I couldn't begin to tell you how I found this. You know when you're just floating round the internet clicking links on pages aimlessly, it was like that. But I am delighted that I did. It may be interesting to only one person on the planet, but since that's me I'm happy. This is an article from the New York Times in 1993 which picks up on the use of "tasseled loafer" as an emblem for preppy, smart-ass lawyer and expands it into a potted history of one of the most beautiful styles of shoe ever created taking in NeoCon mudslinging, French Socialists and the European appropriation of the Ivy League look. Who couldn't love that?
It's just a shame there are no photos.
Here's the link
And here's the article in full, enjoy:
The Politicization of Tasseled Loafers
By NEIL A. LEWIS,
Published: Wednesday, November 3, 1993
To say "tasseled loafer" in Washington is not just to describe a simple shoe, but to utter a political phrase, often part of an epithet.
It is frequently connected to the word "lawyers," as in those tasseled-loafered lawyers!, although no law degree is required to wear them. And despite its earlier image as the shoe of the postgraduate preppy, it is today a kind of everyman's shoe, available in all price ranges.
Nonetheless, the shoes have been deployed in recent years as metaphorical weapons in the nation's political wars.
When George Bush wanted to hurl a wounding barb during the last Presidential campaign, he complained that Bill Clinton was supported by "every lawyer that ever wore a tasseled loafer."
Mr. Bush may have had reason to believe the charge potent as he had himself once been the target of a tasseled-loafer insult. When he ran for President in 1980, he complained that Ronald Reagan had bested him in a debate in New Hampshire by using unfair tactics. One of Mr. Reagan's aides retorted in a widely disseminated remark that those with Mr. Bush's private-school pedigree were generic sore losers. "Those tasseled-loafer guys always cry foul when they lose," the aide said.
As the nation debates issues like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Clinton health-care plan, Congressional aides may be heard referring to the "tassel loafers," a newly made up term referring to the lobbyists, often lawyers, who try to influence legislation.
In France, the tasseled loafer makes its own peculiar political statement. John Vinocur, the executive editor of The International Herald Tribune, said that the shoes were worn, actually flaunted, by young rightists in the mid-1980's who wished to demonstrate their distaste for the Socialist Government.
To them, the preppiness of the shoe represented American prosperity and free-market conservatism. Thus, it became part of the battle uniform of the young soldier of la contre-revolution.
That all became blurred, Mr. Vinocur said, when many French leftists soon followed suit and abandoned sandals and other proletarian footwear in favor of the tasseled loafers. "It helped them get tables in the better restaurants," he said.
Apart from the delicious weirdness of having legions of Frenchmen trying to look like the Phillips Academy class of 1964, the French have at least one thing correct. The shoe is certainly a distinctly American creation.
Tasseled loafers so much evoke the elegant era of the 20's that some clothing historians mistakenly believe they date from that time. They became popular, in fact, only in the post-World War II era.
The Alden Shoe Company in Middleborough, Mass., claims to have invented the shoe after World War II at the request of Paul Lukas, who was a well-known and debonair actor. Mr. Lukas, who appeared in films like "The Lady Vanishes" and "Watch on the Rhine," asked custom shoemakers in New York and Los Angeles to devise a version of a shoe he had brought from Europe that had little fringed tassels on the ends of the laces.
The two shoemakers showed the design to the Alden company, which drastically modified it, using the tassels as ornaments on a moccasin-style shoe. The earliest tasseled loafers were two-toned (usually with white top panels), and they were originally popular in Hollywood. The classic style was first produced in 1952. In 1957, Brooks Brothers added a version of Alden's shoe to its stores, fixing the tasseled loafer's image as the shoe of the country-club set.
Clark M. Clifford, the 87-year-old lawyer who has served as a counselor to several Democratic presidents, is one of Washington's most elegant and tastefully dressed men. He recalled that he acquired tasseled loafers in the early 1950's.
"I only think of them as appropriate for weekend wear and relaxation," Mr. Clifford said. "I save them entirely for that. It seems out of keeping to wear them for business, although from time to time I see someone wearing them that way."
In the 60's, when preppy style ran amok, many a tasseled loafer sat at the end of a leg covered with loud madras pants or, worse, trousers with little embroidered whales. Tassels had been used for centuries as ornaments on furniture and even saddles. When they sit on the top of a shoe, they resemble nothing so much as the carved radishes served at some old-fashioned restaurants.
The evolution of "tassled loafer" as a pejorative term for "lawyer" is unclear, but it may have to do with the notion that a man who wears little useless ornaments has, if you will, effete feet.
The top-of-the-line Alden shoe is made from shell cordovan, an especially rich-looking horsehide leather that undergoes a special vegetable tanning process that takes up to a year. The cordovan shoe, usually burgundy-colored, costs anywhere from $315 to $345 a pair (Paris shops sell the shoes for upward of $500 a pair). The classic Brooks Brothers version has distinctive stitching on the back and sells for $345.
The calfskin versions are far less expensive. In fact, tasseled loafers are ubiquitous in all price ranges and style modifications from dozens of manufacturers. They are available just about everywhere, sometimes along with kilties (those little fringed flaps) and wingtip style perforations and sometimes both, which some may find to be garish excess.
Or of course, one could have a pair of restrained tasseled slip-ons made to order at one of the handful of the remaining English bespoke bootmakers. John Carnera of George Cleverley Ltd. in central London says that he makes dozens of pairs each year, many for American clients and that chocolate-brown suede is increasingly stylish.
"We wear a lot more suede on this side of the Atlantic, you know," he said. He will craft a pair in suede or calfskin for about $1,300. Exotic leathers would cost a bit more.
Monday, 30 November 2009
Black God, White Devil / Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964)
The literal translation of this film’s title is ‘God and the Devil in the Land of the Sun’. I think that is a more suitable title. Black God, White Devil is too restrictive and singular. The film is packed with Gods and Devils and the distinction is often obscure.
There are times when I have to accept that I don’t have the knowledge to fully appreciate what I am watching. This is one of them. Having no knowledge of the socio-political context of the making of the film and only a limited theological knowledge, I know that the film contains allusions and references which completely escape me. ‘Black God, White Devil’ requires background reading and repeated viewing to be fully appreciated. It is easily good enough to justify the effort.
What I can fully appreciate, is the technical excellence of the film-making. Filmed in a stark monochrome which lends the outdoor shots a bleached-out quality (the kind of thing I’ve seen ripped off throughout the last two decades by expensive videos for the likes of U2, Texas and REM) and heightens the drama of the extreme close-ups employed. There are excellent performances by Geraldo Del Rey and especially Othon Bastos as Corsico and the use of a musical narration is innovative and works well. Some of the lines of dialogue are elusive and mysterious (though this could, perhaps, be attributed to bad translation!) heightening the almost dream-like atmosphere that Glauber Rocha builds. Some of the scenes are works of expressionistic beauty- the Odessa steps homage during the village massacre, the sacrifice of the baby and murder of Sebastian, the opening footage of cattle skulls, the shadows of the dagger and rifle and the wedding party desecration.
This is a work which deserves the attention it demands. A beautiful, harrowing but slow and challenging film. That it doesn’t score more highly on my register and won't be seen again for years probably owes more to my ignorance than the film’s shortcomings.
There are times when I have to accept that I don’t have the knowledge to fully appreciate what I am watching. This is one of them. Having no knowledge of the socio-political context of the making of the film and only a limited theological knowledge, I know that the film contains allusions and references which completely escape me. ‘Black God, White Devil’ requires background reading and repeated viewing to be fully appreciated. It is easily good enough to justify the effort.
What I can fully appreciate, is the technical excellence of the film-making. Filmed in a stark monochrome which lends the outdoor shots a bleached-out quality (the kind of thing I’ve seen ripped off throughout the last two decades by expensive videos for the likes of U2, Texas and REM) and heightens the drama of the extreme close-ups employed. There are excellent performances by Geraldo Del Rey and especially Othon Bastos as Corsico and the use of a musical narration is innovative and works well. Some of the lines of dialogue are elusive and mysterious (though this could, perhaps, be attributed to bad translation!) heightening the almost dream-like atmosphere that Glauber Rocha builds. Some of the scenes are works of expressionistic beauty- the Odessa steps homage during the village massacre, the sacrifice of the baby and murder of Sebastian, the opening footage of cattle skulls, the shadows of the dagger and rifle and the wedding party desecration.
This is a work which deserves the attention it demands. A beautiful, harrowing but slow and challenging film. That it doesn’t score more highly on my register and won't be seen again for years probably owes more to my ignorance than the film’s shortcomings.
Gordon Brown on the throne
I’ve been reading Alastair Campbell’s diaries from his years giving it the full Malcolm Tucker in Downing Street and have just reached the bit where Gordon Brown locks himself in a toilet, gets in a furious panic and there is only Tony Blair that he can call to come and get him out of the mess that he’s got himself into.
I suppose, when you look at the paucity of talent in the Cabinet that he has surrounded himself, with this is as neat an analogy as anything Armando Iannucci could've dreamed up.
I suppose, when you look at the paucity of talent in the Cabinet that he has surrounded himself, with this is as neat an analogy as anything Armando Iannucci could've dreamed up.
Top 5 songs with Skinhead in the title
The Sad Skinhead - Faust
Hippie and the Skinhead - Peter Wyngarde
Skinhead Girl - Symarip
Skinhead Moonstomp – Symarip
Skinhead a Bash Them - Claudette and The Corporation
Hippie and the Skinhead - Peter Wyngarde
Skinhead Girl - Symarip
Skinhead Moonstomp – Symarip
Skinhead a Bash Them - Claudette and The Corporation
Howard the Duck (1986)
I remember the hype, I remember the bad press, I remember loads about 'Howard the Duck' but I'd forgotten that I've never seen the Razzie-nominated Worst Film of the Decade. So, I decided that I would do my very best to watch without prejudice.
First impressions (and I'm talking VERY first impressions here, thirty seconds or so in) were that the noir-y feel of the title sequence and some inventive sight gags might mean that this could indeed be a forgotten treat. However, at twelve minutes in I first checked how long the film had left to run. I was bored. Most of the actors are on autopilot, especially Jeffrey Jones who can be a cracking comedy actor when he tries, but Tim Robbins is abysmally hammy and gives no hint of the comedic subtleties that he would later prove capable of.
This is a bloody shambles. An absolute shambles. I seem to recall that part of the problem this film had was the high expectations that the huge budget generated. Huge budget? If I'd spent a grand financing this I'd have wanted to know who it was being aimed at because it's too sleazy for kids and too juvenile for adults. And that's the problem, there's no control over the movie. It seems like everyone was having such a good time inventing duck gags, hiding clever references, punning and generally being smart-arses that they forgot that they were supposed to be entertaining the audience and not themselves. Anyway, back to the budget- where was it spent? I seem to remember that Howard the Duck cost more than the original Star Wars trilogy combined. The duck suit can't have come cheap and there a couple of decently-sized sets but that won't account for it all. Just what were the crew snacking on when they came up with this shite?
For the gags that I enjoyed before they proved wearisome, I didn't smash it. It got lucky.
First impressions (and I'm talking VERY first impressions here, thirty seconds or so in) were that the noir-y feel of the title sequence and some inventive sight gags might mean that this could indeed be a forgotten treat. However, at twelve minutes in I first checked how long the film had left to run. I was bored. Most of the actors are on autopilot, especially Jeffrey Jones who can be a cracking comedy actor when he tries, but Tim Robbins is abysmally hammy and gives no hint of the comedic subtleties that he would later prove capable of.
This is a bloody shambles. An absolute shambles. I seem to recall that part of the problem this film had was the high expectations that the huge budget generated. Huge budget? If I'd spent a grand financing this I'd have wanted to know who it was being aimed at because it's too sleazy for kids and too juvenile for adults. And that's the problem, there's no control over the movie. It seems like everyone was having such a good time inventing duck gags, hiding clever references, punning and generally being smart-arses that they forgot that they were supposed to be entertaining the audience and not themselves. Anyway, back to the budget- where was it spent? I seem to remember that Howard the Duck cost more than the original Star Wars trilogy combined. The duck suit can't have come cheap and there a couple of decently-sized sets but that won't account for it all. Just what were the crew snacking on when they came up with this shite?
For the gags that I enjoyed before they proved wearisome, I didn't smash it. It got lucky.
The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968)
This arrival of The Girl on a Motorcycle from LoveFilm couldn't have been neater. Consider that it is directed by Jack Cardiff, the genius cinematographer from Black Narcissus, who I have discussed in some depth recently, featuring Marianne Faithful (I'd already discussed Anita Pallenberg the other infamous Stone-ette this week) and Nouvelle Vague icon Alain Delon ahead of my planned weekend of film Francophilia. How neat a bundle of coincidences could I want?
Against that backdrop, though, the film could surely only disappoint. And it sadly does.
Against that backdrop, though, the film could surely only disappoint. And it sadly does.
Often I will reflect that the more innovative and distinctive a film is, the more likely it is to be referenced, to influence and to be stolen from. And by that process the elements which inspire admiration- perhaps even adoration- come to seem mundane and commonplace. For the film fan trawling through the past, it is hard to fully appreciate the context in which a film was first seen. Coming just twenty years after the end of the second World War this film features Marianne Faithful passing a soldiers' graveyard and questioning the validity of the war and the sacrifices made- was this shocking iconoclasm or were many contemporaneous films exploring the same rueful territory?
I mention this because this film features extensive use of acid-coloured solarization, so much so that Jack Cardiff begins to irritate as if he were a child with a toy drumkit. Of course, the process also allows him to get away with longer and more graphic sequences of Faithful and Delon romping than would probably have been allowed otherwise. But I couldn't help thinking to myself "what's the point of going to all that trouble to show something that the viewer can't recognise anyway?". Whether these 'groovy' scenes achieved their aim in the 60s or not, I can't confirm- but they date the movie badly now and look clumsy and ineffective now.
And The Girl on a Motorcycle is really summed up by that. It is a film of worthy- though frankly ill-judged- intentions, attempting to record on film the thought and ambitions and streams of consciousness of a girl riding across continental Europe. Like a rites of passage road movie with one protagonist. Judged against such ambitious aims, it fails mightily. In fact, it is of no more merit than any number of cheap 60s exploitation B-movies. The plotline- the bit that isn't summed up by the title anyway- is told largely in flashback. Marianne Faithful's character Rebecca leaves her staid husband of a couple of weeks, the failing teacher Raymond (Roger Mutton- terrible actor but the wearer of a great quiff!) for Alain Delon's character Daniel, who she met and commenced an affair with in the run-up to the Wedding. Daniel is the only character in the piece of any substance whatsoever- maybe because Delon and Powell and Pressburger stalwart Marius Goring in a very minor role are the only actors of any merit on show. He is callous, manipulative and egotistical; though we discover that this bravado masks the deep pain of heartbreak.
The dialogue- which is mainly concerned with expressing Rebecca's inner thoughts and feelings- is stilted, obvious and typically vacuous Haight-Ashbury hippy nonsense- "not everyone who is dead has been buried"; "sometimes it's an instinct to fly. I'm not going to feel guilty"; "Rebellion's the only thing that keeps you alive"- that kind of bollocks. And only Delon's character- somewhat implausibly a university lecturer- has any lines which steer clear of cliché - during a seminar on, believe it or not, the morality of free love he opines "love without love, desire without love...so what is love? ... A blanket to cover all the dark emotions- desire, lust, a need to hurt, to be hurt". This isn't to say he escapes the scriptwriter's clunking prose throughout- his "Your body is like a violin in a velvet case" may well worst first line for any movie character ever.
It is all so disappointing given the calibre of the people involved. There are blatant continuity errors, logical gaps (Daniel must be supernatural as he appears in a locked room at one point without any explanation how), wooden performances and lowest-common-denominator innuendo with the motorbike as a big cock. The Girl on a Motorcycle features a girl on a motorcycle on a low-loader- did no-one think that the lean and steering involved in cornering would make Faithful sat bolt upright as the bike takes a hairpin look pretty bloody stupid? Oh I despair! A French film by an English Director shot in Switzerland with the Frenchman Alain Delon as a German and the English Marianne Faithfull as a Swiss. This is all too much to bear.
I'm not generally in favour of remakes (not least because they keep that goofy slapheaded tit Nic Cage in work) but there is the kernel of a good idea in here being woefully badly executed. This could have been an exploration of freedom, of the feminist movement, of the futility of free love, of the futility of marriage, of existentialism, of expressionism, of any message the film-maker wants to say. The premise is a blank canvas. It could have been an artistic exploration; it could have been a beautifully simple road movie; it could have been any number of worthy and interesting things. But what it is, I'm afraid, is a fucking mess. If any film ever required a remake, this is it.
Devoid of subtlety, intrigue, wit or beauty, this is a very poor exploitation film. The only bit I liked at all was the sequence where Faithfull composed her farewell letters in a café, whilst Jack Cardiff filled the screen with faces of old men. It said nothing of interest, I just thought it looked nice. Oh, and I also liked the following exchange: "Love is a feeling" "so is toothache".
Sunday, 29 November 2009
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly / Il Buono, Il Brutto, Il Cattivo (1966)
This is going to be brief because I'd already posted a full 10/10 review but it has disappeared.
Last night I went to a rare-as-hen's-teeth big screen showing of this. There were seven people in the cinema watching it. Seven.
Last year I saw a fight break out as people queued to get in to see Slumdog Millionaire. The show had sold out but these people already had tickets, they were fighting just to get into the theatre first and get the best seats.
There are people I know who would be thrilled by this. They want the best films and music and books and TV shows to be exclusive, secret, their own personal property. I'm not of that mindset at all, I want to share The Good, The Bad and The Ugly with everyone. I want people to develop the same love and respect and admiration and sheer exhilaration that I do for it. I can't tell you how excited I was for the whole day knowing that I would be seeing this that evening.
Leone's direction of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is masterful. Everything about it. I love the patient way that the scene is set for each event, the build-up being far more important than the set-piece itself. The extreme close-ups on the eyes of the protagonists, the silence, the tension. This is going to sound embarrassingly pseudy but what the fuck, I believe it. Leone's direction here reminds me of a big cat stalking its prey. It moves slowly and gradually, sinews tensed, eyes alert, silently, stealthily awaiting the perfect moment and then in an instant the violence is over. In that way Leone is the opposite of Peckinpah whose violent scenes are extended as far as possible with repetitions from multiple angles and slow-motion sequences. Where Peckinpah invites the viewer to gorge on the blood and destruction, Leone despatches it as quickly as possible. For Leone, the act is trivial in comparison with the circumstances surrounding it- eyes filled with fear and determination, quivering hands poised to draw- and what is behind that. Much as I love Peckinpah's great westerns, Leone's approach is better.
I must have seen this fifty times and (aside from some unglued make-up on Clint's dehydrated neck and the ropey title sequence) I can't find a flaw. Brilliant, beautiful, brutal. 10/10
WALL·E (2008)
I’m going to have to try and defend my hypocrisy again. A couple of days ago I lambasted “that impressive and hyper-detailed but oh-so-fucking boring and lifeless computer generated 3-D bollocks that all Pixar films are made with these days” when I was slagging off kung Fu Panda. And now I’m going to give a computer generated Pixar film the blogging equivalent of a blow job. Because this film transcends such considerations, it is simply great film-making and could only have worked by being made in this way. And that’s why I feel no compunction in lambasting the look of Kung Fu Panda and praising the same process here, the former would have worked better done another way (as I explained with reference to the title sequence) and, as Balloo the Bear in The Jungle Book shows, a simple cartoon would’ve been fine. The advances in computer generated animation- which Pixar have been at the very vanguard of- allow films to be made now that display the most outrageous and wildest imaginings of film-makers and this is what it should be used for. And this is what WALL·E is. It is a work of art that easily stands comparison with the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey as a visual epic, but is a thoroughly entertaining film in its own right too- which is more than can be said for 2001! I sat smiling with sheer joy when I watched it.
What is wonderful about WALL·E is that it isn’t afraid to be clever. Not arch or wry or eyebrow-raising or ironic, just genuinely intelligent. The film is, for a long period, little more than a silent movie and- as such- really challenges the contemporary audience who have become accustomed to fast, loud, bright and brash. For (what is ostensibly) a kid’s film to offer up this challenge is a brave risk but one which pays off beautifully. There is so much to see and consider, the musical accompaniment is sublime and the comedy is intelligent. It is a wonderful sequence and really sets this film up beautifully. And what follows is great too, but in a different way. Where the opening is beautiful but with a wistful melancholia as we see WALL·E alone on Earth, what follows is more comical and event-filled (if no less sad). It is also more conventional and narrative driven, which complements the artistic Tati/Keaton/Chaplinesque style of the opening wonderfully well. The ‘message’ of the film is beautifully delivered, with wit and pathos and- most importantly- without preachiness or bombasticity. The ‘robots teaching humans to be human’ idea is sublime, it isn’t original but it’s originally presented. This is a film about humanity and love but plays like a sci-fi movie. You don’t have to look far for the meaning, but you aren’t being clobbered over the head with it. How refreshing. In fact everything about the film is underplayed beautifully. It is utterly masterful and my paltry descriptive will never be able to do it justice. I’ve been amazed tonight- the direction is magical and the screenplay is as good as I’ve seen in a long time. The lack of dialogue presents a real challenge which is surmounted so easily that it is barely credible. There truly is genius at work here. Truly.
Even before the film gets predictable with the victory-from-the-jaws-of-defeat ending which is de rigeur I didn’t care, I had been hooked long ago. My emotions were being played and I knew it and I didn’t care I was hooked. I cried like a baby. Doesn’t happen often and has probably never happened with an animated film but there you are- the film did its job in every way. I laughed, I cried, I felt great at the end and I wanted to see it again straight away.
What is wonderful about WALL·E is that it isn’t afraid to be clever. Not arch or wry or eyebrow-raising or ironic, just genuinely intelligent. The film is, for a long period, little more than a silent movie and- as such- really challenges the contemporary audience who have become accustomed to fast, loud, bright and brash. For (what is ostensibly) a kid’s film to offer up this challenge is a brave risk but one which pays off beautifully. There is so much to see and consider, the musical accompaniment is sublime and the comedy is intelligent. It is a wonderful sequence and really sets this film up beautifully. And what follows is great too, but in a different way. Where the opening is beautiful but with a wistful melancholia as we see WALL·E alone on Earth, what follows is more comical and event-filled (if no less sad). It is also more conventional and narrative driven, which complements the artistic Tati/Keaton/Chaplinesque style of the opening wonderfully well. The ‘message’ of the film is beautifully delivered, with wit and pathos and- most importantly- without preachiness or bombasticity. The ‘robots teaching humans to be human’ idea is sublime, it isn’t original but it’s originally presented. This is a film about humanity and love but plays like a sci-fi movie. You don’t have to look far for the meaning, but you aren’t being clobbered over the head with it. How refreshing. In fact everything about the film is underplayed beautifully. It is utterly masterful and my paltry descriptive will never be able to do it justice. I’ve been amazed tonight- the direction is magical and the screenplay is as good as I’ve seen in a long time. The lack of dialogue presents a real challenge which is surmounted so easily that it is barely credible. There truly is genius at work here. Truly.
Even before the film gets predictable with the victory-from-the-jaws-of-defeat ending which is de rigeur I didn’t care, I had been hooked long ago. My emotions were being played and I knew it and I didn’t care I was hooked. I cried like a baby. Doesn’t happen often and has probably never happened with an animated film but there you are- the film did its job in every way. I laughed, I cried, I felt great at the end and I wanted to see it again straight away.
Saturday, 28 November 2009
Whisky Galore! (1949)
I’ve always felt that ‘Whisky Galore!’ gets a little unfairly overshadowed by ‘Kind Hearts And Coronets’ and ‘The Ladykillers’ in the Ealing canon. They’re both marvellous movies but without the lightness of tone that makes this film- and ‘Passport To Pimlico’ to be fair- such perfect entertainment. Alexander Mackendrick- who went on to make the wonderful ‘Sweet Smell of Success‘- directs and the cast are on great form. Especially Basil Radford as the uptight Englishman Captain Waggett who has great fun with lines like “They don’t do things for the sake of doing them like the English”. And where else will you see the wonderful James Robertson Justice as a Doctor who not only recommends that his bedridden patient smokes, but furnishes him with a pipe to do so when he learns that the patient has none?
One of the things that I really love about Ealing comedies, which this film demonstrates perfectly, is the way that they pit a small group of like-minded individuals against intransigent bureaucratic obstacles and see them come out on top. The film generates a real sense of them and us with Captain Waggett as the pompous, blustering stuffed-shirt who follows a legally right, morally wrong path that leads him into conflict with the islanders with genuinely hilarious results.
And there’s that word- hilarious. This film is at times laugh out loud funny- most famously in the narrated introduction where a description of the Island of Todday (where the film is set) recounts how there is no cinema and no music hall but describes the islanders as “A happy people, with few and simple pleasures” just as a family of about thirteen small children come running out of the house.
Charming, funny and genuinely heartwarming with interesting characters and great comic performances. In many ways this is a perfect comedy movie, I absolutely adore it.
One of the things that I really love about Ealing comedies, which this film demonstrates perfectly, is the way that they pit a small group of like-minded individuals against intransigent bureaucratic obstacles and see them come out on top. The film generates a real sense of them and us with Captain Waggett as the pompous, blustering stuffed-shirt who follows a legally right, morally wrong path that leads him into conflict with the islanders with genuinely hilarious results.
And there’s that word- hilarious. This film is at times laugh out loud funny- most famously in the narrated introduction where a description of the Island of Todday (where the film is set) recounts how there is no cinema and no music hall but describes the islanders as “A happy people, with few and simple pleasures” just as a family of about thirteen small children come running out of the house.
Charming, funny and genuinely heartwarming with interesting characters and great comic performances. In many ways this is a perfect comedy movie, I absolutely adore it.
Black Narcissus (1947)
An amazing film. This is a true horror film. It is a haunted house story, with the place of the ghosts taken by human fallibility.
Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) is placed in charge of a newly-opened convent high in the Himalayas and the repsonsibility is clearly too great to bear from the outset. Her responses are confused and well-meaning but desperate. Once we begin to learn of her life before taking up her vows, it becomes clear that her faith is not as strong as might have been presumed. Indeed of all of the Nuns, only Sister Briony (Judith Furse) appears to have the same faith and devotion at the end of the film that she did at the start.
The stand-out acting performance, though, is given by Kathleen Byron as Sister Ruth- cracking under the pressure of her orders, the isolation and suppressed lust. She is magnificent and, in a flash of her eyes at Sister Clodagh, registers so much hatred and jealousy that it speaks more than mere words could.
I specified that hers was the stand-out acting performance, as the stand-out performance here must surely go to cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Using (well-designed) sets, he frames an epic film beautifully. How this mountaintop convent was filmed entirely on-set still baffles. CGI has nothing on this standard of craftsmanship. Tthe ethereal quality of the film is a triumph of the art of film-making. Consider how such melodramatic material shot entirely in an English studio could have turned out in the hands of lesser craftsmen.
Powell and Pressburger have created here a dramatic, engrossing and thoroughly believable psychological thriller that is years ahead of contemporary standards of daring and innovation. As the film progresses, each layer of intrigue builds relentlessly. This is an absolute masterclass in film-making.
Like many great films, I’ve little doubt that this would improve with repeated viewings (even if some of the casually racist sentiments expressed by the characters are distasteful to the modern viewer).
Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) is placed in charge of a newly-opened convent high in the Himalayas and the repsonsibility is clearly too great to bear from the outset. Her responses are confused and well-meaning but desperate. Once we begin to learn of her life before taking up her vows, it becomes clear that her faith is not as strong as might have been presumed. Indeed of all of the Nuns, only Sister Briony (Judith Furse) appears to have the same faith and devotion at the end of the film that she did at the start.
The stand-out acting performance, though, is given by Kathleen Byron as Sister Ruth- cracking under the pressure of her orders, the isolation and suppressed lust. She is magnificent and, in a flash of her eyes at Sister Clodagh, registers so much hatred and jealousy that it speaks more than mere words could.
I specified that hers was the stand-out acting performance, as the stand-out performance here must surely go to cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Using (well-designed) sets, he frames an epic film beautifully. How this mountaintop convent was filmed entirely on-set still baffles. CGI has nothing on this standard of craftsmanship. Tthe ethereal quality of the film is a triumph of the art of film-making. Consider how such melodramatic material shot entirely in an English studio could have turned out in the hands of lesser craftsmen.
Powell and Pressburger have created here a dramatic, engrossing and thoroughly believable psychological thriller that is years ahead of contemporary standards of daring and innovation. As the film progresses, each layer of intrigue builds relentlessly. This is an absolute masterclass in film-making.
Like many great films, I’ve little doubt that this would improve with repeated viewings (even if some of the casually racist sentiments expressed by the characters are distasteful to the modern viewer).
Friday, 27 November 2009
Cor blimey it's Diagnosis Murder with Dick Van Dyke
I don't know why but I sat through an episode of this recently and, at the risk of spoiling the suspense for any avid fans who may have missed the airing, would like to share the denouement with you all.
Dick Van Dyke’s Doctor son (or son’s friend I wasn’t really watching at the start) had administered some medication to a superstar basketball player who then died. To save his son (or son’s friend) Dick had to find the real murderer. He then got to present the case for the defence in court. Man of many talents, you see.
In the Courtroom Dick Van Dyke called as a witness 'The Towel Boy’, a general Janitor for the basketball team who suffered from cerebral palsy. Dick (I can call him Dick, we’re friends) asked The Towel Boy if he had ever wanted to be a basketball player himself. The Towel Boy with cerebral palsy replied “when you’ve got cerebral palsy you’re happy just to walk in a straight line”. Then, in a startling move, Dick flung a basketball straight at The Towel Boy and The Towel Boy instinctively blocked it with his previously useless hands, protecting his face.
Haha, the game was up. Dick explained that The Towel Boy had been the same college as the (now deceased) superstar and during a trial game had been smashed against the backboard by the (to be) superstar as he slam-dunked the winner. There were major league agents at the game and The Towel Boy was ignored while the superstar taken to the big leagues and multi-million pound success.
The Towel Boy would have the last laugh, though. He disguised himself and pretended to have cerebral palsy in order to get a job in the locker rooms of the basketball team who had signed the victim up (I'm not sure why he had to pretend to have the ailment but the courtroom drama wouldn't have been as epic and unexpected otherwise, so there's a stroke of good luck). Then he proceeded to daily fill the victim’s clothes, towel and locker with cat hairs. Only The Towel Boy knew that the victim had a mysterious cat allergy and it was this- not the prescription drugs- that killed him.
Dick solved the mystery though. Seemingly without the need for any clues or evidence.
Three cheers for Dick Van Dyke!
Dick Van Dyke’s Doctor son (or son’s friend I wasn’t really watching at the start) had administered some medication to a superstar basketball player who then died. To save his son (or son’s friend) Dick had to find the real murderer. He then got to present the case for the defence in court. Man of many talents, you see.
In the Courtroom Dick Van Dyke called as a witness 'The Towel Boy’, a general Janitor for the basketball team who suffered from cerebral palsy. Dick (I can call him Dick, we’re friends) asked The Towel Boy if he had ever wanted to be a basketball player himself. The Towel Boy with cerebral palsy replied “when you’ve got cerebral palsy you’re happy just to walk in a straight line”. Then, in a startling move, Dick flung a basketball straight at The Towel Boy and The Towel Boy instinctively blocked it with his previously useless hands, protecting his face.
Haha, the game was up. Dick explained that The Towel Boy had been the same college as the (now deceased) superstar and during a trial game had been smashed against the backboard by the (to be) superstar as he slam-dunked the winner. There were major league agents at the game and The Towel Boy was ignored while the superstar taken to the big leagues and multi-million pound success.
The Towel Boy would have the last laugh, though. He disguised himself and pretended to have cerebral palsy in order to get a job in the locker rooms of the basketball team who had signed the victim up (I'm not sure why he had to pretend to have the ailment but the courtroom drama wouldn't have been as epic and unexpected otherwise, so there's a stroke of good luck). Then he proceeded to daily fill the victim’s clothes, towel and locker with cat hairs. Only The Towel Boy knew that the victim had a mysterious cat allergy and it was this- not the prescription drugs- that killed him.
Dick solved the mystery though. Seemingly without the need for any clues or evidence.
Three cheers for Dick Van Dyke!
Villain (1971)
“I don’t want a fertile imagination, I don’t want to know if society’s to blame, I just want to catch criminals”
The film opens with two heavies waiting in a London flat. As a car pulls up in the street below they wake Richard Burton who has been resting in the bedroom, giving him time to wash his face and compose himself. As he does so, the owner of the flat returns and they hold him captive. Fresh and alert, Burton enters the room and- with barely a word- begins to deliver a vicious beating and then takes out a cut-throat razor. Our next sight of the victim is when Burton looks up from beside a drip of blood (having made a crass joke about pigeon droppings) and sees him tied to a chair hanging from a window horrifically lacerated. On the other hand our next view of Burton sees him after he returns home and gently wakes his Mum with a cup of tea and offers to take her for a ride out to the coast. Now THAT is how to start a film!
This is one of those films that you rarely hear about, almost a lost classic. You’ll be discussing Get Carter or The Long Good Friday and someone will say "you should see Villain", only as no-one ever has the conversation moves on quickly. It’s such a shame that this is forgotten and shite like The Business is relatively lauded. Richard Burton plays Vic Dakin, the kind of character that in summary sounds implausible; he’s a gay, sadistic, sociopathic gangland boss who lives with his Mum and rules part of London through fear. It sounds implausible except that there was a guy like that in the sixties called Ronnie (or maybe Reggie, I get them confused) Kray. And, whether you find him plausible or not, the depth of characters like Dakin put this film streets ahead of most efforts in the genre.
It isn’t just about Burton- and he is compelling, just the right side of overdoing it- everyone on show here is a cut above. Especially Ian McShane who, as Wolfie a small-time hustler and object of Dakin’s sadistic lust, has an even more compelling part and really makes the most of it. Even some of the minor characters are fascinatingly written- Nigel Davenport’s dogged, determined and stoical policeman Matthews who appreciates the futility of his task but presses on anyway; Joss Ackland’s gangster who spends an entire hold-up chomping down hard-boiled eggs to ease his stomach ulcer; top-notch Irish character actor T.P.McKenna’s rival gangster who is far more businessman than criminal; and smarmy, velvet-purring Donald Sinden as a crooked, seedy MP.
In fact, it isn’t just the characters- the plot is formulaic but the dialogue is marvellous ("he’s a bit bent for a start. You know the type, thinks the world owes him something. A wanker", "you festering pig", "Stupid punters. Telly all the week, screw the wife Saturday") especially when Dakin is upbraiding anyone who dares to even look at a woman ("sordid!") or doesn’t wash their hands after taking a piss. I also liked the underlying themes that crime is just a job, a means of employment on both sides of the law and that removing one criminal just creates an opportunity for another jobbing criminal. The crime-as-a-business angle is never overplayed but the existence of a structure, hierarchy and protocol as a given is an important aspect to Villain.
I’d like to mention Christopher Challis’ excellent cinematography, not only does he handle the task of transmitting gritty realism with aplomb but he manages to capture an excellent car chase and also take very intimate and graphic shots of various fights including the main crime around which the film revolves. Superb. The soundtrack too (Jonathan Hodge) is excellent, switching from tinny funk to stabbing synthy strings to John Carpenter-like piano motifs; all of it is reminiscent of films that would follow but oddly Hodge himself would get very little more work, similarly the director (Michael Tuchner) did little else of note. But at least they did this. A proper British gangster thriller that I loved- they even found a space for a Michael Robbins cameo. Every film should feature Michael Robbins!
What's Left? by Nick Cohen
Yesterday I stumbled across an article I published on 1 May 2008. I've just reread it with the benefit of hindsight and in light of the tumultuous events of summer and autumn 2008 which exposed the lie-dream of unfettered capitalism as a panacea for all the world's ills. I'm no expert but I'm putting this one down as a win for the little guy from West Bromwich over the brainiac journo.
Cohen smashes his way through the political rubble of his past
I’ve recently read the thoroughly dispiriting “What’s Left?” by Nick Cohen. I exaggerate, I read some of it. The thrust of the book is that Socialism is a busted flush and, in seeking a new cause to replace it, its old followers have become defenders of fascistic regimes and radical terrorists. Why? Well simply to oppose America, of course. It appears that this is what being a lefty was all about all along. Tsk!
I suppose that I should have known what I was letting myself in for. I had a vague knowledge of Cohen as a lefty who had (as the cliché says we all will) become more right wing as he got older. And I’d read the blurb on the back: In this scorching polemic, Nick Cohen smashes his way through the political rubble left by the crumbling values of the old Left with his fearless exploration of their responses to some of the worst global crises seen this century (all seven years of it, it doesn’t add). But I wasn’t fully prepared for what I was about to read.
As I have said, I chose not to complete the book. My bookmark rests between pages 110 and 111 where Cohen’s scorching polemic is smashing its way through Jean Baudrillard’s critique on America (“It had brainwashed US citizens- although not, once again, French philosophers”) with all the wit and finesse that the reverse cover would have you believe. Mind you, this is not a critique of Cohen’s literary style- which is far superior to my own clunky prose- this is simply a digest of all that I had read before abandoning ship.
The book opens with a brief biography piece establishing Cohen’s Socialist credentials- like Mark Anthony coming to bury Caesar- which will give him the right to pronounce the Left dead.
“Socialism, which provided the definition of what it meant to be on the Left from the 1880s to the 1980s, is gone. Disgraced by the communists’ atrocities and floored by the success of market-based economies it no longer exists as a coherent programme for government. Even the modest and humane social democratic systems of Europe are under strain and look dreadfully vulnerable.”
I found that staggering. Socialist politics have been finished by the excesses of communism and the successes of capitalism. What’s actually happened, as far as I can tell, is that Cohen has lost his faith in Socialism. The ’success’ of market-based economies is a fallacy, a shuffling of the feudal pack. As a means of making the world a just, equable, comfortable or literally a good place to live, it has failed. Socialism is as necessary and relevant as ever. It is just that these days Cohen is all right, Jack. The last sentence in that paragraph, however, is bizarre. I honestly don’t know on what basis a statement like that could be made. Cohen has scraped through the bottom of the barrel in his bid to pithily justify what is to follow.
Throughout the book Cohen gives the strong impression that his conversion to Neo-Con (Neo-Cohen?) politics comes as a result of the Left’s stance over the Iraq invasion. He absolves the right of blame for turning a blind-eye to Saddam Hussein’s politics for the better part of two decades, but accuses the Left of hypocrisy for not supporting the decision to remove him. Perhaps he’s forgotten that the invasion of Iraq was not about regime change- well, not until the original reasons given were utterly discredited anyway. “The American and British Governments sold the invasion to their publics with a false bill of goods and its aftermath was a bloody catastrophe…” that’s the lies that led to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq dealt with. No, really it is. That’s as much attention as he gives it.
He proceeds to state that the left picked the wrong side over Iraq and have become increasingly entrenched since to the point where they oppose natural Socialist values. “…The liberal-left bitterly opposed the war, and their indifference afterwards was a natural consequence of the fury directed at Bush”. And explains that the problem (he believes) that the Left has isn’t solely a result of the Iraq invasion. What follows is a list of tangential issues which exemplify the malaise afflicting the Left: “Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam… come from the liberal-left? Why will… a leftish post-modern theorist defend the exploitation of women in traditional cultures? Why were men and women of the Left denying the existence of Serb concentration camps? Why is Palestine a cause … but not China, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Congo or North Korea? Why after the 7/7 attacks on London did leftish… newspapers run pieces excusing suicide bombers?”.
The problem Cohen has, though if you believe that he’s wrong then it would be his saving grace, is that none of these charges are specific enough to be proved or disproved. They’re his opinions, or his assumptions. Opposing the war doesn’t equate to being ignorant of the human costs of the war (quite the opposite, I would argue). To try to understand the rationale for militant Islam is not to make apologies for it, it is a means of combating it at its source. There is a difference between opposing the imposition of Western values across the world and upholding incidents of exploitation. The Palestinian question is another example of Cohen’s liberal attitude to the truth- how can it be seriously argued that the Left fails to keep those other regimes on the agenda? For me the contrary is true, only the Left have consistently opposed those regimes. Finally, Cohen’s allegations about the response of the Left to the atrocities in Serbia and on the 7th of July are unsubstantiated and, for me, fanciful.
Cohen’s personal politics have changed, this much is undoubtedly true. Does it automatically follow that the Left that he leaves behind is finished? It is unspeakably arrogant to assume so, or else he hung on to the corpse of a once great movement for far too long. The book acts as a long justification for his personal conversion- hence the assumptions behind it are passed off as fact- and his personal conversion appears, to me at least, to be driven by one aspect of the political spectrum. That is Iraq. Everything else is written as a retrospective justification for the change. The death of Socialism- which Cohen refers to throughout as a given- is dated contemporaneously with the Poll Tax riots which led directly to the end of the Thatcherite era. To exemplify it, he spends pages discussing the rise (in as much as so minor a political party can be said to have risen) and fall of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party in 1970s and 1980s Britain, its discredited leader Gerry Healy and the parenting skills of Vanessa Redgrave. It is like using Rolf Harris’s ‘Two Little Boys’ as evidence that the pop music of the 1960s was worthless.
I believe that there is a worthwhile book in the proposition that the Left has lost its direction and sense of unity. It is in need of impetus, of a concerted focus and something to rally behind. A new red flag is desperately required. But while I do not pretend that ‘the Left’ are without fault, I equally do not buy the proposition that it is somehow less grievous when the Right get things wrong. It is like the facile bar-room argument “the Tories will screw you, but at least they’re honest about it”. The Left is not dead because there has been a decade or so of middle-ground political worthlessness and a decade or so of Neo-Conservative tyranny. To argue that leftish ideals like social justice are no longer desirable because the illegal occupation of Iraq has displaced a tyrant that Western Conservatives supported and colluded with for decades is ridiculous. But that is what this book- as far as I read it- tries to do.
It would take a Keyser Soze-esque twist in the unread portion of the book to rescue it. Otherwise it must surely be seen as a man’s vindication of his decision to turn his back on the social movement to which he once belonged.
This book is a tragically missed opportunity by a writer of no little style, but increasingly little substance.
Cohen smashes his way through the political rubble of his past
I’ve recently read the thoroughly dispiriting “What’s Left?” by Nick Cohen. I exaggerate, I read some of it. The thrust of the book is that Socialism is a busted flush and, in seeking a new cause to replace it, its old followers have become defenders of fascistic regimes and radical terrorists. Why? Well simply to oppose America, of course. It appears that this is what being a lefty was all about all along. Tsk!
I suppose that I should have known what I was letting myself in for. I had a vague knowledge of Cohen as a lefty who had (as the cliché says we all will) become more right wing as he got older. And I’d read the blurb on the back: In this scorching polemic, Nick Cohen smashes his way through the political rubble left by the crumbling values of the old Left with his fearless exploration of their responses to some of the worst global crises seen this century (all seven years of it, it doesn’t add). But I wasn’t fully prepared for what I was about to read.
As I have said, I chose not to complete the book. My bookmark rests between pages 110 and 111 where Cohen’s scorching polemic is smashing its way through Jean Baudrillard’s critique on America (“It had brainwashed US citizens- although not, once again, French philosophers”) with all the wit and finesse that the reverse cover would have you believe. Mind you, this is not a critique of Cohen’s literary style- which is far superior to my own clunky prose- this is simply a digest of all that I had read before abandoning ship.
The book opens with a brief biography piece establishing Cohen’s Socialist credentials- like Mark Anthony coming to bury Caesar- which will give him the right to pronounce the Left dead.
“Socialism, which provided the definition of what it meant to be on the Left from the 1880s to the 1980s, is gone. Disgraced by the communists’ atrocities and floored by the success of market-based economies it no longer exists as a coherent programme for government. Even the modest and humane social democratic systems of Europe are under strain and look dreadfully vulnerable.”
I found that staggering. Socialist politics have been finished by the excesses of communism and the successes of capitalism. What’s actually happened, as far as I can tell, is that Cohen has lost his faith in Socialism. The ’success’ of market-based economies is a fallacy, a shuffling of the feudal pack. As a means of making the world a just, equable, comfortable or literally a good place to live, it has failed. Socialism is as necessary and relevant as ever. It is just that these days Cohen is all right, Jack. The last sentence in that paragraph, however, is bizarre. I honestly don’t know on what basis a statement like that could be made. Cohen has scraped through the bottom of the barrel in his bid to pithily justify what is to follow.
Throughout the book Cohen gives the strong impression that his conversion to Neo-Con (Neo-Cohen?) politics comes as a result of the Left’s stance over the Iraq invasion. He absolves the right of blame for turning a blind-eye to Saddam Hussein’s politics for the better part of two decades, but accuses the Left of hypocrisy for not supporting the decision to remove him. Perhaps he’s forgotten that the invasion of Iraq was not about regime change- well, not until the original reasons given were utterly discredited anyway. “The American and British Governments sold the invasion to their publics with a false bill of goods and its aftermath was a bloody catastrophe…” that’s the lies that led to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq dealt with. No, really it is. That’s as much attention as he gives it.
He proceeds to state that the left picked the wrong side over Iraq and have become increasingly entrenched since to the point where they oppose natural Socialist values. “…The liberal-left bitterly opposed the war, and their indifference afterwards was a natural consequence of the fury directed at Bush”. And explains that the problem (he believes) that the Left has isn’t solely a result of the Iraq invasion. What follows is a list of tangential issues which exemplify the malaise afflicting the Left: “Why is it that apologies for a militant Islam… come from the liberal-left? Why will… a leftish post-modern theorist defend the exploitation of women in traditional cultures? Why were men and women of the Left denying the existence of Serb concentration camps? Why is Palestine a cause … but not China, Sudan, Zimbabwe, the Congo or North Korea? Why after the 7/7 attacks on London did leftish… newspapers run pieces excusing suicide bombers?”.
The problem Cohen has, though if you believe that he’s wrong then it would be his saving grace, is that none of these charges are specific enough to be proved or disproved. They’re his opinions, or his assumptions. Opposing the war doesn’t equate to being ignorant of the human costs of the war (quite the opposite, I would argue). To try to understand the rationale for militant Islam is not to make apologies for it, it is a means of combating it at its source. There is a difference between opposing the imposition of Western values across the world and upholding incidents of exploitation. The Palestinian question is another example of Cohen’s liberal attitude to the truth- how can it be seriously argued that the Left fails to keep those other regimes on the agenda? For me the contrary is true, only the Left have consistently opposed those regimes. Finally, Cohen’s allegations about the response of the Left to the atrocities in Serbia and on the 7th of July are unsubstantiated and, for me, fanciful.
Cohen’s personal politics have changed, this much is undoubtedly true. Does it automatically follow that the Left that he leaves behind is finished? It is unspeakably arrogant to assume so, or else he hung on to the corpse of a once great movement for far too long. The book acts as a long justification for his personal conversion- hence the assumptions behind it are passed off as fact- and his personal conversion appears, to me at least, to be driven by one aspect of the political spectrum. That is Iraq. Everything else is written as a retrospective justification for the change. The death of Socialism- which Cohen refers to throughout as a given- is dated contemporaneously with the Poll Tax riots which led directly to the end of the Thatcherite era. To exemplify it, he spends pages discussing the rise (in as much as so minor a political party can be said to have risen) and fall of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party in 1970s and 1980s Britain, its discredited leader Gerry Healy and the parenting skills of Vanessa Redgrave. It is like using Rolf Harris’s ‘Two Little Boys’ as evidence that the pop music of the 1960s was worthless.
I believe that there is a worthwhile book in the proposition that the Left has lost its direction and sense of unity. It is in need of impetus, of a concerted focus and something to rally behind. A new red flag is desperately required. But while I do not pretend that ‘the Left’ are without fault, I equally do not buy the proposition that it is somehow less grievous when the Right get things wrong. It is like the facile bar-room argument “the Tories will screw you, but at least they’re honest about it”. The Left is not dead because there has been a decade or so of middle-ground political worthlessness and a decade or so of Neo-Conservative tyranny. To argue that leftish ideals like social justice are no longer desirable because the illegal occupation of Iraq has displaced a tyrant that Western Conservatives supported and colluded with for decades is ridiculous. But that is what this book- as far as I read it- tries to do.
It would take a Keyser Soze-esque twist in the unread portion of the book to rescue it. Otherwise it must surely be seen as a man’s vindication of his decision to turn his back on the social movement to which he once belonged.
This book is a tragically missed opportunity by a writer of no little style, but increasingly little substance.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Topkapi (1964)
Now this pissed me off when I watched it. And I feel sour about that because I love Jules Dassin and I have a high regard for Maximilan Schell but this felt like such a flimsy, glossy, insubstantial film that I just felt a bit cheated. I know that it’s a caper and I know that not every film can be Wild Strawberries and I know that it’s a bit tittish to bemoan a film for being ‘just entertainment’, but I just went in with higher expectations of the people involved. I’m sorry, that’s the price of being so talented Jules.
I mean it’s not a bad film. It’s entertaining, neatly plotted, looks great, is nicely paced with just enough humour to lighten the tone without turning a drama into a comedy. Peter Ustinov has a ball as small-time crook Arthur Simpson, Maximilian Schell and the always entertaining Robert Morley are fine too and Akim Tarimoff is simply barmy as the haughty drunken cook. In fact, I don’t know why I’m so down on it. I think I just wanted it to be Rififi and it’s more like The Italian Job and if I can love that for being what it is, why can’t I love this? There is, now I look back, a lot to admire here- not least in the sheer inventiveness of the heist. And I’m beginning to think that I misjudged this badly when I was watching it. The visual humour, tension, gadgets, dramatic scenery, outlandish characters and general tone of the film is something commonplace now, but I can’t think of many films of that type which precede it. Even the matching suits which Ustinov, Schell and Gilles Ségal wear for the heist have become a recurring motif in movies like of Oceans 11 since. I’m talking myself around here.
Perhaps I should give it another try?
I mean it’s not a bad film. It’s entertaining, neatly plotted, looks great, is nicely paced with just enough humour to lighten the tone without turning a drama into a comedy. Peter Ustinov has a ball as small-time crook Arthur Simpson, Maximilian Schell and the always entertaining Robert Morley are fine too and Akim Tarimoff is simply barmy as the haughty drunken cook. In fact, I don’t know why I’m so down on it. I think I just wanted it to be Rififi and it’s more like The Italian Job and if I can love that for being what it is, why can’t I love this? There is, now I look back, a lot to admire here- not least in the sheer inventiveness of the heist. And I’m beginning to think that I misjudged this badly when I was watching it. The visual humour, tension, gadgets, dramatic scenery, outlandish characters and general tone of the film is something commonplace now, but I can’t think of many films of that type which precede it. Even the matching suits which Ustinov, Schell and Gilles Ségal wear for the heist have become a recurring motif in movies like of Oceans 11 since. I’m talking myself around here.
Perhaps I should give it another try?
The Killers (1946)
I love the noir genre and this first-time viewing has been a real treat. A moodily monochrome tale of a simple guy led astray by a femme fatale told in flashback by an investigative insurance salesman. That’s right, it’s Billy Wilder’s ‘Double Indemnity’- again.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good movie. It zips along with a series of well-drawn and interesting characters providing strong support for the lead actors: a young Burt Lancaster looking for all the world like he’s just stepped out of an eighties Levis’ ad as the sap, Ava Gardner as the girl, Albert Dekker as the lead crook and Sam Levine- looking very much like Dexy’s Midnight Runners genius Kevin Rowland does these days- as the cop.
The real stars, however, are the cinematographer Woody Bredell- the heist itself and the tracking shot with Nick Adams exiting the diner and running to warn Lancaster are spectacular- and Miklos Rozsa’s string-heavy score. This is exactly how noir thrillers are meant to look and sound.
The first ten minutes or so are the best part by far with William Conrad and Charles McGraw as two seriously intimidating hit-men holding up a diner as they await their target. It is sensational stuff. If the rest of the film matched the standard of the opening scene, we’re talking a stone-cold classic but as it is the film only (only!) gets a very hearty recommendation.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a very good movie. It zips along with a series of well-drawn and interesting characters providing strong support for the lead actors: a young Burt Lancaster looking for all the world like he’s just stepped out of an eighties Levis’ ad as the sap, Ava Gardner as the girl, Albert Dekker as the lead crook and Sam Levine- looking very much like Dexy’s Midnight Runners genius Kevin Rowland does these days- as the cop.
The real stars, however, are the cinematographer Woody Bredell- the heist itself and the tracking shot with Nick Adams exiting the diner and running to warn Lancaster are spectacular- and Miklos Rozsa’s string-heavy score. This is exactly how noir thrillers are meant to look and sound.
The first ten minutes or so are the best part by far with William Conrad and Charles McGraw as two seriously intimidating hit-men holding up a diner as they await their target. It is sensational stuff. If the rest of the film matched the standard of the opening scene, we’re talking a stone-cold classic but as it is the film only (only!) gets a very hearty recommendation.
Made in U.S.A. (1966)
During this film the phrases “a Disney film with Humphrey Bogart” and “a Disney film with blood” are used. And you can see what is meant by that. This is super-stylish and, like all of Jean-Luc Godard’s finest films, mixes the personal and the political into a simple yet complex take on Film Noir. The simple yet complex theme is evident in the dialogue as well as the construction of the film.
Godard’s work at this point seems far more overtly political than his earlier films and is almost an expression of his doubts and uncertainties with regard to left wing politics and how they can be reconciled with contemporary society. There are overtly political visuals (the grafittied- there’s no right way to spell that is there?- phrase Liberté gets machine-gunned) and dialogue (political tracts recounted by tape recorder as a clue in the case). As an expression of what was happening in the world in general and France in particular (the Paris student riots were about two years away) Made in U.S.A. shows Godard to be both a product of and a leader of his times.
And it is, of course, an homage to the American B-movies that Godard references throughout. If not made, this film was certainly conceived in the USA- if a country can also be a state of mind and I’m not getting all up my own pseudy arse with this! The film features Anna Karina tracking down the murderer of her ex-lover. The murder was the result of his involvement in or at least knowledge of a political assassination. Karina, as was mentioned above, is a contemporary version of Bogart’s noir persona- uncompromising, hard-headed and thoughtful. She is being tracked by a criminal and his callow, hapless accomplice (much like Wilmer Cook in The Maltese Falcon). As far as a linear plot goes, that’s your lot. Non-linear plot elements are the constant pop-culture allusions, the tape-recorded monologues on the French political situation and a discussion on perspectives and how they shape our view of the world.
Being a Godard film, of course, it looks marvellous- the constant juxtaposition of stark white internal scenes with bright primary colours, the beautifully lit exteriors which seem so fresh, the long fixed-lens close-ups, the reflections of Karina barely visible in a photograph frame behind the head of the subject, the twins in the gymnasium- his visual inventiveness is indefatigable. And it sounds marvellous, with real-life intervening in the form of sirens, telephone rings and overhead planes. The influence of all of this on Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films is obvious (the basic storyline, Karina’s appearance, the name hidden by a sound effects etc) and is further testimony to the power of the film to extend beyond itself and take on an importance beyond merely being a piece of cinematic art. There is a scene where Karina and László Szabó sit down and describe what happens in the next part of the film rather than acting it out- this constant deconstruction of the cinematic myth (the dialogue constantly talks about movie scenes, characters, events, the mise-en-scène- hell even the characters are named after actors or directors) serves to remind us that Godard is making statements that go beyond the simplistic storyline. The story is not what the film says, it is merely a vehicle to express the director’s statement. Has the auteur theory ever been supported in so stark and blatant a way?
This is a film that needs to be seen and re-seen for things to make sense. Of course the whole thing could be a vacant pop-culture act of pretension like Antonioni's Blow Up, but I don’t believe so.
Night and the City (1950)
Greed, deception and unrequited love. What more could you want? Richard Widmark leads as an American wide-boy trying to get rich quick in post-war London, hustling friends and strangers alike with the promise of “a life of ease and plenty”. His success in the role is patchy, his manic desperation as the film progresses is of pivotal importance but he doesn’t convey charm anywhere near as well as Machiavellian quick-wittedness.
The speed with which the story moves is amazing considering the depth which is achieved. The film opens with Harry Fabian (Widmark) running and seems to move at the same relentless pace right through to its climax. He even says at one point “I’ve been running all of my life”. It is a very Graham Greene-type story filled with impressive minor characters- Figler the King of the Beggars, Googin the Forger, Anna O’Leary and Molly the Flower Lady- and teems with anger and frustration (expressed in every Widmark moment) and a resignation that the underworld will proceed with little obstruction by the force of law. There is no-one in the film to root for, they’re all bad. Even the non-criminal characters, Mary and Adam (Gene Tierney and Hugh Marlowe) are sappy and unappealing. At least the hoods have a spark of life in them!
The film, by Jules Dassin- a personal favourite of mine- features a number of memorable scenes including a tremendously realised wrestle between Gregorius the Great (Stanislaus Zbyszko) and The Strangler (Mike Mazurki), a wonderful sequence from the rear of an open-topped car as one of Kristo’s hoods spreads a message to street dwellers and the final chase through the dimly lit and foggy backstreets of London is perfect noir. The narrative is clear but never condescending and the mood is consistent throughout with great performances and really well designed and exeuted shots.
In the supporting roles, Herbert Lom (brooding magnificently as Kristos) and Francis L. Sullivan (Mr Jaggers from David Lean's wonderful Great Expectations) are crucial as counterpoints to Widmark. His unchannelled ambition and enthusiastic self-promotion are contrasted nicely by the men who he wants to rival, intimidating and ruthless with the quiet confidence of men with power they show Fabian up for the callow chancer that he is. That Sullivan’s character (the bizarrely named Nosseross) is also in a loveless marriage of convenience that he desperately wants to transform into a real love affair simply adds further depth to his performance.
Unrequited love and the exploitation of it is another theme which Dassin depicts in all it’s sordidness. Nosseross, as I’ve said, loves his wife- though he does describe her at one point as “bought and paid for”- and she exploits this with no kind feelings. When she leaves him he says to himself “No, Helen, you’ll come back. And I’ll want to take you back”. Fabian exploits Mary’s love for him and even she in turn doesn’t share the feelings that Adam has for her. This is an uncompromising and bleakly cynical film full of unsympathetic characters without scruple or conscience. A great uncovering of a very real underworld culture.
The bleakness inherent in this film- and perhaps all great noirs- is beautifully expressed in its expressionistic use of dramatic monochrome staging. A tremendous picture.
The speed with which the story moves is amazing considering the depth which is achieved. The film opens with Harry Fabian (Widmark) running and seems to move at the same relentless pace right through to its climax. He even says at one point “I’ve been running all of my life”. It is a very Graham Greene-type story filled with impressive minor characters- Figler the King of the Beggars, Googin the Forger, Anna O’Leary and Molly the Flower Lady- and teems with anger and frustration (expressed in every Widmark moment) and a resignation that the underworld will proceed with little obstruction by the force of law. There is no-one in the film to root for, they’re all bad. Even the non-criminal characters, Mary and Adam (Gene Tierney and Hugh Marlowe) are sappy and unappealing. At least the hoods have a spark of life in them!
The film, by Jules Dassin- a personal favourite of mine- features a number of memorable scenes including a tremendously realised wrestle between Gregorius the Great (Stanislaus Zbyszko) and The Strangler (Mike Mazurki), a wonderful sequence from the rear of an open-topped car as one of Kristo’s hoods spreads a message to street dwellers and the final chase through the dimly lit and foggy backstreets of London is perfect noir. The narrative is clear but never condescending and the mood is consistent throughout with great performances and really well designed and exeuted shots.
In the supporting roles, Herbert Lom (brooding magnificently as Kristos) and Francis L. Sullivan (Mr Jaggers from David Lean's wonderful Great Expectations) are crucial as counterpoints to Widmark. His unchannelled ambition and enthusiastic self-promotion are contrasted nicely by the men who he wants to rival, intimidating and ruthless with the quiet confidence of men with power they show Fabian up for the callow chancer that he is. That Sullivan’s character (the bizarrely named Nosseross) is also in a loveless marriage of convenience that he desperately wants to transform into a real love affair simply adds further depth to his performance.
Unrequited love and the exploitation of it is another theme which Dassin depicts in all it’s sordidness. Nosseross, as I’ve said, loves his wife- though he does describe her at one point as “bought and paid for”- and she exploits this with no kind feelings. When she leaves him he says to himself “No, Helen, you’ll come back. And I’ll want to take you back”. Fabian exploits Mary’s love for him and even she in turn doesn’t share the feelings that Adam has for her. This is an uncompromising and bleakly cynical film full of unsympathetic characters without scruple or conscience. A great uncovering of a very real underworld culture.
The bleakness inherent in this film- and perhaps all great noirs- is beautifully expressed in its expressionistic use of dramatic monochrome staging. A tremendous picture.
A quick list of things I like
I like cups of tea and the smell of old hardback books. I like saying things that shock but don't offend. I like dressing in warm clothes made of soft fibres. I like films that make me nostalgic for a time I never lived in. I like the feeling of having very short fingernails. I like it when people remember funny incidents from my past that I've forgotten. I like it when a song makes me forget what I was thinking or feeling before. I like feeling melancholy, but not for very long. I like the smell of fresh cut grass, but then doesn't everyone. I like hugging and I like shaking hands. I like the idea of duvet days but I've never worked anywhere that has them. I like having suits tailored just for me. I like continental Europe and I like being English. I like hearing arcane words and old-fashioned slang. I like it when hot chips melt the butter on my bread. I like going into a room and forgetting what I went in for. I like calling lunch dinner and calling dinner tea. I like the pop and crackle of vinyl records. I like the laughter of children and the chatter of adults. I like looking at the books people read on public transport and judging the author's ability by the readers' expressions. I like my yellow scooter which is older than I am. I like West Bromwich. I like the football team that represents them. And I love my wife more than all of these things and more.
Top 5 women from Eastenders that you wouldn’t chat up
Dot Cotton
Fat Pat
Gary Oldman's sister
Ethel and her little Willie
That fat one who looks like John Travolta on the posters for 'Hairspray'
Fat Pat
Gary Oldman's sister
Ethel and her little Willie
That fat one who looks like John Travolta on the posters for 'Hairspray'
Questions raised by Cherie Blair’s autobiography
Flicking through an old magazine in the dentist's waiting room I read a quick review of the above-mentioned book which mentioned that "Cherie Blair conceived Leo because she was afraid to take her “contraceptive equipment” to Balmoral".
This raises several questions for me:
This raises several questions for me:
- Isn’t she a Catholic?
- What did she worry that the household staff would think of her, that she was a married woman going to bed with her husband and that they may have sex but that she wasn’t planning to have any more children?
- What is the equipment she uses? Is there a Hieronymus Bosch method? Isn’t ‘equipment’ a strange word to use? Especially as no word at all was required, surely ‘contraceptives’ would have done the job.
- Why didn’t they name Leo Balmoral Blair à la Brooklyn Beckham?
Aguirre, Wrath of God / Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972)
This is powerful and intense stuff. 90 minutes inside one man's descent madness and a group's descent into starvation, treachery, fear, panic and damnation. The film depicts a trek through South American jungle by river-raft in search of El Dorado (a mythical city of gold) by Spanish conquistadors. Their motive is blind greed. Greed for money and greed for power.
The cinematography is fantastic with a constant contrast between handheld cameras amongst the actors, literally inside the action (in several orations to the group, actors speak directly into the camera as though the viewer was with them) and longer shots of the jungle which surrounds and dominates them on all sides. Indeed the opening shots of the entire party (over 1100 men) from above as they follow a single track through the jungle growth, give a sense of the scale of the expedition. And of how difficult the film must have been to complete.
The film is tranquil for stretches before sporadic bursts of violence that end as suddenly as they start. interrupt. We are conveyed into the world of the conquistadors who are bored, afraid and starving, drifting in absolute silence for hours awaiting an attack from an enemy that they cannot see or slay.
Whilst the attention to detail, painstakingly authentic direction and bare, powerful script are also key to the film's success the cornerstone of the movie is the central performance of Klaus Kinski as the title character. He seethes, literally seethes with irrationality and a burning lust for power. Kinski is awesome. His contorted frame and maniacal breathing, his timing, his very awareness of what his eyes are conveying are phenomenal. His bloodless reading of key phrases such as "I am the wrath of God, who is with me?" or "If I, Aguirre, want the birds to drop dead from the trees... then the birds will drop dead from the trees" make compelling viewing.
This is a tale of folly and madness, rendered truer than any literal depiction by the claustrophobic atmosphere and pervading air of desperation. A magnificent achievement.
This Bank Charges Ruling
Just a quick note so that I can record for myself that this actually happened.
The Office of Fair Trading have been told that they are not allowed to investigate whether banks are trading fairly or not. The OFT hoped to investigate whether charges are designed to generate profit rather than cover costs and one of the reasons that they are not allowed to investigate is that the revenue is a significant proportion of the Banks' profits.
This really happened.
Shit.
The Office of Fair Trading have been told that they are not allowed to investigate whether banks are trading fairly or not. The OFT hoped to investigate whether charges are designed to generate profit rather than cover costs and one of the reasons that they are not allowed to investigate is that the revenue is a significant proportion of the Banks' profits.
This really happened.
Shit.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Dark Victory (1939)
I cried. I cried myself to sleep after I saw this. That means it works and it also means that I'm not going to say too much about it. Bette Davis, full of life and vigour as the doomed Judith Traherne, is exceptional in this. Now I love Bette at the best of times, so a film designed to showcase her talent to the full is always going to appeal to me. So what if the elements around her aren't quite right? Bette shines in Dark Victory, she positively radiates.
George Brent as Dr Steele lacks charisma and there isn't much chemistry between him and Bette, in terms of on-screen partnerships the key scene between Bette and Bogey is a comparative sizzler. Brent actually clicks pretty well with Geraldine Fitzgerald (as Ann, Judith's closest friend) and it all just seems a bit of a shuffled pack. Not that I could see Brent playing the Bogart role , nor Fitzgerald replacing Davis at all! Bogey plays the trainer of Traherne's horses, a sometimes Irish man called Michael O'Leary- I say sometimes because he occasionally has an Irish accent but usually doesn't- and his job is to look a bit rough and to take no shit. He does the role okay but has still not quite grown from actor to star yet. Bogart's big scene with Davis is great but aside from that he, like everyone else on screen, is little better than wallpaper.
On the bright-side, this comparative invisibility amongst the support players meant that I didn't get to notice and be infuriated by Ronald the Ray Gun. A mercy.
George Brent as Dr Steele lacks charisma and there isn't much chemistry between him and Bette, in terms of on-screen partnerships the key scene between Bette and Bogey is a comparative sizzler. Brent actually clicks pretty well with Geraldine Fitzgerald (as Ann, Judith's closest friend) and it all just seems a bit of a shuffled pack. Not that I could see Brent playing the Bogart role , nor Fitzgerald replacing Davis at all! Bogey plays the trainer of Traherne's horses, a sometimes Irish man called Michael O'Leary- I say sometimes because he occasionally has an Irish accent but usually doesn't- and his job is to look a bit rough and to take no shit. He does the role okay but has still not quite grown from actor to star yet. Bogart's big scene with Davis is great but aside from that he, like everyone else on screen, is little better than wallpaper.
On the bright-side, this comparative invisibility amongst the support players meant that I didn't get to notice and be infuriated by Ronald the Ray Gun. A mercy.
Monday, 23 November 2009
Ace In The Hole (1951)
Last month I watched Billy Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch. I said then “I never feel that Wilder was truly comfortable making sex comedies. There is a bitterness and cynicism within them… this corruption at the core of the films that make them resonant and pertinent to this day”. Well if I thought Sunset Blvd. was dark, then this is pitch black.
Kirk Douglas plays Chuck Tattum; a journalist who has been kicked off various big newspapers and is working for a small circulation newspaper in Albuquerque. He stumbles across a story that he can exploit as a means of getting him back into a prestigious job. That the story has only a limited shelf-life and needs Tattum to involve himself in machinations to keep it going is the basis of the storyline, that those machinations involve risking a man’s life and capitalising on his suffering give the film its thematic thrust. Douglas is excellent, his performance is not only thoroughly convincing but is necessarily ambiguous at certain points. Throughout the film you hope that Tattum will see the immorality of his exploitation of Leo Minosa’s suffering and have a change of heart which is hinted at again and again- at one point he learns that unless he makes a change that Leo will die the next morning and he starts putting those changes in motion. This is it you think, he’s seen the light. Then he explains that Leo’s death will ruin his human interest story. Even at this stage, faced with effectively murdering a man in order to get a big newspaper story he is unable to see past his own self-interest. It may not have all of the ingredients of a typical noir thriller but films don’t get any more noir than this.
One of those key film noir ingredients is the femme fatale figure and Jan Sterling’s role as the unsettled wife of Leo Minosa who aims to capitalise on his misfortune and then leave him typifies that. She isn’t the Eve to Kirk Douglas’s Adam (see how I follow a snap of her eating an apple with that? Oh yes!) as he was rotten to start with, but she is corrupt and corrupting- all heavy-lidded beauty and actions without remorse. That said, I wasn’t thrilled by her performance at all. I understand that her portrayal is highly regarded but for me it was flat and obvious: she starts corrupt and scheming and ends corrupt and scheming, there’s no arc, no nuance, no stand-out moment. I just wanted to grab her by the shoulders and scream “Act damn you!”. I guess I’m on my own on this one, but the opportunities she has to steal the film (stopping Leo’s mother praying for his rescue because her help is needed to serve customers, brilliant dialogue like “I don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons”, the scenes with Douglas where his character may win the argument but she gets more to do as a result ) are really wasted.
And that is what stops the film being absolutely perfect because, quite frankly, in every other aspect it is. Ace in the Hole is cynical and brutal and pointed and merciless and utterly uncompromising. There is no hero, there’s no-one to root for, there’s no-one even to like. Everyone in it is self-serving, nasty or cynical, or else weak, cowardly and thoroughly unsympathetic as a result. There isn’t even a happy ending. Billy Wilder’s cynicism here isn’t confined to the newspaper hacks who keep the story going. He focuses upon the corrupt officials who allow this to happen, the travelling hawkers and peddlers, the rubber-neckers, the travelling vigil-holders, spectators, vultures and ghouls, the contractors who take the more lucrative long way around, the sideshow entertainers and the local entrepreneurs. Everyone wants to indulge in the Leo Minosa tragedy- it’s a human interest story! Watching this in the wake of the Michael Jackson carnival funeral, it can’t help but strike me how close to reality the whole thing really is almost sixty years later.
Kirk Douglas plays Chuck Tattum; a journalist who has been kicked off various big newspapers and is working for a small circulation newspaper in Albuquerque. He stumbles across a story that he can exploit as a means of getting him back into a prestigious job. That the story has only a limited shelf-life and needs Tattum to involve himself in machinations to keep it going is the basis of the storyline, that those machinations involve risking a man’s life and capitalising on his suffering give the film its thematic thrust. Douglas is excellent, his performance is not only thoroughly convincing but is necessarily ambiguous at certain points. Throughout the film you hope that Tattum will see the immorality of his exploitation of Leo Minosa’s suffering and have a change of heart which is hinted at again and again- at one point he learns that unless he makes a change that Leo will die the next morning and he starts putting those changes in motion. This is it you think, he’s seen the light. Then he explains that Leo’s death will ruin his human interest story. Even at this stage, faced with effectively murdering a man in order to get a big newspaper story he is unable to see past his own self-interest. It may not have all of the ingredients of a typical noir thriller but films don’t get any more noir than this.
One of those key film noir ingredients is the femme fatale figure and Jan Sterling’s role as the unsettled wife of Leo Minosa who aims to capitalise on his misfortune and then leave him typifies that. She isn’t the Eve to Kirk Douglas’s Adam (see how I follow a snap of her eating an apple with that? Oh yes!) as he was rotten to start with, but she is corrupt and corrupting- all heavy-lidded beauty and actions without remorse. That said, I wasn’t thrilled by her performance at all. I understand that her portrayal is highly regarded but for me it was flat and obvious: she starts corrupt and scheming and ends corrupt and scheming, there’s no arc, no nuance, no stand-out moment. I just wanted to grab her by the shoulders and scream “Act damn you!”. I guess I’m on my own on this one, but the opportunities she has to steal the film (stopping Leo’s mother praying for his rescue because her help is needed to serve customers, brilliant dialogue like “I don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons”, the scenes with Douglas where his character may win the argument but she gets more to do as a result ) are really wasted.
And that is what stops the film being absolutely perfect because, quite frankly, in every other aspect it is. Ace in the Hole is cynical and brutal and pointed and merciless and utterly uncompromising. There is no hero, there’s no-one to root for, there’s no-one even to like. Everyone in it is self-serving, nasty or cynical, or else weak, cowardly and thoroughly unsympathetic as a result. There isn’t even a happy ending. Billy Wilder’s cynicism here isn’t confined to the newspaper hacks who keep the story going. He focuses upon the corrupt officials who allow this to happen, the travelling hawkers and peddlers, the rubber-neckers, the travelling vigil-holders, spectators, vultures and ghouls, the contractors who take the more lucrative long way around, the sideshow entertainers and the local entrepreneurs. Everyone wants to indulge in the Leo Minosa tragedy- it’s a human interest story! Watching this in the wake of the Michael Jackson carnival funeral, it can’t help but strike me how close to reality the whole thing really is almost sixty years later.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Attacking Gary Megson
Bolton fans are continuing to get on Gary Megson's back for his pragmatic playing style. But it appears to me that he's been on borrowed time since he arrived because the fans want him to sign the calibre of players that Allardyce did despite the cost of those signings jeopardising the whole future of the club and making the current budgetary restraints entirely necessary. And the fact that those players had all of the skill drilled out of them- take JayJay Okocha, the audaciously gifted Nigerian who was selected purely on the strength of his long throws. Allied to that is the seeming belief that after X number of Premier league years there is a right to expect survival AND entertainment, even if what has brought success this far has been distinctly unentertaining. Let's call that the Charlton syndrome.
They may as well sack him now because he'll be forced out sooner or later anyway. And the next bloke who is given the same low budget and high demand job will follow shortly afterwards. Bolton fans may be interested to know, though, that Megson's
footballing style is all Bolton's fault. That is scientific fact.
You may recall the season that you won promotion to the Premier, you beat Megson's West Brom in the play off semi-finals. That West Brom side was almost impossibly cavalier. Megson used a 3-5-2 with two ball-playing centre halves around a sweeper and Ruel Fox in the hole behind the strikers. Despite being bookies' relegation favourites we made the play-offs in 6th and were 2-0 up in the first leg with ten
minutes to go before you pulled it back to 2-2. Obviously you hammered us in the second leg because our spirit was broken and, frankly, you were light years ahead of us anyway.
The thing was that Megson was never an attacking manager again after that, he became increasingly dour and pragmatic becoming the man you see now. Possibly apocryphal stories around the club told how he barely spoke to anyone for weeks after that. All down to that ten minutes.
There you are you see. Victims of your own success.
No-one to blame but yourselves.
They may as well sack him now because he'll be forced out sooner or later anyway. And the next bloke who is given the same low budget and high demand job will follow shortly afterwards. Bolton fans may be interested to know, though, that Megson's
footballing style is all Bolton's fault. That is scientific fact.
You may recall the season that you won promotion to the Premier, you beat Megson's West Brom in the play off semi-finals. That West Brom side was almost impossibly cavalier. Megson used a 3-5-2 with two ball-playing centre halves around a sweeper and Ruel Fox in the hole behind the strikers. Despite being bookies' relegation favourites we made the play-offs in 6th and were 2-0 up in the first leg with ten
minutes to go before you pulled it back to 2-2. Obviously you hammered us in the second leg because our spirit was broken and, frankly, you were light years ahead of us anyway.
The thing was that Megson was never an attacking manager again after that, he became increasingly dour and pragmatic becoming the man you see now. Possibly apocryphal stories around the club told how he barely spoke to anyone for weeks after that. All down to that ten minutes.
There you are you see. Victims of your own success.
No-one to blame but yourselves.
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Harry Brown (2009)
There will almost certainly be SPOILERS in what lies below this warning.
I was expecting to find Harry Brown disappointing. Thematically it seemed a tired rehash of Clint Eastwood's 2008 redemption and revenge piece Gran Torino (my notes for that film I'll load here in due course) or Michael Winner's Neo-Con wet-dream Death Wish. On top of that, the trailers pointed to glaring logical leaps in the plot- most notably that Caine is a trained killer who finds himself petrified with fear in the face of a weasely, seven stone chav with a pen-knife and moments later stands fearless in the face of a gun-wielding hard man.
In truth the story is hackneyed and obvious, it does rely heavily upon a suspension of disbelief, the portrayal is melodramatic and yet it works well overall. The similarities with Gran Torino aren't so great as to spoil your enjoyment and the personality metamorphosis that the script presents us with is nowhere near so unbelievable as it had appeared to be.
What you're left with then is Caine drawing upon his iconic status as Harry Palmer/Charlie Croker etc in an achingly 2009 British film- this won't age well at all such are the lengths that have been gone to in order to make it appear contemporary. That's a good premise and makes for a good film. It's certainly strikingly shot with Director Daniel Barber creating a stylised and yet authentically claustrophobic atmosphere around the protagonist. And there are good performances to help it along- I especially liked Emily Mortimer's I'm-more-than-simply-beautiful performance as a vulnerable but stoic Police Officer swept along by politicking on one hand and the immovable wall of silence on the other. My favourite moment, however, came with the funeral of Caine's friend Len whose murder instigates the chain of events depicted. In a graveyard we see a procession of funeral cars led by a hearse with a large floral tribute reading 'Grandad', this then passes Caine the lone mourner as a disinterested Vicar goes through the burial service. The loneliness and isolation and regret and disillusionment and lack of any real stake in society that is Harry Brown's life (and was his dead friend's) is beautifully summed up there in a single image. Fantastic. Sadly, the same message is ham-fistedly repeated with Harry's solo chess game later but the initial imagery is superb.
That it is a bit of a right winger's fantasy- yup, a British Death Wish- should be something you can leave aside if it bothers you as part of your suspension of disbelief. And in fact it would be if the film ended at the natural conclusion, ambiguously and with the darkness which makes it work so well intact. Unfortunately following the end of the story, a chapter of neat tying up is tagged-on in which everything is bright and happy and clean and sanitised and dumbed down with the clear message that everyone should be thankful to the murderous vigilante for doing what the police couldn't or wouldn't. It's such a fucking shame and ruins the film. Harry Brown presents an uncompromising look at the harsh realities of Britain's underclass with drug-taking, violence, rape, abuse, prostitution, drug-peddling and murder all shown in graphic detail. Hell, even the oblique references to The Troubles and the British Army's presence in Northern Ireland during the 1960s and 1970s are dealt with adroitly. So much good has gone before it.
And then the whole thing is undermined by the out-of-character and unnecessary epilogue which, I suppose, is an attempt to drag the whole thing away from being a borderline fascistic fantasy piece. In treating the audience with disdain and suggesting that this mollycoddling is required, it does quite the opposite. Such a shame. Such a bloody shame.
“We’re just damn glad to live in a free country where you can have a gun if you want to”
I saw the movie Harry Brown earlier, and more of that later, and the conversation I had on the journey home with my good friend The Leader reminded me of the following news story from last year:
US car dealer in free gun offer pistol
The offer is proving popular - sales have quadrupled so far
A car dealership in the United States is offering a free handgun with every vehicle sold. Max Motors in Butler, Missouri, says sales have quadrupled since the start of the offer. Customers can choose between a gun or a $250 (£125) petrol card, but most so far have chosen the gun.
Owner Mark Muller said: "We're just damn glad to live in a free country where you can have a gun if you want to."
The dealership sells new and old vehicles, including General Motors and Ford cars and trucks, and its logo shows a cowboy holding a pistol. It has sold more than 30 cars and trucks in the past three days, an increase which the owners put down to their promotional offer. Mr Muller said that every buyer so far "except one guy from Canada and one old guy" chose the gun, rather than the gas card.
He recommends a Kel-Tec .380 pistol, which he describes as "a nice little handgun that fits in your pocket".
He added that the promotion was inspired by recent comments from one of the Democratic nominees for the presidential election, saying: "We did it because of Barack Obama. "He said all those people in the Midwest, you've got to have compassion for them because they're clinging to their guns and their Bibles. I found that quite offensive. We all go to church on Sunday and we all carry guns."
The website advertisement for the offer, which continues until the end of the month, mentions that an approved background check on gun ownership is required.
Here's the original article.
US car dealer in free gun offer pistol
The offer is proving popular - sales have quadrupled so far
A car dealership in the United States is offering a free handgun with every vehicle sold. Max Motors in Butler, Missouri, says sales have quadrupled since the start of the offer. Customers can choose between a gun or a $250 (£125) petrol card, but most so far have chosen the gun.
Owner Mark Muller said: "We're just damn glad to live in a free country where you can have a gun if you want to."
The dealership sells new and old vehicles, including General Motors and Ford cars and trucks, and its logo shows a cowboy holding a pistol. It has sold more than 30 cars and trucks in the past three days, an increase which the owners put down to their promotional offer. Mr Muller said that every buyer so far "except one guy from Canada and one old guy" chose the gun, rather than the gas card.
He recommends a Kel-Tec .380 pistol, which he describes as "a nice little handgun that fits in your pocket".
He added that the promotion was inspired by recent comments from one of the Democratic nominees for the presidential election, saying: "We did it because of Barack Obama. "He said all those people in the Midwest, you've got to have compassion for them because they're clinging to their guns and their Bibles. I found that quite offensive. We all go to church on Sunday and we all carry guns."
The website advertisement for the offer, which continues until the end of the month, mentions that an approved background check on gun ownership is required.
Here's the original article.
Is Anybody There? (2009)
I haven't been able to get on here for a while- in fact it's been a week since I saw Is Anybody There?- which poses a bit of a problem. I generally extemporise my notes on here as the film is fresh in the memory, it's not like I need notes in the vast majority of cases. With Is Anybody There? I really could have done with making notes at the time, this is far from a memorable film.
So you've got Michael Caine- either brilliantly made-up or else worryingly slipping into physical decline, I somehow suspect both to be true- as an ageing, retired magician (he seems to like films about conjuring these days) and young Bill Milner from the lovely Son Of Rambow as- guess what- a geeky outsider kid and they strike up a friendship and teach one another about life and love. That's right, they strike up the kind of friendship that is really unusual except in films where they're ten-a-penny. It looks quite nice; shot in a fuzzy, vaguely lo-fi, slightly off-kilter and- I suppose- quite trendy way. There are a couple of good performances- I especially liked Anne-Marie Duff as Bill Milner's mother- and some nice cameos from a couple of top-notch old players (Leslie Phillips, Peter Vaughan, Mavis from Coronation Street, Elizabeth Spriggs and Sylvia Sims). And so I liked it for that.
But because it's formulaic and a bit obvious and determinedly bittersweet I didn't even remember it a week later, rendering these notes redundant, so it's sort of okay but a poor utilisation of the superb talents on show.
So you've got Michael Caine- either brilliantly made-up or else worryingly slipping into physical decline, I somehow suspect both to be true- as an ageing, retired magician (he seems to like films about conjuring these days) and young Bill Milner from the lovely Son Of Rambow as- guess what- a geeky outsider kid and they strike up a friendship and teach one another about life and love. That's right, they strike up the kind of friendship that is really unusual except in films where they're ten-a-penny. It looks quite nice; shot in a fuzzy, vaguely lo-fi, slightly off-kilter and- I suppose- quite trendy way. There are a couple of good performances- I especially liked Anne-Marie Duff as Bill Milner's mother- and some nice cameos from a couple of top-notch old players (Leslie Phillips, Peter Vaughan, Mavis from Coronation Street, Elizabeth Spriggs and Sylvia Sims). And so I liked it for that.
But because it's formulaic and a bit obvious and determinedly bittersweet I didn't even remember it a week later, rendering these notes redundant, so it's sort of okay but a poor utilisation of the superb talents on show.
Friday, 13 November 2009
An Islamophobic e-mail
I don’t often receive those e-mails that you hear about, I guess people know that I’ll check what it says before repeating it down the pub or passing it on, something that probably doesn’t suit the originators at all. In fact it has only happened once before, but today I received one. The subject-line read “How can you remove this from school history lessons cos it offends a religion” and the subject matter boiled down to the following sentiment “This week, the UK removed The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it ‘offended’ the Muslim population which claims it never occurred”. A little Googling shows that it is an old propaganda piece, which has been recently resurrected- presumably in the hope that people have forgotten the truth from the first time around.
I obviously responded to everyone in the e-mail trail that I could find to present the facts, but have so far received no response. I also alerted Islamophobia Watch and, should you receive one, I would urge you to do the same.
For the record, the most recent curriculum changes were to move the focus away from UK-centred history towards more international events. “Changes to the secondary history curriculum, announced last week, which will see less focus on figures such as Churchill, Hitler, and Gandhi from next year. Study of both world wars and the Holocaust, the development of political power, the British empire and slavery remain“.
The other mail I received, by the way, was some time ago which warned that millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money that was allocated to the preparations for the 2012 Olympics was secretly being utilised to build a mosque which would be bigger than St Paul’s Cathedral and hold more people than Wembley Stadium. The truth was that a privately-funded and much smaller mosque was being built vaguely near the site of the Olympic village.
I obviously responded to everyone in the e-mail trail that I could find to present the facts, but have so far received no response. I also alerted Islamophobia Watch and, should you receive one, I would urge you to do the same.
For the record, the most recent curriculum changes were to move the focus away from UK-centred history towards more international events. “Changes to the secondary history curriculum, announced last week, which will see less focus on figures such as Churchill, Hitler, and Gandhi from next year. Study of both world wars and the Holocaust, the development of political power, the British empire and slavery remain“.
The other mail I received, by the way, was some time ago which warned that millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money that was allocated to the preparations for the 2012 Olympics was secretly being utilised to build a mosque which would be bigger than St Paul’s Cathedral and hold more people than Wembley Stadium. The truth was that a privately-funded and much smaller mosque was being built vaguely near the site of the Olympic village.
Friday, 6 November 2009
Top 5 Horse songs
My Lovely Horse - Father Ted Crilly and Father Dougal Maguire
The Horse - Dexy's Midnight Runners
Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones
Chestnut Mare - The Byrds (glossing over the uncomfortable "she'll be just like a wife" sentiment)
Do It Better - Happy Mondays
The Horse - Dexy's Midnight Runners
Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones
Chestnut Mare - The Byrds (glossing over the uncomfortable "she'll be just like a wife" sentiment)
Do It Better - Happy Mondays
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
Monday, 2 November 2009
Black Mama, White Mama (1973)
If the title doesn’t tell you all that you need to know, then the cast list probably does. If the cast list doesn’t, then welcome to civilization and where have you been? Pam Grier- acting, as ever, mostly with her nostrils- is in a prison in the Philippines. I imagine that she was there for a crime she didn’t commit as she gave withering looks to the guards which said “I’m better than this” but I wasn’t totally concentrating as I’d spilt a cup of tea all over my left leg at this point.
Okay, so after the world’s longest shower scene, presumably designed to allow the feckless cum-shedders watching to get their onanistic pleasure out of the way and leave the cinema quietly (and damply) we get on with the plot. Grier and the equally statuesque Margaret Markov don’t hit it off at all, in fact they’re soon throwing things on each other’s food in the canteen and get locked (topless) in a big metal box in searing heat to sweat it out for twenty-four hours. After that, they get chained together to be taken to an even tougher prison but, en route, the prison convoy is attacked by some guerrillas and the girls take their chance to run for it. This is not The Defiant Ones by any means!
A little conversation here reveals that Markov is a poor little rich girl running with a group of Marxists who knows too much to allow them to let her stay in prison where she may talk and Grier is a drug-dealer’s concubine who has stashed away a load of his money. Being chained together presents a little problem; Markov wants to get back to her comrades and appeals to Grier’s better nature “you’re black, surely you can understand”, Grier doesn’t care at all about her “jive-ass” revolution she just wants to get the cash and leave the country. Clearly, all this talk is slowing down the pace too much and Eddie Romero (directing) isn’t stupid, he knows what we want to see. The girls have a catfight.
Next they head to the nearest town and, spying two nuns, drag them off the street and duff them up in time-honoured fashion before dressing in their habits as a disguise. Presumably on the grounds of good taste the beating up and stripping to the undies of the Nuns happens off-screen. Good taste my balls, I’m not watching this for sensitive film-making. Now, while I’m on about this scene, I’m not claiming to be a brainbox or anything, but I like to think that I can dress myself okay. What I don’t think I could do is to change from a (tiny, obviously) mini-dress into a Nun’s habit while handcuffed to someone else. Not without some dress-making equipment, a lot of time and total ambidexterity anyway!
At this point Markov removes her knickers and puts them on a dog in the hope that the scent will put off the following hounds to the extent that the follow her soiled smalls and not the two sweaty fugitives headed in the opposite direction. You may scoff, but it works! Problem is that the guerillas she's looking for have kidnapped the dogs and are led in the opposite direction. Wouldn't you just know it? Mind you, they find each other a couple of hours later; must be a small island in the shape of a Polo or something.
Oh, that’s enough about the ludicrous plot (even if Jonathan ‘Silence of the Lambs and New Order’s brilliant ‘True Faith’ video’ Demme did write it!). Here’s what it boils down to- Pam Grier is brilliant in her trademarked early 70s hammy-but-cool way, Marjorie Markov is unexpectedly almost as good and Sid Haig is screen-chewingly brilliant as crackers bounty-hunting gangster who dresses somewhat incongruously as a cowboy and listens to an awful country and western song over and over on his transistor. Everyone else is shit. There’s lots of tomato ketchup splashing around and a fair bit of nudity- Haig has it off with a bloke's two daughters while the hapless tit is outside the door offering him a game of cards or something instead. The film runs out of steam and ideas pretty quickly and everyone seems to wish they’d just made an “interracial lesbians in prison” movie instead because it all seems a bit too much of an effort out there in the jungle but in spite of it all it’s still tremendously entertaining- if only for Grier and Haig’s charisma.
Okay, so after the world’s longest shower scene, presumably designed to allow the feckless cum-shedders watching to get their onanistic pleasure out of the way and leave the cinema quietly (and damply) we get on with the plot. Grier and the equally statuesque Margaret Markov don’t hit it off at all, in fact they’re soon throwing things on each other’s food in the canteen and get locked (topless) in a big metal box in searing heat to sweat it out for twenty-four hours. After that, they get chained together to be taken to an even tougher prison but, en route, the prison convoy is attacked by some guerrillas and the girls take their chance to run for it. This is not The Defiant Ones by any means!
A little conversation here reveals that Markov is a poor little rich girl running with a group of Marxists who knows too much to allow them to let her stay in prison where she may talk and Grier is a drug-dealer’s concubine who has stashed away a load of his money. Being chained together presents a little problem; Markov wants to get back to her comrades and appeals to Grier’s better nature “you’re black, surely you can understand”, Grier doesn’t care at all about her “jive-ass” revolution she just wants to get the cash and leave the country. Clearly, all this talk is slowing down the pace too much and Eddie Romero (directing) isn’t stupid, he knows what we want to see. The girls have a catfight.
Next they head to the nearest town and, spying two nuns, drag them off the street and duff them up in time-honoured fashion before dressing in their habits as a disguise. Presumably on the grounds of good taste the beating up and stripping to the undies of the Nuns happens off-screen. Good taste my balls, I’m not watching this for sensitive film-making. Now, while I’m on about this scene, I’m not claiming to be a brainbox or anything, but I like to think that I can dress myself okay. What I don’t think I could do is to change from a (tiny, obviously) mini-dress into a Nun’s habit while handcuffed to someone else. Not without some dress-making equipment, a lot of time and total ambidexterity anyway!
At this point Markov removes her knickers and puts them on a dog in the hope that the scent will put off the following hounds to the extent that the follow her soiled smalls and not the two sweaty fugitives headed in the opposite direction. You may scoff, but it works! Problem is that the guerillas she's looking for have kidnapped the dogs and are led in the opposite direction. Wouldn't you just know it? Mind you, they find each other a couple of hours later; must be a small island in the shape of a Polo or something.
Oh, that’s enough about the ludicrous plot (even if Jonathan ‘Silence of the Lambs and New Order’s brilliant ‘True Faith’ video’ Demme did write it!). Here’s what it boils down to- Pam Grier is brilliant in her trademarked early 70s hammy-but-cool way, Marjorie Markov is unexpectedly almost as good and Sid Haig is screen-chewingly brilliant as crackers bounty-hunting gangster who dresses somewhat incongruously as a cowboy and listens to an awful country and western song over and over on his transistor. Everyone else is shit. There’s lots of tomato ketchup splashing around and a fair bit of nudity- Haig has it off with a bloke's two daughters while the hapless tit is outside the door offering him a game of cards or something instead. The film runs out of steam and ideas pretty quickly and everyone seems to wish they’d just made an “interracial lesbians in prison” movie instead because it all seems a bit too much of an effort out there in the jungle but in spite of it all it’s still tremendously entertaining- if only for Grier and Haig’s charisma.
Sunday, 1 November 2009
Top 5 Beach Boys Songs
Good Vibrations
God Only Knows
Hang On To Your Ego
I Get Around
Student Demonstration Time
God Only Knows
Hang On To Your Ego
I Get Around
Student Demonstration Time
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