July Film Update

10 films I watched earlier this year

****

1. A Clockwork Orange

Alex is head of a gang, his droogs, who dress in white with bowler hats and wear make up. They enjoy ultra-violence (demonstrated by fighting another gang, who are trying to rape a woman). They break into the house of writer Frank Alexander, beat him and rape his wife Mary. Later they attack the house of a wealthy woman with cats, who they refer to as cat lady; fellow droog Dim kills her and flees, leaving Alex to be arrested.

In prison they put Alex into a program of aversion therapy – he’s forced to watch films of violence while injected with drugs and listening to his favourite composer Beethoven. At a demonstration Alex does not fight back when abused, nor is he able to touch a topless woman. Despite complaints that his free will has been taken away the Minister claims this is a great success, will solve the crime problem, and lets Alex out of prison.

Alex finds his possessions have been sold and his parents have rented out his room (he was sentenced to 14 years they didn’t expect him back). He’s beaten up by a homeless man he’d previously terrorised; when two policemen intervene they turn out to be his former droogs Dim and Georgie who also beat him, half drown him and abandon him in the country. He makes his way to the next house which is Mr Alexander’s. Initially they help him there, but when Mr Alexander, now a wheelchair user, recognises him, they drug him, lock him in a room and play Beethoven, which causes him pain. Alex jumps from the window.

In hospital the Minister apologises and asks Alex to help in the election campaign. Alex thinks of sex, violence and Beethoven and no longer has the aversion, the whole thing seems to have run its course.

Stanley Kubrick makes this adaption look amazing, and by that I mean at least half of it is just Britain. Based fairly closely on the Anthony Burgess novel it’s brutal in it’s dystopian satire yet has whimsy and oddness throughout.

Watch This: Classic blackly comic exploration of a sociopath and his free will
Don’t Watch This: Just grim from start to finish

2. Bone Tomahawk

Bandits Purvis and Buddy stumble on a Native American burial ground; Buddy is killed and Purvis escapes to the town of Bright Hope. Sheriff Hunt comes to interrogate him and when Purvis tries to escape he shoots him in the leg. The doctor nowhere to be found, his assistant Samantha O’Dwyer comes; she’s at home caring for her injured husband Arthur. Deputy Nick, Purvis and Sam O’Dwyer are left in the sheriff’s office.

The next morning a stableboy is killed. Hunt goes to his office to find everyone gone and an arrow left there. When they question The Professor, a Native American expert on Native Americans he reluctantly identifies it as belonging to a tribe of troglodytes; inbred cannibals shunned by the other Native Americans. Hunt puts together a posse to pursue them, consisting of himself; his other deputy Chicory; Arthur O’Dwyer despite his injury; and notorious gunslinger Brooder looking for excitement.

What follows is a classic Western adventure – except with the grittiness and horror turned up a lot. By using these fictional troglodytes that other Native Americans look on with disgust, the film feels confident to make them true monsters. In one scene a character is stripped, scalped, bisected while alive, then eaten. And of course in return the other characters are justified in their own brutal revenge.

Watch This: Brutal and uncompromising Western
Don’t Watch This: Very silly in it’s gruesome nonsense

3. The Jewel Of The Nile

Following the adventures of Romancing The Stone, novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) and former smuggler Jack Colton (Michael Douglas) are sailing around the Mediterranean on a yacht. The bloom has come off their relationship, and Joan has writer’s block and wants to return to New York. At a book event in France she meets Omar Khalifa, the ruler of the Arab nation of Kadir, who wants her to write him a biography. She agrees and leaves against Jack’s wishes.

Jack is then ambushed by Ralph (Danny DeVito), a swindler from Romancing The Stone who demands the titular stone. They are then ambushed in turn by Tarak, from Kadir, who explains Omar is a dictator who has bad intentions and has captured “The Jewel Of The Nile”. Then Jack’s boat explodes, sabotaged by Omar’s men. Jack agrees to go to Kadir to rescue Joan; Ralph wants to get hold of the jewel.

Joan fairly swiftly realises Omar is a tyrant and is locked in the jail. There she meets Al-Julhara, a holy man prophesised to bring unity, known as The Jewel Of The Nile. Omar is planning to use special effects to make it appear as though he is the prophet. The two escape, run into Jack, and flee into the desert where they find Tarak’s tribe. They all go to Kadir where Omar plans the ceremony, where Joan, Jack and Ralph all work to disrupt it.

This rather silly sequel to a not very serious action-adventure-romance-comedy relies on us liking our leads, which is easy, and being entertained by their bickering, which gets wearing after a while. The stunts are fine, the plot ludicrous, the fictional Arab country of Kadir rather two dimensional, which to be fair is pretty good for the time.

Watch This: Entertaining 80s action adventure comedy romance
Don’t Watch This: Bickering couple plus Danny DeVito get involved in a revolution

4. Sherlock Holmes: The Master Blackmailer

Miss Miles breaks off her engagement to Colonel Dorking after receiving a letter; Dorking had refused to pay blackmail. He’d had an affair with a male drag performer who had sold the indiscreet letters Dorking wrote him to the blackmailer. Dorking sends a letter to Sherlock Holmes (Jeremy Brett) hinting at the blackmailer – Charles Augustus Milverton (Robert Hardy) – then commits suicide.

Lady Eva Blackwell, a society lady and friend to Miss Miles, finds herself blackmailed on the eve of her marriage to the Earl Of Dovercourt. She turns to Holmes who takes the case, negotiating with Milverton. Milverton demands £7,000, more than she can afford. Holmes counters with £2,000 but Milverton turns it down – he’s made plenty and it’s worth losing the money to make an example. Holmes decides to defeat Milverton no matter the cost.

He disguises himself as a plumber to gain access to Milverton’s home. So determined is he to stop Milverton that he romances one of the maids, promising to marry her. Having discovered where Milverton keeps his blackmail documents he then has Milverton invited to Lady Eva’s ball, there agreeing to Milverton’s terms, but putting him off until the wedding when she will be able to access the Earl’s money. He and his assistant Watson (Edward Hardwicke) then leave the party to burgle Milverton’s house. They are interrupted – first by Milverton unexpectedly returning home, and then by one of his blackmail victims who has come to take their revenge.

This was part of the long running Granada Television Sherlock Holmes series, of which five feature-length episodes were made, to fill a two hour TV slot. By expanding on The Adventure Of Charles Augustus Milverton we’re able to see the damage he causes, the ripples that spread from it. To discover Milverton’s identity we learn about discreet clubs with cross-dressing performers. This in turn informs Holmes’ ruthlessness in pursuing Milverton, to the extent of toying with one of the servants’ affections. And Hardy as Milverton is a magnificent villain, and one who Holmes cannot unveil without harming his client and many others. And though he manages to get the better of him, in the end he feels no satisfaction. An excellent adaption.

Watch This: Holmes struggles against an especially despicable and cunning villain
Don’t Watch This: Grim Victorian blackmail lingering on scenes concisely sketched in the original story

5. Jason And The Argonauts (1963)

Pelias kills King Aristo, becoming King Of Thessaly. It is foretold that a child of Aristos will kill him in return, so he murders Aristo’s daughter who has taken sanctuary in the temple of Hera. In return Hera makes herself protector of Aristo’s infant son Jason, warning Pelias to beware the one-sandaled man.

Twenty years later Jason is a grown man, and so is Acastus, Pelias’s son. Jason saves Pelias from drowning, losing a sandal in the process. Pelias realises this is his nemesis, conceals his identity, and encourages Jason in his rather oblique plan to overthrow Pelias, by retrieving the fabulous Golden Fleece and using it to rally support. Pelias believes Jason will die in the attempt.

Disbelieving in the Gods, Jason is carried to Mount Olympus by Hermes where he encounters his patron Hera and also Zeus. Hera tells him to look for the Fleece in Colchis, and offers aid, but Zeus restricts how many times he can call for it. Zeus and Hera are playing some sort of game with mortals. Jason goes to see Argus, a famous ship builder and advertises for a crew. Many famous heroes come from across Greece to join the Argo and become an Argonaut, including Hercules and his squire Hylas, twins Castor and Polydecues, and Acastus, sent by Pelias to sabotage the quest.

Fairly swiftly they run out of supplies* so Jason calls on Hera for help**. She directs him to the Isle Of Bronze where Hephaestus forged weapons and armour for the gods. She warns him not to take anything that isn’t food and drink. Hercules finds a building, and takes a pin the size of a javelin; inevitably the enormous statue of Talos comes alive and attacks. Asking Hera for aid Jason is able to unplug the heel of the statue and let out the ichor that sustains it. Hercules can’t find Hylas and refuses to leave; asking Hera for aid again, she tells them Hylas is dead and Hercules has other tasks to do for Zeus.

They go on, rescuing a blind seer from the harpies, then using his amulet to get past the clashing rocks, and picking up the survivors of a wreck of the clashing rocks, including Medea, the high priestess from Colchis. Acastus challenges Jason, is defeated and swims away. Arriving in Colchis Acastus warns king Aeëtes that the Argonauts intend to steal the Golden Fleece, so they capture them at a banquet. Escaping there is a complicated battle with the Hydra, the guardian of the fleece, and later the skeleton men who are children of the hydra’s teeth.

This jumps from scene to scene without really worrying about making sense, and ends rather oddly; Jason has got the fleece (and Medea), but now what? Perhaps strangely it’s the special effects, stop motion and models, that stand out. Now obsolete – at the very least modern versions of those scenes would be smoothed over with CGI – they’re here charming. The size difference between Jason and Olympus is neat, the monsters moving as though out of this world.

Watch This: Old school fantasy adventure that captures some of the spirit of the myths
Don’t Watch This: What it captures of the myths is weird things happen for no reason and the gods hang about occasionally inexplicably involving themselves

* Predictable; the Argo is an undecked galley filled with men, there’s no room for cargo or supplies. Keeping fleets of this sort fed – or even supplied with water – was a constant problem in classical times.

** There’s a statue of her on the ship.

6. Sixteen Candles

In suburban Chicago it’s Sam Baker (Molly Ringwold)’s sixteenth birthday. Her family have entirely forgotten as her older sister Ginny is getting married the next day. At school she has a crush on classmate Jake Ryan. Realising something’s up Jack asks his friend Rock about her, but Rock dismisses her; too immature and besides Jake is going out with Caroline. Caroline on the other hand parties all the time to Jake’s annoyance. On the bus home Sam is hit on by Ted, a younger schoolmate.

At home Sam is turned out of her room as her grandparents have arrived for the wedding, bringing a Chinese exchange student Long Duk Dong. No one recalls her birthday and when she goes to a dance at the school they insist she take Dong with her.

At the dance Dong hits it off with Marlene, a very tall girl. Sam moons after Jake; Ted dances with her but she runs away. Ted bets his nerd friends he can get Sam’s underwear; Jake asks Ted about Sam. Ted catches up with Sam and apologises. She opens up about everyone forgetting her birthday, and about Jake. Ted assures her Jake is interested, and promises to introduce her in return for her underwear. He then displays her underwear to the other boys, charging a dollar each.

Sam fails to talk to Jake, who fails to talk to her. Caroline and Jake leave for Jake’s house where Caroline has invited everyone for a big party. Annoyed, Jake retreats to his room and tries to call Sam, only to get her grandparents who tell him Sam’s not interested. The party ends, the house in chaos. Jake finds Ted stuck under a table, and he finally tells Jake Sam is interested, giving Jake her underwear. Jake has Ted take Caroline home in his father’s car.

The next day Sam’s parents realise they forgot her birthday and apologise. Jake tries to call on Sam, but they’ve all gone to the wedding and Dong, hungover from Jake’s party makes it sound like Sam is getting married. On the way there he discovers Ted and Caroline kissing in the back of the damaged car. He goes on to the wedding, and asks Sam back to his house for a cake with sixteen candles and her underwear (?).

This is a raucous teen comedy, some of which has not aged too well, some of which is still very funny. It made stars of several of the teen actors, and began a long run of hits for the director Johns Hughes. It has all his flaws on display, but also some charm.

Watch This: Classic 80s teen comedy
Don’t Watch This: You prefer films that don’t find a sixteen year old’s underwear fascinating

7.  The Decameron (1971)

Based loosely on the 14^th century collection of stories by Boccacio, this film is made up of several individual tales, not strongly linked, though the use of characters from one story in the background of another and in the interstitial sections helps to create a background texture. These stories often revolve around people being tricked or fooled.

In the first one Andreuccio arrives in Naples to buy horses. A wealthy lady spots him, claims he’s her long lost brother. Andreuccio is puzzled by this but his father did trade in Naples so goes to her home where she offers a meal and bed for the night. Having got undressed he asks for the toilet; it’s a trick and he falls into the cess pit. Climbing out he’s told to clear off and has to abandon clothes and money, taking shelter in the church. There two thieves recruit him to rob the tomb of the recently deceased Archbishop. Pretending he can’t find the ring, they leave him trapped in there. More thieves come and open it up; nervous they tell stories of the dead biting so when one climbs in he bites them and they flee, letting him leave with the ring.

Others continue in this farcical and sometimes satirical fashion, though often with sexual content. A gardener pretends to be dumb and is taken on at a convent where the nuns decide to discover what this sex thing is all about. An unfaithful wife is surprised by her husband and pretends her lover is there to buy their enormous pot; while the husband is inside cleaning it they have sex outside it. A girl sleeps on the roof claiming it’s for the heat but in fact to meet her lover; when discovered the parents realise he's rich and insist they marry (a happy ending?). A learned man stays with a poor couple; having claimed he can turn his horse into a beautiful woman they ask him to turn the wife into a horse so she can help in the fields which he uses as an excuse to sexually assault her. All rather rough bawdy jokes.

The satire comes perhaps in the hypocrisy of the rich and the church, and the naivety of those who follow them. A homosexual character confesses on his deathbed; in an attempt to minimise his sins he (for example) claims to have never slept with a woman. Having heard all this the confessor proclaims him a saint when he dies. Does this then have any great point? Perhaps not great, but in this collection we see a little of the foolishness of ourselves, reaching back to the medieval stories contained within.

Watch This: Bawdy comedy of medieval classic
Don’t Watch This: Lot of Italians clumsily making a mockery of good sense and honesty

8. M3GAN 2.0

After the events of M3GAN the US military build an android based on M3GAN called AMELIA*; they send it on a mission to capture a scientist but it goes rogue, kills him and vanishes. Gemma and her co-workers from M3GAN are working on a robotic exoskeleton, though Gemma keeps getting distracted with her book and AI regulation advocacy, which brings her into contact with Christian, a cybersecurity expert. She turns down an offer from unethical billionaire (?) Alton Appleton. Also she’s still the guardian for her niece Cady, doing a better job now, though Cady is learning programming.

When armed men break into Gemma’s house (also her workspace) the security system performs a bunch of slapstick automated house ways to incapacitate them. It turns out they’re from the military who are suspicious of Gemma, because she built M3GAN, and so might have hacked AMELIA (which she knew nothing of). Also odd is how affordable her house is in San Francisco; they suspect someone is backing her.

Someone is; M3GAN survived the ending of the last film and is backed up in her computer system. She offers a deal; help Gemma stop AMELIA in return for a body. Gemma puts her in a cute and safe body. Disgruntled M3GAN reveals that AMELIA will target Alton Appleton. It turns out that one of her co-workers took Appleton’s offer so she gets his keycard and goes to Appleton’s party. M3GAN tries to make her the profile Appleton likes, but AMELIA, running off the same information, attracts Appleton and he takes her to his private rooms. She kills him and uses his biometrics to control his company’s systems.

Gemma escapes back to her house, where they discover M3GAN has built a secret underground bunker to keep them safe during the AI apocalypse (especially Cady who M3GAN is still programmed to protect). Cady confronts M3GAN over all the murders and so on she did. M3GAN expresses regret, having become a more complete personality. They build M3GAN a new body.

M3GAN has figured out that AMELIA will use Appleton’s cloud-based web servers to combine with a 1980s Xerox rogue AI that will be able to hack anything. Christian knows about the old AI – it’s why he is anti-AI. They go to a tech conference to meet him, but it goes wrong – AMELIA assassinates a Chinese ambassador Christian is meeting, kidnaps Cady and escapes. Christian reveals the location of the rogue AI motherboard and they go there intending to rescue Cady, destroy the motherboard and defeat AMELIA. Inevitably it is a trap and they are betrayed by the people really behind AMELIA.

M3GAN was a horror film, and though 2.0 flirts with some of the horror elements from that, it’s really an action thriller, using the extraordinary abilities of the robots in a superhero-type fashion. That said it’s humour remains hard-edged, it’s if anything more interesting and timely (people seeking to profit from AI rather than the AI itself being the main threat) and there are some good setpieces. And M3GAN having grown up a little, is creepily fun in a way that it didn’t quite manage the first time round. And with all that praise, it is a significantly less clever film than the first.

Watch This: Robot girls fight, snark, look cool
Don’t Watch This: Lot of roboticists make stupid decisions

* The “A” in “AMELIA” stands for “Amelia”**

** Autonomous Military Engagement Logistics and Infiltration Android

9. When Eight Bells Toll

Ships carrying gold have been hijacked in the Irish Sea. The British Treasury Department send their most nautical agent Philip Calvert (Anthony Hopkins) along with his partner Roy Hunslett (Corin Redgrave) to investigate. Posing as marine biologists they sail in their boat Firecrest to the Isle of Torbay where the ship was last seen. There they discover the luxury yacht Shangri-La with it’s owner Sir Anthony Skouras (Jack Hawkins), his wife Charlotte, and a variety of strange guests.

The locals are unfriendly and inland is the castle of Lord Kirkside and his daughter, both of whom are suspicious and tell him to clear off. While taking a helicopter to look about Calvert meets some shark fisherman in a remote section of the island, who seem friendlier, though none of them have any useful information. Then the helicopter is attacked, shot down, the pilot killed. Calvert escapes and swims to shore. Arriving back at the Firecrest he finds Hunslett gone, damage to the radio, and most curiously his boss “Uncle Arthur”. Men try to board and they fight them off. Raising the anchor to get away they discover Hunslett’s body.

At sea they come across Charlotte Skouras who claims to have escaped after Anthony Skouras beat her. Coming across a pirate speedboat Calvert rams it. He and Arthur then recruit the shark fishermen to deal with the pirates. As the ships could not be seen from either the sea or the air he deduces they have been sunk to hide them, and the gold offloaded underwater; diving he finds one of the ships and has to fight another diver. Above the bay is the castle; Calvert enters to discover that not all is as he thought.

This was based on an Alistair Maclean novel, following the success of the adaption of Where Eagles Dare, and also an attempt to rival the James Bond series*. It didn’t quite do it; we get a competent thriller, a lot of sea-borne and underwater action and a violent finale.

Watch This: Fun 1960s spy thriller
Don’t Watch This: Man sails about, lots of people get murdered

* The music, a dashing, debonair secret agent hero, a remote island base – the more I watched the more Bond-envy I saw.

10. Wuthering Heights (2011)

Mr Earnshaw brings back a child, Heathcliff, from a trip to the city to his farm Wuthering Heights. He and Earnshaw’s daughter Catherine become friends, spending their time out on the moors. Earnshaw’s son Hindley doesn’t like Heathcliff, seeing him as an interloper, abuses him in racist ways. When Mr Earnshaw dies Heathcliff’s position is reduced to that of a servant, he is beaten and degraded.

Catherine eventually marries neighbour Edgar Linton, whose family are more refined. Though she intends to help Heathcliff this is the last straw for him and he leaves. Returning (as an adult actor) he has made a fortune. Hindley in financial difficulties, takes money from him. Eventually Heathcliff becomes owner of Wuthering Heights and Hindley dies, leaving his son in Heathcliff’s care.

This is, of course, only the first half of the novel of Wuthering Heights, and is stripped of the framing story, of a stranger being told all this years after it happens. What it does have is the story told in fragments, less with dialogue, or even with action. There is a lot of normal work on the farm, of having to slaughter animals, of walking the moors, of getting dirty. Wuthering means windy, more or less, and outside there is almost always the sound of the wind. The light is natural, sometimes shots are obscured by rain, or out of focus. This is, perhaps, not a great adaption of the story, of the novel. Yet it grasps at the reality of love, rivalry, obsession, prejudice, and places it on the moors, in a place tangible through the film.

Watch This: Gritty Wuthering Heights that tells us things we might not have thought of about the story
Don’t Watch This: Doesn’t explain anything, leaves out the second generation or any sort of closure