I mentioned the rowing-style in The Northman to my father. His reaction was "No, that doesn't sound like a viking to me". While he isn't old enough to have been a viking himself, he probably has more experience rowing than anyone in this forum He also rowed with old men who had rowed pretty big boats. People living by this fjord rowed to church in boats with several pairs of oars until 1880 when we got our own boats. My point about rowing applies to any boat exept the smallest ones, but I thoought I'd mention it anyway.
Typical church boat. The longship in the move was only twise as big as the boat closest to the camera:
Its quite incredible that Clint Eastwood is still not only acting but directing in his 90’s. Long retired rodeo star Eastwood is hired by his former boss to travel to Mexico to return his 15-year old son to him who lives a miserable life with his mother who is a wealthy crime boss. Instead of an improbable “all-guns-blazing” scenario we get a measured, simple story of the trek back to the USA and the discovery of mutual understanding between the two leads and a blossoming love affair with a widowed cafe owner. The pace is slow and the few scenes of action are handled in a realistic manner. As in TheMule, Clint delivers a nuanced performance and keeping the direction economic in his usual manner.
Very good.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I’m just back from seeing it, and agree with Gymkata’s comments. The Bride thought Waller-Bridge was a bit wooden at times. Ford was excellent (doesn’t look his age- Indy is supposed to be 69 here and the ten years older Ford is completely believable), and Mikkelsen again showed why he is the current go-to villain actor. Don't want to say much more because, like Gymkata, I'd like to avoid spoilers.
One scene I’d like to comment on-
Our hero (played by an ageing actor who’s played the part several times before) and his leading lady (easily young enough to be his daughter) dive into the ocean near Greece to retrieve the current MacGuffin from a wrecked ship. When they surface, their boat has been commandeered by the bad guys using deadly force, whose leader forces them to hand over the MacGuffin.
Yes, that’s in this movie. And word for word it’s in FYEO too. The similarity is only enhanced by the main bad guy actually being a Bond villain actor.
An interesting tidbit from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which was on tonight.
I've already pointed out that the haughty German or Austrian butler that Indiana and Elsa attempt to hoodwink at the Salzburg castle is in fact played Vernon Dobtcheff, the still alive and still working actor lately seen in the acclaimed TV series The Gold but better known to us as Max Kalba from The Spy Who Loved Me.
So what happens in this Indy adventure? We'll leave aside the Goldfinger-style nitpicking of how Elsa needs to infiltrate the castle with Indy when she's working for the Nazis though I suppose she can't just hand him over, while he goes to rescue Dad she presumably hotfoots it to them to tip them off he's arrived and that he has the 'book' with the tips on getting to the Holy Grail.
But what happens thereafter? We assume Indy has boobed in bringing Dad's book along with him ('I should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers!') but when Kristatos and Jenny Flex examine the artefact they are soon disappointed. The vital piece of information is missing. It's in effect useless. Why, it's almost as if it's been provided to merely... whet the appetite. Much like Max Kalba's microchip, as provided to Bond and Anya in Spy.
I wonder if the makers' were aware of this?
Dobtcheff has had remarkable career really - I saw him in an episode of The Sweeney this week, in a small role and he was in The Avengers back in the day - but then who wasn't?
I don't know if I'll be posting my review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny tonight but I'll point out that Mission Impossible comes out on Monday so if anyone wants to see Indy on the prime screen at their local, or at the BFI Imax, you only have a few days in which to do so. I don't know why the two most awaited films of the last few years should time it so they come out within a week of each other, it almost makes you wonder if someone didn't wish for a time-travelling to bring forward the opening by a fortnight or more....
Press the first symbol below your text, looks like a reversed capital "P". Then press the inverted commas in the menu that appears. Then press "spoiler" in the next menu.
I watched Dial of Destiny last night and I pretty much agree with Gymkata's review of the film. I found it a good, fun ride. I tend to get a bit grumpy any time an action/adventure film is over 2 hours, but this was an example which didn't feel too much like it was outstaying its welcome despite being over 150 minutes in length. The prologue, and the later boat/diving scenes were my favourite parts of the film. Both gave me the feel and flavour of good old fashioned adventure thrillers like I might encounter in a book or film from the 1960s.
By the way, when we first encounter the female US government agent in the New York 1969 part of the film, my first thought was "Wow, Rosie Carver is in this film." 😉
I am none the wiser after Barbel's advice on how to include spoilers in a review so I will drop my review with spoilers scattered liberally - reader beware.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
This has been dubbed as much a Bond film in style as an Indy movie, no bad thing we might agree, though it seems a shame at times the Bond film in question is No Time To Die. There is the sense you are watching a movie of 2023 or thereabouts, the tail-end of a franchise with an ageing lead in a woke world where the obligatory box ticking takes place and various plot baggage has to be neatly stored in the overhead rack or lost in transit or simply jettisoned. Some of this works quite well, however.
Don't get me wrong, I loathed No Time To Die while I generally enjoyed this - all the same there are dangerous stretches where I struggled to sympathise or like anyone onscreen, as with the last Bond film. It gets highly frenetic and less engaging as it does so, our hero is made to look unnecessarily old and sidelined at times and while the action is on point there is too often a lack of charm or warmth, certainly magic. What's frustrating is how often it very nearly works and works very well when it does, but it's kind of juggling plates.
Some of the cultural references are a bit too cute, okay it's set in 1969 but if you're going to have a James Bond character help Indy out - did Bond ever make it to New York before Moore in 73? He did not - then you'd much prefer they use the Deep Fake de-ageing process on Sean Connery - then again, he isn't alive to sign away his likeness, and that's probably the big in joke they were going for in the first draft. Still as he died they opt for a young George Lazenby who glides up in his OHMSS Aston Martin and escorts Indy away from his enemies, much as he did with Napoleon Solo in the Uncle TV film.
Other nods to the times, where Indy bumps into a youthful Paul McCartney in the Big Apple - it's a distraction really, you'd think Macca would't need the publicity but I suppose we had an aged up Lennon at the final scene of that film Yesterday. It makes you almost glad for Yoko's protection of the Lennon legacy.
Finally, I know The Producers came out around that time but to have a bunch of marauding Nazis careering on stage as the big number 'Springtime for Hitler' is performed - don't get me wrong, I laughed out loud - but it's not for purists.
Other than those moments, there's lots to enjoy.
Perhaps Barbel can insert the spoiler tags for those who haven't seen it yet.
I think this is the first film I have watched for a month. Getting slack, Chris...
THE SIXTH DAY (2000)
Roger Spottiswoode directs this terrific sci-fi action movie which sees Arnold Schwarzenegger’s family man ski instructor cloned by a fanatical scientist. When businessman and multibillionaire Michael Drucker is assassinated on one of Adam Gibson’s snowboarding excursions, all the victims are cloned to cover up the murders. But Schwarzenegger’s Adam Gibson was never there, having swapped places with fellow instructor, Hank. Gibson must fight to get his life and his family back – only Drucker must keep his cloning program secret as the process has been declared illegal by the government. Robert Duvall’s scientist sees the error of his ways, but has his change of heart come too late to save Adam Gibson?
An interesting view of the future is provided in the flashy, stop-start narrative that bombards us with information, images and tech at a high speed. The early sequences in particular are a sensory overload as computer screens, mobiles, TVs, mirrors, fridges, cars, helicopters, face masks, dolls, and virtually everything a person uses to run their lives is controlled by technology, leaving human interaction a mere passing footnote. Interestingly, while the tech has moved on, much remains the same: houses, cars, food, clothes, habits and homelives all remain familiar from the twentieth century. As a hero Gibson is very old school, preferring vintage cars, personal contact and retaining a healthy dose of scepticism for the ideology of cloning. He isn’t a total technophobe, and being ex-military Gibson understands the usefulness of hardware, it’s the development of unnatural organic life forms that trouble him. “Who gets to decide who lives and dies?” he asks Michael Drucker, as smooth and svelte a villain as they come.
Drucker is surrounded by a quartet of incompetents so it isn’t a surprise Arnie wins the day. Getting to the climax is a joy ride of explosions, gun battles, car chases and cloning clones. “Why don’t you stay dead?” Arnie cries after killing one heavy a second time. Aside from top notch action, the moral slant to the narrative is quite clear. The heart, soul and mind really is on the sleeve. The fact Drucker is manipulating the cloning program for his own uses turns the medical morality of cloning for life preservation on its head, for he inputs specific life threatening genes into the clones, insuring they stay loyal, forever reliant on re-cloning to survive. Here is a man truly playing the hand of God.
Schwarzenegger’s career was suffering a little by the early 2000s, but he has always been well suited to the fantasy and sci-fi genres where his muscular physique and dead pan playing can’t hinder the narrative. The original Terminator trilogy, the horrific Predator, the violence fuelled Total Recall and the insanity of The Running Man are all testament to Arnie’s ability to carry a preposterous storyline, and he’s equally effective here both as the hard working, devoted family man and as the desperate, yet skilled action hero. The climax seems a little confused and you do wonder where on earth the police were during all this, but like those other underrated Arnie gems Eraser and End of Days, The Sixth Day ticks all the right boxes for all the right reasons. Very good.
there was a host of 2 star reviews in British press this week. Gist of why was essentially turgid plot with some great set pieces and a rousing finish that teases good movie to come but begs the question why this one existed.
Given MI has stolen everything from Bond I assumed on reading they were just doing QoS and CR in reverse 😁
Obviously reviews are generally to be ignored at all costs, I just found it amusing that some of the reviewers are famous for basically phoning in 4 stars for everything.
Personally I like almost all the cast so it could be terrible and I would still enjoy it.
Of note for this thread I saw Dial Of Destiny and loved it agreeing with much of the above.
It did make me think though. Star Wars, MCU, Bond, MI, Indy etc etc. There has been well over a decade of "we are old and this is the end" movies.
I've had a great old time but I am in the sweet spot for all of that.
Where are the new movie or TV heroes for 20 somethings to follow for the next few decades as they age. TV is difficult as usually the writers end up screwing the pooch (hello GoT). I felt sad watching Indy about the paucity of viable candidates,
Made me hope anew that Bond 26 is young, dumb and full of immortality.
So, you are probably asking yourself, what is chrisno1, that erstwhile reviewer of Dr Who, Star Trek, The Persuaders, The Saint, James Bond books and movies, Alistair MacLean, spies and spying, and just about any vaguely adult film or novel or poetry collection he can get his hands on, doing spending a Sunday lunchtime at the BFI watching a Walt Disney animation? Well, my mate was back from Dubai and I was meeting the family for lunch; this was a treat to keep the kids quiet. The daughter enjoyed it more than the son.
Without submitting myself to ridicule from the ’bombs, bullets and boobs brigade’ Cinderella is possibly one of the most affecting and beautifully composed animated films the Walt Disney corporation ever put onto the screen. It really is a fairy tale, with loyal, caring, forgiving and extraordinarily beautiful domestic abuse victim Cinderella getting a subtle one over her wicked stepmother and horrible stepsisters and sneaking out to a grand ball where she meets the love her life, who just happens to be an eligible prince. She loses her glass slipper and her magical carriage, but eventually gains a husband and a kingdom. Her family of animals, mostly mice and bluebirds, assist her in every way they can, an Angela Lansbury looking Fairy Godmother materialises from the stars and the maleficent black cat Lucifer prowls at her feet attempting to catch interfering rodents and make the poor scrubber’s life a misery. Oh, but she’s much too good natured to bother about a nasty kitty; when making breakfast, Cinderella attempts to convince the lazy old beagle Bruno that Lucifer must have some good qualities: at least the fat cat is afraid of dogs, she decides.
Cinderella was Walt Disney’s biggest hit since Snow White. Uncle Walt had spent years trying to replicate his initial wonder, believing he was a small miracle away from a perfect fairy tale. For all the charm and animated magic of Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi and the like, audiences simply wouldn’t sit through these full length sagas. The lack of a central human character pushes back at the viewer. Flying elephants, wooden puppets and doe-eyed fawns are all very well, and you can give them all the human qualities you want, but you can’t elicit the same emotive sympathies as you would with a human. Walt recognised this himself and Song of the South, which married live action to animation, was swiftly followed by a fully live version of Treasure Island. The animated output of the 1950s – The Lady and the Tramp aside – concentrated fully on people: Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty were all, after a fashion, films about the human heart and the human form. Here, under the direction of Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Lane and Clyde Geronimi, the fairy tale princess finds her truest form, perhaps because she is based on such a well-known and well-loved tale in the first place.
It’s surprising Walt never ventured towards Charles Perrault’s 18th Century fairy story earlier as it has all the ingredients of any classic romance – good girl overcomes the odds and wins her man – coupled to the age old staple of magic [should we call it ‘white magic’?]. The story is deceptively simple and simply told. Cinderella, as voiced by Irene Woods, is probably one of cinema’s most delightful animated creations. Her story is extremely bleak and one might suggest she is too passive, but that misses the point of the fairy story. It is her loyalty and goodness which marks her out for eventual success. That’s the lesson Perrault attempts to teach his readers. The step mother and sisters display no such ideals and their monstrous treatment of Cinderella delivers no sympathy. Walt himself edited out a whole sequence where the heroine makes fun of her step sisters as it portrayed Cinderella in an unfavourable light. He didn’t want any darkness to envelope his glimmering on screen heroine.
And indeed there isn’t. Aided by a clutch of mice and a gaggle of birds, she dutifully slaves away day after day and still maintains a positive outlook in all adversity. One might suggest the film doesn’t feature a true villain in the mould of Snow White’s wicked aunt, but there’s a more elusive villainy at work here, one that in the modern era where domestic and industrial slavery is being rediscovered even in so-called socially conscious societies seems entirely appropriate and – for the young ones – upsetting. The scene where the sisters tear Cinderella’s gorgeous pink dress from her shoulders has all the hallmarks of Hitchcock in his Freudian prime, or Fitz Lang in film noir terror mode; a more modern interpretation might be Tarantino or Nic Roeg cross cutting as the dreadful incident unfolds. We genuinely feel for Cinderella as she rushes out of the mansion – a house which seems to get bigger and darker the worse her fate becomes.
The animation is tremendous. The movie was originally shot with live action stand ins and the storyboards constructed around the live actors. This gives the humans real characteristics. There are no huge outlandish eyes or sticking out chins or ridiculous body shapes. If you compare Cinderella’s cast to that of say Lilo and Stich, Moana or Hercules, you’ll see what I mean. In fact, it was knack Disney’s animators lost again for several decades until The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast supplied decent, believable animated humans. They’ve struggled periodically to recapture the same blend successfully ever since, so Cinderella still stands out as an excellently animated, very human story. You sense the actual actors bursting through the brush strokes. This is also true of the mice, particularly Jaq and Gus, who commit most of the daring antics and are our barometer of decency. They act how we would like to think we might and while they are obviously animals, the animators cleverly allow them to exhibit human actions and reactions, facially and physically, which keep them memorable and, unlike the Seven Dwarves, are never likely to be the butt of inappropriate smutty jokes.
We perhaps ought to mention the castle, which was based on Ludwig II’s palace at Neuschwanstein, and became the basis of Walt Disney World in Florida and the Buena Vista logo. It is ridiculously off the scale, which sometimes turns the dancing Prince and his beloved into tiny stickpeople on a vast canvas, but that only enhances the magical effect: this is Cinderella’s story and she’s caught up in a larger than life moment, so everything is larger than life, except for her small slippers. Cleverly, the animators insert an earlier scene where she loses her house slipper on the stair, so we are not surprised by her misfortune. The romance could perhaps be more sturdy.
Cinderella is a genuine family treat, although little boys may not be over interested in it other than the Tom and Jerry style cat and mouse games. It is one of the Walt Disney empire’s finest achievements in story and animation. They throw animated movies at us like confetti these days and most of them are dull as ditch water and are missing any semblance of physical humanity [witness the recent Pixar thing Elemental, which wears its intent on its sleeve from its title to its characters and ‘fake’ location]. Cinderella is about people, or one person, and their [her] emotions and it leaves one with the soft and rather comforting feeling that A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes.
Now, that I enjoyed. As I said earlier, it's always fun seeing what film you watch and review next!
THE INVISIBLE MAN LEGACY COLLECTION
The Invisible Man (1933); The Invisible Man Returns (1940); The Invisible Woman (1940); Invisible Agent (1942); The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944); Abbott & Costello Meet The Invisible Man (1951)
All b&w.
The first was and remains a classic of its kind, with even the SFX holding up not too shabbily today. The main letdown IMHO is the same as that of “Bride Of Frankenstein”- the presence of the intensely annoying Una O’Connor in the cast as a shrieking perversion of comic relief. I have no idea what James Whale, director of those two otherwise classic movies, was thinking.
The second isn’t too bad as sequels go, and avoided the common method of simply rehashing the original that many sequels are prone to. The third is played mostly for laughs.
“Invisible Agent” is a propaganda piece, with the USA now in WW2. It mainly stands out for having such superb villains as our own Peter Lorre and the always reliable Sir Cedric Hardwicke (Hardwicke had been in “Return”, as well, in a different role).
“Revenge” again isn’t too bad, and avoids rehashing. And the meeting with Abbott & Costello isn’t the worst of their “meet” series.
If you’re going to make an Invisible Man movie then it should be really obvious that your star has to have a distinctive, recognizable voice. The first two actors were Claude Rains and Vincent Price, so no worries there. However after that this was abandoned and bland voiced actors (cheaper actors?) were substituted, to the detriment of the films concerned. Nevertheless, unlike some of the Universal horror series, this one doesn’t quite go downhill to the same extent they did (I’m looking at you, “Mummy”).
I like painter J.M.W. Turner’s later works, where he started to experiment not with interpretation but with emotional and physical impressionism, what a horrified Queen Victoria described as “a huge creamy blur.” If you look at Turner’s great seascapes of the period [The Fighting Temeraire, The Slave Ship] or Rain, Steam and Speed, you’ll see what I mean: how the artist creates movement through blurring the lines of detail, as if we only glimpse fleetingly the whole canvas, while small details penetrate and remain memorable. This is exactly how we remember images in real life. Turner’s Bridge of Sighs perhaps best exemplifies this with its stunning colourful foreground, whose colours wash into and over one another, while the titular bridge and the Doge Palace occupies the background in stately, monumental fashion, but bears no relation to the actual structures. Turner is painting from exaggerated memory, from the emotional pull of a subject, not from what he physically saw or wants us to see. There is very little symbolism in his work. He presents us with swirls of vivid colour and frenzied movement, often without brush strokes or identifiable technique. In the early Victorian era this was revolutionary and controversial. He had his supporters, he had doubters. Midway in the film there’s a recreated scene from a Royal Academy exhibition where Turner notices how the extremely strong crimson hues of John Constable’s work compare boldly beside his languid, misty pale seas; so he injects a single focus point of the same shade of crimson, much to the members’ amusement. An instinctive genius, perhaps, but a misplaced one. He inhabits the wrong era we feel.
Mike Leigh’s biopic doesn’t do much for Turner’s reputation as a person. Timothy Spall plays him like one of Harry Enfield’s Old Gits, rude, obnoxious and dithering. Writer / director Leigh also chooses to make him non-confrontational. He avoids argument, ploughs on his own furrow and trusts time will tell. Failing physical and mental capabilities spur his demise. I suppose time did eventually catch up, when reassessment came lurking after all those French Impressionists copied him. The movie shifts without any purpose between scenes, offering little explanation or introduction. Whole swathes of the artist’s life history are cut out [one assumes Venice was excluded because it would have been too expensive to film there] and replaced instead by a gloomy atmosphere of death and despondency in Chelsea and Margate. Good photography from Dick Pope and generous intelligent CGI allows us to view inspirational scenes Turner may have witnessed and represented for his canvases. Gary Yershon provides a gently impressive music score.
You really should watch more reality TV. Big Brother will put an end to this intellectual silliness! (But I did watch Mr Turner at the cinema and I thought it was rather good)
Now, if you want to see how to make a movie about an artist and turn that artist’s life into something more dramatic and world encompassing, forget Mr Turner. Small fry. Forget Charlton Heston’s posturing in The Agony and The Ecstasy. Or Hopkins as Picasso. Jackson Pollock? No. Watch Andrei Tarkovsky’s epic saga about the fifteenth century Russian Orthodox icon painter Andrei Rublev. Considered a saint by the Orthodox church, Rublev’s life is shrouded in some mystery. His date and place of birth is unknown, so too his death date, and many paintings attributed to him are disputed. The few surviving genuine pieces are badly damaged by the rigours of time, war and bad maintenance, a test much mural work suffers from. However, his calm, peaceful interpretations of the gospel stories are acclaimed by experts as a crowning achievement in medieval Eastern art, expanding the Byzantine legacy into something wholly Russian Orthodox, his stories unusually focussing on peripheral characters, until his masterpiece, The Trinity.
What Tarkovsky does as director and writer is allow Rublev to become both a mouthpiece for the Soviet system and an agitator against it. The dialogue and incidents can be interpreted either way, provoking debate both secular and religious about society, human nature and the power of forgiveness [human forgiveness, not God’s]. Rublev is portrayed foremost as a man, not an artist; we barely see him lift a brush. Despite being a monk, he has the same physical temptations and intellectual battles as a layperson. At various times he is plagued by doubt and indecision, is seduced by the pagans on Kupala Night, kills a soldier in anger and it is hinted he shares his bed with a beautiful ‘holy fool’, her a mute and he taking a vow of silence, physicality binding them. It is only when Rublev recognises his own obsession in the young bell maker Boriska that salvation beckons.
Tarkovsky doesn’t bother creating any backstory, he lurches directly into the tale as Rublev and two fellow iconographers seek work beyond the monastery at Andronikov. The movie is framed as eight chapters, each episode a passion play which reveals facets about society, culture or religion of the fifteenth century that resonates for the Soviet Union of 1966. So an obscene jester, who makes fun of the upper classes, is betrayed and subsequently tortured by the boyars. Rublev interprets his societal role as an artist as a thankless task, expecting at any moment public crucifixion. We see different nationalities and classes striving to cooperate, yet privately scheming behind each other’s backs, including two princes who vie for control of a walled city and its beautiful cathedral. The monks ignore the irreligious behaviour of the ruling classes, but chastise the lower classes for the same, something supposedly eradicated by Marxism. Even great art is subject to impossible conditions: Rublev tactfully refuses to comply with an order to decorate the Vladimir Cathedral until he has the perfect theme and design, the bell-founder is treated as a disposable commodity, the jester mocked for his good humour. Perhaps most resonant is the siege of Vladimir by the Tartars, a scene of mob rule, death, rape, pillage and destruction, which mirrors atrocities committed by the Germans in the Second World War.
Tellingly, there is joy in comradeship, specifically the casting of the new bronze bell, which brings the community together, not though by political agitation, but by a religious spur. Tarkovsky is clearly sticking his finger up at the Soviet system which strongly opposed organised religion of any kind. Earlier, the monks witness the harmless pagans being hunted like animals as punishment for public fornication. He mocks the system, both new and old, as both the jester and Rublev’s mute love Durochka perform to the delight of first the peasants and then the tartars. Meanwhile, the monks cower like the authorities before the rule of the princes, who pay God lip-service, preferring to wage war on one another, coup following coup. The peasants are caught in the crossfire.
The movie is shot in stark black and white and it is only during the ten minute epilogue that colour film is used, closeups of Rublev’s work display the richness and vibrancy of his pallets. Here too, the director takes us back to the rainy days of the story’s opening scene and the horses in the lea valley, as if signifying that artists alone cannot alter the world. Andrei Rublev is frequently voted one of the Best 100 Films of All Time, but its power is waning a little with age. The message it sent to audiences in the sixties doesn’t ring as clearly today. Its themes of freedom, choice and forgiveness are diluted by our knowledge that ultimately the Communist system did not succeed. They feel redundant subjects among the rampant capitalism of the current climate – although one may disagree if you care to look at Putin’s Moscow regime. Nonetheless a stupendous achievement of storytelling and subtext and one of the finest cinematic products of the Soviet era.
@Gymkata says…To that end, I feel I must now make a statement: I think that I'm now officially in the 'Ethan Hunt' camp rather than the 'James Bond' camp. The M:I franchise knows exactly what it is AND is able to consistently put out extremely entertaining product on a regular basis. The Bond franchise has felt at odds with itself for the entire Craig run in terms of tone, character, plotting, and action. Who even knows if we're going to get another film ever at this point...the behind the scenes fighting is killing the franchise and killing any enthusiasm for the franchise. I'm not writing Bond off yet but I think it may possibly be completely irrelevant now.
I wrote much of the same in another thread some months back - I really have little interest in where the Bond films go from here and I find the whole speculation thing boring. BB has ruined her father’s legacy, perhaps irreparably, unless Amazon can sort things out the franchise is dead and buried.
Long live the magical era of DN thru LTK - I can still wallow in all their glory any time I wish.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I've seen the movie too. It's an excellent action movie. It still lacks some of the personality and soul of the James Bond movies, but as pure action movies Bond needs to step up!I wonder if Hayley Atwell will at some time in the future step in as the action lead (and Tom Cruise As the producer and leader of IMF) when Cruise gets too old to do all those stunts? As an extra bonus the biggest action set-pieces are filmed in this county. On the other hand I find it frustrating how Cruise is using up some of the best potential Bond locations in Norway. The Rauma railway, The Troll Wall mountain cliff, Kylling bridge (and Svalbard in Part 2) can all be found in the potential locations thread where I posted photos.
I feel I must now make a statement: I think that I'm now officially in the 'Ethan Hunt' camp rather than the 'James Bond' camp. The M:I franchise knows exactly what it is AND is able to consistently put out extremely entertaining product on a regular basis. The Bond franchise has felt at odds with itself for the entire Craig run in terms of tone, character, plotting, and action. Who even knows if we're going to get another film ever at this point...the behind the scenes fighting is killing the franchise and killing any enthusiasm for the franchise. I'm not writing Bond off yet but I think it may possibly be completely irrelevant now.
SPOILER WARNING. Don't read unless you've seen Dead Reconing Part 1.
I wonder what will happen to the Mission Impossible franchise in some years. Assuming Tom Cruise is human he will have to cut back on doing all those crazy stunts some day, probably in the next ten years. I imagine he will continue producing the movies and maybe play the leader of IMF. Will he stay the lead and the team out in the field play a more or less equal role, much like the TV series? Or will he pick one who becomes the new action star of the team? Earlier I wanted Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) to fill that role, partly because she was the youngest semi-member of the team and also because her character was the most interesting. But now Ilsa is dead. I wonder if the plan is to gradually make Grace (Hayley Atwell) the new action star of the franchise. Grace did "apply" to join the IMF in this movie. Apparently she was so eager to do stunts Tom Cruise and the director called her "Hell yeah". Atwell is a good actress who isn't really attached to any other action series since I assume her involvement with Captain America is over. She also looks great on screen and has lots of charisma. Atwell is 41 years old, so she's no spring chicken. But she is twenty years younger than Cruise. Charlize Theron is 47, but she's very much a belivable action star. My guess is that the possibility is on the back of their minds, but the producers are in wait-and-see more. What do you think?
I don't think there has to be a male lead other than Cruise. Neither do I think changing the cast (other than Cruise) according to the plot will work long term.
The 1970s was a grim old time for Walt Disney Productions. Sure, they had singing cats and detective mice to keep the animation departments happy, but the live action stuff was all Escape from Witch Mountain and The Wonderful World of Disney on TV. Cue 1977, Star Wars and an excuse to dust off a space bound disaster movie project, tart it up a bit with a $20m budget and call it The Black Hole, which for some commentators was where all the money went.
Disney’s first ever PG rated movie – the card at the showing I caught read ‘BBFC A Certificate’ – is a haphazard remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with Maximillian Schell’s Dr Han Reinhardt impersonating Captain Nemo aboard his fantastic space cruiser Cygnus [Nautilus?] and bossing about a crew of humanoid automatons and one deadly Goliath-sized flying robot. Like Nemo, he’s mad and brilliant at the same time, shares a disdain for authority and the human race, entertains in a plush crystal cut dining hall with vintage wine and portraits, and wants to leave a lasting legacy to science and the universe. Nemo – sorry, Reinhardt – has ambitions to fly his huge space cruiser into the epicentre of a black hole and emerge out the other side. He’s already sent a probe into and out of the eye of the storm to plot a course. He hasn’t however bargained on the space exploration ship Palomino putting out a distress call as it is sucked helplessly into the vortex. On board Palomino are Robert Forster, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins, Ernest Borgnine and Joseph Bottoms, a clutch of not-quite-first-rate stars who made it good in the fifties and sixties but got stymied in low-grade exploitation fare.
Gary Nelson, the director, was more familiar with television work, although he’d made a couple of westerns and the feel good family body swap saga Freaky Friday, itself a so-so Disney hit. But the distinctly half-baked credentials of cast and crew sit well with a non-strenuous, hundred minute foray into outer space that treats its circumstances with just enough substance to sound plausible even though we know the scenario is total hogwash. The script mainly concentrates on the likelihood Reinhardt is as mad as a hatter and how the Palomino crew uncover the Doctor’s murderous treachery. There are some genuinely intriguing scenes, such as when Borgnine’s Harry Booth discovers the huge vegetation sphere and the limping automaton that tends to it, or Perkins’ gullible Dr Durant switching to Reinhardt’s cause, or a creepy outer space funeral for a decommissioned automaton, or the early discovery of Cygnus itself, a shadow on the revolving vortex of the black hole. The moment it suddenly illuminates is one of some wonder.
A word should be given in praise to the special effects teams, who are listed at length immediately the end credits roll. This is their film. Disney created the ACES film technique [Automated Camera Effects System] which essentially allowed high quality double exposures to be filmed in the same way Industrial Light and Magic did for Star Wars. The result is exceedingly fine, never better than in a moment of high tension as a rolling meteor charges down a cavernous space dock, dwarfing the tiny crew members who scramble to escape unrushing doom. Curiously, there is a tendency towards wobbly sets when the climax is reached. Cygnus appears to be falling apart more than being crushed by huge gravitational forces.
It’s all too late for Reinhardt by then, whose bodyguard robot Max has turned on him, leaving the crazed one for dead to pursue a vendetta against V.I.N.CENT LF396 [Vital Information Necessary Centralised Labour Force 396]. V.I.N.CENT is a small airborne R2D2 with big Mickey Mouse eyes and Roddy McDowall’s voice. He is David to Max’s Goliath. Slim Pickens enjoys himself as an older functional version, called B.O.B. [BiO-sanitation Battalion]. So yes, decades before Pixar came up with Wall-E, Disney had beaten them to the idea of a robot cleaner.
The script, such as it is, turns pseudo-psychological for the first half, as the characters debate, argue and mislead each other. The subtext of Man attempting to discover God rears an ugly head, so too Man playing God. Humour relaxes most of the tension, usually through V.I.N.CENT’s incessant maxims and mottos. The second half is almost all action and any ideas of keeping a scientific lid on proceedings go straight out the docking bay and down that black hole. It’s mighty good fun nonetheless, although John Barry’s excellent incidental score overplays itself a little during some robust action pieces. The movie commences with a two-minute overture before the opening credits, which is unusual and often omitted from television showings. [Incidentally, when did the film last get an airing on British telly?]
The film doesn’t have a great online reputation, which is disappointing as it has verve and intrigue. The ending is a bit 2001 and could have done with being less like a sci-fi imagination of Dante’s Inferno, itself an imagination of Revelation. It lacks mystery, which I think entering a black hole should have – for all the silliness on show the writers at least never attempted to explain what was beyond the vortex. Then the last three minutes come along and everything is suddenly alright. You wonder why they bothered frightening everyone.
Having not watched The Black Hole since Christmas 1979, I was more impressed than I expected to be. I had fond memories of it and while I can see its deficiencies, I wasn’t disappointed. The BFI only had a faded print, but the movie still has the power to entertain, is brisk and refuses to outstay its welcome. It should be due a print clean and restoration, one feels. The movie made money, but not enough to immediately change the Disney Corporation’s business tactics, which were centred on the theme parks. It did however make enough for the company to consider forming a new production arm, Touchstone, to make more adult orientated movies. We should at least thank The Black Hole for that.
Ponderous epic war drama which relates the story of teenager Anne Frank, a Jewish girl in Amsterdam whose family avoided capture from the Nazis by living in a cleverly converted and hidden loft extension. While the sentiment is worthy, the result is laboured. Director George Stevens and writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett do the unthinkable and turn a harrowing real life struggle into an uplifting tale of teen romance against all the odds, hope blossoming from among the clouds [to paraphrase Anne Frank’s words in the movie].
Stevens first came to fame at RKO where he made delightful, entertaining throwaway pictures, packed full of verve, wit and ingenuity. He served for the film unit of the US Signal Corps during the war and his experiences, including photographing D-Day and the liberation of Dachau concentration camp, led to a turning point in his career. He later explained that he decided he no longer wanted to direct frothy comedies and would concentrate on making serious movies about difficult subjects. Over the next ten years he directed just six films, most of them considered major works of art, but all of them stately and long winded. Only the western Shane showed pace and exhibited glimpses of Stevens’ old flair for rapid storytelling. The Diary of Anne Frank was a good match for Stevens in this phase of his career, but he makes a tortuous job of it. By the time the intermission comes, ninety minutes have dragged by and it feels more like the six months unveiled on screen.
The problem is all of the director’s own making. Given the landscape is restricted predominantly to the loft area, Stevens shows no originality in how to present the action. Scenes are staged as if we are watching in a theatre, flat, face on and with every cast member in sight. Occasionally he switches to closeups, but there is no sensation of the claustrophobia of the setting or the passage of time and the difficulties of the characters’ daily lives. This is a very clean group of hideaways. I would have expected facial hair growth, weight loss, bags under the eyes, but there is almost nothing. Millie Perkins as Anne Frank seems to bloom the longer the voluntary incarceration goes on, venturing out of her school uniform and into pretty dresses, shawls and heels.
In fairness, Stevens is not adapting Anne Frank’s diary, he’s adapting a Pulitzer Prize winning stage play based on the diary, so you have to accept a change of agenda, one which insists on a hopeful resolution. He’s also clearly been influenced by the stage production and that doesn’t make for a dynamic presentation. Shelly Winters won an Oscar for not doing very much. Generally, the characterisations are too stilted to be believable. The film has moments of high tension which sit at odds beside the domestic drama and the awkward romance.
One of my teachers at college was from the Netherlands and Jewish. His mother actually was a classmate of Anne Frank and like Anne's family they his in an attic. My teacher's mother and her family were caught about a week after the Franks, so maybe a member of the Frank family or the people who helped them hide were forced to talk by the nazis?
Comments
I mentioned the rowing-style in The Northman to my father. His reaction was "No, that doesn't sound like a viking to me". While he isn't old enough to have been a viking himself, he probably has more experience rowing than anyone in this forum He also rowed with old men who had rowed pretty big boats. People living by this fjord rowed to church in boats with several pairs of oars until 1880 when we got our own boats. My point about rowing applies to any boat exept the smallest ones, but I thoought I'd mention it anyway.
Typical church boat. The longship in the move was only twise as big as the boat closest to the camera:
CRY MACHO (2021)
Its quite incredible that Clint Eastwood is still not only acting but directing in his 90’s. Long retired rodeo star Eastwood is hired by his former boss to travel to Mexico to return his 15-year old son to him who lives a miserable life with his mother who is a wealthy crime boss. Instead of an improbable “all-guns-blazing” scenario we get a measured, simple story of the trek back to the USA and the discovery of mutual understanding between the two leads and a blossoming love affair with a widowed cafe owner. The pace is slow and the few scenes of action are handled in a realistic manner. As in The Mule, Clint delivers a nuanced performance and keeping the direction economic in his usual manner.
Very good.
I’m just back from seeing it, and agree with Gymkata’s comments. The Bride thought Waller-Bridge was a bit wooden at times. Ford was excellent (doesn’t look his age- Indy is supposed to be 69 here and the ten years older Ford is completely believable), and Mikkelsen again showed why he is the current go-to villain actor. Don't want to say much more because, like Gymkata, I'd like to avoid spoilers.
One scene I’d like to comment on-
Our hero (played by an ageing actor who’s played the part several times before) and his leading lady (easily young enough to be his daughter) dive into the ocean near Greece to retrieve the current MacGuffin from a wrecked ship. When they surface, their boat has been commandeered by the bad guys using deadly force, whose leader forces them to hand over the MacGuffin.
Yes, that’s in this movie. And word for word it’s in FYEO too. The similarity is only enhanced by the main bad guy actually being a Bond villain actor.
An interesting tidbit from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which was on tonight.
I've already pointed out that the haughty German or Austrian butler that Indiana and Elsa attempt to hoodwink at the Salzburg castle is in fact played Vernon Dobtcheff, the still alive and still working actor lately seen in the acclaimed TV series The Gold but better known to us as Max Kalba from The Spy Who Loved Me.
So what happens in this Indy adventure? We'll leave aside the Goldfinger-style nitpicking of how Elsa needs to infiltrate the castle with Indy when she's working for the Nazis though I suppose she can't just hand him over, while he goes to rescue Dad she presumably hotfoots it to them to tip them off he's arrived and that he has the 'book' with the tips on getting to the Holy Grail.
But what happens thereafter? We assume Indy has boobed in bringing Dad's book along with him ('I should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers!') but when Kristatos and Jenny Flex examine the artefact they are soon disappointed. The vital piece of information is missing. It's in effect useless. Why, it's almost as if it's been provided to merely... whet the appetite. Much like Max Kalba's microchip, as provided to Bond and Anya in Spy.
I wonder if the makers' were aware of this?
Dobtcheff has had remarkable career really - I saw him in an episode of The Sweeney this week, in a small role and he was in The Avengers back in the day - but then who wasn't?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I don't know if I'll be posting my review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny tonight but I'll point out that Mission Impossible comes out on Monday so if anyone wants to see Indy on the prime screen at their local, or at the BFI Imax, you only have a few days in which to do so. I don't know why the two most awaited films of the last few years should time it so they come out within a week of each other, it almost makes you wonder if someone didn't wish for a time-travelling to bring forward the opening by a fortnight or more....
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Okay, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny...
Okay, how do we do 'spoilers'?
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Press the first symbol below your text, looks like a reversed capital "P". Then press the inverted commas in the menu that appears. Then press "spoiler" in the next menu.
I watched Dial of Destiny last night and I pretty much agree with Gymkata's review of the film. I found it a good, fun ride. I tend to get a bit grumpy any time an action/adventure film is over 2 hours, but this was an example which didn't feel too much like it was outstaying its welcome despite being over 150 minutes in length. The prologue, and the later boat/diving scenes were my favourite parts of the film. Both gave me the feel and flavour of good old fashioned adventure thrillers like I might encounter in a book or film from the 1960s.
By the way, when we first encounter the female US government agent in the New York 1969 part of the film, my first thought was "Wow, Rosie Carver is in this film." 😉
'In English, if you please...' 😋
Roger Moore 1927-2017
So that's what I've been doing wrong all these years...
I am none the wiser after Barbel's advice on how to include spoilers in a review so I will drop my review with spoilers scattered liberally - reader beware.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
This has been dubbed as much a Bond film in style as an Indy movie, no bad thing we might agree, though it seems a shame at times the Bond film in question is No Time To Die. There is the sense you are watching a movie of 2023 or thereabouts, the tail-end of a franchise with an ageing lead in a woke world where the obligatory box ticking takes place and various plot baggage has to be neatly stored in the overhead rack or lost in transit or simply jettisoned. Some of this works quite well, however.
Don't get me wrong, I loathed No Time To Die while I generally enjoyed this - all the same there are dangerous stretches where I struggled to sympathise or like anyone onscreen, as with the last Bond film. It gets highly frenetic and less engaging as it does so, our hero is made to look unnecessarily old and sidelined at times and while the action is on point there is too often a lack of charm or warmth, certainly magic. What's frustrating is how often it very nearly works and works very well when it does, but it's kind of juggling plates.
Some of the cultural references are a bit too cute, okay it's set in 1969 but if you're going to have a James Bond character help Indy out - did Bond ever make it to New York before Moore in 73? He did not - then you'd much prefer they use the Deep Fake de-ageing process on Sean Connery - then again, he isn't alive to sign away his likeness, and that's probably the big in joke they were going for in the first draft. Still as he died they opt for a young George Lazenby who glides up in his OHMSS Aston Martin and escorts Indy away from his enemies, much as he did with Napoleon Solo in the Uncle TV film.
Other nods to the times, where Indy bumps into a youthful Paul McCartney in the Big Apple - it's a distraction really, you'd think Macca would't need the publicity but I suppose we had an aged up Lennon at the final scene of that film Yesterday. It makes you almost glad for Yoko's protection of the Lennon legacy.
Finally, I know The Producers came out around that time but to have a bunch of marauding Nazis careering on stage as the big number 'Springtime for Hitler' is performed - don't get me wrong, I laughed out loud - but it's not for purists.
Other than those moments, there's lots to enjoy.
Perhaps Barbel can insert the spoiler tags for those who haven't seen it yet.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
No problems, Napoleon. 🙂
I think this is the first film I have watched for a month. Getting slack, Chris...
THE SIXTH DAY (2000)
Roger Spottiswoode directs this terrific sci-fi action movie which sees Arnold Schwarzenegger’s family man ski instructor cloned by a fanatical scientist. When businessman and multibillionaire Michael Drucker is assassinated on one of Adam Gibson’s snowboarding excursions, all the victims are cloned to cover up the murders. But Schwarzenegger’s Adam Gibson was never there, having swapped places with fellow instructor, Hank. Gibson must fight to get his life and his family back – only Drucker must keep his cloning program secret as the process has been declared illegal by the government. Robert Duvall’s scientist sees the error of his ways, but has his change of heart come too late to save Adam Gibson?
An interesting view of the future is provided in the flashy, stop-start narrative that bombards us with information, images and tech at a high speed. The early sequences in particular are a sensory overload as computer screens, mobiles, TVs, mirrors, fridges, cars, helicopters, face masks, dolls, and virtually everything a person uses to run their lives is controlled by technology, leaving human interaction a mere passing footnote. Interestingly, while the tech has moved on, much remains the same: houses, cars, food, clothes, habits and homelives all remain familiar from the twentieth century. As a hero Gibson is very old school, preferring vintage cars, personal contact and retaining a healthy dose of scepticism for the ideology of cloning. He isn’t a total technophobe, and being ex-military Gibson understands the usefulness of hardware, it’s the development of unnatural organic life forms that trouble him. “Who gets to decide who lives and dies?” he asks Michael Drucker, as smooth and svelte a villain as they come.
Drucker is surrounded by a quartet of incompetents so it isn’t a surprise Arnie wins the day. Getting to the climax is a joy ride of explosions, gun battles, car chases and cloning clones. “Why don’t you stay dead?” Arnie cries after killing one heavy a second time. Aside from top notch action, the moral slant to the narrative is quite clear. The heart, soul and mind really is on the sleeve. The fact Drucker is manipulating the cloning program for his own uses turns the medical morality of cloning for life preservation on its head, for he inputs specific life threatening genes into the clones, insuring they stay loyal, forever reliant on re-cloning to survive. Here is a man truly playing the hand of God.
Schwarzenegger’s career was suffering a little by the early 2000s, but he has always been well suited to the fantasy and sci-fi genres where his muscular physique and dead pan playing can’t hinder the narrative. The original Terminator trilogy, the horrific Predator, the violence fuelled Total Recall and the insanity of The Running Man are all testament to Arnie’s ability to carry a preposterous storyline, and he’s equally effective here both as the hard working, devoted family man and as the desperate, yet skilled action hero. The climax seems a little confused and you do wonder where on earth the police were during all this, but like those other underrated Arnie gems Eraser and End of Days, The Sixth Day ticks all the right boxes for all the right reasons. Very good.
Given the reviews Cruise might yet wish IMAX bookings were a lot shorter for MI7.
there was a host of 2 star reviews in British press this week. Gist of why was essentially turgid plot with some great set pieces and a rousing finish that teases good movie to come but begs the question why this one existed.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-part-one-review-tom-cruise-s-blockbuster-is-a-spirit-crushing-mess-twlzrtbfg
Given MI has stolen everything from Bond I assumed on reading they were just doing QoS and CR in reverse 😁
Obviously reviews are generally to be ignored at all costs, I just found it amusing that some of the reviewers are famous for basically phoning in 4 stars for everything.
Personally I like almost all the cast so it could be terrible and I would still enjoy it.
Of note for this thread I saw Dial Of Destiny and loved it agreeing with much of the above.
It did make me think though. Star Wars, MCU, Bond, MI, Indy etc etc. There has been well over a decade of "we are old and this is the end" movies.
I've had a great old time but I am in the sweet spot for all of that.
Where are the new movie or TV heroes for 20 somethings to follow for the next few decades as they age. TV is difficult as usually the writers end up screwing the pooch (hello GoT). I felt sad watching Indy about the paucity of viable candidates,
Made me hope anew that Bond 26 is young, dumb and full of immortality.
CINDERELLA (1950)
So, you are probably asking yourself, what is chrisno1, that erstwhile reviewer of Dr Who, Star Trek, The Persuaders, The Saint, James Bond books and movies, Alistair MacLean, spies and spying, and just about any vaguely adult film or novel or poetry collection he can get his hands on, doing spending a Sunday lunchtime at the BFI watching a Walt Disney animation? Well, my mate was back from Dubai and I was meeting the family for lunch; this was a treat to keep the kids quiet. The daughter enjoyed it more than the son.
Without submitting myself to ridicule from the ’bombs, bullets and boobs brigade’ Cinderella is possibly one of the most affecting and beautifully composed animated films the Walt Disney corporation ever put onto the screen. It really is a fairy tale, with loyal, caring, forgiving and extraordinarily beautiful domestic abuse victim Cinderella getting a subtle one over her wicked stepmother and horrible stepsisters and sneaking out to a grand ball where she meets the love her life, who just happens to be an eligible prince. She loses her glass slipper and her magical carriage, but eventually gains a husband and a kingdom. Her family of animals, mostly mice and bluebirds, assist her in every way they can, an Angela Lansbury looking Fairy Godmother materialises from the stars and the maleficent black cat Lucifer prowls at her feet attempting to catch interfering rodents and make the poor scrubber’s life a misery. Oh, but she’s much too good natured to bother about a nasty kitty; when making breakfast, Cinderella attempts to convince the lazy old beagle Bruno that Lucifer must have some good qualities: at least the fat cat is afraid of dogs, she decides.
Cinderella was Walt Disney’s biggest hit since Snow White. Uncle Walt had spent years trying to replicate his initial wonder, believing he was a small miracle away from a perfect fairy tale. For all the charm and animated magic of Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi and the like, audiences simply wouldn’t sit through these full length sagas. The lack of a central human character pushes back at the viewer. Flying elephants, wooden puppets and doe-eyed fawns are all very well, and you can give them all the human qualities you want, but you can’t elicit the same emotive sympathies as you would with a human. Walt recognised this himself and Song of the South, which married live action to animation, was swiftly followed by a fully live version of Treasure Island. The animated output of the 1950s – The Lady and the Tramp aside – concentrated fully on people: Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Sleeping Beauty were all, after a fashion, films about the human heart and the human form. Here, under the direction of Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Lane and Clyde Geronimi, the fairy tale princess finds her truest form, perhaps because she is based on such a well-known and well-loved tale in the first place.
It’s surprising Walt never ventured towards Charles Perrault’s 18th Century fairy story earlier as it has all the ingredients of any classic romance – good girl overcomes the odds and wins her man – coupled to the age old staple of magic [should we call it ‘white magic’?]. The story is deceptively simple and simply told. Cinderella, as voiced by Irene Woods, is probably one of cinema’s most delightful animated creations. Her story is extremely bleak and one might suggest she is too passive, but that misses the point of the fairy story. It is her loyalty and goodness which marks her out for eventual success. That’s the lesson Perrault attempts to teach his readers. The step mother and sisters display no such ideals and their monstrous treatment of Cinderella delivers no sympathy. Walt himself edited out a whole sequence where the heroine makes fun of her step sisters as it portrayed Cinderella in an unfavourable light. He didn’t want any darkness to envelope his glimmering on screen heroine.
And indeed there isn’t. Aided by a clutch of mice and a gaggle of birds, she dutifully slaves away day after day and still maintains a positive outlook in all adversity. One might suggest the film doesn’t feature a true villain in the mould of Snow White’s wicked aunt, but there’s a more elusive villainy at work here, one that in the modern era where domestic and industrial slavery is being rediscovered even in so-called socially conscious societies seems entirely appropriate and – for the young ones – upsetting. The scene where the sisters tear Cinderella’s gorgeous pink dress from her shoulders has all the hallmarks of Hitchcock in his Freudian prime, or Fitz Lang in film noir terror mode; a more modern interpretation might be Tarantino or Nic Roeg cross cutting as the dreadful incident unfolds. We genuinely feel for Cinderella as she rushes out of the mansion – a house which seems to get bigger and darker the worse her fate becomes.
The animation is tremendous. The movie was originally shot with live action stand ins and the storyboards constructed around the live actors. This gives the humans real characteristics. There are no huge outlandish eyes or sticking out chins or ridiculous body shapes. If you compare Cinderella’s cast to that of say Lilo and Stich, Moana or Hercules, you’ll see what I mean. In fact, it was knack Disney’s animators lost again for several decades until The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast supplied decent, believable animated humans. They’ve struggled periodically to recapture the same blend successfully ever since, so Cinderella still stands out as an excellently animated, very human story. You sense the actual actors bursting through the brush strokes. This is also true of the mice, particularly Jaq and Gus, who commit most of the daring antics and are our barometer of decency. They act how we would like to think we might and while they are obviously animals, the animators cleverly allow them to exhibit human actions and reactions, facially and physically, which keep them memorable and, unlike the Seven Dwarves, are never likely to be the butt of inappropriate smutty jokes.
We perhaps ought to mention the castle, which was based on Ludwig II’s palace at Neuschwanstein, and became the basis of Walt Disney World in Florida and the Buena Vista logo. It is ridiculously off the scale, which sometimes turns the dancing Prince and his beloved into tiny stickpeople on a vast canvas, but that only enhances the magical effect: this is Cinderella’s story and she’s caught up in a larger than life moment, so everything is larger than life, except for her small slippers. Cleverly, the animators insert an earlier scene where she loses her house slipper on the stair, so we are not surprised by her misfortune. The romance could perhaps be more sturdy.
Cinderella is a genuine family treat, although little boys may not be over interested in it other than the Tom and Jerry style cat and mouse games. It is one of the Walt Disney empire’s finest achievements in story and animation. They throw animated movies at us like confetti these days and most of them are dull as ditch water and are missing any semblance of physical humanity [witness the recent Pixar thing Elemental, which wears its intent on its sleeve from its title to its characters and ‘fake’ location]. Cinderella is about people, or one person, and their [her] emotions and it leaves one with the soft and rather comforting feeling that A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes.
Brilliant.
Now, that I enjoyed. As I said earlier, it's always fun seeing what film you watch and review next!
THE INVISIBLE MAN LEGACY COLLECTION
The Invisible Man (1933); The Invisible Man Returns (1940); The Invisible Woman (1940); Invisible Agent (1942); The Invisible Man’s Revenge (1944); Abbott & Costello Meet The Invisible Man (1951)
All b&w.
The first was and remains a classic of its kind, with even the SFX holding up not too shabbily today. The main letdown IMHO is the same as that of “Bride Of Frankenstein”- the presence of the intensely annoying Una O’Connor in the cast as a shrieking perversion of comic relief. I have no idea what James Whale, director of those two otherwise classic movies, was thinking.
The second isn’t too bad as sequels go, and avoided the common method of simply rehashing the original that many sequels are prone to. The third is played mostly for laughs.
“Invisible Agent” is a propaganda piece, with the USA now in WW2. It mainly stands out for having such superb villains as our own Peter Lorre and the always reliable Sir Cedric Hardwicke (Hardwicke had been in “Return”, as well, in a different role).
“Revenge” again isn’t too bad, and avoids rehashing. And the meeting with Abbott & Costello isn’t the worst of their “meet” series.
If you’re going to make an Invisible Man movie then it should be really obvious that your star has to have a distinctive, recognizable voice. The first two actors were Claude Rains and Vincent Price, so no worries there. However after that this was abandoned and bland voiced actors (cheaper actors?) were substituted, to the detriment of the films concerned. Nevertheless, unlike some of the Universal horror series, this one doesn’t quite go downhill to the same extent they did (I’m looking at you, “Mummy”).
MR TURNER (2014)
I like painter J.M.W. Turner’s later works, where he started to experiment not with interpretation but with emotional and physical impressionism, what a horrified Queen Victoria described as “a huge creamy blur.” If you look at Turner’s great seascapes of the period [The Fighting Temeraire, The Slave Ship] or Rain, Steam and Speed, you’ll see what I mean: how the artist creates movement through blurring the lines of detail, as if we only glimpse fleetingly the whole canvas, while small details penetrate and remain memorable. This is exactly how we remember images in real life. Turner’s Bridge of Sighs perhaps best exemplifies this with its stunning colourful foreground, whose colours wash into and over one another, while the titular bridge and the Doge Palace occupies the background in stately, monumental fashion, but bears no relation to the actual structures. Turner is painting from exaggerated memory, from the emotional pull of a subject, not from what he physically saw or wants us to see. There is very little symbolism in his work. He presents us with swirls of vivid colour and frenzied movement, often without brush strokes or identifiable technique. In the early Victorian era this was revolutionary and controversial. He had his supporters, he had doubters. Midway in the film there’s a recreated scene from a Royal Academy exhibition where Turner notices how the extremely strong crimson hues of John Constable’s work compare boldly beside his languid, misty pale seas; so he injects a single focus point of the same shade of crimson, much to the members’ amusement. An instinctive genius, perhaps, but a misplaced one. He inhabits the wrong era we feel.
Mike Leigh’s biopic doesn’t do much for Turner’s reputation as a person. Timothy Spall plays him like one of Harry Enfield’s Old Gits, rude, obnoxious and dithering. Writer / director Leigh also chooses to make him non-confrontational. He avoids argument, ploughs on his own furrow and trusts time will tell. Failing physical and mental capabilities spur his demise. I suppose time did eventually catch up, when reassessment came lurking after all those French Impressionists copied him. The movie shifts without any purpose between scenes, offering little explanation or introduction. Whole swathes of the artist’s life history are cut out [one assumes Venice was excluded because it would have been too expensive to film there] and replaced instead by a gloomy atmosphere of death and despondency in Chelsea and Margate. Good photography from Dick Pope and generous intelligent CGI allows us to view inspirational scenes Turner may have witnessed and represented for his canvases. Gary Yershon provides a gently impressive music score.
Not as good as everyone thought in 2014.
You really should watch more reality TV. Big Brother will put an end to this intellectual silliness! (But I did watch Mr Turner at the cinema and I thought it was rather good)
ANDREI RUBLEV (1966)
Now, if you want to see how to make a movie about an artist and turn that artist’s life into something more dramatic and world encompassing, forget Mr Turner. Small fry. Forget Charlton Heston’s posturing in The Agony and The Ecstasy. Or Hopkins as Picasso. Jackson Pollock? No. Watch Andrei Tarkovsky’s epic saga about the fifteenth century Russian Orthodox icon painter Andrei Rublev. Considered a saint by the Orthodox church, Rublev’s life is shrouded in some mystery. His date and place of birth is unknown, so too his death date, and many paintings attributed to him are disputed. The few surviving genuine pieces are badly damaged by the rigours of time, war and bad maintenance, a test much mural work suffers from. However, his calm, peaceful interpretations of the gospel stories are acclaimed by experts as a crowning achievement in medieval Eastern art, expanding the Byzantine legacy into something wholly Russian Orthodox, his stories unusually focussing on peripheral characters, until his masterpiece, The Trinity.
What Tarkovsky does as director and writer is allow Rublev to become both a mouthpiece for the Soviet system and an agitator against it. The dialogue and incidents can be interpreted either way, provoking debate both secular and religious about society, human nature and the power of forgiveness [human forgiveness, not God’s]. Rublev is portrayed foremost as a man, not an artist; we barely see him lift a brush. Despite being a monk, he has the same physical temptations and intellectual battles as a layperson. At various times he is plagued by doubt and indecision, is seduced by the pagans on Kupala Night, kills a soldier in anger and it is hinted he shares his bed with a beautiful ‘holy fool’, her a mute and he taking a vow of silence, physicality binding them. It is only when Rublev recognises his own obsession in the young bell maker Boriska that salvation beckons.
Tarkovsky doesn’t bother creating any backstory, he lurches directly into the tale as Rublev and two fellow iconographers seek work beyond the monastery at Andronikov. The movie is framed as eight chapters, each episode a passion play which reveals facets about society, culture or religion of the fifteenth century that resonates for the Soviet Union of 1966. So an obscene jester, who makes fun of the upper classes, is betrayed and subsequently tortured by the boyars. Rublev interprets his societal role as an artist as a thankless task, expecting at any moment public crucifixion. We see different nationalities and classes striving to cooperate, yet privately scheming behind each other’s backs, including two princes who vie for control of a walled city and its beautiful cathedral. The monks ignore the irreligious behaviour of the ruling classes, but chastise the lower classes for the same, something supposedly eradicated by Marxism. Even great art is subject to impossible conditions: Rublev tactfully refuses to comply with an order to decorate the Vladimir Cathedral until he has the perfect theme and design, the bell-founder is treated as a disposable commodity, the jester mocked for his good humour. Perhaps most resonant is the siege of Vladimir by the Tartars, a scene of mob rule, death, rape, pillage and destruction, which mirrors atrocities committed by the Germans in the Second World War.
Tellingly, there is joy in comradeship, specifically the casting of the new bronze bell, which brings the community together, not though by political agitation, but by a religious spur. Tarkovsky is clearly sticking his finger up at the Soviet system which strongly opposed organised religion of any kind. Earlier, the monks witness the harmless pagans being hunted like animals as punishment for public fornication. He mocks the system, both new and old, as both the jester and Rublev’s mute love Durochka perform to the delight of first the peasants and then the tartars. Meanwhile, the monks cower like the authorities before the rule of the princes, who pay God lip-service, preferring to wage war on one another, coup following coup. The peasants are caught in the crossfire.
The movie is shot in stark black and white and it is only during the ten minute epilogue that colour film is used, closeups of Rublev’s work display the richness and vibrancy of his pallets. Here too, the director takes us back to the rainy days of the story’s opening scene and the horses in the lea valley, as if signifying that artists alone cannot alter the world. Andrei Rublev is frequently voted one of the Best 100 Films of All Time, but its power is waning a little with age. The message it sent to audiences in the sixties doesn’t ring as clearly today. Its themes of freedom, choice and forgiveness are diluted by our knowledge that ultimately the Communist system did not succeed. They feel redundant subjects among the rampant capitalism of the current climate – although one may disagree if you care to look at Putin’s Moscow regime. Nonetheless a stupendous achievement of storytelling and subtext and one of the finest cinematic products of the Soviet era.
@Gymkata says…To that end, I feel I must now make a statement: I think that I'm now officially in the 'Ethan Hunt' camp rather than the 'James Bond' camp. The M:I franchise knows exactly what it is AND is able to consistently put out extremely entertaining product on a regular basis. The Bond franchise has felt at odds with itself for the entire Craig run in terms of tone, character, plotting, and action. Who even knows if we're going to get another film ever at this point...the behind the scenes fighting is killing the franchise and killing any enthusiasm for the franchise. I'm not writing Bond off yet but I think it may possibly be completely irrelevant now.
I wrote much of the same in another thread some months back - I really have little interest in where the Bond films go from here and I find the whole speculation thing boring. BB has ruined her father’s legacy, perhaps irreparably, unless Amazon can sort things out the franchise is dead and buried.
Long live the magical era of DN thru LTK - I can still wallow in all their glory any time I wish.
I've seen the movie too. It's an excellent action movie. It still lacks some of the personality and soul of the James Bond movies, but as pure action movies Bond needs to step up!I wonder if Hayley Atwell will at some time in the future step in as the action lead (and Tom Cruise As the producer and leader of IMF) when Cruise gets too old to do all those stunts? As an extra bonus the biggest action set-pieces are filmed in this county. On the other hand I find it frustrating how Cruise is using up some of the best potential Bond locations in Norway. The Rauma railway, The Troll Wall mountain cliff, Kylling bridge (and Svalbard in Part 2) can all be found in the potential locations thread where I posted photos.
That's depressing, particularly because I can't think of a decent argument against it since there's so much truth in what you say.
gymkata said:
I feel I must now make a statement: I think that I'm now officially in the 'Ethan Hunt' camp rather than the 'James Bond' camp. The M:I franchise knows exactly what it is AND is able to consistently put out extremely entertaining product on a regular basis. The Bond franchise has felt at odds with itself for the entire Craig run in terms of tone, character, plotting, and action. Who even knows if we're going to get another film ever at this point...the behind the scenes fighting is killing the franchise and killing any enthusiasm for the franchise. I'm not writing Bond off yet but I think it may possibly be completely irrelevant now.
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this is a sad day, as you were one of the most outspoken defenders of No Time to Die
SPOILER WARNING. Don't read unless you've seen Dead Reconing Part 1.
I wonder what will happen to the Mission Impossible franchise in some years. Assuming Tom Cruise is human he will have to cut back on doing all those crazy stunts some day, probably in the next ten years. I imagine he will continue producing the movies and maybe play the leader of IMF. Will he stay the lead and the team out in the field play a more or less equal role, much like the TV series? Or will he pick one who becomes the new action star of the team? Earlier I wanted Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) to fill that role, partly because she was the youngest semi-member of the team and also because her character was the most interesting. But now Ilsa is dead. I wonder if the plan is to gradually make Grace (Hayley Atwell) the new action star of the franchise. Grace did "apply" to join the IMF in this movie. Apparently she was so eager to do stunts Tom Cruise and the director called her "Hell yeah". Atwell is a good actress who isn't really attached to any other action series since I assume her involvement with Captain America is over. She also looks great on screen and has lots of charisma. Atwell is 41 years old, so she's no spring chicken. But she is twenty years younger than Cruise. Charlize Theron is 47, but she's very much a belivable action star. My guess is that the possibility is on the back of their minds, but the producers are in wait-and-see more. What do you think?
I don't think there has to be a male lead other than Cruise. Neither do I think changing the cast (other than Cruise) according to the plot will work long term.
THE BLACK HOLE (1979)
The 1970s was a grim old time for Walt Disney Productions. Sure, they had singing cats and detective mice to keep the animation departments happy, but the live action stuff was all Escape from Witch Mountain and The Wonderful World of Disney on TV. Cue 1977, Star Wars and an excuse to dust off a space bound disaster movie project, tart it up a bit with a $20m budget and call it The Black Hole, which for some commentators was where all the money went.
Disney’s first ever PG rated movie – the card at the showing I caught read ‘BBFC A Certificate’ – is a haphazard remake of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with Maximillian Schell’s Dr Han Reinhardt impersonating Captain Nemo aboard his fantastic space cruiser Cygnus [Nautilus?] and bossing about a crew of humanoid automatons and one deadly Goliath-sized flying robot. Like Nemo, he’s mad and brilliant at the same time, shares a disdain for authority and the human race, entertains in a plush crystal cut dining hall with vintage wine and portraits, and wants to leave a lasting legacy to science and the universe. Nemo – sorry, Reinhardt – has ambitions to fly his huge space cruiser into the epicentre of a black hole and emerge out the other side. He’s already sent a probe into and out of the eye of the storm to plot a course. He hasn’t however bargained on the space exploration ship Palomino putting out a distress call as it is sucked helplessly into the vortex. On board Palomino are Robert Forster, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins, Ernest Borgnine and Joseph Bottoms, a clutch of not-quite-first-rate stars who made it good in the fifties and sixties but got stymied in low-grade exploitation fare.
Gary Nelson, the director, was more familiar with television work, although he’d made a couple of westerns and the feel good family body swap saga Freaky Friday, itself a so-so Disney hit. But the distinctly half-baked credentials of cast and crew sit well with a non-strenuous, hundred minute foray into outer space that treats its circumstances with just enough substance to sound plausible even though we know the scenario is total hogwash. The script mainly concentrates on the likelihood Reinhardt is as mad as a hatter and how the Palomino crew uncover the Doctor’s murderous treachery. There are some genuinely intriguing scenes, such as when Borgnine’s Harry Booth discovers the huge vegetation sphere and the limping automaton that tends to it, or Perkins’ gullible Dr Durant switching to Reinhardt’s cause, or a creepy outer space funeral for a decommissioned automaton, or the early discovery of Cygnus itself, a shadow on the revolving vortex of the black hole. The moment it suddenly illuminates is one of some wonder.
A word should be given in praise to the special effects teams, who are listed at length immediately the end credits roll. This is their film. Disney created the ACES film technique [Automated Camera Effects System] which essentially allowed high quality double exposures to be filmed in the same way Industrial Light and Magic did for Star Wars. The result is exceedingly fine, never better than in a moment of high tension as a rolling meteor charges down a cavernous space dock, dwarfing the tiny crew members who scramble to escape unrushing doom. Curiously, there is a tendency towards wobbly sets when the climax is reached. Cygnus appears to be falling apart more than being crushed by huge gravitational forces.
It’s all too late for Reinhardt by then, whose bodyguard robot Max has turned on him, leaving the crazed one for dead to pursue a vendetta against V.I.N.CENT LF396 [Vital Information Necessary Centralised Labour Force 396]. V.I.N.CENT is a small airborne R2D2 with big Mickey Mouse eyes and Roddy McDowall’s voice. He is David to Max’s Goliath. Slim Pickens enjoys himself as an older functional version, called B.O.B. [BiO-sanitation Battalion]. So yes, decades before Pixar came up with Wall-E, Disney had beaten them to the idea of a robot cleaner.
The script, such as it is, turns pseudo-psychological for the first half, as the characters debate, argue and mislead each other. The subtext of Man attempting to discover God rears an ugly head, so too Man playing God. Humour relaxes most of the tension, usually through V.I.N.CENT’s incessant maxims and mottos. The second half is almost all action and any ideas of keeping a scientific lid on proceedings go straight out the docking bay and down that black hole. It’s mighty good fun nonetheless, although John Barry’s excellent incidental score overplays itself a little during some robust action pieces. The movie commences with a two-minute overture before the opening credits, which is unusual and often omitted from television showings. [Incidentally, when did the film last get an airing on British telly?]
The film doesn’t have a great online reputation, which is disappointing as it has verve and intrigue. The ending is a bit 2001 and could have done with being less like a sci-fi imagination of Dante’s Inferno, itself an imagination of Revelation. It lacks mystery, which I think entering a black hole should have – for all the silliness on show the writers at least never attempted to explain what was beyond the vortex. Then the last three minutes come along and everything is suddenly alright. You wonder why they bothered frightening everyone.
Having not watched The Black Hole since Christmas 1979, I was more impressed than I expected to be. I had fond memories of it and while I can see its deficiencies, I wasn’t disappointed. The BFI only had a faded print, but the movie still has the power to entertain, is brisk and refuses to outstay its welcome. It should be due a print clean and restoration, one feels. The movie made money, but not enough to immediately change the Disney Corporation’s business tactics, which were centred on the theme parks. It did however make enough for the company to consider forming a new production arm, Touchstone, to make more adult orientated movies. We should at least thank The Black Hole for that.
THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (1959)
Ponderous epic war drama which relates the story of teenager Anne Frank, a Jewish girl in Amsterdam whose family avoided capture from the Nazis by living in a cleverly converted and hidden loft extension. While the sentiment is worthy, the result is laboured. Director George Stevens and writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett do the unthinkable and turn a harrowing real life struggle into an uplifting tale of teen romance against all the odds, hope blossoming from among the clouds [to paraphrase Anne Frank’s words in the movie].
Stevens first came to fame at RKO where he made delightful, entertaining throwaway pictures, packed full of verve, wit and ingenuity. He served for the film unit of the US Signal Corps during the war and his experiences, including photographing D-Day and the liberation of Dachau concentration camp, led to a turning point in his career. He later explained that he decided he no longer wanted to direct frothy comedies and would concentrate on making serious movies about difficult subjects. Over the next ten years he directed just six films, most of them considered major works of art, but all of them stately and long winded. Only the western Shane showed pace and exhibited glimpses of Stevens’ old flair for rapid storytelling. The Diary of Anne Frank was a good match for Stevens in this phase of his career, but he makes a tortuous job of it. By the time the intermission comes, ninety minutes have dragged by and it feels more like the six months unveiled on screen.
The problem is all of the director’s own making. Given the landscape is restricted predominantly to the loft area, Stevens shows no originality in how to present the action. Scenes are staged as if we are watching in a theatre, flat, face on and with every cast member in sight. Occasionally he switches to closeups, but there is no sensation of the claustrophobia of the setting or the passage of time and the difficulties of the characters’ daily lives. This is a very clean group of hideaways. I would have expected facial hair growth, weight loss, bags under the eyes, but there is almost nothing. Millie Perkins as Anne Frank seems to bloom the longer the voluntary incarceration goes on, venturing out of her school uniform and into pretty dresses, shawls and heels.
In fairness, Stevens is not adapting Anne Frank’s diary, he’s adapting a Pulitzer Prize winning stage play based on the diary, so you have to accept a change of agenda, one which insists on a hopeful resolution. He’s also clearly been influenced by the stage production and that doesn’t make for a dynamic presentation. Shelly Winters won an Oscar for not doing very much. Generally, the characterisations are too stilted to be believable. The film has moments of high tension which sit at odds beside the domestic drama and the awkward romance.
The BBC did this better.
One of my teachers at college was from the Netherlands and Jewish. His mother actually was a classmate of Anne Frank and like Anne's family they his in an attic. My teacher's mother and her family were caught about a week after the Franks, so maybe a member of the Frank family or the people who helped them hide were forced to talk by the nazis?