Madame Web

Uncle Ben’s
Responsibility

Madame Web
Directed by S.J. Clarkson
USA/Canada
2024 Sony/Columbia
UK Cinema Print

Warning: Some spoilers, if you care enough.

Hmm... okay, Madame Web is the first of three Sony films released this year as part of their extended Spider-Man universe. You would think that now they have absconded again with the rights to the character, that they would, at least, feature Spider-Man in these three stories but... oh no. Or rather, actually, yes kinda in this one but... okay I’ll get to that in a minute. The film stars Dakota Johnson as the titular character (although she’s never once referred to as that in the film... which makes total sense when you see the movie) and, due to shenanigans involving her birth and special powers she doesn’t realise she had (like Diana in the first Wonder Woman movie), she is trying to protect three ‘teenage’ girls from the movie’s main villain, who sees future versions of them killing him at some unspecified point. When I say teenage... Isabela Merced, Celeste O'Connor and Sydney Sweeney are all in their twenties, the latter only a few ears away from 30 but, still, it’s Hollywoodland and they’re all supposed to be between about 16-18, it seems to me.

Anyhow... the movie itself has got some of the worst reviews (bearing in mind it wasn’t even screened for critics) I’ve heard for a Marvel related movie but, I have to say, though it’s inferior to almost any of the MCU branded Marvel films, it’s actually not the disaster that people are reporting it to be. Saying that though, I can totally see why it has got that reaction because the structure of the movie promises way more than it gives in terms of what the content of the film is actually going to be... the people making this weren’t that smart not to realise what they did, I think.

So, yeah, Johnson’s character is someone who gets brief glimpses of the very near future, like a very strong deja vu, so she can change things just before they are supposed to happen. So the director will sometimes use a big sound (like a champagne cork being pulled) or sometimes, quite cleverly, a distinctive camera movement, to usher in a replay of the events as they are about to repeat. And although it’s an obvious concoction the first time she does it, it is done pretty well throughout and the visual and audio shorthand built on those key aspects does the job very well.

You also have a couple of good performances, especially Sydney Sweeney (who was so brilliant in last year’s Reality, reviewed here), who really does well with facial expressions and so on to make her ‘bizarrely teen’ teenager come to life in quite sophisticated ways. However, although there are some good and likeable performances here, the structure of the film undermines a lot of the work being done.

Here’s the thing, all the stuff in the trailers where the three girls are in costume and using their spider powers are... just seen as brief, visions of the future in the heads of both the title character and the villain. So there are maybe three brief moments, maybe totalling less than a minute and a half, where you see the girls in costume, at some undetermined future date. In fact, whatever superpowers the three ‘teens’ do acquire... they don’t get them in this movie. It’s for some ‘future’ movie which, I’m guessing, might not even get made... and with Dakota Johnson jokingly downplaying the movie when she’s supposed to be promoting it, I’m guessing the four leads would have to be locked into contracts before they return to those characters. Which may well be the case actually but, I’m guessing this movie won’t be doing the numbers enough to make the next film worth making. This is obviously, like the up and coming Venom 3 and Kraven The Hunter movies, supposed to be leading to the Sinister Six, which started happening (again, it’s Sony’s second lead in after the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man movies) in Morbius (reviewed here)... when Morbius and Michael Keaton’s Vulture character met at the post-credits on that film. But, if the other two perform badly (I suspect Venom will do well but I can’t see the new Kraven doing much better than Morbius), then that may still not happen.

To that end though, there are some really bizarre references to the Spider-Man universe in this film... asides from the Spider powered natives in the Amazon plus the main villain all dressing pretty similarly to Spider-Man. The thing is, though, Sony are making references and shouting them out while simultaneously keeping a lid on things a little with their linking materials. If you are a Spider-Man fan and are not distracted by the visuals, you’ll ‘get’ who a couple of the characters are supposed to be... and one of them is teased but not named, even though fans will know exactly who he is.

The main action of the movie takes place in 2003 and I couldn’t figure out why they did this. Until Dakota Johnson’s character Cassie, a paramedic, calls her partner by name. He’s... drum roll... Ben Parker. Yeah, that’s right... future Uncle Ben. And the ‘with great power comes great responsibility’ line, which has been a core Spider-Man ingredient since his first comic book appearance in 1962, is dangled about like crazy in slightly reworded terms. And, that’s not all... Ben’s sister is pregnant and the girls are trying to protect her so she can give birth at the end of the movie. Casual viewers won’t twig it because he’s not named (despite an earlier ‘guess the name of the baby’ scene calling attention to it in the most obvious manner) but by the end of the film she gives birth to Peter Parker... aka Spider-Man. I guess the actor who was/is supposed to be playing that role in ‘films to come’ for Sony is not yet decided, is my guess. Or... you know... not yet given a big enough pay hike to return to that role.

But the biggest problem with the film, as I eluded to earlier, is the fact that it keeps telegraphing the gals suiting up and being super heroes... and so this is what the audience is expecting to happen at some point in the movie. So many people may not be aware that the climactic action scene is exactly that until it's over, I’m guessing, because they are waiting for the superhero element to come into play. It never does and that’s why I suspect we’ve had the huge negative reviews on this. It’s just an overly complicated set up for a film to come (with a poor ending, it has to be said). But, like I said, it’s not a terrible movie... just an unsatisfying one so, yeah, I can totally understand why it’s getting the word-of-mouth that it has. Madame Web is not a crowd pleaser but it’s also not as bad as, say, Morbius was so... there’s that. I had an okay time with it... I’d probably watch it again. Just not anytime soon. Maybe worth watching to see how it locks into the next few Sony Spider-movies perhaps but, there’s absolutely no post-credits scene on this one so, something tells me that rug may have already been pulled.

Doctor Who - The Chase

Mechanoid Mayhem

Doctor Who - The Chase
Airdate: 22nd May - 26th June 1965
BBC  Region B Blu Ray
Six Episodes

I’d never seen the Doctor Who story The Chase before. It’s actually down in records as the least popular of the Dalek stories but, I certainly preferred it to a few fair others I’ve seen with those creatures in it, including some which other people consider absolute classics. There’s lots going on in these six episodes but with little actual plot... the Daleks have somehow invented a time machine and are pursuing The Doctor (William Hartnell), Ian (William Russell), Barbara (Jacqueline Hill) and Vicki (Maureen O’Brien) through time and space in order to destroy their timelord enemy and his companions once and for all, after their defeat in the Dalek Invasion of Earth (which I reviewed in TV form here).

The TARDIS crew go to a fair few locations such as a desert planet, the Empire State Building, a ship (more on that soon), a horror themed fun house and, finally, the planet Mechanus. So this review is going to be a hotch potch of facts more than anything else... but lots of interesting things, to say the least.

Like the fact that one of the humanoid/formerly aquatic/sand dwellers in the opening two episodes is played by Hywel Bennett in his first role. Or the fact that some of the Dalek props were mismatched, borrowed versions from the first movie version of Dr. Who And The Daleks (reviewed here).

This is also the first Doctor Who story to feature a doppelganger of The Doctor, a robot version constructed by the Daleks to ‘infiltrate and kill’. Unfortunately, the actor standing in for Hartnell as the doppelganger (who was his acting/stunt double on set anyway), looks nothing like him... so it sounds rather disturbing when they dub Hartnell’s voice over his. Having said that, the quality of the signal reception in those days may well have hidden the inadequacies of the character from the original audience.

Episode three marks the first role in this serial for Peter Purves, who plays a bizarre and highly comical American tourist in the third episode. Now William Russell and Jacqueline Hill, much to the consternation and regret of Hartnell, had decided this was to be their last Doctor Who story. The BBC had no contingency plan to replace them with other companions but, because Purves got on so well with Hartnell for the third episode, Maureen O’Brien suggested to the people at the top that he would be someone who could get on with the sometimes cantankerous Hartnell on set and so, for the final episode, Purves returns in a different role, who would be the new companion opposite Vicki for the next year or so.

There are some terrible things which make no sense too. Continuity wise, for example, The Doctor refers to having built the TARDIS himself. This then, is before the established back story that he did, indeed, steal it (unless, maybe he built it then stole it?). But the worst glitch comes in Episode Four, which The Doctor explains, incorrectly, all takes place in the human mind. The crew meet both Dracula and the Frankenstein monster (the latter being somehow totally based on Jack Pierce’s make up job for the Universal horror films... how did this lot not get sued?). However, when the Daleks show up and try to exterminate both these creatures, their death rays do not affect them at all. Indeed, the guy playing the Frankenstein monster must have been pretty strong because you see him pick up a Dalek and throw it. However, a pull back at the end of the episode shows it to have been a futuristic fun house... why then did the Dalek rays not kill or destroy the creatures therein? Make no sense.

But at least, according to Doctor Who lore, we now know why the Mary Celeste was empty. There are shenanigans afoot when the TARDIS arrives but, of course, when the Daleks arrive on the ship, the entire crew are scared and flea to their deaths in the sea. Mystery of the Mary Celeste solved, I guess. It was the Daleks all along!

I’m glad to say that this version of The Chase is uncut (but only the UK Blu Ray version... everywhere else the sequence I talk about next has been sliced out). So you will see about a minutes worth of footage of The Beatles (the only surviving footage of them left in existence of their appearances on Top Of The Pops) although, how Ian can sing along with a song (Ticket To Ride) that hadn’t been released before he got on the TARDIS is anyone’s guess.

And then there are The Mechanoids from the last episode (and a brief appearance at the end of the fifth). These robot creatures were supposed to be the next big thing after the Daleks but, this was their (to date) only proper appearance. My best guess as to why they never took off is... yeah... they’re really pants. Not good monsters at all although, it has ot be said, their English/Basic (computer language) speech is kinda interesting. There is a big battle between them and the Daleks which is all superimposed action montaged together... trying to make it look spectacular and, to be honest, failing at that.

There’s also a ‘still’ montage of Ian and Barbara returning to Earth two years after they’ve left. It’s very Richard Lester inspired, it seems to me but, at least they got a nice send off. As the episode closes, Peter Purves new character is lost, presumed dead but, yeah, I think I know where he is... pretty sure he stowed away on the TARDIS so, we shall see in the final story in this Blu Ray Series Two boxed edition, which is one I’ve always wanted to take a look at. My verdict on The Chase though is that it’s mostly tosh but, so what? It’s very entertaining and interesting tosh so, I’m happy with that. This particular serial was supposed to have been the basis for a third Peter Cushing Dr. Who movie which, alas, never came to fruition.

Vampire VS Vampire

Eyebrow Humour

Vampire VS Vampire
aka Yi mei dao ren
aka New Mr. Vampire 2
aka Mr. Vampire V
Directed by Ching-Ying Lam
Hong Kong 1989
Golden Harvest/Eureka
Blu Ray Zone B

Vampire VS Vampire is the final film presented in the Hopping Mad - The Mr. Vampire Sequels Blu Ray set from Eureka Masters Of Cinema and sees, after his absence in Mr. Vampire Saga IV, the return of Ching-Ying Lam in a role very similar to the Taoist priest role he played in the three films prior to that. Lam, a former Shaw Brothers and Bruce Lee collaborator, also marked his directing debut with this feature, playing One-Eyebrow Priest. The young hopping vampire kid also returns for this movie, dressed pretty much as he is in the previous ones and the other main vampire in this, midst various other threats such as a ghost and a banana tree spirit, is more the traditional, superstrong, non-hopping variant you would find in the west. There is also a bunch of Chinese nuns following Christianity in the movie.

Now, I have to be honest (and this is why you are getting another fairly short review in this case), while it’s not worse than the previous movie I reviewed in the series (reviewed here)... it’s also certainly no better. I quite like Lam and wish he’d made a better movie. Although, in his brief life, he certainly made a mark as a Chinese action icon, in his own way... he was dead from liver cancer at the age of 44, 8 years after directing and starring in this movie. But, yeah, although he’s good in it, it’s a fairly awful and forgettable film.

Although it does, kind of, have a through line on a story element, mostly, it’s really just a lot of comedy action incidents which are edited so that, if you don’t question what’s going on too much, just about hold on to the idea of a story. However, it’s a very thin thread by which the various set pieces are stitched together and that makes it tough to follow sometimes, I thought.

My main problem, with this one... and it’s my main problem with most of the Mr. Vampire films in general (if, indeed, this one really should be credited as a sequel, rather than just a hopeful declaration as such by the marketing people at Eureka Masters Of Cinema), is that it’s really just not funny. These movies are known for their slapstick, very obvious humour, to be sure but, slapstick is not really my favourite form of comedy either. Even so, this has no laughs in it, as far as I’m concerned.

Some of the stunts are to be admired, I guess but, even the wire work seems a bit poorly done on this one, I thought. And it’s not helped, either, by the similar sounding ‘comedy score’ that's credited to three composers, which really works against it and which I am assuming is either just needle dropped in from other films of those composers or, possibly, it might be library music. Once again though, it sounds kind of cheap and synthesiser based which, might work with something more sinister like a horror film but utilised in a more light hearted tone here, it just doesn’t really come off well. I got the feeling that the music is trying to cue the audience in to when they are supposed to laugh but, yeah, it certainly didn’t work for me on this one.

And that’s about all I have to say in the case of Vampire Vs Vampire and the Hopping Mad - The Mr. Vampire Sequels Blu Ray collection in general. Of all the films in the series, the only one that really worked for me was Mr. Vampire III (reviewed here) but, yeah, the other ones felt a little like a chore to watch, to be honest. I probably won’t look at these ones again for a very long time but, I do appreciate the label putting out films like this in the UK. That can only be a good thing, right?

After Blue - Dirty Paradise

Blue Angels
Killing Kate Bush

After Blue - Dirty Paradise
aka After Blue - Paradise Sale
aka After Blue
Directed by Bertand Mandico
France 2021
Vinegar Syndrome Blu Ray Zone A

Warning: Conceptual spoilers ahead.

After Blue - Dirty Paradise is a relatively new movie, being a real feast for the visual and aural senses for cinema goers who are less invested in the mechanics of a plot and more interested in the dazzling excesses of the medium to create a sense of atmosphere, it seems to me. Actually, of the few people I’ve seen writing about this film for short summaries, there seems to be a complete lack of understanding or, perhaps, just a blanket statement that there isn’t much of a story or plot to latch onto. Some people are saying it’s completely impenetrable/ incomprehensible or plotless too. Well, there certainly is a story to be found in this one but it’s simplistic and, well, kinda redundant in terms of much of a follow through.... the writer/director seems far more fixated on the substance of the stylistic splendor, it seems to me, rather than add any more layers of detail to the through line. Although, his world building is perhaps also obfuscating the view for some people, I suspect.

Okay, the plot is fairly simple and so I will deal with it here.

We have Roxy (aka Toxic) played by model Paula Luna (she does a pretty good job here) and, as her mother Zora, the community hairdresser, there’s Elina Löwensohn. Yep, that Elina Löwensohn, from the Hal Hartley movies... I think the last thing I saw her in was the excellent Let The Corpses Tan (reviewed here) and, it has to be said that, despite the film featuring oodles of female nudity and girl/girl relationships throughout, I actually just picked this one up because I wanted to see what Löwensohn was doing these days. But I digress... after Earth has perished, the survivors find a planet they call After Blue and live in segregated, racial colonies (the Scottish contingent seem a bit aggressive), following the rules of the planet. The men all perish because the atmosphere of the world causes all their body hair to grow inwards and smother them from the inside (if I’m understanding the opening premise correctly).

Anyway, one day Roxy unearths an assassin who has been buried up to her neck in sand, waiting for the tide to come in and drown her. Her name is Katarzyna Buszowska (played by Agata Buzek) but she is generally known as Kate Bush. She grants three wishes to Roxy but leaves after she construes Roxy’s secret wish is to kill her friends and so she does. She also has a third eye which appears in her vagina. She disappears and then the community aggressively send Zora and Roxy on a mission to hunt down and kill Kate Bush. 

The film then becomes a road movie where they meet interesting people such as Sternberg (played by Vimala Pons) with her male looking android, strange places such as forests populated by both art and some unusual, organic, sinister tree like beings called Indiams and, of course, the gals get into strange and mostly philosophical adventures as they verbally explore their surroundings on their quest. That’s the whole thing more or less and, there’s a certain sense of closure to the story but not much as the success of the mission, it seemed to me, is not as cut and dried as it might have been (and for an extra layer of doubt, stick around for a short, post credits scene).

But the story is not what the film is about. It’s a completely psychedelic romp with all kinds of heavily saturated hues bombarding the visuals at all times. It’s also not a traditional road movie either... at one point the local community are all dressed up reminiscent of Meiko Kaji in the Female Prisoner Scorpion movies and, not long after when Löwensohn adopts the same hat, brandishing her winchester-like Chanel (all the weapons seem to be named after perfume or fashion brands)... it becomes clear that this particular road movie is also very much a revisionist western. Indeed, it certainly did remind me of the kind of hollowed out, soulless Spaghetti Westerns people like Lucio Fulci were making at the tail end of the 1960s and into the 1970s.

Now the film has been compared to Barbarella quite a lot (and I’m guessing that’s to both the cinematic version and the original strip) and I can see how the director has certainly tried to look back to these and other psychedelic films of the late 1960s but, for me, it feels like it’s been filtered through a 1980s lens. It’s exactly the kind of movie I would have expected to see ‘back in the day’ in a venue like the Everyman, Hampstead (back when it was a great cinema with essential programming) or the SCALA. One especially vivid sense of 1980s inspired deja vu comes in the opening as we are asked to follow a female voice into the story in precisely the same kind of way as we are invited by Max Von Sydow to do the same at the opening of Europa (which I think was called Zentropa in a lot of countries other than the UK). So, yeah, it hits a certain kind of audience member right in the 80s, I suspect.

The voice interrogating Roxy is what then gives us the story but the flashbacks to the story are also intruded upon by the narrative. You at first think the character is breaking the fourth wall but it soon becomes apparent that she’s speaking to her interrogators from the memory of her experiences and that, occasionally, people in those memories think she’s talking to them... which is kind of a nice, stealth reveal when the realisation sets in. And as I write these words now, I’m struck by the realisation that the post credit scene of the film actually reveals exactly who she’s talking to... so I’m glad I waited until the next day to let it sink in before I started to write this review.

And it’s a joy to watch, not just for its visual ideas but also for its conceptual ideas. For instance, when Roxy crawls under her house she delves into a tin of worm like creatures (obviously contraband) and then lights one as it wiggles around and smokes it like a cigarette. Or a nice visual moment where a table is held up on legs clothed in Wellington boots. And it all looks incredibly beautiful, of course. Completely stagy and fake but, that’s part of it’s charm. And, cliché of an expression or not, the colour palette throughout totally looks like Mario Bava was tripping on some kind of psychedelic drug. There’s a fair amount of rain in the movie too... which is something I quite like to see and, this combined with the heightened, saturated colours certainly gives a nice visual treat. For instance, a shot of Elina Löwensohn rolling around in the mud near the end but with her body and environment bathed in a neon green is pretty interesting.

And that’s me pretty much done with After Blue - Dirty Paradise for the time being... I wouldn’t recommend it to everybody but it’s pretty good for fans of pure cinema where the style is as important (if not more so) than the story content. I also think that when I revisit this one, it’s going to grow on me a lot more and be a much richer experience than my first peek, that’s for sure. And, lets face it, where are you going to find another film with lines like... “I felt Kate Bush in my mouth.” So, yeah, if you get the opportunity, maybe take a look at this one... I’m glad I did. I'm looking forward now to trying to the same director's new Conan movie... where the spelling is changed to Conann and the character is played by five different actresses at different stages of his life.

MCU

Some
Assembly Required

MCU - The Reign
Of Marvel Studios
by Joanna Robinson,
Dave Gonzales & Gavin Edwards
Headline Books
ISBN:  97811472270733

To say that the new book MCU, subtitled The Reign Of Marvel Studios, is an unauthorised look at the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe would be to skew into understatement somewhat. In an introduction, the writers reveal that, after a number of interviews with various players in the history of the famous studio, Disney (who now own the studio) told everyone to stop talking to the writers. I think they must have got wind that this wasn’t going to be a puff piece and, like many of the characters who make up the MCU, would not be pulling any punches.

Perhaps a better subtitle for the novel would be The Rise And Fall Of Marvel Studios because, as the book comes to a close somewhere after the flop that was Ant-Man Quantumania (perhaps deservedly so) and a little before the flop of The Marvels (which was less deserved, as far as I’m concerned), it’s definitely painting a less than idyllic picture of the culture of the studios, where they are today and, well, while 2024 is going to be a weird year for all iterations of the Marvel movies based on their comic books released by different companies (see my 2500th Blog Post here for clarification on that matter), I think they’re going to have to really rework all their plans quite a bit to try and resurrect themselves to return to their former box office pull, it seems to me. A reinvention may well be in order, I suspect.

Okay, so the book is an interesting one. It doesn’t just deal with the MCU branded Marvel movies in the opening of the book... which is split into five multi chapter sections, Phase Zero through to Phase Four, reflecting the chronological stage in time with the marketed ‘phases’ of the Marvel Cinematic Universe... it also deals with other movies (most of which would be swallowed or folded into the MCU much later) and talks about some of the people behind them. Indeed, it’s a well written book and the writers introduce you to key players in the MCU and beyond, introducing people like Avi Arad and the influential Kevin Feige into the mix and showing you just how they fit into things.

And it’s a compelling tome because, while there’s tonnes of stuff I knew from my constant monitoring of Twitter about various stories (well, monitoring is a strong word, the stories just appeared in my timeline because they are well loved movies), it’s all very much encapsulated here in one place and, there’s also plenty of stuff I didn’t know too. For instance, there are some times in the history of these movies where the studio really rolled the dice and risked total bankruptcy to get the resources they needed to make the movies they believed in. Such as mortgaging the rights to most of their own characters for the money to make the first Iron Man... a risk that definitely paid off big time.

And there’s stuff I didn’t know such as the ending of that particular movie being rewritten and recreated in the editing room and with some reshoots to completely change it and give it more of a climactic finale. There’s also the disturbing, to me, element... considering just how good some of the Marvel movies are... of that thing where people off the cuff say... oh, they just made that movie to sell toys. Unfortunately, it turns out that’s completely true in the upper echelons. Iron Man and Hulk were picked to be the stars of the first two MCU films purely because a bunch of kids they play tested thought they would be the coolest characters to buy as toys. Indeed, there’s huge tension throughout most of the history of the studio, since Marvel was bought by Toy Biz before these films, between the creatives and the head suit who didn’t even want female superheroes or characters in the movies because the historical wisdom suggested kids don’t buy female action figures (and, yes, that’s exactly why there were none to few Black Widow toys tying into the first couple of Avengers movies, with the character being replaced in play sets with other figures riding her motorbike). Thankfully, it transpired that Feige and others managed to push back on the inclusion of female characters and a fair few other issues so that, while the majority of the Marvel movies were definitely kickstarted for what they call their ‘toyetic’ value, quality films were still made from the beginnings of these projects.

Another thing which surprised me was the way the artists drawing spectacular visions of Marvel characters out before each film’s conception were dictating scenes which would be in the movies, rather than the other way around. I’m surprised that none of the writers of this book realised (or at least stated that they did) that this is actually a parallel to the way respected Marvel maven Stan Lee used to write the original comics, what he called the ‘Marvel method’, where after a basic storyline was given, the artists would be free to come up with their own panels and Stan and others would then put the dialogue on over the bubbles and tie it all together retrospectively.

And there’s a lot of stuff that people who have followed the studio’s trials and tribulations will recognise in some form. For instance, Edward Norton and Joss Whedon don’t particularly come off very well here. And you get the feeling that some, if not many, lessons were learned from writer/director Edgar Wright’s original, legendary Ant-Man script... which led to some bitterness, for sure. The effect of Covid on the later shoots is also detailed, as are the various spats between the studio and it’s creative talent both behind and in front of the camera. James Gunn’s firing and re-hiring, for example... or the row about simultaneous streaming and theatrical releases as a result of the pandemic that rightly brought actors like Scarlett Johansson out to start law suits against the company. Not to mention the bankruptcy of various special effects companies like Rhythm And Hues, put out of business by being locked into absurdly agreed, low fees for effects work that was, for companies like Marvel, a constantly moveable feast. I suspect that’s still playing out right now because, hmm, I haven’t seen the third Spiderverse movie debuting this April as originally stated... not to mention the number of MCU titles now pushed back to next year.

Another thing I found interesting was the reveal on various intricacies and machinations of just who Spider-Man belongs to in any given film (it’s Sony) and how the MCU movies which feature him were actually negotiated as big profit makers for Sony rather than Marvel, who were helping to bankroll them (although they were, themselves, raking in money on the toys associated with these films). And I also learned about a newish thing instigated by Marvel for character creators called the Special Characters Contract... and how that is also sometimes abused to maintain low payments to some of the creators of the original characters in the comic book universe.

And that’s me done with MCU - The Reign Of Marvel Studios, I think. It’s not ever going to be able to look at all the product they’ve put out in any great detail (it's already well over 400 pages long) but the casual reader like myself will find that it’s very well written and lays out how some of these movies and deals are put together in an easy to understand fashion. And pay heed, future readers. After the end notes of the book start, don’t just assume you’ve come to the end because, to mimic the style of the post and mid-end credits scenes in the MCU movies themselves, the writers have hidden an extra chapter right in the middle of this section... which is a nice touch. I really enjoyed this book and, all I can say is... I hope the writers would consider putting together a similarly themed tome for the DC Cinematic Universe at some point. That’s also a book I’d love to read.

Mr. Vampire Saga IV

Tatty Taoists

Mr. Vampire Saga IV
aka Geung see suk suk
aka Uncle Vampire
Directed by Ricky Lau
Hong Kong 1988
Golden Harvest/Eureka
Blu Ray Zone B

Wow, this is terrible. Now I actually quite liked the third film in the Mr. Vampire series, Mr. Vampire III (reviewed here), even though it had no vampires in it, hopping or otherwise. Mr. Vampire Saga IV, the third of the four films in the Hopping Mad - The Mr. Vampire Sequels Blu Ray set from Eureka Masters Of Cinema, sees a return to the hopping vampires as the main supernatural menace in this movie but, alas, it’s just not a good film.

The story is about two Taoist monks and their respective apprentices (one male apprentice and one female, throwing in the inevitable comedy love interest vibes) who are neighbours and who hate each other. After a series of makeshift ‘duels’ between the two masters, such as a food fight and a couple of scenes where they possess each other’s bodies, the titular vampires get loose and the four of them, plus a kid who they are trying to save from eternal damnation after being bitten, have to defend the two homes against a bunch of vampires, including one genuinely aggressive and powerful one, despite all that hopping (I suspect it was this guy that Kim Newman must have based the hopping vampire in his first Anno Dracula novel on).

Like the last movie in the series, the film is quite fast paced and, more or less, just goes from one comedy action set piece to another without much let up and, while that somehow worked in the previous film’s favour, I have to say that it really didn’t help that this film wasn’t, in any way, funny to me. I rarely find slapstick funny unless it’s done really well (such as The Marx Brothers or early period Woody Allen) but, even so, I didn’t have one occasion in this one where I found myself even cracking a smile, to be honest.

That being said, some of the stunts and the timings of the comedy duels and the acrobatics of the four main characters are certainly to be admired. You won’t be doing very well in one of these movies if you are in any way unfit and the actors and actresses (including a more effective scene with a lady playing an aggressive fox spirit) are all more than up to the task. It looks like they’re doing many, probably all, of their own stunts in this one too, including athletic jumps, back flips and other, probably quite dangerous stuff. So, like I said, you do have to admire some of this stuff even if, as in my case, it isn’t quite your cup of tea.

Like the previous installments, the music is unsubtle and broadly comic which, I suspect, doesn’t really help things. I’m guessing a more subtle, less ‘on the nose’ score might well have made this fourth installment more palatable to me but, as it is, it just didn’t do it any favours, that’s for sure.

So apologies but, it’s another very short review for one of these films as, yeah, Mr. Vampire Saga IV just didn’t do much of anything for me. That being said, I am quite looking forward to the next in the box set because the main actor from the previous three movies, who is very good, is in it. However, I am slightly suspicious that Vampire Vs Vampire is not one of the Mr. Vampire sequels at all so, goodness knows what it’s doing in this set. I’ll take a look soon and let you know, I guess.

Argylle

Diamond Geezah!

Argylle
Directed by Matthew Vaughn
USA/UK
2024 Apple Films
UK Cinema Print

Now I loved Matthew Vaughn’s first Kingsman film (reviewed here) and, after seeing the trailer for Argylle, it looked like a movie tailor-made for me and very much in the same kind of ballpark. And then the warnings started coming in... I mean, really bad word of mouth about it. Indeed, it seems to be both a critical and financial bomb which is really not going to do the director any favours. Still, I soldiered on to the cinema because the trailer really had been enticing, in the hopes that I was out of step with other audience members... remembering that some of the best films made met with a similar lack of enthusiasm.

And, wow, all I can say is... the kinds of people who are not appreciating Argylle are obviously the same kinds of audiences who don’t appreciate films like Barbarella, Modesty Blaise, Our Man Flint and any other number of psychedelic masterpieces you could mention. This is seriously good cinema and I can only hope that, since it’s made by Apple, they see fit to give it a proper physical release because I want to grab the Blu Ray of this to show some people as soon as possible.

Now, a full on blow by blow of the plot would possibly spoil things for the slower thinkers in the audience but, I feel I can at least say as much as the trailer gives away, to give a flavour of the story. Secret agent Argylle, played by Henry Cavill, is the typical James Bond (more like a halfway house between Derek Flint and Matt Helm) who opens the film with a particualarly strong dance, shoot and chase scene.... before it’s revealed to the audience that he’s actually the lead character in the book series of successful writer Elly Conway, played by Bryce Dallas Howard. That’s the first twist. The second twist, also revealed in the trailer, is that she meets a guy played by Sam Rockwell on a train journey and he really is a secret agent, who is then trying to save her life as an evil agency wants what’s in her head. Oh... and she has a funny cat which she carries around in a satchel. And that’s all you’re getting in terms of plot from me. There are more twists and turns and I’m guessing most people will definitely see them all coming long before they happen... but that doesn’t stop this thing from being a very watchable movie.

The film turns into a funny, deadly, glamourous and certainly colourful action spy movie which, not for even one second (I’m glad to say), takes itself even remotely seriously. And perhaps that’s what turns some people off... the film loses contact with reality at some point and the tone shifts into an absolutely stylish mix of psychedelia and silliness... which is right up my street. I do apporeciate silly situations and even silly people when the right ones enter my life (Hi Katrin!) and, this movie has it in spades, it has to be said.

There’s a whole host of famous actors in this too, including Samuel L. Jackson, Bryan Cranston, John Cena and even the great Sofia Boutella... and they all do a good job here playing things as straight as they need to doing with this kind of coherent brand of ridiculous shenanigans. Howard and Rockwell are both especially good in this one, it has to be said.

Also great is Lorne Balfe’s quite beautiful and sweeping score which, I really wouldn’t have guessed was by this composer at all. Alas, the damn thing isn’t out in any kind of format to date (not even a proper CD) so I’m not going to be able to listen to this one as a stand alone experience anytime soon, I’m guessing. Which is a shame and, once again, shows the short sightedness of the people on these movies who make that kind of decision.

All in all, I’d have to say I had a very good time with Argylle. The tonal shift from ‘just about credible’ to full-on bonkers is probably going to put off many people (as I think is evidenced by the box office) but I loved the film, especially (and without trying to give too much away), the ‘Tommy Crown’ coloured smoke, dance assault scene and the ‘oil skating’ scene, both of which were big hits for me. I don’t understand why, as is already clear, some people aren’t able to embrace this kind of audacious cinematic spectacle but, there you have it, it’s getting bad reviews and doing poor business but... I don’t care. I loved it and I think people who are into 1960s ‘camp/spoof’ cinema especially will have a good time with it. 

87th Precinct

Revellers
And Carellas

87th Precinct
Airdate 1961 -1962
30 episodes
Timeless Media Group

I’ve never read an Ed McBain novel but he’s probably best known in literary terms for writing the many 87th Precinct books over the decades... from which there have been many movie adaptations and ‘inspired by’ credits... such as the novel King’s Ransom forming the basis of Akira Kurosawa’s High And Low. They even used some of the stories from his 87th Precinct books for TV shows, such as the odd episode or two of Columbo.

Ed McBain is also the pen name of one Evan Hunter, who wrote film and TV scripts such as The Birds with Alfred Hitchcock. As I said though, I’ve not read his books (yet, is there a nice big omnibus?) and I don’t know that much about him. But I knew of him mostly because, when I was a kid, my dad used to grab a lot of books from the library. Seemed like he’d get through quite a few books a week when travelling to and from work and also in his rare downtimes and, yeah, he read a lot of Ed McBain’s stuff. So I was absolutely delighted when, early last year, I stumbled upon a little known TV show based on McBain’s 87th Precinct. And what’s more, it had actually made it onto DVD in the US so, I imported one over for my dad’s birthday and sat down to watch the first episode with him, totally getting hooked on them myself too. We watched an episode a night and got through them in a month with my only puzzlement being, why the heck was this not picked up for a second series?

There are thirty stand alone episodes, of which, many are based on the original novels and some of which also have a screenplay by McBain. And they’re mostly pretty good. They are, like I imagine the novels are, ensemble pieces. Police procedurals involving a number of police detectives who work in the fictional 87th Precinct. The series takes four of the characters (another turns up for a single episode late in the show’s one season run) with some episodes getting equal play from all four characters and other episodes highlighting one or two of the four but, still with a little help from the others. And, there are an absolutely brilliant bunch of actors playing this lot too...

The top billed lead is Robert Lansing as Detective Steve Carella. I’m sure he’s best remembered by many now for the single episode of Star Trek he appeared in, Assignment: Earth, where he played mysterious intergalactic secret agent Gary Seven (one of my favourite episodes as a kid). That episode was supposed to be a stealth pilot episode for a new series highlighting the adventures of Mr. Seven but, alas, that did not come to pass. 

Then there’s Ronald Harper as Detective Bert Kling. Some may remember him for his later stint as Virdon on the TV show version of Planet Of The Apes. Next, my favourite of the bunch, Norman Fell as Detective Meyer Meyer, another actor who’s been in tonnes of stuff but finally found fame in the US as their version of George from the US versions of Man About The House and George And Mildred (got no idea what they were called over there, sorry). Finally there’s Gregory Walcott as Detective Roger Havilland... who I’m told is not written like the corrupt, unliked cop he is in the books but, heck, he’s pretty good in this regardless.There are a few other regulars but these are the main ones.

Also joining them for four episodes, randomly spaced throughout the season, is the great Gena Rowlands playing Teddy, Carella’s deaf/mute wife. She’s pretty good in the episodes she’s in and a few of the other spouses and girlfriends of the gang are also very watchable. Plus, there the usual slew of people who were guest stars almost, in that they were already famous, popping up for single episodes... such as Robert Culp and Victor Jory (who played The Shadow earlier in his career)... not to mention various people who hadn’t quite reached a level of fame yet such as Peter Falk, Bernie Hamilton and Sidney Klugman (who I used to love in Cagney & Lacey).

The plots are all great and it took the episode based on King's Ransom for me to realise just how much Kurosawa expanded and changed the material (and maybe the TV show did too. for all I know)... using the same story idea but making something completely different from the source (no train sequence or pink smoke in this one either). But what did surprise me, keeping in mind the years in which it was broadcast, is how gritty and edgy the show can be. 

For instance, in the first episode, Robert Culp is playing a very modern serial killer with a fair degree of mental illness and, while it’s a cliché these days, possibly... it’s certainly a step up in overt craziness compared to what other films like, say, Psycho were expressing at the time. And, quite often but not always, there’s no redemption for some of these characters, including the inevitable episode based on a well respected ex-87th Precinct cop pulling a string of brutal robberies.

Also, what really impressed me was the acting ability and imagination of the four leads. For example, someone may be scribbling an address down from a book held by another character while they’re in mid conversation and one character may close the book thinking the other has finished noting it down and then the other character will grab it and reopen it to the right page as he’s still talking, to finish writing down the lead (that one courtesy of Lansing). And there’s lots of little acting details like this which really show a bunch of thespians absolutely at the top of their game and all pulling together to bring a high level of believability and authenticity to their roles.. I think McBain used to ride around with the cops to get an ear for the dialogue and an understanding of police procedure and it really wouldn’t surprise me if some of these actors did the same here to get into their roles.

One last thing... the majority of the show is scored by Morton Stevens, who also supplied a superb piece of hard hitting, main title music. Why has this thing not been released on CD? A few of the shows also had scores by other people including a young Jerry Goldsmith on one. Morton Stevens would, of course, go on to become one of Mr. Goldsmith’s most trusted orchestrators.

And that’s me done on 87th Precinct. If you like cop shows and police procedurals then you’ll find this is a brilliant show. And with its hard hitting stories and sharp humour, I’m surprised it’s not better known. This one gets a solid recommendation from me any day of the week.

The Scarlet Claw

Sanity Claws

The Scarlet Claw
Directed by Roy William Neill
USA 1944
Universal Blu Ray Zone B

The eighth of the series of wonderful Sherlock Holmes movies finds Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson without the aid of Mary Gordon as housekeeper Mrs. Hudson, for once. This is because the story of The Scarlet Claw... which is one of the concoctions of the studio writers as opposed to being based on anything Sir Arthur Conan Doyle actually wrote, asides from the main protagonists, of course... is set not in England but Canada.

This film more closely aligns to the kind of set up of the classic Universal Monster movies of the time (indeed, Rathbone had already played the lead role in Son Of Frankenstein, reviewed here) as it starts off with a woman with her throat ripped out, ringing a church bell for help while, on this dark and foggy night, the rest of the village of La Mort Rouge (yeah, the Red Death... great name for a village, I guess) are hiding in their beds or in the local pub. The rumours have started up again, midst a bunch of nightly sheep killings (found with their throats torn out) that the famous monster of La Mort Rouge has once again returned to prowl the village. So, yeah, this werewolf sounding premise is certainly in keeping with their current flock of horror movies at Universal and, luckily for most in the village, Sherlock Holmes and his trusty Watson happen to be in the area, 12 miles over, to attend an international meeting of The Occult Society... primarily to debunk the idea that there are various sinister phenomena at work in the world (something certainly in keeping with the spirit of Holmes, of course, but Conan Doyle would surely have found himself standing in strong disagreement with his most popular creation on this issue).

Lord Penrose, who opposes Holmes involvement, happens to be married to the lady who perished at the start of the film and, against his wishes, Holmes and Watson soon find themselves working the case in La Mort Rouge, primarily due to the delivery of a letter asking for Holmes assistance, sent to them by the murder victim but arriving long after she has left this mortal coil.

This one’s a real good one, yet again (did they ever make any bad ones in this series) and there are lots of village pubs and scenes of sneaking around on the boggy mires... I suspect the writers were asked to come up with something similar in tone and spirit to the famous Hound Of The Baskervilles, which had kick started this franchise when 20th Century Fox started it (you can find my review here). This would make sense for Universal, when you think of all the fog shrouded, stalking monsters of their horror output.

This was the third of the series to include actor Gerald Hamer in its cast and he does a good job here in a more expanded role. He would also be in a couple more of these films after this one and the series certainly seems to have a good stock of actors regularly called upon to fill these roles out. He’s just one of many who interact with Rathbone and Bruce in some wonderful scenes with the usual amazing performances. 

I remember discovering once how Warner Oland used to pause when speaking in a conversation when he was playing Charlie Chan to give an authenticity to a character who would have been trying to work out in his head the best way of saying his thoughts in English. Rathbone is similarly thorough in his performance of Holmes and this is another one where he proves his worth as an actor. Look at the intensity of his gaze at various people when conversations are going on around him. He perfectly conveys someone who is watching everyone like a hawk... studying and noticing any and every clue and always alert for any giveaway a suspect may accidentally drop in his words.

And Nigel Bruce is on his usual fine form as both the bumbling comic relief (probably a little more overtly here, even, than usual) but also someone who is willing to share the dangers of Holmes’ cases and, indeed, even manages to inadvertently save Holmes’ life at one point. There are some wonderful conversations he has with the locals including a long set of tongue twisters about whether a certain sound made by a car horn is a honk or a hoot. Bruce finally concludes “I don’t give two hoots whether it’s a honk or a hoot!” Rathbone’s lines are no less ostentatious but he also delivers them very well, making lines like “His orgy of crime is not complete!” seem positively common in their usage.

The murders in this one are committed by an ex-actor who goes about disguising himself as various characters and commits the murders using a five pronged garden instrument to mimic the claws of the mythical beast... probably the very same prop, I suspect, as the one used in a similar fashion two years later in She-Wolf Of London (reviewed here and a film which, incidentally, included Dennis Hoey in its cast playing a very similar role to Inspector Lestrade, who doesn’t turn up in The Scarlet Claw, again... because it’s set in Canada).

One of this murderous actor’s roles is a ghostly apparition which, his clothes covered in a phosphorescent coating, looks particularly effective as he stalks Holmes on the marshes (I’m surprised Universal didn’t use this ‘special’ effect more often). It’s unusual to see somebody else donning the disguises in a Sherlock Holmes film but, by the end of the picture, Rathbone does indeed adopt a disguise in order to catch the villain... made up to look like one of the other actors in the cast, although I did spot it beforehand this time around.

And that’s me done with The Scarlet Claw, I think. Another mini masterpiece in this amazing franchise of movies, one of the best series of films about a running character that’s been committed to celluloid. And, yes, although it has its detractors, not least because of the way the source material has been changed (including the obvious contemporisation of the characters), I still believe these are the best Sherlock Holmes films to date and are a real treat for all fans of the art of cinema. Once again Rathbone concludes with a patriotic quote from Churchill about the importance of Canada, “the linchpin of the English speaking world” and, yeah, it’s clichéd but even that brings a smile to the face at the end.

Mr. Vampire III

Frying Tonight

Mr. Vampire III
aka Ling wan sin sang
aka Mr. Supernatural
Directed by Ricky Lau
Hong Kong 1987
Golden Harvest/Eureka
Blu Ray Zone B


Well this one is pretty great but, before I get on with giving you a short flavour of this movie, I have to first give you a word of caution about Mr. Vampire III. As the second film presented in a box set entitled Hopping Mad - The Mr. Vampire Sequels, you might expect to see some of the trademark hopping vampires in this movie. But you don’t... there’s not even a single vampire that enters the story at any point here, let alone a hopping one. A warning might have been conscientiously provided by Eureka on the Blu Ray box, one might have thought.

While the main actor from the previous two films, Ching-Ying Lam, returns as a character with the same name, who may or may not be the Taoist priest from the first movie (the action returns to ancient times for this movie, preceding the action of the second film, which was set in the 1980s), there is little to connect the two stories.

Having said all that, this movie starts off pretty strong with a comedy action packed opening sequence which then dovetails into... lots more of the same. In fact, one of the strengths of this movie over the other two is that it’s almost non-stop action with just the odd pause to explain to the audience what’s going on and to set up the next scene... but without lingering too much on the story mechanics and, thankfully, without taking itself too seriously in that department.

Okay, so no vampires but the film starts with a wandering Taoist priest, played by Richard Ng, who is conning a family by pretending to exorcise their very real ghosts for money. He uses his own ghosts, who collaborate with him to get the money and then are ‘exorcised’ safely in a taoist prison (in this case an umbrella he carries around from town to town) once the con has been performed. However, almost as soon as this comedy action sequence is complete, the real ghosts who have been bothering the homeowner arrive, a whole clan of them, who kick the priest and his ghosts out. So they flee to the next town where...

They are temporarily mistaken for horse thieves by a group of people protected by the wise Taoist monk played by Ching-Ying Lam. It’s not long before the real band of horse thieves attack the village and are revealed as black magic sorcerers and demons. From that point on and for the rest of the film, it’s a battle of wits... but mostly a battle of cleverly choreographed kung fu style moves, as the comedy and action sequences land one after another and, with this many going on, at least a few should be pretty entertaining. And I’d have to say that, yeah, it worked for me. Despite the absence of the titular hopping vampire, this one was a fast and energetic blend of similar elements to the first film but, done much better and this one didn’t drag in the slightest.

Lam and Ng are great as their respective Taoist monk characters and they make a great pairing here. Unfortunately the music is played for the comedy again, rather than supporting the comedy already inherent and, although there is a credited composer, Chin-Yung Shing, I also noticed in the credits that the use of an entity called the Cavendish Music Library was tapped so, I’m going to have to assume that some of this very broad comedy scoring was just needle dropped in (I hope).

And that’s really all I need to say about Mr. Vampire III, I think. The acting is not subtle (apart from Lam and Ng, I would say) and the basic story is not going to tax anyone or give them much they wouldn’t expect... except maybe the partially deep fried ghost who comes out of hot oil and attacks Ng, looking like a deep fried version of The Oily Maniac (reviewed here). But the film works in spite of all this and I had a good time with it. I’m quite looking forward to the next one now.

My 2500th Blog Post

 

Where Are All
The Heroes?

2500th Blog

For my 2500th Blog Post I thought I’d have a look at the current cinematic battleground for two competing comic book companies, Marvel and DC... giving my views on just what is happening with these two behemoth’s in 2024. And I don’t mean specifically movies based on comic books (which can be a whole other thing)... I mean super hero movies, which are the dominant strand of that genre, to be sure.

So... is superhero fatigue really setting in?

I know it did for some people around about seven years ago, when regular Marvel/DC consuming friends and acquaintances I know just stopped going to see either company’s movies. I am, I guess, a hanger on but, I think it’s about to get really interesting sometime next year. So, musicals and westerns are two genres I can think of off-hand which were huge with cinema audiences at one stage but, though they’re still occasionally made, the box office for these things dropped considerably (some decades ago) and getting one greenlit in either category seems like the exception to the rule these days.

Now, here’s the thing... Marvel and DC haven’t got a lot going on this year. DC are busy turning their back on all the good work they’ve been doing for the last decade or so by rebooting the franchise completely (a foolish decision in my humble opinion), sometime for a 2025 Superman movie to kick it all off again. So that means the only film they have coming, in October of this year (at time of writing) is the stand alone, non DC universe sequel Joker - Folie à Deux. Marvel are kind of in a similar situation in that they have only one pure Marvel Cinematic Universe movie coming up this year, a sequel to two non-MCU movies... namely Deadpool 3. Now, there are also three of Sony’s sideways Marvel spin offs coming in 2024 but they’re all based on supporting characters from another character’s comics (all of them being Spider-Man, in this case) and so they’re a) not closely associated with the MCU brand of Marvel and b) not exactly top tier characters... so we have movies of Madame Web, Kraven The Hunter (why, for goodness sake, do this classic Spider-Man villain without Spider-Man?) and, what may possibly be the only successful one of the lot... Venom 3.

And none of those are guaranteed successes (even Deadpool 3, if they handle it badly). Now, the studios are making it known (probably with a degree of exaggeration) that the writer and actor strikes affected their plans badly but... I don’t think it’s as simple as that. I think what’s going on is bad box office. Off the top of my head, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3 (reviewed here) was the only superhero movie that made any real money (enough to be considered a strong success to the company, at least). Other live action Marvel and DC movies of 2023 such as Shazam - Fury Of The Gods (reviewed here), Ant Man And The Wasp - Quantumania (reviewed here), The Flash (reviewed here), The Marvels (reviewed here), Blue Beetle (reviewed here) and Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom (reviewed here)... were all big failures from what I can make out.

But hold on a minute... I say big failures but I’m talking about money because, as far as I’m concerned, we got some of the most interesting superhero movies of the lot last year. I mean, okay, The Flash and Quantumania were pretty dire but, all of those other ones I mentioned, actually had a lot going for them (very surprisingly, in the case of Blue Beetle) but, it doesn’t matter because most of them got a hard, critical mauling (not from me) and did terrible business (again, relative to the greedy expectations of the companies bankrolling them, at least).

So I’m guessing the lesson learned by these two giant corporations is... time for a soft reboot (or in DC’s case, a hard reboot, it would seem) to try and get things back on track. After all, quality movies do not make for quality box office and, in the case of the 2023 slate of superhero movies... that certainly was true. So cinematically, 2024 is going to feel very strange and desolate. I’m guessing there will be a lot more bigger budget horror movies stepping up to fill that superhero void and I’m guessing that these will also start to receive mixed to negative reviews before long (horror movies definitely seem to have a cyclic nature in terms of their box office success from decade to decade... usually when the world governments are having some kind of crisis, which means their box office foothold has been particularly strong for a while now).

Are we, then, finally reaching the end of an era for the superhero genre? The fatigue that keeps getting predicted? Well, I hope not but then again, in the period between the 1930s to the mid 1960s, I bet people thought westerns and musicals would be popular forever. So who can say just how things will roll but, beware, things like physical media releases could be in jeopardy too if these superhero movies continue to fail and studio heads (as they often do) see this as a sign of certain revenue streams failing because of the quality of the product (as opposed to what is just a lack of interest in that product). Time will tell, I guess.

In the meantime, that marked my 2500th blog post so, whether you’ve read all of them or just this one, thanks so much for taking the time to peruse.

How To Lie With Maps

Co-ordinating Deceit

How To Lie With Maps
3rd Edition
by Mark Monmonier
The University Of Chicago Press
ISBN:  9780226435923

Just a quick shout out of a review to a pretty interesting and cool book I got given for Christmas by a very special friend. This is apparently the third edition of Mark Monmonier’s book How To Lie With Maps and it starts off with an introduction by the author as to why a revised edition is actually needed... which of course takes into account such things as digital/interactive maps and then, just for a little while, falls into what I like to call ‘the academic trap’, by setting out what the book intends to do. Personally, I could do without this element of telling before you show but, hey ho, academics!

It is, however, an excellent book and it certainly does what it says on the tin... or in this case what it shows on the front cover, which features a wonderful illustration of a map showing a big area coloured up to represent the silhouette of Pinocchio. Which is a nice touch.

The book is a handy summary of the ways in which people not only lie regularly with maps, such as exaggerating what is in an area or using scale to showcase what is required by the cartographer’s client... but also looks at the ways in which maps deceive when that isn’t necessarily the intention of the map maker. And it even makes a very good point from early on that the very nature of a map means it is absolutely imperative to lie to effectively, or even adequately, communicate what is being depicted... and I suspect it’s damn near impossible not to. So, for example, a church icon would not, in real life, be a huge and massive building that big... it’s exaggerated for the map to clearly show its presence.

And there are certainly a whole host of falsehoods thrown up, some of which I’d certainly never considered. For instance, just the idea of a flat map representing an area of a spherical world means there is going to be some shonkiness with the representation unless you can find a way around that. And even the nature of the lenses used when taking ariel photographs means some hefty distortion is certainly going to occur when you finally see it as a flat image.

And all kinds of devious deceit is deliberately thrown up in terms of things like army propaganda (and how to mislead an enemy with your maps). An interesting set of maps of a certain section of Russia from different decades in each specific atlas shows places that shift location, for example. It also looks at the ways map makers get their source materials and how various cartographers may try to copy that. I’ve always known about things called ‘trap streets’, for example... the practice of putting in a place that doesn’t exist so if a rival map seller uses your copyrighted map as their source, you can easily call them on it. I didn’t know the correct name of them though and I also didn’t realise, due to legal precedents, that this practice had stopped sometime in the 1990s (Yay, I can start nicking maps again!). And the book is well written in a fairly entertaining manner too, such as on this very subject where the author states “The euphemism for this type of compilation was ‘editing the competition’ but the legal term is copyright infringement...”, which I thought was very good.

What I didn’t expect to find was a specific printing phenomenon which I’ve known about and tried to compensate and steer clear of for years, being as I’m a graphic designer by trade, can also lead to accidental occurrences of deceit. Bearing in mind grey scales can be used as a tool to give a hierarchy of information on a map (as well as colour versions too, of course), then it does make sense that something which I’ve always called ‘dot gain’ in printing (and something which the author calls spread), where a colour or shade comes out darker than required because of the actual act of ink pressing against paper, means you have to be extra careful about trying to control that element when you are printing a map. Not to mention choosing tones and colours that are able to retain that hierarchical meaning when they are photocopied and given to someone.

And I think I’ll stop here but, I have to say that I found How To Lie With Maps to be an absolutely fascinating read and it certainly gave me something new to think about. It will be of especial interest to those who make their trade in the arts of course (because making a map is certainly an art form in itself) but I think it’s a fascinating read whether you are familiar with the kinds of decisions and specifics required to build a map or not. Definitely worth a look, this one.

Mr. Vampire II

Top Of The Hops

Mr. Vampire II
aka Geung see ga zuk
Directed by Ricky Lau
Hong Kong 1986
Golden Harvest/Eureka
Blu Ray Zone B


Well then, those hopping vampires from Mr. Vampire (reviewed by me here) are back for what is, it has to be said, a far more enjoyable sequel. Also back for the imaginatively titled Mr. Vampire II is director Ricky Lau, along with some of the original cast playing different roles... such as Ching-Ying Lam, presumably playing an ancestor of the Van Helsing-like character he played in the first one and Moon Lee, again playing a different role. This is because the events in this one take place in contemporary times to when this sequel was made, hundreds of years after the setting of the first one.

The action starts when a bunch of amateur archeologists, played for extremely broad comedy (as are most of the roles in this slapstick packed movie, to be fair), dig up three vampire corpses with the magical scrolls that keep them out of action still sealed to their foreheads. They are obviously a family of vampires - mother, father and son - although the grave robbers obviously have no idea what they are and think they are just incredibly well preserved, ancient relics. Of course, when two of the team take the vampire kid to show an interested buyer, his scroll gets off and he escapes into the night, to make friends and have adventures with two of the local children. Meanwhile, the one left guarding the two other vampires also manages to accidentally remove their scrolls and more chaos ensures. When Lam’s character gets wind of what’s going on, more chaos ensues as the three different story strands come together, the majority of the film being entirely an excuse for comical stunt work as the various factions try to eradicate the vampires.

And... okay, after being more familiar with what to expect since watching the first film, around about the same time last year, thanks again to Eureka Master Of Cinema, I was a lot more happier switching my brain off for this one... not that there’s even much plot to speak of, much less than the first film even. This one is the first film in Eureka’s recently released slipcase edition Hopping Mad - The Mr. Vampire Sequels, which collects the four direct sequels to the first movie, although not any of the spin offs or remakes (which I’m hoping they’re saving for another set, maybe next year?).

It’s fairly fun and it pretty much just more of the same from the first film, relocated to a contemporary setting and, perhaps wisely, without the complicated ‘ghost girl’ sub plot of the original. There’s nothing too clever about the shot design but the choreography of the comedy fight sequences is great and, I have to say, this particular 2K scan from what must have been a quite good source looks, well, possibly the best I’ve seen a Chinese movie looking on Blu Ray, for sure. It’s crystal clear and the colours don’t quite seem as blown out and wishy washy as I was expecting them to be.

Everyone does a fine job here and, although the comedy is a bit too obvious for me, it played fine and I was fairly entertained. There’s even a metatextual joke involving producer Sammo Hung in the movie which, I would probably have found funnier if I had seen some of the films he stars in but at least I, you know, ‘got it’. The music could have maybe been a little less lighter and ‘obviously comic’ but that’s just me, I’m sure nobody else is going to complain about that element. 

 And that’s me done with Mr. Vampire II, I think. A short review, perhaps, but it was a lot more fun than I had any right to expect from it and it’s probably a good thing too... there are three more sequels in this set to sit through. I’ll be sure and let you know how that goes, right here.

Whispers Underground

Sub Stack

Whispers Underground
by Ben Aaronovitch
Gollancz
ISBN: 9780575097667

Whispers Underground, by Ben Aaronivitch, is the third of this writer’s Rivers Of London series and, I have to say, I really do like this set of novels (and thankfully, there are a fair few of them still to explore, since I caught up with these late in the game and, as far as I can tell, he’s still writing them). A quick summation for those who are not familiar with the series... these novels deal with the exploits of a British copper called Peter Grant with various other supporting characters and are kinda like Harry Potter for adults... if Harry Potter worked in a small, barely tolerated magical division of the British police.

The first novel (reviewed here) found Peter and his unfortunate partner Lesley, stumbling into this section of the force due to various things which happen to him and he is taken under the wing of a centuries old (the age is doubtful and not revealed as yet in the books I’ve read) teacher called Nightingale. I say that Lesley is unfortunate because, during that first adventure, her face fell off and no amount of plastic surgery, to date, has been able to fix this (at least by the third book). However, in the second novel, Moon Over Soho (reviewed here), she demonstrates a similar gift for magic as Peter by the end of that one and so is back in this one as a full fledged apprentice, staying at The Folly with Peter, Nightingale and sinister housekeeper Molly.

This one is more of the same but it also, again, has a slightly different flavour to it, starting off with the murder, on a tube train track, of the son of an American ambassador and leading to somewhere I really wasn’t expecting... but which is a great ‘take’ on the title of the novel by the time you get there. While the previous one had more of an emphasis on action than the first, this one dials some off that back again but it’s never less than entertaining. The ambassador’s son was stabbed to death with the shard of a broken pot and, because Peter is becoming sensitive to the remnants of magic, he realises that magic had been used to fashion the particular pot that is identified as the murder weapon. So things go from there as he joins the homicide squad but also separately investigates the magical stuff while the investigation is ongoing.

He’s hampered and helped in this by a wealth of new characters, some of whom I’m guessing may return in later books, like a female FBI agent who inevitably learns of the existence of magic, in no uncertain terms, while she’s tagging along and following Peter and Lesley in their investigations. And there are some really nice sequences to this, set underground in both the tube system in London and the sewer system... and even deeper than that when Peter is left for dead in a collapsed tunnel made by an ‘earthbender’ who can burrow through solid ground at speed.

The time is a lot more compressed than I thought it would be in relation to the previous stories. It’s clear that while this is the third novel, the events of the first book only took place about a year before. The book is structured over the space of one week on the approach to Christmas day, with section headings taking on the name of the day and chapter headings created from the areas of London in which Peter finds himself at any given time (the book is told completely from first person narrative stance by the main protagonist). Also, although the main plot is nothing to do with the previous novel, which left things dangling in the air in terms of the villain of the piece for that one, there are certainly lingering encounters at two points with that particular menace... the writer dangling these scenes because he obviously doesn’t want the reader to forget that villain, who is obviously going to be a kind of ‘arch nemesis’ for Peter, Lesley and Nightingale at some future date.

And, as the others in the series, there’s a fair few bits of pop culture reference thrown into the mix. For example, the elvish language as created by J. R. R. Tolkien turns up on one of the pots... and being as it’s not the ‘real elvish’ language of the world of these books, it’s only Peter who recognises it enough to get it translated. There’s also a nice reference to the British horror movie Death Line, which is also set in the London Underground system and which I still, amazingly, haven’t got around to watching. And I was also pleased, bearing in mind when this book was written (before the Chibnal era) that Peter and his family all gather and watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special each year.

And I think I’ve revealed as much of Whispers Underground as I want to other than to say that, in the last chapter, there's a nice hook when one of Peter’s new ‘colleagues’ tells him about a ‘talking fox’ she has been communicating with. So I’m guessing that’s a nice little set up for something coming in a later novel, for sure. I absolutely loved Whispers Underground and will definitely continue on to the next one at some point soon... hopefully this year if time permits.

The Beekeeper

Going Apiary

The Beekeeper
Directed by David Ayer
USA/UK
2024 Miramax
UK Cinema Print

Not to be confused with the many, many movies which have had the same title over the years (why do Hollywood keep doing this?), The Beekeeper is the latest Jason Statham action movie and, it’s one of his better ones, I’d have to say.

The plot is simple, Statham, who has retired and is an apiarist, rents a barn for his bees from a benevolent lady who is the only person who has ever shown him kindness. Then she gets scammed out of all her money by an online fraudster, part of a huge team of them working in group premises dotted around America, including the 2 million dollars she was managing for a charity. So she shoots herself. 

Enter her daughter, played by Emmy Raver-Lampman, an FBI agent who is trying to crack the gang and follow back the chain but, she’s having no luck. However, Statham is no ordinary retiree... he used to be a ‘beekeeper’... a shady organisation working above the law (most of the FBI and CIA don’t even know these people exist) who are there to ‘protect the hive’ and redress the balance when injustice is done. So, he goes on a rampage, killing and destroying his way to the top of the chain, pursued by the criminals themselves (for a while, they are mostly just trying to stay alive), the various law enforcement agencies, one of the active beekeepers and even his friend’s daughter, as he follows the chain right to the top.

And it’s great. Firstly, this is a solid Statham action thriller but it’s a heck of a lot grimmer and relentless (and wildly entertaining) compared to a fair amount of his other films. And the tone extends right back into Statham’s character, Adam Clay, who is not a typical anti-hero for this actor and couldn’t, for a moment, be mistaken for a bunch of his other, almost interchangeable action roles. This is one of those movies that shows that Statham really is as good an actor as he is a likeable personality (and star), his social skills being dialled back down almost to zero (even with people he likes) as he plays a somewhat unstoppable killing machine.

And that’s the other thing about this character... he doesn’t come out of any scrap in this badly, apart from taking some damage in a big fight with a truly tough guy played by Taylor James near the end of the film. He’s one of those invincible people who can walk into a room filled to the brim with trained FBI killers and wipe them all out within a matter of minutes, using only his bare hands and whatever he can pick up off the floor (and with whatever weapon he can steal from an opponent). Honestly, taking this back to schoolboy mentality for a second, I have no idea who would win in a fight between Adam Clay and John Wick, to be honest.

So, yeah, remember those brilliant Lone Wolf and Cub films of the 1970s... or the Zatoichi films of the 1960s/70s etc? Where the lone figure would take on hundreds of trained warriors and kill them all with barely a scratch? Same thing here. The writers have gone back to the roots of heroic adventure stories and given us one of those invincible characters who can cut through anything, in this case in quite a cynical and grim manner. Now, the trap with this kind of writing is that you can write yourself into a corner when you have nothing to really threaten a protagonist with, which was always the real Kryptonite for those early Superman comics. Here, though, just like Lester Dent did in his original Doc Savage pulps, the writers manage to get away with it and it just works marvellously well.

And, of course, the acting is credible and equally entertaining. And I just loved that it took me a while to realise the president of the United States was played by Jemma Redgrave (who I and, probably many readers, would best recognise as playing Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stuart’s daughter Kate, who took over UNIT in the modern version of Doctor Who). And Jeremy Irons adds a good presence to the movie too, playing a somewhat three dimensional character with an interesting history. And all of this is packaged together with an incredibly good score co-composed by Jared Michael Fry and David Sardy, which includes an outstanding opening title piece where the various facts about bees on the visuals are matched with various strings to musically represent their buzzing. I wish they’d release this thing into the wild, preferably on a nice physical CD so I can have a listen.

And that’s me done with The Beekeeper, I think. I enjoyed this one a lot and, if this is the first of a franchise (which doesn’t have to feature Statham as the lead each time but, it would sure be better if it did), then I am all for it and would love to see some more of this kind of action writing in modern cinema.