A well-structured legal thriller with Susan Sarandon as a rent-a-lawyer hired by an errant child who has witnessed a Mafia suicide and is in fear for his life. A great performance from Ms Sarandon helps immeasurably to keep us interested, as does Tommy Lee Jones playing a Bible quoting District Attorney. Brad Renfro is the kid and while he starts off with our sympathies, it soon wears thin for he is entirely obnoxious. Nonetheless a well-performed and presented thriller that ticks all the boxes you would expect and features a similar number of plot holes. The best scenes are reserved for the various interrogations and interviews that pervade the narrative as legal jargon is batted back and forth like tennis balls and the players spit and scowl at each other. Legal-eagle John Grisham wrote the original novel and I detect his lawyer’s expertise all over those scenes. It’s a great film of little substance; just take it for what it is and enjoy it. Joel Schumacher directs with little originality but much accomplishment.
The plot and the narrative is deliberately dry and functional due to the fact that the film tried extremely hard to follow actual police procedures, car chase excepted. It's a true 'how the sausage gets made' kind of film, showing actual detective work and such. Devoid of the typical Hollywood glamour, the film almost plays as a docu-drama. That's either going to work for you or utterly repel you.
Personally, I find it to be a completely engrossing film.
It didn't repel me @HarryCanyon , I am merely pointing up what I consider are inherent deficiencies beside the good. I appreciate your come-back, although I think you'll find I mention many of your points in my review, albeit obliquely.
I finally got to see Interstellar, at London's Prince Charles cinema.
It's a Christopher Nolan film, so it was a) Intense b) Not really credible, almost deliberately perhaps c) Very moving - though how much was due to Hans Zimmer's score, I can't quite say - I was moved by his score at the BBC Proms showing of sci-fi movie scores two or so years ago, so that was a kind of control experiment d) Impressive e) Not really quite enjoyable for me, kind of harrowing.
A couple of Bond references but no, I wouldn't want him to do a Bond film and it would be beneath him anyway, I guess it would be a Skyfall type thing, which admittedly many regard as Craig's high-point. There are jokes but overall the tone is depressing.
Some of Interstellar I didn't quite 'get' - I thought they were the first ones out there, so what'a another craft doing there? It felt like I'd nipped out to the loo and missed something, but I hadn't. McConaughy's Cooper heads off before even hardly heading home to shave, no refresher course needed for him! All a bit Ad Astra, though that came years later.
On a side note, London seems like a crap hole these days. it's utterly charmless.
One of the finest action thriller films ever made.
Robert Rath (Stallone), an exhausted contract killer is now in the crosshairs of a young and upcoming assassin, Miguel Bain (Banderas)...ruthless, remorseless and soulless.
Behind the scenes, a shadowy contractor controls both men as chessboard pieces.
Their paths intersect again, when a lucrative contract arrives on their laptop screens.
Eliminate Electra (Julianne Moore)...a computer hacker, possessing digital information worth millions.
Rath's worst fears come true, when he realizes that a bounty has also been placed on his head.
This cat and mouse game reaches a crescendo in the Banco Internationale in Puerto Rico, when an old friend returns from the dead to greet Robert Rath.
Directed by Richard Donner and running at 133 minutes, this is a timeless action film.
I've always meant to watch this - and it's Richard 'Lethal Weapon' 'Superman: The Movie' Donner! It got one great review when it came out - it doesn't come on telly that often. I think you'd want to see it without ad breaks perhaps.
An intense boardroom drama that transpires on the 40th floor of the Ramsey building in Manhattan, New York.
Walter Ramsey, CEO of the industrial behemoth Ramsey & Co., has invited a young tiger, an industrial engineer by the name of Fred Staples into the executive suite.
The aim...not what you might think.
An intense vitriol exists between Ramsey and his second in command, Bill Briggs.
Dyspeptic Bill Briggs, a dedicated employee of forty years, who had built this company from scratch with Walter Ramsey's long departed father remains steadfast in his concern for the employees and his old school ways of doing things.
Worse of all, Briggs refuses to retire.
In order to seal his corporate coffin, Ramsey begins the undertaking, one nail at a time.
He divests Briggs from his long trusted secretary, hands over many of his operational commitments to Staples and underscores his corporate suggestions.
The writing on the wall is clear.
Briggs is to be replaced with Staples, as Vice President of Ramsey & Co.
Staples, caught in between his friendship for Briggs and his own personal ambition, is placed in a tight spot.
Briggs, brought to the point of nervous exhaustion in a follow-up boardroom meeting, finally gets his handshake.
Not the golden one, but the forever one by the Reaper.
After his tragic and convenient death, Staples confronts the old snake in his office.
Only to realize that the poison he offers is sweet.
Very sweet indeed.
A tremendous film, written by Rod Serling and directed by Fielder Cook.
One of my absolute favorite films, probably in my top 5 of all time. It gets better with rewatches.
'what were other crafts doing out there?' You must have missed this part: when the wormhole originally appeared, they sent some probes into it and the signals they received back from those probes indicated that there were 12 possible planets on the other side that might be suitable for the citizens of Earth to move to. 12 volunteers flew into the wormhole to check out the planets with the intention of signaling back if their planet was actually viable. By the time McConoughey and team leave, they have signals from three of those planets. For the other 9 astronauts, it was essentially a suicide mission.
First time I saw the film, I thought it was OK. That was in IMAX. When it hit blu ray, I saw it again and it clicked for me in a major way. I've seen it probably six times now and it's only gotten better. It's the only Nolan film to have any sort of emotional resonance with me. I consider it a legit masterpiece.
edited to add: Hans Zimmer's finest hour. One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in my life.
An intense and dense thriller from Francis Ford Coppola, made on the hoof between his two Godfather epics and arguably better than either of them. The Conversation concerns private surveillance operator Harry Caul whose decent into Kafkaesque madness is ensured following an operation which leads him to believe a murder is about to be committed.
Gene Hackman is outstanding in a career best performance as Harry Caul, a man unable to communicate effectively because he is obsessed with surveillance and security. This is a guy who refuses to give out any personal details to anyone, not even his on-off girlfriend or his work colleagues; he refuses to give his home telephone number or address to his clients, preferring phone booths and drop boxes. He concentrates solely on work to the detriment of all other aspects of life. He barely eats or drinks, does not socialise and spends his evenings playing a saxophone in accompaniment to old jazz records.
While the film may have had wider implications for those watching in the post-Watergate USA of 1974, it still serves as a timely reminder today that everything is not always as we expect it to be. Given the propensity for social media, historical and personal data to be misconstrued, often with vast implications, and often years after events, there is a lesson perhaps to be learned from Harry Caul’s total immersion in and hatred of his watchful, catch-all craft. Here, a single misinterpreted word deflects Harry Caul’s version of unfolding events; but his realisation comes too late.
The film pitches us immediately into the surveillance ritual and Hackman’s nervy, straight and wearisome Harry Caul is already at centre stage, observing his targets at close quarters while his team photograph and sound record the action. Later on, we watch Harry at intricate work, splicing sound loops to even out the recordings, eliminating noise and amplifying speech. He listens to a recorded conversation between his targets – two young lovers – only in snippets as he works. When he, and we, finally hear the full dialogue it is in a moment of catharsis, when Harry has been seduced by a woman after an abysmal drunken party. Her actions mirror the words echoed by the lovers on the transcript tapes. Harry's own words have been covertly recorded and he recognises he is as susceptible as the man in the street. The party closes with a veneer of motorcycle noise and aimless chatter, emulating the same chaos he eroded from his tapes – Harry’s nightmares have become reality. Unable to bear the strain he attempts confession, the most private of observations, but his troubled mind is not eased even if his soul is saved. Later, in a desperate search for electronic bugs, he destroys an ex voto of the Virgin Mary, metaphorically sealing his lapsed faith.
It is Harry’s own obsessive demand for privacy which proves his mental unravelling, literally turning his world upside down. Unable to take the strain of inadvertent duplicity and conspiracy, he imagines death and murder are coming for him and when all else fails he takes refuge in the saxophone, the music a barrier to his creeping mania. Yet the instrument could well be the seed of his downfall and, even as he mournfully plays it, Harry has not understood how closely his watchers have observed him or how his own peculiarities have marked him.
An outstanding piece of filmmaking from its central and support performers – John Cazale, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr and Cindy Williams among them – to Coppola who as writer / director is almost offering a performance all of his own, so closely and identifiably is the film shot, authored and orchestrated. Walter Murch and Richard Chew took control of the brilliant stop-start sound editing while the film cutting is brutal, matching Harry Caul’s absence of warmth. Bill Butler’s photography is grimy when it needs to be, flash when appropriate; the camera seems to peer around angles all the time, rarely is a scene centrally staged. David Shire’s music score is an echoey piano concerto which both anticipates and accompanies the unfolding drama.
1974 was a good year for movies. Along with Polanski’s Chinatown, The Conversation demonstrates that corruption of the flesh inhabits the powerful and that the man at the bottom of the pecking order is helpless to both avoid its tentacles and prevent its consequence. A very fine film on all levels.
It is very hard to praise this film, a sequel of sorts to the fairly dismal Dracula A.D.1972, which attempts to recreate all Bram Stoker’s and Hammer Picture’s nineteenth century gothic incidents in a 1970s London landscape. So Dracula’s construction company is headquartered over deconsecrated church ground, a descendant of Van Helsing is the prime opposition, a grand mansion houses a coven of devil worshippers, human blood sacrifices, succubuses hidden in coffins, coffins hidden in cellars, victims chained to walls, crucifixes, garlic, hawthorn bushes, it’s all there – it just isn’t presented very well. What really disappoints is that writer Don Houghton [he was excellent for Dr Who] churns out everything you would expect without any idea how to make it original. Instead, everything simply looks, well, odd. And rather bloody.
There is a half decent one-to-one between Dracula [Christopher Lee] and Van Helsing {Peter Cushing] spoilt for half the scene by the Count trying to disguise himself using a fake Hungarian accent. Joanna Lumley is in it. The music score seems to have escaped from out-takes of Shaft. Pretty to look at times and pretty dreadful at others.
Strong performances all round in this second sequel to the original. Basil Rathbone is excellent as the title character, Boris Karloff returns for the final time as The Monster and Bela Lugosi excels as Ygor. The sets are atmospheric and director Rowland V Lee does a good job following in James Whale’s footsteps.
Wolf Frankenstein returns home and discovers the remains of The Monster in the family crypt, and with Ygor’s help reanimates his father’s invention.
It’s a solid entry in the Universal series.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
When a military intelligence officer is found shot dead, MI5 agent John Neil (Dennis Waterman) is dispatched to investigate the case.
The death of Major Robert Turner, who recently returned from the Gulf and was supervising a military intelligence training exercise, is a cause of grave concern.
An encounter with Jason Sturden, an employee working at Cottrill's Bank in the City of London, sets the investigation on a completely different path.
Neil uncovers a syndicate of international bankers, property dealers and drug smugglers, covertly operating a sophisticated money-laundering scheme.
Was Major Turner involved with this organization?
With an excellent story by Ms. Jill Arlon and featuring a talented cast of actors, Kalon is a well made and entertaining spy film.
CONCLAVE. Wow--it's a movie for grown-ups! No superheroes, no ear-shattering sound effects, if CGI is used it's only to recreate the Sistene Chapel, youngest cast member in his late forties... Seriously, a well-made film that actually builds tension over the process of electing a new pope (it's as slimy and underhanded as any secular election). Bond fans can rejoice in that Ralph Fiennes puts in another excellent performance as the troubled cardinal in charge of the proceedings.
We thoroughly enjoyed that one as well. It'll get some awards nominations for sure, probably Best Picture, Best Actor (Fiennes), Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Lithgow and/or Tucci), Best Supporting Actress (Rosselini) and maybe some others. It probably won't win anything but it's one of those 'safe' films that tends to get awards love.
1931. Rock Island, Illinois. The Great Depression is sweeping America and gangland bosses rule supreme. John Rooney [Paul Newman] is the head of an Irish crime syndicate whose son, Connor [Daniel Craig], is embezzling the Mob’s protection money. Rooney also has a surrogate son in Michael Sullivan [Tom Hanks], an orphan who became a war hero and a morphed into a cold, yet conscientious killer. Sullivan does Rooney’s dirty work unflinchingly, but when his own son, Micheal Jr, witnesses Connor rashly executing an innocent member of the syndicate, Rooney puts blood before loyalty and the deck of cards is stacked increasingly against Michael Sullivan and his young, dreamy son.
Sam Mendes directs with astonishing purity of thought, framing the movie like a series of comic book images lifted from the pages of Max Collins and Richard Rayner’s graphic novel. Conrad L. Hall deservedly won an Oscar for his dark-and-light high contrast cinematography, a feature of the narrative which adds gloom, despair and also moments of sudden joy. It could easily be described as noir, but that would be a mistake; it is chiaroscuro, that shadowy form of Renaissance art beloved of Caravaggio. The performances are strong, albeit they are not exactly deep, given the comic strip origins; nobody is particularly likeable, a fact summed up by young Michael Sullivan’s oblique narrative: “When people ask me what Micheal Sullivan was like, I tell them he was my father.” It’s really hard to describe how outwardly respectable people with families, businesses, friends and associates, who attend church, confess, share meals and birthdays can be so inwardly evil; and young Michael doesn’t even bother to explain it. The redeeming factor of this Michael's formative life is that – unlike that other gangster greenhorn ‘Micheal’ Al Pacino’s Michael in The Godfather – Tyler Hoechlin’s teenager can’t pull the trigger when he needs to.
The film might have its emotional pillar fixed on the most morally correct character, but the surrounding scenery is uniformly bleak, as hoodlum after hoodlum and innocent after innocent is murdered, assaulted or physically threatened. There is simply no let up to the violence, which is curiously sanitised by jolting humour until a grim-as-the-reaper finale. You know it’s all going to end badly by the title of the thing – Road to Perdition – road to hell, basically, and not Chris Rea’s M25 version…
Absorbing, while not quite being top class, the film is artistically interesting, but soulless. We don’t feel for young Micheal Sullivan in the same way we do for the vengeful Michael Corleone because the script dances its bullets all over the place and doesn’t allow us to invest any time in his thoughtful character; a few pithy scenes in a saloon car, some close understanding in front of a blazing fire, a moment of anger in an onion field and that’s about your lot. We feel more for Paul Newman’s John Rooney, a man who knows his destiny has been fulfilled but whose legacy is suddenly uncertain. I also wondered why there were so few police men in evidence [one in a diner; he gets killed]. The effect is ugly at best as bad man kills bad man kills bad man, even if the action appears darkly beautiful.
A very good film, but not a great one. It misses an emotional core to help us sit up and take notice.
A UFO lands in Washington, D.C., sparking international fear and fascination.
A mysterious alien emerges from the flying saucer, as the world's attention converges on this bizarre spectacle.
Who is this being?
Why...he is none other than Commander James Bond from the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)...
All jokes aside...he is a humanoid from a far-off planet, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the literary Bond (Micheal Rennie).
This alien man 'Klaatu' is accidentally shot by one of the nervous soldiers guarding the spaceship just as he takes out a gift from his space suit, which the soldier mistakes for as a weapon.
Immediately, a menacing 8-foot robot 'Gort' walks out of the UFO and vaporizes all weapons in proximity to the spaceship, with laser beams coming from its eyes.
In all fairness, I would be ruining this movie for you if I go on elaborating the plot.
This movie has to be seen to be enjoyed.
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'The Day The Earth Stood Still' is considered one of the finest science-fiction films ever made and was number 7 on Arthur C. Clarke's top 12 sci-fi films list.
Directed by Robert Wise and running at 92 minutes, this is a beautifully made and thought provoking film.
The issue it highlights...man's penchant for war is still as relevant today as it was 73 years back, when the movie was released.
I will unashamedly tell you this is one of my favourite films.
If I could strike up Top 10 lists of greatest ever this and that, I’d probably have it included in Best British Movie Ever, Best War Film Ever, Best Leading Male Performance Ever, Best Leading Actress Performance Ever… and it isn’t even Micheal Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s best film – that would come a couple of years later with the triumphant A Matter of Life and Death. While that movie celebrated cross-cultural cooperation, the fighting spirit of the human individual and the capacity of love to if not conquer at least defy death [for we must die eventually], Colonel Blimp is a biopic of an imaginary character, General Clive Wing-Candy, loosely based on David Low’s cartoon creation Colonel Blimp, who rediscovers his affirming spirit at the very moment his life so far ceases to be relevant. While Low’s Blimp was a pompous patriot, a man whose attitudes showed up the galling ignorance and attitudes of the government and the unqualified entitle-ism of the British class system, Powell and Pressburger turn him into a sympathetic, though jingoistic and principled old man, a person whose life has been a marriage to Army and Country, but a man not too principled to learn from his mistakes.
Roger Livesey is astonishingly good as the title character, aging from his early twenties to his late sixties, not just through make-up and costume but in his performance delivery, the tone and shift of his voice, the facial expressions, the movements, the sudden bile of righteous anger, the confusion as life and time catches up with him; you sense it in his eyes which start off vivid and rapid and turn slow and heavy, in the gradual curl of his shoulders, the slowly crackling voice, the weariness. Throughout, Livesey’s Colonel Candy [or should we call him Blimp?] never loses enthusiasm or cease to retain his military bearing. It’s an utterly convincing and sympathetic performance. We know, for instance, that when Candy invites his old friend, the German POW Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff to his bachelor party, it is an awkward occasion for the new guest – but Livesey’s Colonel Candy simply doesn’t see it, so overjoyed is he to see his pal; witness the manner in which Candy hangs on the German’s shoulder, attempting reassurance, but smothering him instead, not as any benevolent figure, but almost as a gloating schoolmaster proved right. It must surely be one of the reasons the two men part again for two decades. Candy is innocent of the effect his actions, however well-intentioned, have on people; he is as self-absorbed in his personal world as the British Empire was in its. You sense the lack of providence from the earliest scenes when an old general berates Candy for singing in a Turkish bath. Politeness, courtesy and a sense of fair play is more important than efficiency and victory. It is through the auspices of Candy’s military career that he, and we, come to understand the error of this school of thought, that to adapt is to live, to exist by morals unwelcome to your enemy is to confine oneself to the losing side.
Candy is aided in his intellectual journey by three identical women, each played by Deborah Kerr, who provide him with the support, understanding and confidence to pursue his heart or his head with stunning alacrity, sometimes to the detriment to one or the other. She is outstanding as the prim governess Edith Hunter – over whom Candy fights a duel – and even better as WAC Angela Cannon, who drives the Colonel around the bombed out streets of London. Kerr’s scenes in the final third of the movie are particularly splendid for she has to act a completely modern woman, smoking, driving, gently fornicating, even coquettishly leaning, leg up over the back of a chair: while we know why Candy picked her from 700 girls to be his driver, here Kerr interprets Angela as a totally different woman to the Edwardians she played earlier, women who served what Candy enjoyed about the military and England: polite, ordered and pretty. Earlier, as Edith, Kerr is charming and effusive and we understand entirely why both Candy and Theo fall in love with her. Barbara, Candy’s tragic wife, is the least of the three roles, given she is on screen for the fewest minutes, but even here we sense affection and warmth between the couple in gestures, head movements, a shallow smile; the moment where they first enter their London home is excellently realised, the trappings of a future mapped out in the rooms, the two dogs and the warm welcome from John Laurie’s forgetful but loyal butler.
Anton Walbrook inhabits a role that in part reflects his own life history. An ex-military man who fled Austria when the Nazi’s seized power, Walbrook also made several movies for Powell and Pressburger. His understated performance has much power, although he is less convincing as an older man.
The film looks ravishing. Frenchman Georges Perinal was the photographer [assisted by such future luminaries at Geoffrey Unsworth and Jack Cardiff] and he uses an extraordinary colour pallet, flooding the screen with light and dark, creating shadows and depth. The scenes shot along corridors or tables, the tracking shot through the Turkish bath, the framing of wider scenes of importance, such as the duel in the gymnasium or the visit to a convent where a battalion of nurses are eating dinner, provide scope and catch the eye. Michael Powell, as nominal director although Pressburger gets a credit, controls the action with a seamless fluidity. The story starts with a modern day prologue, then flashes back to 1902 and Candy’s trip to Berlin where he insults the German army and fights a duel. The duel itself as well as the scenes preceding it as the rules are laid out, are marvellous in their attention to specific detail, as well as highlighting the fey attitude of the British, who genuinely don’t see the point, treating the incident and its aftermath as entirely frivolous. Again, watch the slow tracking shot out of the gymnasium and away from the rattling sabres, through a window, across the sky, then slowly back to a horse and carriage where Edith Hunter is waiting anxiously for the resolution; Powell creates tension and wonder in equal measure – consider how many modern directors would be brave enough to NOT show the duel? By doing so, Powell emphasises the stupidity of the act and how it affects people unconnected with its events: there is the catastrophic result of fighting, of war.
For Edith, love blooms from adversity. For Candy, during the film’s second chapter, it is from a distinguished career. But he’s virtually washed up by 1918. The young officers under his command are of a different era and a more robust temperament; they have seen the horrors of battle and share no illusions about fair play and fair treatment. Candy is caught up in a romantic ideal, one brought brilliantly to light when he stumbles into a convent and sees a woman who is the spitting image of Edith. War and romance are the same inextricable story to Candy. It is not the same for everyone and when Theo sees a portrait of Barbara, he denies the likeness and thus the ideal: “You forget, I see her through old eyes. We grew old together.” The implication being Candy only thinks the women look the same, in the same way he only thinks people fight war in the same idealised manner. His world is entirely illusionary: nothing changes in it. This, writer Pressburger tells us, is the parlance state of the British Empire in 1918 – it is why it was so easy for the Fascist parties of Europe to gain power, because they sought change to the status quo instead of attempting to softly reinforce it.
The movie’s third act takes place during the Second World War and places Candy both as a hero and a hindrance to the war effort. Here, the photography is bright and colourful, all the shadows of impending war have dissipated, so while life may be darker, it is more vibrant. The contrast between youth and maturity, of the present and the past, is forcefully driven home. Allan Gray’s zippy big band inspired music score helps too, propelling the action at a lighter lick, making us sit up and take notice as the denouement approaches. Throughout, the film is crisply edited. The set design is fabulous: the German café, the gymnasium, the mud soaked trenches of war, the steaming Turkish baths, Candy’s home. It is here we see Candy confronted by his own legacy. At his bachelor party, his dining room and table was packed full of faces and voices and the port took ages to pass; now he sits alone with Theo and they don’t even touch the port.
By the film’s end, having witnessed both the best and worst of the ‘New British Army’ and recognising his own impetuosities in the actions of James McKechnie’s Lt Wilson, Candy has come to an understanding, about himself and about his nation. There is a beautiful metaphor as he surveys his bombed out former house, now used as an emergency water tank, and he recalls Barbara telling him he must never change until the house was gone and the cellar flooded. A single oak leaf is blown away and Candy, strong unbending man that he is, turns from the pool and makes the change, his former life now a death scattered by the wind.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is an outstanding achievement of filmmaking and features a brilliant lead performance. I appreciate age may wither it for some, but as a lover of film and film history, for me Colonel Blimp is an important film for its technical achievements and the respect it conjures from other filmmakers who understand entirely the visual, audio and emotional intent behind Powell and Pressburger’s work. Winston Churchill hated it, considered it unpatriotic, and refused to loan any military hardware for the shoot [perhaps understandable anyway]. The public didn’t care; it was a huge hit in the UK on release. Unfortunately the film suffered from the US embargo on foreign films and when it was released stateside it was butchered and reprinted in monochrome. Shame. Watch it in the full 163 minutes and revel in the artistry and imagination of two of the most important filmmakers to have strode British, nay World, Cinema.
Absolutely magnificent.
Roger Livesey as the young Clive Candy and Deborah Kerr as his first love Edith Hunter.
When the President of the United States gets embroiled in a sex scandal two weeks prior to the elections, a team of public relation consultants and media talent is assembled to divert the public attention away from the embarrassing event.
These spin doctors not only sell an absolutely fictitious war in Albania to the masses via doctored video footage, songs, speeches and PR stunts but they also succeed in propping up a mentally deranged military convict as a war hero to the naive public.
Absolutely hilarious!
Running at 97 minutes and featuring the crème de la crème of American acting talent, this movie is a masterpiece of satire.
An interesting and worthwhile documentary written, presented and directed by Martin Scorsese which serves more as a cinematic love affair between the American director and the movies of Powell and Pressburger. Scorsese was a good friend of Michael Powell, meeting him in 1974 when the British director was on the skids and pretty much forgotten by the filmmaking establishment in the UK. Scorsese seems to take some delight in the fact it was anti-establishment young American filmmakers of the seventies who brought the films of Powell and Pressburger back to prominence. While I am not sure that is entirely fair because film history as an academic subject was still in its infancy and, regardless, directors, themes and styles pass in-and-out of fashion with much regularity, Scorsese’s presentation certainly highlights what makes their films so compelling. It is the attention to character which Scorsese initially and rightly focusses on, but, as the movies become more extravagant and, dare I say it, delirious, Scorsese interest is on presentation and staging rather than the psychology of the people involved. He doesn’t offer much in the way of context, but he enjoys subtext. Allusions to his own films and techniques do not seem so assured. The film perhaps concentrates mostly on Powell, forgetting or almost forgetting that Emeric Pressburger wrote all the Archers’ films scenarios and that as Pressburger’s work began to stagnate, Powell’s movie making became more extravagant and ambitious, almost as if he were compensating for the less detailed scripting. Still, a good and informative couple of hours featuring a ton of clips and a lot of insightful observation and interviews.
Note:
I was very happy to hear Scorsese praise the brilliant duelling scene in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp for exactly the reason I outline in my review a couple of entries above [#12800], although his subtext is marginally different to mine because it ignores the context, but either could apply for the casual viewer. Still, proves I don’t just make this stuff up on the hoof!
A romantic misfire of a comedy from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger which received tremendous reviews on release, was extremely successful and has remained a critic’s favourite for years. Maybe I’m getting set in my ways, but for me the script of I Know Where I’m Going! simply isn’t funny enough. It is romantic, for sure, and the Scottish locations and the general Gaelic atmospheres are very well presented, acted by a fine cast – including John Laurie who choreographed the ceilidh song and dance sequence – and certainly imbue circumstances with a mythical and mystical air, but it isn’t enough.
Wendy Hiller plays headstrong Joan Webster who is engaged to oil millionaire Sir Robert Bellinger. He rents a castle on the Isle of Kiloran and wants to marry her there. While journeying to her wedding day, Joan’s travel plans are disrupted by the ravages of the Western Isle’s weather and instead she spends several days on Tobermory with Torquil MacNeil, the Laird of Kiloran, whose house Bellinger has taken on extended loan. Naturally, through a series of contrived, good-natured scenes, she falls in love with him and a difficult decision ensues. It’s easy to spot the charm, but charm in itself doesn’t make you laugh and there isn’t enough genuine humour to support the flimsy premise, which ends in a somewhat fortuitous, almost supernatural key completely at odds with the rest of the movie which is more about practicalities, physical wealth and the richness of the heart.
Roger Livesey impresses as the laird. It was his second of three turns working for Powell and Pressburger. He was a late replacement for James Mason, who never handled comedy well, so even if I consider this movie ‘uneven’ at least is doesn’t bottom out as it might have done. Wendy Hiller seems too abrasive to be anyone’s fiancé or sudden infatuation. The scenes of romance are entirely contrived and so forced it is very hard to believe either person has fallen for the other.
Despite these drawbacks, an assured movie, well-made and structured with some surprising turns in its dialogue, but it certainly isn’t a fun-fest. Hollywood handled this kind of thing much better; they’d have had Cary Grant and Myrna Loy in it and it’d be a hoot. This, despite the rolling hills and the ceilidh, is simply flat.
I saw this theatrically back in 2017 and in bits and pieces since then. Last night was my first complete rewatch.
Picking up 30 years after the events of BLADE RUNNER, the movie follows K (Ryan Gosling), a newer model replicant working for the LAPD's Blade Runner unit. He's tasked with tracking down obsolete models of replicants. While taking down one replicant, he uncovers a long hidden secret: a replicant was able to get impregnated and deliver a baby many years ago. The movie follows his quest to find out what happened, leading to encounters with characters from the first film and even more questions about identity and creation.
Excellent. I'd say it's pretty even with the original film in terms of level of execution. If you liked the original, you should at least 'like' this one as they're of a very similar level of execution.
Efficient but none-too-clever Cecil B. De Mille epic set on the high seas along the southern states of the USA in pre-civil war America. John Wayne plays a scavenger who is deliberately wrecking ships for profit. Once his margins shrink he fancies going legit, chiefly because he also fancies Paulette Goddard’s unlikely commercial shipping fleet owner. Lawyer Ray Milland gets in the way. The untidy story is used as an excuse to titillate, poke fun at perceived prejudices and instigate some solid big-hearted action. The underwater sequences at the end are excellent but the dull and dumb tale takes an awful long time to reach its climax. Nobody looks very comfortable, not even the usually reliable Hattie MacDaniel, who repeats her ‘Mammy’ role from Gone With The Wind. Production values are well above average, but everything else is lacking, starting with the entirely trivial script. De Mille knew what he was doing: he could churn this kind of product out as easily as butter. Crass, stupid, lazy, vastly expensive, phenomenally popular, badly miscast – complete tosh really, yet oddly enjoyable.
A darkly pessimistic and violent Yakuza film, written and directed by Takeshi Kitano.
The film details the last days of a nihilistic gangster Murakawa, who along with his men is sent to Okinawa, on orders of his boss to settle a dispute between two rival clans.
The meeting turns out to be a trap.
After surviving a deadly ambush, Murakawa and his remaining team members take refuge in a remote beach house.
Murakawa now plans a final retribution against the people who wanted him killed.
A deeply existential experience, beautifully filmed and with an electric soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi...Sonatine truly is peak 90's cinema.
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THE CLIENT (1994)
A well-structured legal thriller with Susan Sarandon as a rent-a-lawyer hired by an errant child who has witnessed a Mafia suicide and is in fear for his life. A great performance from Ms Sarandon helps immeasurably to keep us interested, as does Tommy Lee Jones playing a Bible quoting District Attorney. Brad Renfro is the kid and while he starts off with our sympathies, it soon wears thin for he is entirely obnoxious. Nonetheless a well-performed and presented thriller that ticks all the boxes you would expect and features a similar number of plot holes. The best scenes are reserved for the various interrogations and interviews that pervade the narrative as legal jargon is batted back and forth like tennis balls and the players spit and scowl at each other. Legal-eagle John Grisham wrote the original novel and I detect his lawyer’s expertise all over those scenes. It’s a great film of little substance; just take it for what it is and enjoy it. Joel Schumacher directs with little originality but much accomplishment.
The plot and the narrative is deliberately dry and functional due to the fact that the film tried extremely hard to follow actual police procedures, car chase excepted. It's a true 'how the sausage gets made' kind of film, showing actual detective work and such. Devoid of the typical Hollywood glamour, the film almost plays as a docu-drama. That's either going to work for you or utterly repel you.
Personally, I find it to be a completely engrossing film.
It didn't repel me @HarryCanyon , I am merely pointing up what I consider are inherent deficiencies beside the good. I appreciate your come-back, although I think you'll find I mention many of your points in my review, albeit obliquely.
I finally got to see Interstellar, at London's Prince Charles cinema.
It's a Christopher Nolan film, so it was a) Intense b) Not really credible, almost deliberately perhaps c) Very moving - though how much was due to Hans Zimmer's score, I can't quite say - I was moved by his score at the BBC Proms showing of sci-fi movie scores two or so years ago, so that was a kind of control experiment d) Impressive e) Not really quite enjoyable for me, kind of harrowing.
A couple of Bond references but no, I wouldn't want him to do a Bond film and it would be beneath him anyway, I guess it would be a Skyfall type thing, which admittedly many regard as Craig's high-point. There are jokes but overall the tone is depressing.
Some of Interstellar I didn't quite 'get' - I thought they were the first ones out there, so what'a another craft doing there? It felt like I'd nipped out to the loo and missed something, but I hadn't. McConaughy's Cooper heads off before even hardly heading home to shave, no refresher course needed for him! All a bit Ad Astra, though that came years later.
On a side note, London seems like a crap hole these days. it's utterly charmless.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
ASSASSINS (1995)
One of the finest action thriller films ever made.
Robert Rath (Stallone), an exhausted contract killer is now in the crosshairs of a young and upcoming assassin, Miguel Bain (Banderas)...ruthless, remorseless and soulless.
Behind the scenes, a shadowy contractor controls both men as chessboard pieces.
Their paths intersect again, when a lucrative contract arrives on their laptop screens.
Eliminate Electra (Julianne Moore)...a computer hacker, possessing digital information worth millions.
Rath's worst fears come true, when he realizes that a bounty has also been placed on his head.
This cat and mouse game reaches a crescendo in the Banco Internationale in Puerto Rico, when an old friend returns from the dead to greet Robert Rath.
Directed by Richard Donner and running at 133 minutes, this is a timeless action film.
Peak 90's cinema.
I've always meant to watch this - and it's Richard 'Lethal Weapon' 'Superman: The Movie' Donner! It got one great review when it came out - it doesn't come on telly that often. I think you'd want to see it without ad breaks perhaps.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
PATTERNS (1956)
An intense boardroom drama that transpires on the 40th floor of the Ramsey building in Manhattan, New York.
Walter Ramsey, CEO of the industrial behemoth Ramsey & Co., has invited a young tiger, an industrial engineer by the name of Fred Staples into the executive suite.
The aim...not what you might think.
An intense vitriol exists between Ramsey and his second in command, Bill Briggs.
Dyspeptic Bill Briggs, a dedicated employee of forty years, who had built this company from scratch with Walter Ramsey's long departed father remains steadfast in his concern for the employees and his old school ways of doing things.
Worse of all, Briggs refuses to retire.
In order to seal his corporate coffin, Ramsey begins the undertaking, one nail at a time.
He divests Briggs from his long trusted secretary, hands over many of his operational commitments to Staples and underscores his corporate suggestions.
The writing on the wall is clear.
Briggs is to be replaced with Staples, as Vice President of Ramsey & Co.
Staples, caught in between his friendship for Briggs and his own personal ambition, is placed in a tight spot.
Briggs, brought to the point of nervous exhaustion in a follow-up boardroom meeting, finally gets his handshake.
Not the golden one, but the forever one by the Reaper.
After his tragic and convenient death, Staples confronts the old snake in his office.
Only to realize that the poison he offers is sweet.
Very sweet indeed.
A tremendous film, written by Rod Serling and directed by Fielder Cook.
One of my absolute favorite films, probably in my top 5 of all time. It gets better with rewatches.
'what were other crafts doing out there?' You must have missed this part: when the wormhole originally appeared, they sent some probes into it and the signals they received back from those probes indicated that there were 12 possible planets on the other side that might be suitable for the citizens of Earth to move to. 12 volunteers flew into the wormhole to check out the planets with the intention of signaling back if their planet was actually viable. By the time McConoughey and team leave, they have signals from three of those planets. For the other 9 astronauts, it was essentially a suicide mission.
First time I saw the film, I thought it was OK. That was in IMAX. When it hit blu ray, I saw it again and it clicked for me in a major way. I've seen it probably six times now and it's only gotten better. It's the only Nolan film to have any sort of emotional resonance with me. I consider it a legit masterpiece.
edited to add: Hans Zimmer's finest hour. One of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in my life.
THE CONVERSATION (1974)
An intense and dense thriller from Francis Ford Coppola, made on the hoof between his two Godfather epics and arguably better than either of them. The Conversation concerns private surveillance operator Harry Caul whose decent into Kafkaesque madness is ensured following an operation which leads him to believe a murder is about to be committed.
Gene Hackman is outstanding in a career best performance as Harry Caul, a man unable to communicate effectively because he is obsessed with surveillance and security. This is a guy who refuses to give out any personal details to anyone, not even his on-off girlfriend or his work colleagues; he refuses to give his home telephone number or address to his clients, preferring phone booths and drop boxes. He concentrates solely on work to the detriment of all other aspects of life. He barely eats or drinks, does not socialise and spends his evenings playing a saxophone in accompaniment to old jazz records.
While the film may have had wider implications for those watching in the post-Watergate USA of 1974, it still serves as a timely reminder today that everything is not always as we expect it to be. Given the propensity for social media, historical and personal data to be misconstrued, often with vast implications, and often years after events, there is a lesson perhaps to be learned from Harry Caul’s total immersion in and hatred of his watchful, catch-all craft. Here, a single misinterpreted word deflects Harry Caul’s version of unfolding events; but his realisation comes too late.
The film pitches us immediately into the surveillance ritual and Hackman’s nervy, straight and wearisome Harry Caul is already at centre stage, observing his targets at close quarters while his team photograph and sound record the action. Later on, we watch Harry at intricate work, splicing sound loops to even out the recordings, eliminating noise and amplifying speech. He listens to a recorded conversation between his targets – two young lovers – only in snippets as he works. When he, and we, finally hear the full dialogue it is in a moment of catharsis, when Harry has been seduced by a woman after an abysmal drunken party. Her actions mirror the words echoed by the lovers on the transcript tapes. Harry's own words have been covertly recorded and he recognises he is as susceptible as the man in the street. The party closes with a veneer of motorcycle noise and aimless chatter, emulating the same chaos he eroded from his tapes – Harry’s nightmares have become reality. Unable to bear the strain he attempts confession, the most private of observations, but his troubled mind is not eased even if his soul is saved. Later, in a desperate search for electronic bugs, he destroys an ex voto of the Virgin Mary, metaphorically sealing his lapsed faith.
It is Harry’s own obsessive demand for privacy which proves his mental unravelling, literally turning his world upside down. Unable to take the strain of inadvertent duplicity and conspiracy, he imagines death and murder are coming for him and when all else fails he takes refuge in the saxophone, the music a barrier to his creeping mania. Yet the instrument could well be the seed of his downfall and, even as he mournfully plays it, Harry has not understood how closely his watchers have observed him or how his own peculiarities have marked him.
An outstanding piece of filmmaking from its central and support performers – John Cazale, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr and Cindy Williams among them – to Coppola who as writer / director is almost offering a performance all of his own, so closely and identifiably is the film shot, authored and orchestrated. Walter Murch and Richard Chew took control of the brilliant stop-start sound editing while the film cutting is brutal, matching Harry Caul’s absence of warmth. Bill Butler’s photography is grimy when it needs to be, flash when appropriate; the camera seems to peer around angles all the time, rarely is a scene centrally staged. David Shire’s music score is an echoey piano concerto which both anticipates and accompanies the unfolding drama.
1974 was a good year for movies. Along with Polanski’s Chinatown, The Conversation demonstrates that corruption of the flesh inhabits the powerful and that the man at the bottom of the pecking order is helpless to both avoid its tentacles and prevent its consequence. A very fine film on all levels.
THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA (1973)
It is very hard to praise this film, a sequel of sorts to the fairly dismal Dracula A.D.1972, which attempts to recreate all Bram Stoker’s and Hammer Picture’s nineteenth century gothic incidents in a 1970s London landscape. So Dracula’s construction company is headquartered over deconsecrated church ground, a descendant of Van Helsing is the prime opposition, a grand mansion houses a coven of devil worshippers, human blood sacrifices, succubuses hidden in coffins, coffins hidden in cellars, victims chained to walls, crucifixes, garlic, hawthorn bushes, it’s all there – it just isn’t presented very well. What really disappoints is that writer Don Houghton [he was excellent for Dr Who] churns out everything you would expect without any idea how to make it original. Instead, everything simply looks, well, odd. And rather bloody.
There is a half decent one-to-one between Dracula [Christopher Lee] and Van Helsing {Peter Cushing] spoilt for half the scene by the Count trying to disguise himself using a fake Hungarian accent. Joanna Lumley is in it. The music score seems to have escaped from out-takes of Shaft. Pretty to look at times and pretty dreadful at others.
SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939)
Strong performances all round in this second sequel to the original. Basil Rathbone is excellent as the title character, Boris Karloff returns for the final time as The Monster and Bela Lugosi excels as Ygor. The sets are atmospheric and director Rowland V Lee does a good job following in James Whale’s footsteps.
Wolf Frankenstein returns home and discovers the remains of The Monster in the family crypt, and with Ygor’s help reanimates his father’s invention.
It’s a solid entry in the Universal series.
CIRCLES OF DECEIT: KALON (1996)
When a military intelligence officer is found shot dead, MI5 agent John Neil (Dennis Waterman) is dispatched to investigate the case.
The death of Major Robert Turner, who recently returned from the Gulf and was supervising a military intelligence training exercise, is a cause of grave concern.
An encounter with Jason Sturden, an employee working at Cottrill's Bank in the City of London, sets the investigation on a completely different path.
Neil uncovers a syndicate of international bankers, property dealers and drug smugglers, covertly operating a sophisticated money-laundering scheme.
Was Major Turner involved with this organization?
With an excellent story by Ms. Jill Arlon and featuring a talented cast of actors, Kalon is a well made and entertaining spy film.
TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991)
I reviewed this a couple of years back. No explanations required. Excellent slice of popcorn sci-fi.
CONCLAVE. Wow--it's a movie for grown-ups! No superheroes, no ear-shattering sound effects, if CGI is used it's only to recreate the Sistene Chapel, youngest cast member in his late forties... Seriously, a well-made film that actually builds tension over the process of electing a new pope (it's as slimy and underhanded as any secular election). Bond fans can rejoice in that Ralph Fiennes puts in another excellent performance as the troubled cardinal in charge of the proceedings.
We thoroughly enjoyed that one as well. It'll get some awards nominations for sure, probably Best Picture, Best Actor (Fiennes), Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Lithgow and/or Tucci), Best Supporting Actress (Rosselini) and maybe some others. It probably won't win anything but it's one of those 'safe' films that tends to get awards love.
ROAD TO PERDITION (2002)
1931. Rock Island, Illinois. The Great Depression is sweeping America and gangland bosses rule supreme. John Rooney [Paul Newman] is the head of an Irish crime syndicate whose son, Connor [Daniel Craig], is embezzling the Mob’s protection money. Rooney also has a surrogate son in Michael Sullivan [Tom Hanks], an orphan who became a war hero and a morphed into a cold, yet conscientious killer. Sullivan does Rooney’s dirty work unflinchingly, but when his own son, Micheal Jr, witnesses Connor rashly executing an innocent member of the syndicate, Rooney puts blood before loyalty and the deck of cards is stacked increasingly against Michael Sullivan and his young, dreamy son.
Sam Mendes directs with astonishing purity of thought, framing the movie like a series of comic book images lifted from the pages of Max Collins and Richard Rayner’s graphic novel. Conrad L. Hall deservedly won an Oscar for his dark-and-light high contrast cinematography, a feature of the narrative which adds gloom, despair and also moments of sudden joy. It could easily be described as noir, but that would be a mistake; it is chiaroscuro, that shadowy form of Renaissance art beloved of Caravaggio. The performances are strong, albeit they are not exactly deep, given the comic strip origins; nobody is particularly likeable, a fact summed up by young Michael Sullivan’s oblique narrative: “When people ask me what Micheal Sullivan was like, I tell them he was my father.” It’s really hard to describe how outwardly respectable people with families, businesses, friends and associates, who attend church, confess, share meals and birthdays can be so inwardly evil; and young Michael doesn’t even bother to explain it. The redeeming factor of this Michael's formative life is that – unlike that other gangster greenhorn ‘Micheal’ Al Pacino’s Michael in The Godfather – Tyler Hoechlin’s teenager can’t pull the trigger when he needs to.
The film might have its emotional pillar fixed on the most morally correct character, but the surrounding scenery is uniformly bleak, as hoodlum after hoodlum and innocent after innocent is murdered, assaulted or physically threatened. There is simply no let up to the violence, which is curiously sanitised by jolting humour until a grim-as-the-reaper finale. You know it’s all going to end badly by the title of the thing – Road to Perdition – road to hell, basically, and not Chris Rea’s M25 version…
Absorbing, while not quite being top class, the film is artistically interesting, but soulless. We don’t feel for young Micheal Sullivan in the same way we do for the vengeful Michael Corleone because the script dances its bullets all over the place and doesn’t allow us to invest any time in his thoughtful character; a few pithy scenes in a saloon car, some close understanding in front of a blazing fire, a moment of anger in an onion field and that’s about your lot. We feel more for Paul Newman’s John Rooney, a man who knows his destiny has been fulfilled but whose legacy is suddenly uncertain. I also wondered why there were so few police men in evidence [one in a diner; he gets killed]. The effect is ugly at best as bad man kills bad man kills bad man, even if the action appears darkly beautiful.
A very good film, but not a great one. It misses an emotional core to help us sit up and take notice.
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951)
A UFO lands in Washington, D.C., sparking international fear and fascination.
A mysterious alien emerges from the flying saucer, as the world's attention converges on this bizarre spectacle.
Who is this being?
Why...he is none other than Commander James Bond from the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)...
All jokes aside...he is a humanoid from a far-off planet, who bears an uncanny resemblance to the literary Bond (Micheal Rennie).
This alien man 'Klaatu' is accidentally shot by one of the nervous soldiers guarding the spaceship just as he takes out a gift from his space suit, which the soldier mistakes for as a weapon.
Immediately, a menacing 8-foot robot 'Gort' walks out of the UFO and vaporizes all weapons in proximity to the spaceship, with laser beams coming from its eyes.
In all fairness, I would be ruining this movie for you if I go on elaborating the plot.
This movie has to be seen to be enjoyed.
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'The Day The Earth Stood Still' is considered one of the finest science-fiction films ever made and was number 7 on Arthur C. Clarke's top 12 sci-fi films list.
Directed by Robert Wise and running at 92 minutes, this is a beautifully made and thought provoking film.
The issue it highlights...man's penchant for war is still as relevant today as it was 73 years back, when the movie was released.
Science-fiction, at its best.
Indeed, a marvellous movie 👍🏻
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP (1943)
I will unashamedly tell you this is one of my favourite films.
If I could strike up Top 10 lists of greatest ever this and that, I’d probably have it included in Best British Movie Ever, Best War Film Ever, Best Leading Male Performance Ever, Best Leading Actress Performance Ever… and it isn’t even Micheal Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s best film – that would come a couple of years later with the triumphant A Matter of Life and Death. While that movie celebrated cross-cultural cooperation, the fighting spirit of the human individual and the capacity of love to if not conquer at least defy death [for we must die eventually], Colonel Blimp is a biopic of an imaginary character, General Clive Wing-Candy, loosely based on David Low’s cartoon creation Colonel Blimp, who rediscovers his affirming spirit at the very moment his life so far ceases to be relevant. While Low’s Blimp was a pompous patriot, a man whose attitudes showed up the galling ignorance and attitudes of the government and the unqualified entitle-ism of the British class system, Powell and Pressburger turn him into a sympathetic, though jingoistic and principled old man, a person whose life has been a marriage to Army and Country, but a man not too principled to learn from his mistakes.
Roger Livesey is astonishingly good as the title character, aging from his early twenties to his late sixties, not just through make-up and costume but in his performance delivery, the tone and shift of his voice, the facial expressions, the movements, the sudden bile of righteous anger, the confusion as life and time catches up with him; you sense it in his eyes which start off vivid and rapid and turn slow and heavy, in the gradual curl of his shoulders, the slowly crackling voice, the weariness. Throughout, Livesey’s Colonel Candy [or should we call him Blimp?] never loses enthusiasm or cease to retain his military bearing. It’s an utterly convincing and sympathetic performance. We know, for instance, that when Candy invites his old friend, the German POW Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff to his bachelor party, it is an awkward occasion for the new guest – but Livesey’s Colonel Candy simply doesn’t see it, so overjoyed is he to see his pal; witness the manner in which Candy hangs on the German’s shoulder, attempting reassurance, but smothering him instead, not as any benevolent figure, but almost as a gloating schoolmaster proved right. It must surely be one of the reasons the two men part again for two decades. Candy is innocent of the effect his actions, however well-intentioned, have on people; he is as self-absorbed in his personal world as the British Empire was in its. You sense the lack of providence from the earliest scenes when an old general berates Candy for singing in a Turkish bath. Politeness, courtesy and a sense of fair play is more important than efficiency and victory. It is through the auspices of Candy’s military career that he, and we, come to understand the error of this school of thought, that to adapt is to live, to exist by morals unwelcome to your enemy is to confine oneself to the losing side.
Candy is aided in his intellectual journey by three identical women, each played by Deborah Kerr, who provide him with the support, understanding and confidence to pursue his heart or his head with stunning alacrity, sometimes to the detriment to one or the other. She is outstanding as the prim governess Edith Hunter – over whom Candy fights a duel – and even better as WAC Angela Cannon, who drives the Colonel around the bombed out streets of London. Kerr’s scenes in the final third of the movie are particularly splendid for she has to act a completely modern woman, smoking, driving, gently fornicating, even coquettishly leaning, leg up over the back of a chair: while we know why Candy picked her from 700 girls to be his driver, here Kerr interprets Angela as a totally different woman to the Edwardians she played earlier, women who served what Candy enjoyed about the military and England: polite, ordered and pretty. Earlier, as Edith, Kerr is charming and effusive and we understand entirely why both Candy and Theo fall in love with her. Barbara, Candy’s tragic wife, is the least of the three roles, given she is on screen for the fewest minutes, but even here we sense affection and warmth between the couple in gestures, head movements, a shallow smile; the moment where they first enter their London home is excellently realised, the trappings of a future mapped out in the rooms, the two dogs and the warm welcome from John Laurie’s forgetful but loyal butler.
Anton Walbrook inhabits a role that in part reflects his own life history. An ex-military man who fled Austria when the Nazi’s seized power, Walbrook also made several movies for Powell and Pressburger. His understated performance has much power, although he is less convincing as an older man.
The film looks ravishing. Frenchman Georges Perinal was the photographer [assisted by such future luminaries at Geoffrey Unsworth and Jack Cardiff] and he uses an extraordinary colour pallet, flooding the screen with light and dark, creating shadows and depth. The scenes shot along corridors or tables, the tracking shot through the Turkish bath, the framing of wider scenes of importance, such as the duel in the gymnasium or the visit to a convent where a battalion of nurses are eating dinner, provide scope and catch the eye. Michael Powell, as nominal director although Pressburger gets a credit, controls the action with a seamless fluidity. The story starts with a modern day prologue, then flashes back to 1902 and Candy’s trip to Berlin where he insults the German army and fights a duel. The duel itself as well as the scenes preceding it as the rules are laid out, are marvellous in their attention to specific detail, as well as highlighting the fey attitude of the British, who genuinely don’t see the point, treating the incident and its aftermath as entirely frivolous. Again, watch the slow tracking shot out of the gymnasium and away from the rattling sabres, through a window, across the sky, then slowly back to a horse and carriage where Edith Hunter is waiting anxiously for the resolution; Powell creates tension and wonder in equal measure – consider how many modern directors would be brave enough to NOT show the duel? By doing so, Powell emphasises the stupidity of the act and how it affects people unconnected with its events: there is the catastrophic result of fighting, of war.
For Edith, love blooms from adversity. For Candy, during the film’s second chapter, it is from a distinguished career. But he’s virtually washed up by 1918. The young officers under his command are of a different era and a more robust temperament; they have seen the horrors of battle and share no illusions about fair play and fair treatment. Candy is caught up in a romantic ideal, one brought brilliantly to light when he stumbles into a convent and sees a woman who is the spitting image of Edith. War and romance are the same inextricable story to Candy. It is not the same for everyone and when Theo sees a portrait of Barbara, he denies the likeness and thus the ideal: “You forget, I see her through old eyes. We grew old together.” The implication being Candy only thinks the women look the same, in the same way he only thinks people fight war in the same idealised manner. His world is entirely illusionary: nothing changes in it. This, writer Pressburger tells us, is the parlance state of the British Empire in 1918 – it is why it was so easy for the Fascist parties of Europe to gain power, because they sought change to the status quo instead of attempting to softly reinforce it.
The movie’s third act takes place during the Second World War and places Candy both as a hero and a hindrance to the war effort. Here, the photography is bright and colourful, all the shadows of impending war have dissipated, so while life may be darker, it is more vibrant. The contrast between youth and maturity, of the present and the past, is forcefully driven home. Allan Gray’s zippy big band inspired music score helps too, propelling the action at a lighter lick, making us sit up and take notice as the denouement approaches. Throughout, the film is crisply edited. The set design is fabulous: the German café, the gymnasium, the mud soaked trenches of war, the steaming Turkish baths, Candy’s home. It is here we see Candy confronted by his own legacy. At his bachelor party, his dining room and table was packed full of faces and voices and the port took ages to pass; now he sits alone with Theo and they don’t even touch the port.
By the film’s end, having witnessed both the best and worst of the ‘New British Army’ and recognising his own impetuosities in the actions of James McKechnie’s Lt Wilson, Candy has come to an understanding, about himself and about his nation. There is a beautiful metaphor as he surveys his bombed out former house, now used as an emergency water tank, and he recalls Barbara telling him he must never change until the house was gone and the cellar flooded. A single oak leaf is blown away and Candy, strong unbending man that he is, turns from the pool and makes the change, his former life now a death scattered by the wind.
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is an outstanding achievement of filmmaking and features a brilliant lead performance. I appreciate age may wither it for some, but as a lover of film and film history, for me Colonel Blimp is an important film for its technical achievements and the respect it conjures from other filmmakers who understand entirely the visual, audio and emotional intent behind Powell and Pressburger’s work. Winston Churchill hated it, considered it unpatriotic, and refused to loan any military hardware for the shoot [perhaps understandable anyway]. The public didn’t care; it was a huge hit in the UK on release. Unfortunately the film suffered from the US embargo on foreign films and when it was released stateside it was butchered and reprinted in monochrome. Shame. Watch it in the full 163 minutes and revel in the artistry and imagination of two of the most important filmmakers to have strode British, nay World, Cinema.
Absolutely magnificent.
Roger Livesey as the young Clive Candy and Deborah Kerr as his first love Edith Hunter.
What an amazing film...and what an amazing review @chrisno1.
Bravo.
The ending of the film always leaves me a bit sentimental and when General Candy salutes, I always salute back at the TV.
This is the best film ever made.
Nice review. Please avoid the remake with Keanu Reeves, the original is far better.
@Barbel Thank you for the kind appreciation.
WAG THE DOG (1997)
When the President of the United States gets embroiled in a sex scandal two weeks prior to the elections, a team of public relation consultants and media talent is assembled to divert the public attention away from the embarrassing event.
These spin doctors not only sell an absolutely fictitious war in Albania to the masses via doctored video footage, songs, speeches and PR stunts but they also succeed in propping up a mentally deranged military convict as a war hero to the naive public.
Absolutely hilarious!
Running at 97 minutes and featuring the crème de la crème of American acting talent, this movie is a masterpiece of satire.
Peak 90's cinema.
MADE IN ENGLAND (2024)
An interesting and worthwhile documentary written, presented and directed by Martin Scorsese which serves more as a cinematic love affair between the American director and the movies of Powell and Pressburger. Scorsese was a good friend of Michael Powell, meeting him in 1974 when the British director was on the skids and pretty much forgotten by the filmmaking establishment in the UK. Scorsese seems to take some delight in the fact it was anti-establishment young American filmmakers of the seventies who brought the films of Powell and Pressburger back to prominence. While I am not sure that is entirely fair because film history as an academic subject was still in its infancy and, regardless, directors, themes and styles pass in-and-out of fashion with much regularity, Scorsese’s presentation certainly highlights what makes their films so compelling. It is the attention to character which Scorsese initially and rightly focusses on, but, as the movies become more extravagant and, dare I say it, delirious, Scorsese interest is on presentation and staging rather than the psychology of the people involved. He doesn’t offer much in the way of context, but he enjoys subtext. Allusions to his own films and techniques do not seem so assured. The film perhaps concentrates mostly on Powell, forgetting or almost forgetting that Emeric Pressburger wrote all the Archers’ films scenarios and that as Pressburger’s work began to stagnate, Powell’s movie making became more extravagant and ambitious, almost as if he were compensating for the less detailed scripting. Still, a good and informative couple of hours featuring a ton of clips and a lot of insightful observation and interviews.
Note:
I was very happy to hear Scorsese praise the brilliant duelling scene in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp for exactly the reason I outline in my review a couple of entries above [#12800], although his subtext is marginally different to mine because it ignores the context, but either could apply for the casual viewer. Still, proves I don’t just make this stuff up on the hoof!
I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING! (1945)
A romantic misfire of a comedy from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger which received tremendous reviews on release, was extremely successful and has remained a critic’s favourite for years. Maybe I’m getting set in my ways, but for me the script of I Know Where I’m Going! simply isn’t funny enough. It is romantic, for sure, and the Scottish locations and the general Gaelic atmospheres are very well presented, acted by a fine cast – including John Laurie who choreographed the ceilidh song and dance sequence – and certainly imbue circumstances with a mythical and mystical air, but it isn’t enough.
Wendy Hiller plays headstrong Joan Webster who is engaged to oil millionaire Sir Robert Bellinger. He rents a castle on the Isle of Kiloran and wants to marry her there. While journeying to her wedding day, Joan’s travel plans are disrupted by the ravages of the Western Isle’s weather and instead she spends several days on Tobermory with Torquil MacNeil, the Laird of Kiloran, whose house Bellinger has taken on extended loan. Naturally, through a series of contrived, good-natured scenes, she falls in love with him and a difficult decision ensues. It’s easy to spot the charm, but charm in itself doesn’t make you laugh and there isn’t enough genuine humour to support the flimsy premise, which ends in a somewhat fortuitous, almost supernatural key completely at odds with the rest of the movie which is more about practicalities, physical wealth and the richness of the heart.
Roger Livesey impresses as the laird. It was his second of three turns working for Powell and Pressburger. He was a late replacement for James Mason, who never handled comedy well, so even if I consider this movie ‘uneven’ at least is doesn’t bottom out as it might have done. Wendy Hiller seems too abrasive to be anyone’s fiancé or sudden infatuation. The scenes of romance are entirely contrived and so forced it is very hard to believe either person has fallen for the other.
Despite these drawbacks, an assured movie, well-made and structured with some surprising turns in its dialogue, but it certainly isn’t a fun-fest. Hollywood handled this kind of thing much better; they’d have had Cary Grant and Myrna Loy in it and it’d be a hoot. This, despite the rolling hills and the ceilidh, is simply flat.
LE SILENCIEUX (1973)
British intelligence apprehend a scientist Anton Haliakov from a Soviet scientific delegation.
The identity of the man is counterfeit.
This man is in fact Clement Tibere, a French scientist who had been kidnapped by the KGB sixteen years back.
After coercion by British intelligence, Tibere identifies two British engineers who have been leaking state secrets to the Soviets.
The traitors are caught and a network of spies is uncovered, sealing Tibere's fate.
Tibere is now marked for death and a life of paranoia begins...
Directed by Claude Pinoteau and starring Lino Ventura, Le Silencieux is an underrated gem.
Did you like it?
BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017).
I saw this theatrically back in 2017 and in bits and pieces since then. Last night was my first complete rewatch.
Picking up 30 years after the events of BLADE RUNNER, the movie follows K (Ryan Gosling), a newer model replicant working for the LAPD's Blade Runner unit. He's tasked with tracking down obsolete models of replicants. While taking down one replicant, he uncovers a long hidden secret: a replicant was able to get impregnated and deliver a baby many years ago. The movie follows his quest to find out what happened, leading to encounters with characters from the first film and even more questions about identity and creation.
Excellent. I'd say it's pretty even with the original film in terms of level of execution. If you liked the original, you should at least 'like' this one as they're of a very similar level of execution.
@Number24
Yes Sir...I did.
Though it may not be as good as Fred Zinnemann's 1973 classic 'The Day of The Jackal'...but it has a similar vibe and is very well written.
A man on the run...who has to survive on gut instincts.
Le Silencieux is one of the best spy thrillers of the 70's.
REAP THE WILD WIND (1942)
Efficient but none-too-clever Cecil B. De Mille epic set on the high seas along the southern states of the USA in pre-civil war America. John Wayne plays a scavenger who is deliberately wrecking ships for profit. Once his margins shrink he fancies going legit, chiefly because he also fancies Paulette Goddard’s unlikely commercial shipping fleet owner. Lawyer Ray Milland gets in the way. The untidy story is used as an excuse to titillate, poke fun at perceived prejudices and instigate some solid big-hearted action. The underwater sequences at the end are excellent but the dull and dumb tale takes an awful long time to reach its climax. Nobody looks very comfortable, not even the usually reliable Hattie MacDaniel, who repeats her ‘Mammy’ role from Gone With The Wind. Production values are well above average, but everything else is lacking, starting with the entirely trivial script. De Mille knew what he was doing: he could churn this kind of product out as easily as butter. Crass, stupid, lazy, vastly expensive, phenomenally popular, badly miscast – complete tosh really, yet oddly enjoyable.
SONATINE (1993)
A darkly pessimistic and violent Yakuza film, written and directed by Takeshi Kitano.
The film details the last days of a nihilistic gangster Murakawa, who along with his men is sent to Okinawa, on orders of his boss to settle a dispute between two rival clans.
The meeting turns out to be a trap.
After surviving a deadly ambush, Murakawa and his remaining team members take refuge in a remote beach house.
Murakawa now plans a final retribution against the people who wanted him killed.
A deeply existential experience, beautifully filmed and with an electric soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi...Sonatine truly is peak 90's cinema.