@Sonero I must say I am very impressed by your unorthodox viewing.
Back to the mudane:
A PASSAGE TO INDIA (1984)
David Lean’s accolade laden career ended with this modest epic set in 1920s India and based on E.M. Forster’s excellent, though long winded novel. It would be fair to say that Lean treats the narrative with the same long-winded high-handedness. The framing of some shots, locations and landscapes is obviously designed to be symbolic, significant or possibly just scenic, but the overall effect is to suggest this is a filmmaker who wants to demonstrate he can do more than simply tell us a story. The problem with Lean’s metaphoric approach is it actually buries the story, which isn’t up to much in the first place. He also removes many of the anti-colonial sentiments of the novel and leaves the British looking foolish, but not devious or callous, and the Indians appear to be pleasant, but headstrong and foolish – their mouths tending to run away with them. Only Rashid Karapiet’s barrister Das shows any kind of etiquette. One feels, in attempting to widen the scope of the novel into something semi-religious, preordained and colourfully laudable, Lean has given himself too much to do. He shuffles-in unnecessary scenes. There is a totally mystifying nighttime shot of a crocodile loping in the Ganges and another of the Brahman Godpole saluting Mrs Moore as she leaves on the train. Latterly, Lean inserts a whole sequence of views of the Himalayas designed to do no more than show them off, and even more of the night sky and the moon. Adela Quested’s sensual journey to a Hindu temple is a misstep inappropriate to the narrative. It’s all very well illustrating your locations lovingly, but this kind of ham-fisted filmmaking panders to the artist not the art.
The problem for Lean is that aside for the good looking cast and a decent performance by Peggy Ashcroft, there isn’t a lot to keep our eyes busy other than those visuals. He wrote the screenplay, directed and edited the result, so there is nowhere else for him to turn to and place the blame. A Passage to India purrs on like a lazy cat. We like the look of it, cuddled and friendly, but it ain’t doing much. Sadly, Maurice Jarre’s music, like Lean’s direction, is merely a regurgitation of past glories. Alec Guinness is horrifically miscast as Godpole and this was widely and rightly criticised at the time; the days of ‘blacking up’ actors should have bitten the dust by 1984. Lean’s return to film after over a dozen years was welcomed by the movie goers and A Passage to India was a huge hit, commercially and critically. It benefitted no doubt from following Gandhi, The Far Pavilions and stuff like that. Tellingly James Ivory [who had just directed the wonderful and superior India-set Heat and Dust] said he could have made the film with half the cost, half the run time and be twice as good. A Passage to India is certainly watchable, but for evidence of David Lean’s true genius I suggest a few hours watching River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago.
On January 7, 1961 a network of deep cover KGB operatives was arrested in the UK by the MI5.
This network included two British clerks Harry Houghton and Ethel Gee, who had been stealing top secret information from a submarine research center in Portland, UK, their controller Gordon Lonsdale and a middle aged bookseller couple, the Krogers. The Portland spy ring, as it was then called, had been transmitting highly sensitive information to the Soviet Union since 1953.
This movie, Ring of Spies is a factual account of the activities of the group and the events leading up to their arrest.
Starring Bernard Lee, William Sylvester and Margaret Tyzack and directed by Robert Tronson, Ring of Spies is a very interesting counter-espionage movie with a docu-drama feel to it.
The Cuban Missile Crisis and the widespread paranoia of the 60's resulted in the production of some very poignant works of apocalyptic art i.e., Dr. Strangelove, Fail Safe, On the Beach etc.
This tense and gritty Cold War thriller falls into the same category.
Sailing in the Denmark Strait, the US Navy destroyer USS Bedford detects a Soviet submarine just off the coast of Greenland. The despotic and gung-ho commander of the ship, Captain Eric Finlander (Richard Widmark), obsessively pursues the submarine, all the while enforcing high levels of vigilance and compliance on his ship's crew.
A disquieting tension builds up between the ship's captain and the exhausted under-command.
Tempers flare-up between Captain Finlander and the two new arrivals on the ship, civilian photojournalist Ben Munceford (Sidney Poitier) and the medical officer Lieutenant Commander Chester Potter (Martin Balsam), but the skipper remains resolute.
He is hellbent on forcing the submarine to surface and identify itself, even though the submarine is now in international waters.
This cat and mouse game ultimately ends in tragedy.
A splendid adaptation of Ian McEwan’s splendid novel. It is a hot summer in 1935 and young, impressionable dreamer Briony Tallis is writing stories and fantasising about the handsome gardener and his unrequited love affair with her sister, Celia. By accident and then by design she comes into possession of and reads an explicit letter between the two and her reactions to the knowledge of lust and love among the lilies and libraries leads the nosey 13-year-old to make sudden assumptions that have consequences far beyond an illicit upstairs-downstairs relationship.
Brilliantly acted from a generally young cast, Saoirse Ronan impresses as the young Briony, while Vanessa Redgrave dutifully sheds a tear as her older character, now a successful author seeking redemption for her past mistakes through the printed word – a neat analogy from McEwan kept in the film by writer-adaptor Christopher Hampton. Romola Gari is the least effective of the trio of actresses, chiefly because she spends so much of her time in silent contemplation of her past acts, the acts of others and the future for everyone. Mind you, even she pulls off a remarkably affecting scene comforting a dying soldier. Poor Briony has got herself in right emotional pickle.
Kiera Knightley has probably never been better or as assured playing the bored, but sensually sophisticated Celia. James McAvoy convinces less as a romantic lead than he does as a conscripted soldier trying to flee Dunkirk. Having seen a couple of ‘Dunkirk-specific’ movies recently, it is interesting to recognise that Joe Wright’s version of the chaotic beaches is probably better than both of them, more remarkable given he had to rehearse and prepare a long tracking shot through the soldiers to give the impression of size and scale and numbers; for he actually only had a thousand extras to work with. One must surely thank too cinematographer Seamus McGarvey who controls every sequence with a keen eye for light, colour and detail. The cast and director must be indebted too to Christopher Hampton, who could probably have directed this himself, but nonetheless offers an excellent condensed version of McEwan’s original, a book which really ought to have won the Booker Prize in 2001 – I mean, Peter Carey’s The True History of the Kelly Gang is a good novel, but it is less accessible and ultimately, who remembers it?
Book musings aside, the story is excellently told and benefits from including actors like Benedict Cumberbatch and Brenda Blethyn in small but important roles. The heart rules the head in this one, even though the intellectual head is clearly important to the story and its ultimate resolution. It perhaps didn’t need Robbie Turner’s strange sickness induced wartime mental breakdown, for the sequences set at St Thomas’s Hospital, London, when the injured are returned from Dunkirk have a better atmosphere of genuine horror and pathos; it is the kind of scene that those ‘Dunkirk-specific’ movies were missing – everyone’s too damn stiff-upper-lip or too damn ‘mother-f**r’ crazy – in Atonement the action is about realism, about the agony of injury, sight loss, death, the fear of the unknown, how people fought back those fears, or released it through vomiting, tears and despair, and soothed each other and the afflicted – even the harsh as nails Ward Sister [Gina McKee – see what I mean about good actors in minor roles?] demonstrates ample compassion when required.
Similarly, the early scenes at the country house idyll have a warmth and carelessness to them which underlines the genteel ignorant existence of the upper classes. One must ask one’s self if this film could have succeeded quite so brilliantly had the film been set among the working classes of Balham or Birmingham. The juxtaposition of the rich suddenly working alongside the poor in the war effort is almost as harrowing as the Dunkirk evacuation. Briony’s well-intentioned but misinformed evidence hints at a class divide [McAvoy’s Robbie openly states it] but in fact her error has more to do with jealousy and her own youthful lusts, which the film doesn’t quite draw out, preferring the angle of ‘atonement’.
A beautiful music score delights for the pastoral scenes and grows despondently morose as the war kicks in; romance meanwhile has the subterfuge of gentle, wispy strings. Composer Dario Marianelli deservedly won an Oscar for his efforts.
Ron Howard’s brilliant true-life drama is as good today as when first released. The third mission to land men on the moon goes drastically wrong when an explosion cripples the spacecraft and ground control battle to get the astronauts home safely.
Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon are the astronauts and Ed Harris and Gary Sinise lead the technicians on the ground. The claustrophobic scenes in the craft are engrossing and the tension racks up, as the seemingly cursed mission from the start, plays out to its conclusion.
I remember watching the dramatic events play out in real-life on the television at home when I was 14. Prayers were said in school assembly for the safe return of the astronauts. This movie brings it all back to mind.
Highly recommended.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
What to say? I'm a history buff, so naturally I enjoyed it. Some has said this is basically the same story as the first Gladiator movie. In my opinion it's different enough not to be a problem, for me at least. One problem this movie inherits from the first movie is not having enough colour. Statues were painted in lively colours back then. Interior walls in rich homes had mosaics or carpets, They weren't beige as we often see here. This is worse in recent medieval movies that are unrealisticly drained of colour. Black leather armour simply wasn't a thing back then.
While the opening battle in Gladiator II is impressive, I very much question if anyone did amphibious assaults on fortified enemies in ancient times. I can't think of any examples of this happening before WWII, but I'll have to check.
Back to the movie. When I saw the first Gladiator movie I remember wishing they had shown a staged sea battle in the arena, and I'm happy to say we get one here. As one would expect the fights are first rate and full of spectacle. But Scott hasn't forgotten character and drama, and in my opinion this is doen well too. Denzel Washington's Machiavellian character is a standout. Paul Mescal's gladiator is worth a special mention because he is mentioned as a possible James Bond. When Russel Crow starred in the first movie it was obvious that we were watching a star in the making. Mescal is nearly there, but not quite. He does the drama and fighting very well though. I also have to mention his voice. Most Bond actors had very good voices, with Brosnan and perhaps Lazenby as possible exceptions. Unlike most of the candidates mentioned as possible Bond actors these days, Mescal has a a deep, sonorous voice. That's a plus. Mescal doesn't come across as classically handsome, but neither is Craig.
I very much like that this is blockbuster cinema at it's best. Spectacle and drama that's not from some comic book is something we see far too rarely in cinemas these days, and to me Gladiator II is very welcome!
Thanks for that review @Number24 it is nice to hear a contrary opinion to the critical response.
HUMMINGBIRD aka Redemption (2013)
A British thriller starring Jason Statham should be a reason to celebrate, but Steven Knight, who writes plenty of decent screenplays, isn’t quite as hot a director as you might want for a Jason Statham flick.
Statham plays a PTSD suffering ex-commando on the run from a court martial after he committed a war crime in Afghanistan. Down and out on the streets of London, he falls foul of some local drug dealers, falls into an empty luxury apartment and starts turning his life around – if working for the local Chinese mafia, distributing drugs, people smuggling, murder and seducing nuns can be termed ‘life turning’. Covent Garden and the surrounding Soho areas are prominently featured, which makes it a location spotter of a film if you know the area, otherwise it’s a brutal exercise with some heart but singularly lacking in any lighthandedness. A miserable exercise with a few notable moments of action. Our man Jason is watchable when he isn’t playing drunk, but there’s not much else to comment on.
I wouldn’t have watched it, only the TV listings had it advertised under its US title and I thought it was a Statham film I hadn’t seen. Should have done more research, I guess.
A beautiful and mysterious art film made by Sergei Parajanov, presenting the life and times of the Armenian poet Sayat-Nova in a series of tableaux vivants.
GLADIIATOR (and yes, that's how the title is revealed to begin the film).
This falls into the 'pretty good' category. It's not in the same league as the first film but it's solid enough for what it is. I'd call it a mid-tier Ridley Scott effort when all is said and done.
I have two major issues with the film, and I'm serious...they're huge issues.
Paul Mescal is miscast. He's good in terms of 'acting' but he lacks the presence and charisma to anchor the film. Russell Crowe was a force of nature in the first film and 100% believable in every single scene he's in. Paul is fine, but there's nothing about him or his performance to make you BELIEVE in him. I definitely don't see him as James Bond after this, that's for sure. If he gets the gig, I'll seriously have to reconsider my loyalty to the franchise.
No Hans Zimmer score. The first film works and excels because of a number of ingredients coming together perfectly. One of the big ingredients was that magnificent score. What we get here is fairly anonymous and generic. It borderline sucks, to be honest. It's sprinkled with musical cues from the first film that hit you like a breath of fresh air...and then they're gone.
Of the other actors, Connie Nelsen fares the best. Pedro Pascal feels miscast as well but nothing too egregious. Denzel is Denzel playing Denzel again...he's fine. He brings some oomph to the proceedings if nothing else.
Good fights and spectacle to be had. The CGI backgrounds are much better here than in GLADIATOR but that's to be expected considering 24 years of tech improvements. The only real duff CGI is on some monkeys that simply do not convince.
Again...pretty good, not great. Lower your expectations.
A star Bellus with its accompanying planet Zyra is on collision course with Earth and will impact in 8 months time.
Much to the dismay of Dr. Cole Hendron, who tries to convince the world's leaders of the impending disaster...all evidence is ignored.
With the help of wealthy financiers, Dr. Hendron and his team assemble a spaceship with the capacity to carry 45 passengers, livestock and rations, with the hope that a safe landing on Zyra can be accomplished.
As Zyra makes a close approach towards Earth...massive tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions wreak havoc all across the globe.
He controls a business espionage ring operating in London.
Once a lucrative and powerful position opens up for him back home, he is advised to dispose of his network.
Being the criminal mastermind that he is, he devises an ingenious plan, by virtue of which he aims to get rid of all four members of his espionage circle without leaving a trace of his involvement.
Everything goes according to plan...with some minor hiccups.
In the end, Elliot receives a congratulatory message from the black hand of fate.
Directed by Ken Hughes and starring James Coburn and Lee Grant, 'The Internecine Project' is a tense thriller.
Yes, that one just about succeeds. In my review in 2022, I said the main achievement was to make Coburn's fairly ugly character sympathetic.
Lots of really good films on last night, all at once, so I watched the worst of them quite deliberately.
CLINIC EXPLOITATION (1972)
A peculiar sex-thriller.
Georgina Ward plays Julie Mason, owner of a health clinic who extracts large fees from her clients for sexual favours and even bigger fees for blackmailing them. When she rejects the advances of a rich lesbian, her ambitions start to fall apart and her criminal past catches up with her. Plenty of coy nudity from the heroine and not a lot of reasonable plot – the scene where she is seduced over a pinball machine proves embarrassing and entirely unnecessary – Julie proves remarkably dumb for a woman used to exploiting innocents. Director Don Chaffey made his name on fantasy projects like Jason and the Argonauts but the material probably needs a darker touch than he or the screenplay offers.
As a side note, Georgina Ward was elected to stand as a Labour candidate in the 1975 election, but withdrew when newspapers ran stories and photographs about the film. Both her film career and her political ambitions ground to a halt.
The last film directed by Jacques Becker before his untimely death, Le Trou is based on a real escape attempt of five prisoners from the La Santé prison in France in 1947.
Comments
@Sonero I must say I am very impressed by your unorthodox viewing.
Back to the mudane:
A PASSAGE TO INDIA (1984)
David Lean’s accolade laden career ended with this modest epic set in 1920s India and based on E.M. Forster’s excellent, though long winded novel. It would be fair to say that Lean treats the narrative with the same long-winded high-handedness. The framing of some shots, locations and landscapes is obviously designed to be symbolic, significant or possibly just scenic, but the overall effect is to suggest this is a filmmaker who wants to demonstrate he can do more than simply tell us a story. The problem with Lean’s metaphoric approach is it actually buries the story, which isn’t up to much in the first place. He also removes many of the anti-colonial sentiments of the novel and leaves the British looking foolish, but not devious or callous, and the Indians appear to be pleasant, but headstrong and foolish – their mouths tending to run away with them. Only Rashid Karapiet’s barrister Das shows any kind of etiquette. One feels, in attempting to widen the scope of the novel into something semi-religious, preordained and colourfully laudable, Lean has given himself too much to do. He shuffles-in unnecessary scenes. There is a totally mystifying nighttime shot of a crocodile loping in the Ganges and another of the Brahman Godpole saluting Mrs Moore as she leaves on the train. Latterly, Lean inserts a whole sequence of views of the Himalayas designed to do no more than show them off, and even more of the night sky and the moon. Adela Quested’s sensual journey to a Hindu temple is a misstep inappropriate to the narrative. It’s all very well illustrating your locations lovingly, but this kind of ham-fisted filmmaking panders to the artist not the art.
The problem for Lean is that aside for the good looking cast and a decent performance by Peggy Ashcroft, there isn’t a lot to keep our eyes busy other than those visuals. He wrote the screenplay, directed and edited the result, so there is nowhere else for him to turn to and place the blame. A Passage to India purrs on like a lazy cat. We like the look of it, cuddled and friendly, but it ain’t doing much. Sadly, Maurice Jarre’s music, like Lean’s direction, is merely a regurgitation of past glories. Alec Guinness is horrifically miscast as Godpole and this was widely and rightly criticised at the time; the days of ‘blacking up’ actors should have bitten the dust by 1984. Lean’s return to film after over a dozen years was welcomed by the movie goers and A Passage to India was a huge hit, commercially and critically. It benefitted no doubt from following Gandhi, The Far Pavilions and stuff like that. Tellingly James Ivory [who had just directed the wonderful and superior India-set Heat and Dust] said he could have made the film with half the cost, half the run time and be twice as good. A Passage to India is certainly watchable, but for evidence of David Lean’s true genius I suggest a few hours watching River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago.
@chrisno1 Thank you for the kind words Sir.
RING OF SPIES (1964)
On January 7, 1961 a network of deep cover KGB operatives was arrested in the UK by the MI5.
This network included two British clerks Harry Houghton and Ethel Gee, who had been stealing top secret information from a submarine research center in Portland, UK, their controller Gordon Lonsdale and a middle aged bookseller couple, the Krogers. The Portland spy ring, as it was then called, had been transmitting highly sensitive information to the Soviet Union since 1953.
This movie, Ring of Spies is a factual account of the activities of the group and the events leading up to their arrest.
Starring Bernard Lee, William Sylvester and Margaret Tyzack and directed by Robert Tronson, Ring of Spies is a very interesting counter-espionage movie with a docu-drama feel to it.
Excellent film.
THE BEDFORD INCIDENT (1965)
The Cuban Missile Crisis and the widespread paranoia of the 60's resulted in the production of some very poignant works of apocalyptic art i.e., Dr. Strangelove, Fail Safe, On the Beach etc.
This tense and gritty Cold War thriller falls into the same category.
Sailing in the Denmark Strait, the US Navy destroyer USS Bedford detects a Soviet submarine just off the coast of Greenland. The despotic and gung-ho commander of the ship, Captain Eric Finlander (Richard Widmark), obsessively pursues the submarine, all the while enforcing high levels of vigilance and compliance on his ship's crew.
A disquieting tension builds up between the ship's captain and the exhausted under-command.
Tempers flare-up between Captain Finlander and the two new arrivals on the ship, civilian photojournalist Ben Munceford (Sidney Poitier) and the medical officer Lieutenant Commander Chester Potter (Martin Balsam), but the skipper remains resolute.
He is hellbent on forcing the submarine to surface and identify itself, even though the submarine is now in international waters.
This cat and mouse game ultimately ends in tragedy.
A terrific film and one of the best Cold War thrillers to grace the cinema screen.
ATONEMENT (2007)
A splendid adaptation of Ian McEwan’s splendid novel. It is a hot summer in 1935 and young, impressionable dreamer Briony Tallis is writing stories and fantasising about the handsome gardener and his unrequited love affair with her sister, Celia. By accident and then by design she comes into possession of and reads an explicit letter between the two and her reactions to the knowledge of lust and love among the lilies and libraries leads the nosey 13-year-old to make sudden assumptions that have consequences far beyond an illicit upstairs-downstairs relationship.
Brilliantly acted from a generally young cast, Saoirse Ronan impresses as the young Briony, while Vanessa Redgrave dutifully sheds a tear as her older character, now a successful author seeking redemption for her past mistakes through the printed word – a neat analogy from McEwan kept in the film by writer-adaptor Christopher Hampton. Romola Gari is the least effective of the trio of actresses, chiefly because she spends so much of her time in silent contemplation of her past acts, the acts of others and the future for everyone. Mind you, even she pulls off a remarkably affecting scene comforting a dying soldier. Poor Briony has got herself in right emotional pickle.
Kiera Knightley has probably never been better or as assured playing the bored, but sensually sophisticated Celia. James McAvoy convinces less as a romantic lead than he does as a conscripted soldier trying to flee Dunkirk. Having seen a couple of ‘Dunkirk-specific’ movies recently, it is interesting to recognise that Joe Wright’s version of the chaotic beaches is probably better than both of them, more remarkable given he had to rehearse and prepare a long tracking shot through the soldiers to give the impression of size and scale and numbers; for he actually only had a thousand extras to work with. One must surely thank too cinematographer Seamus McGarvey who controls every sequence with a keen eye for light, colour and detail. The cast and director must be indebted too to Christopher Hampton, who could probably have directed this himself, but nonetheless offers an excellent condensed version of McEwan’s original, a book which really ought to have won the Booker Prize in 2001 – I mean, Peter Carey’s The True History of the Kelly Gang is a good novel, but it is less accessible and ultimately, who remembers it?
Book musings aside, the story is excellently told and benefits from including actors like Benedict Cumberbatch and Brenda Blethyn in small but important roles. The heart rules the head in this one, even though the intellectual head is clearly important to the story and its ultimate resolution. It perhaps didn’t need Robbie Turner’s strange sickness induced wartime mental breakdown, for the sequences set at St Thomas’s Hospital, London, when the injured are returned from Dunkirk have a better atmosphere of genuine horror and pathos; it is the kind of scene that those ‘Dunkirk-specific’ movies were missing – everyone’s too damn stiff-upper-lip or too damn ‘mother-f**r’ crazy – in Atonement the action is about realism, about the agony of injury, sight loss, death, the fear of the unknown, how people fought back those fears, or released it through vomiting, tears and despair, and soothed each other and the afflicted – even the harsh as nails Ward Sister [Gina McKee – see what I mean about good actors in minor roles?] demonstrates ample compassion when required.
Similarly, the early scenes at the country house idyll have a warmth and carelessness to them which underlines the genteel ignorant existence of the upper classes. One must ask one’s self if this film could have succeeded quite so brilliantly had the film been set among the working classes of Balham or Birmingham. The juxtaposition of the rich suddenly working alongside the poor in the war effort is almost as harrowing as the Dunkirk evacuation. Briony’s well-intentioned but misinformed evidence hints at a class divide [McAvoy’s Robbie openly states it] but in fact her error has more to do with jealousy and her own youthful lusts, which the film doesn’t quite draw out, preferring the angle of ‘atonement’.
A beautiful music score delights for the pastoral scenes and grows despondently morose as the war kicks in; romance meanwhile has the subterfuge of gentle, wispy strings. Composer Dario Marianelli deservedly won an Oscar for his efforts.
Brilliant.
APOLLO 13 (1995)
Ron Howard’s brilliant true-life drama is as good today as when first released. The third mission to land men on the moon goes drastically wrong when an explosion cripples the spacecraft and ground control battle to get the astronauts home safely.
Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon are the astronauts and Ed Harris and Gary Sinise lead the technicians on the ground. The claustrophobic scenes in the craft are engrossing and the tension racks up, as the seemingly cursed mission from the start, plays out to its conclusion.
I remember watching the dramatic events play out in real-life on the television at home when I was 14. Prayers were said in school assembly for the safe return of the astronauts. This movie brings it all back to mind.
Highly recommended.
Gladiator II (2024)
What to say? I'm a history buff, so naturally I enjoyed it. Some has said this is basically the same story as the first Gladiator movie. In my opinion it's different enough not to be a problem, for me at least. One problem this movie inherits from the first movie is not having enough colour. Statues were painted in lively colours back then. Interior walls in rich homes had mosaics or carpets, They weren't beige as we often see here. This is worse in recent medieval movies that are unrealisticly drained of colour. Black leather armour simply wasn't a thing back then.
While the opening battle in Gladiator II is impressive, I very much question if anyone did amphibious assaults on fortified enemies in ancient times. I can't think of any examples of this happening before WWII, but I'll have to check.
Back to the movie. When I saw the first Gladiator movie I remember wishing they had shown a staged sea battle in the arena, and I'm happy to say we get one here. As one would expect the fights are first rate and full of spectacle. But Scott hasn't forgotten character and drama, and in my opinion this is doen well too. Denzel Washington's Machiavellian character is a standout. Paul Mescal's gladiator is worth a special mention because he is mentioned as a possible James Bond. When Russel Crow starred in the first movie it was obvious that we were watching a star in the making. Mescal is nearly there, but not quite. He does the drama and fighting very well though. I also have to mention his voice. Most Bond actors had very good voices, with Brosnan and perhaps Lazenby as possible exceptions. Unlike most of the candidates mentioned as possible Bond actors these days, Mescal has a a deep, sonorous voice. That's a plus. Mescal doesn't come across as classically handsome, but neither is Craig.
I very much like that this is blockbuster cinema at it's best. Spectacle and drama that's not from some comic book is something we see far too rarely in cinemas these days, and to me Gladiator II is very welcome!
Seeing that tonight!
Thanks for that review @Number24 it is nice to hear a contrary opinion to the critical response.
HUMMINGBIRD aka Redemption (2013)
A British thriller starring Jason Statham should be a reason to celebrate, but Steven Knight, who writes plenty of decent screenplays, isn’t quite as hot a director as you might want for a Jason Statham flick.
Statham plays a PTSD suffering ex-commando on the run from a court martial after he committed a war crime in Afghanistan. Down and out on the streets of London, he falls foul of some local drug dealers, falls into an empty luxury apartment and starts turning his life around – if working for the local Chinese mafia, distributing drugs, people smuggling, murder and seducing nuns can be termed ‘life turning’. Covent Garden and the surrounding Soho areas are prominently featured, which makes it a location spotter of a film if you know the area, otherwise it’s a brutal exercise with some heart but singularly lacking in any lighthandedness. A miserable exercise with a few notable moments of action. Our man Jason is watchable when he isn’t playing drunk, but there’s not much else to comment on.
I wouldn’t have watched it, only the TV listings had it advertised under its US title and I thought it was a Statham film I hadn’t seen. Should have done more research, I guess.
THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES (1969) (Yutkevitch Cut)
A beautiful and mysterious art film made by Sergei Parajanov, presenting the life and times of the Armenian poet Sayat-Nova in a series of tableaux vivants.
Avant-garde cinema, at its finest.
GLADIIATOR (and yes, that's how the title is revealed to begin the film).
This falls into the 'pretty good' category. It's not in the same league as the first film but it's solid enough for what it is. I'd call it a mid-tier Ridley Scott effort when all is said and done.
I have two major issues with the film, and I'm serious...they're huge issues.
Of the other actors, Connie Nelsen fares the best. Pedro Pascal feels miscast as well but nothing too egregious. Denzel is Denzel playing Denzel again...he's fine. He brings some oomph to the proceedings if nothing else.
Good fights and spectacle to be had. The CGI backgrounds are much better here than in GLADIATOR but that's to be expected considering 24 years of tech improvements. The only real duff CGI is on some monkeys that simply do not convince.
Again...pretty good, not great. Lower your expectations.
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (1951)
The news is grim.
A star Bellus with its accompanying planet Zyra is on collision course with Earth and will impact in 8 months time.
Much to the dismay of Dr. Cole Hendron, who tries to convince the world's leaders of the impending disaster...all evidence is ignored.
With the help of wealthy financiers, Dr. Hendron and his team assemble a spaceship with the capacity to carry 45 passengers, livestock and rations, with the hope that a safe landing on Zyra can be accomplished.
As Zyra makes a close approach towards Earth...massive tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions wreak havoc all across the globe.
Now the final impact with Bellus awaits...
Directed by Rudolph Maté and running at 83 minutes, 'When Worlds Collide' is a fantastic sci-fi film.
Highly recommended.
THE INTERNECINE PROJECT (1974)
American economist Robert Elliot hides a secret.
He controls a business espionage ring operating in London.
Once a lucrative and powerful position opens up for him back home, he is advised to dispose of his network.
Being the criminal mastermind that he is, he devises an ingenious plan, by virtue of which he aims to get rid of all four members of his espionage circle without leaving a trace of his involvement.
Everything goes according to plan...with some minor hiccups.
In the end, Elliot receives a congratulatory message from the black hand of fate.
Directed by Ken Hughes and starring James Coburn and Lee Grant, 'The Internecine Project' is a tense thriller.
(89 minutes)
Yes, that one just about succeeds. In my review in 2022, I said the main achievement was to make Coburn's fairly ugly character sympathetic.
Lots of really good films on last night, all at once, so I watched the worst of them quite deliberately.
CLINIC EXPLOITATION (1972)
A peculiar sex-thriller.
Georgina Ward plays Julie Mason, owner of a health clinic who extracts large fees from her clients for sexual favours and even bigger fees for blackmailing them. When she rejects the advances of a rich lesbian, her ambitions start to fall apart and her criminal past catches up with her. Plenty of coy nudity from the heroine and not a lot of reasonable plot – the scene where she is seduced over a pinball machine proves embarrassing and entirely unnecessary – Julie proves remarkably dumb for a woman used to exploiting innocents. Director Don Chaffey made his name on fantasy projects like Jason and the Argonauts but the material probably needs a darker touch than he or the screenplay offers.
As a side note, Georgina Ward was elected to stand as a Labour candidate in the 1975 election, but withdrew when newspapers ran stories and photographs about the film. Both her film career and her political ambitions ground to a halt.
Clinic Exploitation? I’ve never heard of this film before. Good to see I’ve dragged you down to my level at last 😂
The Internecine Project is really good, Coburn is a fine actor.
LE TROU (1960)
The last film directed by Jacques Becker before his untimely death, Le Trou is based on a real escape attempt of five prisoners from the La Santé prison in France in 1947.
Painstakingly thorough with meticulous attention to detail and real grit...
Le Trou is an authentic masterpiece.