective in his roles, after
all he couldn't go to pick up his Oscar as he was making ....... Jaws 4
Keanu Reeves was offered a huge pay check to do Speed 2, but he said the script
was rubbish. Michael Keaton didn't do a third Batman movie even though he was offered
$15 million ( a huge sum at the time for an actor ) because " It Sucked "
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
My parents often go for a drive on Sundays, and today they visited Hellesylt to watch the preperations for Mission Impossible 7. They don't know who Tom Cruise is and what Mission Impossible is, by the way. Hellesylt is about 45 minutes from here and my parents said there is a lot of security and a small cruise ship for the crew. It looks like Tom Cruise himself is staying at the same vintage hotel my older sister celebrated her (first) marriage. The filming hasn't started yet, but the plan is to film in this county for much of September. So what's happening in the film? I can't say, that would be spoilers .... :v
My parents often go for a drive on Sundays, and today they visited Hellesylt to watch the preperations for Mission Impossible 7. They don't know who Tom Cruise is and what Mission Impossible is, by the way.
That's exactly what members of the IMF would tell you, Number24...
My parents often go for a drive on Sundays, and today they visited Hellesylt to watch the preperations for Mission Impossible 7. They don't know who Tom Cruise is and what Mission Impossible is, by the way.
That's exactly what members of the IMF would tell you, Number24...
Weren't the producers of MI7 looking to blow up a real bridge in Norway ?
Knowing How dedicated Tom is, I'd expect him to be running across it
when it goes.
"I've been informed that there ARE a couple of QAnon supporters who are fairly regular posters in AJB."
I haven't heard that rumour before, but the film crew has shown some interest in Kylling bru in Rauma. It's called Kylling bru, meaning Chicken Bridge :v
The battle on the ice is way before its time and superior to anything Hollywood did back then. One can see simularities to Braveheart, LotR and many other famous cinema battles and and that's because Eisenstein was studied by many directors in the west. He really brings the camera and the viewer into the battle.
Doctor Zhivago, Conan, The Million Dollar Brain, The Empire Strikes Back and Mulan all have sequences clearly influenced by Alexander Nevsky.
Have you seen King Arthur (2004)? That has a cool ice battle. Clive Owen, Mads Mikkelsen, Ioan Gruffudd (a fav of mine), Kiera Knightley star.
Have you seen King Arthur (2004)? That has a cool ice battle. Clive Owen, Mads Mikkelsen, Ioan Gruffudd (a fav of mine), Kiera Knightley star.
Ioan Grufford very underrated IMO. He had Bond potential.
After the disaster that was Rambo 97 who's now so old he can only blow things up, I watched a really good film tonight on Amazon Prime.
Official Secrets ... It was very good and had a stellar cast who all earned their money. It's a true story about a whistleblower from GCHQ but one I didn't recall at all. Kiera Knightly surprisingly good and with great support from Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Ralph Fiennes and Rhys Ifans to name a few.
Bit of a rubbish, Victorian, gothic supernatural thing that doesn't really go anywhere.
What really winds me up though is when they put actors who have suddenly become hot property ie James Norton as the main selling point and they're in it for about 2 scenes. X-(
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,757Chief of Staff
TENET…
Don’t think...just watch...take it all in and then pray Eon give Nolan whatever he wants to direct Bond.
Saw this on IMAX - which is where it should be watched (at least once)…some of the dialogue is difficult to hear though, especially with the pounding soundtrack...Washington is class throughout...Branagh is good (although he’s hardly stretched)...Pattinson (who I haven’t really watched before) is excellent too - even if he is just channeling Richard E. Grant here )
Comments
Daniel Defoe? Did he make this between Robinson Crusoe and (appropriately) Journal of the Plague Year?
Anyway, I saw it a couple of months ago and thought it was creepy and atmospheric. And I agree with you about Pattinson, though I'm not sure I see him as Bond.
Have you seen The Witch?
It's written by journalist Ray Connolly who was a bit of Beatles nut and the story is so modelled on the rise of the Beatles - while not actually being the Beatles of course, so that it becomes a bit distracting. The film is a sequel to That'll Be The Day, which told of a high-school drop out who runs off to flog deckchairs on the beach and join the fun fair riding the dodgems before pop stardom beckons. He's played by David Essex, who would in the 70s go on to be a pop star in his own right so the thing does feel authentic - there's never a point where you think, oh, this is an actor trying to pass himself off as a pop star.
The rest of the cast rocks too - you have 60s pop star Adam Faith as the group's manager, and never at any point do you think, oh he's a pop star trying to pass himself off as an actor.
The rest of the fictional band has Paul Nicholas, who went on to be a 70s pop star like Essex, albeit not a very good one (Grandma's Party, anyone?) and probably did the Godspell circuit like Essex I imagine. There's the guy of Brush Strokes looking young, also Peter Duncan who went on to be one of the less appealing Blue Peter kids TV presents. But best of all, you have Who drummer Keith Moon, as the band's drummer of course. This is odd, as Moon popped up in That'll Be The Day as a rocker drummer in leathers and greased hair, and seemed too old, like co-star Billy Fury, but you sort of let it slide. Here he seems slimmer, with a Beatles haircut and really looks the part - it helps of course that when the Who got going in 65 he looked all of 14, but still. It's hard to see how Moon would turn bloated and boozy in a few years, and be dead by 1978 or thereabouts. Moon puts in a good turn, too.
The downside is that this is a cautionary tale about the protagonist's fall from grace, but he doesn't have much grace to start with. At the time this would have been a novel and risqué approach to exposing the seedy side of pop, but now it seems relentlessly negative. Essex's character seems largely modelled on Lennon (underachieves at school, turns to pop, gets married, ignores his kid, disapproving Mum/Aunt Mimi) but looks like McCartney, which seems a bit unfair - he seems to have Macca's bad traits too, but none of either songwriters' charm, wit or way with a melody - the songs are either covers or largely generic and of course it's a bit unreal to have a mega 60s band breaking America and no mention of the Beatles at all, it becomes an alternative reality.
Really this film should be part of a trilogy because there's just too much ground to cover here. This film should be like That Thing You Do, and the third should be about the really bad hangers on and bad trips.
I should say that the soundtrack to Stardust, a double album, is brilliant, solely made up of songs from the era of course, such as Whiter Shade of Pale, My Generation, Eve of Distruction, White Rabbit, All Along the Watchtower, Layla (sans coda, sadly), She's Not There - no Beatles of course unless one includes Cocker's cover of With a Little Help from My Friends, or Billy J Kramer's Do You Want to Know a Secret? The vinyl sound is great, too.
Some of the excess on film seemed to inspire the Elton John biopic Rocketman, which did have real flair to it. This film is a bit heavy and long-running, I do wonder what John and Paul made of it, though of course their mate Ringo popped up in That'll Be The Day but declined to be in this, possibly it was a bit close to home.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
This classic was the movie that made Hollywood notice Alfred Hitchcock. A young woman is traveling in continental Europe in a dictatorship that couldn't be named in 1938, but they'd be happy to name a year later :v
The young woman gets to know a nice elderly woman on the train. Suddenly the elderly lady .... vanishes and everyone else onboard claims never to have seen her. This is a good premise and the plot works well, at least as soon as it starts rolling. It starts rolling when the train starts rolling and what happens earlier isn't too interesting. But if you give the movie the time you'll experience one of the great train movies.
I fully agree with you Number24. I saw The Lady Vanishes for the first time about a year ago, and I went in with high expectations and before the train departed I found myself fearing that I would be underwhelmed, but once it started 'rolling' I really got into it and thoroughly enjoyed the film. Having said that I did really enjoy the long model shot that opens the film, and much of the Charters and Caldicott stuff is quite amusing, even before the train's departure.
It's way better than Jaws 3 and watching paint dry is better than watching Jaws 4
In Like Flint (1967)
I had watched AVTAK the night before watching this, and one of the scenes in this film was very similar to a scene in that. A fight next to a conveyer belt complete with boxes to be secured and a guy ending up on it and being packaged up and Z logos everywhere reminded me of Zorin. Later, comes a scene with a rocket similar to Moonraker.
There’s a funny part where Flint does ballet. I can’t see Bond doing that! A scene with Flint on the roof hiding from the bad guys reminded me of Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel.
That said something about attitudes to the commercial viability of Connery's comeback picture in a market dominated then by kids and teenagers who'd never heard of poor old Sean.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I watched The Purple Plain in which Gregory Peck stars and Lee has a sizeable role - almost co-stars up to the point when Maurice Denham takes over as co-star (Denham also was a prevalent character actor but many remember him as the Judge forced to share a cell with Fletch in the sitcom classic Porridge.)
The Purple Plain is set in Burma and written by the guy who went on to do Bridge Over The River Kwai. It's not as good, Peck is the bomber pilot burnt out and taking unnecessary risks (while still being brilliant at his job, natch). Lee is the one who takes him to onside. There's a love interest (not Lee) who is always in soft focus to the point where it's distracting.
It's an okay film, quite engrossing but not quite on target for some reason.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
(as found streaming here, or in better quality here)
a Bulldog Drummond adventure released at the height of SpyMania, 1967!
This turns out to be pretty darn good, one of the better Bond-imitations. May well be the sexiest, in terms of female flesh flaunted and some of the situations. Also more violent than most.
Richard Johnson plays Drummond, bashically doing a Connery impershonation, even shlurring hish esshesh.
In the books, Drummond was a military veteran bored in peacetime, who placed an ad in the paper seeking adventure. Here, Drummond is an insurance investigator, which brings him into the world of industrial espionage and blackmail. Though you have to pay close attention to the dialog to get that, because superficially it sure looks like he's a glamourous 60s superspy.
Film however is dominated by Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina as a pair of sexy assassins, threatening seducing then murdering a series of corporate board members. They do all their best work dressed in skimpy lingerie and transparent blouses, which they frequently have to change in front of us as they squabble over their girlish jealousies. The two of them have a hilarious comic rapport and are the best part of the film, our nominal hero basically appearing between their scenes to advance the formulaic plot structure then disappearing again.
Big baddy is Carl Peterson, as in the novels, played by Nigel Green: Dalby from the Ipcress File!
I would like to see some fanfic where these actors who appear in two or more 60s spyflicks are revealed to be the same character in a shared universe.
Speaking of which, I have one last Matt Helm film still to watch, and I see both Elke Sommer and Nigel Green are in that one too!
There was a sequel called Some Girls Do in 1969, but unfortunately I can't find that one online.
Predictable Stallone nonsense.
Can't say it was good but if it's gratutious, gory violence you're after, this is the film for you
This cinema classic by Sergeij Eisenstein was made when the Soviet Union was threathened by the Japanese in the east and nazi Germany in the west, so a 13th century hero from a time Russia was under threath by the Golden Horde (Mongols) and Teutonic knights (Germans) was perfect. The propaganda is heavy handed: the church is everywhere on the German side while only one cowardly priest is seen among the Russians, the German infantry's helmets seem very familiar and there is a lot of talk about defending the motherland. The scene where craftsmen in Novgorod promise to make weapons for the forming Russian army is funny to anyone who's read about Soviet history and is familiar with the five year plans and their increasingly unrealistic promises -"I pledge to make five hundred swords! No, a thousand!"
The script can't escape the fact that Alexander Nevsky was a prince, but here he is the kind of prince who fishes with the people. I can't really criticize a Soviet movie too much for this since Braveheart and Kingdom of Heaven are even worse offenders in doing the same thing. The acting is often stiff and theatrical, but this was typical of the time. Where this movie shines is the battle scene. The battle on the ice is way before its time and superior to anything Hollywood did back then. One can see simularities to Braveheart, LotR and many other famous cinema battles and and that's because Eisenstein was studied by many directors in the west. He really brings the camera and the viewer into the battle.
Doctor Zhivago, Conan, The Million Dollar Brain, The Empire Strikes Back and Mulan all have sequences clearly influenced by Alexander Nevsky.
I remember Michael Caine being asked if he had ever seen Jaws 3. His answer was something like “No - but I see the house it bought me in the Bahamas every morning!”
know how long his acting career would last. So Took every role offered to him, But
I'd have thought after a few decades he'd be a bit more selective in his roles, after
all he couldn't go to pick up his Oscar as he was making ....... Jaws 4
Keanu Reeves was offered a huge pay check to do Speed 2, but he said the script
was rubbish. Michael Keaton didn't do a third Batman movie even though he was offered
$15 million ( a huge sum at the time for an actor ) because " It Sucked "
That's exactly what members of the IMF would tell you, Number24...
Knowing How dedicated Tom is, I'd expect him to be running across it
when it goes.
Have you seen King Arthur (2004)? That has a cool ice battle. Clive Owen, Mads Mikkelsen, Ioan Gruffudd (a fav of mine), Kiera Knightley star.
Ioan Grufford very underrated IMO. He had Bond potential.
After the disaster that was Rambo 97 who's now so old he can only blow things up, I watched a really good film tonight on Amazon Prime.
Official Secrets ... It was very good and had a stellar cast who all earned their money. It's a true story about a whistleblower from GCHQ but one I didn't recall at all. Kiera Knightly surprisingly good and with great support from Matt Smith, Matthew Goode, Ralph Fiennes and Rhys Ifans to name a few.
Loved him as Hornblower.
Really enjoyed this, plenty of laughs and action. -{
I do like those tall, dark haired, Welsh types
Bit of a rubbish, Victorian, gothic supernatural thing that doesn't really go anywhere.
What really winds me up though is when they put actors who have suddenly become hot property ie James Norton as the main selling point and they're in it for about 2 scenes. X-(
Don’t think...just watch...take it all in and then pray Eon give Nolan whatever he wants to direct Bond.
Saw this on IMAX - which is where it should be watched (at least once)…some of the dialogue is difficult to hear though, especially with the pounding soundtrack...Washington is class throughout...Branagh is good (although he’s hardly stretched)...Pattinson (who I haven’t really watched before) is excellent too - even if he is just channeling Richard E. Grant here
Highly recommended -{