December Films Update 2
Ten more films I watched earlier this year
****
Hammer House Of Mystery And Suspense
The Preston family, father Mike, mother Ann and daughter Debbie wake up in their house. It’s a bit warm. They’re not sure what woke them up. When they check outside they discover that something is outside, a blank wall they can’t get through.
They try and figure out what’s happened, a prank, some sort of protection from nuclear war (it’s the 80s) maybe magic, maybe the daughter is the key. There’s a symbol appearing everywhere. They overheat, have difficulty remembering, the water runs out and something is coming down the chimney.
This has an annoying, silly, whimsical ending. We kind of know this isn’t going to be satisfying, it’s an over extended weird mystery tv episode in concept, something that maybe ought to have been a thirty minute Outer Limits or similar. There’s some occasional flashes of fear and strangeness yet it doesn’t really ever get anywhere with it’s premise.
Watch This: Tense, claustrophobic puzzle
Don’t Watch This: Overlong, loses interest in it’s own
concerns
2. Bride Of The Monster
Two hunters try to take shelter up at Willow House. Dr Vornoff won’t let them in; when they force themselves in one gets killed by a giant octopus, the other by a big, mute guy called Lobo.
It turns out these are the eleventh and twelfth persons to go missing up there. Janet Lawson, ace reporter, decides to visit, despite her fiancé, police lieutenant Dick Craig, telling her not to. She’s captured by Vornoff, Lobo fascinated by her.
Professor Strowski arrives from Europe, and talks to the police, about atomic experiments altering the atmosphere; he’s going to go up and investigate. He speaks to Vornoff; their country is interested in his atomic experiments, but Vornoff thinks this too little too late. He explains he met Lobo in the wilderness of Tibet where he learned hypnosis (?) which may be related to his atomic experiments (?). I don’t think the origin of the octopus is ever explained.
Frankly none of this makes much sense. There’s some enjoyment in seeing the villains and monsters deployed so haphazardly. Vornoff has a shambling monster and a bride, and it turns on him, and he also has a giant octopus he feeds people to, and inevitably it turns on him etc. But it’s not a very good film.
Watch This: Infamous director Edward Wood Junior provides
all the ingredients of a classic monster film, and this links loosely with
Night Of The Ghouls and Plan Nine From Outer Space to make a trilogy
Don’t Watch This: Nonsensical and poorly made
Mr Pickwick, having impressed the Pickwick club with his report “Speculations on the Source of the Hampstead Ponds, with some Observations on the Theory of Tittlebats,” is sent forth to investigate more of England, joined by his friends and club members Augustus Snodgrass, a literary man (the joke is he never writes anything, somewhat obscured in the film), Nathaniel Winkle, a sportsman (meaning hunting, fishing and country pursuits, the joke being he’s very bad at all these, including horsemanship) and Tracey Tupman, a womaniser (?) (the joke is he’s overweight and middle-aged).
They almost immediately run into Mr Jingle, a traveling actor, who claims to have become separated from his luggage. Borrowing a coat, uniquely designed by Mr Winkle, Jingle and Tupman go to a dance where Jingle insults an army officer. This entangles Winkle in a duel. The first part of the film continues with various misadventures as the four travel around England looking for interesting things (hunting, a literary festival etc) and coming across Mr Jingle causing trouble, including trying to elope with an heiress.
Along the way Mr Pickwick hires a man-servant, Sam Weller, and manages to tell his landlady that he intends to bring him into his employ in such a manner that she thinks he’s proposing to her. She faints into his arms at the very moment his friends arrive, a compromising position.
She sues him for breach of promise, her lawyers appalling and the trial a farce. Pickwick refuses to pay, so is arrested for debt and ends up in the debtor’s prison. There he encounters Mr Jingle, who seems truly saddened and possibly even repentant, being honest about having no likely way out. Mr Pickwick stands up for principle and won’t pay until his landlady is in turn arrested for the lawyer’s fees (to be paid out of the damages). Mr Pickwick is convinced to pay her debt, she forgives his and they also get Mr Jingle out for a happy ending, which includes Mr Winkle getting married from the least farcical romantic subplot.
An adaption of the Charles Dickens novel, which was written serialised as a picaresque, or episodic story. As a film it decides to follow the two plot lines, rather than meander back and forwards occasionally meeting Mr Jingle or the landlady, as in the book. As such the comic interludes seem to distract from the story, such as it is, especially when they are extended, though admittedly much shorter than when written.
Watch This: Amusing comic adaption of a comic novel
Don’t Watch This: Long, slow, many unfunny extended scenes
and concerned with issues that of little interest to modern viewers
John Wick, having successfully completed his roaring rampage of revenge in John Wick, gets his car back and returns home. Santino D’Antonio, a high-ranking member of the Camorra organised crime family goes to see him. He has a marker from John, for helping him perform his impossible task to retire and marry his now-deceased wife, and wants John to do a job for him to call it in. John refuses, so Santino and his men destroy the house.
John goes to the Continental Hotel where he is reminded of the two rules by Winston, the manager (Ian Mcshane). No killing on Continental grounds, and every marker must be honoured, anyone breaking them will be excommunicado. Bowing to necessity, John takes Santino’s job; to kill Santino’s sister Gianna, so he can take her place at the “High Table” of underworld bosses.
John goes to Italy where he meets various unlikely characters and tracks down Gianna in an ancient ruin where a rave is going on. Knowing herself doomed she slits her wrists; John shoots her. Then the inevitable betrayal, as both Gianna’s men and Santino’s go after him, John managing to escape into the Continental (Rome). The marker fulfilled, John is free to go after Santino, who puts a bounty on John; John makes his way through the underworld of New York, contacting the Bowery King, who controls a network of homeless people, also pigeons, and gets his help. After surviving an attack from John, Santino makes his way to the Continental, intending to stay safe there. Having fulfilled one of the rules. John breaks the other, killing Santino in the restaurant, and then is declared excommunicado, the High Table putting an even bigger bounty on him, though Winston gives him a one hour head start.
A good sequel, though already the series is starting to get lost in it’s own mythology and world-building. New York City is full of freelancers willing to draw a gun and start murdering when a bounty is announced. Rome has weird shops set up for international freelance assassins. And no one hangs out anywhere normal, it’s got to be ancient ruins or a museum. Anyway many good action sequences.
Watch This: Exciting action sequel
Don’t Watch This: John Wick is trapped by the worst people
to do terrible things
Boris Turgenev defects to Britain after attending a science conference. His work on neutron rays is important, for nuclear power and perhaps weapons. He’s sent to a top secret science laboratory in the countryside. His assistant is a woman, who he initially dismisses, but she’s pretty good.
A wealthy local, Paul Skelton, has a big house and has regular parties there, which helps to break up the monotony. He and Turgenev play chess; and there Turgenev reveals he’s a spy and Skelton his contact. Yet the new security officer is on the case and works thorough his suspicions.
A fun, clever, paranoid little spy thriller, the laboratories almost cramped with equipment, everyone just a little lax with security. And there are reasons for that! There’s several twists, each time reframing the idea of a Master Spy.
Watch This: Solid old-fashioned spy film, just clever enough
to stay ahead of the audience
Don’t Watch This: A
lot of bother over some minor scientific research
All over the world strange things are occurring, an international team is looking into it. In Mexico a flight of WW2 aircraft are found in perfect condition, no people. In the Gobi desert a ship that vanished from the Bermuda Triangle. In India something has people singing an odd, five note refrain. Two aircraft have a near miss with a UFO.
This is all interspersed with events in Indiana. A young child’s electronic toys come to life and he wanders out into the woods, his mother Jillian after him. Roy, who works for the power company goes out to check on outages, it turns out they’re caused by the UFOs and he chases after them, getting “sunburn” where they shine a light on him. There are watchers, chasers, looking from a hilltop bend in the road where Roy and Jillian end up.
Roy is obsessed with a strange shape that he makes out of every substance to hand, to the annoyance and later fear of his wife. He gets fired when he insists on reporting the UFOs. Jillian starts drawing that same shape, slightly more obviously a flat-topped mountain. Then a UFO comes and her house comes to life; in the chaos her young son vanishes.
The investigators send the musical tone into space and get back mysterious numbers. Eventually someone translates them into co-ordinates and it’s Devil’s Tower Wyoming, the flat-topped mountain Roy and Jillian are obsessed with. They try to clear everyone out by claiming a train filled with nerve gas has had an accident; this get’s Devil’s Tower on the news. Roy, Jillian and others touched by UFOs go there despite the barricades and warnings. They’re captured by the military; Roy and Jillian get away when the others are flown out.
Roy and Jillian find their way to the other side of the mountain, chased by soldiers. There’s a landing pad for UFOs. And there they and the investigators will meet with them.
Does this hold up? The best effects are when we can’t really see what’s happening, which covers up any flaws. Lights rushing too fast through the sky look bad rather than strange. Still, Richard Dreyfuss convinces as the down to earth electrician taken over by the need to find out what all this is. If it can’t, quite, manage to rise above being a family friendly science fiction mystery, it succeeds at all parts of that.
Watch This: Classic and fun science fiction film
Don’t Watch This: Kids get abducted and marriages break up
and the aliens are just mysteriously hanging about
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In a prologue Paul (Nicholas Cage) gets supplies and rescues two infants while something bad happens around him. Fifteen years later he and his two teenage sons Joseph and Thomas live a farm in the valley. At night they barricade themselves in from something that’s outside, something that’s bad.
Joseph has plans, and repairs an off-road buggy to help them farm. Thomas also has plans, which are mostly going over to the neighbouring Rose farm and mooning over the daughter, Charlotte Rose. Coming back he cuts it close to sunset, when whatever it is that’s out there comes out.
Then one evening, running back through the woods, he falls down a ravine. Paul goes out to rescue him, and they spend the night out there, fighting off the creatures. We learn a little about them before Paul gets trapped by a rock fall. Meanwhile Joseph leaves a window open, uses himself as bait and traps a creature, intending to find out more about them. In the morning Thomas collects Joseph and they rescue Paul. They go to the Rose farm for help but Paul and Joseph are turned away.
At home Joseph discovers the creatures are undermining them, and probably have been digging under the Rose farm as well. At the Rose farm Thomas convinces Charlotte to give him some medicine for Paul, but the farm workers think he’s a thief and take him prisoner. Inevitably the ending is a giant sequence of devastation as the creatures emerge and everything they’ve learned gets turned upside down and inside out.
I say learned, they kind of hint the apocalypse may have been a pandemic, and the creatures a side-effect or a result of actions taken or maybe pollution. We never really find out, they don’t even give them a name, no one wants to talk about them. The quietness of early scenes contrasts with the energetic fights and explosions of the last half hour, the character and details built up adding depth.
Watch This: Stylish post-apocalyptic monster thriller about
growing up and even a little farming
Don’t Watch This: You’ve seen weird monster destroy things
enough
Mr Lockwood takes on The Grange, a very fancy house on the Yorkshire Moors, goes to visit Mr Heathcliff his landlord. He live in much rougher farmhouse called Wuthering Heights; the weather closes in and Lockwood has to stay the night in the strange and unfriendly house. Waking in the night he reads from the diary of Catherine Earnshaw, then is disturbed by a ghost at the window.
Thirty years or more before Mr Earnshaw, Catherine’s father, brought home an orphan, Heathcliff. Heathcliff was wild and took to life on the farm and moors; he and Catherine were inseparable, Catherine’s brother Hindley hated him. After Mrs Earnshaw dies, Hindley feels neglected. He leaves, only to return, with a wife, when Mr Earnshaw dies, making him master. He banishes Heathcliff to the stables, treating him as a servant.
Catherine makes friends up at The Grange brother and sister Edgar and Isabella Linton, eventually becoming engaged to Edgar, confessing that she loves Heathcliff, but his low status and feud with her brother would make the match disastrous. Hindley’s wife dies in childbirth leaving behind a son, Hareton. In fury Heathcliff leaves.
He makes a fortune, comes back and courts Isabella, eloping with her. Hindley has made a mess of the farm and is bailed out by Heathcliff. Cathy dies giving birth to her daughter Cathy. Isabella leaves Heathcliff, coming back with their son Linton. Heathcliff gets control of Wuthering Heights, gets back his son Linton when Isabella dies, and has Cathy and Linton marry. When Edgar dies he has his complete revenge, The Grange, Wuthering Heights and control of the children. But he’s haunted by the ghost of Cathy, and when Linton dies goes into a decline.
Having arrived at the present, where Mr Lockwood came in, Cathy and Hareton fall in love and Heathcliff dies, possibly finally united with his true love, the original Cathy.
A relatively faithful telling of the story, with a slightly re-mixed frame, there’s some good brooding from Heathcliff. The other characters are rather slight, not quite able to escape the gothic melodrama that underpins the story, and a condensed TV film defaults to. Even the locations are workmanlike rather than inspiring.
Watch This: Efficient and brisk adaption that is admirably
clear about the rather convoluted plot
Don’t Watch This: Watch one of the other adaptions, or
better yet read the book
Made for the 100th anniversary of the real Jack The Ripper murders, this stars Michael Caine as Inspector Abberline and Lewis Collins as his sergeant. They are faced with fear, unrest and vigilante action in the streets of Whitechapel after women are murdered and partially dismembered, in a manner that resembles a doctor’s autopsy. Abberline, a good detective but an alcoholic, is given the thankless task of tracking the killer, yet is aware that he might be made a scapegoat.
Allegedly it used evidence and modern techniques to offer a solution. But as a four hour drama it spends plenty of time looking at all kinds of things, the Queen’s psychic, the actor who plays Jekyll And Hyde, the agitator who stirs up people on the street etc. Abberline’s ex, an artist, wanders into the plot, manages to hang around a couple of the suspects to his discomfort. It gets political, and Abberline’s superiors and rivals all cause problems. Various members of high society are revealed to have been hanging around a brothel etc.
All in all a good period drama, with a few good performances, if a little long and drawn out. They even manage to explain why their suspect for killer was never named, the whole thing brushed under the rug. Yet despite their claims, it’s just a drama, it has notable inaccuracies, many careless. Not to be relied on except as the broadest sketch.
Watch This: Involved period crime drama based on real events
Don’t Watch This: Long drama about deciding on a suspect,
having problems investigating them, then moving on to another, with a rather
dubious ending that has little respect for the real people involved
Richard Harris plays Oliver Cromwell in this biopic. It concentrates on the run up to the English Civil Wars (which is compresses into one war and mostly ignores events outside England). Charles I, king of England (Alec Guinness), calls for parliament to assemble in order to raise taxes for his wars in Scotland and Ireland. Parliament however has some demands of it’s own, stopping the King’s favourites from enclosing common land and also religious guarantees – the great fear in England being that Charles would make the country Catholic either by stealth (changes to the Church of England) or by importing troops from Catholic countries. His wife Queen Henrietta Maria is Catholic and French. These religious bits are dramatized when Cromwell goes to his local Anglican church and discover that the plain Protestant Lord’s Table has become a Romish altar and he pulls the cross etc off.
As tensions rise Charles attempts to offer some concessions but Parliament considers itself at the least equal to the King and he won’t accept it. He attempts to arrest five members but Cromwell refuses to be arrested and this causes a definitive split, with both sides raising armies. Cromwell is cavalry commander at the Battle of Edgehill but Parliament lose, though this is indecisive. Cromwell and Fairfax form the New Model Army whose discipline prove decisive. The king, stuck at Oxford, banishes his nephew Prince Rupert (Timothy Dalton) to appease other followers, but he is taken prisoner.
Efforts to create a new constitutional order in England are interrupted by the discovery that Charles is negotiating with Catholic powers to bring a European army into England. Charles is put on trial, found guilty and executed. Parliament then decides to makes itself supreme, but they refuse to hold new elections and govern selfishly until Cromwell forces them into line by making himself dictator.
An old-fashioned historical epic. If, inevitably, it fails to capture the details and nuances of the Wars Of The Three Kingdoms, it does hint at them with many historical characters appearing to do their bit, and Charles’s map with many different flags showing how the situation is more than one army and three battles. Perhaps less forgivable for a film about Cromwell is the failure to show the brutality of his army in Ireland (barely mentioned) or the achievements and errors of his rule (covered in a voice over at the end).
Watch This: Classic historical biopic that if nothing else
clearly demonstrates the enormous shadow that Oliver Cromwell casts over
England
Don’t Watch This: Lot’s of grim men grimly deciding to do
what they think is right while elegant cavaliers decide to stop them
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