joachimokeefe Reviews

Battle Over Britain (2023)

How not to make a movie of any kind

[1/10 · 14 May 2024]

TL:DR - Boredom under budget

EXT. FIELD, DAY.

It doesn't matter if your supposedly historical drama gets all the facts wrong. All of them.

It doesn't matter if you've only got one Spitfire.

It doesn't matter if your airbase consists of garden centre shed in a field.

It doesn't matter if your combat sequences were filmed with Microsoft Flight Simulator, or your soundtrack is off a CD called 'Generic Drama Themes vol XXIII'.

What you absolutely must have is relatable characters in deep conflict. That doen't mean 'tropes during WWII', which is all you get from BOB.

You also get a lot of nationalistic nonsense, which is disturbing if they mean it. Everyone ought to know by now that Nazi Germany called off operation Sea Lion (the invasion) partly because their invasion of Russia was due the next summer, and partly because they thought England was ready to negotiate peace. The narrative that Churchill 'won the war' was concocted by Churchill and the tory party to cover the loss of the British Empire. This film has a superannuated propaganda narrative, which makes its lack of plot even more annoying.

Shardlake (2024– )

Complete and utter shardlake

[1/10 · 10 May 2024]

'Shardlake!!' I roared, as the yolk on the fried egg I was cooking broke. 'Shardlake!!' I shouted as the internet went down. 'Shardlake!!' I screamed as the trash bag split.

Try it yourself, much more satisfying that the usual oaths. If you say it with a Yorkshire accent, you can even get Sean Bean going. 'Shadlairk!!'.

Yes, Mr. Director, I know what a horse looks like. They look much as they did in 1536, too. Zoomy cameras, chugging synthesisers, and echo-drenched drums tend to destroy the Tudor atmosphere a bit. Never mind, Sean Bean seems a bit cross about something. I know how he feels. Shardlake!!

Constellation (2024)

Constipation

[1/10 · 10 May 2024]

Space-soap that you've seen many times before. Characters straight out of a KFC advert, Swelling cellos, synths. Pulsing drums, zero gravity, cute kids back on Earth, eating KFC probably. In fact there seems to be a matter of the utmost gravity going on, but by the clever device of making a 1-hour episode seem to last about five, you forget what it is.

The time-space continuum gets ruptured, or something. Must be all the straining with constipation. At this point I require 100 more characters. It'd be good if this show had even one, instead of a succession of tropes.

References to 2001, Dr Zhivago, Fargo, Key Largo even.

Inside No. 9 (2014–2024)

It's not black 'comedy' if it isn't funny, is it.

[1/10 · 7 May 2024]

TL:DR - Middle-aged drama students regurgitate as many cultural references as they can, while remaking Hitchcock's 'Rope' over and over again. The BBC commissioning editors are completely fooled.

INTERIOR, DAY. HA! GOT YOU! IT'S NIGHT!

An anthology series with different sets, characters and stories every episode. Unfortunately the morbid, earnest, white English tone, and the unpleasant Shearsmith and Pemberton being unpleasant never differs. As is usual with the BBC, once a series gets greenlit, it gets flogged to death for more years than it ever had in it in the first place.

Some people love it. Some people like circus clowns. Some people like 'Mrs. Brown's Boys'.

Fallout (2024– )

What's futuristic about a 1997 video game?

[1/10 · 5 May 2024]

TL:DR - A good enough opening sequence, followed by no emotions but fear and disgust. Dull, dated and depressing.

EXTERIOR, DAY: RICH KIDS' BIRTHDAY PARTY

Adapted, as you will know, from a computer game from the 90's., where you roved about killing people, trying to collect weapons to kill more people. That explains why the only emotional content in this lamentable series is paranoia, and it's the oh-so-current (not) nuclear holocaust you've got to worry about, where people live in underground bunkers built by god knows who and powered by god knows what, and any pretence that it might not be a closed studio is abandoned. Graphic, sadistic violence which involves women because you know, feminism, and characters with the depth of Panini stickers.

Fine for kids apart from the violence, so it must be aimed at underdeveloped adults. As long as they subscribe to Amazon Prime, who cares?

I Wake Up Screaming (1941)

I Dozed Off And Didn't Miss Much. I Woke Up Spoiling

[2/10 · 3 May 2024]

TL:DR - Typist Betty Grable's hashslinger sister (Carole Landis) is turned into a celebrity by promoter Victor Mature, only to be bumped off. Somehow, they don't say or show. 1940's New York looks good.

INTERIOR, CAFE, DAY. DINERS DINE, HASHSLINGERS SLING.

This film would be a lot more bearable without the constant, unremitting repetition of 'Slaughter On Tenth Avenue' and 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' on a sort of loop.

The plot is underdeveloped: star detective Laird Cregar is obsessed with framing Victor Mature for the murder that it's obvious that Elisha Cook Jr committed, otherwise Elisha wouldn't be in it. Why? Because Laird is completely mad. Oh, right. If Victor had gone to trial, the number of procedure violations Laird gets up to would have seen him walk free.

Victor Mature could never be accused of underacting, but Betty Grable keeps him in check. Mwah Noir.

Jennifer (1953)

Iffy. Nicely photographed, anyway. Full spoiler.

[1/10 · 3 May 2024]

TL:DR - A non-mystery, not worth your time unless you like California real estate.

EXTERIOR, DAY. THE DUFF ENDING CASTS A LONG SHADOW.

Ida Lupino takes a caretaker job at a Santa Barbara mansion, where the previous caretaker mysteriously disappeared. Can Ida solve the mystery, seeing as nobody ever does any work around here? Even the miscast shop gofer tries to help out, as he has a thing for the unsmiling Agnes (Ida). Luckily, Jennifer left an extensive series of clearly written notes that explain everything at regular intervals. It's a sort of Easter Egg hunt, with all the suspense and mystery that suggests.

Photographed by James Wong Howe, who steals the show from the oh-so-earnest Ida and her IRL husband Howard Duff (whose acting skills wouldn't give Elvis Presley any sleepless nights) and not helped by the terribly overwrought music and underwrought script, which is a half-hour story stretched thin to 70-odd minutes.

The most gruesome murder is of the song 'Angel Eyes', which Matt Dennis seems to have been playing all night while several old couples attempt to dance to it, trying to do Sammy Davis Junior, but coming over as Bobby Vee Senior. Maybe they could have given Russ Conway, who plays the gardener, a shot. That might have livened this film up a bit.

The ending (spoiler): Jennifer didn't die, the family put her in a sanatarium because she was insane, and they didn't want anyone to know. The End. They attempt to suggest, by the repeat use of the long shadow, that there actually is a ghost, but by then nobody cares.

Caught (1949)

Abort, so to speak.

[1/10 · 17 April 2024]

TL:DR Some great direction, Robert Ryan great, but that ending stinks. Spoiler below.

INTERIOR: GIRLS' APARTMENT, DAY

Barbara Bel Geddes (Dallas' Miss Ellie) saves up to go to charm school in the hope of marrying as millionaire. Well guess what. Smith Ohlrig (Robert Ryan) marries her to prove his psychotherapist wrong. (Elon Musk paid $44bn for Twitter, so go figure weirdly named billionaires).

There's only one plot line, which isn't enough - will Robert Ryan 'give' her a divorce so she can marry unsuspecting Dr. Quinada (James Mason) or not? That's a boring closed (yes or no) question, but when she gets pregnant after a make-up night with Ohlrig, he holds all the cards. What to do? Murder? Accident? No, they thought they'd be original.

Spoiler: So then somebody in the script room thought, "Well, if the baby died, she'd be free, wouldn't she?" And everybody thought that was a good idea, apparently. Baby dies, happy ending, that's what they thought; fade on Barbara Bel Geddes smiling in the hospital bed.

For this reason, I'd suggest giving 'Caught' a miss as entertainment, though there are some stylish directorial angles, and impressive sets. And Robert Ryan is totally believable. Shame about that terrible ending.

Lola (I) (2024)

Lol

[1/10 · 15 April 2024]

TL:DR There was another film called 'Lola' in 2022, never mind the 1961 version. Maybe they should have called this 'Lola 3'.

INTERIOR, A BATHROOM: DAY

You can guess from the title what level of non-originality we're talking about. Basically this is the story of an aspirational lowlife from a writer/director/star whose experience of low life is from watching 'Roseanne' once or twice.

As a high school project, it would be fair to middling; no characters, no plot, no suspense. Not technically terrible. One or two arguments, a death.. As a commercial release, it just makes you wonder 'what was the deal that got this world distribution?', which is the most interesting thing about it. Or the least uninteresting thing.

Madeleine (1950)

The house is still there, at 7 Blythswood Square

[8/10 · 30 March 2024]

TL:DR David Lean lays on the mid-Victorian atmosphere with a trowel, if you liked his 'Oliver Twist' and Great Expectations' you'll enjoy this. Courtroom drama, done different.

EXTERIOR: GLASGOW, DAY. IT'S RAINING.

Fantastic cast, among them John 'Dad's Army Fraser' Laurie giving it laldy as street preacher calling for the hanging of the suspected murderer Madeleine Smith. It has to be said, however, that Ann Todd was a long way (20+ years) north of the 20 years that Ms. Smith had graced the planet. Well, she was Lean's wife at the time (Ann Todd, that is).

That said, she's pretty believable (well not all that pretty), and the characterisations in general are superb. The long-suffering housemaid Christina, the thundering father, the 'French' (Channel Islands) victim, the gentlemanly official fiance, the ceilidh scene in Rhu; the memorable list goes on. Andre Morell as the defence barrister (it develops into a courtroom drama - was the script a transcript?) is superb, and the inserted witness flashbacks, rather than a linear narrative, stop it getting dull.

Oozes class, and a fair bit of Glasgow too.

The Stand (1994)

Droopy

[1/10 · 18 March 2024]

TL:DR Stephen King hacks out a character-free ghost train ride. A Covid premonition? Didn't help much.

EXTERIOR: US MILITARY BASE, DAY. RAZOR WIRE, PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE SIGNBOARDS. NO DOGS THOUGH.

The opening credits steadicam (a nod to Kubrick?) their way through the doors of this highly secret germ warfare research facility, where every man jack and woman jill has been forced to sit through the whole series in advance. Naturally, they've died of boredom. The security guard manages to work out what's happened, because the highly professional research team leader is screaming his head off for said security guy to close the gate.

Naturally, this highly professional security guy doesn't do that. He takes off with his wife and baby from California to Texas, where he smashes into a good ol' boys gas station, staffed by red-shirted Star Trek rednecks. APART, that is, from the one young, handsome one, WHO, it turns out, is immune to the deadly virus, which starts with you clearing your throat, and kills in twelve minutes, except where it doesn't suit the narrative.

Perhaps the reason he's immune is the same reason he has no personality, just an attitude. Well, so would you if you were immune to the deadly virus everybody else was going to die of.

And that's where I realised that this series is nothing more than a circus sideshow on celluloid (well it was 1994). No characters, total cliché country everywhere you look. You could make up your own, better. Don't bother, though.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

If you're not a Peter Sellers fan, it's two hours of him.

[5/10 · 17 March 2024]

TL:DR The Peter Sellers Nuclear Comedy Hours. Lumet's Fail Safe (1964, too) played for (not many) laughs.

EXTERIOR: Above the clouds, day.

Sterling Hayden (Jack D. Ripper, geddit?), George C Scott, Slim Pickens and Keenan Wynn have a whale of a time doing psychotic US military, which was a prime target for the media back in 1964, and ever since, actually. Tracy Reed in a bikini reminds us that women existed in 1964.

Peter Sellers, leading the way for Peter Cook (and John Lennon, even) as a 'supersmarta*se English nutcase', scenery-chews three parts; an RAF exchange exec (Mandrake) to Sterling Hayden's bomb wing commander, the US President, and an ex-Nazi character (the Dr in question) who seems to have been written in to draw the parallel between the Nazis and the US nuclear weapons strategy. Sellers is more than OK, but it's not enough for two hours with a wordy, aimless script.

Kubrick's done a his usual great job with the technology and the procedures, which seem authentic, even if they're not; who knows? The satire, however, is pretty unsubtle, and it's more like a two-hour nuclear armageddon themed 'Peter Sellers Comedy Show'. With a huge conference table, and the plane interiors, kind of foreshadowing 2001. (Spot James Earl Jones as the navigator).

And the thin story of the movie is: will the incompetent and insane world leaders stop the bomb(s) being dropped in time? If you weren't around in those days, you won't appreciate the level of paranoia and the pervasiveness of US foreign policy that is depicted. Imagine a film showing how useless and insane the management of the Covid pandemic was. It's kind of a given, isn't it. It's also not much of a story any more.

Five stars for effort, but there are a lot better anti-war films, including Kubrick's own Paths Of Glory. Oh, and Fail Safe.

You Can't Take It with You (1938)

I couldn't take much more.

[3/10 · 8 March 2024]

Wall Street versus Lionel Barrymore as the cheery grandpatriarch, who lives in the only house on the block that won't sell up to a monopolist munitions manufacturer who happens to be the father of the guy (Jimmy Stewart, thin as a rake) who wants to marry Jean Arthur. It takes all sorts, I guess.

Liberally smothered with fun props, deadpan eccentrics and a trained raven, what Capra seems not to have drummed into the cast is 'You Can't Chew The Scenery Like You Do On Broadway'. A 'Making Of' version would be more fun, ie one without dialogue.

Lionel Barrymore is particularly guilty of taking his lines at his leisure.

I got the idea at one point that the Sycamores or the Vanderhofs were at some point going to be accused of promoting Russian-style revolution; but unfortunately the script blanded out into a bourgeois bohemian burlesque demonstrating that even capitalist sociopaths have a soft centre, if you give them a good enough dinner party.

The Third Lover (1962)

Fraud Chabrol. Amateur, not auteur.

[1/10 · 17 February 2024]

TL:DR Yes, I know I said I wouldn't watch any more Chabrol, but I only watched eight minutes of this before giving up. There, that's saved you eight minutes of your life, at least. God knows, I tried.

Silly music, where it's not required, mis-scored over dialogue - to some people this seems to equate to cinematic depth, or avant-gardeness. Sorry, it's ineptitude. The male lead is prettier than the female lead, so why should we care about her? Neither has any personality. A voiceover to explain everything because Chabrol hasn't the faintest idea how to depict it. Chabrol's wife as the female lead cannot act. The other male lead keeps looking at the camera. No suspense, just coincidence after coincidence. Yes folks, it's Chabrol again.

I'll admit that Chabrol knew how to point a camera at interiors and exteriors and say, 'Action!' and 'Cut!'. People, he wasn't so good at. Suspense he had no clue. What he never worked out was how to show plot points without a character explaining it, or how to get his wife to act, or how to spot when an actor glanced at the camera. I guess the French state cinema subsidy system was just too generous in those days; any fool with access to an Arriflex could get in on it.

Every time I try to watch a Chabrol feature I can't see past the same fundamental faults. Now there would be an avant garde movie.

Cornered (1945)

Plotted into a corner, Dick Powell goes round the bend.

[4/10 · 17 February 2024]

TL:DR Terrific opening act, tortuous second act, terrible third act.

INTERIOR: RAF PAY OFFICE, 1945, DAY

Dick Powell - with great hair, it has to be said - is a demobbed Canadian Air Force lieutenant in a hurry to avenge the death of his French wife of 20 days at the hands of them Nazis, who were tipped off by a filthy collaborator who faked his own death. We go from London to southern France, to Switzerland, to Buenos Aires, but at such a pace it seems that a few pages of script got mislaid, so that Edward Dmytryk had to make it up as he went along.

Great acting, great photography, great direction, cracking plot touching on many post-WWII issues - to begin with. As Cornered goes on, it becomes clear that everything is a red herring, it's simply a buildup to a level boss fight in a storeroom. Walter Slezak sets the bar for every part Peter Ustinov ever played, but isn't sure how funny to play it, because the script is deadly earnest., and crammed with unnecessary characters and a female lead who isn't.

Napoleon (2023)

Not tonight, Joaquin.

[1/10 · 17 February 2024]

TL:DR Johnny Cash, looking a bit sweaty, battles his way to Emperorship of France. France doesn't put up much of a fight.

INTERIEUR: FRANCE, 1789ish. NUIT.

We begin with the execution of Marie Antoinette in a fright wig in front of a cast of dozens, moving on to the siege of Toulon. Which goes on too long.

Dozens of extras dash around in period underwear, while the soundrack appears to have been recorded for a different film, eg all English soldiers are auditioning for a Guy Ritchie mockney movie.

I suppose Warhammer is the modern equivalent of painting model soldiers to play strategy games. That's what Ridley is doing here. Model soldiers, model forts, and Johnny Cash, rather than Johnny foreigner.

Able was I, ere I saw Apple.

EARLY FADE.

Party Girl (1958)

Partly good

[5/10 · 12 February 2024]

TL:DR Ageing mob lawyer and ageing showgirl struggle to evade the clutches of ageing mob boss. Watchable would-be epic but unmemorable.

INTERIOR: 1958's FILM STUDIO PRETENDING TO BE A 1930's BURLESQUE CLUB. NIGHT. AN EXCRUCIATINGLY DREADFUL 1958 THEME SONG PLAYS. CREDITS IN PSYCHEDELIC FONT.

In an extremely brightly coloured, well-lit 1930's Chicago with inauthentic costumes and hairdos, Tommy Farrell (Robert Taylor) is an invincible criminal lawyer who is the only man brave enough to give 'rackets boss' Rico Angelo (Lee J Cobb) backtalk. Meanwhile, sparks fly between Tommy and senior showgirl at The Golden Rooster Cyd Charisse (character's name forgotten), who gets to do a couple of numbers that are terribly dated now. OK if you like overwrought brass arrangements and mock native African nightclub numbers. I blame Christopher Columbus and Glenn Miller.

So, there's a back and forth as the gap between Tommy Farrell's integrity and Rico's venality widens, with Cyd caught in the middle. The protracted climax hinges on whether Tommy will turn states' on Rico or not. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. Maybe he won't maybe he will. 'Get on with it', you think, and then the gunplay starts. The violence is up there with the Godfather series, if that rolls your canoli.

Robert Taylor's makeup is almost as good as some of the showgirls'.

John Ireland is Louis Canetto, Rico's left-hand man, and I'm sorry to say that he overacts. Cyd underacts, so they sort of cancel each other out. They also hit each other.

Lee J. Cobb (an ex-Harmonica Rascal!) chews a cigar and the scenery throughout.

Spoiler: It's watchable, bit of a shaggy dog story (ie no story at all), and in the end the Seventh Cavalry, or possibly the Thirty-Seventh Precinct, arrive to save the day. Rico spills vitriol on his own face and falls through a third floor window, which is no more than he deserves. Yes, the ending is rotten, hence a generous 5/10.

FADE TO DISAPPOINTMENT.

The Mad Ghoul (1943)

Complete nonsense, but way better than anything Chabrol ever did.

[5/10 · 12 February 2024]

TL:DR The Mad Ghoul (1943) is freely available in good quality at the Internet Archive; it's a silly 'Jekyll & Hyde' variant that shouldn't tax anybody's brain cells. It doesn't pretend to be anything else.

George Zucco, uncannily like Ralph Richardson, is excellent as a barking mad older scientist obsessed with up and coming singer Evelyn Ankers, who does that kind of 'yawny' 1940s crooning popularised by such as Deanna Durbin. She wants to ditch 'Ted' (David Bruce, who is very good, especially at falling over - he turns into a sort of Lou Reed meets Fred Munster occasionally) for 'Eric' (Turhan Bey), her smooth pianist, which means Dr. George has another young suitor to get rid of.

It wouldn't do to question the scientific, journalistic, legal, medical or psychological procedures of anything that happens; just go with it, it's all logical within its own universe. They weren't up to speed with 'schizophrenia', even, calling it 'scizzophrenia'. But hey, Mayan poison gas and auto-heart transplants are a stretch too.

It's a pantomime, and not a terrible one at that, and the fact that the available version is clean and clear is a big help.

Argylle (2024)

Arghhh!!!!

[1/10 · 7 February 2024]

TL:DR It's 'Argyle', or 'Argyll'. If you can't get that right, you won't get anything else right, and they didn't. It's like saying 'Alabamma', or 'Pariss'. Or 'Applle'. You've seen all of this before.

INTERIOR: DRAUGHTY-LOOKING MOSQUE-BASED NIGHTCLUB. DAY.

What's with his hair? Has he been using Miracle-Gro instead of Wash'n'Go? He looks like a squeezed tube of black toothpaste. There are two kinds of people in this film: men trying to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, even Bryan Cranston whose fame went to his head, and women who look like they've neglected to do their roots. Apart from Applle herself, who looks like Taylor Swift did fifteen years ago, without the curls, and without the talent.

In every scene there are security guys/bouncers; presumably to keep the actors on the set, because nobody with any self-esteem would have stayed on set for thirty seconds.

The script was written after the plastic action figures were designed.

In fact, it was plastic action figures that wrote it.

It's a sad fact that some 50-90% of movies made before 1950 are irretrievably lost. It's even sadder that 'Applle' will never join them.

Van Diemen's Land (2009)

What's for lunch? You are, mate. Pointless and boring.

[1/10 · 6 February 2024]

TL:DR A harrowing (ie violent) dramatisation of the escape by eight prisoners from MacQuarie Harbour prison in 1822 Tasmania (as is) - If only they'd watched 'Bush Tucker Man' first.

EXTERIOR: DAY. A LOGGING CAMP ON THE TASMANIAN COAST, 1822.

It's not fast paced, but then, nor is Tasmania. There are repeated drone shots of the VDL coastal jungle/bush which seems to consist of steep, wooded mountains. These have accompanying, overwrought, Twin Peaks-meets-unrosined-violin-bow droney music and Irish Gaelic mutterings; every time this happens. Instead of reinforcing the tension, this serves to emphasise that not much is happening. I could have done with a lot less of that.

Not unlike 'Deliverance' only in the sense of a bunch of blokes stressing out over getting through the backwoods, though the characters here are less clear cut. Except when they're being butchered.

It's realistic, except as some morbid types seem to wish, the actors didn't actually starve. They certainly don't look as though they're enjoying themselves, even each other. They get more paranoid as the group thins out, but even this isn't very clear.

You have to wonder, what's the point? Condemnation of the penal colony system? Actors earnestly grunting in the mist? A metaphor for the futility of existence? Revenge of the Aborigines? The Tasmanian Tourist Authority certainly doesn't have much to work with. Even the lush jungle shots are spoiled by droney music. It's such a relief when that stops.

As it goes on and gets more Sergio Leone but with no story, the stars fall away. 4**** at 1:20. Oh, no, it gets supernatural at 1:26; 3*** minus. By the end, you just don't care any more which of the monosyllabic, ragged, dirty, scowling men survives. Perhaps that's the idea. (Spoiler) Alexander Pearce wrote his confession, which has got to be more worthwhile than this. 1*.

FADE TO SLEEP.

Random Harvest (1942)

Cheesey? Yes, but what fine cheese it is.

[9/10 · 4 February 2024]

TL:DR WWI British Army captain loses his memory, escapes from asylum, gets his memory back after three years, but forgets what happened in between. Pulls all the right heartstrings, as good as Hollywood gets.

EXTERIOR, SCOTLAND, NIGHT. IT'S RAINING.

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, of Wizard of Oz fame - and the common devices (including huge, obvious, but fun stage sets) are not hard to make out. Someone undergoes all sorts of physical and mental trauma, and because the audience has been cued up from the beginning to believe in their fundamental niceness, we hope that their rollercoaster comes in safely in the end.

And Random Harvest, by the writer of 'Lost Horizon', the similarly fantastic feelgood 1937 drama, certainly has its ups and downs. Greer Garson doing a dodgy musical 'Scotch' number in a mini-kilt with strategic sporran, I'm not sure if that's an up or not. Ronald Colman is totally believable, from pathetic PTSD victim to 'Prince of English Industry', he makes David Niven look lightweight. No offence, Dave old boy.

Melbridge, the 'English Midlands' town where Ron and Greer first meet, is full of Cockneys, presumably evacuated there during the war. Smithy/Charles Rainier's erstwhile fiancée Kitty (Susan Peters), might have been a bit more bothered about her disappointment, but the scene where it dawns on her that 'he's not the one' is brilliant. All done with eyes.

RH may come across a bit chocolate-boxy-bourgeois (they never struggle for money and buy a house by magic), but there's no denying the depth of feeling it is able to conjure up, if you want it to.

FADE. CREDITS.

The Mother and the Whore (1973)

Amateurish tripe. Sorry, but there it is. One of the 1001 Movies You Must Die Before You See.

[1/10 · 4 February 2024]

TL:DR An emotionally immature, abusive, pathologically narcissistic Jack-the-Lad tries to keep three women on the go. Been there, done that.

INTERIOR: A LARGE APARTMENT, SCOTLAND. NIGHT.

Within the first five minutes you can spot two of the actors glancing at the camera. The third actress learnt her trade at the Académie Des Mannequins De Magasin-Fenêtre*. More people look at the camera, one even sidesteps to get out of shot. Cigarettes are smoked, suggestively. Expressively, I fast-forward.

I get it, I do. He wants every woman to love him unconditionally, and once they succumb to his Gauloise breath, he sees them as putains. Been there, done that. Got anything else?

Smoking, eating, drinking: the usual scriptwriter manqué's idea of drama which becomes mere filler. Oh! And 'full-frontal-nudity', as it used to be known in the seventies. And before the internet, people used to pay money for even ten seconds of it. Since it isn't very good pr0n, it must be serious art! That puts an entirely different perspective on the movie, not.

There are no people whatever, not even Napoleon Bonaparte, whose character is so interesting that it will stand up to THREE AND A HALF HOURS of drama-free, prosaic, hypoedited cinematology, full-frontal nudity or no.

A master(batory)piece of French cinéma which seems to have fooled many people. Don't be one of them. Make your own amateurish tripe if you must; it couldn't be worse.

FADE TO WHITE.

*School for Shop Window Dummies.

The Grilling (1981)

Riveting, stunning ensemble cop drama - and here's an angle (spoiler)

[10/10 · 1 February 2024]

TL:DR On a rainy new year's eve, gritty Detective Gallien (Lino Ventura) grills gruesome child-killer suspect (Michael Serrault).

Brilliantly avoids being stagey, wordy or melodramatic.

Even without the double (triple? See below) twist at the end, GAV would be a terrific film about the breaking down of a murder suspect. I'll only concern myself with my theory of the actual explanation for SPOILER Madame Martinaud's (Romy Schneider) suicide at the end. That's the second twist. She hated her husband's 10-year (romantic, to that scumbag) relationship with her niece, enough to frame him for murder. Would her desire to cling to 'status' be enough to force such despair on her when her plot was exposed? To me, there was more.

Is it that the body in the car was Camille? Madame M and Jabelin had conspired to murder her and frame her husband - who didn't care any more because he knew what they'd done. The only question is how they knew each other, a child killer and a lawyer's wife, but I'm not sure he wasn't the brother, oh I need to watch it again!

The ambiguity in this movie is deliberate and delicious; deal with it.

Lost Horizon (1937)

Lost Moral Compass

[7/10 · 30 January 2024]

TL:DR Occasionally (very) hammy Himalayan epic, with a feature-length 'Star Trek' feel. The British Empire fading away, but not yeti.

The fact that this is a restored version of the 'lost' original adds to its mystique; the story of an English diplomat who decides to stay in the mysterious temperate valley in the middle of the Himalayas, where about 3000 people live isolated without police, money or medicine.

Best just to let it wash over you, the characters are clearly drawn, the scenario is interesting, and the scenery is varied and vast. The Greek-chorus style exposition ending is as good as can be expected, a relief in a way.

Lost Horizon was made in 1937 and reflects the values of the time, as they say, and two issues stick out in 2024.

1. Conway (Colman) starts off rescuing 90 'white' people from turmoil in China (the Sino-Japanese war guess). He alludes to the fact that they've left thousands of 'ordinary' people to face chaos, but still - in Shangri-La, they join the privileged European elite on whom the Tibetans wait hand and foot, and even the 200+ year-old founder of the place is a Belgian.

2. The plot is (not a spoiler) that the hijacking of Conway's plane was planned - from 1000's of remote 1935 miles way - in order to get him there, because they'd all read his books and recognised that he would fit in so well. 'They' being the European elite. (This may be in the book: I don't know). So first the European pilot Fenner is bumped off, disappearing altogether, then the Chinese pilot takes an early shower. So two people had to die violently and young, and five others had to have their lives derailed, in order for Utopian Shangri-La to get its way. Bad karma, much?

Lost Horizon is warm and fuzzy, as you'd expect from Capra; best not to expect too much sense out of it.

Hell (1994)

The trademark Chabrol faults. Fawlty Towers had more depth.

[1/10 · 26 January 2024]

TL:DR A provincial French hotelier becomes irrationally, insanely and violently jealous of his wife. We are given no reason to care in the least.

Fault 1: Chabrol doesn't do characterisation. He does tropes. The man in a mid-life crisis, the sexy wife, the handsome garage mechanic. No depth, no suggestion of an inner life beyond telling the actors to be angry with each other. I'm angry with Chabrol, in case you hadn't guessed.

Fault 2. Exposition in dialogue. Chabrol always tells, he doesn't show. Characters describe events, feelings and ideas to one another at length that a competent director - Hitchcock, to pluck a name from the air - would depict, economically and with as little dialogue as possible. Chabrol overdoes it every time. It might as well be radio.

Fault 3. Pretentiousness. Chabrol resorts to inserting fantasy sequences depicting the jealous thoughts of his main character. It's an admission that because the character is unengaging, there is not enough in the action to feed the audience's imagination. And the sequences are banal - there's no sense of extreme emotion; it's more like added exposition.

The above three are why Chabrol's films are invariably boring. It isn't that he's got some clever angle going on that some people don't get - it's that he made a career out of letting people think so, and probably believed it himself. It's him that doesn't understand making believable characters on film. (There's no evidence of any 'contempt for the bourgeois'. Contempt for the audience, yeah).

Fault 4. Misogyny. Violence against women, normalized as usual. The man browbeats, beats, ties up and violently (is there any other kind of rape?) rapes his wife, which is apparently to depict his mental breakdown. (Hitchcock had Anthony Perkins follow a fly with his eyes). Again, there is a post-rape exposition scene at the doctor's.

None of this is to say that Chabrol couldn't work a camera, crew or arrange a scene, but watching his films is like trying to watch a child playing with dolls. The absorbing doll drama is all happening in their head. To watch it is to watch a succession of loosely related events, some of which might be dramatic - and there is no conclusion.

Fault 5. The usual bells, zoom-outs and French provincial buildings. Padding.

Fault 6. Predictable, predictable, slowly unrolled twist. SPOILER: The doctor calls the men in white coats - the wife and husband both think they're for her. It takes 15 long minutes for this 'twist' to not happen. And the ending? Pathetic, pretentious, pointless.

And why did this man 'go mad'? As in 'Le Boucher', it's because. Chabrol, in his misogynist doll game, said so.