Sidney Poitier stars as a newly employed teacher in a rough East End of London school. His class is full of rejects from other schools and discipline is at a minimum. After unsuccessfully trying to teach general lessons he changes his method to teaching about life and what happens when they will leave school in a few weeks time, gradually he earns their respect culminating in the leavers class dance where he is presented with a gift from the pupils.
Based on a autobiographical novel by E. R. Braithwaite, this is a sentimental but undeniably entertaining film. Sidney Poitier had already won the best actor award at the Oscars back in 1963, and he displays all the acting tropes needed to turn in a good performance which is always overshadowed by his role as Virgil Tibbs in the same year’s In The Heat Of The Night. Judy Geeson is gorgeous as a schoolgirl approaching womanhood who has a crush on the teacher. Christian Roberts plays the class ringleader who initially baits and goads the teacher. Suzy Kendall plays another first time teacher but really the character is wasted by having little to do. Patricia Routledge (later to find fame as the domineering Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances) has an early role as a teacher who encourages Poitier to “keep going as he is a natural teacher.” Lulu sings the smash hit title song (which is played no less than 4 times) and stars as one of the pupils in her first acting role. There are several other well known faces who crop up throughout the film.
It all comes together a bit too easily, but that is to be expected from a 2 hour film, it would work far better as a tv series. The film takes me back to my own schooldays in the 60’s and I can see several typical characters in both the pupils and the teachers. The dance scenes are extremely naff, I doubt they were very good even at the time of release.
Worth seeing, especially the sights of swinging 60’s London.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Gymkata, have a great time at HHN - I last did this in 2018 - these nights are some of the best fun anyone can possibly have - had to pay for the fast pass though, otherwise it would have been impossible to do all the houses, they let far too many people in nowadays, but maybe the crowds will be limited due to COVID?
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I was posting pictures of Monica Bellucci in the Izabella Thread (as one does) when it occured to me that I've only watched a couple of her non-English language movies. I found her first lead was in La Riffa, found it online and watched it. The movie starts when her character loses her rich husband in an accident. She has a small girl and she soon finds out her late husband was knee-deep in debt and he cheated on her for years. She also knows her only big thing she has going for her is that all men are crazy about her. In desperation she arranges a lottery with herself as the prize. Yes, you read that correctly. Twenty men can buy into the lottery with a very large sum of money, enough to make her debt free and and leaving enough money for herself and her daughter. The lucky winner gets to have Monica Bellucci as his mistress for four years. With Bellucci in the part it's entirely belivable that twenty rich men would gamble a fortune in the hope of having her as his mistress. The wives, her parents and the entire town learn about her unconventional plan, something that leads to some problems.
I'm not sure this movie could've been made today, even in Italy. We also get to see Monica Bellucci na ..... this is an Italian movie starring Monica Bellucci 😏. While there are comedic moments, this isn't really a comedy. Is it a drama with some satire, romance and comedy? Maybe.
The movie isn't great, but it works. Bellucci's acting isn't award-worthy, it works fine. Meryl Streep wouldn't have been belivable in this part, but Bellucci is. The lead needs to look absolutely fantastic, and Monica Bellucci is perfect in the part.
I think some of you guys reviewed this earlier this year.
DRACULA (1958)
Known as Horror of Dracula in the States, Hammer Studios follow up to The Curse of Frankenstein includes more blood and eroticism but dispenses with almost all of its source material. Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster is on record as saying his stripped back version of Bram Stoker’s famous tale was deliberately designed to ensure the film didn’t run any longer than ninety minutes. He plays loose with the familiar story, cutting out Renfield and the plague-ridden sea journey, changing all the locations – the action doesn’t leave the vicinity of Dracula’s castle – and muddling the inter-familial relationships. It makes the movie short, but the story loses something in this condensed and fast version. I prefer the slow build up of tension present in the 1979 remake, which tried hard to go back to source; Nosferatu (1922) of course, is the closest.
The film’s well directed by Terence Fisher and the shock moments deliver. Dracula’s destruction is particularly riveting. The sensual allure of vampirism is well represented, if a little melodramatic. The whole thing looks a little cheap and conforms to a host of stereotypical interpretations of peasants, servants, disbelievers, etc. The music is appalling – the climax is played out to a skit that resembles Dick Barton – and the performances over-sincere. As if to reinforce the bargain-basement appeal, I noted Van Helsing’s hotel room was reused in next year’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and Dracula’s castle tomb is the same one as Lucy Holmwood’s, minus the soil. Peter Cushing plays Van Helsing as a much younger man than anyone previously had or latterly does. He’s pretty good. Christopher Lee has no dialogue after the first fifteen minutes; he carries all the action and menace in his movement, his eyes and facial expressions, an achievement in itself. He’s exceptionally good in a star-making role. The final death scene is a moment of true horror. The rest of the movie, well, it’s all a bit ordinary and staid.
Murder on the Orient Express - the Kenneth Branagh version.
Now this was a lot better than I'd expected. The thing about this whodunnit is that much of it is set on a train derailed in the snow so it's claustrophobic and one-note. Yet this film gets away from this by emphasising the Orient nature of the train - it opens in Istanbul and heads north, the first 20 minutes are different, it's all exotic, sunny climes so it wrong foots you. I guess it's like what I said about The Spy Who Loved Me - this is the underwater Bond but unlike the Thunderball treatment they chuck in some snow and sand to keep it from getting samey.
The look of the film is superb even if some of the steam train shots venture into Hogwarts or Polar Express territory.
Some of it is a bit odd if I'm being picky - Michelle Pfeiffer is 10 years too old for the part she's playing here although with some dodgy accents it later turns out that's part of the yarn, the character is putting it on.
The film is not really menacing and prefers sentimentality, saddling Poirot with a long-lost love that he gazes at from a picture in his wallet or something. It's a problematic thriller if you know how it pans out, it's not exactly credible but there you go. I thought the way they dealt with the flashback and the way Poirot know about the case presented in the flashback was better done, it didn't start with a load of exposition.
One ill-judged aspect was that after the passengers learned of the Belgium detective's verdict and he walked away, the train could be heard erupting into 'For he's a jolly good fellow...' which arguably undermined the tone. I suppose they wanted to end it on an upbeat note.
I'm also looking forward to Death on the Nile. I think Murder on the Orient Express was a better film than I might have expected, even though I'd only rank it 3rd of the Murder on the Orient Express adaptations I've watched - after the David Suchet and Albert Finney versions.
One snag I might mention is that once we've seen the film - and the denouement is very memorable - there's no getting away that you know whodunnit, so in this one when Branagh's Poriot is puzzling about how he cannot figure it out the murderer despite all the clues, this is one instance where you find yourself thinking, mate, it's obvious...
I finally saw the four-hour Zack Snyder cut of JUSTICE LEAGUE. I didn't hate the theatrical cut--I was just underwhelmed by it, and I thought it was looking forward to a better sequel. Well, this version is jaw-droppingly BRILLIANT. Cyborg--pretty much an afterthought in the theatrical version--emerges as a full-blown character, with a strong story involving his father and with an important role in the plot. The villain Steppenwolf--just a visual effect in the theatrical film--also gets some rounding-out, coming across as more menacing and showing his own need to prove himself to his master Darkseid. . .who gets some real screen time here. Last, the resurrection of Superman is truly moving. The film closes with the threat of Darkseid launching an invasion of earth and, of course, setting up a sequel. . .but it looks like that will never come. Darn.
Luc Besson is a one man film factory. He’s written, directed and produced countless products since he first emerged on the scene in the early eighties. Sadly this means the end result of his labour is sometimes less than it ought to be, diluted by the necessity to keep the conveyor belt of movies moving. Anna is such a film.
Basically, this 2019 thriller is a re-tread of his own classic Nikita, following the fortunes of a down at heel, abused young woman who is given an opportunity to better herself by joining a secret service institution, in this case the KGB. While it sounds promising, Besson isn’t doing anything he hasn’t done before. The story’s made even more repetitive by the fact we’ve seen an awful lot of this storyline recently: Red Sparrow, Atomic Blonde, Hanna, Salt, even Killing Eve on television. While Besson may have originated the format, he adds nothing new to it and Anna is a by-the-numbers thriller where the sum of the numbers is very low.
Sasha Luss plays the titular spy, who impersonates an aspiring model as a cover for a series of assassination coups. It defies belief she’s never caught. She does a tremendous amount of killing, some of it exceptionally bloody. Luss' career started in photo and catwalk modelling and she’s rather effective in a grim, unsmiling fashion. Her blank expression lends itself to the duplicitous and quietly scheming character. She’s competent in the action scenes, which are unrestrained, stylised and don’t deserve our attention or praise. Anna’s handler is Olga, a Russian witch in the Rosa Klebb mould. As depicted by Helen Mirren, Olga is about as good a villain as you get in these things, sharp, inscrutable, heartless, cruel and ambitious. I enjoyed her playing and so too does Luss, as her best moments come when she’s sparring with her superior. What most impresses here is how the nature of the characters, particularly the numerous villains, is developed through the narrative, but with so little explanatory background. It’s a demonstration in brevity and accuracy which the writers of recent Bond films should take note of. Audiences don’t need to be spoon-fed every second of a person’s life story to understand them. Nor do they need to be tenuously joined at the hip. Besson has clearly studied what makes the very best thrillers work – including the best of Bond – as he leaves characterisation up to his actors. His script is merely the bones on which to hang tension and action and intrigue.
So, everyone is out for a piece of Anna: Piotr, her hopeless loser boyfriend; Alex, her KGB recruiter and trainer [Luke Evans, a dullard of a role], Vassiliev, Head of the KGB; the gossipy self-indulgent models and agents; egotistical photographers; clinging girlfriends; an American CIA entrapment expert [Cillian Murphy, equally dull]. It’s amazing the poor girl isn’t mentally and physically torn apart. The film progresses steadily and without too much fuss. The criss-crossing time line doesn’t help. The lack of attention to detail is annoying. For instance, the film is set in the late eighties and early nineties, but the technology featured is more akin to the 2010s; or there’s a fight scene in a restaurant where stuntmen keep climbing up off the floor to be killed a second or third time – I assumed this was intended as a visual joke, but as the film lacks any sense of humour, I wasn’t sure.
Anna had disappointing box office and I can see why. It’s a very ordinary, uninventive thriller, which at times mocks the director's best work, like The Fifth Element and Leon. Besson has done a lot better than this. Perhaps it is time not to spread his talent so thin. Interestingly, I rather enjoyed Eric Serra’s music score and wondered, not for the first time, why he delivered such monumentally unexciting music for Goldeneye.
This movie was the biggest box office hit in the world last year, so why has so few of is heard about it? Probably because it's Chinese. It's the first time a non-English language movie is number one at the world box office, most likely because of the pandemic, but The Eight Hundred had a huge budget and it's the first Chinese movie shot entirely in IMAX.
The movie is based on a real story from Shanghai in 1937. The Japanese invaded China and after three months of fighting the Chinese Nationalst army was pulling out of Shanghai. This movie was supposed to be released in 2019, but was delayed because of "technical difficulties". Many believe the real reason was the aniversary of the People's Republic of China, and the movie was insensitive enough to remind the public that the Nationalists did most of the fighting against the invaders while the communist forces mainly fought their Nationalists countrymen.
The Nationalist army wanted a small unit to stay behind to cover their retreat. An elite batallion trained and equiped by the Germans back when their main job was fighting communists. They chose to defend themselves in the Sihang warehouse, a thick-walled bank building by the river. That turned out to be a fortunate choice since the Foreign Consessions (an area of the city controlled by former colonial powers, in effect neutral at the time) was just a cross the river. Because of this the Japanese didn't use artillery or bombers against the warehouse to avoid hitting the Consession. The defenders of the warehouse were just 414 soldiers. To confuse the attackers the commanding officer said they were eight hundred, the regiment's original size. These 414 soldiers were up against at least 20 000 Japanese soldiers. The soldiers fought with great bravery, holding the warehouse much longer than everyone expected. This happend in full view of both foreign and Chinese inhabitants on the other side of the river in the Consession along with the international press. The Chinese hoped this would push the Western powers to help China in the war against the Japanese invaders. This didn't happen, but the 800 boosted Chinese fighting moral and helped turn the outside world against Japan.
The story is exiting, it's beautifully shot and told and the budget shows. There are many standout scenes, including one with three Chinese deserters hiding in the canals under the warehouse hiding for Japanese forces.
I like how the movie doesn't shy away from showing Chinese soldiers deserters and the brutal handling of them by their officers. They also show them hiding, drinking and showing fear. Unfortunately the movie has scenes that are exagerated and far too flag-waving (litterally in one case), going full "Pearl Harbour" in many scenes. There was one real case of a single Chinese soldier stopping attacking sappers from undermining the warehouse wall with explosives by turning himself into a suicide bomber. As if this wasn't cinematic and patriotic enough for the movie, the director has many more soldiers throwing themselves over the wall with handgrenades strapped to themselves. I encourage anyone who wants to watch the movie to read the Wikipedia entry on the Sihang warehouse after watching it, both to marvel at what's true and also be aware of what's made up or exagerated. Please note the real numbers of losses. They will surprise you, that's all I'm going to say.
The movie is well made and spectacular and I enjoyed watching a blockbuster not made in English. You should considered it too, I think.
I've been at the cinema! I planned for NTTD to be my first post-strict restrictions cinema experience, but Denis Villeneuve's Dune was to promising to miss. I don't think that man has made a movie that isn't very good yet. Villeneuve should direct a Bond movie ASAP!
The cinema was almost full (mainly of students) with no social distancing to speak of, so no-one can say I don't take chances for art. 😃
Dune has been called "Star Wars for adults" and the first SW was reportedly influenced by the Dune novels. The story focuses on the young Paul Atreides Timothee Chalamet, the heir of a noble family on the planet Caladan. The location shooting for Caladan was done in Stadlandet, a couple of hours from where I live, close to the planned site of the world's first ship tunnel.
The Atreides family are given dominion over the desert planet of Dune, a very harsh place where the universe's most valuable resource is harvested. The indigonous desert people of Dune have been oppressed for generations. There are some parallells to Arabs and oil I think. A messiah figure in Dune religion is even called Mahdi, a name used for a messiah figure in islam.
The plot is complex, but Villeneuve wisely cut the first novel in two. This is Dune part I. Together with good design and storytelling I think the plot wasn't too hard to follow. The acting, design, directing etc is very good. We get both the smaller, personal scenes as well as the spectacular and epic scenes we expect.
I very much encourage you to brave the pandemic and watch this great sci-fi movie om the big screen.
Never say never HB. While it's true that Zack Snyder and WB have a pretty toxic relationship right now, the hope is that the so called Snyderverse universe may get another look when WB merges with Discovery and gets a new studio head. Add to that the fact that most recent DC movies that pivoted away from the Snyderverse like Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey have been box office flops, the apparently strong connections between this movie and the upcoming Flash feature, and rumors that even the current regime is investigating the possibility of doing a follow up to Justice League to save face with the incoming management and there may be hope that we'll revisit that universe again. All wishful thinking? Maybe, but at the end of the day, money talks and Zack Snyder's Justice League still doing quite a bit of business. The movie was released on DVD, BluRay and 4K last week and has been selling really, really well.
I got to see The Suicide Squad at my local before it disappeared.
I didn't like it much, I found it horrible and stupid. Maybe I wasn't in the mood, trekking out on a Sunday evening. I'd seen Deadpool on telly the night before and I preferred the humour in that. There are jokes in this one - good ones - but the film didn't quite have funny bones imo because it's front loading the brutality and so on. I don't know how I'm supposed to believe a team made up of a shark man and a weasel - while the Idris character is amazed to find a rat is waving at him - but if I don't believe it I need to find it funnier.
It's surely the most violent film I've ever seen but here I found nobody to root for really. Intrigued at the anti-patriotic, anti-American bent of the movie however. I do struggle with what world it's meant to be in, the Marvel universe of the Joker/Batman one - it's the latter isn't it?
I'm glad I'm seeing the Bond movie soon - I'm tired of having to sneak in to a movie at the last minute only to hastily depart to the silky sounds of 'It seems that fate has brought us together...'
Tony and Gymkata, thanks for your replies. I can only say that I hope THE FLASH won't have a multiple-aternative-universes setup--that's way too much like the upcoming Spider-Man flick, even down to resurrecting Alfred Molina's Doc Ock. I've got my fingers crossed that THE FLASH is based on the excellent FLASHPOINT graphic novel, in which Barry Allen goes back in time to keep his mother from being killed, and of course initiates a butterfly effect. One change he notices is that Batman is now older and meaner--and it turns out he's THOMAS Wayne, not Bruce Wayne (why he is can be explained by reading the book--no spoilers from me). This would mean that Michael Keaton is actually playing Batman, but not Bruce.
Since I'm here, a movie I saw this weekend was something called THE VIRTUOSO. I guess I put it in my Netflix queue because Anthony Hopkins is featured heavily in the artwork, though he's only a supporting character. So too are such big(gish) names as Abbie Cornish, Eddie Marsan, and David Morse. But the star is a guy named Anson Mount, whose got a long list of titles on IMDb, but I'm darned if I know what he's been in. He's a top international assassin who looks sullen and wears only designer trenchcoats and is so out of place wherever he is that you expect people to constantly walk up to him and say, "Are you an international assassin?" He's also equipped with unending voiceover narration that sounds like a bunch of stuff Jack Webb cut out of his old "Dragnet" scripts. Bad dialogue, bad acting, and a bad script that all leads up to a surprise THE USUAL SUSPECTS-like twist that should surprise no one. I'm wondering if the director is a kid of the agent who represents all the big names in the film, and they put in their appearances as personal favors.
The Courier, an espionage thriller set in the Cuban Missile Crisis era of the Cold War, with Benedict Cumberbatch. A sort of companion piece to Spielberg's Bridge of Spies really, but from the British perspective.
It seems to me I've been watching British films like this and reviewing them on AJB for the last 20 years or so.
It's 'based on a true story' which is often code for 'if it's boring as hell, don't blame us'. And it is boring as hell for much of it. It's about a travelling rep or commercial salesman roped in to do a bit of spying for the West in the Soviet Union. Just innocuous stuff, making contacts, bringing back documents of course, that's all. If you've ever seen the Dirk Bogarde comedy thriller Hot Enough for June in which he does much the same thing, only with John Le Mesuriere and Robert Morley in tow, you know the thing.
There's no real angle on it for the first half hour and more. The actors or their characters are unlikeable and uninteresting with no quirks to speak of. Nothing wrong with them, mind. It's dully authentic, the period trappings are fine but a bit distracting. Cumberbatch is fine but you always know it's him.
It's the sort of British film that we always see - no real flair to it. A bit like the Unofficial Secrets with Keira Knightley last year or so. You get the sense it could be done far better on telly and in the era of Netflix there's no excuse for it except to keep the British film industry going, it almost seems like it's being subsidised. It lacks the three-card trick advocated by myself when talking about The Spy Who Loved Me. You need something else to distract from a dull plot - a bit of humour or some red herrings. Or a sub-plot. There's none of that here. It sets the thing up so we should be suspicious of everyone but it doesn't really build on it. You do get decent British films - Atonement and Pride and Prejudice and that BBC series Summer of Rockets - that exhibit visual and emotional flair even if they usually contain massive plot holes too.
The tension ratchets up towards the end and it becomes emotionally involving - there are nods to The Living Daylights. Though much is set in Moscow we don't see any of it really - maybe they were deterred from filming it. One shot along the river looks authentic but was probably some other East European city, we see none of the Kremlin or any of that.
I hope THE FLASH won't have a multiple-alternative-universes setup--that's way too much like the upcoming Spider-Man flick
I know HardyBoy knows his comicbook history, but for the sake of you illiterates out there:
it was actually an issue of the Flash that introduced the whole confusing multiverse concept: Flash 123, September 1961, which explained why there were two versions of characters with the same name by inventing two parallel earths, Earth-1 where the then contemporary DC superhero characters lived, and Earth-2 where the superhero characters DC comics published in the 1940s still lived and occasionally came out of retirement. This idea of the parallel earths became an integral concept in DC comics continuity.
it used to be that Marvel Comics partisans pointed at the multiverse concept as one reason why Marvel was superior to DC: all the Marvel comics characters fitted into one seamless shared continuity, whereas DC comics needed these convoluted parallel universes to retroactively explain away the contradictions. So its somewhat ironic that now they're making films of all this stuff, a Flash film with a multiverse story should be accused of recycling a concept from a Marvel comics film!
This German movie is based on a true story from the last couple of weeks of WWII. Willi is a deserter from the military who finds a captain's uniform. Since he's being hunted by the authorities who will execute him on sight, Willi puts on the officer's uniform. He soon discovers there are more advantages to being an officer than basic survival. He gets food, drink, transportation, followers, respect and power. Willi claims he's on a mission from der Fürer himself to restore order behind the crumbling front. After a while his little "detachment" find a prison camp for military deserters, thieves etc. The leaders of the camp are worried the prisoners may be saved by the enemy while brave soldiers are getting killed at the approaching front. They see Willi as someone who can cut thru the red tape and find a solution. As we know, Germans finding "solutions" at that time often ended very badly. The situation spins more and more out of control while the newfound power goes to Willi's head.
This movie has a new perspective on the war and a wild plot. The budget is clearly low, but I don't think this is a problem. The Captain doesn't need a bigger budget, it strengths lie elsewhere. I can reccomend it if you want something different, and please stay for the Phytonesque credits!
yet another lesser known Hitchcock from his early British period, this one fits in between his fourth and fifth spy films, and was his third-to-last British film before relocating to Hollywood. Although it breaks the run of 1930s spy films, it repeats many of the elements of the 39 Steps.
Story begins with a young man discovering a corpse while walking on the beach. As he runs to get help, he is spotted by two ladies who assume him to be the murderer fleeing, and the police believe them over him (thus he is the "Innocent" of the title). While he is being interrogated by police, another young lady walks right into to the interrogation room, gives the accused man some medical attention, and scolds the interrogating officer. Who would dare to do this? Turns out she is the Chief Constable's daughter, the "Young" of the title.
"Innocent" manages to escape en route to the court room and stows away in "Young"'s motorcar even though she is surrounded by her father's fellow cop friends. At first she is scared as she ought to be by an escaped murder suspect, then the two develop a trust and rapport and team up to find the real murderer, while her father prepares his resignation because of the family disgrace. Truth is "Young" is smarter braver and more resourceful than all of them, and if there were ever any sequel would probably end up Chief Constable herself one day.
So you see how it recycles the 39 Steps, except the emphasis is shifted from spy thriller elements to the romance of two young lovers on the run. Classic Hitchcock camera move to watch out for comes near the end, when our heroes enter a crowded hotel ballroom looking for the real killer, and in one long continuous move (done with crane) the camera arcs up over the floor full of dancers, reveals an orchestra playing at the far end of the room (in minstrel blackface!) and finally zooms in on the drummer, who's eyes blink convulsively.
"Young" is played by 17 year old Nova Pilbeam, who just three years earlier played the little girl Peter Lorre kidnapped in The Man Who Knew Too Much. I always said the child actress cast in that film was too big to convince as a little girl, turns out that's because she was 14!
Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal and Halle Berry star in this thriller in which a team of U.S. Special Forces commandoes (with an army intelligence analyst and a civilian engineer in tow) attempt to save a hijacked 747, which has a nerve gas bomb on board.
A well-made thriller which is worth a watch, if you have not already seen it.
It turns out the famous cavalry charge in the Crimean war didn't happen because Flashman farted after all! Seriously, I've never read any books om the light brigade or the Crimean war, so other than Flashman's adventures and this movie I don't know a lot on the topic.
The movie is better than I feared, so that's something. I feared a late overpatriotic story about the empire, but thankfully it isn't. The story is told both from the viewpoint of the officers and the rank and file. The ordinary troopers are shown from recruitment, via training from the basics of telling left from right, via riding to more advanced riding and fighting. Sadly most of the officers have bought their ranks. They feel nice uniforms, parades and dancing at balls are far more important than all that ungentlemanly warfare stuff. Why train when all true noblemen are born with the knowledge of how to command troops in war?
One of the officers named Nolan knows what real war is because he served in India, and the commanding officers despice him for it. I can't say too much about the charge itself other than there were cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left of them. Into the valley of death rode the six hundred. There was little room for thought since their job was do and die, and they most dutyfully did just that. Possibly because it seemed right due to the name of the valley.
The movie uses short animated segments based on illustrations of the time spread throughout the movie, often to show the mood in Britain and the fleet sailing to war. It's really good and parodic in nature, reminding me a bit of Monthy Phyton. It must also have saved a lot of budget. But the charge itself isn't animated and it isn't very impressive. But the strength of the movie isn't the battle, it's what mattered to the officers. The petty social competition, traditions, parades and the colour og bottles on the dinner table. No lost classic, but interesting enough.
How did I miss this movie all these years? The movie is about a group of nuns who start a convent in the Himalayas. The convent is a former harem high up on a mountain om the edge of a steep cliff. A native prince who's called the general rules the society down in the valley. An American man who's gone somewhat native also lives in the valley. He's the only western person there. The dramatic nature and the beautiful and exotic building the nuns have moved into has an effect on them. Everything around them is beautiful and sensual. Not simply sexual, even though the murals om the walls are very erotic, it's about the senses. In spite of the sensual tension there is hardly any skinn on display and we don't ser as much as a kiss. Perhaps it's more about not fitting in where they have placed themselves, to be alien in your surroundings?
Every scene is colourful and beautiful. Nothing is shot in Asia, but at home in England. The use of backdrop painting and sets still make everything look very ...... not real, but maybe hyper-real? This movie is very different from every British movie from the 40s. In fact it's dramatically different from any old movie I've seen. Not a lot happens in the plot, much of the time it's about mood and atmosphere. Still I never found it boring. A strange movie indeed.
A mini-series based on the same novel was made recently with Gemma Arterton in the lead as the mother superior.
I've only seen Black Narcissus once, but I was utterly captivated by it. The image that always lingers with me is the high angle shot of Deborah Kerr at the bell on the edge of the cliff. One of the most stunning and dramatic uses of matte painting that I've ever seen in a film.
I'd recommend checking out more Powell and Pressburger movies if you enjoyed Black Narcissus. Two classics that I very much enjoyed are A Matter of Life and Death and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
Today I watched Manhunter (1986) directed by Michael Mann.
The first film adaptation of a Thomas Harris 'Hannibal Lecter' thriller. This one stars William Peterson as Will Graham, an FBI man who is trying to catch a serial killer known as the Tooth Fairy and consults with Dr Hannibal Lecktor (for some reason spelt differently in this film) as played here by Brian Cox. I thought this was an excellent thriller. Very stylish, in an extremely 80s way. The shots are often unusual and interesting, the performances are excellent and the mood is often very noirish, I was gripped from start to finish even though I was already reasonably familiar with the story.
Which brings me on to the later film Red Dragon. The film was remade about 16 years later, with Anthony Hopkins reprising his Dr Lecter from Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. That was actually the first Lecter film that I ever saw and I loved it. Having now seen Manhunter, I'd say that Red Dragon is an inferior film but I am glad that both versions exist. If I can find the time I'd like to do a rewatch of the Hopkins trilogy sometime soon. Manhunter has certainly got me in the mood for more Lecter/Lecktor.
Last film seen. Diamonds Are Forever. I think we all know about that one!
Not the last film seen but I have been loaned what I think will be a very enjoyable film. 'The First Great Train Robbery' starring Sean Connery. The friend who it belongs to has told me it is a good film so I am looking forward to watching it when I get the time.
Late 50s film set in the Napoleonic Wars I think. But not really, it's in the US. I don't know. It's got Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra - not naturals for a period piece, they only really convince in modern garb. Some actors are like that, they can only do contemporary.
At one point Grant wears the outfit Lazenby wore in the Portugal bullfight scene - white shirt, beige trousers, long black boots. At this point I thought, hey, I can point this out to my ajb friends.
Cary Grant is in his 'Do you mind...' manner that Tony Curtis took the mickey out of in Some Like It Hot.
It's a drag of a movie as it's about the Spanish - one of them Sinatra, he's not so bad really - having to drag a big cannon across country to fight someone, with a British guy (Grant) in tow and the main melodrama is their having eyes for Sophia Loren. Or is it Gina Lollabridgida. It's alll soap opera stuff though to be fair it was a poor print on the Classic Movies Action channel and back in the day it would have been magnificent to watch on the big screen.
It's the sort of film you'd recommend to @chrisno1 because then I wouldn't have to write a review of it. But it doesn't have Elvis in it. He could have been in it though, it wouldn't have made much difference and we might have got a song.
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TO SIR, WITH LOVE (1967)
Sidney Poitier stars as a newly employed teacher in a rough East End of London school. His class is full of rejects from other schools and discipline is at a minimum. After unsuccessfully trying to teach general lessons he changes his method to teaching about life and what happens when they will leave school in a few weeks time, gradually he earns their respect culminating in the leavers class dance where he is presented with a gift from the pupils.
Based on a autobiographical novel by E. R. Braithwaite, this is a sentimental but undeniably entertaining film. Sidney Poitier had already won the best actor award at the Oscars back in 1963, and he displays all the acting tropes needed to turn in a good performance which is always overshadowed by his role as Virgil Tibbs in the same year’s In The Heat Of The Night. Judy Geeson is gorgeous as a schoolgirl approaching womanhood who has a crush on the teacher. Christian Roberts plays the class ringleader who initially baits and goads the teacher. Suzy Kendall plays another first time teacher but really the character is wasted by having little to do. Patricia Routledge (later to find fame as the domineering Hyacinth Bucket in Keeping Up Appearances) has an early role as a teacher who encourages Poitier to “keep going as he is a natural teacher.” Lulu sings the smash hit title song (which is played no less than 4 times) and stars as one of the pupils in her first acting role. There are several other well known faces who crop up throughout the film.
It all comes together a bit too easily, but that is to be expected from a 2 hour film, it would work far better as a tv series. The film takes me back to my own schooldays in the 60’s and I can see several typical characters in both the pupils and the teachers. The dance scenes are extremely naff, I doubt they were very good even at the time of release.
Worth seeing, especially the sights of swinging 60’s London.
Gymkata, have a great time at HHN - I last did this in 2018 - these nights are some of the best fun anyone can possibly have - had to pay for the fast pass though, otherwise it would have been impossible to do all the houses, they let far too many people in nowadays, but maybe the crowds will be limited due to COVID?
La Riffa/The Raffle (1991)
I was posting pictures of Monica Bellucci in the Izabella Thread (as one does) when it occured to me that I've only watched a couple of her non-English language movies. I found her first lead was in La Riffa, found it online and watched it. The movie starts when her character loses her rich husband in an accident. She has a small girl and she soon finds out her late husband was knee-deep in debt and he cheated on her for years. She also knows her only big thing she has going for her is that all men are crazy about her. In desperation she arranges a lottery with herself as the prize. Yes, you read that correctly. Twenty men can buy into the lottery with a very large sum of money, enough to make her debt free and and leaving enough money for herself and her daughter. The lucky winner gets to have Monica Bellucci as his mistress for four years. With Bellucci in the part it's entirely belivable that twenty rich men would gamble a fortune in the hope of having her as his mistress. The wives, her parents and the entire town learn about her unconventional plan, something that leads to some problems.
I'm not sure this movie could've been made today, even in Italy. We also get to see Monica Bellucci na ..... this is an Italian movie starring Monica Bellucci 😏. While there are comedic moments, this isn't really a comedy. Is it a drama with some satire, romance and comedy? Maybe.
The movie isn't great, but it works. Bellucci's acting isn't award-worthy, it works fine. Meryl Streep wouldn't have been belivable in this part, but Bellucci is. The lead needs to look absolutely fantastic, and Monica Bellucci is perfect in the part.
I think some of you guys reviewed this earlier this year.
DRACULA (1958)
Known as Horror of Dracula in the States, Hammer Studios follow up to The Curse of Frankenstein includes more blood and eroticism but dispenses with almost all of its source material. Screenwriter Jimmy Sangster is on record as saying his stripped back version of Bram Stoker’s famous tale was deliberately designed to ensure the film didn’t run any longer than ninety minutes. He plays loose with the familiar story, cutting out Renfield and the plague-ridden sea journey, changing all the locations – the action doesn’t leave the vicinity of Dracula’s castle – and muddling the inter-familial relationships. It makes the movie short, but the story loses something in this condensed and fast version. I prefer the slow build up of tension present in the 1979 remake, which tried hard to go back to source; Nosferatu (1922) of course, is the closest.
The film’s well directed by Terence Fisher and the shock moments deliver. Dracula’s destruction is particularly riveting. The sensual allure of vampirism is well represented, if a little melodramatic. The whole thing looks a little cheap and conforms to a host of stereotypical interpretations of peasants, servants, disbelievers, etc. The music is appalling – the climax is played out to a skit that resembles Dick Barton – and the performances over-sincere. As if to reinforce the bargain-basement appeal, I noted Van Helsing’s hotel room was reused in next year’s The Hound of the Baskervilles and Dracula’s castle tomb is the same one as Lucy Holmwood’s, minus the soil. Peter Cushing plays Van Helsing as a much younger man than anyone previously had or latterly does. He’s pretty good. Christopher Lee has no dialogue after the first fifteen minutes; he carries all the action and menace in his movement, his eyes and facial expressions, an achievement in itself. He’s exceptionally good in a star-making role. The final death scene is a moment of true horror. The rest of the movie, well, it’s all a bit ordinary and staid.
Murder on the Orient Express - the Kenneth Branagh version.
Now this was a lot better than I'd expected. The thing about this whodunnit is that much of it is set on a train derailed in the snow so it's claustrophobic and one-note. Yet this film gets away from this by emphasising the Orient nature of the train - it opens in Istanbul and heads north, the first 20 minutes are different, it's all exotic, sunny climes so it wrong foots you. I guess it's like what I said about The Spy Who Loved Me - this is the underwater Bond but unlike the Thunderball treatment they chuck in some snow and sand to keep it from getting samey.
The look of the film is superb even if some of the steam train shots venture into Hogwarts or Polar Express territory.
Some of it is a bit odd if I'm being picky - Michelle Pfeiffer is 10 years too old for the part she's playing here although with some dodgy accents it later turns out that's part of the yarn, the character is putting it on.
The film is not really menacing and prefers sentimentality, saddling Poirot with a long-lost love that he gazes at from a picture in his wallet or something. It's a problematic thriller if you know how it pans out, it's not exactly credible but there you go. I thought the way they dealt with the flashback and the way Poirot know about the case presented in the flashback was better done, it didn't start with a load of exposition.
One ill-judged aspect was that after the passengers learned of the Belgium detective's verdict and he walked away, the train could be heard erupting into 'For he's a jolly good fellow...' which arguably undermined the tone. I suppose they wanted to end it on an upbeat note.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I'm also looking forward to Death on the Nile. I think Murder on the Orient Express was a better film than I might have expected, even though I'd only rank it 3rd of the Murder on the Orient Express adaptations I've watched - after the David Suchet and Albert Finney versions.
One snag I might mention is that once we've seen the film - and the denouement is very memorable - there's no getting away that you know whodunnit, so in this one when Branagh's Poriot is puzzling about how he cannot figure it out the murderer despite all the clues, this is one instance where you find yourself thinking, mate, it's obvious...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I finally saw the four-hour Zack Snyder cut of JUSTICE LEAGUE. I didn't hate the theatrical cut--I was just underwhelmed by it, and I thought it was looking forward to a better sequel. Well, this version is jaw-droppingly BRILLIANT. Cyborg--pretty much an afterthought in the theatrical version--emerges as a full-blown character, with a strong story involving his father and with an important role in the plot. The villain Steppenwolf--just a visual effect in the theatrical film--also gets some rounding-out, coming across as more menacing and showing his own need to prove himself to his master Darkseid. . .who gets some real screen time here. Last, the resurrection of Superman is truly moving. The film closes with the threat of Darkseid launching an invasion of earth and, of course, setting up a sequel. . .but it looks like that will never come. Darn.
ANNA (2019)
Luc Besson is a one man film factory. He’s written, directed and produced countless products since he first emerged on the scene in the early eighties. Sadly this means the end result of his labour is sometimes less than it ought to be, diluted by the necessity to keep the conveyor belt of movies moving. Anna is such a film.
Basically, this 2019 thriller is a re-tread of his own classic Nikita, following the fortunes of a down at heel, abused young woman who is given an opportunity to better herself by joining a secret service institution, in this case the KGB. While it sounds promising, Besson isn’t doing anything he hasn’t done before. The story’s made even more repetitive by the fact we’ve seen an awful lot of this storyline recently: Red Sparrow, Atomic Blonde, Hanna, Salt, even Killing Eve on television. While Besson may have originated the format, he adds nothing new to it and Anna is a by-the-numbers thriller where the sum of the numbers is very low.
Sasha Luss plays the titular spy, who impersonates an aspiring model as a cover for a series of assassination coups. It defies belief she’s never caught. She does a tremendous amount of killing, some of it exceptionally bloody. Luss' career started in photo and catwalk modelling and she’s rather effective in a grim, unsmiling fashion. Her blank expression lends itself to the duplicitous and quietly scheming character. She’s competent in the action scenes, which are unrestrained, stylised and don’t deserve our attention or praise. Anna’s handler is Olga, a Russian witch in the Rosa Klebb mould. As depicted by Helen Mirren, Olga is about as good a villain as you get in these things, sharp, inscrutable, heartless, cruel and ambitious. I enjoyed her playing and so too does Luss, as her best moments come when she’s sparring with her superior. What most impresses here is how the nature of the characters, particularly the numerous villains, is developed through the narrative, but with so little explanatory background. It’s a demonstration in brevity and accuracy which the writers of recent Bond films should take note of. Audiences don’t need to be spoon-fed every second of a person’s life story to understand them. Nor do they need to be tenuously joined at the hip. Besson has clearly studied what makes the very best thrillers work – including the best of Bond – as he leaves characterisation up to his actors. His script is merely the bones on which to hang tension and action and intrigue.
So, everyone is out for a piece of Anna: Piotr, her hopeless loser boyfriend; Alex, her KGB recruiter and trainer [Luke Evans, a dullard of a role], Vassiliev, Head of the KGB; the gossipy self-indulgent models and agents; egotistical photographers; clinging girlfriends; an American CIA entrapment expert [Cillian Murphy, equally dull]. It’s amazing the poor girl isn’t mentally and physically torn apart. The film progresses steadily and without too much fuss. The criss-crossing time line doesn’t help. The lack of attention to detail is annoying. For instance, the film is set in the late eighties and early nineties, but the technology featured is more akin to the 2010s; or there’s a fight scene in a restaurant where stuntmen keep climbing up off the floor to be killed a second or third time – I assumed this was intended as a visual joke, but as the film lacks any sense of humour, I wasn’t sure.
Anna had disappointing box office and I can see why. It’s a very ordinary, uninventive thriller, which at times mocks the director's best work, like The Fifth Element and Leon. Besson has done a lot better than this. Perhaps it is time not to spread his talent so thin. Interestingly, I rather enjoyed Eric Serra’s music score and wondered, not for the first time, why he delivered such monumentally unexciting music for Goldeneye.
The eight hundred (2020)
This movie was the biggest box office hit in the world last year, so why has so few of is heard about it? Probably because it's Chinese. It's the first time a non-English language movie is number one at the world box office, most likely because of the pandemic, but The Eight Hundred had a huge budget and it's the first Chinese movie shot entirely in IMAX.
The movie is based on a real story from Shanghai in 1937. The Japanese invaded China and after three months of fighting the Chinese Nationalst army was pulling out of Shanghai. This movie was supposed to be released in 2019, but was delayed because of "technical difficulties". Many believe the real reason was the aniversary of the People's Republic of China, and the movie was insensitive enough to remind the public that the Nationalists did most of the fighting against the invaders while the communist forces mainly fought their Nationalists countrymen.
The Nationalist army wanted a small unit to stay behind to cover their retreat. An elite batallion trained and equiped by the Germans back when their main job was fighting communists. They chose to defend themselves in the Sihang warehouse, a thick-walled bank building by the river. That turned out to be a fortunate choice since the Foreign Consessions (an area of the city controlled by former colonial powers, in effect neutral at the time) was just a cross the river. Because of this the Japanese didn't use artillery or bombers against the warehouse to avoid hitting the Consession. The defenders of the warehouse were just 414 soldiers. To confuse the attackers the commanding officer said they were eight hundred, the regiment's original size. These 414 soldiers were up against at least 20 000 Japanese soldiers. The soldiers fought with great bravery, holding the warehouse much longer than everyone expected. This happend in full view of both foreign and Chinese inhabitants on the other side of the river in the Consession along with the international press. The Chinese hoped this would push the Western powers to help China in the war against the Japanese invaders. This didn't happen, but the 800 boosted Chinese fighting moral and helped turn the outside world against Japan.
The story is exiting, it's beautifully shot and told and the budget shows. There are many standout scenes, including one with three Chinese deserters hiding in the canals under the warehouse hiding for Japanese forces.
I like how the movie doesn't shy away from showing Chinese soldiers deserters and the brutal handling of them by their officers. They also show them hiding, drinking and showing fear. Unfortunately the movie has scenes that are exagerated and far too flag-waving (litterally in one case), going full "Pearl Harbour" in many scenes. There was one real case of a single Chinese soldier stopping attacking sappers from undermining the warehouse wall with explosives by turning himself into a suicide bomber. As if this wasn't cinematic and patriotic enough for the movie, the director has many more soldiers throwing themselves over the wall with handgrenades strapped to themselves. I encourage anyone who wants to watch the movie to read the Wikipedia entry on the Sihang warehouse after watching it, both to marvel at what's true and also be aware of what's made up or exagerated. Please note the real numbers of losses. They will surprise you, that's all I'm going to say.
The movie is well made and spectacular and I enjoyed watching a blockbuster not made in English. You should considered it too, I think.
Dune (2021)
I've been at the cinema! I planned for NTTD to be my first post-strict restrictions cinema experience, but Denis Villeneuve's Dune was to promising to miss. I don't think that man has made a movie that isn't very good yet. Villeneuve should direct a Bond movie ASAP!
The cinema was almost full (mainly of students) with no social distancing to speak of, so no-one can say I don't take chances for art. 😃
Dune has been called "Star Wars for adults" and the first SW was reportedly influenced by the Dune novels. The story focuses on the young Paul Atreides Timothee Chalamet, the heir of a noble family on the planet Caladan. The location shooting for Caladan was done in Stadlandet, a couple of hours from where I live, close to the planned site of the world's first ship tunnel.
The Atreides family are given dominion over the desert planet of Dune, a very harsh place where the universe's most valuable resource is harvested. The indigonous desert people of Dune have been oppressed for generations. There are some parallells to Arabs and oil I think. A messiah figure in Dune religion is even called Mahdi, a name used for a messiah figure in islam.
The plot is complex, but Villeneuve wisely cut the first novel in two. This is Dune part I. Together with good design and storytelling I think the plot wasn't too hard to follow. The acting, design, directing etc is very good. We get both the smaller, personal scenes as well as the spectacular and epic scenes we expect.
I very much encourage you to brave the pandemic and watch this great sci-fi movie om the big screen.
Never say never HB. While it's true that Zack Snyder and WB have a pretty toxic relationship right now, the hope is that the so called Snyderverse universe may get another look when WB merges with Discovery and gets a new studio head. Add to that the fact that most recent DC movies that pivoted away from the Snyderverse like Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey have been box office flops, the apparently strong connections between this movie and the upcoming Flash feature, and rumors that even the current regime is investigating the possibility of doing a follow up to Justice League to save face with the incoming management and there may be hope that we'll revisit that universe again. All wishful thinking? Maybe, but at the end of the day, money talks and Zack Snyder's Justice League still doing quite a bit of business. The movie was released on DVD, BluRay and 4K last week and has been selling really, really well.
I got to see The Suicide Squad at my local before it disappeared.
I didn't like it much, I found it horrible and stupid. Maybe I wasn't in the mood, trekking out on a Sunday evening. I'd seen Deadpool on telly the night before and I preferred the humour in that. There are jokes in this one - good ones - but the film didn't quite have funny bones imo because it's front loading the brutality and so on. I don't know how I'm supposed to believe a team made up of a shark man and a weasel - while the Idris character is amazed to find a rat is waving at him - but if I don't believe it I need to find it funnier.
It's surely the most violent film I've ever seen but here I found nobody to root for really. Intrigued at the anti-patriotic, anti-American bent of the movie however. I do struggle with what world it's meant to be in, the Marvel universe of the Joker/Batman one - it's the latter isn't it?
I'm glad I'm seeing the Bond movie soon - I'm tired of having to sneak in to a movie at the last minute only to hastily depart to the silky sounds of 'It seems that fate has brought us together...'
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Tony and Gymkata, thanks for your replies. I can only say that I hope THE FLASH won't have a multiple-aternative-universes setup--that's way too much like the upcoming Spider-Man flick, even down to resurrecting Alfred Molina's Doc Ock. I've got my fingers crossed that THE FLASH is based on the excellent FLASHPOINT graphic novel, in which Barry Allen goes back in time to keep his mother from being killed, and of course initiates a butterfly effect. One change he notices is that Batman is now older and meaner--and it turns out he's THOMAS Wayne, not Bruce Wayne (why he is can be explained by reading the book--no spoilers from me). This would mean that Michael Keaton is actually playing Batman, but not Bruce.
Since I'm here, a movie I saw this weekend was something called THE VIRTUOSO. I guess I put it in my Netflix queue because Anthony Hopkins is featured heavily in the artwork, though he's only a supporting character. So too are such big(gish) names as Abbie Cornish, Eddie Marsan, and David Morse. But the star is a guy named Anson Mount, whose got a long list of titles on IMDb, but I'm darned if I know what he's been in. He's a top international assassin who looks sullen and wears only designer trenchcoats and is so out of place wherever he is that you expect people to constantly walk up to him and say, "Are you an international assassin?" He's also equipped with unending voiceover narration that sounds like a bunch of stuff Jack Webb cut out of his old "Dragnet" scripts. Bad dialogue, bad acting, and a bad script that all leads up to a surprise THE USUAL SUSPECTS-like twist that should surprise no one. I'm wondering if the director is a kid of the agent who represents all the big names in the film, and they put in their appearances as personal favors.
It’s all too confusing for me, I wish we could go back to the days of Adam West’s Batman and Christopher Reeves’s Superman!! 😁
The Goldfinch (2019)
Interesting but average film co-starring Jeffrey Wright and Nicole Kidman.
The ending seems like it belonged in a different film; it's one of those films you would instantly forget about the day after being seen.
The Courier, an espionage thriller set in the Cuban Missile Crisis era of the Cold War, with Benedict Cumberbatch. A sort of companion piece to Spielberg's Bridge of Spies really, but from the British perspective.
It seems to me I've been watching British films like this and reviewing them on AJB for the last 20 years or so.
It's 'based on a true story' which is often code for 'if it's boring as hell, don't blame us'. And it is boring as hell for much of it. It's about a travelling rep or commercial salesman roped in to do a bit of spying for the West in the Soviet Union. Just innocuous stuff, making contacts, bringing back documents of course, that's all. If you've ever seen the Dirk Bogarde comedy thriller Hot Enough for June in which he does much the same thing, only with John Le Mesuriere and Robert Morley in tow, you know the thing.
There's no real angle on it for the first half hour and more. The actors or their characters are unlikeable and uninteresting with no quirks to speak of. Nothing wrong with them, mind. It's dully authentic, the period trappings are fine but a bit distracting. Cumberbatch is fine but you always know it's him.
It's the sort of British film that we always see - no real flair to it. A bit like the Unofficial Secrets with Keira Knightley last year or so. You get the sense it could be done far better on telly and in the era of Netflix there's no excuse for it except to keep the British film industry going, it almost seems like it's being subsidised. It lacks the three-card trick advocated by myself when talking about The Spy Who Loved Me. You need something else to distract from a dull plot - a bit of humour or some red herrings. Or a sub-plot. There's none of that here. It sets the thing up so we should be suspicious of everyone but it doesn't really build on it. You do get decent British films - Atonement and Pride and Prejudice and that BBC series Summer of Rockets - that exhibit visual and emotional flair even if they usually contain massive plot holes too.
The tension ratchets up towards the end and it becomes emotionally involving - there are nods to The Living Daylights. Though much is set in Moscow we don't see any of it really - maybe they were deterred from filming it. One shot along the river looks authentic but was probably some other East European city, we see none of the Kremlin or any of that.
I managed to avoid the Bond trailer again.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
hardyboy said:
I hope THE FLASH won't have a multiple-alternative-universes setup--that's way too much like the upcoming Spider-Man flick
I know HardyBoy knows his comicbook history, but for the sake of you illiterates out there:
it was actually an issue of the Flash that introduced the whole confusing multiverse concept: Flash 123, September 1961, which explained why there were two versions of characters with the same name by inventing two parallel earths, Earth-1 where the then contemporary DC superhero characters lived, and Earth-2 where the superhero characters DC comics published in the 1940s still lived and occasionally came out of retirement. This idea of the parallel earths became an integral concept in DC comics continuity.
it used to be that Marvel Comics partisans pointed at the multiverse concept as one reason why Marvel was superior to DC: all the Marvel comics characters fitted into one seamless shared continuity, whereas DC comics needed these convoluted parallel universes to retroactively explain away the contradictions. So its somewhat ironic that now they're making films of all this stuff, a Flash film with a multiverse story should be accused of recycling a concept from a Marvel comics film!
napoleon plural said:
It seems to me I've been watching British films like this and reviewing them on AJB for the last 20 years or so.
and may you do so for 20 more!
The captain/ Der hauptman (2017)
This German movie is based on a true story from the last couple of weeks of WWII. Willi is a deserter from the military who finds a captain's uniform. Since he's being hunted by the authorities who will execute him on sight, Willi puts on the officer's uniform. He soon discovers there are more advantages to being an officer than basic survival. He gets food, drink, transportation, followers, respect and power. Willi claims he's on a mission from der Fürer himself to restore order behind the crumbling front. After a while his little "detachment" find a prison camp for military deserters, thieves etc. The leaders of the camp are worried the prisoners may be saved by the enemy while brave soldiers are getting killed at the approaching front. They see Willi as someone who can cut thru the red tape and find a solution. As we know, Germans finding "solutions" at that time often ended very badly. The situation spins more and more out of control while the newfound power goes to Willi's head.
This movie has a new perspective on the war and a wild plot. The budget is clearly low, but I don't think this is a problem. The Captain doesn't need a bigger budget, it strengths lie elsewhere. I can reccomend it if you want something different, and please stay for the Phytonesque credits!
Young and Innocent
Hitchcock, 1937
yet another lesser known Hitchcock from his early British period, this one fits in between his fourth and fifth spy films, and was his third-to-last British film before relocating to Hollywood. Although it breaks the run of 1930s spy films, it repeats many of the elements of the 39 Steps.
Story begins with a young man discovering a corpse while walking on the beach. As he runs to get help, he is spotted by two ladies who assume him to be the murderer fleeing, and the police believe them over him (thus he is the "Innocent" of the title). While he is being interrogated by police, another young lady walks right into to the interrogation room, gives the accused man some medical attention, and scolds the interrogating officer. Who would dare to do this? Turns out she is the Chief Constable's daughter, the "Young" of the title.
"Innocent" manages to escape en route to the court room and stows away in "Young"'s motorcar even though she is surrounded by her father's fellow cop friends. At first she is scared as she ought to be by an escaped murder suspect, then the two develop a trust and rapport and team up to find the real murderer, while her father prepares his resignation because of the family disgrace. Truth is "Young" is smarter braver and more resourceful than all of them, and if there were ever any sequel would probably end up Chief Constable herself one day.
So you see how it recycles the 39 Steps, except the emphasis is shifted from spy thriller elements to the romance of two young lovers on the run. Classic Hitchcock camera move to watch out for comes near the end, when our heroes enter a crowded hotel ballroom looking for the real killer, and in one long continuous move (done with crane) the camera arcs up over the floor full of dancers, reveals an orchestra playing at the far end of the room (in minstrel blackface!) and finally zooms in on the drummer, who's eyes blink convulsively.
"Young" is played by 17 year old Nova Pilbeam, who just three years earlier played the little girl Peter Lorre kidnapped in The Man Who Knew Too Much. I always said the child actress cast in that film was too big to convince as a little girl, turns out that's because she was 14!
Executive Decision (1996)
Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal and Halle Berry star in this thriller in which a team of U.S. Special Forces commandoes (with an army intelligence analyst and a civilian engineer in tow) attempt to save a hijacked 747, which has a nerve gas bomb on board.
A well-made thriller which is worth a watch, if you have not already seen it.
Charge of the light brigade (1968)
It turns out the famous cavalry charge in the Crimean war didn't happen because Flashman farted after all! Seriously, I've never read any books om the light brigade or the Crimean war, so other than Flashman's adventures and this movie I don't know a lot on the topic.
The movie is better than I feared, so that's something. I feared a late overpatriotic story about the empire, but thankfully it isn't. The story is told both from the viewpoint of the officers and the rank and file. The ordinary troopers are shown from recruitment, via training from the basics of telling left from right, via riding to more advanced riding and fighting. Sadly most of the officers have bought their ranks. They feel nice uniforms, parades and dancing at balls are far more important than all that ungentlemanly warfare stuff. Why train when all true noblemen are born with the knowledge of how to command troops in war?
One of the officers named Nolan knows what real war is because he served in India, and the commanding officers despice him for it. I can't say too much about the charge itself other than there were cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left of them. Into the valley of death rode the six hundred. There was little room for thought since their job was do and die, and they most dutyfully did just that. Possibly because it seemed right due to the name of the valley.
The movie uses short animated segments based on illustrations of the time spread throughout the movie, often to show the mood in Britain and the fleet sailing to war. It's really good and parodic in nature, reminding me a bit of Monthy Phyton. It must also have saved a lot of budget. But the charge itself isn't animated and it isn't very impressive. But the strength of the movie isn't the battle, it's what mattered to the officers. The petty social competition, traditions, parades and the colour og bottles on the dinner table. No lost classic, but interesting enough.
Black Narcissus (1947)
How did I miss this movie all these years? The movie is about a group of nuns who start a convent in the Himalayas. The convent is a former harem high up on a mountain om the edge of a steep cliff. A native prince who's called the general rules the society down in the valley. An American man who's gone somewhat native also lives in the valley. He's the only western person there. The dramatic nature and the beautiful and exotic building the nuns have moved into has an effect on them. Everything around them is beautiful and sensual. Not simply sexual, even though the murals om the walls are very erotic, it's about the senses. In spite of the sensual tension there is hardly any skinn on display and we don't ser as much as a kiss. Perhaps it's more about not fitting in where they have placed themselves, to be alien in your surroundings?
Every scene is colourful and beautiful. Nothing is shot in Asia, but at home in England. The use of backdrop painting and sets still make everything look very ...... not real, but maybe hyper-real? This movie is very different from every British movie from the 40s. In fact it's dramatically different from any old movie I've seen. Not a lot happens in the plot, much of the time it's about mood and atmosphere. Still I never found it boring. A strange movie indeed.
A mini-series based on the same novel was made recently with Gemma Arterton in the lead as the mother superior.
I've only seen Black Narcissus once, but I was utterly captivated by it. The image that always lingers with me is the high angle shot of Deborah Kerr at the bell on the edge of the cliff. One of the most stunning and dramatic uses of matte painting that I've ever seen in a film.
I'd recommend checking out more Powell and Pressburger movies if you enjoyed Black Narcissus. Two classics that I very much enjoyed are A Matter of Life and Death and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
Today I watched Manhunter (1986) directed by Michael Mann.
The first film adaptation of a Thomas Harris 'Hannibal Lecter' thriller. This one stars William Peterson as Will Graham, an FBI man who is trying to catch a serial killer known as the Tooth Fairy and consults with Dr Hannibal Lecktor (for some reason spelt differently in this film) as played here by Brian Cox. I thought this was an excellent thriller. Very stylish, in an extremely 80s way. The shots are often unusual and interesting, the performances are excellent and the mood is often very noirish, I was gripped from start to finish even though I was already reasonably familiar with the story.
Which brings me on to the later film Red Dragon. The film was remade about 16 years later, with Anthony Hopkins reprising his Dr Lecter from Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal. That was actually the first Lecter film that I ever saw and I loved it. Having now seen Manhunter, I'd say that Red Dragon is an inferior film but I am glad that both versions exist. If I can find the time I'd like to do a rewatch of the Hopkins trilogy sometime soon. Manhunter has certainly got me in the mood for more Lecter/Lecktor.
I've seen "A matter of life and death" and I intend to see more movies by Pressburger and Powell.
Last film seen. Diamonds Are Forever. I think we all know about that one!
Not the last film seen but I have been loaned what I think will be a very enjoyable film. 'The First Great Train Robbery' starring Sean Connery. The friend who it belongs to has told me it is a good film so I am looking forward to watching it when I get the time.
I've seen it and read the book. It's no masterpiece, but I enjoyed it.
The Pride and the Passion
Late 50s film set in the Napoleonic Wars I think. But not really, it's in the US. I don't know. It's got Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra - not naturals for a period piece, they only really convince in modern garb. Some actors are like that, they can only do contemporary.
At one point Grant wears the outfit Lazenby wore in the Portugal bullfight scene - white shirt, beige trousers, long black boots. At this point I thought, hey, I can point this out to my ajb friends.
Cary Grant is in his 'Do you mind...' manner that Tony Curtis took the mickey out of in Some Like It Hot.
It's a drag of a movie as it's about the Spanish - one of them Sinatra, he's not so bad really - having to drag a big cannon across country to fight someone, with a British guy (Grant) in tow and the main melodrama is their having eyes for Sophia Loren. Or is it Gina Lollabridgida. It's alll soap opera stuff though to be fair it was a poor print on the Classic Movies Action channel and back in the day it would have been magnificent to watch on the big screen.
It's the sort of film you'd recommend to @chrisno1 because then I wouldn't have to write a review of it. But it doesn't have Elvis in it. He could have been in it though, it wouldn't have made much difference and we might have got a song.
Roger Moore 1927-2017