Reminded of Censorship

This week, I’ve been thinking back to how it used to be when we went to the movies back in the Seventies.  In particular, I’ve been remembering how films used to get ‘cut’ by the censor and how odd it was to watch a film then and watch all those cuts play out brutally on the screen.

Of course movies are still cut for cinema and edited-for-TV and censored these days but it’s not like it used to be.  

Nowadays, we are allowed to see so much more, so there’s so much less cutting required, and also the technology for cutting is much more sophisticated.  These days, it is very hard to notice what cuts there are.

Not so, back in my day.  I don’t know exactly how movie cuts were made but it seemed like it was done with a huge blunt scissors on the actual film roll.  Often, while watching the film, some terrible event would be signalled and built-up-to and then, suddenly, the whole movie would have a big lump taken out of it and we, the audience, would be shoved on to the next scene, wondering what the hell had just happened.

This was by no means an Irish-Only phenomenon.  Although we have quite a little reputation for being heavy handed with banning movies, (both ‘Life of Brian’ and ‘From Dusk Til Dawn’ spring to mind) Great Britain was a real star for cutting stuff as well, back in the day.  I remember reading a British review of ‘Flesh for Frankenstein’ where the reviewer said he spent a considerable amount of time staring at a blank screen where dubious scenes from the film had been ripped away.  Interestingly, he also remarked that his imagination was probably much worse than those images which had been removed.

This is certainly true of me.  I could dream up all kinds of awful stuff in place of the stuff which the Film Censor had decided I shouldn’t see.  He would have been doing me a favour just showing me the actual scene, it might have spared me a few nightmares.

For me, the most memorable ‘cut films’ of that era were the Bruce Lee ones.  As young teens, we loved Bruce Lee with a passion that knew no bounds.  The movies were way too old for us to get in to see so we sneaked in to see them.  In ‘Enter The Dragon’ Bruce fights the Evil O’Hara who was responsible for the death of his sister.  Disappointingly-enough, Bruce is seen to dispatch O’Hara with a simple enough side-kick which sends him crashing into the spectators.  He is pronounced dead straight afterward.  That is the film we saw in the Cinema.

But it was ‘cut-to-bits’, as we used to say.  In the uncut version, O’Hara recovers from the sidekick and attacks again, brandishing two broken bottles.  Bruce sorts him out and lands, feet first, on his head with a skull-crunching coup-de-grace.  We get to enjoy Bruce’s slow-mo expression as he Riverdances the life out of this, his more-hated of opponents.

Which brings me to the final point of this ramble – the sincere joy of finally seeing a missing scene, years after it was first cut.  Such was the case with the above scene, where, one night on TV, the missing action magically reappeared, forgiven, and all was revealed.  It was a genuinely exciting moment for me, which is a bit sad, I know.

All of this pondering on censorship cuts was brought on by watching ‘From Russia With Love’ on ITV yesterday afternoon.  After all the hype and fashion has died down, this film has now settled itself into being my favourite of all the Bond movies.  There is no ‘save the world’ mission here, rather just a rather lewd and tawdry attempt to steal a decoding machine.  At times, it’s all so very lowlife that the bad guys almost start to come across as being the good guys.

The point is, ‘From Russia With Love’ was quite brutally cut upon its release and some of the keys cuts have never been restored.  So, these days, not only is it a grand entertaining period spy movie, it’s also a perfect example of heavy-handed censoring which has never been put right. 

There are cuts throughout.  Watch the final showdown between Klebb and Bond – what happens to Tanya?  We don’t get to see.  I imagine Klebb went at her with a four-blade-chainsaw, but that’s just me getting carried away again.

Watch the final scene, with Bond and Tanya on the boat.  Witness one of the most crude and jarring cuts in motion picture history, when Bond examines the film reel, and wonder what he could possible have said to warrant such a cruel edit.  

In fact, he simply said the words, ‘What a Performance’.

Although it seems we’ll never now get to hear him do it.

Two Movies I Think You Would Like, If You Hadn’t Already Seen Them

Here’s a little post about two films I have seen only recently.  I enjoyed both of them immensely and I think that you might too.

The problems with my doing little occasional posts like this are twofold:

Firstly, I rarely get to see movies when they first come out.  DVD releases are where I usually catch up and sometimes it’s even much later than that.  These days, my first sight of a film might even be on television.  So I’m not rolling in with anything new or exciting and the likelihood is that you’ve already seen what I’ve seen and probably even written your own bloody good review of it.

Ho Hum.

Secondly, I hate doing spoilers.  Thus the information I tend to give about these movies that I like is severely limited.  I won’t even bother giving a synopsis of the plot because what is that if not a spoiler?

So, this’ll be a cracking post, right?

Anyway…

The first film I want you to be sure that you have seen is called ‘Let The Right One In’.  It’s a Swedish film from a few years ago and, yes, it’s sub-titled (get over it).  Avoid dubbed versions which I hear are available and see this version before Hollywood brings out theirs, perhaps as soon as later this year.

I taped this one off telly a few weeks back and saved it up to watch.  I was looking forward to it and wanted a nice quiet late night time where Trish and I could enjoy it.

So, what can I tell you?  It’s about a lonely, slightly awkward, thirteen year old boy who slowly befriends his new neighbour… who only really comes out at night.

This is a dark, beautifully atmospheric film with real believable characters despite the fantastical central premise.  Be warned, it’s a bit bloody and a bit graphic and there’s a rather silly bit with… well, there is.

Having said all that, and despite it being two years old, I think this is my current film of the year.

Give it a go.

Second up is ‘Moon’.  A man is alone on the moon, supervising mining operations for his bosses back at Earth.

Something happens to him…

Don’t let anyone tell you any more than that.  It’s easy for someone to tell you much about this film by the use of just one word.  “Oh, yeah," they'll say, "that’s the one that’s all about…”.

Try not to let them do that.

Both these movies are slow and dark and atmospheric and both, in my outdated opinion, are very very good.

Keep them in mind, when browsing the DVD shop shelves and let me know what you think of them.

The Biggest Movie of My Life 2 - Cross Country Viewing

(This is a companion-piece to the first post I did on Jaws some time ago.  You can see that here.)

In the book, ‘Fever Pitch’, Nick Hornby tells how key moments in his life have been defined by soccer matches he had seen.

It’s much the same for me with films.  I have very precise memories of almost every film I have seen – which cinema, who was with me, events that happened on that day.

How odd then that, after such enormous anticipation, I remember so very little about the first time that I ever saw ‘Jaws’.  Almost anything I might say about that first viewing would be largely imagined or made-up because I really don’t remember.


However, I remember loads about the second time I saw it.  It was exactly one week after the first time I saw it.  I was going again with my friend and his sister, neither of whom had seen it yet.

My mother was annoyed that I was spending good money to see the same film twice, she thought it was a bad idea.  But I went anyway – this is as close to rebellion as I ever came.  I since found out that my Dad went to see ‘The African Queen’ on seven consecutive nights in the local cinema so maybe Mum didn’t mind me going quite as much as I thought she did.

In that second viewing, I actually felt that I owned the film.  It was mine now and I was showing it off proudly to my friends.  ‘Look what I did just there, aren’t I great?’

This second time around, I was able to look around and watch the astonishing audience reaction when Ben Gardner slipped out of that hole in the boat.  It was the oddest thing – everybody jumped.  And I really mean jumped, they didn’t cower under their loved ones elbow or throw their hands up to their faces to hide.  They jumped and screamed in complete unison… and then they laughed in relief.

One thing I do remember about my first viewing is that I didn’t jump.

I think I might have been the only one.

    *    *    *    *

In September 1980, Jaws turned up on television in Ireland for the very first time.

It might be hard to believe now, but this was a bit of an event too.  VCRs were only just starting to tentatively appear in the more well-off homes and the concept of the video as home entertainment was still a few years away from being cemented.  As a result, the film had dropped from view after a long cinema run and had not been seen much for nearly five years.  The prospect, therefore, of reliving the experience in your own living room was an interesting and, yes, an exciting one.

This Sunday night TV premiere spawned one of the most lasting and emotional memories of ‘Jaws’ for me.  Perhaps it goes some way to explain why that silly old film still means so much to me.

You see, Sunday night was no good for me.  I couldn’t get to see it.  On Sunday night, at Six O’clock, I got the bus back to college in Dublin.  I had just turned seventeen, was only two weeks into College and Dublin, had never been away from home before, and was physically and desperately homesick.  I didn’t want to be in Dublin, I wanted to be in my own house watching the film, just like everyone else would be.

But I had to go and so I didn’t get to see the film that night.

Except… I did.

I watched the film through every living room window I passed, from eight o’clock to ten, as my bus rolled across the country.  My eyes riveted to the bus window, I saw snapshot after snapshot of ‘Jaws’ beam out to me.  There was lots of houses, lots of windows and everyone was watching. 

I know, I saw them.

And the abiding memory of that snatched cross-country viewing?  Easy.  The colour blue.  The azure sea…  I can’t explain it but it tugs at me to write it even now. 

That blue became a link to home.

Strangely enough, it still is.

Credits Where they're Due

I miss that people don't hang around in the movies anymore until the credits finish. I always used to do it and found it to be a rewarding experience on any number of levels.

Granted, I don't remember a time when the majority of people stayed for the titles. There has always been a general rush for the door as if the outside world held some great attraction. But there used to be a tight little contingent of credit-fans who would sit them out until the 'all rights reserved' bit rolled up.

I particularly remember the James Bond movies where you could only find out the name of the next installment by waiting until the end of the end credits when it always said "James Bond will return in 'Man with the Golden Gun' or whatever.

Nowadays it seems you simply cannot stay.

The lights come up practically before the bad guy is dead. The cleaning folk wade in through the popcorn and start mopping up and the general vibe is one of "why are you still sitting there, you sad little man?"

Which is a shame.

There is much to be learned from end credits and often a few laughs too. And there is occasionally a bloody good song to hear as well.

I also think it's a nice time to reflect on the movie before you have to go out and express an opinion about it.

I think 'Spiderman 3' (which i did not think was that bad) would have been better if I had been allowed to stay and hear the Snow Patrol song play over the end credits.

But I'll never know.

"Get the DVD," you might say, "watch your bloody credits at home."

No, it's simply not the same...

Maybe if I hired a bunch of people to try to squeeze grumpily past me on the couch while I was watching the credits... maybe that would help replicate the experience?

Anybody...?

The Mist (ified)

On the rare occasion when I get the house to myself and have nothing really useful to do, I tend to spoil myself rotten.

Yesterday, this involved hiding the mobile phone, renting a movie and hitting the couch very hard indeed.

I like to watch movies that I know Trish wouldn’t be bothered with but which I will probably enjoy. So that, almost invariably, leads me straight to the horror section.

Yesterday I treated myself to ‘The Mist’ – which is one I had wanted to see for some time. I knew the Stephen King novella since it was first published and liked it a lot so that was a good start. Add to this that Frank Darabont wrote and directed this one and he had already done quite well with adapting King material such as ‘The Green Mile’ and, of course, that ‘Shawshank’ thingie. I had also heard a few dubious comments about this film which served to lower my expectations nicely.

So, as I lowered the blinds, I expected nothing more than a fun ‘creature feature’ with a few gory moments and, hopefully a couple of hours peaceful diversion.

I actually got quite a but more than I bargained for and that is the primary reason that, if you can stand a little horror, I am going to recommend this movie to you.

The story concerns a diverse group of people who become trapped in a local convenience store when a sinister mist descends upon their town after a frightening storm. It soon becomes clear that there is much more to this mist that meets – or obscures – the eye.

‘The Mist’ ticks all the boxes for an adult horror flick. There are monsters, tension, gore aplenty and there are also many of the stock characters one would expect to encounter in one of those ‘Group of people verses the creatures’ movies such as ‘Tremors’.

But, after ticking these boxes successfully, Frank Darabont then takes the material quite a bit further than one might expect. I won’t say how or what ‘cos we don’t do spoilers too much round here but suffice it to say that it is unusual and quite striking in its execution.

Very few films are perfect and this certainly is not one of them. Let me try for a few criticisms. The acting seems quite wooden at first, until the action kicks in. There is a religious side-plot which seems overwrought and unconvincing to me. One of the more interesting characters seems ultimately to be underused. Oh and there is that perennial problem that the unknown ‘horror’ out in the mist is infinitely more worrying than what finally materialises but I think, not matter how CGI evolves in the future, this will always be the case – nothing can scare us like our own imaginings can. Finally, on the criticism front, I always feel that Darabont allows several scenes too many into his movies, particularly in the final act. I think this is true of both Green Mile and Shawshank and I think it is true here too.

But, all in all, I was very impressed with the time I spent in ‘The Mist’. I found it entertaining, edgy and ultimately more than a little disturbing – which hardly ever happens to me.

I will be interested to see if the upcoming Daniel Day Lewis performance in Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ sparks a revisit to this film – in several key ways, the themes are strikingly similar.

In the meantime, I commend this film unto you. Have you seen it? Do you agree or disagree with me? Let me know, eh?

I’m over here – can’t you see me?

Top Two Tear Jerkers are Christ's Story

I watched a lot (far too much really) of the Channel 4 programme 'Top 100 Tear Jerkers' some time back.

As with most of these things, the contemporary movies won out over the oldies in a rather unfair sort of a way.

It was interesting, however, that the top two movies were, at Two, 'The Green Mile' and, at One, 'ET' - both of which are, in my opinion, fairly accurate mirrors of the New Testament story.

In 'The Green Mile' - Tom Hanks is effectively the centurion at the foot of the cross who sees and believes although he still lets the good guy die.

And as for 'ET' - well, where to start?





An other-worldly visitor arrives, does miracles, spreads love, assembles a following, is killed, rises again and then ascends into heaven.

I mean, come on...

So, do you want to know where to borrow a good tear-jerker story?

Now you do.

Alone and in The Dark - My Best Saint Patrick’s Day Memory

Saint Patrick’s Day has always been a fairly low key day for me.

I’m not a big fan of parades and I’m not a big fan of excessive drinking either so that immediately removes two of the key elements from the equation.

That’s probably why my favourite St Patrick’s Day memory has nothing to do 'shamrocks' and 'crock’s o’gold' and such. In fact, for probably the last time, it’s that movie again.

On 17th March 1981, I was living in Sherrard Street in Dublin and going to college. 'No college on Paddy’s Day though, so the choice was go to Mass or go to the Parade.

The Parade was quite good… for a parade.

But afterward, the families all dispersed, the shops all shut, and ‘The Flight of The Doves’ was on the telly at home. There was nothing else for it, it simply had to be a movie.

Luckily there was a new film just released that I wanted to see and it was on at the Screen on The Green. I walked through the dregs of the revellers in the beaming afternoon sunshine.

The cinema was deserted except for the ticket lady. I bought a ticket off her and went in. There was nobody to check my ticket, the shop was closed-as-hell.

The cinema was pitch dark. I stumbled into a seat which was thankfully empty. As the gloom cleared I saw that finding that empty seat was no great trick, the whole auditorium was completely deserted. I watched the previews and the ads and waited for some other people to come in but nobody ever did.

A short while before the feature was due to start, a phone started ringing somewhere in the building. Nobody rushed to answer it. Fearing that it would spoil the movie , I went and found the phone in a little empty office and answered it myself.

“Hello?”

“What time is tonight’s show?”

I checked a chart on the wall.

“Eight Thirty.”

“Thanks.”

Then I went back and watched the movie, all alone in the huge cold theatre on St. Patrick’s Day 1981.

Man, I loved that movie so much that day.

I’d offer a prize for someone to name the film but that would just mean that the answer to every quiz I ever did here would be ‘Body Heat’.

Have a happy St. Patrick’s Day - whatever you may do.

Please Refrain from Crying Out During the Show

It was only after I posted that last short story, ‘Rasp’, that I decided to write a post about the true story behind it. Shall I just tell you how I remember it? Everything you are about to read is true:

In August 1994, we celebrated our wedding anniversary by having a little dinner and then going to the movies in Richmond, Surrey, which was close to where we lived.

There wasn’t much on but I’d heard that ‘The Mask’ with Jim Carey was at least a little bit funny and had some good special effects so we settled for that.

The cinema was pretty full for a midweek show. We ended up sitting beside a couple who were about the same age as us. The girl was sitting to my right and her guy, who I hadn’t seen much of, was in the next seat over to her right.

The main feature hadn’t long started when this girl produced a sealed cellophane bag of sweets. My purgatory was about to begin.

Over the next few minutes, she proceeded to drill a tiny hole in the bag with her fingernail. She then set about trying to extract one of the sweets out through this tiny hole using only one finger. This keyhole-candy-surgery produced the most tooth-grinding of noises – a gentle crinkling and crackling which went on and on and on… and still the damned sweet would not come out.

And all the while, this girl was keeping up an unceasing commentary on the film with her invisible boyfriend on her other side.

Trish took to squeezing my hand. She knew how I got. I tried to silently reassure her that I would not start anything but the finger - in the hole - in the bag - kept on crinkling and crackling and ‘rasping’ and something… had to give.

A voice in my head – a voice which often appears dressed up in a rational suit but is, in fact, anything but – this voice suggested to me that I should simply have a quiet word with this girl about this noise. In the words of some great man, “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

I leaned over a little and said to the girl in my most kindly voice.

“Wouldn’t it be much easier if you just tore the top of the bag open?”

The girl did something I didn’t expect then. She started to cry. I could see huge wet tears roll down her cheek as she let out a big heartfelt sob.

I felt like a complete bully.

I sat for a few minutes silently cursing myself for making this poor girl feel so bad. I couldn’t leave it at that, I had to apologise to her.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking at the screen, “I really didn’t mean to upset you,”

The girl tuned to me angrily and, in a very loud voice, said, “Shut up, just shut up, you’ve been annoying me all evening. Just shut up!”

The entire cinema was suddenly aware of us.

One of my many failings, arguably my greatest one, is that I never know when I am at the end of my tether. I am given no warning. One second I am, to my mind, the epitome of sweetness and light, the next moment I can be gone, real real gone. This happens less now as I get older but it can still happen. I have to tread carefully.

When this noisy girl told me to shut up, I immediately fell far beyond the end of my tether and my base instincts marched in took over.

“Well that’s just fucking rich,” I roared at her, “You sit there all night, blabbing, and… fingering your little crinkley bag and then you have the gall to tell me to shut up?”

The girl started to cry. No liddle bitty tear this time, we were talking floods.

A huge shadow fell over me. Her boyfriend was ready to enter the fray. He stood up and inched past her. I’m sorry to swear again so soon but he was fucking enormous, he really was.

“You,” he boomed, “stand up.”

“You,” a disgruntled punter from the back muttered, “sit down.”

At this point his poor upset girlfriend pulled on the big guy’s sleeve and said, “let’s go, I want to go.”

“No way, I’m gonna tear_”

“Let’s just go… please.”

So they gathered up their stuff and they left. But, as he was going, the big guy calmly said the following words to me, “I will be waiting outside for you and when you come out I am going to kill you.”

Okaaaayyy.

I felt just awful, like a criminal. That always happens when I lose my cool.

Trish and I left shortly afterward, at Trish’s request although I wasn’t sorry to go. We left through a fire exit at the rear, walked to a nearby bus stop and got a bus home.

The bus went past the front of the cinema. The big guy and his girlfriend were sitting on the steps outside. I swear to God they were.

I’ve never watched ‘The Mask’. Is it any good?


FOOTNOTE
Interestingly, when I went and researched the writing of the story, I found my memory to be suspect and my perceived truth to be actually completely false.

The above story is true but the timeline is all wrong.

The above ‘cinema argument’ did not inspire me to write ‘Rasp’. In fact, the story had been written a full year earlier. I had completely forgotten this fact and, over the years, had totally come to associate the events described above with the writing of this story.

This means that, when the above fight was unfolding, my story was already written. Did it occur to me at the time that this was life-imitating-fiction quite scarily? I don’t recall that it did.

The facts are irrefutable. We always went to see movies when they first came out and ‘The Mask’ did not come out until 1994. My story ‘Rasp’ was fully complete in 1993. As soon as I realised this was true, I immediately recalled the actual events behind the story and they are as simple as they are unexciting.

The facts (as they say on ‘Pushing Daisies’) are these:

One Saturday night in 1993, Trish and I went to see ‘Indecent Proposal’ in the West End. (Don’t judge us on these movies, we saw everything back then). The guy in the seat behind me talked non-stop all the way through the film. He drove me completely mad but I said nothing. Instead I went home and sat up half the night writing the story that’s in my previous post.

That’s really all there was to it.

Yet I had forgotten this truth completely and convinced myself that an entirely different version of reality was true. Isn’t memory a funny thing?

Or perhaps it’s just mine…

A Short Story - Rasp

We queued in the rain.

It wasn't a terribly long queue and the rain wasn't particularly heavy but Shiv was not a happy person. I tilted the umbrella further out over her head, getting myself thoroughly drizzled-on in the process. She did not seem appreciative.

"Why can't we go and see something new? There's that one with 'what's-his-name' in it, you know who I mean."

I knew exactly who she meant. 'What's-his-name' was reason enough not to go see it.

I didn't say that though.

"We can go next week. Give this a chance, you'll love it, I promise."

We progressed two steps in silence.

"It's not as if I've never seen it. I have, you know...twice!"

"Yeah but only on television. It's not the same."

Shiv made a face. "Oh please!" she said, "It's not as if it's 'Citizen Kane'. "

Then she laughed.

I laughed too. We both felt the same about the great 'Citizen Kane. We reckoned it was the most chronically overrated film of all time. Perhaps we should have gone to see it in the cinema.

The queue started to shuffle along with a purpose so I took the umbrella down and shook it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"We'll be inside in a minute."

"Then put the goddamned umbrella down in a minute!"

God, I loved that girl.

The ticket lady was enclosed in a chin-high perspex booth. Permed, fluffy and wearing horn rimmed glasses, she looked like an escapee from a Larson cartoon - everything but the chickens.

I paused respectfully in front of her. She sat rigid, staring blankly ahead. Shiv had wandered off somewhere so we were practically alone. She studied a point beyond my left ear, a dying breed, masticating gently. I wanted to say something to her, just so she'd acknowledge me, but nothing appropriate came to mind. I paid up the admission fee and two pink bus tickets clunked out of the shiny metal plate on the counter between us.

"Thanks." I volunteered.

She chewed at me - once.

I found Shiv over at the wall where the poster hung. She was staring at the credits.

"You didn't tell me John Barry did the music."

"You're right. Sorry love. I know we shouldn't keep such things from each other"

"Be serious! I hate John Barry. You'd never have got me here if I'd known it was him."

I nervously adjusted my jacket. I believed John Barry to be the greatest Cinema composer since Rachmaninov. I even had the soundtrack album at home, it had cost me thirty-five quid. Was this a stand worth making?

"You're probably right," I said, deciding not, "I can't hardly remember the music."

Shiv started jumping and pointing at me.

"Liar! Liar! You love it, you've even got the record, I've seen it under your bed along with all those soggy Penthouses."

"Hey, you know I only read those for the articles."

"Sure!"

"Anyway, they never look as good naked as you."

Shiv looked round anxiously.

"For Christ's sake Minty!"

"Well, it's true."

"You wish."

"Have an Opal Fruit."

It was time to go in. We headed for the double doors, held open by the stubble-chinned relic in the decaying blue tunic. I handed him our tickets and he ripped them effortlessly in two.

"See that?" I asked Shiv.

"What?"

"He ripped our tickets in half. Look."

"Wow, is there someone we should call?"

"Don't be sarcastic, there's a whole generation of kids coming up who've never had their ticket torn at the movies."

"Have you lost it completely, Minty? Everybody tears tickets."

"Rip, they rip. Hardly anyone tears. The secret is in the perforations.

It's all perforations now. All you get are those awful printout jobs with hot dog offers on the back and perforations to rip along - I hate them!

"Shiv, what you are about to experience here is Cinema as it used to be. No gimmicks, no tricks, just raw nostalgia."

"Raw what?"

"You'll see."

"Just keep taking the pills, that's all."

And then we were in. The place was about quarter-full, people scattered around here and there. It was old fashioned, of course, that was part of the attraction. Dominant colour red, not particularly ornate, plush in a dusty sort of a way and big...very big.

"God it's big, isn't it?" Shiv was impressed. She and I were frequently impressed by similar things. "Which are our seats?"

"Anywhere you like. First come, first served."

"Are you sure? Didn't the computer allocate us seats?"

"The 'computer' was too busy filing her nails. It's much better this way."

"Oh come on! It's a great little movie-house, sure, but let's not stretch this 'weren't the old ways wonderful' routine too far. Computerised seat allocation is a great idea and you know it."

I arched an eyebrow at her. "Do I?"

"Okay, you smug git, tell me it isn't!"

"All right it isn't. Not always."

"Yeah? When is it not? Give me one 'for instance'."

I need to explain that the show hadn't yet begun. The house lights were still up and people were chatting away among themselves. Also we were speaking quietly so our mid-aisle exchange was neither exhibitionist nor a nuisance to anybody. I feel I should make that clear in the light of what was to follow.

"In the afternoons."

"What?"

I had her here, I knew it.

"Automatic ticket allocation can be an embarrassment in the afternoons."

"He's bluffing."

"I am not! Listen, the computers always allocate seats on a 'best seat first' basis, right? The best two seats are always in the same place, near the back, in the centre, beside each other..."

"Let's sit here," Shiv marched into a row, chose a seat five in from the aisle and collapsed into it, "Now, what are you going on about?"

"Most afternoon shows only ever get a small attendance. Okay, suppose two separate people, a guy and a girl, decide to go to the same movie one afternoon. The movie is a bit well...sexy, and they're the only two people who go."

"Don't you think this is a touch contrived?"

"Let me finish. Those two people, who have never met, will be allocated seats right next to each other. They'll have to sit, shoulder to shoulder, through some of the most graphic sex scenes ever committed to celluloid, with hundreds of empty seats all around them. Nervous, anxious and seriously embarrassed those poor people will emerge cursing the computer that seated them. And that, m'lud, is where the system falls down."

Shiv mused on it a moment.

"I think it sounds great. I bet the two would get off with each other, and live happily ever after. Pretty imaginative though, Minty, well done."

"Thanks."

"Did you just make it up?"

"Of course... sure."

She caught my tone.

"You didn't?

I must have shifted in my seat.

"You didn't! You sod! That actually happened to you, didn't it? What happened? What was the movie? Did you get lucky?"

"No!"

"Truth."

"Don't be silly."

At that moment the house lights dimmed and I clammed up, saved by the bell. Neither of us believed in talking while the show was running. We both got too wound up when other people did it.

An usher crept in and sat on a little pull-down perch at the side of the stairs below us. Not the slob who had torn our tickets - this was an altogether smarter-looking guy. I watched as he made himself as comfortable as possible and then gave himself to the screen, obviously a fan. I followed his example and settled into the show.

The curtains opened.

No trailers, no adverts and no charity-collecting-do-good bastards rattling their tuppence boxes along the rows. This was Cinema, folks, as it used to be.

The Film began.

The titles gave us our first taste of the smoky, elusive score that I loved so well - no matter what Shiv thought. Piano first, then tenor sax, lazy, slow and seductive but always, not far behind, that insistent, nervy back beat warning us, telling us to watch out - there is more going on here than meets the eye.

"John Barry," whispered Shiv, "I hate him!"

Scene one:

"My god, it's hot!" breathes the lady on the screen as the sax fades into the wail of distant sirens, " 'Stepped out of the shower and started sweating again."

The man she is talking to turns from the window to grin at her distractedly as she climbs into her nurses uniform. He is Racine, the lawyer. The nurse is not relevant, we won't see her again.

The film seemed different from the last time I had seen it eleven years before. I suddenly realised what it was. Back then, Racine had been anonymous but nonetheless instantly recognisable as a dubious character. Since then, though, he had become infinitely more well-known. Now he was William Hurt - Movie star - and as such towed with him the baggage of the many memorable roles he had since played. A person seeing the film for the first time would now take a while to figure out the nature of Hurt's character.

I didn't let this worry me overly. The mood was as I remembered, the atmosphere still intact. The movie was going to be just as good this time around as...

Latecomers.

A guy, well built, wearing a black leather jacket, a gangly blonde girl in tow. They fell up the stairs fooling with each other and giggling selfishly. The usher jumped from his perch to quieten them.

"Tennn-shun!" the big guy bawled, at the top of his voice, and then, "Jesus Corr-aye-est, is it dark in here or is it me?"

A palpable swell of hostility coursed instantly through the entire auditorium. These were good people, all they wanted was to enjoy this fine film in peace. They did not deserve this West End Saturday Night trash.

"Two of your best seats for my lady and I, scout," the noisy one boomed, "And be quick about it!"

The usher tried his best. "The feature has already started," he hinted coolly but the guy was ready for him.

"Good job too! Less of this shit for me to sit through," he marched past the usher, "C'mon, babe, let's sit up here."

Four seats in from the aisle was where we had sat. Why did we do it? We could have just taken the aisle seats like normal people. The quest for the perfect stereo position perhaps. Didn't matter now, the mouthpiece and his girl had collapsed into the two seats right next to us, her closest to me. Ignore them, I advised myself, give your attention back to the film, they'll probably shut up once they settle.

On screen, Racine and Mattie were about to meet for the first time. The fire was beginning to burn. The band played 'I saw you last night and got that old feeling' while Hurt pursued Kathleen Turner through the summer heat. I relaxed again, forgetting the interruption.

"Hey," brayed the big guy, "What's this crap all about anyway?"

Somebody behind 'ssshh'ed angrily but it only served as encouragement to him. He twisted full round in his seat and stared out into the gloom behind.

"Shush me one more time, scout. I'll come back there and shush you."

Then he turned jubilant back to the girl beside him, punched her shoulder and said, "Where's my sweeties?"

Sweeties?

No!

Anything but sweeties, please.

The blonde rummaged in her coat pocket and fished out a virgin bag of gold wrapped chewy caramels. The brute ripped them out of her grip...

"Yes, sweeties!"

...and proceeded to tear the plastic limb from limb. The bag was gunfire in the still of the auditorium, it went...

Rasp.

For many people it is a certain smell which trigger vivid memories; flowers, bus stations, drains.

For me it is a sound.

That sound.

Rasp.

"Are you all right?" whispered Shiv anxiously.

Fine. Except for that sound, dragging me back.

Rasp.

"Hey!"

Rasp.

"I said are you okay?"

Shiv was now also torn out of the movie and was worried about me. She knew how I got.

"I just wish he'd...stop. Y'know?"

"I know. Just try to watch the movie, it's good."

I tried to watch the movie - I really did - but that bag went...

Rasp.

...and back I went...

It was a joke, a kids joke. We were walking back to school one day and we had our rolls of mint imperials in our hand, chewing away. Remember the packets? Ten white ovals laid end to end, wrapped in a square of transparent cellophane then all rolled up with a couple of twists in both ends.

Coogan finished his first and rasped the paper into a ball in his hand. I told him to stop, that I hated that noise. I didn't really, it was just something to say, but the guys latched onto it.

They started to call me Minty. They rasped paper at me all the time. Everywhere I went - rasp, rasp, rasp - and it wasn't the noise that got me, not really. It was the knowing that, even though I'd said how much I hated it, they still kept on doing it just the same. It got to a stage that every time I heard that noise I got really upset.

It became something of a problem for me.

Mop does it one day and I lose it completely. We'd been playing marbles in the gutter on the back street and Mops opaque had rolled down into the gully. We manage to get the cover up - it is cast iron and very heavy - and mops kneels and reaches in to feel around in the muck at the bottom for his prize. I wander off to look for pennies but he calls me over.

"Hey Minty, c'mere and see!"

I go over and kneel down and he pulls his arms out and he's got a filthy mint imperial wrapper in his hand. He rasps the damned stuff at me, right under my nose, then he laughs and shoves his arms back down the hole. "Poor mad Minty," he says.

Then I just get all upset and kick the gully lid over on his arms. It crunches down on him just above the elbows. It doesn't chop them off or anything but it's still pretty bad, there's a lot of gore and stuff and Mops is howling....

I snapped back. From the corner of my eye I saw the blonde staring at me, annoyed, and I realised that I have been cracking my knuckles slowly one by one. I can crack them really well, twenty-two different ways. Shiv reckons I'll have Arthritis by the time I'm forty. It really winds her up.

Anyway, this blonde was staring at me angrily and her dumb boyfriend was still off in his own world rasping away beside her so I couldn't resist the dig.

"I'm sorry," I said, turning and smiling my most winning smile at her, "I do hope I'm not bugging you."

I could see that she didn't really know what to do. Her eyes darted away from me to the screen for a moment but then back again. I cracked another knuckle at her for punctuation. She winced.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, hardly a breath really, "he wanted to go and see Tom Cruise."

"So did she," I said, nodding over at wonderful unaware Shiv, "but she's still behaving herself."

Then, from nowhere, he was over in my face. He had leant across the blonde using her arm as painful purchase to drag himself closer to me.

"What's this then, sodding 'Blind date' or something?"

He was too close, I could smell the caramels on his breath, probably wedged somewhere between his teeth.

Shiv snapped suddenly around to face him.

"Why don't you shut up, you ignorant shit-head?" she hissed. Shiv really doesn't like being disturbed in the cinema.

He stared at her just for a moment then threw himself to his feet in a manner that might have been funny in different circumstances.

"Right!"

He pushed roughly past his girlfriend towards Shivs' seat.

"Shit-head, am I?"

"Sit down," somebody behind said.

"I'll sit in a minute, scout," he replied, almost reasonably, "Just let me straighten something out with this bitch here."

To get to my Shiv, he had to first get through me. I stood up to face him, my seat popping upright as I left it. Somebody behind swore softly, I sympathised - it really was a very good part of the film.

"You first, eh?" The guy looked pleased to see me," Good. I'll save her for dessert."

He probably would have too. He was a foot above me and a damn sight heavier. I calculated the odds, realised it was a certain loss, then reached in and drew out my gun.

"Minty!" Shiv shouted.

The entire cinema gasped. Some girl behind started to scream. It was just like being back at that gully.

I extended the gun, raised it above the morons head and slowly brought it down level with the bridge of his nose. His mouth fell open and chewy caramel-coloured drool ran out of the corner of it. I could tell he was impressed.

"Step back and sit down," I advised. He did.

"Pull in your legs" I requested the blonde. She did.

"Minty, you swore..."

"Shut up a minute, Shiv." I said. She didn't.

"You're a real Wally sometimes, you know that?"

"I know."

I advanced on my quivering thug, past the blondes' tucked-in legs. I inserted the barrel of the gun into his left nostril and pressed hard. I was all upset again.

"You wanted to straighten something out with us? Is that what you wanted to do?

"Look..."

"SHUT UP!! Just...shut up"

I forced the barrel of the Walther a little further up his nose.

The James Bond gun,' Shiv had called it when she gave it to me two birthdays ago. Not quite. The Walther PPK, 7.6mm was a cool piece but If she'd wanted to buy me the 'James Bond gun' then she should have opted for the Beretta .25mm. Bond only gave his Beretta up because M forced him to in 'Dr. No'. Still at least she got the holster right - Berns Martin triple-draw - worn tight under the left shoulder.

I'd promised I'd never carry it outdoors because that was totally illegal and normally I didn't but today we were going to see my all time favourite film. I wanted to see what it would feel like to see it tooled up.

Actually, it felt all right.

"Hey," the big guy sounded a bit bunged up.

I blinked. I had tuned out for a second, it was true, but I was back now, loud and proud. Things had changed. The house lights were up, for a start, and somebody had stopped the film. I took a look around, everybody was watching me, waiting to see which way I would jump. The usher from the pull-down seat was out in the aisle just beyond the Jerk. The room was poised.

Then somebody down the front spoke up, an American I think.

"It's a fake."

A murmur raced around.

"It's a fake gun, for Christ's sake. Who's going to pack something like that in London?"

He was right, of course, my gun was a replica, it fired only blanks. Below me, the idiot slowly realised that this had to be true. A smile spread slowly across his big mouth.

"Put your toy away now scout," he said, "It's time to learn some manners."

Normally that would have been it. My bluff had been called, it was time to pay the price. That's how it had been when I kicked the gully cover down on Mops arms. I had triumphed in my rage but only for the briefest of moments. Many bad things were to follow close behind.

The guy's hand rose up to brush my gun aside and, normally, I would have been powerless to stop him.

Normally.

Not this time.

This time there was an awful lot of anger still inside me. This PIG had ruined my favourite movie for me forever and then, THEN had moved to hurt my Shiv, My dear precious Shiv, and I knew, if he got past me now, he would surely go on to Shiv and hurt her and hurt her and hurt her and hurt...

"LEAN BACK, YOU SON-OF-A-WHORE!!"

He leaned back...and stared.

"THE GUN IS A FAKE, SURE IT IS," I roared, pumped with adrenaline, "IT SHOOTS BLANKS."

The blonde was staring, the usher too. Everybody was staring.

I made a little speech.

"Anybody know what a 'blank' is? Anybody? I'll tell you shall I? It's really just a little bit of paper rolled up really tight. Wouldn't hurt a fly. Right?... Right?... WRONG! Ever hear of Jimmy Ruane? No? Jimmy 'Sax' Ruane put a gun to his head during a game of Russian Roulette in Salt Lake City back in 1988 and fired a blank round at his temple. That piece of paper went in one side of his skull and out the other and took half his BRAINS with it. Believe me? No? Shall I prove it to you?"

I dug the gun back up his nose and squeezed at the trigger.

"SHALL I?"

"NO!"

The big guys' eyes were bursting out of his sockets and his jaw seemed to be locked ajar.

"Get off me!"

I eased the gun back to let him move.

"Get out of here," I whispered, "Get out of my sight."

Drool, once more flowing freely.

"NOW!"

He jumped up and fell out into the aisle. The blonde got up too. She muttered an 'excuse me' as she squeezed past, her hip brushing me. For a second, I thought she was going to stoop and get the bag of sweets.

She didn't.

When the big guy had got some distance between himself and my piece of paper he turned around and made like he was going to come back. The audience started up a slow handclap and a low sinister hiss. He cut his losses, spun and stomped down the stairs.

From outside, he screamed.

"I'm going straight to a phone and calling the police. You'll suffer for this, matey, you'll pay."

Then he left.

I got the gun back into my Berns Martin triple-draw holster only with a lot of difficulty. My hands had started to shake really badly.

I looked at the scatter of faces, all gaping at me, then I looked over at Shiv. She just stood there shaking her head and crying. I straightened my jacket and headed out into the aisle. Once there, I looked back. She was sitting down again.

"You coming?"

"No."

"I did it for you, you know"

"Go home, Minty. Just go home."

I left without her.

On the stairs, I met the usher from inside. He was hanging around nervously. He looked as if he had something to say.

"What?" I asked.

He grinned.

"It is hot," he said.

I had to smile back.

"Yes," I agreed, “it is.”

© Ken Armstrong

Go Wuss, Young Man…

So, it’s official, I am turning into a Big Wuss.

It seems that, the older I get, the more emotional I get. Things which once rolled off me like a… rolling… thing that’s… on me (maybe I’ll come back to that simile) now seem able to wound me to the very core.

It’s a sign of growing older, I know it is.

See, when we were fourteen or so, this movie came out that was widely advertised as being the most heart-breaking motion piccie of all time. No, it wasn’t one of the famous ones like ‘Love Story’, in fact I remember it quite well. It was called ‘The Last Snows of Spring’ and it was pretty crappy by any standards.

But people did cry, maybe they felt obliged after all the adverts. In among all this cinematic weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth sat us, laughing our heads off, joking, giggling and poking each other in the ribs.

This tragedy crap meant nothing to us. And why would it? We were kids, we'd never known any tragedy.

I believe that we are most touched by drama which deals with things which we have experienced ourselves.

It’s not a rocket-science theory really. Here’s an example:

When I was about seventeen, I put my hand through a window (‘long story, I’ll tell you sometime). You can sometimes get away with putting your hand through a window but pulling it back out again at speed is liable to do you some considerable damage and, in my case, it did. The other day, twenty-eight years later, I was admiring the scars which are still clearly in evidence around my wrist. The point is, up until I did that silly thing, I could happily watch people go through glass panes, in movies and on telly, all day long. Immediately after that, and for ever after amen, I have winced and shuddered whenever I see it happen. The experience had become personal to me to an extent that now I could be touched and even shocked by seeing it dramatised.

It’s true of pretty much everything, I think.

Take the only movie to ever make me cry, really blub like. Before I tell you what it is (and you pack up and leave) let me explain that the first time I saw this film I hated it. Really. Although the lead actor won an Academy Award for his performance, I found the whole thing forced and obvious. That was back in 1994.

Unimpressed. Deeply. Me.

Then I saw it again in 2004. I’ll tell you the truth, I saw the second half of it, on television, late one night. I hated it again, easy. That celebrated ‘Opera’ scene just does my head in (sorry Tom, it just does) 'load of old... but then the last scene came on… and it reduced me to a wreck.

A Wreck.

The film was ‘Philadelphia'. If this rings a bell with anyone, I did discuss it briefly before in the middle of a movie meme. Anyway this final scene shows (OLD MOVIE SPOILER ALERT) the family party after the main character’s funeral. On the TV in the room there are videos of the guy as a kid, playing around, looking sad. And that’s what got me. I had a boy the same age as this little dude in the movie. No matter how hard I tried, he would grow up and see the world for the harsh place it often is. The world would hurt him. It was beyond my control. And there it was - the life experiences that I simply didn’t have back in ’94 came up and kicked me right in the ass in good old ’04.

Oh and Neil Young’s moving soundtrack song possibly threw me off over the edge.

And now, as years subside, I can feel myself getting worse. I have more life experiences with each passing day, you see. More reasons to blub.

Just last week I was watching the last part of the BBC’s fine new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank. Seeing Anne portrayed as a wonderful testy vivacious teenager, criminally robbed of her liberty and life – well, it spoiled my day. What really threw me was the information at the end which said that the only survivor of that hidden household was Anne’s father – who lived until 1980. What a weight that poor man he had to carry through his life.

When I was seventeen, I wouldn’t have got any of that.

But I think I’m starting to now.


(PS: Are there movies that have reduced you to a blubbering mess? I'd be interested to know)

Stardust – A Movie Review

I came to this movie on DVD with a number of prejudices.

In fact I might not have come to it at all if Matt of MTMD hadn’t rated it so highly. My hand had already brushed over it in the video shop (will it ever be the DVD shop?) several times, my brain saying 'nuh-aww, life’s too short'.

It’s a really good film though, I recommend it to parents with young teens who would like to sit down with a movie – perhaps over Christmas – and be engaged and entertained. I think this is just the film to do that.

But let me tell you about those prejudices before we get into all that. The screenplay for ‘Stardust’ was co-written by Jane Goldman (sorry to do this Jane but it’s my prejudice and I have to explain it). Jane is married to Jonathan Ross, talented controversial British talk-show host and, wait-for-it, foremost TV movie critic in the country.


The movie was pushed hard on Jonathan’s show and the impression I got was that the production was populated by British celebrity chums and a peppering of A-Listers who were having favours called in.

I concluded that this was a silly confection, best avoided altogether and so I duly left if alone.

Then Matt recommended it just when it was coming up to Friday night and that helped. You see, Friday nights are always a challenge for me. On those nights, my son John and I like to settle in and watch a good movie. It’s just that, him being twelve and all, the list of movies which can keep us both hooked is rapidly dwindling. We’ve done ‘Cloverfield’ and 'Be Kind Rewind'. So, a couple of Fridays ago, we had Stardust.

‘Stardust’ is adapted from material by the excellent Neil Gaiman – first a series of DC Comics then a novel. It stars Claire Danes and Michelle Pfeiffer, relative newcomer Charlie Cox and that host of familiar faces that threw me off the damn thing in the first place.

It’s a fairytale. I’ll tell you what it’s like, shall I? It’s like ‘The Princess Bride’ except played much straighter. William Goldman’s excellent film was all-knowing and full of insider-swipes at the fairy-tale genre. ‘Stardust’ on the other hand, believes much more in fairy tales than ‘Princess Bride’ ever did.

Claire Danes recreates that ‘something magical’ she had so much of in Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ – and which she hasn’t had any of since. Michelle Pfeiffer is dazzlingly beautiful when she is required to be (how does she do that?) and the smaller-parts are often most-charmingly played.

Star of the show for me among the smaller parts was Mark Williams as Billy. You may know Mark as Arthur Weasley in the Harry Potter movies. He does his acting work with such integrity. Watch him in ‘Shakespeare in Love’ as the stammering narrator of the play who comes good at the critical moment. In this movie, he plays a goat transformed into a man by witchcraft and he does it quite brilliantly.

Bum note? Okay (sorry) Robert De Niro strikes a distracting bum-note in this, his much hyped ‘Gay Pirate’ role. He prances and gurns and looks unconvincing to the core. I wish it was otherwise, it’s a fun part that somebody could have enjoyed doing.

So, come Christmas, if you can handle a little sexual frisson and a Gay Pirate or two, settle down with somebody young and try this one. It surprised me, it may do the same for you.

And did it keep John entertained? Well, he’s currently in a bit of a ‘meh’ phase where it’s often hard to tell the ‘brilliant’ from the ‘dreadful’.

But he did ask for it to be paused while he went to the bathroom.

That’s a good sign. Isn’t it?

Quantum of So-So

This is my review of the new James Bond movie ‘Quantum of Solace’ which I saw (just now) on the first night of its General Release. I haven’t read any other reviews so, hopefully, I feel differently about it to how everybody else will. That always makes me feel good.

I won’t give away any spoilers (not deliberately anyway) but I can’t promise not to colour your expectations. So if you’d like to see the movie ‘clean’, as I just did, leave now but come back another day.


Okay…

‘Quantum of Solace’ can be summarised in one sentence. ‘Not as good as ‘Casino Royale’’.

Need I say more? Well, yes, I should.

More than anything, this movie confirms what a wonderful movie ‘Casino Royale’ was and still is.

The brilliantly fresh Daniel Craig, the engaging story, rippling action, taut dialogue and beautiful settings all added up to the very best latter-day entry in the Bond canon.

The new film constantly suffers by comparison to the first one. It is ‘less’ on practically every front – not always much less but ‘less’ is still enough.

Personally I think there is lots to respect and enjoy in this new release but it is clear to me that the film is scuppered in the first thirty minutes and it struggles to recover.

Those first thirty minutes give us relentless action – chases, fights, crashes – they all come at us in rapid succession. Rapid-fire, outstanding, eye-popping – these are all things that the first half-hour is not.

Simple truth? This director can not 'do' action sequences.

For all the boom, bang and carnage - the action remains unclear and often downright frustrating. Fashionably maniacal camera movements, coupled with multiple cut shots, slo-mo's and God know what else, only serve to leave the audience disenfranchised and wondering what the hell just happened.

One needs only to look back to the first Craig Bond to see how a completely thrilling chase sequence can be kept clear in narrative and characterisation without ever slowing the pace. The action here is all wham bam but with no emotional content. After each of these sequences, the audience was left silent and bewildered – a little lost.

After that, the movie gets better – it really does. But it’s a little too late then, the damage has been done. Subconsciously, we fear the moment when the director will take up on another poorly staged action sequence– his failed opening gambits have lost us.

Which is a shame because Craig does brilliantly again. The story is good. The girl is beautiful (really). It’s just we got left behind in that opening 'Post-Bourne' frenzy and now we can’t quite get back in.

Interestingly, Bond seems to have much more going on with Judi Dench’s ‘M’ than with any of the ladies he comes across (no pun there, you’re on your own with that one). There’s some kind of Oedipus action going on there that still slightly eludes me.

There’s something else too...

All through the film, I was haunted by a pervading notion of Déjà vu. Some view, glance or twitch was always reminding me of one or another of the earlier Bond films. It’s like the producers were playing these Bond trivia tricks to keep the anorak fans entertained. I thought I was imagining all of this until one character turned up covered from head to toe in a black substance – killed by it – and suddenly we were in Goldfinger all over again.

This confirmed for me that my earlier suspicions were not entirely imagined – that the opening moments had clearly evoked the opening of ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ that the Opera has a Roger Moore quality to it, that the bad CIA man looked like ‘Mr. Kidd’ from ‘Diamonds are Forever’. Oh and didn’t the lady envoy feel just like a contemporary ‘Mary Goodnight’? And on and on.

A game was being played and, for me, it betrayed a lack of confidence in the basic material. Casino Royale seemed to stand defiantly on its own, saying ‘Like me or not, do I look like I give a damn?’ This all feels more like a committee-driven attempt to please.

One final in-joke - or is it just my over-active imagination again? The rather insipid bad-guy reminded me so much of Roman Polanski from the moment I first saw him – not so much the actor but rather the role he was playing. Then it is revealed that a major plot point (the McGuffin, if you will) was something which Polanski’s most iconic movie also concerned itself heavily with (you know what I mean) – was this again a co-incidence? I think not.

There is a lovely sequence in the centre of the movie, set in and around a spectacular modern staging of Tosca. I loved it. For me the movie gets much better during and after this. The locations become more ‘real’ and 'explored', the characters take some more room to breathe and the action is entirely more convincing.

The compulsory climactic sequence is jaw-droppingly well staged with high levels of surprisingly unsavoury-but-good violence and some really genuine sense of threat for the main protagonists.

Craig is simply a wonderful Bond. I hope he stays on to do more.

I also hope they find a director who can handle the action a little better.

Next time…

(It's twelve past midnight… two hours since movie end and that's what I thought of it.)

‘Night!

Movies Made Great by Music

I've just listening to an interview with John Barry and I was struck again by the fact that some films would not be half as good as they are without the fabulous music written for them.

For me, the names of two composers arise in particular in this regard - Ennio Morricone and John Barry.

I think both have written film music which has elevated itself beyond the movies it was written for and also elevated the movies themselves - some of them quite mundane - to a higher plain.


So, here's a few movies made better by their score - in no particular order (please add a few in comments if you have any):



Once upon a time in America

Out of Africa

Dances with Wolves - how average would this film be without *that* music?

Body Heat

Brief Encounter (Rachmaninov may not have written his second piano concerto for this flick but it sure fits!)

Last of the Mohicans

Jaws

James Bond - generally - the theme is an inseperable part of the iconography

The Mission

The Good the Bad and Ugly

Somewhere in Time

Psycho

Gladiator

I really shouldn't forget John Williams (well... I haven't really 'cos Jaws gets a mention) but his work on many of Speilberg and Lucas' blockbusters have been contributory to their success.

Try:

Schindler's List

Star Wars

Indiana Jones

and on and on...

If you guys can add a few, I know I'll be inspired to add a few more.

Oh: here's a little piece of doggerel I just doodled:

Our foreplay was ecstatic
but then I slept the whole night through.
Get this into my head:
Restoril - red
Viag-ara is blue.


EDIT - that rhyme is *not* about me!

The Biggest Movie of My Life – The Beginning

It all started when my eldest brother got sick one day. It was 1974 and he wasn’t really all that terribly sick, just a bit under the weather.

“Your brother is feeling a bit under the weather,” my mother whispered, “run to the shop and buy him a book to read.” This may seem a little odd but my brother and I have always shared this little trait – we are both comforted and cosseted by books. It’s strange but true.




Photo by: 'somewhere on an island'

So I ran to the shop – I was eleven years old and I ran pretty fast back then.

I didn’t run to the bookshop though, that would have been too easy. Instead, I ran to a little grocery shop on the other side of the river. It was a long way around via the bridge but I knew it was the place to go.

There was a book there, you see, up behind the counter and for weeks it had been staring out at me every day when I dropped in for a post-school treat. I couldn’t see much of it because it was quite a long way back but I knew from my distant view of the cover that it would be one that my brother would like.

It was about vampires, you see, and my brother liked vampires.

Well… I thought it was about vampires.

All that I could really see of the cover, from my vantage point in front of the counter, was the large mouth drooping downwards, the pointed savage teeth, the pale face, the black eyes and the title.

When I handed in my money and the book was brought down from its perch and delivered out to me, I finally saw that it wasn’t a vampire at all on the cover.

It was a fish.

* * * *

My brother finished ‘Jaws’ in record time, recovered fully and went off to play football on the street. Then it was my turn.

I had been waiting anxiously to have a go at it. The Daily Express review on the back cover was highly memorable, I can still quote it pretty much verbatim:

“Pick up ‘Jaws before midnight, read the first five pages, and I guarantee you'll be putting it down breathless and stunned, as dawn is breaking the next day”

Remember I was just eleven years old. There were things in ‘Jaws’ which I probably shouldn’t have been reading at that age. There was a lesbian in there, for instance. I didn’t really know what a 'lesbian' was but I soon figured it out. I had some help, I already had ‘The Dice Man’ under my belt… but that’s a whole other blog post.

Lesbians aside, the book grabbed me and shook me and would not let me go. I finished it, put it down and I remember saying to myself, ‘That is going to make one hell of a film.’

And so the long wait began…

There will never be another movie event like ‘Jaws’ simply because the world has now changed so much. When ‘The Dark Knight’ came out this summer, it was all over the world within days of its World Premiere. ‘Jaws’ took ages to even get to Ireland after it was released. But, much more importantly, it took additional ages to get to my home town after it was released in Dublin.

People were taking the train to the Capital just to queue around the block, see the film and then come home again. My best friend Martin was brought to Dublin by his Dad and so he got to see it months before me. I could have cheerfully strangled him and his old Dad – one neck in each hand.

One evening, weeks before it arrived, I saw a short clip on the telly. This was quite unusual in those days. I had one overriding impression of that short clip:

The movie looked so incredibly ‘Blue’...

With your indulgence, I might return to this subject in a later post, to set down what happened when I finally got to see the most-anticipated movie of my life.

Bats, Bots and Kung Fu Pandas

I am proud (and, yes, chuffed) to present my first guest blog ever. Lisa O'Reilly is my friend, my pal, my buddy and my niece.

All of her life, she has been intrigued by animation and movies and she has carried this through into young-adulthood by professionally studying animation. Her guest post is sparkled with some of her own drawings - of which I am a great fan.

Click on the artwork for more... artwork and ... enjoy!

Greetings fellow cinemaphiles!

Looking at the assorted movies in this summer blockbuster season, it’s been a pretty good year. Over the course of this review I will be discussing three of the biggest movies out right now. I’ll do my very best not to be boring in any way while I’m at it.

KUNG FU PANDA
Dreamwork’s latest foray into the realm of 3D-animated family-orientated feature films.

‘Kung Fu Panda’ is the story of Po, the only panda with aspirations to Kung Fu fighting. As enthusiastic as he is, his loud mouth and excessive bulk already cause problems for him with his warrior heroes and their master.

If things weren’t difficult enough, a powerful criminal kung fu master has escaped from prison and is heading right for them!

In light of all these challenges, can Po become the kung fu legend he’s always dreamed of being? …or perhaps the question is how?

One thing that Dreamworks has always been able to fall back on with their 3D animations is parody. Be it in the form of ‘Matrix’ movie moments, pop song musical numbers and barbed dialogue on other pop culture references.

While this method worked in their past movies like ‘Shrek’ and ‘Shrek 2’, other movies started to falter. ‘Sharktale’ focused so much on the celebrity actors that voiced the characters even to the point of caricature, and in the end necessary depth and characterization was completely lost.

It might as well have been shot with the real actors in a live action movie after all. Only with their last release with ‘Over The Hedge’ did Dreamworks show any improvement.

I’ve at least got this to say to Dreamworks; Congratulations, you’ve finally got it!

Rather than being a parody of Kung Fu films, ‘Kung Fu Panda’ is a delicately crafted homage to them. No silly pop songs, no pop culture references and no bloody ‘Matrix’ moments are featured anywhere along the story. Instead, we get sweeping, colourful landscapes, a stirring oriental soundtrack, cleverly-paced fight scenes and clear, funny comedy.

The characters themselves are handled with far more care. Po, voiced by Jack Black, is particularly well-rounded and while he is was clearly inspired by the man, he avoids becoming a caricature of Black himself.

Above all else, you can tell the creators of this movie wanted to tell a good story and tell it well.

A Final Note: Apparently, some genuine martial artists have reportedly been insulted that the protagonist, who is a fat panda that says “Awesome” a lot, could do all he does in the film and as a result the movie sends out a bad message to kids about the kung fu lifestyle. Which is a little weird to me, since I didn’t sense some kind of ‘message’ during the film when I watched it. Really, does there have to be a ‘message’ anymore?

There’s only three things I have to say to this, which are:

1. Kung Fu fights are really cool and fun to watch, especially in this film.

2. It’s a CG animated film about talking animals that occasionally defy physics when they fight. Suspend a little disbelief here people.

3. Pandas are awesome. Full stop.

This is a good film. It’s a good animated film. It’s a FUN film. Certainly worth a look for anyone. Prepare for Awesome-ness.

(And for Pete’s sake, be on time for the beginning and try to stay during the closing credits. They’re both very pretty!).

WALL-E

Pixar can do no wrong. It’s a fact. It can’t be done. Not even ‘Cars’ can slow them down.

WALL-E follows the story of the last robot left on Earth, after all human life has left for space to get away from the immense amount of garbage and worldwide pollution. Over the last seven hundred years, Wall-e has developed a little glitch. A personality. Not to mention a habit of hording anything he finds particularly interesting, like rubber duckies and Zippo lighters.

However, even with the company of his loyal pet cockroach and beloved videotape of ‘Hello Dolly’ Wall-e has started feeling a bit, well, lonely. Until everything changes with the arrival of new robot on the block, EVE, who appears to be looking for something…

I don’’t think I should elaborate on what happens in the story, because it’s better to be surprised. There is so much happening in this film.

With such a small voice cast and a rather minimum amount of actual dialogue, Pixar has made an unquestionably unique move with ‘Wall-e’. So much effort has been put into the task of making a human connection with a character that’s essentially two eyes and no mouth, but they did it, and you do. It truly shows how simple body language can trump over words.

‘Wall-e’ has already gained the label of being a masterpiece, and it’s easy to see why.

Both my parents have seen ‘Wall-e’ and admitted it was not at all what they expected.

I would like to stress that this is not like any other animated movie released in a long while. There’s none of that Dreamworks clinging-ness to celebrity and parody, or Warner Bros. funny-gag-a-thon, or Disney’s confused descent into depressing mediocrity. Although Disney is involved with this film…

Masterpiece or not, Wall-e is a simple movie with some truly beautiful moments. Go see it, it can’t hurt. (Hang around during the closing credits, they’re fantastic!)

By the way, be sure to be on time for the Pixar short film ‘Presto!’ shown before the movie. It’s loads of fun!


BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT
Go see this movie.

No, really. Go see it. In the cinema, especially, that’s the best.

Chris Nolan had said with ‘Batman Begins’ that he wanted to totally reinvent Batman movies for the better after all the campy rubbish that came before it and after Tim Burton’s two gems. He’s done it. Forget the past movies and even the comics. This is a new breed of Bat.

The story follows Bruce Wayne, who is growing conflicted over his double-life of being the Batman. Especially since many copycat vigilantes are appearing in the wake of his efforts.

However, since the crime rate has dropped significantly, it looks like it’s time for the normal good guys, like famed attorney Harvey Dent, to be taking over.
Then the Joker makes himself known.

This. Film. Works. On so many levels.

A cleverly paced story with great set pieces and many neat twists.

A beautifully theatrical and dramatic soundtrack (no silly rock music moments, thank you).

A great, great cast. Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, among others…

And the late Heath Ledger.

If anything shows what direction this franchise has chosen, it’s all in the Joker.
Heath Ledger’s Joker is not clownish, nor does he even act much like a terrorist (unlike what many critics have said…). But he is twisted. Gloriously twisted. And funny, for some very wrong reasons (watch out for the pencil trick). You can’t stop watching him, just in case he does something.

If Ledger doesn’t get anything for all his hard work, I won’t be pleased.

Be aware though, this is a long film - almost ‘Lord of the Rings’ long - but with good reason to be. The plot of the movie never flows too fast or too slow, which is essential as far as I’m concerned.
The way I see it, this is such a good movie that it doesn’t even to be considered a comic-book-movie.

How good is this film? The two times I went to see it, NOBODY GOT UP TO GO TO THE BATHROOM, that’s how good it is!

Go see this film. In the cinema. You’ll kick yourself if you don’t.

So there you go. Bear in mind, these are all just my opinions, but I hope they help you. I shall close with a bit of advice from some years of movie-going experience.

-Go to the bathroom before the movie! Nobody likes their view being blocked and you might miss something good!

-Turn off all mobile phones and nobody has to get hurt. (this goes for you tweens as well!)

-Beware of “professional” movie critics. Especially those on late night TV shows.

-Beware of newspapers with movie review sections, that is where they wait.

-Watch movie trailers. They can tell you everything you really need to know.

-‘Empire’ and ‘Total Film’ magazines are your friends.

-Go with your gut. If you think you’ll like a film, then why not?

Happy cinema-going!!


P.S. For those who have been losing faith in Disney’s own animated efforts lately (like me), look for ‘The Princess and The Frog’ on Youtube.

My hopes are high!

Be Kind Rewind – A Film Review

Writer/Director Michel Gondry wrote/directed one of my newer favourite films. ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’.

If you haven’t seen it, you really should.

Whether your penchant is for science fiction, romantic comedy or quirky independent movies, ‘Sunshine…’ should meet all your needs – it did for me. Oh, and don’t be put off by the fact that Jim Carey is in it, if you’re not a Jim Carey fan. He does quite well here.

So… when me and my young men saw a trailer for Gondry’s latest film ‘Be Kind Rewind’, I was quite excited. Interestingly enough, so were they (the kids, that it).

The trailer was run before a kid’s movie and it had loads of things in it to appeal to that audience. So much so that my guys ran off to see it when it hit the cinema. They returned a little bemused. I didn’t get to see it myself.

I next came across it on the flight back from Florida a few weeks ago. It came on the little screens at about 2.00am/9.00pm depending on what zone we were over at the time. I watched a little then fell asleep. It looked just okay – I don’t engage much with movies on planes.

Then, the other evening, my eldest son was going on a birthday party sleepover which left me and the seven year old to our own devices (usually blogging and Lego respectively). This time however the little seven year old (four seasons in one day) announced he wanted to watch a DVD with his old dad. When I got home I found he had chosen ‘Be Kind Rewind’ (he slept through it on the plane and didn’t know it had been on.)

So we watched it, me and him.

‘Be Kind Rewind’ has a fun premise. While left alone to look after the video store where he works, Mos Def’s friend Jack Black erases all the tapes with his electrically-magnetised head. To keep one important-but-eccentric customer happy, they make their own version of ‘Ghostbusters’ using an old video camera and some imaginative props. Finding their work to be in demand, they move on to remake other well known movies in their own peculiar way.

The trailer was appealing to kids because it made great play of the various films that the renegade auteurs produce. That’s why my little man liked it and that’s why he seemed to really enjoy it in our DVD viewing.

But it isn’t really a kid’s movie. It’s not unsuitable or anything, it’s just not really made for them.

What it is, in fact, is a surprisingly elegiac film about the demise of small local communities. It is a nostalgic love song to the neighbourhoods of old where everybody knew everybody and it was okay to be a bit mad and even a bit aggressive so long as you played your part.

I feel the film is striving to celebrate something which never actually existed in the first place but which rather has been created through glancing back through rose coloured spectacles.

It’s not an entirely successful movie. It seems to try too hard to be quirky and the parade of oddball characters gets a little wearing at times.

Also Jack Black seems oddly out of place. It’s almost as if a real –life-celebrity showed up on your own street and tried to blend in. He doesn't help by phoning in another ‘School of Rock’ performance which crowds the more subtle work of the supporting cast. This is a shame because I find Jack to be both talented and very funny – he just seemed to be too big a face for this particular frame.

The movies which the guys make are great. My favourite moment is on their version of ‘Boyz in the Hood’ where a large pizza is put to wonderfully effective use.

When this film was over I found that I had enjoyed it very much. I thought the supporting cast were charming, particularly Melonie Diaz. Danny Glover proves that a famous face can keep his head tucked in with the ensemble when the need arises and Mia Farrow was sweet – even the local hoodlums were sweet.

After a while, I found I could pick some holes in it (see above) but, while it was there, it worked well enough for me.

Isn’t that all we should expect from a film sometimes?

In Bruges - A Review

‘In Bruges’ was my most anticipated film of 2008 and, having just seen it on DVD last night, it is now my favourite film of 2008.

So that’s good, isn’t it?

I crossed paths with the Writer/Director Martin McDonagh some years ago in London at the genesis of his stellar theatre career. The result is that I have followed his subsequent successes with an odd mix of almost-fraternal joy and raging jealousy which has bound me inextricably to his work every step of the way. I have found this to be motivational in my own writing efforts.

To have any kind of involvement with a writer who starts out struggling just like the rest of us and then to watch him place his feet on the launch pad and hit the stratosphere can be really inspiring, if you’re big enough to let it be.

I digress…

Martin McDonagh built his reputation in theatre with such fine plays as ‘The Beauty Queen of Leenane’, ‘The Lonesome West’, ‘The Lieutenant of Inismore’, ‘The Cripple of Inismaan’ and ‘The Pillowman’. At the age of 27 he was the first playwright since Shakespeare to have four plays running simultaneously in London's West-End.

He went on to win the 2006 Oscar for best short film with ‘Six Shooter’ which he wrote and directed.

Now we have his first feature film ‘In Bruges’.

This an extremely black comic film which concerns itself with two Irish hit-men - Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson - who are sent to Bruges to lie low for two weeks after being involved in a botched killing.

One of the pair immediately falls for the charms of the Belgian city while the other hates it from the minute he sets foot in it.

Here’s my customary warning to the gentler of visitors to this blog. Although I loved this film, you may well not. It contains one of the highest quotients of foul language ever heard in any movie, it is highly-politically-incorrect – the characters express violent and racist opinions at regular intervals, the violence is graphic, sudden and disturbing.

So please, please, be warned.

I got into a little hot water here recently for proclaiming that ‘Pulp Fiction’ made me happy. Here I go again because this one made me pretty happy too. It’s not the violence or the language that does it for me though, it’s more the quality of story-telling, dialogue, characterisation and, in this case, the beautiful setting, the lovely soundtrack, the wonderful humour and the heart – the dark moral heart of this film.

If you’ve seen the trailer for this one (and I’ll come back to the trailer in a minute) then you may feel you know what to expect from it. But the actual movie is much more thoughtful and character-driven than the smarty-smarty trailer ever suggested. It is also quite a beautiful film in many ways – the director of photography has captured some lovely angles on a city which, with the exception of two or three scenes, is shown as being virtually deserted. The soundtrack is very sweet too, with one notable exception.

The story is very close to that of a famous Pinter play – if I were to tell you which one, that would constitute quite a large spoiler and I don’t like doing that – but it is interesting that Martin McDonagh, who looked so often to the cinema for his theatrical inspiration now seems to have sought out the theatre for his movie references. I think there is also some touches of ‘The Third Man’ in there but that could be just me.

Criticisms? I always try to find a little gripe or two, I think it’s constructive. Well, there are two sizeable coincidences which occur in the narrative – these always lessen the impact of a film for me. There is also quite a serious mis-use of the song ‘Raglan Row’ by Luke Kelly.

My main gripe however is reserved for the trailer. Remember I said I’d be back to it?

The trailer for this film gave far too much away. On account of the trailer, I knew certain things were going to happen even though the film tried its best to convince me they might not.

I wish I’d seen the movie before I’d seen the trailer.

So, I commend this one highly to you and I look forward to your thoughts on it. You know how I adore the dissenting voice so do please let me have it.

Oh yeah, even the little lady from the Hulk Queue in my previous post said this was her favourite movie of the year.

I think she mostly liked it on account of Colin Farrell though.

Perhaps that’s why she seemed to have been slightly hitting on me in the queue?

No, ‘didn’t think so.