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Reviews
Zulu Dawn (1979)
Good film - essential prequel for fans of "Zulu"
Never much used to like this film, always thought it was a pale imitation of the 1963 classic "Zulu". However I've owned it on DVD for a while now and watch it regularly - more so than Zulu nowadays. My observations : Crealock must get an award for being the biggest waste of space going, mucking about drawing pictures of Chlemsford aka "his lordship" and telling that rider from the battle that the hallmark of a good soldier is "keeping a cool head in times of stress" - like he'd know.
O'Toole's portrayal of Chelmsford is cringe-worthy. Completely ignorant upper class twit with not much idea of what was going on apart from his own ego trip. However this cringe-worthiness highlights the fact that O'Toole must have done a good acting job.
The Quartermaster. This bloke was completely incompetent. He's there unscrewing ammo boxes ON HIS OWN whilst his subordinate (played by Phil Daniels) is talking to people in the ammo queue. Did they only have one screwdriver or something? Furthermore , when Vereker (Simon Ward) starts helping out (on horse) with ammo delivery he doesn't take control of the situation and allocate more men to opening the boxes etc.
Seemingly the only character with common sense in the film is Durnford, although I'm not convinced Burt Lancaster was the man to play him.
Overall, a very good, overlooked, film which is infuriating at times. I get the feeling the makers were anti-war in the way they portrayed the complete arrogance of the warmongers (John Mills' part being another example) I also reckon they borrowed heavily from Waterloo in the structure of the film - garden party/party being disturbed by harbinger of doom (zulu native/Fred Elliott from Coronation Sreet)/love interest/troop mobilisation/battle/defeat/misery of battle/regret etc
King Rat (1965)
My favourite WW2 Film
This film is superb. I saw it many years ago on late night TV and recently bought it on DVD from the US as it has been deleted in the UK. Most of the people I talk to about films have never seen it for some reason. Compared to many WW2 films made in the 60s this film still stands up today and doesn't seem that dated. The acting and characterisations are excellent and the film contains plenty of social commentary. Segal is brilliant as the American "entrepreneur" and Courtenay makes me cringe as the over zealous British Provost.
I always watch this film hand in hand with another favourite of mine - The Ipcress File. Both highly atmospheric films shot in the same austere manner with doom-laden music scores and highlighting the erosion of Britain's class structure.
Videodrome (1983)
No one ever comes back next week
One of my favourites this film. Seen originally in the mid 80s I watched it again last week.
Woods gives a manic performance as a TV exec suffering hallucinations after watching some snuff video transmissions from Pittsburgh. Debbie Harry has a cameo as an S&M obsessed radio DJ who audtions for Videodrome never to be seen again. Best scene is where Harlan "wants to play something" for Max and pulls a chewed up arm out of his chest with a WWI German hand grenade attached to it! Ridiculous world domination attempt by the Chairman of a company that makes spectacles completes it all really.
All in all the usual Cronenberg fare of good music score and grotesque FX. 7/10
Videodrome - is that a Japanese configuration?
28 Days Later... (2002)
Great potential - not developed
I've always been a fan of this genre of movie so was really looking forward to this. My review may contain SPOILERS.
I was quite disappointed however for a number of reasons. The film had great potential and a good story line but became unbelievable as soon as the characters reached Manchester. Upon reaching Manchester they met a bunch of "soldiers" who represented a modern day English version of the Dirty Dozen with a typically eccentric CO. Very stereotypical. From here the film descended into farce. The CO, played by Eccleston, had apparently lured our intrepid survivors to Manchester as he had promised his men "some women". We are now supposed to believe that British soldiers become sex crazed maniacs after about a month apparently.
To add insult to this, the central characters had spent the first half of the film being extremely careful regarding catching the infection as a single drop of any bodily fluid can apparently infect. In the finale however they are all running through a complete (infected) bloodbath of a house, in the dark, and yet none of them become infected. Incredible.
Plot aside, other complaints I have are regarding the lack of music in the film. The film had the set pieces and the plot premise for great atmosphere yet they didn't capitalise on it with any music (think opening credits of Omega Man or Soylent Green for instance) One of the characters who gets bumped off early on talks about the chaos at the rail station as people are trying to escape London yet we see no reconstruction or flashback of this or any of the other chaos associated with the virus. A 5 minute montage of what actually happened after the lab break in would have been good.
Also whenever there was an action scene involving the infected you couldn't actually see what was going on as it was all shot in a fast, flashy sort of camerawork which was really irritating - presume this is the digital some other reviewers have commented on.