VERTICAL LIMIT (2000)

Dir.: Martin Campbell, starring: Chris O´Donnell a. o. Music by James Newton Howard
Running Time: 119 min.

Well, it was okay. A hollywood actioner, directed by the guy who made a rather good James Bond movie. The panorama pictures are of course awe-inspiring, the acting is... okay.
The Score by James Newton Howard is a good action score, although it resembles Dinosaur and Atlantis in some ways.
The story is of a couple of sibling, who are climbers. Chris O´Donnell´s sister is lost in the mountains, and he has to rescue her.

KUNDUN

dir.: Martin Scorsese music by Philip Glass.

An inspirational movie by the great Martin Scorsese. It follows the story of the Dalai Lama. Great performances by the mostly unknown and unprofessional actors. Great costumes and production design. Makes you wonder about your place in the world...

In reply to Gae from the March topic--I neglected to mention how good a score Return to Tomorrow had--I think it was an original one by George Duning. I also neglected to mention an overdone moment where Kirk is trying to convince McCoy to go along with his plans, the camera cuts in to a close-up of Kirk, the scoring swells: "Risk is our business. It's the reason for this ship, it's why we're aboard her." This moment wouldn't be so outlandish if they'd pulled back, dropped the score, and underplayed it, but alas....

The Nazi episode you mentioned is Patterns of Force. You're right about the whipping scene, you'd think both Kirk and Spock would be more afraid knowing what Nazis of the past were capable of but Kirk takes it like a bee sting or something. What's neat about the whipping is that Spock has green blood and so the whips he receives create green welts. Later in the episode they play off the back thing with Kirk lifting Spock up to a light bulb on his back--he seems in more pain there than when he was getting hit. This episode had a neat premise (as did similar Trek episodes that entered gangster and Roman-themed worlds) but doesn't seem to pull as much out of it as they could.

As for Malcolm Arnold, it's amazing he's still alive. I understand he has some kind of brain disease and isn't entirely there anymore. Many people have remarked about what a great score Whistle Down the Wind has. I like it too but not as much as more dramatic Arnold like The Key and The Roots of Heaven.

What a f...ing brilliant movie ! Sam Mendes first movie is an instant classic. The cinematography by legendary dp Conrad L. Hall is nothing but a dream. Alan Ball´s sharp script won the academy award for best original script. And the score is vintage Thomas Newman.
American Beauty circles around a typical(?)family. Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) is on the highway to midlife crisis, while his wife(a brilliant Annette Benning) turns into a wildride of her own. The rebellious daughter does the obvious, and there are some really great charachters out there. Especially the "psycho"-neighbour-son, who is filming everything that´s happening around the house.
A real cinematic classic and a wonderful, wonderful movie. Absolutely brilliant !

SHINING THROUGH (1990)
Dir.: Brian Seltzer, M: Michael Kamen, starring: Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, Sir John Gielgud, and others.
Runnning Time: 118 mins.

David Seltzer´s big budget take on Casablanca and other war time movies. I love this film, don´t know why. Michael Douglas is great, as the wanna be hero. Melanie Griffith gives a solid performance, although she is a bit too wimpy at some scenes. Sir John Gielgud is great as always. Nice set directions and production design. The score by Michael Kamen is one of my favorites. Especially the scenes,as she arrives in Berlin and exits Germany are very well done.
Good film.

(more to follow)

Re. VERTICAL LIMIT - Didn't see it, but I like to watch those big snowy panoramas. Liked CLIFFHANGER (hangs head in shame). Liked THE EIGER SANCTION (buries himself completely).

Re.AMERICAN BEAUTY - Saw it. Brilliant, perfect.

Re. STAR TREK music - That's right, I think George Duning did an original score for Return To Tomorrow. I think Duning's my Trek fave. Brill Is There In Truth No Beauty, and Metamorphosis (brill brill brill, and unrecorded I believe).

Directed by Neil Jordan
Screenplay by Anne Rice, from her novel
Photography by Philippe Rousselot
Music by Elliot Goldenthal

Main Cast: Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, Antonio Banderas, Stephen Rea

A vampire is interviewed about how he became one, and his horrific unlife unfolds in flashback.

Lots of philia in this - necro, a touch of paedo perhaps, and...haemo? I think we could bandy about the term "homoerotic" too. And apart from all that, the film addresses trifles like immortality. But thankfully not in a pretentious way. It has its faults - the flamboyance is sometimes too over the top and makes the occasional scene look silly, and the film loses much of its momentum once Brad Pitt gets to Paris (all that Theatre des Vampires episode), but for me it's still largely successful in what I think it sets out to be - a very lavish, very perverse horror comic.

Directed by Billy Wilder
Screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, from the play by Alexandre Breffort and the music by Marguerite Monnot
Photography by Joseph LaShelle
Music by Andre Previn

Main Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Jack Lemmon

Shy and very green Paris ex-policeman ends up pimping for the prostitute he falls in love with, and he tries to get her "off the job".

Opportune time to revisit Billy Wilder, though I don't think this is on anyone's Top Ten list. I always found the idea of Parisian ooh la la froth a turn off anyway, but I suppose I expected more just because it's Wilder. Uf! IRMA LA DOUCE is silly, contrived, artificial - and very boring (it's about an hour too long). But I can imagine ageing spinsters and lovers of stage shows having a good old titter at the sauciness of it all.

Directed by Gillies MacKinnon
Screenplay by Billy MacKinnon and Gillies MacKinnon
Photography by John de Borman
Music by John Keane

Main Cast: Ian Robertson, Joseph McFadden, J.S. Duffy, Laura Fraser, Garry Sweeney, Clare Higgins

Glesgae, 1968: Nice wee boy gets caught up in the world o' Glesgae bampots, gangs, fechtin' an' aw that mental shite.

AH'M frae Glesgae! Ah'm FRAE Glesgae (ah mean a too stuck oan tae it), an' ah wiz a wee boy tae in 1968, but ah missed aw that fechtin' thank Christ, and didnae get ma heid chibbed in, but ah wiz feart o' the gangs onywey. Aboot the film, a Scottish yin done wi the BBC an' the Glesgae Film Fund, ah didnae like that first bit cos it wisnae really evocative o' the time or the place, but then it gets guid, when ye see aw that spiral o' uncontrollable violence that ye get when there's nothin' but heid-the-ba's aroond ye, and it's guid how ye see how the wee insignificant things can chinge the future, and these wee innocent weans huvvny onything else tae dae onywey wi' their shite lives. And it's aw mental, but wi' a bit o' luck ye can come oot it okay, but yer faimily's deid because o' the bampots.

Directed by Randa Haines
Screenplay by Steve Conrad
Photography by Lajos Koltae
Music by Michael Convertino

Main Cast: Richard Harris, Robert Duvall, Shirley MacLaine, Sandra Bullock

Two lonely old gents, who are the complete opposite of each other, become friends.

Sentimental and somewhat predictable, this is nonetheless a skillful and extremely well acted piece. Of course, gangly Richard Harris's blarneying bullshitter learns a bit of humility from reserved, meticulous Robert Duvall, and Duvall learns to loosen up a bit. Excellent performances - Harris is more exuberant and showy, but Duvall is equally good in his much more subtle playing. The two of them end up being quite touching to watch. I wonder though, is this kind of film patronizing to old people? Doesn't matter, it's still very well done (if you don't mind having your buttons pushed), and there's enough food for thought under the surface.

I also watched the first act of The Nun's Story (1959) directed by Fred Zinnemann. I haven't seen it all so I can't discuss it with authority yet, but I can make a few comments. First, the film presents becoming a nun seem like joining the army or worse, this is one tough sorority to belong to. And since there wasn't much back story, I'm not sure why Audrey Hepburn even wants to become a nun. It's a tough life. She runs into the ultimate religious paradox--you need motivation and a strong sense of self to do the work of breaking down your self to become humble and unselfish. At this point in the film, the writing that explains each step of the induction process is the strong point. Hepburn seems to disappear into her costume and the ceremonies we're shown. This is an odd role, no real star turns allowed on the premises. I'm very mixed about the score by Franz Waxman. I'm not sure The Nun's Story actually needs a score, it may have worked better without one, the silence on the soundtrack matching the otherworldly setting of the nunnery. The score the film does have isn't bad but it has to be color and subtext since the nuns are quiet and restrained. When told she should flunk her exam, Hepburn's inner emotions are all in the score impacts, not on her tongue or on her face. It's a curious moment. You wouldn't know this was so devastating to Hepburn's character without the scoring, but it does make the moment melodramatic. For good or ill, it also makes the scoring part of the plot in a way that calls attention to itself. More on both the music and the film when I've seen it through.

PHILADELPHIA (USA 1993)

Directed by Jonathan Demme
Screenplay by Roy Nyswaner
Photography by Tak Fujimoto
Music by Howard Shore

Main Cast: Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Jason Robards, Mary Steenburgen, Antonio Banderas, Joanne Woodward

Tom Hanks is a good lawyer, but he's gay and gets AIDS, so his bosses sack him, claiming that it's because he wasn't that great a lawyer after all. Cue court case.

Doncha just hate soap-box movies, those ones that get on their big high horse and point a big teachery finger at you, saying "Now sonny, let me tell you a thing or two about..."

PHILADELPHIA isn't that overbearing thankfully, in fact it's quite tasteful, and the acting's good, but it's still, for me, a high-quality Tragedy-of-the-Week TV movie. But it gets its point across.

I'm not a Howard Shore fan yet. His scoring is sensitive. But I was listening to his End Titles and thought they wandered around too much. Isn't that just orchestral rambling?

Graham, I really liked Philadelphia. Denzel and Hanks were wonderful, but I didn't think much of Shore's score either. I've always felt he was more atmosphere and texture instead of thematic and melodic. So his Lord of the Rings music surprised me with all of its sweeping themes. Very different from most of his scores. (I do like BIG and The SCORE.)

The PARADINE CASE. This was on cable last week, and I watched most of it.
(Missed a little of the beginning.) I know this is considered one of Hitchcock’s
lesser efforts. I found it mildly entertaining but not as inspiring as many of his
other movies. I really had a hard time buying into Ann Todd’s wifely suffering
and understanding of her husband’s supposed love for his client. (I’d have
thrown him out the door without opening it first. ) Also, I felt like most of
the stars were guilty of over acting. Some nice acting by supporting actors
like Charles Laughton. I mention this film mainly because I was so enamored
by the lovely melody played whenever Todd would tell Peck that she understood his emotional struggles. It was gorgeous. IMDB said the music was by Waxman. I should have known
because he does write memorable melodies.

Byron Kennedy - Producer
George Miller - Screenwriter / Director
David Eggby - Cinematographer
Brian May - Composer (Music Score)
Clifford Hayes - Editor
Tony Paterson - Editor
Jon Dowding - Art Director
Bill Miller - Associate Producer
Clare Griffin - Costume Designer
Chris Murray - Special Effects
Grant Page - Stunts Coordinator

You know, when I first saw "Mad Max" at the age of 17 I hailed it as a classic of its "Post Apocalyptic action" genre. As I was watching it on TCM last night I was thinking, either the film has dated poorly or I'm getting older, but I got bored with it after about 45 minutes and turned over. Let me get this straight..the film is as stylish as hell and some of the camerawork, cinematoghraphy etc is very creative but it also sounds and looks cheap and nasty now. This particular version was the "dubbed in American" version from what I could tell and the sound quality was poor, almost as if recorded live. Brian May's score, although interesting sometimes with its bellicose and driving kinetic style, seemed comically dissonant and inapropriate at times and the balance of music to speech was woeful. Sometimes Brian May's saxophone drowned out the dialogue. Also, I think that in this day and age of wall to wall violence in movies "Mad Max" seems to now meld in with all the other types of movies out there. At its time it was unique and incredibly stylish. It was also primarily a Revenge and Love story which tried to show the ToeCutter's gang as a menacing and evil set of murderers and rapists who deserve their comeuppance. The problem is though (like a lot of movies today also) it seems to glamourise and stylise the very same people it wants us to despise. Its a double edged sword. Maybe I've just seen the movie one too many times or am getting fed up with all the violence in movies these days, but thats my take on the movie at this particular stage of my life.
If you're 17 years of age and love stylised action flicks then Mad Max gets ****/*****

If you're 37 and hate violent movies then Mad Max gets **/*****

The ** is for the creative camerawork, some of the design work and parts of the score.

Gae

dir.: Chris Columbus MS: James Horner str.:
Robin Williams

A very soft adapatation of Isaac Asimov´s story. Robin Williams gives a rather good performance, although the movie jumps too much in the time, nearly 200 years in 2 hours. Solid performance by the ever good Sam Neill.
James Horner´s score is good, although it again is a best of score.

SOME LIKE IT HOT

dir.: Billy Wilder MS: Adolph Deutsch st: Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and that girl...

Need I say more? One of THE comedies of our time. Great performances. Grand photography.
And an all time great director. Nothing to fuss about.

SCHTONK!

dir.: Helmut Dietl MS: Konstantin Wecker st: Götz George, Harald Juhnke, Ulrich Mühe, Uwe Ochsenknecht, and many others.

In the year 1983 a journalistic sensation is presented: The actual diaries of Adolf Hitler are presented by a German newsmagazin. One of their journalists bought these dairies from an antique´s dealer. One week later, they have the blame: The diaries are fake. The sensation goes around the world.
A great sarcastic movie. Good performances by leading German actors, especially Götz George as the journalist.
Great movie. And the movie was shot in my hometown !

THE TIME MACHINE (USA 2002)

Directed by Simon Wells (and Gore Verbinski)
Screenplay by John Logan, from the novel by H.G. Wells
Photography by Donald McAlpine
Music by Klaus Badelt

Main Cast: Guy Pearce, Samantha Mumba, Jeremy Irons, Mark Addy

With THE TIME MACHINE's troubled production history I'm surprised it turned out as entertaining as it did. The early scenes set in the past are handsome, the designs for the future are nicely done, the Morlocks are suitably impressive, but it's still very much a missed opportunity.

I was kind of hoping for a bit more real science fiction, but as regards addressing the paradoxes of time travel, even BACK TO THE FUTURE had more depth (although, to be fair, the much-loved original version skimmed over most of the profound stuff too in favour of colourful action). But the biggest problem is that the portrayal of the future just isn't interesting, and the zero chemistry between Guy Pearce and Samantha Mumba doesn't help matters. Their parts are seriously underwritten too, as is that of Jeremy Irons, whose role as the chief baddie ends up being superfluous. And what about the perfunctory treatment of something as monumental as the moon blowing apart? That takes two seconds and is then all but forgotten about (the scenes of mass destruction being excised in the wake of 11-S). In fact, come to think of it, much of the general treatment is just as perfunctory.

Yet, despite everything, I enjoyed THE TIME MACHINE, in the same way that the bunch of kids sitting around me in the cinema did. The action fairly rattles along like good old matinee fodder, and I liked Klaus Badelt's music too (especially the bits that sounded like THE EDGE).

dir.: Nei Jordan MS: Elliot Goldenthal St:
Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Aidan Quinn, Julia Roberts colour, USA/IRL 1997 Running Time: 1127 mins.

Directed by John Dahl
Screenplay by Steve Barancik
Photography by Jeffrey Jur
Music by Joseph Vitarelli

Main Cast: Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman

Tremendously tarty Linda Fiorentino makes off with the money her husband made on a drugs deal. Teaming up with a somewhat slow-witted hick, the stroppy strumpet's twisted mind turns to murder.

I really enjoyed this - it's a smart piece of entertainment. It reminded me of other modern film noir things like BLOOD SIMPLE and BODY HEAT, except that in THE LAST SEDUCTION the "noir" is more clinically "bright", if that's not a contradiction. It's also one of the funniest thrillers I've seen in a while. Starting off in a straightforward fashion, the real intricacies of the plot only really develop once we're a good bit into the relationship between the sassy siren and the none-too-bright country boy - whose constant surprise as he's trying to catch up with what's going on mirrored my own! Duh! Excellent performances all round, but it's Linda Fiorentino's film, and she's extremely attractive, in all senses of the word, as the sultry slag.

Directed by Paul Mazursky
Screenplay by Paul Mazursky
Photography by Fred Murphy
Music by Michel Legrand

Main Cast: Danny Aiello, Dyan Cannon, Clotilde Courau, Shelley Winters

A film director's personal crisis comes to a head when he is forced to compromise his artistic sensibilities by making a film about a giant flying cucumber.

I've no idea really, but I get the impression that Paul Mazursky sweated blood on this project. He probably poured his heart into the script, drawing on his own experiences in Hollywood, and baring his soul about the insecurities which appear in later life. If that's the case then it's a shame that the film misfires to such an extent.

Danny Aiello is good as the angst-ridden director (Danny Aiello playing Paul Mazursky looking like Michael Winner!), but it's wildly uneven in tone, so that the satire isn't satirical enough nor the drama dramatic enough, and sometimes you don't even know when it's being funny and when it's being serious. A bit of a chore to sit through, sadly. Simply didn't work for me.

Ironic that in THE PICKLE Danny Aiello plays a fictional Paul Mazursky making a film called "The Pickle", which he is sure is going to be a flop (and it isn't), whilst in real life Paul Mazursky makes THE PICKLE, which he is sure ISN'T going to be a flop (and it is).

I'm noticing the same ideas return in different episodes--a key one being the idea of maturity vs, immaturity.

Certain humans are immature by Kirk's standards, then Kirk is immature by the standards of certain aliens who are usually much more powerful, then in some cases, the powerful aliens have lost touch and have become immature as a result.

In the Squire of Gothos, for instance, Trelaine is the immature one, toying with Kirk and the crew, ending up like Charlie X, with ultra-mature parents that dwarf the regular humans even more. The idea of people with power losing their human feeling appears in The Empath and Plato's Stepchildren and Arena too, with the "superior" beings gaining entertainment from playing with the humans. Bread and Circuses suggests, through its notion of televised gladiator bouts, that the audience watching Trek is immature as well. Plato's Stepchildren and Arena both involve audiences watching the antics, suggesting that all audiences reflect a sadistic aspect. Trek seems rather preachy about this, with almost every show bringing up ethics. Since most of the aliens show up in humanoid form or even take human appearance--the Kelvins in By Any Other Name and Sargon and crew in Return to Tomorrow, or experience human jealousies as in Wink of an Eye--the aliens represent some aspect of human behavior. Just like the Hemingway code that scholars like to talk about, there is a Trek code, which I'm trying to decipher episode at a time, by which Roddenberry and crew believe people should follow. Of course, this includes a certain sexism that women of today might object to (not just the mini-skirts which could be seen as a pro-feminist freedom but the idea that women can't really come to positions of rank--they just hand out coffee, look sexy, and occasionally are cruel villians that must be put in line), as well as certain hypocrisies--the ethical principle being one thing and what Kirk actually does being another (that poor prime directive gets violated so many times for example, I don't know why they even bother to mention the thing).

I'm noticing the same ideas return in different episodes--a key one being the idea of maturity vs, immaturity

Yeh, as in Bones and Kirk always taking the pIss out of Spock or Kirk and Spock taking the pIss out of Bones!!

The last episode I watched (I think it was the Nazi one) at the very end Kirk and Spock said something that really riled Bones. The end shot was Kirk sitting in his chair laughing out loud, Spock with a quizzically bemused expression on his face while Bones looked on at them both with a really exasperrated and pIssed off look on his face. The camera pulled away and the episode ended there leaving Bones in this state of anxiety. I just thought it was hilarious. What a way to leave your chief medical officer feeling at the end of an episode? Feeling sorry for Bones' situation, I imagined what he was thinking as the camera pulled away. It was something along the lines of this "Curl up and die you pointy eared alien and arrogant self-righteous captain"

Gae

Gene Kelly - Don Lockwood
Donald O'Connor - Cosmo Brown
Debbie Reynolds - Kathy Selden
Jean Hagen - Lina Lamont
Millard Mitchell - R. F. Simpson
Cyd Charisse - Dancer
Rita Moreno - Zelda Zanders
Douglas Fowley - Roscoe Dexter
Madge Blake - Dora Bailey

Stanley Donen - Director
Gene Kelly - Director
Arthur Freed - Producer / Composer (Music Score)
Betty Comden - Screenwriter / Songwriter
Adolph Green - Screenwriter / Songwriter
Harold Hal Rosson - Cinematographer
Nacio Herb Brown - Composer (Music Score)
Adrienne Fazan - Editor
Randall Duell - Art Director
Cedric Gibbons - Art Director
Lennie Hayton - Musical Direction/Supervision / Composer (Music Score)
Fred Brown - Songwriter
Roger Edens - Songwriter
Al Goodhart - Songwriter
Hoffman - Songwriter
Jacques Mapes - Set Designer
Edwin B. Willis - Set Designer
Walter Plunkett - Costume Designer
Warren Newcombe - Special Effects
Irving G. Ries - Special Effects

Hollywood, 1927: the silent-film romantic team of Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen) is the Toast of Tinseltown. While Lockwood and Lamont personify smoldering passions on screen, in real life the down-to-earth Lockwood can't stand the egotistical, brainless Lina. He prefers the company of aspiring actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), whom he met while escaping his screaming fans. Watching these intrigues from the sidelines is Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), Don's best pal and on-set pianist. Cosmo is promoted to musical director of Monumental Pictures by studio head R. F. Simpson (Millard Mitchell) when the talking-picture revolution commences. That's all right for Cosmo, but how will talkies affect the upcoming Lockwood-Lamont vehicle "The Dueling Cavalier"? Don, an accomplished song-and-dance man, should have no trouble adapting to the microphone. Lina, however, is another matter: put as charitably as possible, she has a voice that sounds like fingernails on the blackboard. The disastrous preview of the team's first talkie has the audience howling with derisive laughter. On the strength of the plot alone, concocted by the matchless writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Singin' in the Rain is a delight. But with the addition of MGM's catalog of Arthur Freed-Nacio Herb Brown songs — You Were Meant for Me, You Are My Lucky Star, The Broadway Melody, and of course the title song — the film becomes one of the greatest Hollywood musicals ever made. — Hal Erickson Allmovieguide

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful escapist fare. I'd forgotten how great this movie was. The music, dancing, sets etc are just stunning and Debbie Reynolds is just so cute. Highlights are the routines to the title number, "Make em Laugh" "Good Mornin" "Moses Supposes(stunning tap-dancing) and "You were meant for me". Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont is hilarious and steals the show from under everyones noses. A classic "feel good" musical that has you reaching for the hankerchief to laugh and cry at the same time. This is what movies are all about. Sadly, though, they just dont make them like this anymore. The only weak part of the film was the sequence of "The Broadway Melody". Dont get me wrong, as a sequence it was delightful to watch but in the context of the film it didn't make sense. How were they going to fit that into "The Singing Cavalier" when it was a costume drama and they only had a few weeks to re-do the whole film? It felt like the scene was just thrown in to add some more numbers and dance routines. Just one gripe though in an otherwise classic fun movie.

Gae

D: Keneth Branagh Sc: Scott Frank MS: Patrick Doyle DP: Matthew F.Leonetti,ASC
starring: Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi, Andy Garcia, Hannah Schygulla

My absolute favorite movie of all time. Surely one of Kenneth Branagh´s best pictures. A startling black and white/colour - thriller. How did the critics used to say: The best Hitchcock, Hichcock never made.
The performances are excellent. I especially enjoyed Derek Jacobi as "Frankiee". Scott Frank´s writing is special as usual. He is surely one of the giftest scripter´s out there. Patrick Doyle´s score is outstanding, it was one of the very first scores I ever got.
Well, if you don´t believe me, go see it for yourself, I´ve got to go back to the movie.

Assignment: Earth takes on the idea of Nukes in space that 2001 was going to and didn't and that Space Cowboys did again recently. Trek was against it. The Trek shows involving androids put AI to shame 40 years ago. Other shows have better origin theories than 2001 proposed. And there's no mistake that The Mark of Gideon episode suggests family planning if not abortion as the solution for the over-populated planet Kirk finds there.

EL MILAGRO DE P. TINTO (Spain 1999)

Directed by Javier Fesser
Screenplay by Guillermo Fesser and Javier Fesser
Photography by Javier Aguirresarobe
Music by Suso Sáiz

Main Cast: Luis Ciges, Silvia Casanova, Pablo Pinedo, Javier Aller, Emilio Gavira

Looks like the end of the line for the P. Tinto family business. No heirs appear because the now elderly couple never found out how to have sex, but they do manage to "adopt" a family - two very rude dwarf aliens, and a recently escaped lunatic who wants to go back in time in order to prevent his mother being killed by a falling crate of cheese.

Yes, that's what this film is about. I think it had a release outside Spain with the anglicised title THE MIRACLE OF P. TINTO. If you like wild and wacky films, you might try to track this down - it's a surreal, delirious delight, and extremely inventive visually. "Inspired lunacy" may be the appropriate cliché here.

Directed by Gordon Hessler
Screenplay by Tim Kelly and Christopher Wicking
Photography by John Coquillon
Music by Wilfred Josephs

Main Cast: Vincent Price, Hilary Dwyer, Patrick Mower, Elisabeth Bergner, Essy Persson

A magistrate in 16th Century England gets his kicks out of persecuting those who he believes might be witches. One day he goes too far, and the chief old witch sends one of her disciples (who can turn into a hairy horror) to infiltrate the magistrate's home and destroy the sprawling family from within.

Mmm, put like that, this sounds quite good, methinks. But it isn't really. It sadly lacks the flair of the Corman films - think how Corman would have exploited the hypocrisy of the Price character, in comparison to how Hessler only exploits tits. And Christopher Wicking's script is no help. Like most of his other screenplays (BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB; TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER; SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN - this last one also directed by Hessler), the narrative could be charitably described as "interestingly fragmented" or merely disjointed. Some of the scenes in CRY OF THE BANSHEE seem to just end in the middle, and all this combined with dull, clumsy staging and a dearth of enthusiasm makes for a disappointingly static and unatmospheric hairy horror thriller.

The Main Title design is the work of Terry Gilliam - well done, of course, but extremely like his animation for MONTY PYTHON, which may cause some unintentional hilarity in the context of a horror film (here, a cardboard cut-out of Vincent Price's head splits apart, and a lot of Bosch-inspired creatures come flying out).

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick, Calder Willingham and Jim Thompson, from the novel by Humphrey Cobb
Photography by Georg Krause
Music by Gerald Fried

Main Cast: Kirk Douglas, Adolphe Menjou, George Macready, Wayne Morris, Richard Anderson, Ralph Meeker, Timothy Carey, Joseph Turkell

During World War 1, three French soldiers are court-martialed for cowardice. The yellow-bellied scumbags had misgivings about being turned into mince in a suicide mission designed in order to get another medal for the top brass.

From the days when Stanley Kubrick made short, enjoyable movies, comes the classic PATHS OF GLORY. It's still savagely effective, with a sharp eye cast on the absurd grotesqueness of the situation - the scene with the wounded soldier being strapped up in front of the firing squad in his stretcher isn't too far from DOC STRANGELOVE territory. Well acted too, with the possible exception of Timothy Carey as one of the accused (the big one with the Sly Stallone droopy eyelids) - I thought he was feigning those blubbering fits and really had a cunning escape up his sleeve. Jings joke, that whimpering was for real!

Directed by John Schlesinger
Screenplay by Malcolm Bradbury, from the novel by Stella Gibbons
Photography by Chris Seager
Music by Robert Lockhart

Main Cast: Kate Beckinsale, Eileen Atkins, Sheila Burrell, Ian McKellan, Rufus Sewell, Freddie Jones, Joanna Lumley, Miriam Margolyes, Stephen Fry

After her father's death, a young piece of posh skirt goes to live in the country with her yokel relatives, and sets them on the road to self-fulfilment.

I say, that's all those country folk needed to get them out of their dreadful pigstye-smelling lives - a young piece of posh skirt from the city to tell them what to do! I suppose one may call this little film a "comedy of manners", pointing up quite nicely the refined ways of the gentry in comparison to the great unwashed, up to their necks in farmyard excrement (with pieces of straw sticking out of it - YUK!)

It's a most joyful little work, and splendidly acted by all concerned (except perhaps Stephen Fry - isn't he the most AWFUL ham?). And chaps, what did you think of that Kate Beckinsale, eh? Very tasty bit of posh skirt, what? She could milk my udders any day.

And chaps, what did you think of that Kate Beckinsale, eh? Very tasty bit of posh skirt, what? She could milk my udders any day.

Would that go in the carton labelled "Whipped Double Cream" ?

Just the same, in rewatching these episodes, one can still be surprised by their depth.

The number 3 is a major motif in The Gamesters of Triskelion. Tri-skelion is part of a Trinary system, it has 3 suns. When a trio of crew (Kirk, Chekov, Uhura) are sent there by a power beam of light, they land on a pad called a triad, seperated into 3 sections of blue. Another trio of crew (Spock, McCoy, Scottie) are back on the Enterprise bridge in hot pursuit. Meanwhile our 3 on the planet are given 3 seperate cells and 3 seperate trainers to become slaves for gladiator battles. Triskelion is run by Providers, they used to be normal humanoids but evolved mentally to where they could shed their bodies. Kirk finally meets them, once again there are 3 of them, 3 brains in a dome. Kirk notes that they wager among themselves to see what slave will present the best spectacle. Kirk criticizes them saying that their higher mental evolution should be used for something more productive than placing bets on fights. He says he will give them a great fight to watch but that if he wins, the gladiator slaves must be freed and that the Providers must educate them instead. The fight is shown to the crew of the Enterprise on their forward viewing screen, but they can't participate, they can only watch but do nothing.

Now, I realized from watching other episodes, that Trek was critical of TV and of audiences. Audiences are always using the participants they watch somehow for their own entertainment. Audiences are also immobile, unable to do anything but watch. The Enterprise crew watching scenes unfold on their monitors occurs in a number of episodes from Arena in the first season through to The Savage Curtain in the last. Bread and Circuses especially, with its Empire TV, televised gladiator bouts, canned audience laugh/hiss track, and Kirk's dissing TV on Earth as similar, made its jabs about all of TV beyond criticising just audiences.

Well, given the content of the Triskelion episode, it wasn't much of a jump to see that the 3 motif referred to ABC, NBC, and CBS. That the 3 Providers were Network providers, that the 3 evolved brains in a dome were network executives, once regular people but now looking for entertaining action for people rather than using their evolved power and status to educate and free people. I could see this episode as a response to some network suit telling Roddenberry to put more fights in the show, to dumb it down. Ok...

What's interesting about this episode is that, even though it's not as great as other episodes (one reason it's not so great are all the fights), it encorporates many of the basic ideas Trek is about in one place. The ship is at one planet doing its own thing and the crew are yanked (by a light beam...TV?) to go do another against their will. They are detained and studied by a superior power as in so many episodes and they outwit that power to return to what they were doing before (making great TV and not just dumbed down TV?). At one point one of the slaves learns about freedom and asks what do you do with it. Kirk answers that you choose your mates and you love and take care of them. So at heart, although Kirk is mouthing off about freedom and the right to choose in many episodes, this isn't the goal it's just the pre-condition for what people are supposed to do with the freedom which is love and care for each other. Of course, freedom also means the freedom to bolt, dump, and not to care, since Kirk makes out with the girl slave but won't take her away with him on the ship as she requests

What is also interesting about this episode and the combined take on TV and audiences in the other episodes as well is that it leads to certain conclusions. Trek says that people need to go out and live their own lives rather than watch TV in order to feel things. TV should be used to educate and free people to live and feel rather than make them slaves and then provide them with feelings they can no longer generate on their own away from TV. The ultimate reason is to respect people's freedoms to act and choose as they want so that they would naturally come to love one another and live good lives on Earth. By using metaphor and technique, the series itself says these things in a style that takes the use of one's own brain, to get it all you have to participate in the presentation rather than sit dumbly by. Kirk hovers over the 3 providers in a dome and outwits them by giving them what they want while hoping to get what he wants as well, which is how Roddenberry must have felt about the whole series, as a challenge to see how much message he could get away with under the guise of a simple TV show.

My descent into Geekdom continues as I re-watch Star Trek episodes, the ultimate sign of having no real life....

And the other ultimate sign is spending all the rest of your free time posting messages on the internet... Join the club Lou!!!

Well, I took a break from the Star Trek onslaught to actually catch some other films.

Ann Arbor is one of the stops of the World Tour of the Banff Mountain Film Festival. The festival is held in Banff every November and a selection of the best films is put together to tour the world. The range of film subjects is vast: skiing and mountain climbing, but also extreme sports and daring undertakings that have nothing to do with mountains. The bottom line or common denominator seems to be a fearless, outdoors kind of athletic personality and whether they are kayaking, rock climbing, sailing, or making their way around on unicycle or paraglider, the films about their exploits are nothing short of amazing.

I advise everyone to take a look at the Banff Mountain Film Festival web site for more information about this unique festival.

www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/tour/

The key films from the tour were Berserk in the Antarctic, Unizaba, Carrying the Burden, Base Heads, and Desert Friction.

Berserk tells the amazing story of 3 guys who take a sailboat from Cape Horn to Antarctica without much prior sailing experience. One guy becomes gravely depressed, the motor refuses to run in cold temperatures, dangerous ice threatens them, they capsize in a storm. Just the same, they are 'befriended' by whales, penguins, and sea lions and get to spend 3 months exploring. The things they said and did were at times hysterically funny (one of the sailors was from Norway and he sailed out of the harbor wearing a Viking helmet with horns jutting out from it, he gave his engine the finger when it stopped running, etc.).

Unizaba is about a unicycle champion, the man can do amazing things on that bike, and he goes to the Orizaba Mt. in Mexico, the third highest in in N. America, and rides down the thing at an amazing speed!

Carrying The Burden was actually a BBC news feature about porters for foreign trekkers in Nepal who are ill-treated by their employers, carry incredible weights on their backs while climbing in the mountains, and often suffer altitude sickness, frostbite, and death on their job.

Base Heads was a very short film, just guys jumping off cliffs on Baffin Island, having freefall for 30 seconds and then pulling the rip cord. Simple stuff but the images were cut together to give the real impression of flying and weightlessness. That too is old hat, but what the heck, it looked great.

Lastly, Desert Friction was the story of two mountain climbers taking on a nearly vertical upcropping in the desert of Namibia. One was older and more experienced than the other and the young guy's complaints, fears, and swearing were just hilarious.

Additionally, I made my way through the OVA set of The Irresponsible Captain Tylor. The 26 episode TV series with the same name is one of the highlights of all Anime. Unfortunately, the OVAs that followed couldn't keep up the same level of quality. Not that they weren't very funny or even intense and dramatic, but the series had a depth and a philosophy it was trying to impart that the OVAs lacked. Still, I liked all these characters and it was good to see more of them.

Price is great in this even if he does go a bit over the top now and then. The program was fascinating--just him doing monologues in 4 different sets as 4 different Poe characters. Very theatrical with Price getting a shot at showing some range and the effect he must have had if you saw him in person on a stage. There were some audio effects and early video superimpositions to fill things in a bit but they weren't even necessary. Some of the directorial camera effects were a bit too emphatic, they could have gone, but the overall result was pretty entertaining.

The score was by Les Baxter using a chamber orchestra in a much more atonal-sounding vein than his scores usually sound like. The score is available on CD along with Cry of the Banshee. A shame no one ever made a spoken word album of this--or perhaps there is one I don't know about.

This showed on AMC and so it's likely to repeat again sometime. If so, it's worth taking a look at (and listen to).

Gae, I realise that the comment about my udders sounded strange. I don't have udders. What I meant was, "Wouldn't mind milking HER udders."

DUEL (USA 1971)

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Screenplay by Richard Matheson, from his story
Photography by Jack A. Marta
Music by Billy Goldenberg

Main Cast: Dennis Weaver

A man is forced to examine his lack of genitalia on a terrifying road trip to a business appointment.

Or maybe it's just about a lorry chasing a man along a road. Maybe, but no, I mean just look at the first shot of Dennis Weaver in his little car, squinting through the windscreen, knees virtually up to his chin. Image of a loser, and it looks like he may get his clothes from the same shop as Mr Bean (but whereas Mr Bean has turned his lack of charisma to his advantage, Weaver as Mr Mann - note the name - is crushed under it). His sexuality is continually in question: we learn in an early telephone conversation that he has had a fight with his wife because he was slow to react when one of their party guests "almost raped" her. And we learn that he must be home early from the business appointment because he's got another meeting that evening - with his mother! And what about that scene where the school bus gets stuck? Mr Mann's car isn't powerful enough to move it, and oh how the children laugh at him through the window. Then the truck driver appears (though we never see him - he's as anonymous as Mr Mann, but he's still "everyone else") and gets the bus going with a shove from his "big hard one", which is the truck, of course. But the really tragic thing about Mr Mann is that, although he "wins" in the end, he'll chalk it up to another defeat, because he's really left back at square one, sharing his story with no-one. Who would believe him anyway? The only people to witness the actual truck attacks were a pest control man and an eccentric old gas station owner (who was more concerned even about her pet snakes than she was about Mann's plight). Yep, Mr Mann has had a rough ride, but he doesn't come out of it strengthened. He will go on being ineffectual in his life.

Did you like all that? And I didn't even get it from a book. But even if you choose to ignore the truck-as-a-penis stuff, DUEL is still an exciting action film, beautifully acted by Weaver, and extraordinarily well directed, written, photographed, edited and scored.

Directed by Jim Clark
Screenplay by Greg Morrison and Ken Levison, from the novel by Angus Hall
Photography by Ray Parslow
Music by Douglas Gamley

Main Cast: Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Robert Quarry, Adrienne Corri

A horror actor's comeback is plagued by a series of grisly deaths.

You may know this under the title THE RETURN OF DOCTOR DEATH. Whatever, it's not very good. Vincent Price's acting style was already looking out of place by 1973, especially in modern dress, and it's a bit pitiful to watch him trying to carry the weak material almost on his own. And by being set in the present day (well, present day 1973) any potential atmosphere is drained by the tacky plywood and formica office sets.

Poor-looking, rather silly and not even remotely frightening, but it still gives me a nostalgic warmth to see Vincent films, and it's doubly pleasurable when the great Peter's on-screen too. We also get to see old Boris, and Basil Rathbone, in clips from the early Corman/ Poe movies - and there's even an appearance from Michael Parkinson as himself! Oh, I should mention that the final ironic sequence is EXTREMELY unusual, and vaguely unsettling for some reason - it's Peter... playing Vincent... playing Peter!

Directed by George Marshall
Screenplay by Horace McCoy, Lewis Meltzer and Michael Blankfort
Photography by George Meehan
Music Director: M.W.Stoloff

Main Cast: William Holden, Glenn Ford, Claire Trevor

Cowboy adventures.

I see that director George Marshall cut his teeth on old serials, comedies and westerns. All that comes through in this routine, episodic effort. Originally released in sepia, maybe that was the only point of interest this film ever had. That, and watching upcoming stars Holden and Ford, though neither of them makes much of an impression. TEXAS is a cut above an old serial and I'm sure it went down quite painlessly with young matinee audiences in 1941, which probably sounds like very faint praise indeed.