Talking of gothic melodrama, I caught this recent film for the first time on the Horror channel, it went out under the Hammer name but I'm not sure what happened with that. It is worthy of Hammer, though lacking the touch of the bizarre or sex that Hammer had.
It's about a young widower, a solicitor, whose grieving means he might get the push from his law firm, so he must make good on his new assignment in another part of the country, a long train ride away.
This really did make the hairs on my neck stand up - maybe I'm more susceptible in lockdown, I don't know. Proper frights. But they're not 'funny' frights. Daniel Radcliffe is v good as the lead, can't fault his acting in this.
I expected another story, thinking it was The Woman in White! Perhaps that helped wrong foot me.
Only the closing scene didn't quite make sense in view of what had come before; I would have opted for something different.
I really like this film.
I'm not into slasher type horror films but I do enjoy a good ghost story that is a bit creepy and eerie. This fits the bill.
Daniel Radcliffe is very good and Ciaran Hinds is always good value.
Under new Government guidelines you are not allowed to interact with my posts, Lady Rose.
The Day of the Jackal
Always excellent though its excellence points out a couple of snags. Caine wanted to play the Jackal, but got knocked back because he was distinctive and famous, which wouldn't fit the anonymous assassin. That said, it's not like Edward Fox just blends into the crowd.
Moore was also in the frame but got knocked back for the same reason, he got to face off against Michel Lonsdale in Moonraker of course, and the same guy did the cinematography here, it's a treat.
The Liberation Day realisation is a bit daft, you think they'd have figured that one before.
Lovely shots of France and indeed Paris. And a fine supporting cast.
This Errol Flynn starrer is a proper pirate film where some men even have wooden pegs instead of a leg! Errol Flynn plays doctor Peter Blood who gets sent as a slave to the West Indies for giving medical services to the rebels after a battle. Things develop from there.
The pirates are very jolly, and most of all Flynn. He is also the only pirate with a shaving kit and he spends a lot of time standing heroically and pointing, often with a rapier. But he's athletic and has charm. The action and special effects are good for such an old film and can compete with much newer films. We only get one proper fencing duel, but it's a good one.
You'd never guess the leading lady is still with us, but Olivia de Haviland is 103 years old and living in Paris. The dynamic between her character and Blood is more interesting than we usually get. Back in the day (before Doctor No?) they didn't have straight action films. Instead they had war movies, Westerns, pirate movies and other genre movies. It can be said "Captain Blood" is a major pre-war action fim, and good one.
IMDB says one of Errol Flynn's early jobs was "slave recruiter". First of all that's ironic because of the clear antislavery stance of "Captain Blood". Second: How do you recruit people to be slaves?
FANTASTIC VOYAGE (1966). I’ve always loved this movie ever since seeing it in the cinema aged 10. Starring Stephen Boyd, Donald Pleasence and Raquel Welch, it’s about a team who are miniaturised and put into the body of a scientist to erase a blood clot on the brain that can’t be operated on from the outside. Of course there is aa assassin on board the micro-sub. The special effects still hold up well and there are many scenes full of tension.
Raquel Welch was apparently signed up to play Domino in TB but was released by Harry Saltzman as a favour to producer Saul David.
Well worth watching.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
An American nuclear scientist (Gary Cooper) is sent to Europe by the OSS to find out how far along the Germans are in developing a nuclear bomb. I found it dragged a bit in the middle but it does have a certain amount of suspense and a couple of good fight scenes worthy of Bond. There are scenes near the end in a house that reminded me of scenes in the Skyfall house. I really liked the music too and I don’t very often notice the music in films!
An American nuclear scientist (Gary Cooper) is sent to Europe by the OSS to find out how far along the Germans are in developing a nuclear bomb. I found it dragged a bit in the middle but it does have a certain amount of suspense and a couple of good fight scenes worthy of Bond. There are scenes near the end in a house that reminded me of scenes in the Skyfall house. I really liked the music too and I don’t very often notice the music in films!
It sounds like the plot is based on one of missions of OSS agent Moe Berg.
My first proper foray into the Marvel world and very enjoyable it was too.
What I always find disconcerting is there is an actor in it called Bobby Cannavale as the nice but dim step Dad. The last time I saw him was in Boardwalk Empire and he was running down a hotel corridor blood soaked and naked after being shot at whilst having asphyxiation sex .... acting is a funny old game ) ) )
I finally took the time to watch this classic. James Stewart plays elwood, a mild-mannered man whos best friend is Harvey who is a 6' 3'' rabbit no-one else can see. This is a comedy, a good one, but there is a serious undertone. The main character is after alla mentally ill man. James Stewart delivers perhaps his perhaps best role in an unusual film. I'm very glad I watched this one.
Lockdown viewing of this 1930s film which would be a classic but like many others, is simply never shown on TV these days for reasons I simply can't fathom.
It's a highly fictionalised account of the banking giant and the role it played in Nelson's naval victories. It stars Tyrone Power in maybe his first role, the star is really child actor Freddie Bartholomew who like Shirley Temple was massive in the 30s and like Temple, you never see his films on telly today. Captains Courageous is another Bartholomew classic never shown on telly (in that one he takes top billing over Spencer Tracy).
It's a nicely told yarn (Power plays the Bartholomew character grown up and very convincingly too) with Madelaine Caroll as the love interest (she's from Hitch's The 39 Steps.)
Bit dismaying to reach the end of the film and find on the news that there's talk of taking down Nelson's Column because of his colonial associations, when his main achievement lay in repelling Napoleon.
Perhaps they should put Napoleon ;% on the plinth instead!
This just got released on 4K and it looks absolutely amazing.
As to the film itself? Well, it's JAWS. It's a masterpiece, and an argument could absolutely be made that it's Spielberg's best film. If you haven't seen it in a while, give it another go (and watch it in 4K if you can). You'll have a lot of fun!
{[] Definitely Spielberg’s best movie, and my 2nd favourite movie of all time.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Another nostalgic choker. It's a highly idealised account of an all-nighter pulled by teens in small-town America on the final night of high school, for reasons we pass over the kids who graduate to college (only two it seems) are due to leave the following morning rather than, say, in the Fall. Is this how it's done in America?
Now this is a lovely film so you don't want to over scrutinise it; it's unlikely all these events could occur in one night but to be fair, nostalgia tends to condense things in the memory.
Watching it older now, it's the idea that you've made it if you go to college and otherwise get left behind that jars even if it's true in some ways, and how odd it is that this issue is never really much addressed in movie fiction. I think Starter for 10, the Britcom, does address this but that's all.
Harrison Ford is in this, and of course he'd later be Hans Solo in Star Wars, also by George Lucas, and Indiana Jones, also by George Lucas. Would he even be a star without Lucas, and let's not forget that Coppola produced this, and also put Ford in Apocalypse Now. See Ford in other clunkers like Hanover Street and you doubt it.
Of course, as Indy in Crystal Skulls, it was set roughly the same time as American Graffiti, which seems at the fag end of rock n roll and pre-Beatles so maybe 62 - is it specified? In Skulls, Indy is annoyed at the idea his son didn't graduate so it follows on. Richard Dreyfuss had a 2-sec role in The Graduate of course.
You know you're middle-aged when you feel a bit sorry for the adults that Dreyfuss's teen rips off albeit under duress of the local hooligans. I mean, the cops weren't doing much wrong were they, just sitting in their patrol car. It's not like they were out and about killing black people. Then again why would they - there's one sole black face in the film, seen at the local Hop.
It's a whitewashed account of US history but so was Stand by Me and a load of stuff.
There's a Wizard of Oz feel to Dreyfuss' journey over the course of the night (there could be a good blog or podcast about films that pull an all-nighter). Certainly the motto there's no place like home seems to apply whatever the outcome.
The encounter with the Wolfman seems like meeting the Wizard, the sense he's not what he seems - but then again, he is. And Ford's character, the smart alec Lothario from out of town, is shown torn and humiliated, his crown taken from him at the end.
Perhaps like Tarantino's Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, there's the sense that you expect something bad to happen, but it doesn't turn out that way at all, which is rather affecting.
The ending is very good and I guess you can add this to films like Summer of 42 and oh, that one with Timothy Bottoms and Cybill Shepherd, name escapes me now.
It would also be an interesting companion piece with the Brit's That'll Be The Day starring David Essex, Ringo Starr, Robert Lindsay, Billy Fury and Keith Moon, filmed around the same time. That film really is bleak however and not idealised at all. It's the opposite in fact - promising teen drops out of school to ride the dodgems and shag around quite callously; otherwise it's all boarding houses and empty coastal towns out of season, parental disappointment etc. That film had an unloved sequel, Stardust, as did A Graffiti.
One problem with American Graffiti is that modern versions I've seen, inc the DVD, have the dialogue a bit too hard to hear, a shame when the writing is very good.
Documentary of Amy Winehouse by the guy who did Senna.
You'll see how she could have been saved but really didn't have a chance once it all got going.
The lyrics to her songs float up on the screen as she sings, and they do enhance one's appreciation of them.
She attracted her share of hangers-on - in fact, there is hardly anyone who doesn't seem to fit that category, hardly anyone who appears who is a high calibre human being. Her school friends do pop up as a sort of Greek chorus but they are largely powerless to avert events.
Watching it, you'll want to step in and save her yourself but who are you exactly? There's the slight sense that while you could fall in love with her, she could also be a right nasty gobby character and then a shaming sense of sexism comes over as you realise she is 'too clever by half' and maybe riding for a fall - you don't get that sense watching that Lennon documentary do you? That said, Lennon did seem more in control of his own narrative in films like Imagine. He also made it a lot later in life I think he had a few years in the tank over Amy Winehouse by the time he made it, plus of course he was in a gang and shielded.
Winehouse jettisoned any of the benign Epstein figures in her life not that there was anyone really like that for her.
It's shocking to see the paparazzi in action they should face a harassment order. When she did detox of course all the other rooms were booked up by the tabloid press so they could spy on her, it's all rather sickening. Nothing is sacred and all the phones are hacked.
She died not from drugs but alcohol poisoning used as a substitute for drugs.
I love Love is a Losing Game best, of course she would have done a Bond theme but cried off. Can't blame her as QoS was drek really.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
PPK 7.65mmSaratoga Springs NY USAPosts: 1,229MI6 Agent
Rad (1986):
This long out of print sports drama focuses on Christopher "Cru" Jones, a high school senior who is a talented BMX cyclist. When a major competition called Hell Track is set to be held in his small town, he signs up to compete in against the national champion Bart Taylor (played American gymnast Bart Conner ) despite not having much experience in competition. For spoilers sake, I won't go into major details plot wise, but it is a pretty entertaining movie highlighting BMX racing and freestyle trick bicycle riding. Also, for anyone who grew up in the 1980's like me their is plenty of rock music to listen to during the biking scenes. Stuntman turned director Hal Needham directs and the BMX scenes are quite a sight to see, especially considering that this was long before the X Games were around. Overall quite an enjoyable experience.
I've been watching a few Bogart films lately and this was the first time I'd seen this one, although I'm not sure why! Great film. I especially enjoyed the scenes where Frank and Mr Temple played on Rocco's growing fear of the hurricane.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 26,500Chief of Staff
The Silencers (1966)
Dean Martin as Matt Helm...well, might as well be Dean Martin as Dean Martin )
It’s a decent enough kitsch romp and that’s about it...apart from the lovely ladies :x
I've rewatched all four Helm films during lockdown, they're such good fun. Dino is increasingly sozzled as the films progress, but the photography, locations, gadgets, outlandish plots, Dino's wardrobe, jokes about Sinatra and - most of all - the succession of outrageously beautiful actresses keep them appealing.
Crawl (2019). A father and daughter struggle to safety during a hurricane in Florida, where scores of alligators are rampant in the streets. This passes 90 minutes quite nicely with some tense scenes, if you bypass the absurdities it’s enjoyable, lightweight fare. Barry Pepper is his usual reliable self. CGI is decent enough to pass muster. Produced by Sam Raimi of Evil Dead fame.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
One of Hitchcock's more experimental films. Adapted from a stageplay (by Patrick Hamilton, also author of Gaslight, a much better film). The experiment is that it is filmed in all very long unbroken shots, most of them linked by seamless transitions to give the illusion of continuous action. The camera is in constant motion, even moreso than most Hitchcock films.
Now that I know to watch for them, most of the transitions are blatant, as the camera will for no reason pan to the centre of a character's back in shadow, zoom in so all is black, then zoom back out showing the characters in the same position. The only reason why such a camera move might not draw attention to itself is that in this film the camera is always drifting away from the characters speaking, to focus on certain objects or down an empty hallway .
You know some here complain about the opening of SPECTRE, saying the takes weren't that long and the transitions weren't really needed etc. But the transitions in SPECTRE are a lot harder to spot than what Hitchcock was doing here, so let's give Mendes a little credit.
Plot is about two young men who have strangled their friend just before the film begins, and concealed his body in a chest. They invite the dead friends' family over for dinner, served buffet-style on top of the chest, and also invite Jimmy Stewart, their old housemaster from Prep School. Stewart used to discuss Neitzsche with them when they were all lads, so they believe he would have approved of their rise above Good and Evil.
More interesting than the plot and dialog is that the two murderers are clearly a gay couple, at the height of the Hayes Code living together in a fabulous Manhattan penthouse, and the dominant one, who has bullied his partner into committing this murder, seems to have a mancrush on his old mentor Stewart.
Farley Granger is the reluctant murderer, and he would find himself in a similar position three years later in the much superior Strangers on a Train.
Not only are the two murderers homosexuals, if I remember correctly Hitchcock and Stewart were about the only straight persons involved in the production )
I actually watched this film a few days ago but have had to wait a few days to post about it so I could compose myself.
CATS
I had read the reviews but thought 'how bad can it be?' I know the stage show. I know the soundtrack. I know what the story is supposed to be.
Well, it was a load of cr@p. They have killed it. They managed to make the songs very boring. The've messed about with the story and the hardest thing to get my head around was the 'cats' are too small for their surroundings. They have the proportions all wrong.
Jennifer Hudson absolutely murders 'Memory' and I can't even begin to mention Rebel Wilson's performance.
Don't bother ... even if you're very, very bored. Read a book instead.
if I've got the title right. I expected Rosamund Pike to show up in this but she was in the first one. Now, this has an apt title as that first film seems to be never shown on TV, whereas this one is on all the time. What gives?
It's a B-movie. Enjoyable, but is more of a B movie as it goes on.
B-movies used to have a potentially darker side, like a pop band's B-sides it might offer a chance to go off piste, less mainstream, less commercial and more exciting. But they can also be a retirement village for fading A listers such as Arnie and so on. It's like watching McEnroe take on Borg in a match at at the Albert Hall.
It's the usual 39 Steps man on the run thing, this time Reacher is helping some Army major whose being set up, then someone who appears to be his daughter is involved - daft thing to do for an action hero, imagine! - but it avoids the whole man who works alone ethos. That said, Cruise is an actor who always needs others around to bounce off so he's not well cast for this really along for all the other well-documented reasons. He does try to squint a bit and gurn like Clint Eastwood as the film goes on.
We get Army allies who turn brusque and say 'Stand down, Major!' near the beginning but later obligingly let the accused make their case for their innocence rather than shooting them on sight when the plot demands.
Mobile phones are a bugbear for this, they have to be bought and discarded etc.
It's a wholly generic piece but I did enjoy it - just felt a bit sullied later!
You'd feel cheated forking out a packet at the cinema for this.
I was in the mood for some light relief. And this provided it. Flint getting locked in the safe and the villains hooking it to a van and driving off with it was brilliant. I preferred it to the Matt Helm films although they do have funny parts in them. I find Helm a bit too sleazy.
I saw a bit of War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise (he got bored and walked out, he's seen it before ha ha).
Anyway, good sci-fi effects but it doesn't quite work to have Cruise as a dowdy unidealistic everyman, he's playing against type. As I stated before, he needs people to bounce off and go 'C'mon guys!' to be a star, it's been the case since Risky Business.
Not saying his acting is bad or he's bad to watch.
But there doesn't seem to be much going on here - it's just, let's pile on different set pieces and make them far out and scary! Okay I guess. Some of it that which does impress is a bit sadistic - a trait Spielberg sometimes has. Shots of cars plummeting under the water from falling off a ferry - underwater we see the passengers trapped, against the windscreens. Impressive, just a bit tasteless in this context. It's a disaster film where nobody seems to really care about anyone - Cruise is protecting his family but he doesn't seem too connected, it's no Poiseidon Adventure.
A scene where Cruise's car is overrun by crowds and he wards them off with a single handgun and punches is a bit risible. That said, there are nice things in this film - the shot of the speeding freight train in the night that turns out to be totally ablaze and unstoppable.
I had never seen this film before so had no idea what to expect. I liked the first half better than the last half. I was expecting Luke to overcome in some way, to somehow beat or change the system (the optimistic side of me). It was hard to watch the brutality of the guards especially with the brutality of some cops being highlighted in the real world right now. And all over a few parking meters.
I can’t stand egg yolk so was glad they only showed whole eggs. But seeing him eating them, still made me feel slightly ill. Part way through that scene I must have rewritten the script in my head because I thought it was 100 eggs he had to eat! Such a relief to know I’d got it wrong!
I had never seen this film before so had no idea what to expect. I liked the first half better than the last half. I was expecting Luke to overcome in some way, to somehow beat or change the system (the optimistic side of me). It was hard to watch the brutality of the guards especially with the brutality of some cops being highlighted in the real world right now. And all over a few parking meters.
I can’t stand egg yolk so was glad they only showed whole eggs. But seeing him eating them, still made me feel slightly ill. Part way through that scene I must have rewritten the script in my head because I thought it was 100 eggs he had to eat! Such a relief to know I’d got it wrong!
This movie is in my top 10 list. I first saw this in the cinema upon release when I was 11 and it made a big impression on me. Lucas Jackson is one of cinema’s great characters. Along with the James Bond craze, Paul Newman OWNED the 60’s cinema with his performances in The Hustler, Sweet Bird Of Youth, Hud, The Moving Target (Harper) and Butch Cassidy.
Cool Hand Luke is full of iconic scenes and imagery and it also led to my lifelong love of poker )
If you haven’t seen it, do so, it is lamentable that Newman didn’t get the best actor Oscar for this movie. Steiger got it for In The Heat Of The Night, another great movie, but Newman’s performance was in another stratosphere.
I guess everyone can tell that I love this movie
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I agree on everything apart from one short shot where the action gets over the top and cartoony. Hawkeye fires two muskets at the same time, something that doesn't fit the style of the rest of the movie. Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful movie.
Comments
I really like this film.
I'm not into slasher type horror films but I do enjoy a good ghost story that is a bit creepy and eerie. This fits the bill.
Daniel Radcliffe is very good and Ciaran Hinds is always good value.
The Day of the Jackal
Always excellent though its excellence points out a couple of snags. Caine wanted to play the Jackal, but got knocked back because he was distinctive and famous, which wouldn't fit the anonymous assassin. That said, it's not like Edward Fox just blends into the crowd.
Moore was also in the frame but got knocked back for the same reason, he got to face off against Michel Lonsdale in Moonraker of course, and the same guy did the cinematography here, it's a treat.
The Liberation Day realisation is a bit daft, you think they'd have figured that one before.
Lovely shots of France and indeed Paris. And a fine supporting cast.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
This Errol Flynn starrer is a proper pirate film where some men even have wooden pegs instead of a leg! Errol Flynn plays doctor Peter Blood who gets sent as a slave to the West Indies for giving medical services to the rebels after a battle. Things develop from there.
The pirates are very jolly, and most of all Flynn. He is also the only pirate with a shaving kit and he spends a lot of time standing heroically and pointing, often with a rapier. But he's athletic and has charm. The action and special effects are good for such an old film and can compete with much newer films. We only get one proper fencing duel, but it's a good one.
You'd never guess the leading lady is still with us, but Olivia de Haviland is 103 years old and living in Paris. The dynamic between her character and Blood is more interesting than we usually get. Back in the day (before Doctor No?) they didn't have straight action films. Instead they had war movies, Westerns, pirate movies and other genre movies. It can be said "Captain Blood" is a major pre-war action fim, and good one.
IMDB says one of Errol Flynn's early jobs was "slave recruiter". First of all that's ironic because of the clear antislavery stance of "Captain Blood". Second: How do you recruit people to be slaves?
Raquel Welch was apparently signed up to play Domino in TB but was released by Harry Saltzman as a favour to producer Saul David.
Well worth watching.
An American nuclear scientist (Gary Cooper) is sent to Europe by the OSS to find out how far along the Germans are in developing a nuclear bomb. I found it dragged a bit in the middle but it does have a certain amount of suspense and a couple of good fight scenes worthy of Bond. There are scenes near the end in a house that reminded me of scenes in the Skyfall house. I really liked the music too and I don’t very often notice the music in films!
It sounds like the plot is based on one of missions of OSS agent Moe Berg.
My first proper foray into the Marvel world and very enjoyable it was too.
What I always find disconcerting is there is an actor in it called Bobby Cannavale as the nice but dim step Dad. The last time I saw him was in Boardwalk Empire and he was running down a hotel corridor blood soaked and naked after being shot at whilst having asphyxiation sex .... acting is a funny old game
I finally took the time to watch this classic. James Stewart plays elwood, a mild-mannered man whos best friend is Harvey who is a 6' 3'' rabbit no-one else can see. This is a comedy, a good one, but there is a serious undertone. The main character is after alla mentally ill man. James Stewart delivers perhaps his perhaps best role in an unusual film. I'm very glad I watched this one.
Lockdown viewing of this 1930s film which would be a classic but like many others, is simply never shown on TV these days for reasons I simply can't fathom.
It's a highly fictionalised account of the banking giant and the role it played in Nelson's naval victories. It stars Tyrone Power in maybe his first role, the star is really child actor Freddie Bartholomew who like Shirley Temple was massive in the 30s and like Temple, you never see his films on telly today. Captains Courageous is another Bartholomew classic never shown on telly (in that one he takes top billing over Spencer Tracy).
It's a nicely told yarn (Power plays the Bartholomew character grown up and very convincingly too) with Madelaine Caroll as the love interest (she's from Hitch's The 39 Steps.)
Bit dismaying to reach the end of the film and find on the news that there's talk of taking down Nelson's Column because of his colonial associations, when his main achievement lay in repelling Napoleon.
Perhaps they should put Napoleon ;% on the plinth instead!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
{[] Definitely Spielberg’s best movie, and my 2nd favourite movie of all time.
Another nostalgic choker. It's a highly idealised account of an all-nighter pulled by teens in small-town America on the final night of high school, for reasons we pass over the kids who graduate to college (only two it seems) are due to leave the following morning rather than, say, in the Fall. Is this how it's done in America?
Now this is a lovely film so you don't want to over scrutinise it; it's unlikely all these events could occur in one night but to be fair, nostalgia tends to condense things in the memory.
Watching it older now, it's the idea that you've made it if you go to college and otherwise get left behind that jars even if it's true in some ways, and how odd it is that this issue is never really much addressed in movie fiction. I think Starter for 10, the Britcom, does address this but that's all.
Harrison Ford is in this, and of course he'd later be Hans Solo in Star Wars, also by George Lucas, and Indiana Jones, also by George Lucas. Would he even be a star without Lucas, and let's not forget that Coppola produced this, and also put Ford in Apocalypse Now. See Ford in other clunkers like Hanover Street and you doubt it.
Of course, as Indy in Crystal Skulls, it was set roughly the same time as American Graffiti, which seems at the fag end of rock n roll and pre-Beatles so maybe 62 - is it specified? In Skulls, Indy is annoyed at the idea his son didn't graduate so it follows on. Richard Dreyfuss had a 2-sec role in The Graduate of course.
You know you're middle-aged when you feel a bit sorry for the adults that Dreyfuss's teen rips off albeit under duress of the local hooligans. I mean, the cops weren't doing much wrong were they, just sitting in their patrol car. It's not like they were out and about killing black people. Then again why would they - there's one sole black face in the film, seen at the local Hop.
It's a whitewashed account of US history but so was Stand by Me and a load of stuff.
There's a Wizard of Oz feel to Dreyfuss' journey over the course of the night (there could be a good blog or podcast about films that pull an all-nighter). Certainly the motto there's no place like home seems to apply whatever the outcome.
The ending is very good and I guess you can add this to films like Summer of 42 and oh, that one with Timothy Bottoms and Cybill Shepherd, name escapes me now.
It would also be an interesting companion piece with the Brit's That'll Be The Day starring David Essex, Ringo Starr, Robert Lindsay, Billy Fury and Keith Moon, filmed around the same time. That film really is bleak however and not idealised at all. It's the opposite in fact - promising teen drops out of school to ride the dodgems and shag around quite callously; otherwise it's all boarding houses and empty coastal towns out of season, parental disappointment etc. That film had an unloved sequel, Stardust, as did A Graffiti.
One problem with American Graffiti is that modern versions I've seen, inc the DVD, have the dialogue a bit too hard to hear, a shame when the writing is very good.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Documentary of Amy Winehouse by the guy who did Senna.
You'll see how she could have been saved but really didn't have a chance once it all got going.
The lyrics to her songs float up on the screen as she sings, and they do enhance one's appreciation of them.
She attracted her share of hangers-on - in fact, there is hardly anyone who doesn't seem to fit that category, hardly anyone who appears who is a high calibre human being. Her school friends do pop up as a sort of Greek chorus but they are largely powerless to avert events.
Watching it, you'll want to step in and save her yourself but who are you exactly? There's the slight sense that while you could fall in love with her, she could also be a right nasty gobby character and then a shaming sense of sexism comes over as you realise she is 'too clever by half' and maybe riding for a fall - you don't get that sense watching that Lennon documentary do you? That said, Lennon did seem more in control of his own narrative in films like Imagine. He also made it a lot later in life I think he had a few years in the tank over Amy Winehouse by the time he made it, plus of course he was in a gang and shielded.
Winehouse jettisoned any of the benign Epstein figures in her life not that there was anyone really like that for her.
It's shocking to see the paparazzi in action they should face a harassment order. When she did detox of course all the other rooms were booked up by the tabloid press so they could spy on her, it's all rather sickening. Nothing is sacred and all the phones are hacked.
She died not from drugs but alcohol poisoning used as a substitute for drugs.
I love Love is a Losing Game best, of course she would have done a Bond theme but cried off. Can't blame her as QoS was drek really.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
This long out of print sports drama focuses on Christopher "Cru" Jones, a high school senior who is a talented BMX cyclist. When a major competition called Hell Track is set to be held in his small town, he signs up to compete in against the national champion Bart Taylor (played American gymnast Bart Conner ) despite not having much experience in competition. For spoilers sake, I won't go into major details plot wise, but it is a pretty entertaining movie highlighting BMX racing and freestyle trick bicycle riding. Also, for anyone who grew up in the 1980's like me their is plenty of rock music to listen to during the biking scenes. Stuntman turned director Hal Needham directs and the BMX scenes are quite a sight to see, especially considering that this was long before the X Games were around. Overall quite an enjoyable experience.
I've been watching a few Bogart films lately and this was the first time I'd seen this one, although I'm not sure why! Great film. I especially enjoyed the scenes where Frank and Mr Temple played on Rocco's growing fear of the hurricane.
Dean Martin as Matt Helm...well, might as well be Dean Martin as Dean Martin
It’s a decent enough kitsch romp and that’s about it...apart from the lovely ladies :x
I look forward (?) to watching the others -{
Hitchcock, 1948
One of Hitchcock's more experimental films. Adapted from a stageplay (by Patrick Hamilton, also author of Gaslight, a much better film). The experiment is that it is filmed in all very long unbroken shots, most of them linked by seamless transitions to give the illusion of continuous action. The camera is in constant motion, even moreso than most Hitchcock films.
Now that I know to watch for them, most of the transitions are blatant, as the camera will for no reason pan to the centre of a character's back in shadow, zoom in so all is black, then zoom back out showing the characters in the same position. The only reason why such a camera move might not draw attention to itself is that in this film the camera is always drifting away from the characters speaking, to focus on certain objects or down an empty hallway .
You know some here complain about the opening of SPECTRE, saying the takes weren't that long and the transitions weren't really needed etc. But the transitions in SPECTRE are a lot harder to spot than what Hitchcock was doing here, so let's give Mendes a little credit.
Plot is about two young men who have strangled their friend just before the film begins, and concealed his body in a chest. They invite the dead friends' family over for dinner, served buffet-style on top of the chest, and also invite Jimmy Stewart, their old housemaster from Prep School. Stewart used to discuss Neitzsche with them when they were all lads, so they believe he would have approved of their rise above Good and Evil.
More interesting than the plot and dialog is that the two murderers are clearly a gay couple, at the height of the Hayes Code living together in a fabulous Manhattan penthouse, and the dominant one, who has bullied his partner into committing this murder, seems to have a mancrush on his old mentor Stewart.
Farley Granger is the reluctant murderer, and he would find himself in a similar position three years later in the much superior Strangers on a Train.
CATS
I had read the reviews but thought 'how bad can it be?' I know the stage show. I know the soundtrack. I know what the story is supposed to be.
Well, it was a load of cr@p. They have killed it. They managed to make the songs very boring. The've messed about with the story and the hardest thing to get my head around was the 'cats' are too small for their surroundings. They have the proportions all wrong.
Jennifer Hudson absolutely murders 'Memory' and I can't even begin to mention Rebel Wilson's performance.
Don't bother ... even if you're very, very bored. Read a book instead.
if I've got the title right. I expected Rosamund Pike to show up in this but she was in the first one. Now, this has an apt title as that first film seems to be never shown on TV, whereas this one is on all the time. What gives?
It's a B-movie. Enjoyable, but is more of a B movie as it goes on.
B-movies used to have a potentially darker side, like a pop band's B-sides it might offer a chance to go off piste, less mainstream, less commercial and more exciting. But they can also be a retirement village for fading A listers such as Arnie and so on. It's like watching McEnroe take on Borg in a match at at the Albert Hall.
It's the usual 39 Steps man on the run thing, this time Reacher is helping some Army major whose being set up, then someone who appears to be his daughter is involved - daft thing to do for an action hero, imagine! - but it avoids the whole man who works alone ethos. That said, Cruise is an actor who always needs others around to bounce off so he's not well cast for this really along for all the other well-documented reasons. He does try to squint a bit and gurn like Clint Eastwood as the film goes on.
We get Army allies who turn brusque and say 'Stand down, Major!' near the beginning but later obligingly let the accused make their case for their innocence rather than shooting them on sight when the plot demands.
Mobile phones are a bugbear for this, they have to be bought and discarded etc.
It's a wholly generic piece but I did enjoy it - just felt a bit sullied later!
You'd feel cheated forking out a packet at the cinema for this.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I was in the mood for some light relief. And this provided it. Flint getting locked in the safe and the villains hooking it to a van and driving off with it was brilliant. I preferred it to the Matt Helm films although they do have funny parts in them. I find Helm a bit too sleazy.
But, each to his own.
I did enjoy Ironhead being picked up by the magnet and like you said very similar to Jaws.
Anyway, good sci-fi effects but it doesn't quite work to have Cruise as a dowdy unidealistic everyman, he's playing against type. As I stated before, he needs people to bounce off and go 'C'mon guys!' to be a star, it's been the case since Risky Business.
Not saying his acting is bad or he's bad to watch.
But there doesn't seem to be much going on here - it's just, let's pile on different set pieces and make them far out and scary! Okay I guess. Some of it that which does impress is a bit sadistic - a trait Spielberg sometimes has. Shots of cars plummeting under the water from falling off a ferry - underwater we see the passengers trapped, against the windscreens. Impressive, just a bit tasteless in this context. It's a disaster film where nobody seems to really care about anyone - Cruise is protecting his family but he doesn't seem too connected, it's no Poiseidon Adventure.
A scene where Cruise's car is overrun by crowds and he wards them off with a single handgun and punches is a bit risible. That said, there are nice things in this film - the shot of the speeding freight train in the night that turns out to be totally ablaze and unstoppable.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I had never seen this film before so had no idea what to expect. I liked the first half better than the last half. I was expecting Luke to overcome in some way, to somehow beat or change the system (the optimistic side of me). It was hard to watch the brutality of the guards especially with the brutality of some cops being highlighted in the real world right now. And all over a few parking meters.
I can’t stand egg yolk so was glad they only showed whole eggs. But seeing him eating them, still made me feel slightly ill. Part way through that scene I must have rewritten the script in my head because I thought it was 100 eggs he had to eat! Such a relief to know I’d got it wrong!
Jake the Snake is a CHL fan , never seen it myself
Gonna watch Kellys Heroes for the 50 anniversary , Oddball rules {[]
This movie is in my top 10 list. I first saw this in the cinema upon release when I was 11 and it made a big impression on me. Lucas Jackson is one of cinema’s great characters. Along with the James Bond craze, Paul Newman OWNED the 60’s cinema with his performances in The Hustler, Sweet Bird Of Youth, Hud, The Moving Target (Harper) and Butch Cassidy.
Cool Hand Luke is full of iconic scenes and imagery and it also led to my lifelong love of poker
If you haven’t seen it, do so, it is lamentable that Newman didn’t get the best actor Oscar for this movie. Steiger got it for In The Heat Of The Night, another great movie, but Newman’s performance was in another stratosphere.
I guess everyone can tell that I love this movie