Iron Man

Well, the first summer blockbuster is here. I’m still not entirely sure why I went to see this, I love my superheroes as much as the next geek (excited yet?) but ‘Iron Man‘ didn’t really appeal to me, he’s not a character I particularly care for and Downey struck me as seriously miscast as, well, he ain’t exactly heroic is he? Still, I’ve been indulging in some serious and quite ponderous films recently so a couple of hours of fast paced American nonsense with fighting and explosions seemed apt to celebtrate some particularly good news - more on that later in the week.

   

Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark, genius inventor and playboy billionaire CEO of Stark Industries, the most advanced and profitable weapons company in the world. Following a presentation to the military in Afghanistan, jihadists ambush Starks convoy and he is critically wounded with a blizzard of shrapnel to the chest. After being saved by a medical inventor also in the clutches of the terrorists Stark awakes to find his heart is powered by a unique electromagnetic power source - should it ever run out of power he will die. Forced at gunpoint to build his weapons for the terrorists nefarious ends, Stark instead turns his intellect to the creation of a new model of battle armour, a design that should expedite his escape whilst incorporating his new cyborg organ and ensure his weapons are never used against his countrymen again…

 

It’s popcorn fluff and if that’s all you want then it delivers. Contrary to my expectations Downey actually pulls off the superhero persona and throws in a few laughs for good measure. Gwyneth Paltrow has always elicited a dismissive shrug from me but for the very first time in my experience she actually looks pretty damn hot but the real stand out co-star is good old Jeff Bridges as the unusually monikered Obiadiah Stane (spoilers if you haven’t read the comic), with his amusing beard/baldy interface. Director Jon Favreau was being a bit optimistic when he stated that he was aiming for a similar origin story to ‘Batman Begins’ as it is not in the same league, the whole ‘reap what you sow’ US foreign policy subtext is paper thin and the usual evil Islamic terrorist bad guys are tiresome, even if they are ultimately at the behest of another puppet master closer to Starks’ home. Still, it has a couple of nice set-pieces and impressive effects which keeps you reasonably entertained for a couple of hours if you let it wash over you. Look our for a post credit coda with an unexpected cameo from a certain eyepatch sporting super-agent - it looks like we may have another Marvel Comics team superhero franchise on our hands…

Just a quickie - Remember when I mentioned the ‘Withnail & I’ screening at the South Bank and Radio documentary interviews that were recorded after? Well, its finally been broadcast and you can catch it again here.

Happy-Go-Lucky & In Bruges

I have to say its been an increasingly difficult task to actually identify any movies which seem to be worth a couple of hours and ten quid of my time. We’re on the cusp of summer what with ‘Iron Man‘ being released on Friday and ‘Indiana Jones‘ is now just round the corner but I felt I had to make an effort last weekend and give some films I’m not terribly interested in a whirl if only to maintain the cinema visit quota.

 

I quite like Mike Leigh so it’s a shame to report that his latest film ‘Happy-Go-Lucky‘ is a disappointment. The film is the story of Poppy, a 30 year old London based primary school teacher who seems cursed with a cheerful disposition and cheery outlook on life. When her bike is stolen she shrugs it off as ‘that’s life’, she talks to anyone and everyone who crosses her path to encourage a smile and a joke, she’s one of those people who would verbally chastise you that ‘It takes more energy to frown than to smile’ on the crowded 7:48 to Paddington.

Sounds hideous doesn’t she? I was wary of making the effort of seeing this at the cinema as the central character sounded so staggeringly annoying that I wondered if I could manage two hours in her company. She is of course irritating but to be honest I must have been in a rare conciliatory mood as I could stomach her relentless optimism. The film meanders - Poppy begins some flamenco classes and discovers that one of her pupils is being physically abused by his stepfather. This leads her to develop a relationship with the social worker assigned to the case whilst throughout the film she is taking driving lessons with the surly Scott, a serious minded driving instructor.

The main flaw is the usual climax that a Leigh film reaches – after the slightly hyper and mannered approach of Poppy and company in the previous two hours the film suddenly switches to absolute realism as she finally understands the attitude and actions of Scott in a shocking penultimate scene. Scott is a diluted version of violent conspiracy theorist Jonny in Leigh’s best film ‘Naked’ (which criminally is still not available on DVD) and his final revelation and outburst is quite unaffecting after his previous ramblings on how the ‘world actually works’, its ‘pyramids and elites’ and his thinly concealed racism and seething anger. At two hours it’s also much to long to arrive at its shrug inducing finale, although it does have a couple of good gags.

 

‘In Bruges‘ however was a much more rewarding experience. The film is a bit of a sleeper critical hit, some reviews have been very positive but the marketing for the film seems to have been very low key and I think I can see why – although exceptionally funny it is also a very dark story on the nature of guilt and retribution framed on the fate of two bumbling Irish assassins (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleason) who flee Dublin to Bruges after a hit goes spectacularly wrong. As they await instructions from their criminal masters both slowly warm to the medieval city, meeting members of a local film crew including a drug dealing production assistant and prostitute addicted dwarf - conventional this is not. Ralph Fiennes makes quite an impression toward the end of the film as the psychotic east end crime boss Harry which he plays in a manner more akin to Kingsley in ‘Sexy Beast’ than Hoskins in ‘The Long Good Friday’. There is some spectacular swearing and very funny gags all complemented by a particularly oirish sensibility which a half-mick like me appreciated. Worth a spin.

Finally some terrific news – Del Toro has been officially announced as the director of the Hobbit movies, I can’t think of a more able and appropriate director. From the sounds of things he is anxious to retain as much of the original creative crew as possible which is very encouraging and I like some of the other intimations he makes in that interview. Given that McKellen and Serkis are back as Gandalf and Gollum respectively I think the only other concern is who will play Bilbo? Roll on 2010…

Flotsam & Jetsam XV

  

Been quiet for a while hasn’t it? I haven’t had much to blog about as I actually haven’t seen anything on the big screen, it seems that the usual glut of good films that grace cinemas in Q1 of the year has dried up and we are in the barren no-mans land until the summer blockbusters are unleashed. God help us all. I’ve also been busy trying to sort out a new flat which has gone less than smoothly, more on that little adventure later. Nevertheless dear reader I have picked up some interesting little sites and links for your perusal…

Intriguing little project here, an analysis of the opening shots of a number of movies with some thoughtful comments from bloggers such as yours truly. The quiz is pretty tricky, I got 7 from that one and a much better 8/10 out of the easier quiz. Couldn’t get either of the bonus shots, they were a nightmare. You? On the other side of the spectrum, here is a project for only the bravest of film fans.

I’ve been getting into a great podcast called the ‘Hollywood Saloon’ which you can access here. It’s run by a couple of guys who really know their stuff as a couple of LA based film makers and editors themselves who riff on a variety of topics from DVD rip-offs and formant wars, director’s cut special editions, three hour masterclasses concentrating on one director or series of films, a discussion of the best car chases - loads of stuff. The shows themselves are not just two talking heads which even for me can swiftly turn incredibly dull but they’ll employ the soundtrack or musical score to the films they are talking about running under the commentary and discussion punctuated with film clips or interview excerpts which gives the series a much more polished, professional radio transmission quality. Highly recommended.

So, I finally caught up with ‘The Wire’ and finished off Season 4 – don’t worry I’ve kept this all spoiler free as any bitch who spiked this play would be gone fr’ real. I’ve been thinking about it and have concluded that this show is probably the best American TV show ever made, quite how it gets better and better with each Season is just astounding. For me it kind of flatlined in Season 2 but was and is still light years ahead of its HBO peers, ‘The Sopranos’ or ‘Deadwood’ narrowly excluded. Season 4 focuses on the schools of Baltimore and the experiences of four young kids as they progress through the system each to a quite different conclusion and period in their lives - if this season had a motto it would be ‘Kids will learn - its a question of where’. The unobstructed realism culled from the show’s primary creative team being a retired Baltimore cop and journalist, both residents of the city for over thirty years I think is what really elevates this programme amongst its peers. There are zero concessions to melodramatics and cliche, the reality of the show and its characters (naturally based on amalgamations of real people, from street dealer all the way up to the major) lead logically to conclusions and fates where even the most beloved of characters are in peril as events in Season 3 amply proved.

   

They manage to keep close to a dozen story arcs in the air simultaneously, intertwining and meshing them together to deliver a stunning critique of the current status quo in the America. Absolute, first class entertainment and I cannot fucking wait for the fifth and final season that recently aired in the states which I understand focuses on the role of the media and press in the whole sick system. For the record my favourite characters is probably Omar. Oh, and Cutty is pretty cool. But then again I can’t exclude Bodie can I? . Or indeed Bubbles or of course Bunk. Well, and then of course there’s McNulty. It would be a crime (ho, ho) to omit the chilling Avon Barksdale of course. Or Stringer. Yup, the show is densely populated with well realised, amazing and engaging characters. I might just have to resurrect my on line download procedures as I don’t think I can’t wait until Season 5 gets a DVD release….

EDIT - Fantastic timing, I’ve just had the NFT schedule for June come through and it looks like they’re premiering the first episode of Season 5 followed with an interview and Q&A with creator David Simon. There’s a man I would genuinely like to shake the hand off and thank for so many hours of sheer entertainment.

   

For this miscellaneous post here are some film clips based around moving home and getting a new place. Why? Well, life moves on dear reader and after almost five years in Richmond I am attempting to secure a new place by Canary Wharf with a move in date of early next month. If I manage to pull this off it will be quite a coup as I’ll be living within ten minutes of the Wharf itself which has all the amenities I need (Waitrose, HMV, Game, dozens of clothes shops, bars and restaurants, book shops) and I’ll have the West India Key Cineplex on my back door - literally. Tower Hamlets have just extended my contract which means I’ll be able to walk to the office which any Londoner will tell you is a commute that’s rarer than rocking horse shit. Oh, and City Airport is about twenty minutes away for any weekend breaks I fancy taking and my beloved BFI twenty minutes away on the Jubilee line. This is all contingent on my new nemesis, my kryptonite if you will - Estate Agents. Up until now I thought that recruitment consultants were pretty much the most loathsome and dishonest excuses for humanity I’ve had the misfortune to liaise with but these abhorent, decitful, avaricious fucks really are something else. There is a very special layer in hell, a place where the arch prince of lies Asmodeus himself weeps at the monstrously cruel tortures inflicted upon these fuckers in my fevered imagination. Watch this space and wish me luck.

Speed The Plow, Old Vic

 

In my eight years in London I’ve been to the theatre three times. Yes, that’s three times. Horrific isn’t it? You’d think that given my love of cinema that I would also gravitate to the theatre given the obvious similarities and I usually enjoy the rare visits I do make, it’s just that I have absolutely zero interest in seeing a bloody musical about Abba or Queen and ‘The Lion King’ can fuck right off. It’s also difficult to get someone to go with you, I am more than comfortable in seeing a film on my own but going to a play alone just doesn’t feel right. Shame really, given that we have the best theatre facilities on the planet (with the possible exception of New York of course) I should really make more of an effort. Anyway, enough of this rambling nonsense, last night I had the pleasure of seeing Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Spacy at the Old Vic theatre in ‘Speed The Plow‘, a play by the great David Mamet.

It’s a three hander revolving around two Hollywood executives Bobby Gould (Goldblum), Charlie Fox (Spacey) and Bobby’s secretary Karen (Laura Michelle Kelly). As the play opens Fox has just secured a massive new project, a guaranteed box office smash that is destined to make him and his friend fantastically wealthy. Karen intercedes and seduces Bobby, persuading him to make a different, more ‘worthy’ art film with her as executive producer and to dismiss the shallow, vapid projects that tinseltown churn out. The next day when Bobby confesses his U-turn to Fox a verbal battle ensues, exposing the vipers nest of Hollywood and lengths that everyone will go to in order to achieve money, prestige, fame and power.

Well, lets face it - this would have to a fuck up of spectacular proportions for me not to like this what with two exceptional actors, David Mamet’s machine-gun dialogue and a Hollywood setting - it’s practically designed for Minty. I know absolutely nothing about theatre so I won’t brave any sort of analysis other than to say it is a quite effective critique of Hollywood and the prevailing impulse of commerce triumphing over art. The dialogue is first class clever, brutal Mamet (We’re gonna be so rich, we’re going to have to hire someone just to figure out the things we want to buy’,  ’Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it’s full of surprises, and you’re constantly getting fucked’ and ‘everything’s temporary….until it isn’t') which was delivered with consummate skill by Goldblum and Spacey. Overall it was just so laugh out loud funny which I hadn’t expected, it was more like a straight out comedy than some sort of searing examination of masculinity and the male psyche that you’d expect from Mamet.

I’ve been a fan of David Mamet’s movies and screenplays for years. ‘House of Games‘ is a seminal 80’s film, ‘Glengarry Glen Ross‘ a terrific drama and one of the best play to film adaptations I’ve ever seen, ’Spartan‘ is a much underrated low-key action movie from a few years ago and ‘The Spanish Prisoner‘ is a great con artist movie. Mamet’s trademark dialogue and his labyrinthian plots with their many twists and deceptions really appeal to me, as does the frequent examination of business and commerce and the games and competition they engender in the human animal.

Finally, no - before you ask I haven’t the fainest idea what the title means either.

Flotsam & Jestsam XIV

 

After getting the lovely new Kubrick box set with all the lovely new documentaries and commentaries, I stumbled across this entertaining film discussion programme from I’m guessing 1971, the year that ‘A Clockwork Orange’ was released. Watching Anthony Burgess and Malcolm McDowell smoke like troopers is quite amusing, as is the host William Everson’s observation that the soundtrack and nadsat language (which for some elusive reason makes me think about lolcats language now) give the film a timeless quality which will ‘make it stand up to viewings in say, the year 2000.’ 2000 was the year that the film was re-released in the UK, oooooh, spooky eh? No, er, well OK, moving on…

EDIT - Looks like I missed a trick here, this week was the 40th anniversary of the release of 2001 and here is a nice link to all sorts of stuff about it. Enjoy.

I’ve caught a few of the old Marx Brothers movies recently, the less famous ones such as ‘Horse Feathers’ as opposed to ’A Day at the Races’ or ‘A Night At The Opera’ which I all caught years ago. My favourite repeated sequence that they included in most of their films were the brief musical interludes, specifically Chico playing the piano which never fails to delight, as well as Groucho’s wisecracks of course.

Lying in bed, plagued by my perennial insomnia recently my mind turned to inappropriate film double bills, prompted by a recent discussion on the Mark Kermode Radio 5 film podcast and a conversation I had with my brother’s girlfriend. She explained that when she was a teenager and had sleepovers with her friends, one of the rules was that you had to watch a ‘girly’ film and a ’scary’ film. ’Ah, you mean like ‘Dirty Dancing‘ and ‘Make Them Die Slowly?’ I enquired. Or ‘Ghost‘ and ‘SS Experimentation Camp‘? my brother chipped in. London cinema legend ‘The Scala‘ apparently used to host amusing double bills for the pleasure of the dubious patrons and residents of Kings Cross so I thought what would I suggest curating were I in the enviable position of managing my own independent and financially secure cinema. So here goes:

‘Mask‘ & ‘The Mask‘

‘Airplane‘ & ‘United 93‘

‘Notting Hill‘ & ‘Nil By Mouth‘

‘The Brood‘ & ‘Juno‘

‘Schindlers List‘ & ‘Life is Beautiful‘

‘Trainspotting‘ & ‘The Railway Children‘

‘Toy Story‘ & ‘Child’s Play‘ (thanks to our Leeds correpondent for that gem)

Can you think of any more?

  

Well, good question - what did happen to John Hughes? Anyone growing up in the eighties loves at least one of his teenage epics. I will always remember one Christmas at school when our entire year was filed into the Assembly Hall and shown ‘Ferris Buller’s Day Off’ which on reflection is a ridiculous thing to do - hey, let’s show kids how cool it is to ditch school and skive off? I reckon it was a way to get all the kids together whilst the teachers had their own Christmas ‘party’ in the staff room whilst a couple of teachers who took the short straw had to chaperone us. I’m sure Mr. Bardrick was uncharacteristically friendly when he passed me at the school gates later on and he was weaving from side to side on the pavement - strange…..

One of my all time favourite film makers is the great John Carpenter. He is probably more responsible for my love of cinema than anyone else (Kubrick included) as I’m sure he was the first director I actually recognised as having a identifiable style which lead to me actively seek out his other films.  I think the first video I ever bought was either ‘Escape from New York’ (check out the deleted opening sequence here) or ‘The Fog‘ (Spoliers) and I recall very clearly the very first DVD I got - ‘The Thing‘ (Spoliers again) which had that most remarkable of things, a directors commentary. It’s a shame he quite honestly lost the plot after ‘They Live‘ although I can actually see qualities I like in ‘In The Mouth of Madness‘ and at the very strong risk to any credability I may have acquired over the past 18 months, ‘Escape from LA‘. I did have a reason to bang on about Carpenter but you know what - I’m fucked if I can remember what is was. Oh well, sweet dreams….

The Orphanage

 

I slept with all the lights on last night. The Spanish language fantasy renaissance continues with ‘El Orfanato‘, the debut of director Juan Antonio Bayona who under the tutelage and support of Guillermo Del Toro has crafted a superbly terrifying movie with a number of twists, chills and thrills.

Our heroine is Laura who with her doctor husband Carlos and adopted eight year old son return to take over the dilapidated orphanage she grew up in some thirty years ago. Simón is unaware that Laura is not his real mother and has a number of imaginary friends that he talks to whose numbers swell once he is ensconced in the orphanage with his family. Of course, they are imaginary aren’t they? After a visit from a mysterious social worker enquiring into Laura’s motivation in restoring and reopening the orphanage, Simón goes missing and events start to turn spooky…

After a somewhat uneven first half hour or so the film beds down and slowly unfurls its story, history and plot revealed layer by layer compounded with a series of very effective supernatural scenes. As always with these films there is a certain suspension of disbelief - I’m sorry but after the first ’spooky’ incident I would exit the premises at Mach Three never to return – but this is pulled off by the film being just so goddamn creepy and atmospheric. There are quite a few big fucking jumps and one sequence toward the end which is absolutely outstanding in its building of tension and a sense of the uncanny. You’ve got to love seeing properly constructed scary movies like this at the cinema where the tension in the whole audience is palpable as characters tentatively wander down dimly lit corridors and then BANG everyone jumps out of their seats, popcorn flying as a loud crash reverberates around the auditorium. Heh, I love it….

I shouldn’t neglect to mention Geraldine Chaplin (yes, the daughter of Charlie) who gives a short but effective performance as a medium who at Laura’s request visits the site and in a  trance reveals some of the terrible history of the institution. This is a new starring member of the genuinely scary, genuinely frightening film brotherhood, films with very little violence or gore which is an approach which always was and always will be infinity more effective in manipulating and affecting an audience. It nestles up with Robert Wise’s ‘The Haunting‘, Jack Clayton’s ‘The Innocents’ (which it shares many, many similarities), ‘The Shining’, and ‘The Others’ to name but a few.

Watch out for the ambulance.

Jimmy Carter, Man from the Plains & NFT Q&A with Jonathan Demme

 

So, my first NFT Q&A of 2008. This was a last minute addition to the programme, flagged by the NFT’s new improved e-mail notification tool. I’ve even taken the time to fill in their on-line market research study ’cause they have some nifty prizes up for grabs such as NFT DVD’s, not to mention an all expenses VIP trip to LA for some film festival.

Jonathan Demme will no doubt go down in film history as the director of ‘The Silence of the Lambs‘ and guiding Tom Hanks to his first best actor Oscar in ‘Philadelphia’ but film nerds such as yours truly can also admire him for some of his earlier pictures such as the Hitchcock-lite ‘Last Embrace‘ which still turns up occasionally  the late night BBC1 schedules, the seminal live concert film ‘Stop Making Sense’ and this curio with one of my favourite all time actors, Jason Robards.Demme is one of the guys who like Scorsese and Coppola cut his teeth with Roger Corman, earning his stripes on early exploitation pictures before being trusted with slightly larger budgets and more idiosyncratic projects.

The documentary reflects on the life and career of Jimmy Carter, the 39th President of the good ole U S of A. It takes as its starting point a book tour that the 83 year old took in 2005 to promote his book ‘Palestine - Peace not Apartheid‘ which as you can imagine stirred a hornets nest of controversy in the states with charges anti-Semitism and supporting of Arabic terrorism being levelled at Carter because you know, if you so much as criticise Israel then the logical conclusion is that you’re an anti-Semite. Fucking ridiculous. On the other hand when appearing on Al-Jazeera he blasts the Palestinians for all acts of violence, in particular the cult of martyrdom that coalesces around suicide bombers.

I quite enjoyed the documentary – it’s a bit too long at two hours but is genuinely inspiring to see an American statesman using his prestige and influence to actually effect positive change, be it humanitarian efforts in Africa or building shelters in post Katrina New Orleans. There is one sequence which I think defines exactly who Carter is - some redneck look calls in to a Radio debate that Carter is involved in and makes the quite absurd observation that it was Carter’s handling of the Iranian hostage crisis in the late 1970’s that has precipitated the current geo-political situation in the Middle East - being soft and not nuking the area has led to the murderous instability that currently afflicts the area. Carter, calmly and coolly responds by stating ‘Yes I negotiated with Iran. I could have used the most powerful weapons in the world and wiped that part of Iran off the map. But the 52 hostages would have been killed immediately and we would have killed 15,000 to 20,000 innocent Iranians. I got them back, got them all back unharmed and not one Iranian was killed’. Nuff said.

The other moving portion was how Carter brokered the peace between Israel and Egypt in 1978. The talks at Camp David had failed and both delegations were preparing to leave. Carter had his researchers find out the names of Sadat’s and Rabin’s grandchildren and he produced signed photographs of himself with a personal dedication to the grandchildren. That sounds quite clinical but I believe the man when he said it was a genuine, heartfelt gesture not emotional blackmail. After receiving the photos both delegates paused, returned to the table and agreed to the peace accords. I’m a cold hearted cynic at the best of times but that really affected me and the footage of the signing of the treaty is quite remarkable.

It really throws into sharp relief exactly what America can do when it is led by genuine statesmen with the will and passion to direct their influence and power on the world stage. As Demme depressingly said ‘It’s really unimaginable now isn’t it, that my country would do something as ‘bizarre’ as host a summit to progress a peace plan? We seem to have moved much further away from that…’ For me as well as a raging atheist it’s quite challenging to see someone like Carter who is a deeply religious man, someone who uses that faith and belief to drive his actions and directly help others without forcing his own ideology and opinions upon people.

The Q&A wasn’t particularly gripping unfortunately as it centred on Demme’s documentaries and live performance films. Demme was quite engaging, bursting with energy and passion but not a single word was mentioned about his movies more’s the pity. Still, it’s exceptionaly rare that I see a documentary on the big screen so it wasn’t a total waste of time.

Minty’s Monthly Movie Masterclass - Mario Bava

 

Given recent releases and the fun I’ve had with research in the more gruesome catacombs of the internet I thought I’d retain the vague horror thread running through the blog and focus on four movies by the Italian godfather of the macabre, Mario Bava.

OK, full disclosure of something I’m deeply ashamed to admit - <big breath> - I only saw my first Mario Bava film last year. Yes I know, for a self confessed horror film fan this is a glaring omission but I’m sure you can forgive me? I’m not sure why, but I always mentally categorised Bava in the same vein as notorious Italian splatter meister’s such as Lucio Fulci, Lamberto Bava (Bava’s son) and Umberto Lenzi whose films have certain dubious merits but never appealed to me in the same way as American or UK horror films from the 1950’s onward. These Italian efforts always seemed even tackier than some of the Hammer efforts and were usually so inept and amateurishly produced that something like ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ would appear to be a masterpiece of style and subtlety in comparison.

  

I was wrong, I admit it. He’s certainly made enough forgettable exploitation films in many different genres but his fantastical films, his horror and SF genre pieces reveal a talent that is able to transcend the genre and its inherent budgetary limitations in order to produce some memorable and vivid imagery that clearly has gone on to influence the likes of Scorsese and Lynch as well as paving the way for the likes of Dario Argento, Sergio Martino and early Peter Jackson.

  

So, I kicked off with ‘The Mask of Satan‘, also known as ‘Black Sunday’. The plot is nothing new - in the 17th century Princess Asa is declared a Witch and executed in a most gruesome fashion - a spiked mask with the spikes on the inside is nailed to her face. Cursing her killers, Asa swears a terrible retribution and revenge on her killers and their ancestors. 200 years later some doctors, lost in the Prussian wilderness inadvertently stumble across the Asa family tomb and its decaying crypt, fortuitously as the anniversary of her death approaches….

This is a great place to start with Bava with its wonderful baroque atmosphere of cobweb choked castle ruins, mist shrouded graveyards and all the other visual trappings of gothic horror. It was released in 1960 and the Hammer film comparisons are inevitable I guess but I think they complement each other nicely with Bava going for the atmosphere rather than cleavage and vivid stage blood. It’s also notable for being the first major appearance of the great Barbara Steele who became something of a real cult actress in the 1960’s and beyond, with her proto-goth demeanour I’m not surprised.

   

‘Black Sabbath‘ - This film is reminiscent of those old Hammer triumvirate anthologies in which a selection of short tales are strung together with obligatory spooky commentary, in this case from the legendary Boris Karloff who also appears in a couple of the stories.

Films composed of different tales are rarely pulled off I think, for every ‘Dead of Night’ or ‘Tales of Terror’ there are dozens of ‘The House that Dripped Blood’, ‘Asylum’ and its ilk released by the like of Amicus. This has its moments, mostly due to Bava’s colour palette and moody lighting, the second instalment ‘The Wurdulak’ actually has a freaky moment but most memorable is the opening tale ‘The Telephone’ which I suspect Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson ripped off wholesale for the opening movement of the first ‘Scream‘ - in both attractive women are terrorised by a sequence of chilling phone calls which inevitably escalate into murder. Oh and yes, this is the film that Ozzy used as the inspiration for his new satanic metal band, changing their name from the hippyish ‘Earth’.

    

‘The Girl Who Knew Too Much‘ - The first giallo film ever made. Holidaying in Rome, beautiful young Nora Davis is assaulted and begins to see hallucinatory images and events that may or may not be real, and may be related to the gruesome alphabet murders a decade ago. The giallo films, at least the successful ones are clearly hybrids of Hitchcockian suspense, lurid mystery and murder derived plots with a healthy dose of nudity and bloody violence. The usually have a displaced central protagonist, a foreigner abroad (the result of casting US actors in leading roles I suspect for foreign market sales - think John Saxon in this film, David Hemmings in ‘Profondo Rosso‘, Karl Malden in ‘Cat o’ Nine Tails‘ etc), decadent middles class surroundings and deceptive characters who are not what they seem.

This was OK, it’s interesting to see the faltering steps of an influential genre but to be honest giallo movies leave me a little cold. They are a little too misogynistic and lurid for even my perverted tastes, give me a good old fashioned homicidal maniac butchering sexually promiscuous teens any day, even if they both employ generous portions of black gloved lunatic POV shots, discordant soundtracks and twist endings.

  

‘Kill Baby Kill‘ - Ah, that old horror staple - the fear of children - think of ’The Others’, ‘The Omen’, ’Village of the Damned’ and the upcoming ‘The Orphanage’ spring to mind, this ankle biter is set in the staple Transylvanian village where a certain Dr. Eswai arrives to undertake an autopsy on a young woman. The suspicious locals (aren’t they always?) interfere with curious Eswai’s investigations as he unearths an ancient curse afflicting the village, the pallid apparition of a child that appears prior to a growing number of ‘unusual’ suicides leads him to believe that something is amiss…

Speaking as someone who can’t stand children, (they can’t hold a conversation, they talk nonsense about imaginary people, they have no edifying frames of reference and their preferred cultural artefacts - films, music, literature, art, well they’re frankly juvenile) this isn’t exactly scary but certainly has its creepy moments (That bouncing ball reminds me of ‘The Shining‘ as well….)

If like me you’re a fan of the sixties Roger Corman Edgar Allen Poe adaptations then I’m sure you’ll find much to enjoy in certain Bava movies. It would be criminal of me to close the post without referencing another one of Bava’s better known pictures, the lurid ‘Planet of the Vampires‘ which it is claimed was a major influence on the first ‘Alien’ and it appears the costume design on the first ‘X-Men’ picture.

Finally you must admire the dedication of Tim Lucas in finally producing this, a book thirty two years in gestation. Yes, you read that right - 32 years. Can’t say I’ll be picking it up, I don’t have the space or inclination to spend £200 on a film book that I would never read in its entirety. Still, 10/10 for obsessive compulsion…

‘My God, it’s full of Stars….’

 

 I’ve been musing all last night and this morning about how to tackle this sad news and decided that its probably best for the great man to speak for himself (pilfered unashamedly from a comment on Metafilter);

From 2010:

 ’Held there by curiosity, and a growing fear of the long loneliness that lay before him, that which had once been David Bowman, Commander of the United States spacecraft Discovery, watched as [its] hull boiled stubbornly away. For a long time, the ship retained its approximate shape; then the bearings of the carousel seized up, releasing instantly the stored momentum of the huge, spinning flywheel. In a soundless detonation, the incandescent fragments went their myriad separate ways. Hello, Dave. What has happened? Where am I?” …

“I will explain later, Hal. We have plenty of time….’

I grew reading the big three of SF, a love I inherited from my Dad as my family home was littered with books by Clarke and Asimov in particular. I’ve already discussed my relationship with 2001: A Space Odyssey, suffice to say I will be having a tribute viewing over the Easter weekend, I was planning to watch the commentary on the new 2001 DVD release but I think its more fitting to watch it ‘properly’.

I was never much of a ‘hard’ science fiction fan, give me Ray Bradbury, William Gibson or Philip K Dick any day (truth be told with the exception of Gibson and a bit of Iain Banks I don’t read any SF these days) but what I did like about Clarke was his ability to evoke the universe as quite staggeringly beautiful in its enormity, hows it’s mysteries and wonders are almost spiritual in their vastness. 

 

I hope someone’s keeping an eye on Bradbury. Final word from Clarke which I have published here before, but it bears repeating;

‘Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe and sometimes I think we aren’t. Either way the implications are staggering’….

Diva

 

Zoot alors!! Ah, 1980’s French movies. I’m guessing that like me, you had a friend with a ‘Betty Blue‘ poster on their wall and a massive crush on Beatrice Dalle or Isabelle Adjani, or indeed both in my case. Predominant of the period was the so called ‘Cinema du look’ movement which critics at the time complained were visually arresting but empty and pointless texts, with films such as ‘Nikita‘, ‘Subway‘, ‘Diva‘ and ‘The Big Blue‘ tarnishing France’s proud cinema history. I seem to recall similar allegations that were aimed at the likes of Ridley Scott and Michael Mann, no doubt by the same cadre of critics who see cinema as more of a literary, theatrical model than a purely visual, aesthetic tool.

‘Diva‘ is the second movie I’ve seen as part of the South Banks European ‘Twilight & Treachery’ noir season and I was pleasantly surprised. I hadn’t seen the film for something like twenty years and whilst it occasionally merited some unintended laughter, it was good fun with a strong climax. The story centres on an opera-mad postal messenger, Jules who surreptitiously bootlegs a performance by his idol Cynthia Hawkins, an African-American soprano on tour in Paris. This cassette soon gets confused with another which is secretly pressed in Jules possession by a hooker on the run from a pair of assassins, a tape which details a major police controlled drug and smuggling ring. The tapes place Jules and his two unusual friends, a female Vietnamese photography student and, well some sort of weird Parisian philosopher into a noirish quagmire of treachery and homicide…

 

Considering its generation, it stands up quite well and doesn’t look too terribly dated like some films of the 1980’s. It displays many of the accoutrements of the era - generous use of neon strip lighting, plenty of reflections in chrome and mirrored sunglasses, pseudo pop-art painting murals.  There is a cringe worthy scene with Jules and Cynthia wondering around a park which looks like a mid-eighties perfume or car advert but I reminded myself that the film came first, not the advert. Always remember that advertising ‘creatives’ are nothing more than cultural vandals, stripping and appropriating the visions of others from the visual (and other) arts, repackaging them into their ‘artistic vision’ to hawk their products. Fucking thieving scum, each and every one of ‘em.

Picked this up from the BFI bookstore, a book I’ve been meaning to read for quite a while. It’s Biskind’s follow-up to the seminal ‘Easy Rider’s, Raging Bulls‘ which is one of the most informative, entertaining and interesting film books I’ve read. Already ‘Down & Dirty is proving to be just as gripping - Biskind in the first twenty pages has set out the environment for the early 90’s indie movie explosion by summarising the ‘primordial swamp of alternative cinema that emerged in the 80’s, an era where the likes of Hal Hartley, Jim Jarmush, Alison Anders, Jonathan Demme (whom I’m seeing at a BFI event next week), Spike Lee and the great John Sayles all emerged to build the foundations for the Tarantino’s, Soderburgh’s, Rodriquiz’s, Ang Lee’s, Todd Solondz, PT Anderson’s, Darren Aronofsky etc. of this world. It’s quite rightly focusing on the twin strands of Miramax and Sundance, the two most critical facets of the film ‘movement’. Terrific, addictive stuff with some fantastic behind the scenes gossip and production stories coupled with a feeling for the industry and culture in which it developed.