Space Monsters Magazine

Monster Fun

Space Monsters Magazine
Issues 1 - 4
Cyberschizoid Publishing

Back in the late 60s, 70s, and early 1980s, when I were a lad, magazines were a much more important part of the cultural landscape than they are nowadays... when pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about anything is now available on the internet 24/7. Back then, though, if you wanted to re-watch an important movie moment in your minds eye (these were the days before commercially affordable home videos remember) or get all the information about your favourite actors, actresses and movie genres, then magazines were one of the few affordable ways of doing this. And that was no less true for fans of the science fiction and horror genres such as myself.

I remember the random magazines I used to buy as a kid with fond memories on the rare occasions I could actually save up my pocket money. There were the two big science fiction bedrocks for all us kids n’ teens, Starburst (I remember buying the first ever issue which I still have to this day) and Starlog (check out those back cover vinyl soundtrack ads for films like Maniac and Tenebrae for a good time kiddies) and then there was the main horror magazine Fangoria (I don’t remember ever owning an issue myself but it was the definitive one around for that particular target audience). Plus there was a fair amount of random publications, riding the science-fiction bandwagon the success of Star Wars had set in motion, which never seemed to last for more than a single issue before folding... these had names like, if I remember correctly, Star Force and Space Wars. 

Another big mainstay of magazines on the shelves in those days were the poster magazine tie-ins to the big blockbuster movies, which were often, quite deliberately, only single issue runs... unless they were for a really big franchise like Star Wars. These were minimal in content and opened out into a, more or less, A1 poster.

There were also the fanzines, which tended to be mostly A5, black and white concoctions, similar to a newsletter, which were put together “by the fans, for the fans”. I had a couple of Doctor Who ones and some of these were extremely good for imparting information not found elsewhere in the spectrum of magazines on sale in your local newsagent, although they were a lot harder to find and you usually needed to look in speciality shops such as Dark They Were And Golden Eyed, Forbidden Planet and Eye In The Pyramid if you wanted to get a semi-regular fix.

I mention the fanzines because the fortunes of the humble print magazine, over the last decade or more, have declined considerably and those which have survived, mostly as digital publications, tend to be less unique and, at least in the case of this humble scribe, less read... once they’ve slipped into a digital shadow of themselves. However, just recently a resurgence of these kinds of fanzines have sprung up again in print and are aimed at readers interested in sci-fi, horror and exploitation in the same way that their ancestors were “back in the day”. One of the newer, and quite successful, of these has been Space Monsters Magazine, put together by @cybershizoid (aka Richard Gladman) and his crew of intrepid explorers of some of the trashy and, sometimes, less trashy movies and TV shows of the last 100 years or so.

Now, this is the first time I’ve talked about a magazine here on my NUTS4R2 blog. I usually deal with movies, TV shows and the odd book (sometimes, very odd) but this particular publication is a pretty nice throwback to the kinds of things I would have wanted to read as a kid if a) I had more pocket money and b) I had a better stocked newsagent... so I’m really happy to be able to cover these treasures here.

The first four issues cover some great little movies and TV shows and, while having a large bunch of writers is always going to be a hit and miss affair in terms of which particular reviewer is going to strike a cord with you, it has to be said that there are some cracking reviews in the four issues so far and some of the articles are exceptionally entertaining, to boot. Lurking within the colour covers are reviews of such genre classics as the Quatermass movies, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Space 1999 (yeah, @cybershizoid has always had a bit of a Space 1999 fetish, it has to be said), various Hammer classics and, of course, various kaiju eiga such as the Gojira (Godzilla) movies and the various monster mash-ups found within those Japanese thrill rides.

Added to this, you have a couple of issues with a column by celebrity horror girl Emily Booth, who writes up a couple of nice reviews and also, and this really blew my socks off, a new column starting in Issue Four written by “the first lady of fantasy” herself, The Caroline Munro Diaries. Actually, this last column was the one I was most anxious about reading because I’ve been a fan of the lady in question since I used to see her on Lamb’s Navy Rum posters on the tube trains in London (when I was a child model... don’t ask) and in films as a child of the 1970s... and I was wondering if she would be as good a writer as she is an intensely beautiful actress. Having met Caroline briefly a number of times at signings over the last few years and finding that she’s an absolutely lovely and kind person in real life too, I was extremely interested in seeing how she came off when she put pen to paper and, as it turns out, I needn’t have worried in the slightest. Her first column, which deals with her relationship with the iconic stop motion artist Ray Harryhausen (she starred in The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad, of course), is absolutely brilliant and, wowsers, really well written to boot. Having read this, I absolutely can’t wait to read more of her writing in the autobiography she is planning to release later in the year.

I also can’t wait to see what else she, and all of the other writers of this beautful throwback publication to simpler times, have to say in the next issue of Space Monsters. Being a “reviewer” myself, since starting this blog four years ago, I find it personally interesting to see how films I have written about in here (and there have been a fair few of them also covered in Space Monsters) are tackled by some of @cyberschizoid’s talented writers... quite often they’ll take a completely different tack to what parts of a movie I’d choose to highlight and that’s what makes writing this kind of stuff so invaluable and refreshing. There’s a real abundance of good, solid bloggers and reviewers existing in cyberspace right now and Gladman is obviously encouraging this freedom within the pages of his magazine. This is a really lovely publication and I hope it continues to flourish and grow because, if nothing else, you can feel the enthusiasm of the writers for their subject matter and this really counts for a lot when it comes to investing your money and time in reading a regularly released magazine.

The mix of writing styles and the diversity that these writers might not necessarily be allowed to pursue in a big, corporate publication is what keeps them fresh and, dare I say it, relevant in an age where a lot of the same information can be found for free on the internet, perhaps, but not necessarily with the kind of love and dedication bestowed upon it by the writers of Space Monsters, who obviously cherish their subject matter as much as their readers do. This is a magazine which deserves its success and if you are interested in these kinds of genre classics... and not so classics... then you should definitely pick up a copy and see why a certain big comic company's old catchphrase has been transformed by those in the know to... “Make Mine Monsters”. Why don’t you give it a try, it hopefully won't bite but, if it does, it’s probably not contagious.

Space Monsters Magazine can be bought here and at all “clued up” magazine outlets or, if you are more comfortable with living in the 21st Century than I obviously am, you can purchase the digital editions here. 

La Decima Vittima (The 10th Victim)

State Of Andress

La Decima Vittima 
(The 10th Victim)
1965 Italy
Directed by Elio Petri
Shameless 
DVD Region 0/BluRay Region B

Warning: Slight spoilers because some 
of the scenes are just so damned fun!

It was about thirteen years ago that I first became properly aware of The 10th Victim. I know this because it was the same year that one of my best friends moved away from his ancestral home and had a house warming party. A listing in the National Film Theatre for the movie caught my eye. I realised that this would be on the afternoon, at the same time, as my friend’s party.

Now, how can I put this? Social gatherings really aren’t my thing. If I am absolutely forced to attend one of these wretched events I’ll hug a single, solitary drink, stand against a wall and attempt to understand what kind of small talk I should attempt to engage in should anyone actually bother to come and talk to me... which always proves a great waste of my speculative brain power because, after about two to three minutes, nobody ever does come and talk to me.

So, since my friends knew me and I figured they’d much rather be deprived of my less than sparkling company under such a set of circumstances, I decided to go along to Screen One of the NFT instead, just to see if the glossy, confection of a film they were purporting to be showing in any way lived up to the promise of its title and promotional paragraph.

The Tenth Victim is a science fiction film produced by Carlo Ponti and based on legendary sci-fi writer Robert Sheckley’s short story The Seventh Victim (he also wrote the novelisation of the movie version and a few sequel novels). The film is set in a world of the near future, where wars and the psychological tendencies in people that lead to them are averted by a national game where you can sign up to be, alternatively, hunter and hunted throughout your daily routine, to kill or be killed for prize money. If you make it through ten hunts, you become an international hero and win a massive money prize and all kinds of benefits. If you fail to survive ten hunts, as most people do, well... you know... you just end up dead.

The film starts with Ursula Andress playing her ninth hunt as a “hunted”, as she playfully dodges bullets and lures her hunter into a club, The Masoch Club. Piero Piccioni’s amazing and infectious score, with vocal noodlings by the singer Mina, starts right away and, though there are a lot of other melodies throughout the movie, this one keeps going through many repeat variations and plays on your subconscious at key moments. Ursula, playing American Caroline Meredith, disguisess herself as a dancer and takes out her hunter with one of several elements of this film which were used decades later in Austin Powers, International Man Of Mystery. That is to say... she blasts the hell out of her hunter with her bikini guns.

We then scoot to Italy to meet her victim, who will be her tenth, if she can kill him. This is  Marcello Mastroianni playing, um, Marcello Poletti. We are first introduced to him when his victim in the hunt is demanding his riding boots to be brought to him at a horse show. Knowing the German’s vanity, Marcello has wired the heels of his boots to explode so, when the German looks at himself in a full length mirror and clicks his heels together... BOOM!

It’s all quite delightful and the film then becomes a romp as Ursula stalks her victim to learn more of him (the rules are such that the person hunting knows everything about the victim but the hunted has to work out who is after him/her) and starts finding this poor man, who has just had his marriage annulled and doesn’t want to marry his latest lover, an interesting candidate... perhaps even for romance. However, romance comes second to becoming a “decathlete” and the film becomes a fun game of cat and mouse as Caroline attempts to lure Marcello to The Temple Of Venus in Rome in order to kill him live on television for some high paying sponsors... the makers of the popular beverage Ming Tea (and there’s another element that made it into Austin Powers, which the hero of that later film takes as the name of his pop group).

The film is spectacular. The shot compositions are very clean and show a future which is a far cry from the dust and grime of such science fiction classics as Blade Runner (reviewed here). The colours are amazing... being shot at that time when Italian films were noted for using lighting effects such as purples pitched against greens and bright yellows. It’s a truly beautiful film to look at and the mise en scene is very much like those found in the better gialli which would start to catch on before the end of the decade.

There’s also a certain sense of surrealism found within the parameters of the film as the budgets would not allow for full fledged futuristic sets. Instead, we have short cuts and metaphors which gel with the science fiction setting and these, as much as anything, truly make the film a time piece. There’s no way a premise like this would be tackled in this way now but the times then were playful enough that when one character says they survived their death because they were wearing a bullet proof skin of their own design, they can just about get away with it. It’s all very sixties... and all very entertaining. And downright stunning, as it happens.

And that score. Absolutely fantastic. A disc to take away on a desert island, for sure.

The first two things I did when I got out of the screening all those years ago were a) track down and purchase the old soundtrack album and b) add the old Anchor Bay US Region 1 DVD of this to my Christmas list pronto. I love that old Anchor Bay DVD but, it has to be said, with the film’s inaugural release in the UK from Shameless, in a dual format edition comprising both DVD and Blu Ray, the film shines now like it never has before. The transfer is absolutely stunning and the image crisp, clear and something which I suspect will get a lot of plays and, possibly, a lot of lends over the years.

Such a stunning movie and still an instant recommendation from me for anyone who is into Italian film and just drop dead gorgeous cinema in general. If you like movies, you owe it to yourself to give The 10th Victim a spin or two.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones

Clone With The Windu

Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones
2002 USA 
Directed by George Lucas
20th Century Fox BluRay Region A/B 
Previous BBFC cuts waived

I have really mixed feelings about Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones. If you read my review of the The Phantom Menace (which I reviewed for the 3D cinematic re-release right here) you’ll know of the very strong bond I feel with the Star Wars universe since I first saw the very first movie play in the Dominion cinema in London at the tail end of 1977. You’ll also know from that review that, despite a lot of people being less impressed with Lucas’ first prequel, I actually rated it quite highly. I couldn’t understand why a film almost as dark as The Empire Strikes Back was not realised as such, just because it was wearing a happy face, so to speak. It wasn’t until I saw Revenge Of The Sith with some friends and had to explain it to them years later, that I realised a lot of people just didn’t have a very good idea of the back story to the original 1970s trilogy... so a lot of them didn’t realise just exactly what was going down in The Phantom Menace.

Now don’t get me wrong. I was losing a lot of love already for my childhood hero George Lucas, after the frankly disastrous “modifications” he made to the original trilogy on the late 1990s cinematic re-release of the movies... but The Phantom Menace was a triumph for me and I couldn’t wait to get to the next one. Well unfortunately, for me, Attack Of The Clones is the one Star Wars move I really don’t like all that much and it just doesn’t feel quite like a Star Wars movie to me. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some nice stuff in there... the asteroid depth charge sound and visual effects, for example... but to me it all just seems a little flat.

Now I’ve got absolutely nothing against Hayden Christensen as an actor. I especially liked him in Jumper, but I don’t think his on-screen chemistry with Natalie Portman is that great here. It’s not as emotionless or wooden as people said back when the first reviews of this came out in 2002... but it’s not all that great either. There are some parts where the actor is saying hugely romantic things and not really getting away with it and, other times, when his emotions seem to be quite a bit repressed or non-existent when they shouldn’t have been, perhaps. Now I’m not going to blame the actor for this stuff because I suspect at least some of the reasons why certain of the scenes don’t work is because he may have been directed to deliberately dial things down or up due to the ultimate fate the character is heading towards. Also, it has to be said, a lot of the romantic, character building stuff is overly long and slows things down... and also that brings me straight into what I personally feel is another bad thing about this movie.

Pretty much all the other Star Wars films in the original trilogy are very pacey and you’re not very far off from entering or leaving an action sequence throughout their running times. The Phantom Menace follows in the footsteps of this beautifully and, Kurosawa comparisons aside, these were kinda supposed to be the modern equivalent of an old Universal or Republic style film serial of times gone by. Now I really don’t mind slowly marinating plots and action alone doesn’t do it for me in a movie, unless it’s deliberately setting itself up to be that kind of thing, but Attack Of The Clones has a delayed action chase about ten minutes in (after two assassination attempts which don’t really count as action sequences) where we get to see Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi in pursuit of Zam The Assassin... and then the film just goes dead in terms of action, to be honest. Some wonderous sequences fill this gap, to be sure, but frankly, over 35 minutes without an action sequence in a Star Wars movie seems a bit of a mis-step to me. I maybe would have liked my Lucas a little more Corman in this particular movie, perhaps, but maybe the weight of the story just drags it down too much for added action? I don’t know... but I thought this was an uncharacteristically empty gap for a Star Wars movie.
And talking about pacing...

Now I know this film had some problems when the first cut was reviewed by the director and I understand that a lot of the Anakin/Padme romance scenes were either re-shot or beefed up to try to get them to work better (at least that’s what was reported at the time) but... the timeline taking place between the film’s two main male protagonists, Anakin and Obi Wan, and the cross cutting between their separate exploits... don’t quite make sense when you compare them. See if you agree with me on this one...

These are the two timelines which are equally cross cut together across the running time at a certain point in Attack Of The Clones:

Obi Wan, pops into a diner to get a quick bit of info, drops in on Yoda, goes to the planet where a Clone Army is being built (posing as a customer) and has a quick look at them, gets into a scrap and then goes to another planet where he sends a message and gets captured. That’s.... what? Two days at the most?

Meanwhile, cross cut with this is...

Annakin escorts Padme back to Naboo, they spend some days/nights romancing, then they hotfoot it to Tatooine, Anakin spends at least an evening, possibly a day, tracking down his dying mother, then he slaughters a whole tribe of Tusken Raiders and, only then, after all that, do we get the message cross cut into things.

So, what’s that? About a week? And these two timelines are simultaneously cross-cut to give them a sense of happening in the same time? It doesn’t quite gel with the way it’s been cut together I think.

So I’m guessing what’s happened here is they reshot and added some extra bits into the Annakin/Padme timeline but... there was nowhere else to insert them into the movie which made any sense unless you made the, aesthetically not great choice, of not continually cross cutting between Obi-Wan and Anakin’s timelines. Which must have been really irritating to the people sitting in the editing room, I’ll bet. Now, to be honest, what they’ve gone with in the finished product is probably the lesser of the two evils and I think they made the best choice they had... but it still leaves your mind playing catch up with the temporal space in a few areas during the course of the movie and it does pop you out of it a few times.

Okay... that’s most of the negative stuff. What about the good stuff?

Well, the fight between Obi Wan and Django Fett is pretty good and brutal (it was originally cut at both British cinemas and all British home release versions until a head butt cut was finally waived for this Blu Ray release... which meant I had to pay out for an import copy of the DVD when it was first released to get it the first time around). The idea of the poisonous centipedes which infiltrate Padme Amidala’s room at the start is something which reads straight out of a pulp Sherlock Holmes or Fu Manchu story and perfectly captures the tone of what this film series is about. The action sequence in the arena at the end is like it’s been plucked straight out of one of Edgar Rice Burrough’s John Carter novels... so that’s kinda cool (if a little plagiaristic, perhaps) and the incredibly hard to even imagine until you see it dual between Yoda and Count Dooku is pretty amazing. Oh, that reminds me... Sir Christopher Lee doesn’t have a huge amount of screen time in this film but what he does get he really makes count. He’s just really phenomenal in this movie and his screen presence uplifts certain scenes tremendously.

But... back to the negatives again, I’m afraid.

The conveyor belt battle looks and feels just like something out of a platform game... which makes me cynical about why it was even included in the movie... and the comedy shenanigans of C3PO are just beyond irritating in this one. Great gags in themselves but, seriously, inappropriate in the context of the scenes they are in, in my humble opinion. Also, there’s a real false note where Natalie Portman falls out of a transport and looks like she’s been really hurt and then, when someone asks if she’s okay, she just gets up and gets on with things... it doesn’t quite scan right. You have a watch and let me know if you agree with me please.

And then there’s the music. The beloved John Williams scores another epic Star Wars movie but... this one doesn’t seem quite right in a lot of places. Don’t get me wrong, there’s some memorable scoring in this one but, throughout the movie, it just felt like a load of action cues from The Phantom Menace were literally being chopped up and then just needle-dropped onto the soundtrack rather than have a new score composed in several places. I’m wondering if Williams wrote some stuff which was rejected and then replaced with temp or, possibly, if the action sequences in certain areas kept getting recut to buggery and he just didn’t have time to keep changing them. Either way, certain musical sequences just seem a bit choppy and clumsy to me. Still, you can’t top Johnny Williams scoring a Star Wars movie so maybe the story will come out on this one in a few decades... who knows?

And that’s about it for this one. There’s a certain something which really doesn’t make sense in the whole Star Wars timeline in this one, due to C3PO and R2D2 being present on Owen and Beru Lars moisture farm on Tatooine, but I’ll point that out in the next two reviews, when I rewatch them. For now, let me just say that, any Star Wars film is going to be something you’re probably going to get something out of. For me, Attack Of The Clones is my least favourite of the lot and I think newcomers to the trilogy should never try and start on this series with this as a jumping on point. Make sure you watch them in the chronological order on which they were released or, if you want to do it the other way round, make sure you start with The Phantom Menace first... just cut Attack Of The Clones some slack when you watch it. They’re not all like this one.

Star Wars at NUTS4R2

 Episode 1: The Phantom Menace 

Episode 2: Attack Of The Clones

Episode 3: Revenge Of The Sith 

Solo

Rogue One 

Episode 4: A New Hope

Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back

Episode 6: Return Of The Jedi 

Episode 7: The Force Awakens 

Episode 8:  The Last Jedi

Episode 9: The Rise Of Skywalker

Possession - Director’s Cut

Divorce, Cthulhuian Style

Possession - Director’s Cut
1981/2013 France/West Germany 
Directed by Andrzej Zulawski
Second Sight BluRay Region B

Warning: Spoilers possessing the soul of this article... or maybe not, depending on your point of view.

I honestly don’t even know where to start with this movie. It’s gotta be one of the most joyously impenetrable films going.

I bought this one because I kept seeing it recommended in so many books and documentaries about horror over the last few years, as it has a very high standing among fans of the genre, it turns out. The other reason I bought this is the usual, I’m afraid... Fopp records had the Director’s Cut in and... it was very cheap. I mean, um, sorry... it was at a “value for money” price.

Now, if I’d have seen this movie blind, back when it came out, I would have thought it was complete rubbish, to be honest. For this reason, I’m glad I’ve waited until now, when it’s been re-evaluated in light of the new director’s cut (although people loved the original cut too... it has to be said) and when I’m old enough to realise that the hyper exaggerated body language of pretty much all of the main cast is something to be admired and enjoyed with a certain relish... or at least with a pinch of salt.

It also has to be said, and I think this is a given for almost everyone, that if anyone started acting around you in real life even remotely like the main cast here does, you would evacuate the area immediately and probably alert the nearest medical practitioners that they’re going to have their work cut out for them.

The acting wasn’t the first thing I noticed though. So I’ll lay off that for a minute and talk about the first thing that hit me when I pressed play on the disc menu...

The camera.

The *@%&* swooping camera.

The *@%&* swooping camera which is constantly in motion and rarely, throughout the whole film, stays still. It’s like the director has had special tracks laid out in every shot to allow the camera to smoothly go absolutely everywhere and all at once. I can remember maybe three shots... maybe... that had a certain amount of rest in them. Mostly, though, it’s just a celluloid landscape that’s constantly in motion. It’s as if Zulawski never wants the frame to sit still for you longer than a few seconds for a large percentage of the movie. And when the camera does rest for a few beats, it usually cuts out to a new shot with a certain amount of unsettling fury, such as a loudly ringing telephone or a body in constant motion. It’s phenomenal.

The story is absolutely preposterous too... especially in some of the details of the fictional window dressing.

Mark, played by Sam Neil, quits his job to come home and spend time with his wife Anna, played by Isabelle Adjani, after a long assignment. They have grown apart and he soon figures out she is sleeping with someone else... kinda. Not only that though but, when he does track down the other guy, who’s name is Heinrich, it turns out she’s two timing both of them. It sounds like a soap opera plot for sure but it’s immensely more silly than that and, when a bad detective follows Mark’s wife to a place she is staying with her other lover, it turns out her other lover is some kind of Cthulhuian tentacle monster. Whether this is a supernatural manifestation as implied by the title, to an extent, or possibly an alien creature, is not made clear and it’s totally superfluous anyway... as are most of the details of the plot. Anna murders the detective and also his gay lover (who happens to also be his boss) when the time comes because she has been totally taken over by “the thing”.

Now this all sounds strange but... this doesn’t even scratch the surface in terms of plain weirdness folks.

All through the movie, pretty much all the characters are acting like they are on speed or some similarly hyperactivity inducing drug. The performances by everyone seems to be one about containing anger and then just letting rip. Everyone is always invading everyone else's space, their arms and hands moving all over the place and with a camera crew that seems to be intent on strolling all around the actors and never letting you concentrate for more than half a second. It’s a mess... but it seems to be a controlled mess and it is kind of brilliant, once you get used to it.

For instance, when Mark goes to see Heinrich and gets tough with him, the older guy, who is into peace and tranquility, beats him up with some kind of passively aggressive martial arts style moves. I can’t even find the word to tell you how bizarre this scene is... you just have to see it. Personally, I thought a trained secret agent would have been able to cope with a fight scene better than a civilian... but obviously not in this film.

Oh, sorry. Did I say secret agent?

No, that wasn’t a slip of the tongue (or, more accurately, the finger) because I maybe forgot to mention that one of the little details in the absurd plotting that make this movie such a treasure chest of surrealistic gestures is that Sam Neil’s day job at the start of the film is... um... a secret agent! No, seriously, I am not making this up. Anyone else would maybe have given the character a less interesting job for a what amounts to a background detail like that for something that is presumably trying to sneak up on you under the guise of a disintegrating marriage drama but, no, not here.

The only possible reason I can think of that the writer gave this character this job is because later, in a scene where Mark has to kill a man to buy silence for his wife, once he is covering up for her on the discovery that her love life revolves around a sexually dazzling tentacle monster, he does so in as sneaky and resourceful a manner as possible. Using situations that present themselves by using found objects and turning himself into a lethal killing machine, using a toilet cubicle and an old shoe to bring a brutal death when required. This is, of course, though... a man who got beaten up by the gentle guy earlier in the film... but still.

Anyway... back to the acting and camera work because it’s incredibly interesting, if distracting.

There’s a really amazing shot early on in the film, where Mark and Anna are having a conversation with each other on two separate tables on either side of a corner... almost, but not quite, back to back. Each wall forming the corner is a large mirror and the camera keeps panning round and backwards and forward and, quite amazingly, the crew never once captures themselves in shot. What? This is the days before CG could handle things like that, remember?

And, like I said, everybody is constantly moving. When Mark sits down in the office of a private detective, he's constantly rotating the chair back and forth in a strange and intensely irritating fashion as he has his one of many “rage suppressed” conversations. When he’s in a rocking chair at his flat, it's violently rocked up and down at speed and at unnatural angles as he carries out a conversation there. It certainly didn't go unnoticed by me that most of the furniture in this movie has some kind of moving part to it.

In another scene, Heinrich is drunk when he visits Mark’s apartment. Not because the character needs to be drunk, is my guess, but because Zulawski wants the character to have an excuse to be constantly moving and stumbling and ricocheting off the walls of the corridor outside Mark's apartment... fantastic!

I know this film got to me on some level because there is a scene where Mark and Anna are arguing, as they always are, and Anna has an electrical knife. I was just sitting there watching and thinking... no, you really don’t leave an electric knife in the hands of people who are constantly freaking out like this. And, sure enough, within five minutes, Anna has sliced open her neck with it and Mark drags her to the medical cabinet to get her sorted out. And then, just as you’d expect, maybe, after patching up Anna, Mark starts using the knife on himself to cut huge gashes in his arm. Of course, he does.

This is obviously no healthy environment for Mark and Anna to bring up their young son.

Oh wait. Did I mention they are living with their young son?

He’s not at home most of the time because he goes to school and when Mark takes him to school... now he’s given up all his secret agent malarkey... he meets his son’s friendly teacher. She is called Helen and Mark is intrigued by how much she looks like his wife. Well, that might be because she’s the dead spit, I would guess, and is played by the same actress... Isabelle Adjani in a dual role. And, of course, since she looks like his wife and it looks like Mark is getting a divorce... he starts having sex with her too. As you do.

Maybe that’s his best bet actually because, in a long scene which has become kind of notorious to horror film afficionados, Isabelle Adjani’s other character is having some kind of a fit in a subway station. Smashing her bags against the walls, showering herself with assorted dairy products and having some kind of weird form of milk and blood menstruation too. This is definitely not healthy mum material, I can tell you. If you can handle this scene then you’ll probably be okay with the rest of the movie... it does get kinda intense and, well, nonsensical in a lot of places, though, it has to be said.

Now, when this movie was first released in the US it had over 40 minutes cut out of it against the director’s will. It had strange psychedelic effects thrown in, weird rescoring choices and a crazy, chopped up running order which was intended to give the movie something approaching some kind of linear coherence. It really didn’t need any of that and I’m so glad I didn’t see that version. The fact that Adjani plays two characters is actually making more sense by the end of the film, in a nod to a famous science fiction film of the 50s, 70s, 90s and 2000s... and if you know the one I mean, which keeps getting remade, then that may give you some kind of clue to the bigger picture in this movie... at least to the way I am putting together the story of the film as it played out for me, that is. I don’t want to give away too much here but, seriously, the concept of spoilers is a strange one when applied to this film, methinks.

If this review seems less than coherent in places it’s because the nature of the imagery, the intensity of the acting, the constant motion of the camera and the semi-coherence of the story is all very hard to bring together into a cohesive review. I’ve done my best on this and I hope you can forgive me if I seem to be jumping around from one point to another in the body of this article. All I can say in my defence, if you do feel that way, is that at least I can say I’ve been appropriate, in some way, to the material in the film itself and the way in which it is presented.

So here we go then... the bottom line.

Did I enjoy watching this movie? Yes, loved it. I will watch it again and... also... take great delight in inflicting it on other people.

Would I recommend it to others? No idea.

There’s a clichéd piece of hackneyed film reviewing which seems to get regularly trotted out by a number of critics on an annual basis when it comes to pieces of art that are in some way polarising. It goes like this...

“This film has no middle ground. You’re going to either love it or hate it.”

Well, I really hate this phrase but I think, in all my decades of movie watching, that maybe this kind of usually lazy reaction could actually be applied to this one film. It’s certainly special, in some ways... and you’ve never seen anything quite like it, in terms of the style or, possibly, competence, of the acting, I’m sure. If you like the idea of the stuff I’ve said about it here then maybe you’d want to give Possession a try... but be sure you are seeing the director’s cut if you do. I can’t imagine how terrible the original version would have seemed to me now.

The Tale OF Zatoichi Continues (Zoku Zatôichi Monogatari)

Ichi keen!

The Tale Of Zatoichi Continues 
(Zoku Zatôichi Monogatari)
1962 Japan
Directed by Kazuo Mori
Daiei/Criterion Collection 
DVD Region 1/BluRay Region A 

I mentioned in my review of the first film in this series that, at the end, Zatoichi leaves his cane sword behind in the town in which he reluctantly killed his samurai friend as a kind of atonement... but the studio presumably hadn’t counted on the success of that first movie because, within that same year, this sequel was already released into the world. Therefore, that last little bit is not referred to again in this story and, right from the outset Zatoichi has a, presumably, new cane sword to defend himself with (a fact I seem to remember may get contradicted later in the series... but I’ll let you know when I get there).

This story is, in some ways, a continuation of the first but, really, only in terms of details such as locations and recurring characters. The first half of the film is set in a different town and this movie really is the first to set up the idea that Zatoichi is a wandering masseur. In The Tale Of Zatoichi (reviewed here...) he did indulge his new samurai friend in this but, in this movie, he is clearly taking money for his services... and that part of his established character is now a constant throughout the series, as much as his blindness, his gambling hustles and his expert swordsmanship.

The atmosphere is slightly different from the start in that the soundtrack is not composed by Akira Ifikube, like the first and a fair number of the others in the series are, but by Ichirô Saitô, who also contributed to later films, plus some of the Sleepy Eyes Of Death series (many of which are also reviewed on this site). It’s a different vibe but I think I almost prefer it over the Ifikube and I’m glad both composers got to do work on this franchise.

The film has less to do than the first one in terms of the set up of the character and gets on with the story. Also, in this regard, in terms of having more action sequences placed at key points through the narrative and building towards a final, “all against one showdown”, for the end part of the film... or in this case, not quite the end. I’ll get to that a little later, though.

Curiously, the style used by the previous director, of keeping the camera close to the actors and following them around, is eschewed in favour of more master shots from a distance. There is still camera movement but this is obviously slower as the shots can, for the most part, take in wider parts of the environment the characters are cohabiting. This also, and I’d never thought about this properly before I rewatched this in comparison with the first movie, gives the film a more voyeuristic feel... you are watching the action from a distance and judging it, rather than being in the thick of it and reacting with the characters on screen. That’s kind of an interesting trick to use to change the pacing of a movie and the way it is perceived, I suspect. So in this film, the dynamics of the shot are created purely by the movements of the actors and the way they fill the space in the general composition of the shots... as opposed to the somewhat visceral but different approach of the first.

Another thing is that the compositions are not all based on verticals as the first one was. The film begins with Zatoichi being a ”blind” witness to something a gang doesn’t want generally known. As the gang try to kill him, they learn that he is going to the location of the first film, to pay his respects to the samurai he killed one year earlier. They team up with the boss who has survived Zatoichi’s intervention in the last movie and, by the time Zatoichi gets to the previous films location, in the second half of what is actually quite a short movie... that’s when we start to see some of the vertical style compositions revisited. These are often used to show the separation of attitudes or classes of characters split within the same physical frame... which is a good way to do it.

There are some really cool shot designs and elements of beauty like this found throughout the film. Such as a beach fight where the incoming tide gently laps at Zatoichi’s feet as he takes on a series of opponents... most of whom run when they figure out our hero’s prowess with a sword. And the vertical jutting objects motif is played out in the final big battle where all of the characters are dwarfed by the foreground details and seem almost like ants against this forced perspective. Very nice.

There’s also some great little moments where the writers build on Zatoichi’s character traits as the series starts progressing. For example, a man who sneaks up on Zatoichi to kill him has his thunder stolen when Zatoichi asks him the time... just as he is about to strike a death blow. Realising his blind opponent knows exactly where he is and could kill him in a snap, the man backs down and engages in conversation instead. This not only shows Zatoichi’s abilities well but also his compassion... he could have just cut the man down where he was standing but, instead, fashioned an excuse for the man so his would-be killer would not lose face and not have to engage him.

There’s also a brilliant piece of what people these days would call stunt casting. The plot also involves an outlaw on the run from the authorities who also wants to kill Zatoichi for some, at first, unspecified reason. He is embroiled in Zatoichi’s past somehow and the two were once rivals for the love of Zatoichi’s life. I thought the guy looked very familiar when he came on and the role turns out to be played by Tomisaburô Wakayama (credited in the film under the pseudonym of Jo Kenzaburo). You may remember him more for the role he perfected 10 years later, as the infamous Ogami Itto, the lead protagonist in the Lone Wolf And Cub (aka Baby Cart) films. In a twist moment in this movie (don’t read further than this if you don’t want to know) he plays Zatoichi’s long embittered brother... which is not so much of a stretch as it happens because, in real life, he really was Shintarô Katsu’s brother and, when you see him this young and with his hair significantly different, the resemblance between the two of them is much easier to see.

Wakayama’s character, Nagisa no Yoshiro, actually wounds Zatoichi quite badly during the end sequences of the film... one of the few times this happens this badly to the main character of this series (although there is a quite spectacular Django tribute in one of the later films, if memory serves me correctly... I’ll get to it when I rewatch). The battle between Zatoichi and various opponents near the end sees the start of the “overwhelming odds” battles that mark both this and the Baby Cart series of films. Zatoichi’s body count in this final battle is around 15 on-screen kills, which is quite modest for him... but this is where this kind of battle spectacle really starts in this series of films, I think.

The end of the film is abrupt and leaves a few loose ends. After he finds his romantic interest from the first film is going to be getting married to someone we are on edge, wondering what will happen to the two of them. Will they get together? The question is never answered because the next battle scene gives us a very abrupt ending which finishes just before the battle properly starts. A very angry Zatoichi, for reasons I won’t reveal here, is surrounded by a bunch of men including the boss who he didn’t kill in the first movie. However, he has made up his mind now that this man must die. He lunges ostentatiously at the opponent, he might have sliced him or he may not but, knowing Zatoichi like we now do, it’s pretty much inevitable that every other man in this confrontation is going to lose their life. It is, however, a confrontation we never see...

The film abruptly cuts there, leaving the battle to play out in our imagination... not to mention leaving a few loose ends too. It’s both a powerful ending and a let down at the same time. We really want to see Zatoichi in action again but, honestly, the fury we imagine for ourselves is surely greater than anything the director could have captured on celluloid here. As I watched it, I was reminded of a movie I’d recently seen at the cinema... a little thing called The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (reviewed here). If you remember the ending of that movie, you’ll realise that this is exactly the same tactic that the director of that one has employed as we have here in this one. In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, we see Spidey throw the first punch (well, metaphorically) at the Rhino, the credits roll and we play out in our minds the rest of the battle. We know Spider-Man’s going to win... it’s moot. It’s purely used to give a dramatic punchline to the film and I suspect the ending of The Tale Of Zatoichi Continues involved a similar creative decision. Whatever.  For the Zatoichi movie at least... it kinda works.

This would be Zatoichi’s last black and white film... his popularity pushing him into colour stock from his third feature. As always with the Zatoichi movies, or most of them, this one is a definite recommend but I would add the caveat that you should probably check out the first movie before sitting down with this one... since this particular entry in the series is very closely linked to it and makes references to the first which you would want to know about when you are watching. Another great Zatoichi film and, once again, Criterion’s new blu ray transfer is the absolute best way to watch this other than seeing an actual print in a good cinema. Another good entry in the chanbara genre, I think.

Edge Of Tomorrow

All You Need Is Kill

Edge Of Tomorrow
2014 USA/Australia
Directed by Doug Liman
Playing at UK cinemas now.

Edge Of Tomorrow is one of those movies of recent years wherein the main concept seem to harken back to the kinds of science fiction stories being written in the 1930s - 1950s period. It’s easily something which could have come from the mind of Philip K. Dick and others of his ilk, and probably did on more than one occasion, but in this instance it’s also an adaptation of a 2004 science fiction novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka called All You Need Is Kill and that was the original working title of this film while it was being made and reported about on all the usual movie news outlets for a while.

All You Need Is Kill is, of course, one of the best titles for a story ever... so it was with much irritation that I learned that the title had been “modified” by Hollywood to the less than edgy... um... Edge Of Tomorrow. Now, frankly, this is this film’s one big mistake, as far as I’m concerned. Anybody in their right minds would go see a movie with a cool title like All You Need Is Kill and, frankly, the inherent pun on The Beatles song is a great metaphor for the true nature of this film... Edge Of Tomorrow is an okayish title, I guess, but... it’s just okay. Why the powers that be would turn their backs on such a strong title which essentially boiled things down to the essence of the story is beyond me and is something I really can’t forgive them for, to be honest.

However, if you’ve been paying attention to what I’ve been saying here up until now, you’ll have caught that I said this is the movie’s one big mistake... and that holds true. Title aside, the movie actually delivers a big budget style science fiction thrill ride which actually doesn’t, really, cop out at the end in the same way like films such as, for instance, last year’s Tom Cruise sci-fi movie Oblivion did in the final reels (my review of that good looking but ultimately disappointing film is here...). What we have here is basically, and I’m sure you’ll hear this opinion in pretty much every review of the movie you’ll read, watch or listen to, is basically a big Humans Vs Aliens war story remake of the beloved romantic comedy by Harold Ramis called Groundhog Day. The central premise of All You Need... err... sorry... Edge Of Tomorrow, is that we have a fairly unlikeable officer who’s thrown in with the troops against his will and walks, well drops anyway, into a massacre where he and all his new soldier colleagues quickly die.

And he does die.

However, ten minutes or so into the movie, he comes back to life to relive that day over again and, just like Bill Murray did in Groundhog Day, Tom Cruises character Cage is forced to change his actions and work with military poster girl Rita, The Angel Of Verdun (as played beautifully by Emily Blunt) for the 24 hours or so he has before he’s killed again, to get further into what leads to his ultimate fate. Sorry to sound a little cryptic there but, so far I’ve only told you what you can already glean from the trailers and I don’t want to spoil the movie’s central premise for you. What I can say is that the particular concept the writer has for the time travel/reset button going on here is, for once in a Hollywood movie, logically sound... a little preposterous and silly, to be sure, but certainly not something they manage to make mistakes with like the writers of, say, Back To The Future Part 2 or X-Men: Days Of Future Past did (and you can read my review of that disaster here...). Of course, the fact that they have the always watchable and believable Noah Taylor pitching the premise really helps you suspend your disbelief and it makes swallowing this particular pseudo-science pill fairly sweet.

The film is great to look at, slickly edited, has a nicely appropriate score by Christophe Beck, which often holds its own against the cacophony of the sound mix, and good performances all around. The film shows the grittiness of war but it also shows it beautifully photographed and designed so, bit of a mixed message there but, hey, go with it... it’s pretty to look at and eye candy always helps.

Talking of eye candy, Emily Blunt is astounding as always and Tom Cruise... well it always puzzles me why such a great actor sometimes makes the kind of career calls he does but, that’s none of my business, he’s a great actor and always likeable... and since he’s so likeable, it’s amazing seeing him playing the “against type” version of his character at the start of the film. He makes that work really well and its interesting comparing the character at the start and end of the movie, where he has become a better human being due to the multiple choices he’s made throughout the hundreds of times he’s been living the same day, or more (no spoilers), during the movie. So both the leads do a great job here... as does pretty much everybody else, I’m glad to say.

Now, the film is repetitive, to be sure, and that’s absolutely in keeping with the premise. Due to this, I’m not sure this is the kind of film I could watch for multiple viewings but, first time around, it’s entertaining because, for a while, you’re trying to solve the mystery of the lead character’s constant resets and then, when you know the explanation for this, you have a new “mission” to get involved with the characters on. And it works really well. As I said, I’m not sure I could watch it too often but I’m just pleased when a movie like this, and it seems to be the exception rather than the rule these days, actually lives up to the promise of the trailer and if you are in any way into science fiction... or big guns with a military feel... then you should absolutely go and see this movie. You’re bound to have a good time with it. Personally, I can’t wait to grab the blu ray of this one for my dad because I know he loves Groundhog Day and he also loves science fiction movies and Tom Cruise... so this one should keep him happy for a while.

In conclusion then, Edge Of Tomorrow has surprisingly few weaknesses... although you’ll probably figure out what the ultimate ending is going to be once you’ve got your head around the premise... which allows for such things. Even so, the ending doesn’t feel like a cheat. It’s all, as I say, catered for as a possibility within the central concept, so I really can’t find fault with it. Even the alien creature effects and the way they move is all done pretty well... which doesn’t always follow in these kinds of movies. It’s a great little science fiction film that I think all the cast and crew can be proud of... I don’t know how it fares as an adaptation of the novel because I haven’t read that yet, but certainly as summer action/fantasy escapist fare, it’s one of the better ones you’re going to see this year. Check it out while you can, is my advice.

800th Post - The Ladies Of Hammer

For this, my 800th Blog Post I thought I'd return to territory from what is still my most popular post on here, my 300th Blog - Faces Of Caroline Munro (see here). So, in that spirit, above is my tribute to just a few of those ladies who helped make those wonderful Hammer Horror films of the past so memorable. Click on the image above to "embiggen". ;-)

Superargo VS Diabolikus (Superargo Contra Diabolikus)

Key Argo

Superargo Contra Diabolikus 
(aka Superargo VS Diabolikus)
1966 Italy
Directed by Nick Nostro
LFACC DVD Region 0

Superargo Contra Diabolikus is a film I’ve been wanting to take another look at for while because I have a few of these Italian masked heros and villains films to get through over the next year or so and this one is one of the first of these from Italy and, as it happens, it’s also one of my favourites. I’m probably, in fact, unusual in that most of the things I’ve seen in print about these particular films tend to favour the sequel, Superargo And The Faceless Giants (which I reviewed here ) over the original but, personally, I still prefer this one, although it’s even more simplistic than it’s successor, it has to be said.

From what I can understand, Superargo Contra Diabolikus was one of a number of films which were put in production to ride the wake of the popularity of the Diabolik fumetti and the proposed big screen adaptation of it, Danger: Diabolik. However, due to production problems on the Diabolik movie, which led to delays and eventually ended up being directed by the incredibly talented Mario Bava for a 1968 release, this film (and a fair few others, from what I can make out) didn’t exactly coast along in the wake of the Diabolik film because it actually beat it into cinemas by two years.

I personally reckon, however, that certain elements of the Superargo character, which I believe was a creation created entirely for the screen and not based on any source novel or comic, must have taken some influence from the popular Mexican series of films headlining Santo (aka El Santo) the masked wrestler and which dealt with his exploits against various villains or supernatural monsters, sometimes with a big helping of science fiction thrown in at the same time. That would certainly account for the pre-credits sequence in this film, which looks like it could almost have been ripped out of one of the Santo movies, and which establishes Superargo (played by Ken Wood) as a wrestler who accidentally kills his friend in the ring (by throwing him out of it) and forcing Suparargo himself, filled with remorse, into retirement... thus leaving him free to join the secret service and lend them the use of his superpowers. This is something his girlfriend, played by Monica Randall, is very pleased about, when he joins the service after a fantastically cool and psychedelic opening credits section which combines swirling shapes, an illustrated artist's mannequin and shots of Superargo posing and screaming in mad pain, all set to a soundtrack which eventually... oh, wait. I’ll get to the music in a little while.

There follows a post credits sequence where Diabolikus (played by Gérard Tichy, who looks almost like a clone of Joseph Cotton, in all honesty), his sexy right hand gal (an unnamed character played by Loredana Nusciak) and a bunch of never ending thugs, steal plutonium and other rare substances from a ship before mercilessly machine gunning to death the entire crew.

Having proven to us that the villains are well worthy of their bad guy (and gal) status, we are then treated to an extended sequence where Superargo is briefed and then subjected to a series of lengthy tests to demonstrate his abilities to the five government leaders representing the United Nations. Here we learn such things as his near invulnerability when his new boss stabs him in the arm and he doesn’t bleed, or flinch. We learn that his blood coagulates faster than anything and that you can subject him to extremes of cold without getting him too frosty. We also learn that no matter how much he physically exerts himself, his blood pressure and heartbeat always remain at a constant speed. Also, we are shown that he can hold his breath for at least seven minutes, which probably comes in handy in some circumstances... so all good stuff then.

Curiously, we are also thrown a supposed Achilles heel in the character by showing that, although being subject to live electricity cannot harm him... he actually feels great pain when handling it. I say curious because the standard reason such things are pointed out in these kind of affairs is so that you can play with this later on in the film. Alas, it only comes up once near the end and has absolutely no impact, positively or negatively, on the actions of the characters.

Once this sequence is out of the way, Superargo is given a spacial “Q branch” style scene where he is given a new costume... which is absolutely identical to his usual red body suit and black face mask (which, incidentally, you never see him without, as conspicuous a spy as you could want I guess) but which is bullet proof. He is also given a new car, pills which stop his heartbeat (oh yes, those do come in handy), a television camera inside a lady’s brooch (because... um... WTF?) and a load of geiger counters. Superargo nearly eats one of these because... well, let me put it to you this way, only the Italians would equip their agents with geiger counters hidden in replicas of an olive on a stick. Again, most curious since Superargo doesn’t once encounter a Martini filled party but, instead, throws these in the water to trace the trail of the boats that made off with the radioactive substances at the start of the movie.

And this is a long set up for a movie which is entirely ridiculous, quite a bit of fun while, to the cast and crew’s credit, taking itself absolutely seriously and straight faced all the way through.

There’s some nice camerawork too... with some shots in particular used to split frames vertically or sometimes diagonally to push the idea that this masked hero might have stepped out of a comic book at some time... even though he didn’t. Also some interesting stuff when Superargo is being tortured in a scene which is not even feintly trying to hide the sadomasochistic subtext that a lot of the adult audience might find an appealing element of the movie... with Diabolikus’ lady using her big stick to repeatedly hit the classically secured Superargo. During this sequence he is subjected to fiery jets beneath the tilting table to which he is fastened, the camera dizzyingly wobbling up and down to express the intensity of the flames and its effect on Superargo which, to be fair, the audience probably wouldn’t have thought to be too much, considering the extended demonstration of the title character’s formidable and totally unexplained and unjustified super powers at the start of the movie.

Other things like using repeat motifs on transitions are also used in the film and are also a very nice touch. For example, Superargo spinning a globe and then cutting shot to a similar globe spinning in another room used as a location transition... or the same to characters shaking hands in first one place and then cutting to them doing the same in a separate location to suggest the passing of time. It’s all quite good and does its job in keeping you interested in the film if, for whatever reason, you weren’t already interested in a film with a ridiculously red costumed, black masked, super powered hero at its centre.

And then there’s the little matter of the music. Oh yes. The score to this by Franco Pisano is a right little gem. I would absolutely love to get this score because it’s vibrant, dynamic, bold and totally appropriate to its bizarre subject matter. However, I suspect the fact that I can’t find evidence of any recording ever being made commercially available is possibly down to the fact that it’s also a complete rip-off of John Barry’s score to the James Bond film of the previous year, Thunderball. The main theme is a similarly orchestrated, similarly tuned version of Barry’s famous 007 sub-theme, which he began using in From Russia With Love but which is used most prominently, of the five Bond films it features in, in Thunderball and it’s specifically this kind of pacing that the score is trying to match here, if I’m not mistaken. Throw in some underwater sequences with similar orchestrations to Thunderball’s famous underwater atmospheres and, seriously, a great score which I would give anything to own on CD. Although I suspect they might have some difficulties with John Barry’s estate if they did release this one. Only my opinion though... watch the movie and have a listen for yourself and see what you think.

So, there you go, great music for a serious movie about a less than serious subject. Ideal for kids who will take it as seriously as the main cast, and with any adult subtext going straight over their heads, and a fun romp for those of us who like to watch movies made in simpler times and with simpler, larger than life and, let’s face it, more than feintly ridiculous concerns. A good, solid recommend from me and, if you like it, be sure to watch the sequel, where Superargo has a guru sidekick who has taught him how to levitate. Why would anyone not want to watch these films?

The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) - Director’s Cut

Oskar Out To Lunch

The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) - Director’s Cut
1979 West Germany/France/Poland/Yugoslavia 
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff
Arrow BluRay Region B dual edition

Warning: I guess there are spoilers here...

Volker Schlöndorff’s version of the Günter Grass novel The Tin Drum is essential cinema, no doubt about it. As essential, perhaps more so, as the work it was based on in terms of it’s achievements within its own specific medium.

I remember first seeing this on television in the 1980s and I also remember turning up for a screening of this at the Barbican Centre in London, with a friend, around 10 years later. When we got there we were turned away. The screening had been taken off at very short notice due to “an intervention” by the BBFC, or at least that’s the reason we were given at the time. I didn’t know what the issue was, especially since it had already been shown a number of times on television prior to the attempted Barbican screening, but there we were, with our wasted train tickets, on a jaunt down to London for a screening which didn’t happen. I’ve never known, to this day, what happened then but I did notice a distinct absence from that point on, in screenings of this particular film at cinemas. After a while (a few years) it just quietly came back and then it was business as usual for The Tin Drum, it seemed to me.

The Arrow Blu Ray dual edition I recently watched is something very special indeed. Not only does it have the original theatrical edition of the film on there, along with the usual slew of extras on a second disc...  it also has a 2011 “director’s cut” of the movie which is considerably longer than the original, by about 20 minutes.

To those who don’t know the work in any medium, The Tin Drum is narrated by its central protagonist Oskar (played in an extraordinary performance in the movie by David Bennent), a little boy whose thoughts and philosophy’s are fully formed from birth (possibly before) and who is forced from his mother’s womb, probably against his will...

“Only the prospect of the tin drum prevented me from expressing, more forcefully, my desire to return to the womb.”

Oskar has, in addition to a fully formed brain which he keeps to himself, a number of talents... one of which is his decision to not grow from the age of three. To cover up for this strange talent, he deliberately throws himself down the stairs into the cellar to give the grown ups an excuse as to why he no longer grows or ages after this incident. That’s one slightly wrong note which the film delivers, to my mind. If you are not fully understanding of Oskar’s thought processes, by this point, the way this incident is presented in the movie, against Oskar’s narrative voice-over, makes this incident possibly look like a suicide attempt... thus nullifying Oskar’s cunning until this side of him is unearthed properly during later incidents.

Another talent of Oskar’s is his ability to emit a loud, piercing scream which can shatter glass. It’s not just breakages which Oskar can cause with his vocal talents, however. Towards the end of the movie it is revealed that Oskar has perfected his talent to such an extent that he can even use his voice to etch pictures in glass. This is another surreal moment in a film which is full of such celluloidal magic but, it has to be said, the film is a little more black and white in its presentation of the specifics of the story than the actual novel is.

In the novel, it is clear that Oskar is telling his story from a sanitarium, well after he has come to the decision to decide to grow up. The story is pitched so you never know whether to take the things Oskar tells you as being the truth or whether he is, in fact, just an insane man. The film eschews this in favour of presenting the narrative as is, a gospel truth at 24 frames per second, and I’m never quite sure if this was a good call with this story or not. Something I’ve never made my mind up about over the years.

The whole thing is, of course, a fantastic and imaginative way of showing the rise and fall of Nazism from the observers at ground level, although I’m sure a lot of the political stuff is lost on someone like me. Oskar is a boy who lives in a house where the portrait of Beethoven has been replaced by a portrait of Adolf Hitler. As he himself says about Nazism, to the viewer, dependent on which translation you are reading...

“There was once a gullible people... who believed in Santa Claus. But Santa Claus was really... the gas man!”

The shot set ups are not necessarily beautifully designed, but they do take on a certain beauty of their own in terms of detail and the very leisurely pacing. The camera doesn’t move around a heck of a lot, there are a lot of static shots and cuts, but when it does, it’s usually very slow moving and because of the lack of rapid movement, tends to drag you into the work in a voyeuristic manner.... you feel like a fly on the wall, witnessing the events rather than experienceing them with the characters. This, of course, sometimes makes it even more unbearable to watch in certain places.

There’s also a great contradiction with shooting this film in this style because, the subject matter does get quite surreal and some of the shots match this. A shot or two of Oskar in the womb, for example, followed in one case by a sequence where we, the camera eye, are pushing out from between his mothers legs... or a scene which I think is a new one, where some nuns are shot for trespassing and we see their souls rise to heaven. Or the way the film goes into slow motion and the camera falls, gracefully, with Oskar as he throws himself down into the cellar. Some of this stuff, especially the womb sequence, is very similar to the kind of artificial insert shots that Dario Argento sometimes inserts into a sequence and it’s interesting that the film uses this kind of visual language because, when it’s pitched against the leisurely, almost naturalistic style of shooting, the voyeuristic sensibility actually strengthens the scenes of a more incredible nature and therefore bolsters your ability to suspend your disbelief throughout the, quite long, running time.

Legendary film composer Maurice Jarre’s score similarly helps to push the effect of some of these visuals, coming across all sinister and off kilter in certain scenes which tell you something magical... or possibly fairly disturbing... is about to happen.

The new blu ray rendition of the The Tin Drum is fantastic... the film still has kind of a soft look about it but still has a lot of definition/detail without the feel of the original film stock appearing to have been lost in translation or diminished in the remastering process... at least that’s how it looked to me. I’ve not checked out the extras yet but I think some of them are different to the old US Criterion edition of the film, especially (and obviously) those related to the new director’s cut. This was money well spent and, frankly, anybody who is into cinema should probably put this on their “must own” list. It’s a film I expect to revisit every seven years or so and the charm juxtaposed with a traumatic time in history never seems to wear thin. Definitely recommended for cinephiles and casual watchers alike... especially in this new blu-ray, director’s cut edition from Arrow.

X-Men - Days Of Future Past

Future, Past Caring

X-Men - Days OF Future Past
2014 USA/UK
Directed by Bryan Singer
Playing at UK cinemas now.

Warning: Big spoilers in this one and I’m not even going to apologise for them... this is no more than this dreadful movie deserves to “call it out” to people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” It’s strange but, I’ve only ever heard that quoted, usually incorrectly (from people who have remembered it wrong), by film-makers trying to defend the outrageous continuity errors evident in their films which their audience has had to point out to them. I have to say that, in terms of the context within which people quote this about their big screen stories, I have to disagree and bring my own inner hobgoblin to the table, in this case.

I believe that a film franchise succeeds or fails on a lot of different factors on a film by film basis but, one of the things which is really important, and which can kill a whole franchise if you let it, is consistency... in this case, the consistency of continuity. And, unfortunately, the X-Men franchise has now, as far as I’m concerned, sacrificed itself for a quick buck on the altar of the hobgoblins who were really only interested in having a good time at the movies but, instead, are forced to hold a mirror up to the movie and say... “Seriously? You think your audience are all this stupid?”

Before I rip into this awful mess properly, I just want you to know how I stand on the previous films in the franchise, so you can see where I’m coming from and judge my thoughts on X-Men: Days Of Future Past (or X-Men: Days Of Screwing The Continuity Even Further While Pretending To Solve It And Hoping Your Audience Doesn’t Think About The Movie For Too Long, as I now call it) so you can either agree or disagree with my thoughts in terms of this movie’s place compared to the others.

X-Men: Bryan Singer’s first movie was pretty much the first movie based on a Marvel comics property that was actually any good. Not just good, pretty damned brilliant, as it happens. It almost made up for not having the proper characters from the 1960s in it and changing the costume design... well... yeah, almost makes up for it. Something to note: Professor X and Magneto built Cerebro together, when they were friends, in this continuity.

X2: X-Men 2: This was at least as good as the first movie. Another brilliant piece of modern fantasy action from Bryan Singer with a strong opening and a strong ending leading into something very dark and with a consistent tone throughout. Basically, an epic feeling movie to set up the Dark Phoenix character arc.

X-Men: The Last Stand: This was awful. Brett Ratner took over the franchise and basically used every great set up from the previous films and managed to make them pretty boring and unwatchable for, pretty much, most of the film. A lot of people haven’t forgiven this movie for being so bad, as far as I can see. Something to note: Young “bald” Professor X and his friend, Young Magneto, go to recruit Jean Grey together. Professor X can both walk and simultaneously use his mutant powers. In this movie, Charles Xavier is killed/disintegrated, although his mind seems to have jumped into a “different” human being... if the post credits sting is anything to go by.

X-Men Origins - Wolverine: A lot of people didn’t dig this movie but I thought it was okay. A lot of fun and very much like an old 1980s or 1990s “straight to video” kind of B Movie.... but with an A Movie budget to play around with. Thought this was much better than the reaction it got. Things to note: Professor X is in this one too, at the end. My review is here.

X-Men: First Class: Absolutely brilliant. Had a lot of continuity errors which could not be explained as a hangover from the previous films but since it was technically a reboot of the franchise, I was happy with this when treated as a stand alone sequence of movies. Things to note: In this timeline, Magneto and Professor X did not build Cerebro. Professor X is crippled by the end of their first big adventure and way after he and Magneto were still friends, confounding the opening of X-Men: The Last Stand totally. My review is here.

The Wolverine: Nice little movie. Not as fun as the last one but different and kinda interesting. Things to note: Wolverine's adamantium claws are severed and are no longer something he has in this “continuity”. Instead, he has reverted back to the bone claws he was born with as a result of the events depicted in this film. Jean Grey haunts his dreams after he killed her in X-Men: The Last Stand. Also, Professor X and Magneto confront Wolverine in an airport in the post credits sting of the movie. Wolverine looks shocked because, obviously, Professor X is dead, isn’t he? At least, his body was destroyed. My review of this one is here.

Okay. Recap over.

So here we have X-Men: Days Of Future Past. And all I wanted from this movie right now is for it to fix all those stupid continuity holes from the clashes between the awful X-Men: The Last Stand and the amazingly cool X-Men: First Class... and in a fairly fun manner, if possible. And, if only the writers would have thought about it a little more, maybe they would even have nailed that because, frankly, while a bit silly, the central premise they use to wipe out the history of the characters in this one really works well... except it fails before they even start using it.

I can see how the idea here was maybe “borrowed” from the rebooted Star Trek films from a couple of years ago. In the first one (reviewed here), the Spock of the regular timeline is catapulted back into his past, which then changes the future of the younger versions of himself and his friends... thus giving the franchise new life to go back to the days of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in their prime for a movie series without having to worry about contradicting anything that came before. Revelling in that, in fact, by having a half remake of Star Trek II - The Wrath Of Khan for their sequel (reviewed here) and totally having their cake and eating it at the same time. And why the older version of Spock didn’t just wink out of existence because his timeline didn’t actually happen anymore, I’ll never know. Oh, yes I do... because they don’t care about the logic at the heart of the theory of time travel. Okay, whatever.

Singer’s approach in X-Men: Days Of Future Past is to have Wolverine’s “mind” sent back to his younger body in 1973 and get him to change the past then, to split everything off into a new timeline which doesn’t result in the death of mutant kind... and you know what? That could have worked out really well, and the film-makers obviously seem to think it did.. or they never would have released this shambles into cinemas in this form. But the thing is, to have someone sent back from the future to change that timeline... you need to have that future actually be a possibility in the first place. That reality has to have existed before you go back and change it... and there’s no way the point in time that Wolverine is sent back from could actually have happened within the continuity of the previous films without a lot of explaining away of certain things... and there’s absolutely no concession to this, nor concession to audience intelligence, in the movie.

It starts off well enough with concentration camp imagery of imprisoned and dead mutants (and potential mutants) and this is, of course, a nice echo of the World War II Nazi concentration camp sequences which open both the original X-Men and X-Men: First Class. So a really nice idea there from the director. Then we have a fairly cool fight which is basically just a set up to explain the major time travel element  in the film. And then we see the last surviving mutants holed up together, awaiting the coming of the deadly Sentinels. Among these mutants are Kitty Pride, Ice Man, Professor X, Magneto, Storm and Wolverine. They are, of course, the X-Men... well... err... X-Men and X-Women... except... woah... hold on a minute... who’s in that line up again?

I got really excited by the post-credit sting at the end of The Wolverine because the story confronted us with something that was just so impossible within the actual X-Men timeline... Professor X and Wolverine existing in the same continuity after the events of X-Men: The Last Stand... that I figured they must be really confident about undoing the mess they’d made of the consistency between the movies. If they could throw something like that in to be explained away in the next film then... hey... they could do anything.

But that’s the thing, guys and gals. This opening set up is why the whole premise of this movie fails totally. Not only don’t they explain it... they don’t even refer to the events depicted at the end of The Wolverine in any way, shape or form. They just act like the third film didn’t even happen... kinda. Stay with me here because it’s an important concept to get over. Wolverine’s claws in this version of the timeline are back to being adamantium claws. Yep... that’s right... it’s like the events of The Wolverine, released only last year, didn’t even happen. Except... here’s the rub... The Wolverine refers all the way through to Logan’s guilt at having to kill his beloved Jean Grey to save humanity and... err... mutantanity from certain doom. So we know that happened in that continuity. However, in this film, Wolverine also has painful memories of killing Jean Grey (or Dark Phoenix or even, my favourite, Marvel Girl) in that third movie... they actually use clips from it as flashbacks in this one. So then... Professor X is dead isn’t he? This makes no sense. And you can’t try to justify/explain this version as being a version in which the events of the third movie never took place, because they refer to that movie a number of times.

And that’s basically why this movie is screwed before it’s even started. Because the point in time from which our intrepid hero is travelling back from in his mind is absolutely not a reality which could have happened and no attempt is made to explain this. What, they thought we were going to be all overjoyed that most of the old crew were back that we wouldn’t notice the thing has no logic or reason to it at all?

Not only that but, at the end, Wolverine’s mind snaps back to the version of himself fifty years later in a timeline we haven’t seen and all his memories of those fifty years are replaced by his old ones (which is why he’s astonished to see people like Jean Grey and Cyclops back in his timeline). This also makes no sense... his mind didn’t have anywhere else to snap back to... his timeline was destroyed. Serious clangers all round here folks.

Okay, so now I’ve reiterated why the film just totally falls apart and screws the entire franchise sideways into a cocked, adamantium hat... what’s the movie like apart form the huge plot holes?

Well... it’s kinda okayish, in some ways. It’s got a good buzz about it early on but, ultimately, it all just felt a bit “by the numbers”. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry and Ellen Page were all fine... but that was it for them. They were all just fine... and who can blame them in some ways. Their dialogue wasn’t exactly special. Ditto for most of the First Class team. Michael Fassbender is always damned watchable but he honestly didn’t seem to be present in most of his scenes, apart from when he loses it at Charles Xavier on the plane... that was pretty good. Jennifer Lawrence’s take on Raven/Mystique was okay too but she’s flying more or less solo in this one and, although she’s a bit of a stand out character, she’s mostly just seen beating people up.

James MacAvoy is fantastic and just like his Xavier character in X-Men: First Class. Absolutely a consistent and brilliant performance. However, asides from the cool acting, theres another basic continuity problem with this one. We saw him crippled at the end of the last movie but, in this one, Hank/The Beast has made him a serum which gives him his legs back every time he has his fix. However, this also has the side effect of relieving him of his mutant powers... further highlighting the absolute impossibility of the opening sequence of X-Men: The Last Stand as a path from this reality... except we know all that must have happened because Wolverine’s mind was just sent back from that future reality. Not very well thought out, is it? It’s like the writers kept painting themselves into a corner and then were trying to distract you with things to cover up the fact that they couldn’t address the issues this throws up. But hey, who cares, the audience won’t be paying attention will they? Um, whatever dudes.

There were some other nice things about the movie. The idea that Magneto was implicated in the murder of JFK but was actually trying to save him because he was a fellow mutant was nice. Some, not all, of the action sequences were nicely handled too, the really good ones being the opening fight scene and the sequence where Quicksilver saves them all in the Pentagon jailbreak scene. Which is a pretty great scene... except... oops. Now that’s another confusing thing for audiences who don’t understand that the rights to certain Marvel characters reside with more than one company...

So here you have Quicksilver who is played by Evan Peters in X-Men: Days Of Future Past.... which is a Marvel/20th Century Fox picture. However, we just saw him portrayed by Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the first mid-credits sting at the end of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here), made by Marvel/Disney, and will see him portraying that character again in The Avengers: Age Of Ultron next year, also for Marvel/Disney. What’s worse is, the 20th Century Fox version of the character and the Marvel/Disney version of the character are not allowed to share the same history, The ones locked into the S.H.I.E.L.D timeline is not even allowed to mention “mutation” apparently. This is going to confuse a hell of a lot of audience members who don’t know the ins and outs of the situation, folks. All they’re going to know is you’ve got the same character played by two different actors with contradicting histories co-existing at the same time in cinema history. Probably not a great idea guys.

Okay, what else. Well, the music is okay. This one marks the first time that an X-Men movie has had the same composer twice and John Ottman’s score here reuses the X-Men theme he used for X-Men 2. Wait, what? Yeah, you can see the problem here, right? Even the music is, for one of the few rare times in a Marvel movie, insisting on a continuity which is already shot to hell. Which is a shame because Ottman’s score does the job here. It’s not as cool as his earlier X-Men 2 score, or even his two Fantastic Four scores, but it does it’s job and I’ll be grabbing a copy when the CD comes out in a couple of weeks.

And... what else? Um... the special effects are okay, if you like that kind of thing, and the film is competently shot and edited. So, some nice work there... but none of this goes anywhere near making up for the fact that this movie screws up the continuity even worse than X-Men: First Class did.

When the four sequels to Universal’s The Mummy were released in the 1940s, these sequels formed what was supposed to be a single continuity. However, some of the films took place decades after the previous one and in all that time, they were all set in contemporary America, give or take a few years. Worse, in one film, Kharis The Mummy gets buried in a swamp in one country and, when he rises from the swamp to live again in the next movie, it’s somehow relocated to another country. Now, it’s my belief that the majority of those 1940s audiences didn’t question these huge plot holes because, frankly, these were the decades well before anything like commercial home video viewing could even be imagined and re-release cinema screenings were less of a thing then. The movie played, you saw it, and it wasn’t until commercial television started out in the 1950s that these movies would get shown enough again to be able to spot stuff like this. However, note to people in Hollywoodland expecting a gullible audience to swallow the scripts they turn out with more holes in them than a Swiss cheese... your audience is no longer living in the 1940s. It’s not like somebody isn’t going to notice all this stuff somewhere along the line. You need to write smarter than this!

When I went to buy a ticket for X-Men: Days Of Future Past, for a performance a few hours later, there were a lot of firemen in the cinema and when I got to the front of the queue I was told that they were only giving out refunds. It turns out the cinema in question had been struck by lightning less than ten minutes before I’d arrived and it had knocked all the projection rooms out. When I tried again a few hours later, they’d literally just managed to get the cinema rebooted up and were selling tickets again. All I can say is... I should have taken this as some kind of omen, maybe? X-Men: Days Of Future Past is my joint, least favourite X-Men movie, tying with X-Men: The Last Stand in last place. This was not how I was hoping the latest film in a, mostly, fairly strong film series would play out and the only audience I could possibly recommend this to is an audience who haven’t seen any of the previous movies in the franchise because, honestly, this one just makes no sense. And it’s such a shame. It feels like Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (reviewed here) all over again. It just didn’t address the issues it needed to address... and these directors/writers/producers need to make a smarter product to keep the percentage of their audience interested in these things satisified, I’m afraid to say. The hobgoblins are loose... and their small minds are out to tear apart your inconsistencies.