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Reviews
Flash Gordon (1980)
Superb
This is a sci-fi family blockbuster directed by the chap who gave us the gritty '70s gangster movie Get Carter. Its two leads can't act at all and are barely engaging. The performances are completely uneven to the extent that actors seem to think they're in different films to each other: from plank-like (Sam Jones, Melody Anderson) to straight-faced and serious (Timothy Dalton), to so louche he should have a cocktail in his hand in every scene (Peter Wyndgarde) to barely directed and simply having fun (Brian Blessed) to jokey and slightly hammy (Topol), to pure ham (Mariangela Melato). After Star Wars and Alien had set a benchmark for sci-fi being a bit dark and grimy its like they threw all that out and decided that sci-fi should look polished, shiny and colourful. And the soundtrack is by Queen, with the preposterousness and pomp turned up to eleven.
And yet it works, and it works stupendously well. Whilst this isn't my favourite film there are very, very few I enjoy quite as much as Flash Gordon. After a very dull first ten or so minutes involving the aforementioned unengaging leads taking a plane journey we meet Topol's Dr Hans Zarkov and the pace, and sense of fun, never lets up until the end. Its extraordinary stuff with so many memorable set-pieces: Ming's first on-screen appearance to Queen's menacing synth music, Flash's ludicrous game of "American Football" in Ming's throne room, the tree- stump monster, the whip battle on the tilting platform (with retracting spikes, naturally), the hawkmen attacking a rocketship. And so many brilliant, fun lines: "Flash, flash I love you but we only have fourteen hours to save the earth!", "Dispatch war rocket Ajax to brrring back his body!", "Gordon's alive?!!"
Incredibly for a film with two such poor lead performances everyone else is brilliant. Topol is on great form as Zarkov bringing the charisma that worked so well in the Bond film For Your Eyes Only, Dalton plays the whole thing utterly straight as chiseled Prince Barrin, Blessed is essentially just playing himself but it would be half the film without him, Peter Wyngarde manages to give Klytus an air of upper-class menace from behind a metal mask and Max von Sydow portrays Emperor Ming so well that he manages to make an essentially 2D B-movie type villain into someone who comes across as complex and interesting.
I hesitate to use phrases like "popcorn movie" or "leave your brain at the door" about Flash Gordon because that's doing it a massive injustice. This is a brilliant, funny, clever, outrageously camp and even slightly subversive film hiding in the most commercial of genres. We will never see its likes again and that's a shame.
High Plains Drifter (1973)
A western straight out of the twilight zone
According to legend, it was a few simple edits that changed Eastwood's 1973 Western from a relatively conventional story of revenge in the near-lawless American West of the 19th century into something far more strange and far more effective.
Eastwood plays the drifter of the title, a menacing anti-hero who emerges from nowhere and settles into a small town with a dark secret, first troubling and then intimidating the local townsfolk. It eventually becomes clear that Eastwood is no stranger to the town or its secret and the story eventually takes a supernatural, although never explicitly so, twist. One of the great Westerns from a period that seemed to be dotted with them (Once Upon a Time in the West, A Fistful of Dollars) and one that blurs genres to great effect.
Barry Lyndon (1975)
Leisurely-paced but masterful historical epic
It's rare that a film so rooted in the past it is set in feels like a bridge to the modern world that created it. Barry Lyndon is set in the 18th century but its protagonist is a thoroughly modern man in his ambitions: despite being born to lowly stock he fights and cons his way into a rigidly class-based, aristocratic society on the verge of being threatened by the American and French revolutions that would eventually lead to their destruction. Lyndon is almost a 20th century American conception of the "folk hero" - low-born, ruthless, utterly self-serving and completely making his way on his own merits. But this is not 20th century America and, despite his talents, he eventually comes into conflict with the British ruling class he has fought so hard to be the "equal" of and who feel so threatened by him and such contempt for his lack of "breeding".
In many ways, more than any history book, this film tells us exactly what the ideological battlegrounds were in the 18th century. But Lyndon is no simple banner-waving hero, nor even political. His only desire is to further his own station and it is clear that he would gladly embrace the English aristocracy if not for the fact that they will never embrace him. He is in many ways an anti-hero and the audience will likely find themselves admiring and loathing him in equal measure throughout the film. Lyndon is a complex character, and gives the impression of a man who represses his sense of guilt and compassion in order to further himself rather than someone who feels neither.
All of this takes place in one of the best looking films I have ever seen. Kubrick apparently wanted every shot to look like a painting and utilised natural light as much as possible. The result is a film as attractive as it is engaging. Despite this beauty it has a strong realist feel, particularly when it comes to violence. In one memorable scene British troops march purposefully towards the enemy who fire on them with dozens of the scarlet-coated soldiers falling as their comrades march on. Kubrick follows this with a shot of the carnage that has been left behind on the battlefield: dead and wounded, crawling men. The whole thing is the opposite of the picturesque, romantic image of 18th century warfare presented by the paintings Kubrick was influenced by in making this film.
Barry Lyndon is a historical tale with a political undercurrent more rooted in the past it is set in than referring to the present. It can be enjoyed on that level or simply the story of a clever, manipulative man who tries to climb as high as he can through English society. Its length (about three hours) and leisurely pace mean it will be too slow for some and yet this film contains some of the most emotionally engaging scenes I've ever seen, particularly a gripping pistol duel towards the film's end. Along with Ridley Scott's The Duellists this is a more unromantic look at a period often steeped in crude sentimentality.
Blue Velvet (1986)
Excellent neo-noir from Lynch
I have never known a director who does menace as well as Lynch. I don't mean fear and certainly not shocks or horror but just the sense that even the perfectly ordinary can and will turn into something distressing or unpleasant.
Blue Velvet is, essentially, a film about this undertone of menace. Set in the 80s, when it was made, but in many ways harking back to the supposed suburban bliss of '50s and early '60s America this is a film that begins as it means to go on with a wholesome suburban father suffering some kind of attack whilst watering his lawn. We follow this with his son and the film's protagonist, Jeffery (played by Kyle McLachlan), investigating an intriguing mystery which draws him into an unpleasant world lurking just below the surface of his apparently-pleasant neighbourhood. The characters, and much of the dialogue, feels like they have stepped out of a wholesome 1961 US sitcom or soap opera: the families, Jeffery the enthusiastic young student, Sandy the pretty high-school girl who's already taken but who he develops a romantic interest in; even the police and coroner have an air of neighbourly wholesomeness. It's only when Jeffery becomes obsessed with investigating the home of local cabaret singer Dorothy Vallens that the ugly underside reveals itself. And it's very very ugly. The film's antagonist, Frank, played by a wild-eyed Dennis Hopper, is an unnerving and deeply unpleasant individual and many may find his first scene with Dorothy difficult to watch. The character and Hopper's performance feel like monsters invading Jeffery's 60s-esque suburbia and he draws them into a dark underworld populated by drug-dealing mobsters and corrupt cops. But Lynch doesn't just portray Frank as a mobster, he is a very strange man obsessed with sexual violence who associates with equally-strange people including, in one very memorable scene, underworld dandy Ben (played by Dean Stockwell) who mimes to Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" in a scene as menacing as it is strange. Jeffery quickly discovers that his youthful intrigue has pulled him into a world he wanted to know nothing about and over the course of the film, much of those '50s and '60s "wholesome" tropes are not so much deconstructed as pushed-aside as Jeffery enters a disturbing relationship with Dorothy putting him in direct conflict with the dangerous Frank and threatening his growing relationship with Sandy.
Despite its reputation as a typically weird Lynch film this is actually one of his more conventional works. It has a clear protagonist, a clear antagonist, a moral message and even a happy ending. Yet like much of his work it feels surreal, dark and mysterious in a way that many other films tackling similar subject matter rarely do.
The Devil's Whore (2008)
Superior, if not perfect, historical drama
An extremely-engaging and well-acted drama about the period 1642-1660 covering the English Civil War and the subsequent execution of King Charles I and his replacement with England's only republican government. Whilst the history has been simplified with many important characters left-out, this nonetheless sticks to the history quite well. As with HBO's "Rome" fictional characters are invented and their own stories are told alongside those based on historical fact; some historical incidents are also embellished or altered slightly to make them more dramatic.
Screenwriter Peter Flannery focuses on the politics of the wars for much of the time and helps scotch the myth deliberately built-up in the aftermath of the 1660 restoration that what happened in England was not a revolution but instead a temporary falling-out leading to an "interregnum". It's true that many of the parliamentary forces were never interested in overthrowing the monarchy but events overtook them and they found themselves embroiled in civil strife as radical forces such as the Levellers and the Diggers threatened to overwhelm not just the monarchy but the Parlimentary landed aristocracy. Whilst England was a republic following the King's execution it was no democracy and the conditions that lead to the betrayal of Cromwell's allies and his own rise of near unassailable-power are simplistically but dramatically detailed.
The acting was, in general, of a very high quality with the best performances coming from Peter Capaldi as Charles I and Dominic West as Cromwell. Both managed to portray these deeply-flawed men as more than the monstrous caricatures history can present them as. Tellingly, two of the most emotionally engaging moments in the series for me were King Charles, sentenced to death and stripped of his arrogant autocracy, saying goodbye to his children and Cromwell preparing to be installed as Lord Protector talking to his old comrades in arms who had become his honour guard and reflecting on the fact he had betrayed his own revolution.
For me, there were only a few flaws with this series. Edward Saxby, whilst well-played by John Simm, often felt like too much of a "modern" man with his tendency to attack what we can now see as inconsistencies on the Cromwellian side. Similarly, Angelica appeared too much of a modern woman and the scene where she addressed a church and told them there was no heaven and hell (something that would probably have seen her attacked by a mob in the 1650s) was slightly farcical. I also felt that the ending was too optimistic. Yes, Angelica had defeated her personal demons but all that her loved ones had fought for remained in tatters with the restoration simply turning the clock back and I felt that this should have been reflecting in a more sombre conclusion.
Overall, though, this is a highly-enjoyable piece of historical drama and an excellent introduction to an important and much-misrepresented period of English history.
Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1997)
Entertaining adaptation, partly spoiled by rubbish ending - contains spoilers
This film, based on George Orwell's novel, manages to be entertaining and funny. It centres around a frustrated poet, Gordon Comstock (played by the excellent Richard E Grant (although Grant is a little old to play the role - in the novel Comstock was in his early 30s)) who tires of working for what we would now call "The Man" at New Albion advertising company and quits his successful career in order to persue his first love of poetry, particularly an opus called "London Pleasures". To this end he moves into rented accommodation, owned by a typical 1930s example of the "respectable" middle-class, who, of course, keeps an Aspidistra in Comstock's room. To Comstock, this plant represents all that he is rebelling against.
Comstock struggles through most of the film attempting to get his poems published. He is helped and hindered by his Girlfriend, played by Helena Bonham Carter. She also acts as his conscience, badgering him for his foolishness and his pretentiousness.
Comstock manages to get one of his poems published in the USA and is sent a cheque as payment. He manages, however, to blow most of this in one night and ends said night in the cells, arrested for drunkeness. Thrown out of his "respectable" accommodation for his crime, he moves into very cheap lodgings in a rough part of London and continues his epic poem "London Pleasures"
Whilst living in this squalor, he discovers his girlfriend is pregnant. This is where the movie falls down.
Admittedly, this is a problem with the book. The book has the same ending, but Orwell covered it more realistically. Comstock is forced to confront his responsibility and returns to his old job and gives up on his poetry. In the book, Gordon was loathe to surrender his poetry, but did so for the sake of his woman and child. In the film, Gordon is suddenly converted from idealistic poet to smug middle-class conformist. In the book, Gordon's embracing of the aspidistra was unpleasant but believable and even slightly knowingly ironic. In the film, it is, as above, smug and unlovable. This flawed ending drags down what could have been an excellent film. A shame, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it for the great stuff that precedes it.