Yes, I like the first Mission Impossible too. It's an excellent thriller.
I recorded this one ages ago, which is odd as I have it on a DVD; finally viewed it last night - my fifth viewing, including one at the BFI.
DON’T LOOK NOW (1973)
Don’t Look Now is possibly one of the best British films ever made. Right from the opening dissolve – a rain strewn lake overlaid with sunlight passing through a stained glass window and Donald Sutherland humming in the background – you know you are going to be watching something extremely special.
The scene is an idyll, laboured by driving wet, a family unit entwined in Sunday leisure. The children skip and play in the rain. Inside by the log fire, architect John Baxter inspects the photo-slides of the Church of San Nicolo, Venice, his eyes drawn to the red coated figure shown seated in an aisle. His wife, Laura, searches for her cigarettes. A chance movement spills water on the slide and the photo stains, the figure’s shiny coat dissolves into a lurid blood-like trail. On impulse, John rushes from the room, rushes to the lake where his son is screaming; John’s own screams as he fishes his drowning daughter from the lake are only matched by his wife’s as she witnesses the catastrophic accident.
Cut to Venice, a drill penetrating the foundations of the Church, and John, hard at work, revitalised. His wife is pensive at lunch. John’s eyes are drawn to the extreme of his sight again: two spinster ladies talking in low voices, one of them blind, both staring at the Baxter’s with intense curiosity. Encountering them in the washroom, Laura learns the blind lady has second sight and she describes the Baxter’s daughter, Christine, sitting beside them at the restaurant. Over the course of the next few days, as strange occurrences begin to affect him, John’s suspicions are aroused. Are the women fakes or is there a psychic power at work guiding events beyond the Baxter’s control?
Adapted from a Daphne du Maurier short story, Nicolas Roeg’s film is a drama about grief, a ghost story with no ghost and a psycho-thriller with no obvious victim. Looming over everything is people’s fear of death and how atheism has failed to remove that fear. “We have all stopped listening,” says the priest, as he inspects the dilapidated church John Baxter is expected to renovate and restore. Unlike Laura, who willingly attends a séance to discover her truth, these two men stopped believing in magic a long time ago. Baxter meanwhile keeps observing happenings on the periphery of his vision: the raincoated child, the police inspector watching, the two ladies waiting, the dappled sun on the window blinds, the Venetian brooch, the bell tolling irrevocably, the funeral barge, alleys he’s visited before, everything – like the trattorias he struggles to find on every street in Venice – seeming to be just out of reach and yet just around the corner. His own latent powers captivate him, a weblike network of secrets held among the alleys and canals.
Baxter distrusts his instincts. He scolds his wife’s hysterical reaction to the spinsters’ premonitions. This, at the very moment she is recovering from grief-stricken depression, comes as a shock, for it takes place in the same hotel room in which, only a day before, the couple had made a slow glorious love, solidifying their relationship once more. John’s response to the unknown is to seek answers in the known: he turns his back, brusquely offers Laura her anti-depressants and declares ruthlessly that Christine is dead, dead, dead.
“What is it you fear?” asks the police inspector.
“The killer,” replies Baxter, “the murderer.”
But is it? Baxter is so wrapped up in his work, so absorbed in compartmentalising his loss, he’s forgotten how to communicate, preferring to drink his sorrow and make impulsive decisions that put him in harm’s way. He can’t even be bothered to write to his son, who stays at a boarding school in England. Baxter is not alone in his introspection. Even Laura tells their son nothing in her letter, no words of affection; following a schoolground accident, she flies back to England, but assured all is fine, Laura doesn’t even say goodbye to her son, she leaves suddenly, panicked by John’s confused phone call. Both of them fear a breakdown, both teeter on the very edge of one, seeking solace in what they know or want to know about the world they find themselves in: mysterious Venice.
“A city in aspic,” says the psychic, “left over from a dinner party and all the guests have gone.” Venice itself is the bleak omnipotence that overshadows the action of Don’t Look Now, a cold, frigid January landscape of graffitied walls, crumbling palazzos and dirty rat infested waters. This is no summer romance, it is madness of a completely different kind, the thin winter sun glistening, the mist shrouding the canals, mutilated bodies hauled from the brine, shouts in the dark and crawling hallucinations. The ending, when it comes, sees John confront his own paranormal tendencies, though it is Laura who achieves a blissful closure among the gloom and doom of the Venetian lagoons.
Director Nicolas Roeg fashions the drama through a series of intercut images which constantly prompt us to wonder, like John, at their significance or otherwise. Time doesn’t stand still in Don’t Look Now. Within the linear framework it shifts backwards, forwards and sideways, never entirely certain of itself or what it is showing us. There is an unusual prominence given to everyday details: the attendant sitting in the washroom, the domestic arrangements of the hotelier, the guests at a rundown hostel, the trash in the canal, the priest’s hands toying with mosaics or crucifixes, the exact neatness of the old ladies’ room, the policeman doodling on a photo-fit picture. Are these moments significant or merely obscure observations? We guess and we guess wrong or right, depending on how we wish it.
Roeg also elicits two powerful central performances from Donald Pleasance and Julie Christie, who perfectly represent a couple whose marriage, while not a sham, is fraught with difficulty and misconnections. Death has come to inhabit their relationship and they can’t shake it’s powerful grip, mentally or physically. It is, quite literally, haunting them among the shadowy Venetian precincts of Anthony Richmond’s photography, through Allan Scott and Chris Bryant’s pared down dialogue [much improvised], layered with Pino Donaggio’s wistful repetitive music, and infused via Roeg and Graeme Clifford’s incisive, yet purposefully vague editing.
A film not of many great moments but of magnificent impact, it fascinates and often repulses, can be as cold as wintery Venice, yet hot blooded and frenzied; we emerge as shocked as the participants, emotionally wrapped in their quest for answers and unreciprocated guilt. When Laura lights six votive candles in memory of her daughter, one of them blows out, an ill-wind the couple fail to foresee; John’s inability to reconcile his foreknowledge to the death of his child follows him at every step and every incident becomes for him an unseen portent of onrushing disaster. Laura, almost cast aside, comes too late to prevent it and the Baxter’s world collapses in a moment of unexpected fury. The sun filters along the canals once more and life follows death, preserved in aspic, the guests leaving one last time.
Excellently acted romantic adventure set on a small cargo steam boat in German East Africa during the outbreak of the First World War. Humphrey Bogart is Charlie Allnut, the drunk captain who takes Katherine Hepburn’s spinster missionary Rose Sayer under his wing, ends up falling in love and falling for her insane quest to sink a German steamer, the Louise, which patrols a vast seaway. She’s out for revenge after the German army burnt down the mission and abducted the local tribesmen for soldiering. Her brother, played by Robert Morley, suffers a heart attack from the stress and Rosie is left with no one to trust but the uncouth boat captain.
What starts out as an argumentative relationship blossoms as Charlie sobers up and Rose discovers the exhilaration of physical experience. There’s a lot of cod-Freudianism’s thrown into the script to make us smile [Hepburn actively pulling on the water pump was one of them; “Take it slow,” says Bogart, “You’ll get the hang of it”]. There are some more traditional moments of romantic intention, such as when Hepburn uses her umbrella to shelter Bogart during a rain storm. Because there’s only the two of them in the movie for almost the whole run time, we kind of know where the film is going to head. The thrills don’t really thrill like they maybe did in 1951 and the drama unfolds in a manner familiar from films an audience might have watched in the 1930s. C.S. Forester’s book was a big seller in 1935 and it suits that era better than this one. The African Queen feels very old fashioned. I fancy it was a big inspiration on Wilbur Smith, whose book and movie Shout at the Devil follows a similar, but far more expansive path.
Where it wins is with the central performances. Bogart won an Oscar in an extremely competitive year, but his performance is not one of his best, although the rough yet cheerful demeanour he cuts plays well beside Hepburn’s tetchy, fiery turn. He was on a big run of excellent films; she had just re-found herself following a sparkling performance in Adam’s Rib. The fifties would prove Hepburn’s best acting decade. In a year packed full of great films it was frequently overlooked award-wise, but you can see why as it has a slight staginess and stodginess to it.
Director John Huston famously went African game hunting during the on location shoot and almost everyone fell ill. The blue screen effects, interiors and swampland scenes were recreated at Isleworth soundstages and water tanks in England and the film was part financed by the UK film company Romulus. Sam Spiegel produced. Our own Walter Gotell has a small supporting role – as does Allo Allo’s Richard Marner – and both Guy Hamilton [assistant director] and Ted Moore [cameraman] gain vital experience for their later careers in the James Bond fraternity.
An underrated Guy Ritchie action film, and one that I will say I enjoy more than his latest, Wrath of Man (2021), both starring Jason Statham.
A stone of unimaginable value is stolen, and it leads to a story of ruthless mob bosses and gangsters, one-punch fights, and man-hunting at its finest.
There's only one American character in this film, and I related more to the Irish gypsies, perhaps because they're like the people I have to deal with in the city I reside in! 😅
Even in its intense action scenes and excessive Ritchie-ness humor, there are two things that make this movie, perhaps three.
1) The cinematography.
There are many key shots that make this movie, car scenes in which you can feel the tight space, which adds to hilarious encounters, shootout scenes that are well choreographed, and dialogue scenes that makes each line feel more personal.
2) The plot
Each character has his own well-developed story, even the secondary characters don't seem like bland representations in order to highlight the main actors, they play their parts well and almost every one of them delivers hilarious lines that hit it out of the park. Not to be misunderstood as a comedy; there are some serious scenes and you see calamity in its raw form, something you don't see much of in the movies of today.
3ish) The music
I don't know much about how a film is scored, but this movie's early 2000s alternative rock fits so well. This is my favorite genre to listen to when I'm on the road, or I'm out and about because it perfectly matches the pace in the film. It doesn't take away from anything going on; it complements the action sequences. If you've seen The Bourne Identity, the end credits song is basically this genre.
Snatch is a thriller in my opinion, and it does not try to be funny, the characters are in precarious situations and the results of their actions put them in places that just make you shake your head and laugh under your breath.
Not underrated in my view @Chico Loved your review. I must watch this again soon. My fav Guy Ritchie movie. Very funny. Exceptionally well plotted - as you say - and sturdily made. Barely a bad performance either. Even Brad Pitt's worth a look!
Dreadful historical epic made when they were all the rage and seemingly for all the wrong reasons. Irving Allen produced, so I should have anticipated something a mite ropey. Henry Levin directs and he’s simply not up to the task. Nor are most of the cast, who are a starry lot, but have done better work in better films and better epics too. James Mason is particularly embarrassing as a Chinese ambassador, all slit eyes and unintelligible accent. Stephen Boyd was never a top-line star, despite what he wanted us to think, yet somehow he bagged top billing here despite his role clearly being second tier. Omar Sharif cuts a dash as an Egyptian Genghis Khan. Historically inaccurate. Borderline insulting, especially to the Chinese. Overall a drag. The climatic Mongol Duel is exciting but hardly worth waiting two hours for.
As a side note, Berkley Mather, who worked on the Dr No screenplay, wrote the film’s original story and its spin-off novelisation. Telly Savalas, another of ours, has a supporting role. Producer and director would team up again in the Matt Helm universe. Irving Allen of course found early success with Cubby Broccoli at Warwick Pictures.
George Lazenby is the star of this drama documentary from American Josh Greenbaum which attempts to cast light on the Australian’s sudden rise to fame as James Bond. There’s a comic touch which the filmmaker owes entirely to Mr Lazenby’s ability as a raconteur. At one point, astounded at the stories flowing from Mr Lazenby’s mouth, the interviewer asks: “How much of this is true?” Mr Lazenby’s grizzled features appear momentarily hurt. I’m on the side of the interviewer; it may be true but there seems a certain exaggeration involved in the telling, most notably regarding some sexual matters in London in the mid-sixties. Pinches of salt are fine, but I had to draw a line under the bit about ‘picking up women in the street for threesomes as often as three times a day.’ This sounds like the sort of thing which maybe happened once and now he’s bragging. Ego tripping is a lazy attitude for Mr Lazenby, who isn’t so much softly interrogated as not interrogated at all. There’s no fact checking, or so it appears, very few evidential photos of his early life, not even a medical certificate to show he has only half a kidney – I’m not sure why I’m suspicious of that, as apparently it is true and it’d be hard to lie about, it simply feels unlikely that he’s coped so remarkably well on half a kidney, the guy’s almost eighty for goodness sake and what a life! On the plus side, the film is gently humorous and doesn’t take itself too seriously, like its subject. That guy who plays Murray Goldberg in The Goldbergs gives a cutting impersonation of Harry Saltzman and Jane Seymour – an ex-Bond girl and an ex-Bond teaming up for a slap in the face of the franchise – features as Lazenby’s first casting agent, Maggie Abbot. The film doesn’t impress on how good a living Mr Lazenby made before James Bond other than in the most off-hand manner. He wasn’t a complete unknown quality, just not known as an actor. Broccoli and Saltzman are not painted in a good light at all. The fact Cubby Broccoli is barely mentioned suggests this was very much ‘Saltzman’s film’. [The producers had decided to take it in turns as leading Bond producer; so You Only Live Twice and Diamonds were Cubby’s, On Her Majesty’s and Live and Let Die Harry’s. However, given the importance of the investment, Cubby’s lack of involvement in Mr Lazenby’s tenure as OO7 does seem odd.] Peter Hunt, who previously Mr Lazenby had criticised, is treated very fairly; certainly at the start the director seems to enjoy his young star’s arrogance and use it against his producers. There’s no mention of how, if it did, the relationship soured. The archival footage is interesting, especially the interviews Mr Lazenby gave to promote the Bond film, a tour undertaken at his own expense as the producers refused to support him unless he shaved off his beard, dressed and acted like James Bond. I may not have warmed to Mr Lazenby’s early life, but I certainly respect him for tossing back the ‘slave’ contract. It’s a pity his agent – not Maggie Abbot by now – gave him bad advice, what he really needed was a less restrictive contract. Connery bargained over and over to get what he wanted and Lazenby needed to be smart and have smarter people around him so he could retain some freedoms. We don’t, of course, have the producer’s version. A genial documentary which doesn’t discuss the actor’s later life and controversies, this is after all about how he achieved fame and threw it away, not what he did afterwards.
I did wonder if Lazenby's contract wasn't a form of constructive dismissal - namely, they didn't want him as Bond any more but it plays better if he walks away rather than sack him, so load him with a hefty contract with all kinds of petty, punitive restrictions so he walks.
Lazenby speculated that Hunt turned against him one one occasion where, I don't know if I'm recalling this correctly, he turned everyone off the set because he was asked to, later it turned out that offended Hunt or something. Lazenby said Hunt felt it was a case of 'biting the hand that fed him' because he was the one who'd angled to get Lazenby the Bond job.
Had to copy and paste that from imdb. Anyway, I did one of my trips up to London's Prince Charles to see this, it was on the downstairs big screen and few in the audience, Covid-wise that appealed. I enjoyed it, it's a reunion of the In Bruges pair of course, namely Brendan Gleason and Colin Farrell, directed by Martin McDonagh. I'd say there the similarity ends but that's not true - this is set on the Irish island of Inisherin in the early 1920s - but the dynamic between its two stars is not dissimilar - Gleason is the irascible older one exasperated with his younger charge though not without flashes of unexpected sympathy.
You'll have seen the trailer and it is simple enough - Gleason decides he doesn't want to be friends with Farrell any more, doesn't want to hang out with him down the pub over a pint, has basically 'ghosted' him in modern parlance. This hurts Farrell a fair bit who can't handle it. Later Gleason does give a reason for his attitude, so it's not quite ghosting.
At first the whole thing feels a bit Father Ted for the cinema. You could see the sitcom's actors playing these roles, with Ted as the older one and Father Dougal as the soft, simple-minded fellow, even Mrs Doyle could be Farrell's sister in this. Then you wonder how this is going to go the distance of an entire movie but like most modern films it does play tricks on the viewer, it pulls a few rabbits out of the hat, springs a surprise here and there. It builds interest and plays with your sympathies. In some ways it's an allegory for the Irish Civil War, the sheer pointlessness of it, the enduring grudges and as with Branagh's Belfast, it implies the only sensible course of action is exile, though many who've fallen foul of the British State reach the same respective conclusion.
I recommend it, it has some lovely vistas in it and the acting is top notch all round. Some problems, a lack of consequences - a local policeman gets punched but there's no follow-up unlike what you'd expect. I must say a lot of the movies out currently are far from feel good given the problems in the world right now. There's the Olivia Coleman one directed by our own Sam Mendes, plus a few others at my local- the Cate Blanchett one about the composer - that don't suggest you'll be leaving the cinema on a cloud of pixie dust.
But if this is all depressing I have to say that my trip to London wasn't exhilarating - don't know if it's Brexit, or the pandemic, or the Ukraine thing probably Covid, but it seems unbuzzing, on low wattage, unpopulated like it's back in the 1970s and not in a good way. Shop fronts boarded up, desolate, no sense of expectation. May be the Russian influence (see Moneyland by Oliver Bullough) but it feels like it's owned by absentee landlord who don't feel the need to check up on things, or where the moneys being diverted elsewhere.
It’s hard to believe that this is nearly 40 years old. The brashness of the 80’s is onscreen in all it’s glory as Eddie Murphy’s reckless detective goes to Beverly Hills to find out who killed his childhood buddy in Detroit. He finds out that a wealthy respected businessman played in fine style by Steven Berkoff is running a smuggling scheme out of LA. Enlisting the help of two local cops he sets out to get justice. Beginning with a truly awesome car chase where a truck destroys dozens of vehicles this movie never lets up and Murphy’s performance is fresh and invigorating in this smash hit action movie littered with the F-word in virtually every scene.
Gil Hill who plays the Inspector in Detroit was a real life police officer. When director Martin Brest was not happy with the actor who was portraying that part heard Gil Hill actually balling out a policeman in real life he asked him to step in and play the part and he and Murphy ad-lib their way through their scenes brilliantly.
Two sequels were made which were pale imitations of the original.
One of the great comedy-action movies of all time.
9/10
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Film director Carl Denham charters a boat for his latest movie and heads to uncharted waters and the destination of Skull Island. Once there, actress Ann Darrow is captured by a giant gorilla and the crew attempt to rescue her. After several fights between the gorilla King Kong and other monsters they save Ann and with the use of gas stun Kong and bring him back to New York and parade him as a freak show. Escaping his chains Kong recaptures Ann and heads for the Empire State Building.
Willis O’Brien’s pioneering special effects are the major star of this movie, the stop motion effects are wonderful. The painted backdrops and the animation is awesome, as Kong battles both human and animal adversaries. CGI cannot hold a candle to the beauty of this stop motion work of art. 90 years old this year and it’s still as fresh and exciting as it was when first released. Ok, the acting is pretty theatrical, as it always was in those days, but when Kong is onscreen nothing else matters.
Fay Wray as actress Ann Darrow screams and screams for all her worth and future DAF actor Bruce Cabot shines as her lover.
Without doubt, this is the greatest monster movie of all time, and fully deserves its reverential place in the annals of film.
10/10
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I will probably be termed cinematically sacrilegious for this review…
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
Perennial favourite which I watched because I couldn’t stomach anything serious. A simple film with a simple narrative elaborately told. It won lots of awards for its technical achievements, but those would be its only achievements. The author Ursula Le Guin wrote that a story which bounds from one page of violence to another without proper explanation is hiding its shortcomings. I’d say the same thing applies to most movies, and Raiders is no exception. We learn everything we need to know in a briefing scene where Indiana Jones [Harrison Ford] explains how the Ark of the Covenant works, its history, mythology, possible location and how to extract it; we learn there’s a woman involved and the Nazis are also chasing the archaeological wonder of the age. So much for the plot. Character development? Indiana Jones hates snakes; his beau has drinking and attitude problems and behaves like an uncouth, screeching banshee. The villains are an urbane, but useless lot. Violence abounds from the opening scenes in a Peruvian jungle, during which the director regales us with a dozen ‘jump-shocks’ of the type we’ll see throughout the rest of the runtime. We learn Dr Jones isn’t so much an archaeologist as a tomb raider for hire and that his rival is a Frenchman called Belloq who basically steals stuff the constantly hampered Jones has already stolen. A mystical climax and a whole bunch of plot holes turn the episode from problematic to entirely stupid, but it’s the very stupidity which keeps us watching – how many more ridiculous situations can the filmmakers create for the heroes to escape from? I can’t remember if I saw this in the cinema, but time hasn’t been kind to Raiders. It is well-made, but I always thought it had more substance than this. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg said they wanted to recreate the feel of the Saturday morning serial. If they mean a brainless exercise packed full of punches, stereotypes and a dash of humour, they hit the nail on the head. Witless and tiresome, I’d call it.
a lot of those "flaws" are because the film is meant to recreate the experience of 1930s era movie serials. A more conventional narrative structure that followed the above suggested rules would not be the same.
that said, I've tried watching genuine vintage serials like Flash Gordon in one sitting, and found all the repetitious fights and cliffhangers are difficult to take one after another. so Spielberg did smooth the format out just enough to make for a better two hour experience with beginning middle and end
I never really got the love for Raiders but I love IJ and the Last Crusade - but we all know why and it's really a Bond movie. Of course, Lucas pitched Raiders as a Bond film for Spielberg. It's odd that the huge success of Lucas' Star Wars and Raiders never translated into a copycat spinoff trend like the Bond films did, as if acknowledging there was a certain magic in those films that couldn't be replicated.
Babylon
God it's just awful. Avoid avoid avoid. And even if you think otherwise, beware it's three ruddy hours long! And you can tell from the first 10 minutes it's just not going to work. It's aiming to be funny and it just isn't, the director doesn't have funny bones.
It's about the silent movie industry in Hollywood in the 20s and every cliche is wheeled out, with a total lack of verisimilitude. Perhaps it's not meant to have any, perhaps it's like that Moulin Rouge movie with Ewan McGregor. Starts off with some massive party orgy in a hilltop mansion that may as well be the Spectre annual bash in No Time To Die, it looks like it's on a movie set, you don't believe it. Aims hard to be shocking and raunchy yet it has no effect perhaps because we live in a woke era and it's feels almost prudish about the excess, like someone doesn't really enjoy filming it, it cuts away quickly. You don't care about any of the characters at all, there is no development there isn't meant to be at least for the first hour or more. The lead actor doesn't have the charisma to carry the film, he has a certain Martin Landau quality at times, he might make a good villain (not a main one however) you don't see any chemistry between him and the Margot Robbie wannabe actress who seems just a one-note actor in this. Brad Pitt, we've seen him do this turn before and he is really playing Leo's part of the washed up actor in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
I honestly had no idea what the point of this film was. There is one very good scene, about two and a half hours in, where two of them have to hand over money to a mafia boss who is played by a surprise actor who is dead creepy, and the movie takes a very dark turn which is nightmarish, there is for the first time real jeopardy.
As with most films I've seen this year, the actors are too old for the roles. Nighy in Living is about 70 so how come he has his kids in their 20s living at home with him? He must have started late. Gleason in Banshees looks 70 and Farrell late 40s - okay, but how come Farrell's sister is getting hit on by a young lad who seems in his early 20s - how old would she be? Likewise Pitt is too old to be playing a movie heartthrob here nor perhaps Robbie as a wannabe. It's like Hollywood hasn't found any new talent and is falling back on old stock.
Babylon is an awful film. It's a noisy, frenetic, uninvolving mess. Oh, and for a matinee showing at the Odeon in my suburban home town, it cost me £17.50!
The Prince Charles would have been cheaper @chrisno1 - I paid about £14 to see Banshees there inc a coffee. Okay, so it's a tenner to get up to London, but it's London... other stuff to enjoy up there.
If you have to see it, wait a few weeks where it's possible the prices come down a bit for films that have been on release for a while, the Odeon is not clear how they work this and even matinees are not notably cheaper.
I did think of the disparaging review by @chrisno1 of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - a lot of these films about Hollywood don't quite ring true, it's like looking through someone else's family album. It's like one big in-joke we're not part of.
I really hated Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Load of self indulgent tosh by Tarantino.
I'll wait till Babylon is on a streaming service. At least if I think it's awful I haven't travelled far, had a loo and snacks at my disposal (and maybe a bottle of wine) and can just turn it off. 😁
Realisticly it's unlikely any of you will watch this movie. It's competing with Avatar 2 in the cinemas here and the director made "Prosac Nation", the original "Insomnia" that Christopher Nolan re-made and many episodes of "Occupied". It's also about a famous battle in WWII in stunning landscapes in northern Norway and it involves British, French (Foreign Legion), Polish, Norwegian and of course Germans in the villain role. The producers and director tried to make it a co-production with at least one of the other countries involved in the original "production" to increase the budget, but that didn't happen. The story deserves a higher budget. The sinking of a large part of the German navy in Narvik harbour is only seen in a short scene far into the distance, for example. But it's still a good movie. The director knows how to stage a tense and well-constructed action scene, the characters and acting is good. So us the plot. One exchange is so good it's worth repeating. The female lead works as the secretary of the German commander in Narvik to spy on him. The officer asks her how her toddler son is doing. "He still has nightmares at night" she replies. "I only have nightmares by day", says the German, commenting on the advancing allied forces. She replies: "But it's spring and it's day most of the time! In two weeks it will be day all the time .....".
It's a find if you can find it on some streaming service.
This caper-thriller has a middling reputation and I’m not entirely sure why. It’s a harmless frivolous affair that wears its soul on its sleeve and isn’t attempting to be anything other than an entertainment vehicle for the popcorn brigade. The movie is sensible enough to have a MacGuffin plot, so we know the film isn’t about substance, it is about visuals and clever dialogue. Which is what we get.
James Mangold directs Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz through their cheerful toothsome paces as a mismatched couple – one a top CIA spy, the other a vintage car mechanic – Diaz is the mechanic – who become embroiled in a plot to steal the Zephyr, the world’s first perpetual battery. The movie starts with lots of sophisticated nods to the caper genre: mistaken identity, baggage switches, serendipity. It evolves into a splendidly energetic actioner with chases and fights and intrigue around the globe. The writers have not forgotten to introduce some character, although it comes a little late, and everyone tends towards something of a cliché. That doesn’t really matter. The romp is good hearted and tidy. Despite numerous killings, there’s no blood spilt among the shooting, kicking and stabbing.
Some critics have remarked on the number of times Tom Cruise’s character administers a sleeping drug to Diaz, who subsequently passes out and is ‘abducted / rescued’, but there’s no suggestion of impropriety and he gets a comeuppance of sorts. This is the trope of opinion that only assesses a film from one point of view instead of encompassing the whole spectrum of its landscape.
Knight and Day is thoroughly enjoyable. I’ve watched the movie a number of times and it never fails to entertain. Without wishing to hawk, the Bond producers would do well to take a look at movies like this [and The Transporter] which while not masterpieces, don’t pretend to be anything other than entertainment, with the romance, action, humour and desperate plotting in full abundance. The cinematography is bright and shiny as well, so at least you feel as if you’re watching a better place, not someone’s idea of geographic mental purgatory [No Time To Die, take note]. The action is swift and virulent. You’re never bored.
A fun couple of hours, so good I got distracted cooking and spilt pasta sauce on my white shirt and had to spend fifteen impromptu minutes clearing up the mess. I ate in my cardy while Mr Cruise and Miss Diaz went about their brisk, throwaway business.
Talking of guilty pleasure romps, this was my first time with this action sequel, the original suffered from comparisons with Die Hard (but then what doesn't, inc later Die Hard sequels). These kind of films don't insult the intelligence whereas recent Bonds do imo. That said, there's no action scene in this that you'd switch on to see again, like the lovely pre-credits Aston chase in NTTD and other such stuff. It's all pretty frenetic, this time Butler's bodyguard accompanies the US President to London to attend the funeral following the unexpected death of the fictional British PM - a bit chilling this, given that Boris Johnson was said to be at death's door during the Covid crisis (opinions vary as to just how much). Suddenly it all kicks off and all the visiting world statesmen are hit from all sides... but why say more? Some London landmarks go up in smoke due to some shaky CGI.
It's a good romp, though you might feel cheated at the cinema. You can't quite see how the terrorists can infiltrate the Met police, esp given they've already been infiltrated by rapists, groomers and paedophiles over the last few years anyway, okay okay, they've not even infiltrated them but are dressed up as police - this might work in a small setting but not across all of London, can't quite see how that would work. It could work as a lot of policing is outsourced to the private sector where a lot is taken on trust but that isn't made clear here. Another odd thing is that a case is made for the terroitss really, on the basis of US aggression but we're still meant to side against them which of course one does but it does appear morally ambiguous, the conclusion being, well, you've got to side with the Yanks haven't you? It doesn't help that the US President is played by an actor who looks ike disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong. The intention of the terrorists regards him is also quite horrible for a mainstream action film. Still, I'm overwriting, this was enjoyable fare all the way. Butler's Plane opens next week though after my Babylon sting I'll certainly be looking to catch it on third bounce rather than fork out £20.
My memory of London Has Fallen - which was a criticism I had of Spectre - is how empty London was - I've wandered around the capital at two or three in the morning and there are always people around, in almost every street. There is simply no earthly way London ever looks as deserted as these movies claim. I agree the film itself is an improbable scenario.
Comments
Yes, I like the first Mission Impossible too. It's an excellent thriller.
I recorded this one ages ago, which is odd as I have it on a DVD; finally viewed it last night - my fifth viewing, including one at the BFI.
DON’T LOOK NOW (1973)
Don’t Look Now is possibly one of the best British films ever made. Right from the opening dissolve – a rain strewn lake overlaid with sunlight passing through a stained glass window and Donald Sutherland humming in the background – you know you are going to be watching something extremely special.
The scene is an idyll, laboured by driving wet, a family unit entwined in Sunday leisure. The children skip and play in the rain. Inside by the log fire, architect John Baxter inspects the photo-slides of the Church of San Nicolo, Venice, his eyes drawn to the red coated figure shown seated in an aisle. His wife, Laura, searches for her cigarettes. A chance movement spills water on the slide and the photo stains, the figure’s shiny coat dissolves into a lurid blood-like trail. On impulse, John rushes from the room, rushes to the lake where his son is screaming; John’s own screams as he fishes his drowning daughter from the lake are only matched by his wife’s as she witnesses the catastrophic accident.
Cut to Venice, a drill penetrating the foundations of the Church, and John, hard at work, revitalised. His wife is pensive at lunch. John’s eyes are drawn to the extreme of his sight again: two spinster ladies talking in low voices, one of them blind, both staring at the Baxter’s with intense curiosity. Encountering them in the washroom, Laura learns the blind lady has second sight and she describes the Baxter’s daughter, Christine, sitting beside them at the restaurant. Over the course of the next few days, as strange occurrences begin to affect him, John’s suspicions are aroused. Are the women fakes or is there a psychic power at work guiding events beyond the Baxter’s control?
Adapted from a Daphne du Maurier short story, Nicolas Roeg’s film is a drama about grief, a ghost story with no ghost and a psycho-thriller with no obvious victim. Looming over everything is people’s fear of death and how atheism has failed to remove that fear. “We have all stopped listening,” says the priest, as he inspects the dilapidated church John Baxter is expected to renovate and restore. Unlike Laura, who willingly attends a séance to discover her truth, these two men stopped believing in magic a long time ago. Baxter meanwhile keeps observing happenings on the periphery of his vision: the raincoated child, the police inspector watching, the two ladies waiting, the dappled sun on the window blinds, the Venetian brooch, the bell tolling irrevocably, the funeral barge, alleys he’s visited before, everything – like the trattorias he struggles to find on every street in Venice – seeming to be just out of reach and yet just around the corner. His own latent powers captivate him, a weblike network of secrets held among the alleys and canals.
Baxter distrusts his instincts. He scolds his wife’s hysterical reaction to the spinsters’ premonitions. This, at the very moment she is recovering from grief-stricken depression, comes as a shock, for it takes place in the same hotel room in which, only a day before, the couple had made a slow glorious love, solidifying their relationship once more. John’s response to the unknown is to seek answers in the known: he turns his back, brusquely offers Laura her anti-depressants and declares ruthlessly that Christine is dead, dead, dead.
“What is it you fear?” asks the police inspector.
“The killer,” replies Baxter, “the murderer.”
But is it? Baxter is so wrapped up in his work, so absorbed in compartmentalising his loss, he’s forgotten how to communicate, preferring to drink his sorrow and make impulsive decisions that put him in harm’s way. He can’t even be bothered to write to his son, who stays at a boarding school in England. Baxter is not alone in his introspection. Even Laura tells their son nothing in her letter, no words of affection; following a schoolground accident, she flies back to England, but assured all is fine, Laura doesn’t even say goodbye to her son, she leaves suddenly, panicked by John’s confused phone call. Both of them fear a breakdown, both teeter on the very edge of one, seeking solace in what they know or want to know about the world they find themselves in: mysterious Venice.
“A city in aspic,” says the psychic, “left over from a dinner party and all the guests have gone.” Venice itself is the bleak omnipotence that overshadows the action of Don’t Look Now, a cold, frigid January landscape of graffitied walls, crumbling palazzos and dirty rat infested waters. This is no summer romance, it is madness of a completely different kind, the thin winter sun glistening, the mist shrouding the canals, mutilated bodies hauled from the brine, shouts in the dark and crawling hallucinations. The ending, when it comes, sees John confront his own paranormal tendencies, though it is Laura who achieves a blissful closure among the gloom and doom of the Venetian lagoons.
Director Nicolas Roeg fashions the drama through a series of intercut images which constantly prompt us to wonder, like John, at their significance or otherwise. Time doesn’t stand still in Don’t Look Now. Within the linear framework it shifts backwards, forwards and sideways, never entirely certain of itself or what it is showing us. There is an unusual prominence given to everyday details: the attendant sitting in the washroom, the domestic arrangements of the hotelier, the guests at a rundown hostel, the trash in the canal, the priest’s hands toying with mosaics or crucifixes, the exact neatness of the old ladies’ room, the policeman doodling on a photo-fit picture. Are these moments significant or merely obscure observations? We guess and we guess wrong or right, depending on how we wish it.
Roeg also elicits two powerful central performances from Donald Pleasance and Julie Christie, who perfectly represent a couple whose marriage, while not a sham, is fraught with difficulty and misconnections. Death has come to inhabit their relationship and they can’t shake it’s powerful grip, mentally or physically. It is, quite literally, haunting them among the shadowy Venetian precincts of Anthony Richmond’s photography, through Allan Scott and Chris Bryant’s pared down dialogue [much improvised], layered with Pino Donaggio’s wistful repetitive music, and infused via Roeg and Graeme Clifford’s incisive, yet purposefully vague editing.
A film not of many great moments but of magnificent impact, it fascinates and often repulses, can be as cold as wintery Venice, yet hot blooded and frenzied; we emerge as shocked as the participants, emotionally wrapped in their quest for answers and unreciprocated guilt. When Laura lights six votive candles in memory of her daughter, one of them blows out, an ill-wind the couple fail to foresee; John’s inability to reconcile his foreknowledge to the death of his child follows him at every step and every incident becomes for him an unseen portent of onrushing disaster. Laura, almost cast aside, comes too late to prevent it and the Baxter’s world collapses in a moment of unexpected fury. The sun filters along the canals once more and life follows death, preserved in aspic, the guests leaving one last time.
Stupendous.
THE AFRICAN QUEEN (1951)
Excellently acted romantic adventure set on a small cargo steam boat in German East Africa during the outbreak of the First World War. Humphrey Bogart is Charlie Allnut, the drunk captain who takes Katherine Hepburn’s spinster missionary Rose Sayer under his wing, ends up falling in love and falling for her insane quest to sink a German steamer, the Louise, which patrols a vast seaway. She’s out for revenge after the German army burnt down the mission and abducted the local tribesmen for soldiering. Her brother, played by Robert Morley, suffers a heart attack from the stress and Rosie is left with no one to trust but the uncouth boat captain.
What starts out as an argumentative relationship blossoms as Charlie sobers up and Rose discovers the exhilaration of physical experience. There’s a lot of cod-Freudianism’s thrown into the script to make us smile [Hepburn actively pulling on the water pump was one of them; “Take it slow,” says Bogart, “You’ll get the hang of it”]. There are some more traditional moments of romantic intention, such as when Hepburn uses her umbrella to shelter Bogart during a rain storm. Because there’s only the two of them in the movie for almost the whole run time, we kind of know where the film is going to head. The thrills don’t really thrill like they maybe did in 1951 and the drama unfolds in a manner familiar from films an audience might have watched in the 1930s. C.S. Forester’s book was a big seller in 1935 and it suits that era better than this one. The African Queen feels very old fashioned. I fancy it was a big inspiration on Wilbur Smith, whose book and movie Shout at the Devil follows a similar, but far more expansive path.
Where it wins is with the central performances. Bogart won an Oscar in an extremely competitive year, but his performance is not one of his best, although the rough yet cheerful demeanour he cuts plays well beside Hepburn’s tetchy, fiery turn. He was on a big run of excellent films; she had just re-found herself following a sparkling performance in Adam’s Rib. The fifties would prove Hepburn’s best acting decade. In a year packed full of great films it was frequently overlooked award-wise, but you can see why as it has a slight staginess and stodginess to it.
Director John Huston famously went African game hunting during the on location shoot and almost everyone fell ill. The blue screen effects, interiors and swampland scenes were recreated at Isleworth soundstages and water tanks in England and the film was part financed by the UK film company Romulus. Sam Spiegel produced. Our own Walter Gotell has a small supporting role – as does Allo Allo’s Richard Marner – and both Guy Hamilton [assistant director] and Ted Moore [cameraman] gain vital experience for their later careers in the James Bond fraternity.
Enjoyable, but it has dated quite a bit.
Re THE AFRICAN QUEEN- have you seen Clint Eastwood's WHITE HUNTER, BLACK HEART? I loved that.
Agree with all of that. In fact, might watch it again tonight now.
@Gymkata Yes, especially In A Lonely Place - also Beat the Devil with the late Gina Lollabrigida.
SNATCH (2000)
An underrated Guy Ritchie action film, and one that I will say I enjoy more than his latest, Wrath of Man (2021), both starring Jason Statham.
A stone of unimaginable value is stolen, and it leads to a story of ruthless mob bosses and gangsters, one-punch fights, and man-hunting at its finest.
There's only one American character in this film, and I related more to the Irish gypsies, perhaps because they're like the people I have to deal with in the city I reside in! 😅
Even in its intense action scenes and excessive Ritchie-ness humor, there are two things that make this movie, perhaps three.
1) The cinematography.
There are many key shots that make this movie, car scenes in which you can feel the tight space, which adds to hilarious encounters, shootout scenes that are well choreographed, and dialogue scenes that makes each line feel more personal.
2) The plot
Each character has his own well-developed story, even the secondary characters don't seem like bland representations in order to highlight the main actors, they play their parts well and almost every one of them delivers hilarious lines that hit it out of the park. Not to be misunderstood as a comedy; there are some serious scenes and you see calamity in its raw form, something you don't see much of in the movies of today.
3ish) The music
I don't know much about how a film is scored, but this movie's early 2000s alternative rock fits so well. This is my favorite genre to listen to when I'm on the road, or I'm out and about because it perfectly matches the pace in the film. It doesn't take away from anything going on; it complements the action sequences. If you've seen The Bourne Identity, the end credits song is basically this genre.
Snatch is a thriller in my opinion, and it does not try to be funny, the characters are in precarious situations and the results of their actions put them in places that just make you shake your head and laugh under your breath.
A thrilling watch, and a resolving end.
"Anything to declare?
Yeah, don't go to England."
Not underrated in my view @Chico Loved your review. I must watch this again soon. My fav Guy Ritchie movie. Very funny. Exceptionally well plotted - as you say - and sturdily made. Barely a bad performance either. Even Brad Pitt's worth a look!
David Cronenberg's " Crimes of the Future " too much of an avant-garde Horror/thriller for Me, when Body
modification and operations become art. I wouldn't recommend it at all. Unless you really want to see
Lea Seydoux nude.
GENGHIS KHAN (1965)
Dreadful historical epic made when they were all the rage and seemingly for all the wrong reasons. Irving Allen produced, so I should have anticipated something a mite ropey. Henry Levin directs and he’s simply not up to the task. Nor are most of the cast, who are a starry lot, but have done better work in better films and better epics too. James Mason is particularly embarrassing as a Chinese ambassador, all slit eyes and unintelligible accent. Stephen Boyd was never a top-line star, despite what he wanted us to think, yet somehow he bagged top billing here despite his role clearly being second tier. Omar Sharif cuts a dash as an Egyptian Genghis Khan. Historically inaccurate. Borderline insulting, especially to the Chinese. Overall a drag. The climatic Mongol Duel is exciting but hardly worth waiting two hours for.
As a side note, Berkley Mather, who worked on the Dr No screenplay, wrote the film’s original story and its spin-off novelisation. Telly Savalas, another of ours, has a supporting role. Producer and director would team up again in the Matt Helm universe. Irving Allen of course found early success with Cubby Broccoli at Warwick Pictures.
BECOMING BOND (2017)
George Lazenby is the star of this drama documentary from American Josh Greenbaum which attempts to cast light on the Australian’s sudden rise to fame as James Bond. There’s a comic touch which the filmmaker owes entirely to Mr Lazenby’s ability as a raconteur. At one point, astounded at the stories flowing from Mr Lazenby’s mouth, the interviewer asks: “How much of this is true?” Mr Lazenby’s grizzled features appear momentarily hurt. I’m on the side of the interviewer; it may be true but there seems a certain exaggeration involved in the telling, most notably regarding some sexual matters in London in the mid-sixties. Pinches of salt are fine, but I had to draw a line under the bit about ‘picking up women in the street for threesomes as often as three times a day.’ This sounds like the sort of thing which maybe happened once and now he’s bragging. Ego tripping is a lazy attitude for Mr Lazenby, who isn’t so much softly interrogated as not interrogated at all. There’s no fact checking, or so it appears, very few evidential photos of his early life, not even a medical certificate to show he has only half a kidney – I’m not sure why I’m suspicious of that, as apparently it is true and it’d be hard to lie about, it simply feels unlikely that he’s coped so remarkably well on half a kidney, the guy’s almost eighty for goodness sake and what a life! On the plus side, the film is gently humorous and doesn’t take itself too seriously, like its subject. That guy who plays Murray Goldberg in The Goldbergs gives a cutting impersonation of Harry Saltzman and Jane Seymour – an ex-Bond girl and an ex-Bond teaming up for a slap in the face of the franchise – features as Lazenby’s first casting agent, Maggie Abbot. The film doesn’t impress on how good a living Mr Lazenby made before James Bond other than in the most off-hand manner. He wasn’t a complete unknown quality, just not known as an actor. Broccoli and Saltzman are not painted in a good light at all. The fact Cubby Broccoli is barely mentioned suggests this was very much ‘Saltzman’s film’. [The producers had decided to take it in turns as leading Bond producer; so You Only Live Twice and Diamonds were Cubby’s, On Her Majesty’s and Live and Let Die Harry’s. However, given the importance of the investment, Cubby’s lack of involvement in Mr Lazenby’s tenure as OO7 does seem odd.] Peter Hunt, who previously Mr Lazenby had criticised, is treated very fairly; certainly at the start the director seems to enjoy his young star’s arrogance and use it against his producers. There’s no mention of how, if it did, the relationship soured. The archival footage is interesting, especially the interviews Mr Lazenby gave to promote the Bond film, a tour undertaken at his own expense as the producers refused to support him unless he shaved off his beard, dressed and acted like James Bond. I may not have warmed to Mr Lazenby’s early life, but I certainly respect him for tossing back the ‘slave’ contract. It’s a pity his agent – not Maggie Abbot by now – gave him bad advice, what he really needed was a less restrictive contract. Connery bargained over and over to get what he wanted and Lazenby needed to be smart and have smarter people around him so he could retain some freedoms. We don’t, of course, have the producer’s version. A genial documentary which doesn’t discuss the actor’s later life and controversies, this is after all about how he achieved fame and threw it away, not what he did afterwards.
I did wonder if Lazenby's contract wasn't a form of constructive dismissal - namely, they didn't want him as Bond any more but it plays better if he walks away rather than sack him, so load him with a hefty contract with all kinds of petty, punitive restrictions so he walks.
Lazenby speculated that Hunt turned against him one one occasion where, I don't know if I'm recalling this correctly, he turned everyone off the set because he was asked to, later it turned out that offended Hunt or something. Lazenby said Hunt felt it was a case of 'biting the hand that fed him' because he was the one who'd angled to get Lazenby the Bond job.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The Banshees of Inisherin
Had to copy and paste that from imdb. Anyway, I did one of my trips up to London's Prince Charles to see this, it was on the downstairs big screen and few in the audience, Covid-wise that appealed. I enjoyed it, it's a reunion of the In Bruges pair of course, namely Brendan Gleason and Colin Farrell, directed by Martin McDonagh. I'd say there the similarity ends but that's not true - this is set on the Irish island of Inisherin in the early 1920s - but the dynamic between its two stars is not dissimilar - Gleason is the irascible older one exasperated with his younger charge though not without flashes of unexpected sympathy.
You'll have seen the trailer and it is simple enough - Gleason decides he doesn't want to be friends with Farrell any more, doesn't want to hang out with him down the pub over a pint, has basically 'ghosted' him in modern parlance. This hurts Farrell a fair bit who can't handle it. Later Gleason does give a reason for his attitude, so it's not quite ghosting.
At first the whole thing feels a bit Father Ted for the cinema. You could see the sitcom's actors playing these roles, with Ted as the older one and Father Dougal as the soft, simple-minded fellow, even Mrs Doyle could be Farrell's sister in this. Then you wonder how this is going to go the distance of an entire movie but like most modern films it does play tricks on the viewer, it pulls a few rabbits out of the hat, springs a surprise here and there. It builds interest and plays with your sympathies. In some ways it's an allegory for the Irish Civil War, the sheer pointlessness of it, the enduring grudges and as with Branagh's Belfast, it implies the only sensible course of action is exile, though many who've fallen foul of the British State reach the same respective conclusion.
I recommend it, it has some lovely vistas in it and the acting is top notch all round. Some problems, a lack of consequences - a local policeman gets punched but there's no follow-up unlike what you'd expect. I must say a lot of the movies out currently are far from feel good given the problems in the world right now. There's the Olivia Coleman one directed by our own Sam Mendes, plus a few others at my local- the Cate Blanchett one about the composer - that don't suggest you'll be leaving the cinema on a cloud of pixie dust.
But if this is all depressing I have to say that my trip to London wasn't exhilarating - don't know if it's Brexit, or the pandemic, or the Ukraine thing probably Covid, but it seems unbuzzing, on low wattage, unpopulated like it's back in the 1970s and not in a good way. Shop fronts boarded up, desolate, no sense of expectation. May be the Russian influence (see Moneyland by Oliver Bullough) but it feels like it's owned by absentee landlord who don't feel the need to check up on things, or where the moneys being diverted elsewhere.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
BEVERLY HILLS COP (1984)
It’s hard to believe that this is nearly 40 years old. The brashness of the 80’s is onscreen in all it’s glory as Eddie Murphy’s reckless detective goes to Beverly Hills to find out who killed his childhood buddy in Detroit. He finds out that a wealthy respected businessman played in fine style by Steven Berkoff is running a smuggling scheme out of LA. Enlisting the help of two local cops he sets out to get justice. Beginning with a truly awesome car chase where a truck destroys dozens of vehicles this movie never lets up and Murphy’s performance is fresh and invigorating in this smash hit action movie littered with the F-word in virtually every scene.
Gil Hill who plays the Inspector in Detroit was a real life police officer. When director Martin Brest was not happy with the actor who was portraying that part heard Gil Hill actually balling out a policeman in real life he asked him to step in and play the part and he and Murphy ad-lib their way through their scenes brilliantly.
Two sequels were made which were pale imitations of the original.
One of the great comedy-action movies of all time.
9/10
KING KONG (1933)
Film director Carl Denham charters a boat for his latest movie and heads to uncharted waters and the destination of Skull Island. Once there, actress Ann Darrow is captured by a giant gorilla and the crew attempt to rescue her. After several fights between the gorilla King Kong and other monsters they save Ann and with the use of gas stun Kong and bring him back to New York and parade him as a freak show. Escaping his chains Kong recaptures Ann and heads for the Empire State Building.
Willis O’Brien’s pioneering special effects are the major star of this movie, the stop motion effects are wonderful. The painted backdrops and the animation is awesome, as Kong battles both human and animal adversaries. CGI cannot hold a candle to the beauty of this stop motion work of art. 90 years old this year and it’s still as fresh and exciting as it was when first released. Ok, the acting is pretty theatrical, as it always was in those days, but when Kong is onscreen nothing else matters.
Fay Wray as actress Ann Darrow screams and screams for all her worth and future DAF actor Bruce Cabot shines as her lover.
Without doubt, this is the greatest monster movie of all time, and fully deserves its reverential place in the annals of film.
10/10
I will probably be termed cinematically sacrilegious for this review…
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
Perennial favourite which I watched because I couldn’t stomach anything serious. A simple film with a simple narrative elaborately told. It won lots of awards for its technical achievements, but those would be its only achievements. The author Ursula Le Guin wrote that a story which bounds from one page of violence to another without proper explanation is hiding its shortcomings. I’d say the same thing applies to most movies, and Raiders is no exception. We learn everything we need to know in a briefing scene where Indiana Jones [Harrison Ford] explains how the Ark of the Covenant works, its history, mythology, possible location and how to extract it; we learn there’s a woman involved and the Nazis are also chasing the archaeological wonder of the age. So much for the plot. Character development? Indiana Jones hates snakes; his beau has drinking and attitude problems and behaves like an uncouth, screeching banshee. The villains are an urbane, but useless lot. Violence abounds from the opening scenes in a Peruvian jungle, during which the director regales us with a dozen ‘jump-shocks’ of the type we’ll see throughout the rest of the runtime. We learn Dr Jones isn’t so much an archaeologist as a tomb raider for hire and that his rival is a Frenchman called Belloq who basically steals stuff the constantly hampered Jones has already stolen. A mystical climax and a whole bunch of plot holes turn the episode from problematic to entirely stupid, but it’s the very stupidity which keeps us watching – how many more ridiculous situations can the filmmakers create for the heroes to escape from? I can’t remember if I saw this in the cinema, but time hasn’t been kind to Raiders. It is well-made, but I always thought it had more substance than this. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg said they wanted to recreate the feel of the Saturday morning serial. If they mean a brainless exercise packed full of punches, stereotypes and a dash of humour, they hit the nail on the head. Witless and tiresome, I’d call it.
I think "Raiders of the lost ark" is a masterpiece of cinematic entertainment. 😃
a lot of those "flaws" are because the film is meant to recreate the experience of 1930s era movie serials. A more conventional narrative structure that followed the above suggested rules would not be the same.
that said, I've tried watching genuine vintage serials like Flash Gordon in one sitting, and found all the repetitious fights and cliffhangers are difficult to take one after another. so Spielberg did smooth the format out just enough to make for a better two hour experience with beginning middle and end
chrisno said:
I will probably be termed cinematically sacrilegious for this review
___________________________________________
of course I always award bonus points for iconoclasm, and I suppose sacrilege is one better. Keep the cinematic sacrilege coming!
(and more cinematic heresy and cinematic witchcraft while we're at it.)
I never really got the love for Raiders but I love IJ and the Last Crusade - but we all know why and it's really a Bond movie. Of course, Lucas pitched Raiders as a Bond film for Spielberg. It's odd that the huge success of Lucas' Star Wars and Raiders never translated into a copycat spinoff trend like the Bond films did, as if acknowledging there was a certain magic in those films that couldn't be replicated.
Babylon
God it's just awful. Avoid avoid avoid. And even if you think otherwise, beware it's three ruddy hours long! And you can tell from the first 10 minutes it's just not going to work. It's aiming to be funny and it just isn't, the director doesn't have funny bones.
It's about the silent movie industry in Hollywood in the 20s and every cliche is wheeled out, with a total lack of verisimilitude. Perhaps it's not meant to have any, perhaps it's like that Moulin Rouge movie with Ewan McGregor. Starts off with some massive party orgy in a hilltop mansion that may as well be the Spectre annual bash in No Time To Die, it looks like it's on a movie set, you don't believe it. Aims hard to be shocking and raunchy yet it has no effect perhaps because we live in a woke era and it's feels almost prudish about the excess, like someone doesn't really enjoy filming it, it cuts away quickly. You don't care about any of the characters at all, there is no development there isn't meant to be at least for the first hour or more. The lead actor doesn't have the charisma to carry the film, he has a certain Martin Landau quality at times, he might make a good villain (not a main one however) you don't see any chemistry between him and the Margot Robbie wannabe actress who seems just a one-note actor in this. Brad Pitt, we've seen him do this turn before and he is really playing Leo's part of the washed up actor in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
I honestly had no idea what the point of this film was. There is one very good scene, about two and a half hours in, where two of them have to hand over money to a mafia boss who is played by a surprise actor who is dead creepy, and the movie takes a very dark turn which is nightmarish, there is for the first time real jeopardy.
As with most films I've seen this year, the actors are too old for the roles. Nighy in Living is about 70 so how come he has his kids in their 20s living at home with him? He must have started late. Gleason in Banshees looks 70 and Farrell late 40s - okay, but how come Farrell's sister is getting hit on by a young lad who seems in his early 20s - how old would she be? Likewise Pitt is too old to be playing a movie heartthrob here nor perhaps Robbie as a wannabe. It's like Hollywood hasn't found any new talent and is falling back on old stock.
Babylon is an awful film. It's a noisy, frenetic, uninvolving mess. Oh, and for a matinee showing at the Odeon in my suburban home town, it cost me £17.50!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Babylon
God it's just awful. Avoid avoid avoid.
oh dear, I was going to go and see this. Thanks for the heads up @Napoleon Plural - bet you're glad you didn't go to the Prince Charles to see that.
The Prince Charles would have been cheaper @chrisno1 - I paid about £14 to see Banshees there inc a coffee. Okay, so it's a tenner to get up to London, but it's London... other stuff to enjoy up there.
If you have to see it, wait a few weeks where it's possible the prices come down a bit for films that have been on release for a while, the Odeon is not clear how they work this and even matinees are not notably cheaper.
I did think of the disparaging review by @chrisno1 of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - a lot of these films about Hollywood don't quite ring true, it's like looking through someone else's family album. It's like one big in-joke we're not part of.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I really hated Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Load of self indulgent tosh by Tarantino.
I'll wait till Babylon is on a streaming service. At least if I think it's awful I haven't travelled far, had a loo and snacks at my disposal (and maybe a bottle of wine) and can just turn it off. 😁
Jurassic World : Dominion
I guess I must be over Dinosaurs as I found this a Bit Boring, More of a " Greatest Hits " collection. Many scenes are variations
On past favourites. The story itself is a Bit silly although the big set pieces are very well done.
Narvik: Hitler's first defeat (2022)
Realisticly it's unlikely any of you will watch this movie. It's competing with Avatar 2 in the cinemas here and the director made "Prosac Nation", the original "Insomnia" that Christopher Nolan re-made and many episodes of "Occupied". It's also about a famous battle in WWII in stunning landscapes in northern Norway and it involves British, French (Foreign Legion), Polish, Norwegian and of course Germans in the villain role. The producers and director tried to make it a co-production with at least one of the other countries involved in the original "production" to increase the budget, but that didn't happen. The story deserves a higher budget. The sinking of a large part of the German navy in Narvik harbour is only seen in a short scene far into the distance, for example. But it's still a good movie. The director knows how to stage a tense and well-constructed action scene, the characters and acting is good. So us the plot. One exchange is so good it's worth repeating. The female lead works as the secretary of the German commander in Narvik to spy on him. The officer asks her how her toddler son is doing. "He still has nightmares at night" she replies. "I only have nightmares by day", says the German, commenting on the advancing allied forces. She replies: "But it's spring and it's day most of the time! In two weeks it will be day all the time .....".
It's a find if you can find it on some streaming service.
I really hated Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. Load of self indulgent tosh by Tarantino.
@Lady Rose Hear! Hear!
I rather liked it.
The Nan Movie.
Avoid at all costs !! A prime example of why the term " Low budget British comedy " fills me with Dread. 😉
KNIGHT AND DAY (2010)
This caper-thriller has a middling reputation and I’m not entirely sure why. It’s a harmless frivolous affair that wears its soul on its sleeve and isn’t attempting to be anything other than an entertainment vehicle for the popcorn brigade. The movie is sensible enough to have a MacGuffin plot, so we know the film isn’t about substance, it is about visuals and clever dialogue. Which is what we get.
James Mangold directs Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz through their cheerful toothsome paces as a mismatched couple – one a top CIA spy, the other a vintage car mechanic – Diaz is the mechanic – who become embroiled in a plot to steal the Zephyr, the world’s first perpetual battery. The movie starts with lots of sophisticated nods to the caper genre: mistaken identity, baggage switches, serendipity. It evolves into a splendidly energetic actioner with chases and fights and intrigue around the globe. The writers have not forgotten to introduce some character, although it comes a little late, and everyone tends towards something of a cliché. That doesn’t really matter. The romp is good hearted and tidy. Despite numerous killings, there’s no blood spilt among the shooting, kicking and stabbing.
Some critics have remarked on the number of times Tom Cruise’s character administers a sleeping drug to Diaz, who subsequently passes out and is ‘abducted / rescued’, but there’s no suggestion of impropriety and he gets a comeuppance of sorts. This is the trope of opinion that only assesses a film from one point of view instead of encompassing the whole spectrum of its landscape.
Knight and Day is thoroughly enjoyable. I’ve watched the movie a number of times and it never fails to entertain. Without wishing to hawk, the Bond producers would do well to take a look at movies like this [and The Transporter] which while not masterpieces, don’t pretend to be anything other than entertainment, with the romance, action, humour and desperate plotting in full abundance. The cinematography is bright and shiny as well, so at least you feel as if you’re watching a better place, not someone’s idea of geographic mental purgatory [No Time To Die, take note]. The action is swift and virulent. You’re never bored.
A fun couple of hours, so good I got distracted cooking and spilt pasta sauce on my white shirt and had to spend fifteen impromptu minutes clearing up the mess. I ate in my cardy while Mr Cruise and Miss Diaz went about their brisk, throwaway business.
London Has Fallen with Gerard Butler.
Talking of guilty pleasure romps, this was my first time with this action sequel, the original suffered from comparisons with Die Hard (but then what doesn't, inc later Die Hard sequels). These kind of films don't insult the intelligence whereas recent Bonds do imo. That said, there's no action scene in this that you'd switch on to see again, like the lovely pre-credits Aston chase in NTTD and other such stuff. It's all pretty frenetic, this time Butler's bodyguard accompanies the US President to London to attend the funeral following the unexpected death of the fictional British PM - a bit chilling this, given that Boris Johnson was said to be at death's door during the Covid crisis (opinions vary as to just how much). Suddenly it all kicks off and all the visiting world statesmen are hit from all sides... but why say more? Some London landmarks go up in smoke due to some shaky CGI.
It's a good romp, though you might feel cheated at the cinema. You can't quite see how the terrorists can infiltrate the Met police, esp given they've already been infiltrated by rapists, groomers and paedophiles over the last few years anyway, okay okay, they've not even infiltrated them but are dressed up as police - this might work in a small setting but not across all of London, can't quite see how that would work. It could work as a lot of policing is outsourced to the private sector where a lot is taken on trust but that isn't made clear here. Another odd thing is that a case is made for the terroitss really, on the basis of US aggression but we're still meant to side against them which of course one does but it does appear morally ambiguous, the conclusion being, well, you've got to side with the Yanks haven't you? It doesn't help that the US President is played by an actor who looks ike disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong. The intention of the terrorists regards him is also quite horrible for a mainstream action film. Still, I'm overwriting, this was enjoyable fare all the way. Butler's Plane opens next week though after my Babylon sting I'll certainly be looking to catch it on third bounce rather than fork out £20.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
My memory of London Has Fallen - which was a criticism I had of Spectre - is how empty London was - I've wandered around the capital at two or three in the morning and there are always people around, in almost every street. There is simply no earthly way London ever looks as deserted as these movies claim. I agree the film itself is an improbable scenario.