Targets

Screen Hole
Screenplay

Targets
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich
USA 1968
BFI Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Minor spoilers.

I’ve been wanting to catch up to Targets for a great many years and then, bizarrely, two turn up on Blu Ray in the same year. I’ve plumped for the one put out by the British Film Institute (which a friend gave to me for Christmas) over the Criterion edition because I understand it’s a slightly better version than its US counterpart.

Targets is the great director Peter Bogdanovich’s debut feature, which he wrote with his then wife Polly Platt and also, uncredited, the late, great Sam Fuller. Bogdanovich was very much a protege of the ‘Roger Corman school of film-making’ and Corman let him make this one if he included 20 minutes of footage of Karloff from his own film, The Terror, 20 minutes of new Karloff footage and the rest of new non-Karloff footage. Karloff, riddled by ill health but working quite a bit at the end of his career, only had one more year to live himself, but he liked the script for this so much that he did three extra days unpaid, which allowed for him to be in the film's finale too (he was originally going to be killed off half way through the story). It’s often cited by many, not least by Karloff, as his last film but he did make another five before he died (although some of the Mexican ones that he did were not released until 1971).

You can see why Karloff liked this one. Not only is it a well written piece that has an atmosphere probably unlike a lot of what was being produced back in 1969, but he also gets to play a role somewhat similar to himself (although not in attitude, as Karloff loved making movies and was never out of work). He plays a version of himself here, though, Byron Orlok, who is very much a down on his heels, ageing horror icon who has had enough of the movies he’s been making (such as The Terror) and, after the film’s opening where he’s watching it in the screening room with the director (an extended role for Bogdanovich himself, who does really great as an actor in this, it has to be said), he announces his retirement and, indeed, a lot of the film concerns people trying to get him to not do that. He eventually gets persuaded into going to give a talk (where he’ll announce his retirement) at the drive-in premiere of the film on the following night.

Meanwhile, Tim O'Kelly plays a perfectly normal looking guy but... he’s a gun nutter. The old ‘right to bear arms’ rubbish which is still, unbelievably, in the American constitution enables this person to suddenly go off the deep end, in his own muffled way... he kills his wife, his mother and then goes on a killing spree. Ending up at the drive-in screening at which Orlock is going to talk to the crowd, picking off people in their cars by shooting through a hole in the screen. The two strands of the film slightly overlap at the start, where this character has Orlock in his sights when he is testing out a rifle he buys in a gun shop across the road from the film company... but the two strands go their separate ways, cross cutting until they come together at the end in a really wonderful scene where Karloff confronts the gunman near the end of the picture. I have to say, the ending didn’t go at all like I expected it to and... wow.

It’s a great film and a wonderful debut from the legendary director. Because of various similar shooting instances and massacres, not to mention assassinations, around the time of the film’s release, Paramount only released eight prints out into the wild and so it did very little box office at the time. All I can say is, I’m glad it’s being properly re-evaluated now because, well I’m a bit hit and miss with Bogdanovich myself but this one is definitely a solid hit for me.

I loved the slow pacing and the ‘unnecessary to the story’ details and footage, really reminding the audience nowadays of the sheer artistry of the American films back then, before directors in the US became obsessive about making every shot count towards a story beat. I also loved the muted colour palette in some scenes, juxtaposed to other settings of brighter tones when the two stories rub up against one another. For instance, a shot inside the sniper’s muted urban house with his family is suddenly cut against Karloff and his PA (played by the lovely Nancy Hsueh) in a restaurant where all the walls are brightly lit on jarring green and yellow, vertical stripes. The sound design is great too, doing that thing of dialling back or bleeding out and in when needed to highlight certain things, almost an expressionistic approach to the audio element.

Also, the film has no score, the only music being diegetic and the only actual ‘film score’ being heard in the sequences where The Terror is being screened... which is great because, in the fraught and suspenseful final act, when Karloff goes to confront O’Kelly, the score of that movie emphasises the on screen action of Targets nicely. A beautiful juxtaposition where the diegetic source stands in for the non-diegetic element which is missing.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about Targets other than, Karloff is absolutely sensational in this and it’s no wonder that, in a memorable monologue half way through the film, which he did in one take, the cast and crew started applauding him as soon as the director called “cut”. This is a film I will definitely be coming back to and the new BFI release has plenty of good looking extras for me to explore when I do. A sensational picture, not to be missed.

Atlas of Imagined Places

Charting
The Uncharted

Atlas of Imagined Places -
From Liliput to Gotham City
by Matt Brown and Rhys B. Davies
Illustrated by Mike Hall
Batsford ISBN:  9781849946414

Ever wondered exactly where the island from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is, or just where it is in proximity to the passage to the centre of the Earth? How about the location of the wrecked stealth ship from Tomorrow Never Dies and how close that is to Tin Min from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum?

Look no further then because the excellent coffee table book Atlas Of Imagined Places - From Liliput To Gotham City, written by Matt Brown and Rhys B. Davies, with fantastic illustrations by Mike Hall, will tell you all this and more. The book pretty much does what it says on the tin and presents the reader with a selection of 18 sets of maps presented as an atlas, which detail literally thousands of fictitious places which the authors, quite cleverly in some instances, have managed to pin point as an area in the real world.

The book starts off with a section which details just what kinds of places you wont find, by breaking things down into a number different fictional place categories, many of which are included but some of which are not. These range from fictional places (not used in the book because they don’t occur in correlation with our world), fictional places on Earth and fictional surrogates etc. The chapter titles are labelled thusly: 1. The USA - Altered States, 2. 2. Canada and The Arctic - Green Gables and Gold Nuggets, 3. Central America and the Caribbean - The Old New World, 4. South America - Cities of Gold and Banana Republics, 5. Western Europe - The Old Countries, 6. Eastern Europe - Science and Sorcery, Shtetls and Soviets, 7. The Nordic Countries - Here Be Dragons (and Trolls), 8. UK and Ireland - Fake Britain and Sham Rock, 9. The Middle East and Central Asia - Beyond The Silk Road, 10. South Asia - From Peshawar to the Peninsula, 11. Africa - Things Come Together, 12. Southeast Asia - Wilds, Waves, Worlds and Wars, 13. Japan - The Land Of The Rising Gundam, 14. China and North-East Asia - Journey To The East, 15. Australia and New Zealand - The Original Land Of Oz, 16. Antarctica - The Nightmare Continent, 17. The Pacific Ocean - Island Hopping and 18. The Atlantic Ocean - Lost Worlds Of The Western Sea.

Each chapter is broken down with a two to four page introduction, written like a travelogue but with a lot of in-jokes for various fictional locations (some of which I got and, due to the sheer range of literary invention looked at for this tome, some of which I didn’t). This is followed by the map itself over another double page spread and then another section which gives another couple of pages talking about a number of the places you will find on that particular map and, in some cases, how hard to pin down they were and what process led to the authors identifying them where they have. So lots of places like Westworld, Springfield (The Simpsons version), Bedrock, Asterix’s village and Blofeld’s volcano retreat from You Only Live Twice are all flagged but, other things you will need to scour the maps for on your own or check out in the vast index in the second half of the book to find them in situ. For instance, I had to look up places like Midwich (from The Midwich Cuckoos), Antonio Bay (from The Fog) and Tilling (from E. F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia books) myself to cross reference them on the maps.

But the book is a sheer delight. The UK (where I’m from), for example, has a wealth of places including Summerisle (from The Wicker Man), The Village (from the prisoner), Brigadoon and Walmington-On-Sea (from Dad’s Army). The remit is fantastic and takes on not just books and movies but also TV, video games and even real life hoaxes. I now know where the Antarctic base from John Carpenter’s The Thing is in proximity to the Snowcap Tracking Station where the Cybermen were up to no good in the last of William Hartnell’s Doctor Who stories, The Tenth Planet, for example. I also know how far Castle Frankenstein is from Castle Wolfenstein and even how far the mountain that gave birth to The Monkey King is from the Severnaya Satellite control in Goldeneye. Not to mention the Swiss Spaghetti Farm from the famous, 1950s Panorama April Fools Day broadcast.

Now, as the writers admit themselves, there’s always going to be some stuff which seems like it’s missing in action for some people and I do have one big problem with one of the locations in the maps. That being the inclusion of Superman’s Fortress Of Solitude. All well and good but, there’s no mention of Doc Savage’s similar Fortress Of Solitude in the tome and, frankly, this is a big exclusion because it was, along with a fair few things about ‘Clark’ Savage Jr’s adventures, what the version in Superman was obviously based on (stolen from)... Superman debuted in 1938 and Doc made his debut in 1933. It’s a bit of an oversight in my opinion but, hey ho, can’t have everything, I guess.

Ultimately, though, I really enjoyed having a peruse through the various locations of the Atlas of Imagined Places - From Liliput to Gotham City and it was a real treat. I especially liked that the last map in the series shows the location of Pepperland, from the Yellow Submarine movie... not to mention the various seas glimpsed on that particular fictional adventure. It’s all good stuff.

Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz 2023 Answers

Annual Cryptic
Movie Quiz 2023
The Answers

Thanks once again to all who braved my annual cryptic movie quiz over the Christmas and New Year period... I hope you got a lot of fun out of it. This year’s winner is, embarrassingly for the third year running, Steve Braham in Australia, who got all 14 answers correct.

The answers are pictured above in the grid and this is how you break them down to solve them.

1. Somebody visually recorded Italy’s capital city.
When someone visually records someone these days we usually say ‘videod’. Italy’s capital city is Rome. So... Cronenberg classic Videodrome.

2. 16th Century firearm demonstrating one more organ of auditory processing than the average human.
The firearm is a musket. An organ of auditory processing is an ear, of which humans have two... so one more ear would make three. So... The Three Musketeers.

3. The monster maker swore at his creation.
Swearing is sometimes called cursing so... Hammer classic The Curse Of Frankenstein.

4. Using oars to steer the author of Delta Of Venus towards the shore.
Using oars to stear is when you Row something. The author of Delta Of Venus was Anaïs Nin. So... Row Nin... Ronin.

5. It got kinda scrambled by the hello.
Hello with By scrambled into it gives you... Hellboy.

6. If the four lettered town in Switzerland started and ended with the same two letters.
The town I’m thinking of is Chur. So put the first two letters at the end again and you get church so... Italian horror movie The Church.

7. Enthusiastically expelled breath on a device manufactured to give out light.
Enthusiastically expel breath is blow. Past tense, expelled, changes it to Blew. A device manufactured to give out light could be lamp. So... Blew Lamp... The Blue Lamp.

8. Auditory organ sandwiched in a backwards, long playing record album.
And ear again. A long playing record was always referred to as an LP. LP backwards is PL... put EAR between the two letters and you get last year’s slasher prequel Pearl.

9. The cannibal ate his girlfriend. He was...
A classic Ridley Scott film. The cannibal ate his girlfriend. He was “glad he ate her” so... Gladiator.

10. What you get if a Pokémon goes down with a nasty skin condition... from a certain point of view.
Well it could get a rash. Combine it with a famous tale about contradictory viewpoints and you get Kurosawa’s Rashomon.

11. Family tribe of the light coloured James Bond car in The Spy Who Loved Me.
A family tribe is a clan. The car James Bond drives in The Spy Who Loved Me is, famously, a white Lotus Esprit so, put that all together and you get Shaw Brothers classic The Clan Of The White Lotus.

12. “Oh, Mr. Neeson!” called John Thaw’s Detective Inspector.
Morse is the Inspector. Liam is the Neeson. Calling him as above is Oh, Liam. So, Morse Oh Liam... 80s horror movie Mausoleum.

13. Daniel goes for a walk next to The Bridge On The River.
The famous River Kwai, of course. Dan is short for Daniel so the answer is... Kwaidan.

14. This version of the International Space Station is powered entirely by the sun.
Something powered by the sun uses Solar power. The International Space Station is ISS. So it must be... Solaris.

And, of course, give yourself an extra point if you figured out the background to the grid was from Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. Thanks to all who played... I hope you had fun.

Doctor Who - The Space Museum

Whoseum Piece

Doctor Who -
The Space Museum
Airdate: 24th April - 15th May 1965
BBC 1 - Region B Blu Ray
Four Episodes

Okay then. The Doctor Who story The Space Museum is a little odd but, of course, that makes it all the more interesting and, despite it not being held in very high regard by the show’s still growing fan base, I certainly thought this one was quite enthralling.

Following on from being frozen/paralysed in the TARDIS at the end of the last episode of The Crusades (reviewed here), in footage which is repeated, the crew of the TARDIS... William Hartnell as The Doctor, Maureen O Brien as Vicki, William Russel as Ian and Jaqueline Hill as Barbara... find themselves in a space museum. And the planet housing the museum is a pretty badly shot environment, it has to be said... when the actors manage to cast shadows on the backdrop of the sky and rocks in the distance, it’s a pretty big giveaway that it's a small studio. But odd things happen like, after beings frozen they somehow find that they are no longer in their crusades costumes. And when Vicki accidentally drops a glass of water, it reassembles itself and jumps back into her hand (in one of the very few pieces of early recording on film stock for a ‘non-location screen’ in a show, in order for the film to be reversed).

And when they go out onto the planet they are walking around in thick dust but... leaving no footprints (which I suspect is a discovery with more of an eye on explaining why they weren’t leaving footprints on the studio set, to be honest). Then, they go inside a structure and find themselves in a space museum, but out of time phase with everything else. It must have been a great tease for viewers at the time when they come face to face with a Dalek, only to find out it’s an exhibit. Although, personally, I would have questioned why, in all of the museum, that was the only exhibit which was labelled up. It’s more of a shock for the regular companions when they come face to face with frozen and embalmed corpses of themselves in four display cabinets, which is when The Doctor realises they are somehow out of phase with time and are actually exploring the planet before they’ve actually arrived (which in the fourth episode is explained away as a malfunctioning component in the TARDIS). He says that, when they do arrive (and this happens early on in the second episode when the encased versions of themselves dissappear), they will be in great danger and will have to make sure that this possible future event doesn’t actually occur. The rest of the story, which once again splits the four companions, is about evading the military presence who run the space museum and teaming up with a ‘rebel faction’ whose planet it was in the first place.

And it’s odd because the whole ‘out of phase’ stuff from the first episode, as intriguing as it is, is not really explained to a satisfactory degree and, frankly, it would still certainly not explain why the travellers are in their crusades clothes one minute and then in their regular attire the next. Furthermore, certain plot details made apparent seem to be dropped in without any pay off later in the serial, such as when The Doctor makes a big thing out of Ian having a button on his jacket missing. You could surely be forgiven for assuming that this will come up later in the story as a way of telling one time phase from another but, no, it’s not mentioned again other than in the second episode of this four episode arc.

But it is enjoyable and has moments such as William Hartnell hiding in a Dalek and, when the coast is clear, putting on a Dalek voice and popping out of the top in a comical manner. Also, newby companion Vicki really shines in this episode, as she stirs up the rebels into a full scale revolution single handedly, by taking apart and rewiring the computer defending entry into the military armoury and enabling the rebels to retake their planet from the, really very small, occupying force.

Okay, so it’s pretty entertaining despite its many flaws and I really thought it was quite good. Also, though, it has a decidedly odd ending to the fourth and final episode. Viewers at this point were more than familiar with the practice of dovetailing the story into the next arc but this one does it more like a teaser trailer by showcasing the Daleks (who really have nothing much to do with this story at all, other than an older, differently designed model being on display in the museum). It’s really the Daleks tracking The Doctor in their own time machine (don’t know how they got one yet) and letting viewers know, at the beginning of the whole Dalekmania period of fandom, that they will be back in it for the next story, entitled The Chase. Which is the next one in this set and which I look forward to watching. That being said, I can only hope the BBC have paid all thier licences as footage of The Beatles was included on a screen in the TARDIS in the original broadcast of that serial and, I know from a recent viewing of The Evil Of The Daleks (review coming soonish), that they certainly didn’t include The Beatles song from the original broadcast in the new edition of that story. Time will certainly tell, I guess.*

Meanwhile, as far as I’m concerned, The Space Museum is another winner of a story and, what it maybe lacks in dynamic punch for some viewers, it certainly makes up for in it’s odd, off kilter qualities, I reckon. I certainly enjoyed my visit with it. It’s a shame the BBC didnt include a Behind The Sofa extra for this one... although there is a charming but short documentary on the collectibles/merchandising of the 1963-65 period of Doctor Who which is worth a look, it has to be said. 

*Since writing this review, time has indeed told and, let's just say if you purchased a UK edition of the Blu Ray like me, you got lucky where many didn't.

Unnatural Death

Sasquatch
Nightwatch

Unnatural Death
by Patricia Cornwell
Little Brown
ISBN: 9781408728697

Warning: Some very slight spoilers.

And once again it’s already time for my annual ritual, starting the new Patricia Cornwell book I’m inevitably gifted on Christmas Day. This year’s novel, Unnatural Death, sees her return to the exploits of her most popular literary character, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta, plus various of the other much loved regular characters who make up the rich background tapestry of the Scarpetta novels... including Lucy, Benton, Marino and even Kay’s sister Dorothy, who you remember is now married to Marino.

Like many of her recent novels (well, I say recent, she’s been doing this kind of thing for at least a decade and I’m sure if I went and revisited her early works, it’s something I’d be more aware of now), this one is set in a very small time frame. The majority of the novel takes place over a 24 hour period... with an epilogue chapter taking place eight days later. Indeed, it takes Cornwell well over a hundred pages to get her central characters to the ‘scene of the crime’ in this one but, as you would expect of a writer of Cornwell’s high calibre, none of this journey is wasted and it helps set up a truly uneasy air about why this particular double homicide... the Unnatural Death of the title... is unusually disturbing. Not least of which is the general environment where the bodies need to be recovered from... which is both hard to get a helicopter to without crashing it and, similarly hazardous due to all manner of reasons I won’t detail here.

As almost a distraction... but I know how well Cornwell researches her books... we also have evidence uncovered that a Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch) is in the area of the scene of the crime and, normally I would act the sceptic here as that being a fantastical element of the story but, well, I trust this woman’s research and if she says there really are such things... I’m going to take her word for it. There is apparently more evidence to suggest yay rather than nay these days, it would seem. And while the evidence of the presence of this species near the murder site is ruled out straight away as being something which the Sasquatch would have had a hand in regarding the double murder, there are also some nice, unexplained things which also happen when Scarpetta and her colleagues are recovering the bodies, which are nicely speculated on by the end of the novel. Let’s just put it this way, there is a suggestion that Big Foot doesn’t always have to be hostile and can, perhaps, even be helpful.

Let me also say that the fight comes to Scarpetta’s door, in small and disturbing ways, long before the scene of the crime is left and the bodies recovered. And then things get even grimmer when Kay suddenly finds herself performing an autopsy in front of a virtual audience in a special unit erected for such a procedure, as she and another character are pulled into a certain ‘confidence’ that neither of them has welcomed into their lives.

Talking of which, I don’t want to say too much about this set of scenes and the chills they may invoke in some readers but I will say that they will probably affect and be present as a caution in Scarpetta’s life for at least another novel or two and, furthermore, those readers who have been with the character throughout her long fictional history will certainly appreciate where things are heading... once a certain set of previously ‘false information’ has ben revealed.

All of which leads ot a couple of nasty incidents based on high tech threats and the usual mix of piece by piece, clue by clue deductions that inevitably lead Scarpetta and her husband Benton to inadvertently put themselves in harms way at certain points in the narrative. There are also a few younger characters which, I think may have been seeded into the text a book or two ago, to also live on as future regulars in the series... or be cannon fodder, who knows because, with the level of future threat now uncovered for Scarpetta and her loved ones, the resolution of that particular problem may well seem a little light and miraculous if at least some characters the readers care about don’t die as part of that solution.

And there you have it... I don’t want to say much of anything else about Unnatural Death other than to assure lovers of the writer and her characters that this is yet another, top notch, addictive Scarpetta novel by one of the greatest living thriller writers. I absolutely loved this one.

A Haunting In Venice

Venice This
Happening?

A Haunting In Venice
Directed by Kenneth Branagh
US/UK/Italy 2023
20th Century Fox
Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Slight, implied spoilers.

Okay, so I put off watching A Haunting In Venice at the cinema back in September because I knew it would make a good Christmas or birthday present for my mum and so I saved it to watch with the family. Glad I did because, although it’s okay, it’s perhaps not as good as Kenneth Branagh’s previous two Poirot movies and I’m glad I only have to watch it the once, to be honest.

Unlike the last couple, this film is not loaded with famous celebrities this time around... at least not ones I’d seen or heard of... other than, of course, the inclusion of the great actress Michelle Yeoh, who does a good job with her, sadly short, role... yeah, I saw that one coming. They do manage to at least give her some bang for her buck, though,  in the scenes she is in... going head to head with Poirot as she plays a medium, whom Poirot has been ‘invited’ to show up as a fake. This is actually something he does quite quickly, although the film seems to take the stance, depending on whose witness testimony you believe, on whether this is just partial fakery to lend credence to real supernatural phenomena... or completely a sham.

And it’s this ‘certain point of view’ strand which runs throughout the course of the film.

Branagh is, of course, excellent as Poirot or, rather, excellent as a detective character (my understanding is that Agatha Christie purists rightly take umbrage with his interpretation of Christie’s popular literary detective) and he, aided by some quite good actors, carries the weight of the film as the script follows that ‘double POV’ style uncertainty by very much trying to both eat and retain the fancy pastry at the same time (or have it’s cake and eat it, as they say).

So, there are some great and spooky jump scares in this as various supernatural manifestations are unleashed at the great detective, while he tries to solve various murders which take place (either at the start of the story or as part of its back story). There are sadly no real surprises in terms of ‘whodunnit’ and why (apart from, perhaps, a tiny bit of unwelcome chicanery from his former friend Ariadne Oliver, played by Tina Fey), you’ll figure out various parts of the underlying solution (including the real identity of a blackmailer) long before they are revealed on screen. The supernatural shenanigans are where a lot of the entertainment value comes from on this one. A constantly underlying subtext which is both explained away as the effect of a specific poison made by the honey of certain bees while simultaneously showing the audience itself that... this may not be all of the story (in other words and, especially following the final character death near the end of the movie... make up your own mind if ghostly spirits leant a helping hand here).

So all this good acting and not a terrible script, coupled with some absolutely sunning sets and some nice visual compositions (and I loved the blues used in the opening set of extended establishing shots which turn out to be part of a dream that Poirot is having) makes for an entertaining film, surprising or not. Unfortunately, Branagh’s regular composer Patrick Doyle was not available to collaborate on this project with him but Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score for A Haunting In Venice does a pretty good job, especially at underlying the spooky, supernatural shenanigans presented in the film. A nice enough addition to Branagh’s Poirot canon and I hope he does another one soon.

Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom

Ocean’s Razor

Aquaman And
The Lost Kingdom
Directed by James Wan
USA/UK/Canada/Australia/Iceland
2023 Warner Bros
UK Cinema Print

Okay, so I was kinda putting off seeing this one but I’ve finally got around to looking at Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom and, it plays much as the first one with me. I'd originally put off seeing the first film because the depiction of Aquaman looked closer to the modern day comics version of the character (although not really... I’ll pick up on that later) and it turned out to be a very entertaining, pulpy adventure movie. Bad word of mouth had put me off seeing this second one for a bit (the film was released over a week ago) but. once again, it turns out that the better a modern superhero movie is, the less the audience seems to like it. This year has been full of decent superhero movies (with the one dud being The Flash but, even that had some nice things about it, reviewed here) but none of them have really been making the kind of box office they should have been making. Heck, a few of them even ended up on my year’s best list and, while Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom doesn’t quite make the grade as far as that’s concerned, it’s a pretty fun romp of an entertainment.

Granted, there are a few jokes which might be looked on as in fairly bad taste, especially to someone of my generation but, ultimately a combination of fine performances from Jason Momoa as the title character and Wan regular Patrick Wilson as former villain Orm, now sprung from jail and forced to team up with his brother to save the world from the threat of Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), coupled with a story which is a good fit for the inevitable action sequences (although it gets kinda confusing by the end of the picture) gives this movie a good old fashioned theatrical serial kinda feel and, indeed, one of the director’s admitted influences was the 1980s Flash Gordon movie,which is itself informed from the original 1930s comic strip and the movie serial versions.

There is one other influence which I spotted as ‘a thing’ but didn’t honestly expect it to be anything more than a coincidence, until I looked up the IMDB trivia and found that the director is citing it as such. That’s the black, military style uniforms and helmets worn by Manta’s underwater army, which are very reminiscent of the costumes worn by the main protagonists of Mario Bava’s Planet Of The Vampires (itself an influential film, of course, to a certain other late 1970s movie which I’ll not delve into again here).

So, it’s a fast moving action piece and both Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman are back as Aquaman’s wife and mother, respectively. Now, after all the fuss in real life Hollywoodland with Amber Heard, I was expecting the film makers to jettison her character quickly into the running time and, indeed, there’s certainly an early sequence which keeps her hospitalised for a good deal of the movie... but she’s back in the heat of the action by the end of the film and I’m glad to say she’s not just treated as a throwaway character here. Dolph Lundgren and Temuera Morrison also do good stuff with their returning characters in this and so the film has a really good feel to it (although Willem Dafoe’s character seems to have died between movies, it has to be said).

And although this version of Aquaman is trying to be the modern iteration of the hero, I’m delighted to say that this is in appearance only. The ideas and creations of the world rendered in this underwater universe are pretty much clever and witty (for the most part), H2O fuelled versions of their ‘surface dweller’ counterparts, rather than giving us something totally alien in its nature... so, yeah, it’s really not a million miles from the golden and silver age stories of Aquaman from many decades ago that I used to read, for sure.

Rupert Gregson-Williams’ score to the movie is also pretty good, reminding me a lot of Lorne Balfe’s outstanding score for Black Adam at times but, alas, there is no proper CD release of this at time of writing. C’mon people, get this score out on the only format worth publishing it on!

Okay, so a short review but bottom line is that I had another, surprisingly, good time with Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom and... there is a mid-end credits scene which is a nice punchline to a gag earlier in the movie. But with that, this is also a heads up reminder that, due to the stupidity of those in charge of the DC movies at present, this will be the last of the DC Cinematic Universe films in this iteration... instead, all those beautifully connecting linking devices from various end credits have been jettisoned, along with the great actors involved, while a famous director has an experimental tinker and reboots everything. Probably the silliest thing you could do at the moment and, if there really is any rivalry between comic book companies DC and Marvel, one wonders if the person in question is really working covertly for Marvel because, with this braniac move, Marvel have ‘won’ for sure. It’s a shame the DCCU didn’t have the stamina of their nearest competitors but, there you go, these things happen I guess.

Happy New Year 2024

 

New Years Day 2024

Well, it’s that time of year when we are all supposed to be looking to the future to see what new opportunities await us in the current year. As I write these words though, it’s actually a couple of days before New Years Eve and my mindset is in that terrible time between Christmas And New Years Eve when we are all surviving on Turkey and are filled with too much Tunis Cake and excess (if you are lucky enough to be able to get your hands on a Tunis Cake these days... why the heck don’t McVities make those things anymore?).

The time of year when people like me are dreading going back to the office and increasingly questioning the reasons why we do this... or perhaps, why we all allow a truly terrible government that can’t pull itself together and realise the work environment has changed in many people’s minds (for the better, during the pandemic, when we were all saving time and money and were a lot fitter for all those walks) and that we’re fed up with the powers that be trying to con us in this and so many other ways. I've actually been more miserable the last few days than I have in a very long time which, honestly, should not be happening when I'm on holiday. But anyway...

It’s also the time of year when I tell you some of the things I hope to be reviewing on the blog for the next 52 weeks (assuming I am still in good enough shape to type) and, that’s tricky actually because, it sometimes takes me a good few years after I’ve declared that... to get the films watched, the books read and so on... before I can get it up on the site. But, let’s not be cynical and I’ll try my best to predict once again. In terms of books there will be, hopefully, all of Kim Newman’s Anno Dracula books, some more of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers Of London books and maybe I’ll get to revisit some Michael Moorcock too. In terms of movies, aside from the obvious tent pole cinema releases coming (although... they kinda look dire this year so, maybe not so obvious), there are all kinds of movies and boxed sets coming up which I hope to get up on the blog. So, at the very least, I hope to finish off the Basil Rathbone series of Sherlock Holmes reviews, get a bunch of Hammer Dracula movies up and, alongside a bunch of Shaw Brothers classics, I also have to finish off the All The Haunts Be Ours folk horror set, finish watching The Sensual World Of Black Emanuelle set and watch the Bruce Lee at Golden Harvest set. Not to mention a healthy dose of genre movies from around the world including Mexican, Italian and Bollywood horror movies.

So yeah, lots to come and some of the stuff mentioned above is already written and awaiting publication here. So, I’d better get on with it all and just take this opportunity to wish everyone, possibly against all odds, a very Happy New Year. Thanks for reading the blog and... oh yeah... there are now only eight days left if you want to join in with this year’s Annual Cryptic Movie Quiz, right here

Top 20 Films Of 2023

 

My Favourite
Films Of 2023

Okay then... the usual caveats apply to this pretty subjective list. Firstly, some of the films I’ve included, which I saw in cinemas as parts of festivals, probably won’t go on general release until next year, if ever. But I saw them this year so, that more than qualifies them for me. Similarly, films I saw at the cinema in 2022 but didn’t get released widely until 2023 are not on the list if I already included them in 2022. So, stuff like Mad Heidi and Argento’s Dark Glasses were already included by me in last year’s list (which you can look at here if you so desire).

There are a couple of mainstream superhero movies on here, surprisingly. They are fairly low down on the list but I wouldn’t have included them if I thought they weren’t worth it. At least one of them was universally panned but, I have no idea why and I have come to suspect that, the worse a superhero movie does at the box office, the better it actually is as a piece of art. I’ll be testing that theory some more over the coming year, I think... although I believe superhero movies are going to be slim pickings in 2024, with most of the franchises taking a kind of ‘year out’ break, if my information is correct and mostly just the pseudo-Marvel movies getting some air. Looking forward to seeing what they do with Deadpool 3 though.

Lastly, you won’t find Barbie or Oppenheimer on this list. Purely because neither of them appealed to me and so I just haven’t bothered with them. I usually like Greta Gerwig but I get bad vibes off this one... and I rarely like Christopher Nolan’s films so, why subject myself (he made two decent Batman movies, after a terrible first film in that trilogy, as far as I’m concerned... and that’s it). And there are a fair few other movies that I really wanted to see but never got the time to, so my apologies for any obvious absentees from the list. I’m sure half the reviews of 2023 movies I’ll post next year will have the old “I wish I saw this last year so I could have included it in my end of year list” comments in them.

So, yeah, this list in ascending order from least to best and won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, for sure. If you want to read my reviews of the titles in question, just click on the title and it should take you to the review... and as always, thanks for reading.

20. Cocaine Bear
USA
A film which does exactly what it says on the tin so, really, if you are expecting anything other than a cocaine fuelled bear on the rampage comedy, then you came to the wrong party.

19. Blue Beetle
USA/Mexico
This film had one of the worst trailers I’ve ever seen and the only reason I managed to drag myself to the cinema to see this was because it was part of an all encompassing franchise (which has just been foolishly jettisoned by the studio, by the way... the new Aquaman movie being the last part of this DC experiment which had finally been gaining some traction in recent years). Fear not, the trailer was nothing like the movie, which was way better than anyone had the right to expect. Really pleased I caught this one at the cinema, to be honest.

18. The Nun II
UK/USA
The latest installment in The Conjuring franchise was a blast... again, it was much better than I’d been told and I’m looking forward to seeing where they go from here with it.

17. Shazam - Fury Of The Gods
USA
Again, another superhero movie which positively shines. The first movie was absolutely brilliant and this one is an absolute corker too. Bonus points for bringing back Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman in a very meaningful and life affirming way... not to mention a really great and comical way of putting in product placement (which I usually hate in any movie but those bloodthirsty unicorns were something else).

16. The Creator
USA
A nicely made piece of sci-fi world building, I’ve forgotten almost everything about it other than I loved it... so I guess I’ll be picking up the Blu Ray at some point then.

15. Monolith
Australia
This character study of a formerly disgraced journalist working from the home of her parents to make a podcast about strange, black bricks which are turning up in people’s lives is hands down the best thing I saw at Fright Fest this year. The ending is a bit obvious but getting there is fun.

14. Enter The Clones Of Bruce
USA
This great documentary piece about the various actors who were asked to fill the void in the market left after the death of Bruce Lee is, in equal parts, informative and hilariously entertaining. It’s directed by one of the heads of Severin Films so I’m expecting it to be a key disc in an up and coming Brucesploitation boxed set in 2024.

13. Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny
USA
While it’s true this latest Indiana Jones adventure is the ‘least’ of the movies, it’s still nice to watch in a nostalgic way. It’s kinda long and the second half maybe drags a little but it ticks all the boxes and it has a really nice ending.

12. Meg 2 - The Trench
USA
So this is what happens when you let great British modern folk horror auteur Ben Wheatley direct a schlocky B movie with a big budget... someone who, against all odds and negative vibes (not least from the majority of critics) manages to understand just what people wanted from the first movie and deliver a completely ridiculous product that is far superior in every way. Fun with a bite.

11. The Marvels
USA
I have no idea why this movie was received so negatively by pretty much everyone else on the planet. It’s easily the best Marvel movie in a fair few years and it has a planet where the inhabitants have to communicate through song. And it even has a montage scene needle dropped with Barbra Streisand’s cover version of Memory from Cats. What’s not to like? Plus, Iman Vellani needs to be in everything now, please.

10. Dream Scenario
USA
Nice, low key fantasy drama about a man who inadvertently finds himself turning up in people’s dreams. A quirky movie with Nicolas Cage which isn’t over the top in its outrageousness... in terms of the way the characters are portrayed, at least.

9. Pearl
USA/Canada/New Zealand
Nice looking prequel to X from the year before, showcasing Mia Goth’s brilliant acting in a much more interesting way than the somewhat drab Infinity Pool (which didn’t even make this list).

8. Reality
USA
This docudrama starring Sydney Sweeney as real life person Reality Winner is scripted verbatim... including redactions, which are handled in a very interesting manner... from an FBI recording of those events, in real time. A very interesting watch, for sure.

7. Scala!!! Or, The Incredibly Strange Rise And Fall Of The World's Wildest Cinema And How It Influenced A Mixed-Up Generation Of Weirdos And Misfits 
UK
Beautiful documentary about the rise and fall of the Scala cinema in London. Even if you’ve never been there, if you are of a certain age and lived in London in the 1980s, this one will probably pique your interest. I believe this is getting a limited cinema run here in the UK a few days after this Top Twenty is published on the blog.

6. The Three Musketeers - D’artagnan
France/Germany/Spain/Belgium  
As unlike the original Dumas novels as the majority (if not all) film adaptations are, this one manages to look both gritty and beautiful at the same time and has Eva Green playing Milady. Plus it has a nice ‘one take’ style of capturing the fights in complicated sets of camera movements which must have taken a lot of rehearsals, I would guess.

5. The Three Musketeers - Milady
France/Germany/Spain/Belgium
Mor of the above but, perhaps even a little better.

4. Godzilla Minus One
Japan
Wow... this unbelievably heartfelt period drama with added Godzilla goodness is easily as good as, if not better than, the 1954 original. This is how you do a Godzilla movie and it stomps all over the recent American attempts to do something with the character.

3. Daaaaaali!
France
This wonderfully comical movie which is inspired by Salvador Dali and which has a few actors playing Dali over the course of the film, in and out of the role, comes from the wonderful French surrealist Quentin Dupieux, who gave the world Rubber, among other things. This one is yet to open in the UK but I hope it gets a general release soon... the audience I saw it with absolutely loved it too.

2. Asteroid City
USA
This is Wes Anderson doing what he does best... being Wes Anderson. It’s another nice slice of off kilter, quirky and statistically saturated comedy... giving you exactly what you’d expect from this director... and there’s nothing wrong with that.

1. Lola
Ireland/UK
Wonderful looking sci-fi-on-a-budget British movie which deals with two ladies who change the course of the Second World War when one of them invents a time machine which picks up transmitted broadcasts from the future... and how they then try to change things back. Not for everyone but I really liked this one a lot.

Warning From Space

Well Wish Star Fish

Warning From Space
aka Spacemen Appear In Tokyo
aka Uchûjin Tôkyô ni arawaru
Japan 1956 Directed by Kôji Shima
Daiei Arrow Films Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Star fish shaped spoilers in this one.

Okay, if there’s yet another good thing about UK boutique Blu Ray labels just recently, it’s their new found interest in releasing previously unseen Japanese science fiction, horror and fantasy movies which haven’t been seen over here in a proper version before. This one, Warning From Space is a first time watch from me and, although some print damage means some of the sequences are fluctuating a little, I have to say that Arrow have done a wonderful job with getting this out there. And I was actually quite taken with this one.

Briefly, in terms of plot, the film centres around some mysterious UFOs appearing in Japan over a few weeks followed by the brief appearances, of some starfish monsters, designed by popular artist Taro Okamoto. However, once the starfish people, who come from the planet Paira, have realised we frighten them, they transmute one of their best scientists into human form, the guise of a popular tap dancer in Tokyo, so as not to scare us jumpy Earth people. Then they tell us that unless we release all our nuclear weapons at an oncoming planet on a collision course with Earth, we will be destroyed by it in 30 days. Much politicking occurs but, when the various countries finally agree that it’s a good idea to stop the certain death which is approaching, the nuclear bombs do nothing. Luckily, the aliens prepare a missile utilising a theoretical formula from an earth scientist, which they knew about millenia ago but destroyed and forgot about it, so they could never suffer from its destructive force... and use it to destroy the menacing planet.

So, yeah, there’s lots of interesting stuff in this movie, for sure, beyond the fact that the creature designs were produced by a famous artist. Perhaps that’s why the decision was made to shoot this one in colour because, it’s actually the first ever Japanese science fiction film to be shot in colour (just two years after rival company Tokyo launched their black and white Godzilla films). It’s interesting that the aliens, although presented as a possible life threatening menace at the start of the picture, to catch the imagination and keep the audience interested, are actually on Earth for a mission of peace. The film was actually based on a novel by Gentaro Nakajima, from what I can understand but, in film at this point the concept of aliens being our friends was fairly new and I can’t help but think this film was in some small way influenced by the 1951 movie The Day The Earth Stood Still, in this regard... at least in terms of creating a cinematic environment to get the project green lit.

The starfish version of the aliens aren’t in the movie too much but they look pretty good and, for fans of comic book company DC, they may look especially familiar. I have no idea if this is true but surely the alien starfish character Starro, who debuted in the first Justice League Of America comic book in 1960, is a complete rip off of these aliens? Especially since it doesn’t take much imagination for someone to put an S in front of Taro Okamoto’s name and add an extra R. Starro, of course, would finally make it onto cinema screens as the prime villain in the 2021 DC movie The Suicide Squad (reviewed here).

There’s something about the way colour is used too, which gives this film a certain something. The bright red splash of blood (or is it supposed to be red paint) which ushers in the opening titles on a red block background (on the Japanese print... the US dub version, also included on this Blu Ray, apparently dumps these titles for something else) are quite strong and, in the opening shot, pitched in sharp contrast to a big close up of a blue umbrella to bring us into the first shot of the movie. And the main sequence on the mother ship when the starfish aliens are conversing about how to not frighten the Earthlings has them all appear as grey monsters on a grey set... which is a nice use of muted colour. Also, they have that wonderful, revolving double hoop spinning around in their ship, which is a simple effect but which I don’t remember seeing on screen before it made an impact with audiences in the 1978 picture Superman The Movie... so it’s nice to see it used here in a 1956 film. Another nice touch which we see in a lot of modern science fiction movies from the mid-1970s to present, is the loss of radio signals in the area whenever there’s a UFO or monster in the vicinity... the film is not shoddily thought out, for sure.

Of course, the alien transformed into a half drowned human found on a lake and then used to infiltrate one of the many scientist’s family homes gets some stuff wrong, if she doesn’t want to be immediately found out. For instance, in a wonderful instance of some kind of trick photography, which is very well done, she jumps impossibly high to return shots when she’s playing the scientist’s son at tennis. Not to mention, when trying to avoid autograph hunters who think she really is the local tap dancing sensation, walking through doors without realising you need to open them first, just dematerialising through them instead. Yeah, actually it’s surprising with all this going on that people take so long to realise that she’s not actually human, for sure.

The aliens are mostly not present for the last third of the picture, where it turns into a disaster movie with the heat of the approaching planet causing high temperatures and forcing the inhabitants of the planet into underground shelters. They turn up for a quick deux ex machina style rescue as revealed earlier but, yeah, I thought Warning From Space was pretty good, it has to be said. When the earth is saved, loads of different examples of native wildlife, such as rats, bunnys, crabs and tortoises emerge from their natural hiding places and return to Earth’s surface once more. A subplot involving a villain who kidnaps one of the scientists to persuade him to give them the formula of ultimate destruction kind of peters out by the end and the villain goes unpunished, since it’s only happening in order that the scientist’s absence from the main part of the narrative can build suspense as to whether the Earth will survive or not. But, as I said, I didn’t mind this and I will definitely try and watch this one again at some point. I had a good time with it and I suspect fans of Japanese science fiction in general should find this one worth a watch.

Close

Guardian Angel

Close
UK/USA 2019
Directed by Vicky Jewson
Jewson Film

Directed by Vicky Jewson, Close is a female dominated action thriller inspired by real life bodyguard Jacquie Davis. It’s also pretty much a typical Hollywood action vehicle in some ways but it has a few things going for it to elevate above a lot of the usual, often bland films of a similar nature out there these days. One of those things is the casting of Noomi Rapace as Sam Carlson, the character loosely based on Jacquie Davis.

The basic story is, Sam is a bodyguard or, as it is properly known, a Close Protection Operator. She is assigned to a rich teenager, Zoe (played by Sophie Nélisse), whose father has died and who has been left inheriting his large company, rather than her step mother Rima (played by Indira Varma), who is in something of a bad relationship with her daughter and just wants to make sure an important deal for the future of the company is set to go ahead successfully as planned. However, when Sam stays on a few hours more after delivering Zoe to a somehow ‘less than safe’ safe house, kidnappers come for Zoe and so Sam (who has her own mother daughter issues in the form of a child she abandoned years before) has to try and get Zoe to safety somehow in a foreign land, where the powerful masterminds behind the kidnapping are working with a corrupt police force to ensure that Zoe is brought into harms way.

So, yeah, like I said, it’s a typical set up and play out for a big blockbuster action movie but, asides from the superb cast being absolutely brilliant in this (with Noomi Rapace doing all her own stunts apparently... looking at some of the things going on here, she must have had a lot of bruises at the end of each day’s shooting), the director has a good understanding of just why these films fail or succeed and gives the thing a real feeling of suspense and tension, not to mention a certain brutality injected into the mix with some of the various punch ups throughout the story.

So, yeah, the pre-credits sequence (before a rather stripped down and less richer cover version of the excellent Kate Bush song Running Up That Hill is played over the credits) does exactly what you’d expect a film like this to do. Taking a cue from the James Bond films, we see Sam in a war zone protecting two members of the press in an action sequence, to show the audience that she’s a tough character and she can get people to safety in the face of considerable opposition. It basically shows the audience that she’s not the kind of person to just roll over in the face of adversity, instead being the individual who will look for every angle she can to swipe victory (and safety) from the jaws of defeat. And, yeah, there is a moment in this opening where one of the film crew is clearly visible on the back of a small truck that the character drives off in but, you know, these things happen and it doesn’t hijack the clear message to the audience.

So later, when Sam and Zoe go on the run and play a game of cat and mouse where they get captured, put in peril again and escape, while trying to build up a close trust to each other, it is familiar territory for sure but, it’s one of those films where all the clichés and tropes of the genre are actually done right and so we get a credible and exciting action film rather than a boring one.

For example, the cinematography is gorgeous... choosing warm colours such as oranges, yellows and browns with the two main characters dressed in colours complimentary to the environments they find themselves in... but it’s also very slow and surely paced for the majority of the film. So it’s lots of long, slow takes with fluid camera movement interspersed with static shots as the actors inhabit a world where everything plays out in a way where the audience has time to connect to the characters. For example, establishing shots of various locations will be held for much longer than you might expect and often involve slow approaches to the settings. What this all does, of course, is reveal that the director knows all about how you pace an action movie, using this kind of laid back style to make pauses which allow the action sequences to surface with more sped up, more frenetic camera work and faster cuts, to actually feel much more in contrast to the style of shots surrounding those scenes. This is something directors like Kurosawa knew about but it’s an approach often overlooked in Hollywoodland these days.  

Where this technique really comes into its own is in a scene where Sam kind of goes off and has a personal cry and panic about what’s going on, finding herself in a situation where she has no idea if there are any options left. Briefly, for that moment, the camera switches to a very slow handheld style, with slight movement to the shot rather than locked in a totally static moment... this really heightens the tension in the scene and sends a message to the audience, backed up by the camera movement hooking into the subconscious perception of the shot, that the character really is a little out of control at this point. But then, as soon as the character gets her head together and rejoins the girl she is protecting, the camera switches back to a very steady, fluid or static stream of shots again, to signal to the audience that she’s once more in control of the situation. Most people probably won’t even notice it but they sure will feel it and it’s a nice example of using the visual language to enhance the emotional state of the characters on screen.

Added to this is a moment when the rug is pulled in terms of just who the villain of the piece is... which actually took me by surprise for once. If I hadn’t been so pulled into the movie and thought about the way a certain character is written and pushed to be someone unsympathetic to the audience, I would have realised that it was a set up for a reveal later on when that character comes off as not being the source of the threat so, hats off to the director for this one, for distracting me enough with the beautiful looking visuals and standing back enough to let the central performances come to light better, so that I actually didn’t see the reveal coming. I don’t often miss those kinds of things (and, yeah, I must be getting really old now).  

And that’s me pretty much done with Close. If you like your action films with a certain credible violence to them, where characters take time to recover from being punched and knife and bullet wounds are shown to hurt the characters and have some kind of impact on them (Noomi’s face is the worse for wear with small, healing wounds throughout the movie due to her experiences depicted in the opening credit scene) then you should definitely give Close some eyeball time. Despite the formulaic story line, I thought it was an impressive piece and would recommend this one above certain other action genre movies of recent years.

I Vampiri

Bathory Sphere

I Vampiri
aka The Vampires
aka Lust Of The Vampire
Italy 1957
Directed by
Riccardo Freda & Mario Bava  
Arrow Blu Ray Zone B

Shot in full cinemascope, I Vampiri is the second of the movies presented in Arrow’s wonderful, sold out before it actually hit the bricks and mortar shops, mini Blu Ray set Macabre Visions - The Films Of Mario Bava... although you have to look for it. Despite it’s prominent inclusion in the little, accompanying hardback of essays on the films included here (this one written by the great Alan Jones) it’s actually included as an extra on the first disc, Black Sunday (aka The Mask Of Satan, reviewed here). So you have to read the full list of extras for that movie to even realise it’s in here.

The reason for that, I guess, is because Mario Bava is not the credited director... only Riccardo Freda. Bava was the director of photography (and it certainly shows) but Freda walked out on the film 10 days into shooting (on a ‘shoot a film in 12 days’ bet) and Bava had to figure out how to rescue it and add and subtract from various elements and still finish the picture on time. Freda did a similar thing and left Bava ‘holding the bag’, as it were, on Caltiki, Il Mostro Immortale, reviewed by me here). So, for instance, the reason why one of the ‘mad doctor’s’ henchmen has a scar around his neck is because he was originally rebuilt from another character, who is now his own character played by another actor because various actors weren’t around for the last two days.

However, I’m thinking I Vampiri is an important film for a couple of reasons. Firstly, after decades of government censorship and not being allowed to make horror movies, it was the first talking picture horror film out of the gate in Italy. So that alone should mark it out as something to at least take a look at. Secondly, the villainess of the film, Gianna Maria Canale as Countess Giselle du Grand, is obviously inspired by the real life ‘Countess Dracula’, Elisabeth Bathóry (of whom so many films have been made), using her ‘weird science’ doctor friend as he gives her injections of various young ladies blood to maintain her youthful looks on a regular basis, long after she would have died (she transforms backward and forward from young to old age in the story).

In some ways, she’s actually more like the real life Elisabeth Bathóry, in that blood drinking was still a big no no, at this time, in what Italian films could get away with, so the weird science element injected into the formula means that the character is shorn of any actual supernatural abilities (no matter what you may think of the silliness of the scientific element presented here). Yep, there are no actual vampires in this film guys and gals, just metaphorical ones. This ushers in, of course, a whole wealth of films which did the same thing, where many movie protagonists over the years have sought to extend their life and youth by various malevolent means (I must remember to mention this film again when I get around to rewatching and reviewing The Night Strangler*, for sure).

Because it’s Bava doing the photography and some of the directing, it looks fantastic. The whole thing is set in Paris and, certainly, it looks like they shot it there. It was, in fact, just Bava being clever with his matte paintings again... most, if not all people, I would think, would not realise it was shot in and near a studio in Italy since everything, even the big Eifel Tower, looks like it’s all been shot on location in France.

Truth be told, if I didn’t know this was shot by Bava, I probably wouldn’t guess but, regardless, the film looks incredible. Bava uses various techniques to make the film look interesting. Vertical columns created by arches inside the Countess’ castle, for instance, to move the camera around and reveal new elements of a dance ball inside. Mirrors reflecting actors in conversation with others in another part of the frame. Corners with a lot of depth where one room leads into another to create rectangles to use to separate the actors in a shot, etc. There’s some nice things going on in this movie.

And, also, of course, there’s the special effect which Bava would use again three years later on his proper directorial debut, Black Sunday. Cribbing the old trick from Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, coloured lighting on the shoot is used to hide make up of various wrinkles on the lead actress until a ‘transformation’ happens and the light is either taken away (and enhanced with an opposite light on the colour wheel) or added. In the black and white film, this gives an ‘in camera’ effect of wrinkles and gouges on the face of the actresss either appearing seamlessly or vanishing in the same way. It’s good stuff and, for a long time, a guarded secret of special effects departments, from what I remember of my youth.

And that’s all I want to say about I Vampiri. The dashing young newspaper reporter hero (who must have shot all his main scenes in two days because he was a minor supporting character up until Freda left the picture), played by Dario Michaelis, is engaging enough and Roman Vlad’s score, while not my favourite stand alone listen on CD, is appropriate to the visuals and doesn’t grate too much in the melodrama stakes. It’s an interesting film and certainly worth a watch if you’re a Bava enthusiast and then considering its importance in being the first talking horror picture to come out of Italy (even though I don’t quite agree with that... not sure it’s not just a thriller in this form, to be honest... although the mad scientist does bring a guy back from the dead at one point). Maybe try and catch up to this one though, if you’ve not already seen it.

*Well that one made it’s way to the blog way before this review did in the end, right here and, yeah, I think I forgot to mention this movie.

Commando Cody - Sky Marshal Of The Universe

Going Commando

Commando Cody -
Sky Marshal Of The Universe
USA 1953
Directed by Harry Keller,
Franklin Adreon & Fred C. Brannon
12 Episodes
Republic/Olive Films DVD Region 1

Wow, this one gets really complicated. I’m sure many of you will remember the old Rocket Man serials. UK viewers especially should remember the first of the three/four serials (depending on your point of view), King Of The Rocket Men, starring Tristram Coffin as Geoff King (if memory serves) as it was a popular fixture of UK television in the late 1970s/early 1980s... when the BBC felt like they couldn’t just show the Flash Gordon serials yet again (reviewed here and here and here) until maybe Christmas. So they had a few back ups (anyone remember Daredevils Of The Red Circle?) but King Of The Rocket Men was probably the most popular sub after Buck Rogers (reviewed here). And rightly so... good fist fights and good special effects for its time by Howard and Theodore Lydecker, who performed the same task for this one I’m going to talk about now, Commando Cody - Sky Marshall Of The Universe. But hold on... as I said, it gets complicated.

So first there was King Of The Rocket Men and then the shots of his jet pack suit flying and various special effects were recycled for Radar Men From The Moon... that one did actually feature the lead character of Commando Cody but played by a different actor. However, the actor was changed (and also masked, I’ll get to that) to Judd Holdren here for what was supposed... and also kinda was... to be a TV show. However, after three episodes were filmed, which introduced Cody’s two scientist sidekicks played by Aline Towne and William Schallert, by way of being a kind of prequel to Radar Men From The Moon, there was some kind of unscheduled and extended break in production and in this time the studio made a third Rocket Man serial with the same actors, Zombies Of The Stratosphere (a young Leonard Nimoy turns up in this one too, if I’m recalling the correct serial).

However (again), Commando Cody was inexplicably renamed Larry Martin for that serial. When the production of the ‘TV show’ recommenced, not all of the actors returned so, for episodes 4-12, Schallert was replaced by Richard Crane. And, like I said, it was supposed to be a TV show in which, every week, Cody and his men tried to stop the destruction or invasion of Earth by the arch fiend from another world, The Ruler (played by Gregory Gaye). However, the producers had learned a thing or two from their other TV show The Lone Ranger. Clayton Moore took his mask off in that one and was known to the kids so, when he walked off that show demanding more money, they couldn’t easily replace him. So for this serial, Cody has a mask covering his eyes (like Robin in the Batman comics) which he even wears when he puts on his more familiar (to fans of the Rocket Man serials) jet pack and leather coat, with the primitive controls and helmet. This way, they reckoned they could just replace him if the show got popular and he decided to hold out for more cash.

And then... the unions got involved somehow. So, before it played on television, the studio was obliged to first show it as a theatrical serial. And it’s a strange mix of content because, unlike a regular serial, it was devised as a TV show so... there’s no cliffhanger at the end of every episode. That being said, when it came to TV soon after, if you were lucky enough in the 1950s to be able to catch it being broadcast in the right order, there is an underlying story arc, regardless of the stand alone nature of it all... but the last episode (which is a kind of continuation of the previous chapter) kinda concludes things. So, yeah, it was conceived as a TV show and then shown like that... but it was released as a serial first and this Olive Films version is, finally, a definitive and uncut restoration of that fourth serial, from what I can tell.

So yeah, fans of the Rocket Man serials wil love it. The mix of primitive, pulp science aided by recycled footage of the Rocket Man doing his thing, ray guns, rocket ship battles and, towards the end of the serial, some genuinely interesting plots... such as The Ruler making a slowly increasing number of copies of the sun appearing around earth every 24 hours as an additional sun, threatening to snuff out all life on the planet as we know it. Yeah, that was a good one. We also have the wonderful opening music for King Of The Rocket Men serving as the main theme here, in addition to a lot of other Republic serial needle drop scoring which fans of these things will remember and love. It even, in one episode where The Leader is using mechanical men to do his bidding, recycles the robot costume of the Volkites from the 1936 serial Undersea Kingdom. Remember that one? Another memorable BBC substitute to their repeats of the Flash Gordon serials, that one starring Ray ‘Crash’ Corrigan.

And, yeah, it’s not got the kind of science behind anything that you can take seriously but it is a lot of fun, moves around at a fair lick, has no bottle neck episode at all (surprisingly) and also has that other Republic Serial trademark of hand to hand fist fights where anything in an interior room that isn’t nailed to the floor or an immovable service is used enthusiastically as a weapon in their typically energetic way. So, regardless of whether you think of this one as a genuine theatrical serial or not, Commando Cody - Sky Marshal Of The Universe certainly has all the ingredients to keep fans of the Republic serials (especially) happy for 25 minutes per installment. I certainly had a lot of fun finally catching up with the last of this Rocket Man quartet I’d not seen and, all I can say is that, if you’re as old as I am, it makes a great Christmas present for dads too. Love this one and there needs to be more old serials on the commercial market and more widely known/recognised for sure.

Doctor Who - The Church On Ruby Road

 

The Paradox Children

Doctor Who -
The Church On Ruby Road
Airdate: 25th December 2023
BBC plus some evil purse strings

Well, this wasn’t bad and, it certainly wasn’t, as someone in my house said, “Bloody awful... put me off watching Doctor Who!” By the same token it wasn’t great either and, yeah, possibly not quite good. The new split off version of The Doctor, played by Ncuti Gatwa teams up with his new companion Ruby Sunday, played by Millie Gibson, for an adventure which all circles around her origins as an orphan and begins a thread which will, if I’m not mistaken, run through the whole of this next season, which begins properly in May.

Okay, so the story of The Church On Ruby Road, such as it was, involved The Doctor and Ruby trying to prevent her foster mother’s new baby, the 33rd she’s adopted (which maybe a reference to LP playing speeds, given that one of the upcoming episodes features Abbey Road and The Beatles) from being eaten by goblins, itself a ploy by the goblins to, I would assume, get their hands on Ruby. Which they do after being defeated by The Doctor, by using the goblin ‘physics of coincidence’, if I’ve got that right, to fracture time and kidnap Ruby from the steps of the church she was left at as a newborn baby. The Doctor goes back and saves her and picks up his mysterious new companion once the timeline is set back, stupidly not following the mother himself because, hey, it makes dramatic sense to dangle that mystery over the audience for the rest of the year (I’m guessing). I wonder if Ruby has a pocket watch. Probably not, two hearts would definitely show up when they’re doing checks on foster kids, for sure.

Okay... so Gibson seems fine. Gatwa looks absolutely perfect as a new Doctor but, there’s still something about the way he’s playing the character which I’m not liking and, I can’t quite put my finger on what that is. Something about the voice and attitude seems a bit off, to be honest. Still willing to give him time though... unlike other members of my household, it has to be said.

And there’s the other trap that either I’ve fallen into or Russel T. Davies has accidentally sprung on himself. Doctor Who was always, as far as I remember, supposed to be a family show, rather than just a kids show. And this episode is nothing but childish malarkey from start to finish it seems to me. Now, I think one of two things could be happening here... and the thing I hope that’s happening is that he just wanted to do a  very light hearted, drama free, kid pleasing tale for Christmas. The whole episode felt like a poorly CGId version of The Dark Crystal or even The Muppets, to be fair. But, it could be just a concession to Christmas with more serious drama and peril on the way later (I mean, seriously, just eat the kid already and move on, there are no high stakes or real threats in this episode).

Or... and I suspect some newspaper reviews may well take this tack in the next morning’s papers but... is this new, child-like tone a sign of the Disneyfication of Doctor Who? Remembering that it’s Disney who are injecting finance into this thing now (although not enough to make the goblins look ‘all that’... apparently). Now, this was my first thought but, being as the preview trailer for the new series starting in May looks like that won’t necessarily be the case... I’m not going to rush to any conclusions and keep my fingers crossed that the whole Disney element and the child-like atmosphere in this episode was just a big, Christmas fuelled coincidence. I hope. Keeping my fingers and toes crossed for this... I’m just not sure.

Also, I didn’t see any Daleks or Cybermen in the trailer and, as much as I hate that they keep returning with alarming frequency over the last ten years or so... if you want to establish the new guy as The Doctor, then you should get him sharing screen time with those established villains as soon as possible, would be my take on that.

Still, it was nice hearing Murray Gold return to the show with some pretty good music and I can only hope that Silva Screen will be releasing a proper CD of that soon... along with the Murray Gold season which they never got around to releasing all those years ago, preferably (or even instead of this new one because, they should be releasing these things in order anyhow).

And that’s me almost done on Doctor Who - The Church On Ruby Road other than... did someone mention Mavity. Yep, again, instead of gravity. That’s been turning up since the episode Wild Blue Yonder (reviewed here) and I can only assume that it’s going to turn around and bite the audience in the backside at some point over the next two years because, obviously, those timelines aren’t quite rightly settled yet, are they?

Anyway, I don’t think this episode was a total disaster and I’ll withhold judgement for a while. I'm ot looking forward to the new series all that much but I'm still hopeful. Time, as always, will tell.