Category: Blu-ray

Drugs = bad, ‘fifties style

On By ghostof82In Blu-ray, Movies, Film noir, RadianceLeave a comment

ImageChnouf / Razzia sur la chnouf (1955), Dir. Henri Decoin, 105 mins, Blu-Ray (Radiance World Noir Vol.4)

Henri comes back to his France following a successful stay in the United States, where he was tasked with operating the Italian drug trade. He is tasked with now heading up the French operations and making it more efficient and profitable. Given the cover of being the new manager of a nightclub, he sets upon learning the local operation and who runs it. But the police have marked his arrival and seem to be watching his every move… 

I’ve noted before that one has to make allowances when viewing old movies- in this case, while it does seem dated, its very true that this film’s almost docudrama approach regards the importation, cutting and delivery of drugs possibly makes it The French Connection of the 1950s and I’m confident it was likely quite shocking to cinema audiences. Its glimpse of the dark underbelly of society, with even decent-looking, honest people seen falling foul of addiction to hard drugs like heroin, even if it was limited to what censors back then could permit shown onscreen, still packs a punch, even today.  Indeed, its also a reminder that suggestion can often be more powerful than simply graphic depiction. There is, for instance, a sequence in a jazz-club frequented by black men in which a heroin-addicted white woman on a high flirts with a half-naked black dancer and they slip down to the floor for a sexual encounter masked by the attendant crowd that closes in, surrounding them and barring our camera-view, that seems to imply an ensuing drug-fueled orgy involving all the punters. Leave your imagination at the door, I think… but there’s a few moments like this, such as when a chemist who is hired to cut the drugs is ‘corrected’ for his errors by having to watch his wife being raped before his eyes… the rape is offscreen of course, but its all the more effective because of that. What is implied carries weight.

So its a pretty tough film in many ways. Unfortunately the film is totally undermined by a twist towards the end that comes from out of nowhere. Now, I suppose I should possibly applaud a film that doesn’t telegraph a big twist like so many, certainly modern, films would (these days there seem to be a habit of the audience being ‘in the know’ when the in-film characters aren’t, as if modern audiences take some pleasure from it). But in this case its so out of leftfield it breaks the film. It absolutely makes no sense and results in a clearly manufactured and not at all convincing happy ending and positive outcome for the forces of justice and honest joes everywhere (the ending is no The French Connection, for sure). Its nonsense, basically. Maybe the film-makers decided it was expected of them, or it was the only way to get other sections of the film past the censors.

There is also the matter of a decidedly unlikely romance between Jean Gabin and a young woman more than half his age- Gabin was looking every one of his fifty-one years by this point, and the beautiful Magali Noel only twenty-four. In a film that purports to be gritty and realistic, it smacks rather of Hollywood wish-fulfillment for the male audience and is something of a credibility-stretch. Gabin’s certainly no Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart (I remarked on such uncomfortable liaisons in my recent review of To Catch a Thief, and here we are again with another ‘fifties movie suffering the same).

Somehow the best noir plans never work out: Back to the Wall

On By ghostof82In Blu-ray1 Comment

ImageBack to the Wall / Le dos au mur (1958), Dir. Édouard Molinarom , 93 mins

Successful industrialist Jacques Decrey returns home early from a business trip to discover that his wife Gloria is having an affair with a young actor/musician. Gloria is unaware that her husband knows of her affair. Posing as a man named Berthier, Jacques sends letters to Gloria threatening to reveal the affair to her husband, blackmailing Gloria and trying to derail the affair with demands for money she doesn’t have .The web of deceit ties itself into knots however and spirals out of control, into a path of murder and suicide.

Ah, this was bliss. I do love a good film noir. There’s something honest and true about dramas of the dark undercurrent of the human soul. Watching the tortured Jacques attempt to both punish his wife and draw her closer to him in an attempt to ‘fix’ their marriage is something of a breath of fresh air; a narrative of twists and turns and surprises. One roots for the wronged man right up to the end, wincing as his plot inevitably unravels and everything falls apart. Visually the film is absolute noir, with typically expressionistic lighting, deep shadows, and characters trapped within the cinematic frame, one can appreciate how carefully scenes are shot.  But its the story, adapted  from a novel written by Frédéric Dard (who also wrote the source stories for Paris Pickup, Nude in a White Car and The Wicked Go to Hell) that is the film’s best asset, a more grounded narrative compared to those others, which were hamstrung by limits of plausibility.

The twisting narrative certainly gives the very good cast plenty to chew on, and there’s some great characters here- the unhappy Gloria, swept away by the attentions of her passionate younger lover who she knows is unworthy of her, and the (apparently) cuckold private investigator who finds some deeper, honourable cause in assisting Jacques’ scheme, as if for once he’s got a job that doesn’t make him feel dirty. Gloria is played by Jeanne Moreau , an actress I’ve struggled to warm to in the past (The Bride Wore Black), but she’s very good here. Gerard Oury is excellent as Jacques, a character who offers a bit of a moral quandary, I suppose: Jacques is clearly the wronged party but our allegiance is likely intended to shift towards Gloria as her husbands  ‘punishment’ becomes increasingly vindictive; yet I have to admit, I was rooting for Jacques to the end. Maybe that says something about me, I don’t know. Its not the first time I’ve been on the ‘wrong side’ wishing the villain of a noir to succeed in spite of the odds. Censors (and indeed probably audiences themselves) back then would seldom allow filmmakers to portray a ‘bad guy’ getting away with it, so to speak, but that never makes me stop hoping.  At the end of the film, I felt rather frustrated- Jacques doesn’t deserve any of this, does he?

ImageBack to the Wall features in Radiance’s World Noir Vol.4 boxset, and is again like so many of Radiance’s releases one of those absolute joys that unfortunately escapes most people because of its relative obscurity. Basically, its got two strikes against it ever reaching audiences of today- its over sixty years old and is a foreign film (black and white? subtitles?), so who’s interested now other than a niche audience still buying films on disc? Indeed, not just that, but BLIND-buying films on disc, a particular corner of film-collecting that is surely just even more limited. Okay, not all of Radiances (or Indicators, for that matter) releases always work with me- there have been one or two clunkers that I’ve fallen foul of, but that’s the risk one naturally takes blind-buying films, particularly fairly obscure ones. Hopefully the greats outweigh the stinkers.

 

Kolchak returns

On By ghostof82In Blu-ray, Horror, Life!, Television10 Comments

ImageIt was my birthday last weekend. Alas, it was a…. how does one refer to it…. it was a Big One? At least, that’s how one of my birthday cards described it: “it’s the BIG ONE”; To be exact, it was the Big Sixty (the team at work even put up banners and balloons in the office, the scoundrels, which was very nice).

I must confess, I never had a problem with forty, we even had a big party at a hotel (that’s now full of asylum seekers, how things change in twenty years). Nor did I have any problem reaching fifty, really, even though at that point there’s clearly less ahead than there is behind us, but sixty… well, maybe sixty is the deal-breaker regards celebrating birthdays. I think most all of us still feel just twenty-one, inside, no matter how old we get, and no matter what that mirror in the morning reminds us, but this time celebrating this particular additional revolution around the sun, I have to admit it did give me a moment of… how did this happen? 

So anyway, we had the family around on the big day, and I was lucky enough to receive lots of lovely presents, including some Amazon vouchers which I used to spoil myself with a boxset I’ve had my eyes on for a few months- the Blu-Ray box of Kolchak: The Night Stalker that Imprint in Australia released last year. As the Aussies are the same Blu-Ray region as us, this port of Kino’s earlier Region-A locked edition will work on my player, and the vouchers made its import price less of a pause for thought, and it was even available next-day delivery on Amazon through its marketplace, so… Well, I debated it for a few days, I agonize over every purchase these days. There was Kolchak or the new Thunderbirds boxset. Reaching sixty drives us a little crazy, I think.

Consider it comfort food, a (late? I have no idea) mid-life crisis. A retreat to something familiar and reassuring. More evidence that we try to reach for our childhood as it gets only further away (I’ve watched several YouTube videos of sixty-something men unboxing that new Thunderbirds set like eight-year olds at Christmas).

I love Kolchak. Following two successful TV movies The Night Stalker (1972) and The Night Strangler (1973)  the series originally aired in the US in 1974/1975 but somehow didn’t make it here to the UK until late in 1983, although I think the the TV movies did get screened here well before that- at least, I recall watching both The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler during my childhood on late-night telly and getting scared witless by them, particularly the second film. Its curious to think that the series was possibly considered too strong for audiences over here in the 1970s; why else wouldn’t have it been purchased for UK transmission by the BBC or ITV?  Censorship was a funny thing back then, but considering the success of Dr.Who and shows like Star Trek at the time, I’d have thought Kolchak was a sure thing for keeping the kiddies quiet or hiding behind the sofa.

I love 1970s American television shows, like Columbo, Starsky and Hutch, The Rockford Files, Kojak, The Streets of San Francisco…  cheesy as hell for many, no doubt, but growing up on them all as a kid there’s a lovely nostalgia about them, now, right down that Universal logo/fanfare at the very end of each episode of the Universal shows. I guess you had to be there: the 1970s, for all our rose-tinted glasses of childhood, were pretty miserable here in wet old blighty, and those American shows offered escapism, of a sort; sunny, glossy places, big cars and good guys beating bad guys. A generation earlier, British kids were being wowed by cowboy movies in Saturday cinema matinees; for my generation it was TV cop shows and the like.

So while Kolchak: The Night Stalker never aired here in the UK at the time it was made, its obviously full of that 1970s look, feel and sound (and most importantly, the oh-so-familiar guest-stars of that TV era) that makes it some kind of genre gold-dust today. Darren McGavin is fantastic as the cynical, witty, anti-establishment investigative reporter working in Chicago who frequently gets in over his head with supernatural horrors every week. The basic premise of the show is even sillier than it probably sounds but there is such charm to it that chiefly originates from McGavin’s fantastic performance. Watching his Kolchak, laughing at his one-liners and observations and admiring his endless tenacity one can forgive the fake-looking monster-of-the-week and repeated stock footage – this show was low-budget even for the time, although it did actually shoot its night scenes at night, there was no day-for-night nonsense here.

But there was so much to admire about network television shoes back then, it was definitely some kind of major achievement, cranking out 22 episode seasons every year while maintaining some level of quality. Its inevitable that quality was hit and miss and, production-quality wise, far removed from that of movies. Back then there were movie actors and TV actors, and some snobbery between; that’s something long gone now, with those who might be defined as ‘movie actors’ all too keen to get involved in television shows now that have huge budgets and just eight or ten-episode seasons that take years to produce. Imagine what McGavin and his Kolchak might have been, had it been made today, for HBO or Netflix.

I suppose, though, that what makes Kolchak work today is precisely its cheapness and innocence, a sense of irreverence that is largely lost in genre shows now. That said, beyond the disarming sense of humour it does in its better episodes, maintain some real suspense and tension; there’s an earnest creativity evident that succeeds in spite of its budgetary and schedule constraints. There’s some lovely writing and character beats;  some the shows best moments being less the scares and more its sense of fun, such as in the banter between Kolchak and his endlessly frustrated editor Tony Vincenzo (the great Simon Oakland) and his work-colleagues and other characters. Kolchak suffered in the ratings, ultimately undone by its limited concept proving tiresome for audiences; maybe if it had been made a decade or so later it might have managed some popular success as The X-Files later did (indeed, Kolchak was obviously an inspiration for that show).

I’m certain there are a number of episodes I actually didn’t get to see back when the show aired here in the UK so there’s some ‘new’ treats for me yet to discover, and those I did see I haven’t seen in some thirty or forty years, other than an odd few on DVD. As for watching the series on this Blu-Ray set I’m tempted to watch them on a weekly basis, late on a Friday night in a throwback to the late-night “Friday Night Fright” movies aired on telly during my childhood. Each episode of this set -yes, all twenty of them- has an audio commentary so weekly viewing would likely enable me to listen to the commentaries with every episode, something I’ll never manage if I binge the show or watch a few episodes at a time (tempting as an evening-long double or triple-bill with a few beers seems). We’ll see: I hope to occasionally drop a few posts about my thoughts on the series to spread the love about Kolchak, even if it involves shuddering at some of the worst episodes: I just hope the good outweighs the bad, and all that nostalgia hasn’t blurred the reality after all these years.

 

A few thoughts on Covenant

On By ghostof82In Blu-ray, Movies1 Comment

ImageAlien: Covenant (2017), Dir. Ridley Scott, 122 mins, Blu-Ray

This may be the very definition of damning a film with faint praise, but rewatching Alien: Covenant I found it a clear improvement over Prometheus (which for  me came as something of a surprise). The characters were better written, there were fewer wtf moments demonstrating a lack of cohesive logic. I think the film was edited too tightly- I can’t recall what the deleted scenes entail (I think there’s some amongst the discs special features) but it seems that there was a push to keep the pace of the film up to avoid impatience rising in members of the audience (a frequent fault of many films these days) who want to get down to the gory stuff. So there’s a struggle for sufficient character beats, but on the whole they are still better defined than those of Prometheus, but as I have already noted, its a pretty low-bar comparison. The characters still frustrate with moments of stupidity, but much of the time one can excuse the idiocy with their terror in the tense moments. The last section of the film though, with a (second?) xenomorph having sneaked aboard and having to be ejected in a grandly inflated repeat of the 1979 film’s finale,  is entirely banal (don’t get me started on the ridiculous scene featuring two lovers in a shower getting attacked) and as badly conceived as the ending of Prometheus.

When I first saw the film at the cinema, I was as shocked/disappointed by the film’s treatment of Prometheus‘ Elizabeth Shaw character as any fan of Hicks and Newt were by their own mistreatment in Alien 3 – indeed its clear that the franchise has established form in this. What is the point of rooting for a character, and a film focusing on their trials and survival against the odds, only for it to be all for naught when they are killed between films? One might have thought that the fan backlash over what Alien 3 did would have made them think twice. Shaw’s fate is pretty ugly and the shot of her cadaver as disturbing as anything in the series- for sheer grimness’ sake I can applaud the utter hubris in Ridley daring to do it but… all the same, it leaves a bitter taste, especially having only rewatched Prometheus a few days prior. What’s the point of Prometheus if that’s what happens next? Intellectually the nihilism of it seems perfectly keeping in the Alien series roots -they are pretty dark and nasty horror films when one thinks about it, all the body horror etc – but emotionally its so cold.

David, of course, played brilliantly as always by Michael Fassbender, continues to fascinate, and I appreciate Walter’s observation that suggests that David is damaged, or faulty- that his aberrant behaviour isn’t some result of logical reasoning but rather something misfiring in his electronic brain. Basically, it seems that Weyland-Yutani created a monster, and I like all the allusions to Frankenstein, particularly in the form of David’s laboratory and what remains of Shaw. I think these are the strongest moments of the film and it does seem increasingly timely considering mooted dangers of our present-day developments in AI. Covenant does have a supremely bleak ending that still leaves me hoping for a third film that will never happen. What happens to David?

Clearly what got Ridley galvanised into returning to the Alien franchise was less the xenomorph and more the AI/Android material, very Blade Runner-adjacent. Seems to be the root failure of these films- touted as Alien films, they suffered from Ridley being more focused on something else; a whole Space Gods/ AI turning against humanity theme that butts up in ungainly fashion with all the Giger-inspired horror. He balances it better in Covenant than Prometheus, I think, but there’s clearly so many problems with them. Maybe both films would have been better had they been written as one film? Start with the Prometheus mission, have that go to shit and leave David lone survivor on the planet experimenting with the black goo etc, and then a rescue mission arriving a few years later suffers the fate of the Covenant crew when he turns on them. There’s possibly a good film in there, and it could have been, well, Alien-adjacent and fairly seperate from the other Alien films.

Why, why, why, Prometheus?

On By ghostof82In Blu-ray, Movies4 Comments

ImagePrometheus (2012), Dir. Ridley Scott, 124 mins, Blu-Ray

Time sometimes takes the rough edges off bad movies. Sometimes. But I didn’t expect that to be true of Prometheus, a film that’s gotten worse every time I’ve watched it, over the years, and I was right- Prometheus‘ rough edges are as sharply defined as ever, alongside its utter failure. Curiously though, maybe it makes Alien: Romulus a better film than I had thought. Yeah, judge bad films by comparing them to other bad films, that’ll end well. Prometheus does leave me keen to revisit Romulus though, and of course Alien: Covenant. No doubt I’m a sucker for punishment.

Ah, Prometheus; if you try hard enough (and God knows, I’ve tried) there’s a good film in there, trying to get out, but its just too busted and the good stuff buried too deep. The art direction, design work is excellent, its a beautiful-looking film, that whole fishbowl-space helmets look such a sexy Astounding Stories kind of pulp flavour. Its just in the wrong damn film.

Anyway, the good: the music score is very fine; I love the moody, throbbing pieces and the opening main title theme -it promises so much!- and while I’m mentioning those credits, that whole sequence is fantastic, promising a whole different film. That wide shot of the landscape with the saucer-shaped shadow moving over it, that shot still gives me chills. But again, its like its another film entirely.

Anyway, that’s the good. From there on its all downhill, folks- the rest is pretty dire. The screenplay is unimaginably poor. I think I read somewhere that Prometheus started as a sci-film about Space Gods or Ancient Astronauts, something about human genesis. Maybe a little Alien-adjacent, maybe. But the Studio Fox would only bankroll it if it was absolutely an Alien film, so Ridley had to hire another scriptwriter to rewrite it, with what always feels like essentially Alien prequel fanfiction nonsense. Turning the Space Jockey into a twelve-foot bald guy in a spacesuit, bullshit like that. So there’s always that odd tension running through the film, of it being two seperate things, two seperate films, that just don’t gel, at all.

The cast is, on paper at least, very good, but they are given absolutely nothing to do, and some do seem to be playing the wrong character (switch Noomi Rapace and Charlize Theron, boom, instant better film. Or maybe even gender swap David, put Theron in that role). But there’s no motivations, no discussions, no reflection, no interesting, weighty dialogue. The depth of it all seems to be on the level of “what’s that Christmas tree doing there?” and “I’m here ‘fer the money!” That whole leap of logic of “its an invitation!” or even “they created us therefore they can fix us/give us immortal life!” I don’t know where that shit comes from, frankly.

So the dialogue is horrible, the character dynamics such as they are, make little sense and seem to jump around from page to page of the script. How can a biologist not be excited at seeing an alien cadaver, or giggly with the anticipation of possibly discovering actual alien life? A geologist on an alien world? Get outta here, that guy would be shaking with excitement taking dirt and rock samples like an eight-year old picking toys in a pre-Christmas toy shop. Instead Ridley seems to paint these two ‘scientists’ as self-interested analogues of Parker and Brett. It. Doesn’t. Make. Sense.

Make it make sense, Ridley.

Its not clear in the film, but I always presume that the journey of the Prometheus is the furthest mankind has yet reached -in the timeline of the film and Alien mythos- and the riskiest voyage yet taken regards length of time in cryogenic sleep. Maybe two of the crew should have perished in that long sleep. Just to add a little mood, danger, maybe? It should be a leap into the unknown, Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness transposed into an interstellar leap. Instead it has the feel of ‘just another space expedition’ which is dumb- just because the audience has been so brazenly bored/ jaded by all things Star Trek and Star Wars etc, doesn’t mean that the in-film characters need to be too.

Back in the 1950s with The Day the Earth Stood Still, Forbidden Planet, the Quatermass films, space was something strange and terrifyingly unknown. One of the endless wonders of Alien is just how strange and unknowable the alien planetoid and the derelict are, the sense of Lovecraftian horrors unknown. These guys just turn up at some kind of  alien tomb or installation and nobody even flinches? This is the biggest discovery in the history of mankind.  Nobody leaps to send news of their discovery to Earth before being shut down/threatened by the Corporate goons? Make it make sense, Ridley.

Some films can be saved by a directors cut. Its true of Ridley’s historical epic Kingdom of Heaven, a film that seemed a dismal failure when I watched it at the cinema but, wow, does that directors cut save it. It makes it a far, far, better film, but I think in that film’s case, the directors cut was Ridley’s original finished cut, and he’d been forced to butcher it down for a theatrical-friendly running time, cutting the heart and soul of it in the process. At least, I think that’s how things with that film were, and the popularity of home video sales at the time ensured Ridley would get his original cut out eventually. Some fans and Ridley apologists hoped an eventual directors cut of Prometheus would rescue it the same way KOH was saved, but we’ve never seen or heard much at all regards a Prometheus: The Directors Cut. The market isn’t there for it anymore. Or maybe everyone behind it knows there’s no saving this film.

 

 

Four from 1973

On By ghostof82In 4K UHD, Blu-ray, Movies1 Comment

ImageBadlands (1973), Dir. Terrence Malick, 94 mins, Blu-Ray (Criterion)

Don’t Look Now (1973), Dir. Nicolas Roeg,  110 mins, 4K UHD

Coffy (1973), Dir. jack Hill, 90 mins, Blu-Ray (Arrow)

Charley Varrick (1973), Dir. Don Siegel,  111 mins, Blu-Ray (Indicator) 

Four films I’ve watched over the past few weeks, that all date from 1973. Far as I’m concerned, the 1970s continues to be one of the most rewarding decades for movies, and certainly the films that endlessly pull me back for another watch. Maybe there’s a bit of nostalgia in it; watching American cinema from the 1970s, one is frequently seeing cast members that are familiar faces from 1970s films and TV shows that I grew up with. Back in the 1970s, a LOT of American TV shows would turn up on UK TV channels, frequently at primetime. Films back in the 1970s often had something to say, weren’t afraid of being overtly political. Screen-writing was superior,  with genuine drama,  less reliance on spectacle (the modern crux of CGI undreamed of back then),with old-fashioned stuff like proper endings and no interest in teasing a possible sequel.  Casting was less aspirational, more realistic. Donald Sutherland in Klute, Gene Hackman in The French Connection.  These days a film like Charley Varrick would star a moody Ryan Gosling or a snappy Ryan Reynolds, or maybe if we were lucky, someone a bit more ‘real’, like Thomas Jane, maybe. Back in 1973, it starred Walter Matthau. The guy out of The Fortune Cookie and The Odd Couple. Sure, probably unlikely casting even then, but these days, something like that? Not a chance today. I suppose films cost too much now. Hollywood seems to have forgotten how to make a solid b-movie.

Of course, it occurs to me that there are many who haven’t heard of the film Charley Varrick. Back in the 1980s, when I first saw it on late-night television, i suppose it was still a fairly recent film, but now? Its, what, 53 years old: all four of those films are, of course. But 53 years old. It seems that films with that kind of age seldom turn up on television or even streaming services now; perhaps schedulers think they have little relevance, or perhaps the politics and social standards of the time renders them problematic.

How many people even get the opportunity watch, let alone rewatch, films like Charley Varrick?

Charley Varrick  was directed by Don Siegel, a no-nonsense, old-school storyteller of a film-maker who needs no introduction for any fans of cinema. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The Lineup (1958), Dirty Harry (1971), Escape From Alcatraz (1979)… Siegel made tight, no-frills films that primarily told a story with little interest in sophisticated cinematography. ‘Hot’ after having just directed Dirty Harry, the film that launched Clint Eastwood into the stratosphere, Siegel shot Charley Varrick the following year. Its a lean crime caper with a beautifully crafted script about a small-time bank robber whose cheap score (expected to be around 15,00- 20,000 dollars) turns out to be a mouth-watering haul of three-quarters of a million dollars (nearly six million in todays money, folks). Turns out the middle-of-nowhere, small town bank was being used by the mafia to launder undeclared drug and gambling revenue in and out of the country. Charley is now on the run from not just the cops but also the mob hitman hot on his trail. Its a great premise, expertly told.

The film has a Lalo Schifrin score. May not mean a lot to some, but a Lalo Schifrin score, in a 1970s movie? My God!  Any film with Lalo scoring the music is going to sound incredibly cool, especially in the 1970s. He could make tension sound so funky, his music was like nothing else- you can’t imagine Dirty Harry, Bullitt, without his music. I wouldn’t say his music sounded particularly different in these films, he wasn’t like John Williams, say, whose scores could sound so very different between movies-  Schifrin’s music wasn’t required to be like that, when he was hired I think -particularly in the 1970s- it was for a certain sound that defined that era. Its something his music for Charley Varrick has in spades, bestowing Matthau with a certain cool beyond his appearance and a funky tension to the action/dramatic scenes.

The film’s only misstep is a sequence in which Charley is an unlikely charmer, seducing and sleeping with the beautiful Miss Sybil Fort with significant (maybe tongue very much in cheek?) prowess. Then again, its an opportunity for a lovely piece of trivia- Miss Fort is played by Felicia Farr, Mrs Jack Lemmon (Matthau’s real-life buddy, neighbour and co-star in those aforementioned classics The Fortune Cookie and The Odd Couple).  Those clinches in that bed must have been a hoot.

ImageIndicator’s Blu-Ray, which I bought and watched several years ago, is something of a film school in a Scanavo case. A making-of doc almost as long as the film featuring several of the cast and crew reminiscing, trailers, a cutdown (17 minutes long!) Super 8 version, and  two archive audio tracks of interviews recorded at London’s National Film Theatre  that run alongside the film, one with Don Siegel, and the other with Walter Matthau, the latter of which is a wonderful track. Recorded in 1988, it unfortunately doesn’t refer to Charley Varrick at all, which frustrated me a little, but Matthau’s priceless anecdotes of his career and films, most with wonderful punchlines are a joy to listen to. Basically, it seems to me that the disc is a historical document. I haven’t bought many Indicator titles recently; this disc is a reminder of just how great that boutique label can be, and how important such releases are.

Train Dreams and it’s harkening back to all films Terrence Mallick reminded me of my Criterion Blu-Ray of Malick’s first film, Badlands, which I bought in a sale six years ago and somehow never watched (I know, I know, an all-too familiar tale). I’d seen the film once, on a BBC transmission that must have been, now that I think of it, over thirty years ago. Considering I’m such a fan of Malick’s films its pretty poor form not to have watched it  since during so many years, and especially having bought it on Blu-Ray. I suppose that’s the danger of not watching a film immediately after purchasing it, instead allowing it to go on the shelf and never actually pick it out to watch. Its something that happens many times, more than I care to mention. With a film starring Nicholas Cage maybe thats a blessing, but a film by Terrence Malick?

Sometimes I manage to watch films soon after buying them- such was the case with Don’t Look Now, the eerie, not-quite-a-ghost-story from Nicolas Roeg that I’ve watched on TV transmissions before, maybe a few times, but a film that I’ve never owned or really felt the need too, to be honest. A post-Christmas sale for the 4K edition proved too sweet a deal to resist: maybe a cold dark January night (Gods, the weather has been horrible here of late, testified by how numerous my January watched list was- I don’t usually get through so many films and TV series in a month) proved the perfect time for returning to it on this fantastic-looking disc. Chief takeaway: how miserable, damp and smelly Venice looks in that film. Hardly the dream tourist destination its usually portrayed as in films, in Don’t Look Now its a thoroughly horrid dump, a genuine nightmare of a place. Which was Roeg’s whole intention, I’m sure.

ImageWatching Mars Attacks! a week or so back, I of course saw Pam Grier in an all-too-short role and remembered my Blu-Ray copies of Coffy and Foxy Brown, two 1970s blaxpoitation flicks starring Grier that Tarantino owes a great deal to (perhaps in admission, he made Jackie Brown, starring Pam herself, after all).  Arrow released them on Blu-Ray so long ago- I  checked, and  noted I bought them back in  2015. Eleven years ago, and I’ve only watched them once. One thing I hate is buying a film on disc and only watching it once, or even twice. Well, I had to fix that in a jiffy, So after Mars Attacks! it was inevitable that the next night was a Coffy/Foxy Brown double bill and it was a fantastic treat. The voluptuous and beautiful Pam Grier simmers in every scene; in my original post about the film, I noted that Pam was “an actress who really deserved better parts and better movies…. unfortunately she was black in 1970s America so Coffy remains her greatest role.” Yeah I had that right. She’s so good in both these films, elevating these b-movie blaxpoitation flicks into something more than they might have been. Maybe I need to get around to Jackie Brown again sometime, too.

1973 was some year for movies. Other films released in 1973 include The Sting, The Exorcist, Serpico, The Wicker Man, American Graffiti, Papillon  Soylent Green,  High Plains Drifter, Magnum Force… I mean, come on, I could spend a few weeks just watching those again and have a brilliant time. Maybe I should have a 1970s Movie Season, it could possibly last all year.

Damned pesky Martians again

On By ghostof82In Blu-ray, Movies2 Comments

ImageMars Attacks! (1996), 106 mins Dir. Tim Burton, Blu-Ray

The attraction of some films can change over time; rewatching Tim Burton’s madcap comedy Mars Attacks! (which STILL, darn it, isn’t as funny as it really should have been), what struck me most this time around was the cast- its just incredible. In the film’s title credits the names of the cast stretch across the  screen like they are on  the cover of an Astounding Stories pulp magazine, and its like a whos-who of who was hip in Hollywood in the early 1990s.Jack Nicholson, Pierce Brosnan, Glenn Close, Natalie Portman, Annette Benning, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Michael J Fox, Rod Steiger, Paul Winfield, Jack Black, Lukas Haas, Pam Grier… there’s no way the film could live up to the expectations/weight of a cast like that.

What struck me hardest when watching the film this time, though, was seeing Jack Nicholson in it. There was a time when we took Jack for granted- indeed, a time when watching him chew up the scenery in successive films irritated, a bit like how Al Pacino’s hysterical manic acting irritated in so many movies, it was, with both actors, as if they were fast becoming parodies of themselves. But seeing Jack playing the President in Mars Attacks!, it actually dawned me- wasn’t he great, weren’t we spoiled? I know he’s still around, but I’m pretty certain he’s long retired, now. But back when this film was released, in 1996, he was still a fantastic presence onscreen. Its just a bit odd, seeing him again and realising what we’re missing now. Some of the great actors we grew up with, and grew old with, whether they’ve passed on or are just chilling out in the Californian sun… some of them can never be replaced; this ‘new’ generation are a poor shadow of the greats.

As for the film itself, its always good fun, rewarding the occasional rewatch. Curiously the increasingly dodgy visual effects (CGI really doesn’t age well) just makes the film a little funnier, in an accidental sort of way. Adds a curious charm to it all. The film centers the majority of its humour on the Martian critters, but I always think it needs to have been more anarchic, pushing the edge more: I watch the film these last few times adding in bits of dialogue myself, moments arising that are just begging for better punchlines. Maybe the film was a victim of its budget. It cost $70 million to make, equivalent to $140 million today, so not too shabby at all and no doubt had the execs concerned, spending that amount of money on a sci-fi comedy flick. Especially with Tom Jones singing in it… (but its one of my favourite gags when three Martians replace Tom’s backing singers). ACK! ACK! ACK!

Widely perceived as something of a disappointment when it originally came out (box office wasn’t great), this is one of those films which curiously reward over the years; its odd, sometimes, the films that I choose to dig out and rewatch, compared to, say, other, more highly admired films that are reckoned to be ‘classics’.

 

Noir Christmas

On By ghostof82In Blu-ray, Film noir, Movies2 Comments

ImageParis Pick-Up / Le monte-charge (1962), Dir. Marcel Bluwal, 90 mins, Blu-Ray (Radiance, World Noir Vol.4)

On Christmas Eve, ex-convict Robert Herbin (Robert Hossein) returns to his family apartment in the outskirts of Paris, rooms untouched since his mother’s death a few years prior. Morose, Robert decides to shake his mood with a wander amidst the busy streets of shoppers. Taking a restaurant meal alone, he notices a beautiful Italian married woman, Marthe Drévet (Lea Massari), at a nearby table with her infant daughter. They strike a rapport and Marthe allows him to accompany her and her daughter home to her apartment in a secluded industrial area, on the second floor above a family warehouse. Putting her daughter to bed, Marthe goes out for a drink with Robert, but when they return they discover her husband, dead….

Another French noir based on a story by Frederic Dard (The Wicked Go to Hell, Nude in a White Car),  Paris Pick-Up is a finely crafted noir (it looks fabulous; stark black and white cinematography, shot largely on location in deserted, decaying backstreets and alleyways) that  is basically a murder mystery that keeps the audience guessing with several twists and turns .Unfortunately when the film finally plays its hand revealing what is really going on, the implausibility of it undermines all that has gone before, which is a genuine shame, as both Robert Hossein and Lea Massari are excellent. 

I’m beginning to wonder if this is symptomatic of writer Frederic Dard, as this proved to be a similar failing of Nude in A White Car – when the viewer really considers what they are expected to accept, it proves a ridiculous stretch of credibility. I made allowances with that film because of the presumed limitations of its pulp origin, but it arises here in similar fashion. Its rather like watching a murder mystery offering several suspects, but when the final resolution comes, the culprit is revealed to be someone new to the plot never mentioned prior, something of a cheat. The twist in this case- a duplicate, doppelganger apartment – feels similarly a cheat, when one considers what Marthe was supposed to have arranged, over months of time, without her abusive husband twigging to it. Shame.

So the chief pluses for this film lies in its atmosphere, and its moody, evocative setting. Its really quite marvelous, and the performances as I have noted are very good- as the twists arise, the film becomes increasingly disorientating, making me at times wonder if I’d stumbled into a Twilight Zone episode. Like the best of noir, whose plots often feel like webs of ill fate, there’s a feeling of encroaching doom for Robert. The revelation, when it comes, may be unfortunately lacking, but even then, right up to the end, there is a possibility of an utterly dark nihilistic ending  with our protagonist thoroughly undone by his insatiable curiosity and wrongfully arrested (if only the film had ended there!). But again, there’s yet one more twist…

The Eel- a bizarre path to redemption

On By ghostof82In Blu-ray, Movies, Radiance1 Comment

ImageThe Eel (Unagi), 1997, Dir.  Imamura Shōhe, 117/134 mins (2 cuts, theatrical and Directors cut), Blu-Ray (Radiance)

Takura Yamashita (Koji Yakusho) is sent a letter informing him of the adultery of his wife. Returning home early after a  routine night fishing trip, he discovers his wife having sex with another man. In a rage he knifes his wife to death and then calmly cycles to the nearest police station to turn himself in and hand over his weapon.  Eight years later, after serving eight years in prison, he is paroled, and attempts to start a new life  by opening a barbershop in an rural corner of Japan. Shy and awkward, Yamashita’s only companion is a pet eel whom he confides in (“he listens to what I say”) but his barbershop attracts locals who start to befriend him, particularly the local oddballs who sense a kindred spirit (such as a young neighbour who borrows his barber pole thinking it will  attract UFOs) . One afternoon whilst foraging food for his eel,  Yamashita stumbles upon and saves a young woman, Keiko (Misa Shimizu), from suicide and later at her request gives her a job at his shop. Mindful of his past Yamashita avoids becoming attached to the beautiful Keiko but she is drawn to him nonetheless. Unfortunately the past that caused her to attempt suicide, and Yamasita’s own past (when a prison inmate recognises him and causes trouble) threatens Yamasita’s chance for a new life and happiness.

I really enjoyed this film.  There’s a real sense of time and place; the little barber shop is a character in of itself and I found something so very appealing about it.  That small physical space, the interesting angles and  spaces behind, like the kitchen; and outside the barbershop window, the narrow road with the river beyond it, and the big sky.  Populating it with such interesting, often endearing characters, and them slowly, gradually bonding, that sense of budding community. Just that would be film enough for me. I could wallowed in something like that for two hours.

There’s something almost… not irritating – or maybe superfluous would be a better word-  regarding Keiko’s mentally-challenged (dementia, I believe) mother, or Keiko’s greedy, criminal former boyfriend who has gotten Keiko pregnant, and the subplot of him and his gangster buddies threatening her for her mother’s money. Or, indeed, Yamashita’s ex-prison colleague, Takasaki (Akira Emoto), who is foul-mouthed, nasty and violent (attempting to rape Keiko at one point) who threatens telling Yamashita’s freinds and customers that he had murdered his wife and was on parole. Indeed for something that is, at its heart, quite a gentle and pleasant film, something decidedly unpleasant about some of it- Yamashita’s murder of his wife is surprisingly graphic, blood splattering the walls and drenching his face and clothes, and similarly flashbacks of intimate moments of Keiko and her boyfriend, and Yamashita’s final fight with Takasaki lingers perhaps too long. Reality impacting the idyll, spoiling the redemption we are hoping for the main characters. I almost wish that UFO-obsessed guy Masaki (Kobayashi Ken), would disappear between scenes and everyone maybe glance up at the skies, wondering.

The film also ends on a… well, its one of those ‘perfect’ endings that is frustratingly, perhaps, for some, rather ambiguous. Yamashita is returned to prison, the violence of the films final denouement resulting in the breaking  of his parole conditions. Keiko is left at the closed barbershop with the other oddball characters that were pulled into Yamashita’s gravity-well, watching the police and parole-officer driving Yamashita away and back to prison. But we have to hope that Yamashita will return to that life he had built in that wonderful space and find her waiting for him. We all like happy endings when the characters deserve it.

Once again, another Radiance disc, a foreign film I’d never heard of but enjoyed very much (I watched the director’s cut, which is supposedly the superior of the two), and the knowledge that if not for boutique labels like Radiance, and physical media in general, so many lovely films would be hidden away from my attention forever. In a perfect world, maybe there would be a curated section on Netflix for World Cinema for titles like this that don’t involve aliens or monsters or gratuitous violence. Maybe one day. In the meantime, bravo Radiance with another great film release on their label. Not every one of their releases  strikes a chord in me like this one did (there’s one or two that have left me unmoved) but I’m game for the blind-buy risk when there’s a chance that some of them can be as rewarding as this one is.

The 2026 Watchlist (well, a starting point)

On By ghostof82In 4K UHD, Blu-ray, Favourite Films, Life!, Movies5 Comments

ImageI thought I might be in for a quiet Christmas watching discs over the holidays, so I’d bought a few extra discs in the pre-festive sales, but its funny how you never have as much time as you think you will. The photo above indicates where I’m at. As well as a few purchases that still have the shrink-wrap on, there’s a few culprits there that have been waiting on the shelf far too long already- notably the Kurosawa titles, although now that I think about it, I have the suspicion there’s a few more discs that I’ve neglected to include here- indeed, I’m looking over at the shelves now and can see another already. Oh well.

It is annoying though- one of my pet hates is buying a film or series on disc and not watching it. Feels like a failure of discipline.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get through some of the above during January and before any purchases this year add to it (more on what’s incoming in another post). The Wicked Games set from Radiance has one more Robert Hossein title left, The Taste of Violence, and The Sweeney Series 2 set has three episodes remaining (I haven’t purchased the third series box yet, and the series four set is due mid-February I think so there’s no respite on the “you’re nicked, my son!” front). I think I’ll hold off on buying those series 3 & 4 sets for a bit though, try to get some of that outstanding pile out of the way first; the trouble with TV boxsets is that there’s often so many episodes they can consume available time to the detriment of, say, sitting down with those Kurosawa titles.

Regards that watchlist in the photo- readers may have noticed the Italian release of Once Upon a Time in America on UHD, which arrived from Italy a week prior to Christmas and which to my considerable chagrin I still haven’t seen yet, even though the film is one of my personal top ten all-time favourites. Clearly the running time (close to four hours) works against it, mind; just accommodating for it, never mind ensuring I have the energy to do it justice without nodding off after a long day. I have watched the first twenty minutes though, as I was (justifiably, if you know the track record of Leone films) nervous regards the transfer and colour timing and wanted to be certain I hadn’t wasted my money  but it does look to be the best the film has ever looked on home video ( and I’ve brought the film numerous times, ever since the Thorn EMI VHS that I bought in London many moons ago). Hopefully maybe Arrow Films or some such boutique here in the UK will have a crack at it someday to ensure a thorough restoration and the extra features this classic really deserves, but who knows, at this point, regards physical media? Its getting to the stage if some favourite  film is released on Blu-Ray or UHD you daren’t hang around as a surprising number slip OOP.

Oh, and a Happy New Year, everyone- I sincerely hope that 2026 proves to be a better year than 2025, which from a personal standpoint probably ranks up there with the stinkers when all is said and done. Here’s to a better one this time around the sun.