June Films Update 3
Ten more films I watched.
****
In occupied Norway in World War Two Dr Rolf Pedersen (Kirk Douglas) learns that the Nazis are using a hydro-electric station to generate heavy water. This will aid them in their nuclear research. Informing the resistance, he and Knut Straud (Richard Harris) escape to Britain on a hijacked ship with microfilmed plans. Various plans to destroy the station are considered. Eventually they decide to send in some Norwegian soldiers-in-exile to prepare an airstrip for Royal Marine Commandoes to storm and destroy the station.
The first part with the Norwegians parachuting in goes okay, with Pedersen discovering his ex-wife Anna (Ulla Jacobsson) is a leading member of the resistance, though they have to capture a wandering hunter. Unfortunately the Marines' plane is shot down and the hunter escapes and informs on them. The Norwegians* nevertheless carry out an attack with the explosives they have, most of them then escaping to Sweden.
However the plant goes back into operation. Pedersen, Straud and Anna come up with a desperate plan to sabotage the production, one that may cost more than they are willing to give. A classic wartime adventure, with plenty of skiing and snow (perhaps less exciting for modern audiences).
Watch This: Wartime adventure loosely based on real events
Don’t Watch This: Hiding in snow, blowing things up, having
arguments with your ex etc
* Worth noting they carry out the attack in British uniforms, specifically to shield the local population from reprisals.
2. The Killer (2024)
In Paris, Zee is a hitwoman with a love for her goldfish and crosswords. She gets her clothes and stylish disguises from a men’s tailor. She works for Finn, an Irishman, who co-ordinates jobs with a French crimelord. They send her to a club where she kills a gang of drug dealers in a spectacular fashion, doesn’t kill Jenn the singer who is blinded in the fight.
At that same time Sey and Jax, policemen, try to arrest Coco, Jenn’s boyfriend and a wanted criminal; this goes wrong and leads to a chase and gunfight on the streets and Coco being killed. Sey discovers Coco was listening to a demo of Jenn’s when they stopped him and tracks her down to the hospital at the same time as Zee arrives, having been told to finish the job by Finn. She pretends to be from the American embassy, decides she’s not going to kill Jenn and gets away.
The film continues with betrayals and exciting stunts, Zee deciding to protect Jenn, Sey learning that he’s going to be the scapegoat. I don’t think rehearsing the rest of the plot is helpful, as that’s not where the delight of this film is; it’s in balletic gunfights and chases.
Watch This: Gorgeous costumes, sets and ways of fighting
people
Don’t Watch This: A lot of betrayal and revenge for drugs
3. Tombstone (1993)
Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russel) joins his brothers Morgan (Sam Elliott) and Virgil (Bill Paxton) in Tombstone Arizona. It’s a boomtown from silver mining and they establish themselves in a saloon, taking over a gambling table, helping to keep order as well. They encounter Wyatt’s old friend Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer); Doc’s hoping the dry air will help with his tuberculosis. He’s a professional gambler with a nasty reputation for gunfights. Each also has a wife or female partner, though only Mattie (with Wyatt) and Kate (with Doc) are given anything to do in the film.
As might be expected a boomtown also attracts criminals; the Cowboys, a red-sashed gang who cause trouble and kill police on both sides of the border. They’re led by “Curly Bill” Brocius, who’s smart enough to keep the county Sheriff* on side. Other notable Cowboys are Johnny Ringo, educated and vicious, and Ike Clanton, who swings from threatening to cowardly.
For a while things go on without too much trouble; the Earps make money, Holliday falls ill, the Cowboys drink, gamble and threaten. A theatrical group come in and become the toast of the town, with Josephine Marcus being courted by several of the male characters. Then Curly Bill gets off his face on opium and shoots the town marshal. Wyatt arrests Curly Bill, first facing off against the townsfolk who want to lynch him and then against the Cowboys who want to free him. However Curly Bill is let off at trial.
Wyatt turns down being marshal but then Virgil and Morgan take up the offer. The town authorities ban guns in town. Ike Clanton gets drunk and threatening and Virgil hits him over the head and arrests him. Released the next morning without his guns, he and the other Cowboys (still drunk) make loud threats with their guns inside the town limits, at the OK Corral. Wyatt, Virgil, Morgan and Doc go there to disarm them and instead have the Gunfight At The OK Corral.
The film continues; the Cowboys ambush the Earps, killing Morgan and maiming Virgil, while also attacking the women. Wyatt uses his contacts to get himself deputised as a US Federal Marshal and he, Doc, and a handful of characters who have been in the background until now form a posse and go after them.
What to make of this long, complex and facial-hair-forward Western? In it’s own way it’s just as much a fictionalised version of events as other films, despite, or perhaps because of the attention to detail. And what detail! The clothes, the facial hair, the way everything is new (Tombstone is a boomtown, they’re continually building). The way they drink beer is an interesting touch**. The theatrical company coming is a big deal, from top to bottom, the most refined to the coarser sections. The politics, town and miners versus ranchers is flattened into the Cowboys being simple bandits. Or not so simple bandits perhaps, but still. Anyway, some great fun, especially as the confrontations increase in danger.
Watch This: Excellent 1990s Western
Don’t Watch This: Overlong, silly, violent
* also tax collector, captain of the fire brigade and chairman of the non-partisan anti-Chinese league
** Beer is difficult to carry overland in bulk, and requires space, time and water to brew. This is, in fact, another example of Tombstone’s growth and ambition; meanwhile the Earps are not drinking hard liquor so they are less drunk than anyone they’re playing or confronting.
Gray Harston (Stephen Dillane), a writer, is bored at a literary party in London and leaves. Spotting one of the other guests, Druscilla Janus (Amanda Donahue) in the rain he offers her a lift. After some talk they decide to go to a hotel and have sex.
She has, she says, a jealous husband who is dangerous. Their affair continues, with Gray becoming deeply obsessed, trying to work out ways she might be able to leave her husband. She visits him in his windmill home, and he shows her how his 1980s word processor works. (Several plot points rely on the technical details of the word processor and phones and answer machines). She slowly gets around to suggesting that they kill her husband; Gray having no obvious motive means they can get away with it.
When he realises she’s serious he breaks it off. At this moment all the other plotlines going on in the background arrive. Gray’s ex-wife asks him to look after the dog she got in the divorce as she leaves the country for a week; due to him having meetings in London they agree she’ll drop the dog off. Then his mother, living in France with her partner, a Frenchman, falls ill; he heads out there. Remembering the dog, late he calls, asking Druscilla to take care of him.
She claims the dog’s ill and the vet needs things signed; he nips back but a comedy of errors causes him to go to the wrong place, miss Druscilla at the windmill, then receive a message the dog has died. Rushing back to France his mother dies and he has to deal with that.
On his return it turns out that a man has died in his windmill; a man who turns out to be Druscilla’s husband. The dog was never dropped off. His story makes no sense to the police. Druscilla claims she does not know him.
A rather silly and convoluted plot that’s lifted by the actors committing to their roles; Druscilla convincing as scared of her husband. Gray harassed, with awkward relationships all round.
Watch This: Fun and occasionally interesting crime thriller
Don’t Watch This: An artefact of the 80s, the grimmest of
decades
5. Star Trek: Section 31
Phillipa Georgiou (Michell Yeoh), former Emperor of the Terran Empire in the Mirror Universe, was recruited by Section 31, the Federation’s secret intelligence service, in the Prime Universe, abandoned them by remaining on the USS Discovery when it travelled to the year 3189, found herself coming apart due to be so far removed from the deviation point with her home dimension, then vanished into a portal (see Star Trek Discovery). She has reappeared back in the Prime Universe, later than she left. She’s also having flashbacks, the first being to her killing her family as part of the challenges to become emperor, and enslaving her friend/comrade/lover Sen, who couldn’t kill his family so failed the challenges.
A team from Section 31 is sent outside Federation space to a space station run by Madame Du Franc, who is Georgiou. They recruit her to steal a super weapon. She uses a phase pod to put it out of phase with everything else but then a masked figure also out of phase steals it. Before it leaves the station she recognises the weapon as the Godsend, which she built as emperor to destroy everything rather than be defeated, then ordered dismantled as she might be evil, but she’s not that evil.
The Section 31 team are a group of various skills, species and origins, though they are all snappy talkers with quips. They take the arms dealer to a safe house (a bunker on a planet) to interrogate, learn that there’s a plot to bring the Terran Empire through to the Prime Universe to conquer. Unfortunately someone sabotages them, they have to split the team to various tasks despite the fact there might be a traitor among them.
There’s a third act where they have to track the villain, fight, solve various technical problems etc in classic Star Trek style. Indeed there’s something of a Star Trek story here. But it’s in conflict with the team of rogues who can’t trust each other but have to come together as well as Georgiou’s coming to terms with her failures and crimes. Is this an optimistic future of technical and moral problem solving, a fun heist or a grim struggle with the fate of the universe at stake? Yes, yes and also yes apparently.
Watch This: Fun and exciting space opera adventure
Don’t Watch This: Wants to be both the tragic origin and
redemption of Phillipa Georgiou (raising more questions than it answers) and a happy-go-lucky [checks notes] secret operations murder squad
Starfleet (no not that one) are hoping to build a colony on the planet Zeta, it’s strategic location allowing for further expansion in that direction. Unfortunately the outpost there sent some mysterious transmissions before stopping sending reports entirely. They put together a team to go and investigate.
Inevitably it takes them some time to put together the clues. We’ve seen Star Trek episodes, and Alien and so on, so not only is it not a surprise, we can see how the set and effects are lacking. Eminently missable.
Watch This: Low effort, low budget space thriller
Don’t Watch This: Rarely rises to the level of amusing
The origin story of Furiosa from the film Mad Max: Fury Road. Young Furiosa (Anna Taylor-Joy when she grows up) lives in the green place hidden in the wasteland of post-apocalyptic Australia; some raiders discover it. She tries to sabotage their bikes, they capture her. The raiders are picked off by one of the mothers on the way back, the last dying as they reach the Biker Horde, ruled by Dementus (Chris Hemsworth).
Dementus recognises she has some value, thanks to The History Man, his advisor (the film's narrator). They fail to find the green place, instead finding their way to the Citadel, a set of high rocks with water which allows them to grow food. Dementus besieges the place, tries to get the inhabitants to rebel against the ruler, Immortan Joe. Joe commands one of his War Boys to jump to his death, showing that they are fanatics who glory in death at Joe’s command.
Dementus next tries one of the other fortresses of the wasteland, Gas Town, where fuel comes from. They hijack a war rig going to trade water for guzzolene, and use it to get inside the gates, fooling the guards by actually shooting at each other. With Gas Town taken Dementus goes to negotiate with Immortan Joe, getting an increase in water and food, but having to turn over Furiosa and also his medic. One of Joe’s sons wants to rape Furiosa but she’s prepared by cutting off her hair to make a wig when he grabs her by it and escapes into the depths of the Citadel.
She grows up there, pretending to be a mute boy, joins the crew building a new, bigger war rig (armed and armoured lorry). She attempts to escape by stowing aboard when Praetorian Jack takes the rig out. However Octoboss, a follower of Dementus, has rebelled against him and he and his various airborne followers attack. Jack and Furiosa are the survivors; he makes her his assistant.
Gas Town is falling apart, rioting. Immortan Joe orders the war rig to the Bullet Farm, the third of the wastelands fortresses, to get ammunition. Dementus has managed to take it over and ambushes them. Captured, Jack is killed and Furiosa escapes by cutting off her trapped arm (tattooed with a star map back to the green place). She builds a prosthetic arm, her appearance now like that in Mad Max: Fury Road.
There’s a final battle, Furiosa chases Dementus who initially tries to talk for his life, then understanding that this is the end of the road tells her that if she can’t win, she should try to be a legend. In the epilogue, various possible fates for Dementus are mentioned, then Furiosa escapes with Immortan Joe’s wives as at the start of Fury Road.
On the one hand this is a deeply unnecessary prequel, answering questions from Fury Road that didn't need them. On the other there are epic stunts, amazing battles, great vehicle scenes. Furiosa is not compelling as a character but as a legend, as a saga hero she shines. Everyone is larger than life, everyone has something weird going on. If it doesn’t tell us anything about the Mad Max-i-verse we wanted to know, it's a fine example of stories to tell there.
Watch This: Spectacular post-apocalyptic action story
Don’t Watch This: Lot of people get killed in a desert
8. Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde (1980)
Dr Jekyll, here made up to look old and bearded, experiments with a drug to bring out his darker side; this will let him concentrate on his good works. The drug is an opioid combined with mescal (probably properly mescaline), dissolved in ether (I don’t think these work like this). His light side is a lot of good works with the Cogeshall Trust, run by the widow Mrs Cogeshall. They go into the darker parts of London looking to improve things.
Jekyll’s dark side is Mr Hyde, a young, good-looking and disreputable man; he engages with a girl child prostitute and a male prostitute, refusing to pay them. He drugs and seduces a maid in Jekyll’s employ. He is also interested in Mrs Cogeshall, who has some interest in him, initially wishing to find out what his work with Jekyll is.
Most of it takes place in rooms, almost as a play; it’s a BBC adaption so presumably this is due to the budget. Sadly this makes the film slow and lifeless. Only in Jekyll’s laboratory and the bawdy house they visit does it gain some excitement. Hyde occasionally dazzles, but this is one for completionists.
Watch This: Victorian period sex drugs and sin
Don’t Watch This: Slow, oddly paced drama
Some Other Jekylls And Hydes: For the completionists.
In the 90s Owen (Justice Smith) is a loner at school, meets Maddy, the two becoming fans of the TV show The Pink Opaque. In it two girls, Isabel and Tara, have a psychic connection, and they use it to fight weird evil creatures especially Mr Melancholy. It shows after Owen’s bedtime so she gives him tapes. Maddy thinks the show is more real than her life.
Watching it together Maddy breaks down, explains she intends to run away. She expects Owen to come but he doesn’t. Owen’s mother dies, Maddy vanishes and The Pink Opaque is cancelled after five seasons.
In the 00s Owen now works at the movie theatre, Maddy returns. Taking him to a bar where she feels safe she refuses to tell the police or anyone that she’s back, instead questioning him about The Pink Opaque. At her urging he watched the final episode again, breaking down and smashing his head on the TV screen until his Dad stops him.
He meets Maddy the next night; she explains that in the last episode Mr Melancholy put Isabel and Tara in coffins and banished them to the Midnight Realm. After running away, the days and years drifting past she felt unsatisfied and paid someone to bury her alive. She woke in The Pink Opaque; this life where they are Owen and Maddy is the Midnight Realm, when they should be Tara and Isabel.
He has memories of being different, a psychic teenage girl, of being part of the show. But when she goes to bury him, so he can wake in The Pink Opaque, and the show have another season, he flees.
Time goes on, his father dies, he marries and has children (he loves his never-shown family very much he assures us). He finds The Pink Opaque on streaming but it’s camp and childish, not how he remembers. He has a final breakdown, cutting open his chest to reveal a TV screen showing The Pink Opaque, which no one notices.
As well as being a film about the shows that obsessed you as a teen, this is, of course, a film about being in the closet. Having chased my gender and sexuality around the block a couple of times before settling where I am, I recognised echoes, though none of this was my experience. And so, how fascinating it is to me, the way the extraordinary life is just out of reach, on the other side of a screen, if you can just bury your old self.
Watch This: Amazing film about being wrong in your life and
yet more afraid of changing it
Don’t Watch This: Just because you acknowledge it’s a
childish metaphor doesn’t make it any better
It’s Paris in the late 19th century and Trilby O’Farrell is fired from her job as barmaid for being too young. Durian, a sculptor and art teacher, immediately hires her as a model. Hearing music from across the hall, she goes there during a break and encounters three British artists, Billy, Taffy and The Laird who share the space. Also there is Svengali, who does not bathe, playing the piano, and his violinist sidekick Gecko.
Svengali claims to have hypnotic powers which the others laugh off. Trilby takes over running the studio for the three, cleaning and supplies and so on. She has headaches and Svengali is able to get rid of it through his powers. Billy and Trilby start to fall in love; moping about the other two take him on a painting tour. Trilby returns to modelling as she has no money, and Billy returns early to discover her posing nude for a class. He’s upset by this, but recovers and asks her to marry him.
His respectable family turn up and convince her it would be a disaster. She leaves, only to run into Svengali. Billy chases after her and is run over by a carriage, returning to London where he mopes in depression. Svengali uses hypnosis to make Trilby, a poor singer, into a opera star. When they reach London The Laird and Taffy invite Billy out to a concert, where they realise it’s Svengali and Trilby. She’s forgotten Billy; but inevitably Svengali’s spell must break.
One of surprisingly many adaptions of the novel Trilby, she doesn’t wear the hat or use the phrase “in the altogether” which is disappointing. And the bit in the novel about her having perfect feet is left out. Svengali’s villainous actions and appearance are quite racist, though much less so than the novel. Also they changed the ending.
Watch This: Breezy enjoyable adaption of the novel
Don’t Watch This: You’d rather go back to the source
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