Billy Wilder, 1959
Quite possibly the funniest movie ever made, the quickfire chemistry of Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis just sparkles, and every frame with Lemmon's face in is a comedy classic. Couple this to the unerring luminous fabulousness of Marilyn Monroe and you have a movie that will never tire.
And let's say a small prayer of thank that the roles didn't - as was nearly the case - go to Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope.
It is a wonderful, brilliant movie. It is, however, not perfect.
No cows.
Thursday 25 February 2010
Monday 22 February 2010
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer
Kevin Billington, 1970
Two words: David Cameron.
I defy anyone to watch this film and not think of him. The stuffy old Tory leaders being superceded by a supercilious man from the PR industry telling you his clamour for power's really all about giving power back to you.
Written by the director with Peter Cook, John Cleese and Graham Chapman, it usually gets belittled in reviews. Like How To Get Ahead In Advetising and Cecil B Demented, it's two-star decried for being a heavy handed rant dressed up as a fictional plot. Which is exactly the reason I'd give those films four stars.
As with the Python's other work, they cannot write parts for women (what do we expect from a bunch of men who went to posh single-sex schools?). But if we leave aside what it doesn't do and concentrate on what it does, it's superb.
Despite numerous opportunities for cattle, there are none to be seen. However, there is a goat, standing on a bench with the prime minister.
No cows.
Two words: David Cameron.
I defy anyone to watch this film and not think of him. The stuffy old Tory leaders being superceded by a supercilious man from the PR industry telling you his clamour for power's really all about giving power back to you.
Written by the director with Peter Cook, John Cleese and Graham Chapman, it usually gets belittled in reviews. Like How To Get Ahead In Advetising and Cecil B Demented, it's two-star decried for being a heavy handed rant dressed up as a fictional plot. Which is exactly the reason I'd give those films four stars.
As with the Python's other work, they cannot write parts for women (what do we expect from a bunch of men who went to posh single-sex schools?). But if we leave aside what it doesn't do and concentrate on what it does, it's superb.
Despite numerous opportunities for cattle, there are none to be seen. However, there is a goat, standing on a bench with the prime minister.
No cows.
Friday 19 February 2010
Bedazzled
Stanley Donen, 1967
Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore in a fabulous 60s rewrite of Faust. They, as you'd expect, play a variety of roles. Eleanor Bron - who weirdly enough had a cameo with John Cleese in a 1979 episode of Dr Who written by Douglas Adams - matches up with a range of foils for them.
It's not just the script and acting but the setting. It's made me want to dig out a bunch of 60s British films I've not seen for a couple of decades - Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, Up the Junction, Alfie, and The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer. Hopefully some of them will have a better cattle count.
No cows.
Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore in a fabulous 60s rewrite of Faust. They, as you'd expect, play a variety of roles. Eleanor Bron - who weirdly enough had a cameo with John Cleese in a 1979 episode of Dr Who written by Douglas Adams - matches up with a range of foils for them.
It's not just the script and acting but the setting. It's made me want to dig out a bunch of 60s British films I've not seen for a couple of decades - Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, Up the Junction, Alfie, and The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer. Hopefully some of them will have a better cattle count.
No cows.
Tuesday 16 February 2010
Quadrophenia
Watching this again the parallels with Saturday Night Fever are startling, as I said earlier. And now I'm wondering if the connection isn't more direct.
Saturday Night Fever was based on a 1976 article by Nik Cohn, 'Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night'. He said at the time it was journalism, but 20 years later he admitted it was fictional, based in Shepherd's Bush mods.
Was it even more fictional than that? Quadrophenia came out three years later. However Quadrophenia the rock opera came out in 1973. Did Cohn just lift the basics of the story and transplant it to disco era New York?
Whatever, there are some good rural bits in the movie as they go to and from Brighton, it wouldn't have taken much to put a few cows in one of the fields. Just ordinary ones would have been fine, they wouldn't have had to be customised mod cows with loads of wing mirrors sticking out. But no.
No cows.
Saturday Night Fever was based on a 1976 article by Nik Cohn, 'Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night'. He said at the time it was journalism, but 20 years later he admitted it was fictional, based in Shepherd's Bush mods.
Was it even more fictional than that? Quadrophenia came out three years later. However Quadrophenia the rock opera came out in 1973. Did Cohn just lift the basics of the story and transplant it to disco era New York?
Whatever, there are some good rural bits in the movie as they go to and from Brighton, it wouldn't have taken much to put a few cows in one of the fields. Just ordinary ones would have been fine, they wouldn't have had to be customised mod cows with loads of wing mirrors sticking out. But no.
No cows.
Friday 5 February 2010
Fish Tank
Andrea Arnold, 2009
An astonishing capturing of the post-adolescent period of life, part adult with the serious choices to make, part child terrifyingly unaware of how the world works and the dangers that lie a moment away on all sides.
Profoundly realistic, proving that you really don't need guns, rich people, murders, helicopters or vampires to make compelling drama.
It's set in London, yet they still work in a major part for that most overexposed cinematic livestock, the horse.
No cows.
An astonishing capturing of the post-adolescent period of life, part adult with the serious choices to make, part child terrifyingly unaware of how the world works and the dangers that lie a moment away on all sides.
Profoundly realistic, proving that you really don't need guns, rich people, murders, helicopters or vampires to make compelling drama.
It's set in London, yet they still work in a major part for that most overexposed cinematic livestock, the horse.
No cows.
Thursday 4 February 2010
Don't Look Now
Nicolas Roeg, 1973
A creepy film set in Venice is unlikely to provide cows a-plenty, but they still manage time to squeeze in that overfilmed animal, the horse. Horses have got to be the most common animal in films. The equine-loving brigade have surely had their fill by now, time to move over a few of the whinnying longfaces and get some lovely square-arsed square-nosed livestock on camera.
No cows.
A creepy film set in Venice is unlikely to provide cows a-plenty, but they still manage time to squeeze in that overfilmed animal, the horse. Horses have got to be the most common animal in films. The equine-loving brigade have surely had their fill by now, time to move over a few of the whinnying longfaces and get some lovely square-arsed square-nosed livestock on camera.
No cows.
Tuesday 2 February 2010
Sweeney!
David Wickes, 1977
If the TV series didn't exist, this movie would be thought of as a pacy, grimy British crime flick alongside Get Carter. But somehow the anti flares-era snobbery prevails and anything to do with the Sweeney is seen as kitsch.
This (unlike the negligible limp sequel Sweeney 2) is a brilliant film of urban crime, power politics, the way the ruling eilte will always act above anything the law can affect or the front pages will tell. And the chemistry and banter between Thaw and Waterman is just magnificent; real, human and witty yet never undermining the gravity of their jobs.
Hard on the heels of Whisky Galore! and Shaft's Big Score!, this is the third film I've watched in recent weeks with more exclamation marks in the title than cows on screen.
No cows.
If the TV series didn't exist, this movie would be thought of as a pacy, grimy British crime flick alongside Get Carter. But somehow the anti flares-era snobbery prevails and anything to do with the Sweeney is seen as kitsch.
This (unlike the negligible limp sequel Sweeney 2) is a brilliant film of urban crime, power politics, the way the ruling eilte will always act above anything the law can affect or the front pages will tell. And the chemistry and banter between Thaw and Waterman is just magnificent; real, human and witty yet never undermining the gravity of their jobs.
Hard on the heels of Whisky Galore! and Shaft's Big Score!, this is the third film I've watched in recent weeks with more exclamation marks in the title than cows on screen.
No cows.
Monday 1 February 2010
Take It Or Leave It
Dave Robinson, 1981
Bob Marley made the most universal music ever. All around the world, all kinds of people love his stuff. Not as in don't mind it, but as in really deeply love it.
Madness have a tinge of that position in Britain. They have the music-hall element necessary for any British band to be taken to our hearts (Sergeant Peppers was profoundly experimental an all, but When I'm 64, Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite, Lovely Rita, they could all have been done on The Good Old Days). They also played a version of 2-Tone ska, the first multicultural music to originate in the UK. They have the British cuddly irreverence and cheek like we see in the Ealing comedies, but they can also make clear moral statements on songs like Embarrassment and Ghost Train. Their videos are still a joy to watch, fresh, funny, loose, boisterous, sparkling.
So, a film of them in their early days, played by the band themselves a few years later, it should be great, right?
Wrong. I've found a movie with an even greater great-band/shit-movie discrepancy than Control.
God, this film is boring. Shoddily shot, awkward, and with a pervading laddish meanness in lieu of any subtler way of having interaction, it's an endurance test. And I say that as someone who really loves the band and their music.
There's a fair bit of Sweeney London as the backdrop. Which of course has a dearth of bovines.
No cows.
Bob Marley made the most universal music ever. All around the world, all kinds of people love his stuff. Not as in don't mind it, but as in really deeply love it.
Madness have a tinge of that position in Britain. They have the music-hall element necessary for any British band to be taken to our hearts (Sergeant Peppers was profoundly experimental an all, but When I'm 64, Being For The Benefit of Mr Kite, Lovely Rita, they could all have been done on The Good Old Days). They also played a version of 2-Tone ska, the first multicultural music to originate in the UK. They have the British cuddly irreverence and cheek like we see in the Ealing comedies, but they can also make clear moral statements on songs like Embarrassment and Ghost Train. Their videos are still a joy to watch, fresh, funny, loose, boisterous, sparkling.
So, a film of them in their early days, played by the band themselves a few years later, it should be great, right?
Wrong. I've found a movie with an even greater great-band/shit-movie discrepancy than Control.
God, this film is boring. Shoddily shot, awkward, and with a pervading laddish meanness in lieu of any subtler way of having interaction, it's an endurance test. And I say that as someone who really loves the band and their music.
There's a fair bit of Sweeney London as the backdrop. Which of course has a dearth of bovines.
No cows.
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