Spider-Man: No Way Home

Year of Release: 2021

Director:  Jon Watts

Screenplay:  Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, based on Spider-Man created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko

Starring:  Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Benedict Wong, Tony Revelori, Marisa Tomei, Andrew Garfield, Tobey Maguire,

Running Time:  148 minutes

Genre:  Super-hero, action, science-fiction

Following the public unmasking of Peter Parker (Holland) as masked vigilante Spider-Man, his life, and the lives of Peter's girlfriend MJ (Zendaya) and best friend Ned (Battalion) have been made a misery.  Unable to escape the unceasing attention and endless controversy, Peter approaches powerful mystic Doctor Strange (Cumberbatch) to cast a spell to make the world forget that he is Spider-Man.  However, Peter's interference with the spell causes it to go wrong, bringing in supervillains from other dimensions to  Peter's universe.  

This is a sequel to Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) and is the 27th instalment in the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).  This also brings in characters from other non-MCU Spider-Man films such as Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).  There is also an appearance from Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock from the Netflix Daredevil series (2015-2018).  This is one of the better MCU films, with humour and genuine emotion, towards the end there were several audible sobs at the screening I attended.  The action is spectacular, with a particularly impressive set-piece set in the surreal Mirror Dimension.  If you are not familiar with the MCU in general or the Spider-Man films in particular, this is not a very good place to start, and may be quite alienating for newcomers.  However, it is fun to see the old familiar faces, and they generally work well, even if there are too many adversaries for the film's good.  Crucially the film has some real emotion.  Peter Parker deals with some devastating losses, and there is some real weight in his scenes with MJ (of course Tom Holland and Zendaya are in a relationship in real life).  Peter is in many ways defined by his non-super powered support network, MJ, best friend Ned and his Aunt May (Tomei) who frequently act as his conscience and reminder that, in the immortal phrase, "with great power there must also be great responsibility." As always with MCU films there are additional scenes in the end credits.

Tom Holland in Spider-Man: No Way Home 

Salem's Lot

 Year of Release:  1979

Director:  Tobe Hooper

Screenplay:  Paul Monash, based on the novel 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

Starring:  David Soul, James Mason, Lance Kerwin, Bonnie Bedelia, Lew Ayres

Running Time:  183 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Writer Ben Mears (Soul) returns to his childhood home of Salem's Lot, a small town in Maine, where he hopes to write a book about the nature of evil, inspired by the sinister Marsten House, the local "haunted house".  However, Ben is not the only newcomer to Salem's Lot.  Debonair antiques dealer Mr. Straker (Mason) plans to open a shop with his mysterious partner Mr. Barlow (Reggie Nalder).  Before long the town is plagued by a mysterious disease and a spate of disappearances.  It quickly turns out that Barlow is a vampire who is feasting on the townspeople, who become vampires themselves.  Soon, it is up to Ben, horror-obsessed teen Mark (Kerwin) and Susan (Bedelia), daughter of the local doctor, to stand against a town of the undead.

Directed by Tobe Hooper, who made his name with the classic horror film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), this was originally shown as a two part miniseries on NBC TV in America, and it has been released subsequently as a 150 minute TV movie and a 114 minute theatrical movie which lops off over an hour of material and includes more gruesome alternate takes of certain scenes to increase the gore quotient.  The three hour version has a slow start, and is definitely too long, and has some obvious breaks for adverts.  It also pulls some of it's punches in deference of TV standards and practices.  However, sometimes it really works well. David Soul, best known for the TV show Starsky & Hutch (1975-1979), is pretty bland, but James Mason steals the show as the silkily sinister Straker.  The production is full of veterans, such as Lew Ayres and B-movie stalwart Elisha Cook and soon-to-be familiar faces such as Bonnie Bedelia, who is probably best known as Bruce Willis' estranged wife in Die Hard (1988) and would appear in Needful Things (1993), another Stephen King adaptation about a sinister antiques dealer in a small Maine town; Fred Willard who would go on to appear in This Is Spinal Tap (1983) and the Anchorman films; and Kenneth McMillan who would appear as the grotesque Baron Harkonnen in the David Lynch film Dune (1984).  The novel is a solid slice of early Stephen King, and the film follows it fairly closely.  The main difference is that Barlow in the novel is a suave Count Dracula style vampire, but here he is a grotesque, silent monster, inspired by Nosferatu (1921) with blue-white skin, bat-like ears and rodent-like teeth, with shining yellow eyes.  It is pretty slow to begin with, opening like a kind of off-beat soap opera, but if you stick with it, the second half is genuinely creepy,  The floating vampire children, with their shining silver eyes, scratching and tapping at windows, begging to be let in, are memorably eerie.  The decayed interior of the Marsten House is creepy, and Barlow's sudden appearances are quite frightening, particularly when he appears as a small, crawling bundle on a kitchen floor, before rising up to unveil himself in front of a terrified family.  This has become something of a cult film in recent years, and while some may struggle with the length and slow pace, it is worthwhile sticking with it.

Ben Mears (Davis Soul) in Salem's Lot

Husbands

Year of Release:  1970

Director:  John Cassavetes

Screenplay:  John Cassavetes

Starring:  Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, John Cassavetes

Running Time:  140 minutes

Genre:  Comedy drama

Following the death of a mutual friend, three middle-aged New York family men: Harry (Gazzara), Archie (Falk) and Gus (Cassavetes) indulge in a days long binge of heavy drinking and soul-searching, including an impromptu trip to London.

John Cassavetes is possibly most familiar as an actor in Hollywood films such as The Dirty Dozen (1967), Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Fury (1978), but his most important legacy rests with the groundbreaking independent films he made as director, writer and sometime actor.  After making a name with his directorial debut Shadows (1959), Cassavetes had his first sizeable success with Faces (1968), which allowed hims some studio backing for Husbands.  While Cassavetes came up with the film's story and scenes, the dialogue and action came out of long improvisation sessions with his fellow actors, and Gazzara, Falk and Cassavetes' characters were more or less based on the actors themselves.  The basic plot of Husbands, three guys go out on a booze filled bender for days on end, could apply to any number of comedies, both good and bad, but few go as dark as this does.  This is a film defined by absence.  It starts with a series of still snapshots of a barbecue or pool party where Gus, Harry and Archie are clowning around with their families and their friend Stuart, whose funeral opens the main action of the film.  We never learn anything about Stuart, but it seems as if he was the lynchpin that kept the gang together.  The other three spend the film seeming unmoored, and despite being very similar, they don't seem to like each other very much.  Also, despite the film's title, we never see much of their family lives.  Harry's wife appears briefly and they have a violent argument, and we see Gus' children, played by Cassavetes' own children Nick and Alexandra, but we see nothing of Archie's family.  It is hard to sympathise entirely with this pretty unpleasant trio of middle-aged, middle-class white guys who are creepy, mocking, violent or rude to almost any woman unlucky enough to cross their path.  Following Stuart's funeral they ride the subway, have an impromptu late-night basketball game and get drunk and sing in a bar, when it comes time for them to go to work and spend some time with their families, the three shoot off to London to drink, go to casinos and pick up women (including Jenny Runacre).  This is a tough film to watch, and it's often very uneven.  It's sometimes profound, often dull, sometimes cruel and occasionally funny.  It all ends on a very inconclusive note.

Peter Falk, John Cassavetes and Ben Gazzara are Husbands

Career Girls

 Year of Release:  1997

Director:  Mike Leigh

Screenplay:  Mike Leigh

Starring:  Katrin Cartlidge, Lynda Steadman, Mark Benton, Kate Byers, Andy Serkis, Joe Tucker

Running Time:  83 minutes

Genre:  Comedy, drama

Two young women, Annie (Steadman) and Hannah (Cartlidge), reunite in London for the first time in six years, when they shared a flat as students.  As the two reconnect, memories of their former friendship resurface, both good and bad. 

Following the multi Oscar nominated Secrets & Lies (1996), British director Mike Leigh went for a much more low key approach with this small, funny and often touching comedy-drama.  It's a character study of two women and deals with how places and people change over the years.  As students, Annie is painfully shy and diffident, suffering from dermatitis on her cheek, while Hannah is loud, arrogant, confident and yet very brittle, masking her feelings with odd affectations and games (such as frequently using her treasured copy of Withering Heights as a divination tool).  Six years on, Annie seems a lot happier, her skin has cleared up, and while still shy, she has a lot more confidence.  Hannah has a good job in a stationary supply company, she is still confident and cutting, but kinder and more at ease.  Not much really happens in the film.  Annie is visiting Hannah for the weekend, and goes around to view flats with her to keep her company.  In the funniest sequence in the film, Hannah trades a succession of barbed one-liners with a sleazy yuppie (played by Andy Serkis) who is trying to sell his flat, but soon seems more interested in Hannah and Annie than property.  Over the course of the weekend they encounter a succession of old friends and boyfriends, perhaps most tragically the stuttering, socially awkward Ricky (Mark Benton) who was a flatmate of theirs in college but ran out when Annie didn't reciprocate his romantic feelings.  Mike Leigh's style involves starting off with only a very vague idea of a plot, and allowing the actors to shape and develop the story along with their characters over long periods of rehearsal, so with the right actors his films are often very perceptive in regards to character, but his technique does not really make for particularly strong narrative.    Katrin Cartlidge (who previously worked with Leigh on Naked (1993)) and Lynda Steadman are both excellent, and they get good support from the rest of the cast.  There is a bit too much coincidence in that they keep happening upon so may old friends over one weekend in a place the size of London, which Hannah does comment on a couple of times, and Hannah especially is pretty unpleasant in her student scenes, but the film is about growth and change and they do win you over.  This is a film where the characters feel like they have a existence outside the film, and by the the film's gently optimistic conclusion, you are left wondering where Annie and Hannah found themselves in another six years.

Annie (Lynda Steadman) and Hannah (Katrin Cartridge) in Career Girls

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Year of Release:  1964

Director:  Stanley Kubrick

Screenplay:  Stanley Kubrick, Terry Southern and Peter George, based on the novel Red Alert by Peter George

Starring:  Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens, Tracy Reed

Running Time:  94 minutes

Genre:  Comedy

Paranoid United States Air Force General Jack D. Ripper (Hayden) launches a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union.  As British RAF Group Captain Mandrake (Sellers) desperately tries to bring Ripper to his senses, President Merkin Muffley (Sellers, again) meets his generals in the War Room of the Pentagon, as they try to stop the attack before it's too late.  However, it becomes apparent that the Soviet Union have their own last gamble in the form of a Doomsday machine, which will be triggered automatically in the event of an attack resulting in the death of all life on the surface of the world, and the dawn of the age of the insane Dr. Strangelove (Sellers).

This pitch black comedy is a hilarious and terrifying satire on Cold War politics and the principles of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).  The film was based on the novel Red Alert (also called Two Hours to Doom) by Welsh author Peter George.  The book, which I haven't read, was a straight Cold War thriller, and Kubrick originally planned a straightforward adaptation, but as he was planning the film he found the whole idea of nuclear war too ludicrous to be dealt with other than as black comedy, and so brought in cult satirical writer Terry Southern to work on the film as a satire.  This would have been a brave film to be released in January 1964, only a couple of years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and only a couple of months after the assassination of President John F Kennedy, when the Cold War was looking like it might become pretty hot.  Politicians are represented by Peter Sellers in one of three roles he plays here as the ineffectual President Muffley; with the exception of Sellers' posh group Captain Mandrake who doesn't allow the threat of nuclear annihilation to dent his stiff upper lip, the military are represented as largely insane or incompetent; and the scientific community is represented by the insane wheelchair-bound Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove, Sellers' third role, who has to keep constantly wrestling with his right arm to stop it from snapping into a Nazi salute, and for whom the thought of nuclear armageddon sends him into ecstasy.  Celebrated British comedian Peter Sellers, who previously worked with Kubrick on Lolita (1962), is brilliant in his three roles.  George C. Scott plays the deranged hawkish General Buck Turgidson all flailing limbs and bulging eyes.  Sterling Hayden in genuinely disturbing as the paranoid Jack D. Ripper, who starts the whole thing because he is convinced there is an international Communist plot to "impurify our precious bodily fluids".  Slim Pickens plays the dedicated bomber commender who will let nothing stop him from carrying out his orders and, in arguably the film's most famous scene, rides a nuclear bomb, whooping all the way.  Keenan Wynn plays Colonel Bat Guano who arrests Mandrake for being a suspected (as he puts it) "prevert".  When Mandrake needs to go into a telephone booth to make a crucial telephone call Guano orders "don't try any 'preversions' in there or I'll blow your head off," and when Mandrake is short 20 cents for this vital phone call to the President, Guano reluctantly shoots up a vending machine to get some change telling Mandrake "you better get a hold of the President, or you'll answer to the Coca Cola Company."  One aspect of the film that has not aged well, is that there is only one female character in the film, Tracy Reed as "Miss Foreign Affairs", Turgidson's bikini-clad, centrefold mistress, and the only person of colour is James Earl Jones, as one of the bomber crew.   Moving from the besieged Air Force base, to the cavernous, shadowy War Room, lit by a circle of lights and vast, illuminated maps, and the cramped interior of the bomber, the film intercuts between three plot lines, each of which has a very different tone and feel

However, while the film is very much a product of the early 1960s, the pendulum does seem to be swinging more towards a Strangelove world.  It works as a thriller, a savage satire and it is also one of the funniest films ever made, with endlessly quotable lines "Gentlemen, please!  You can't fight in here.  This is the War Room!", and hilarious set pieces, one of the funniest being the President's call with the Soviet Premier ("One of our base commanders, uh, he had a little funny turn... He went a little funny in the head... And he went and did a silly thing... Well, I'll tell you what he did, he ordered his planes to attack your county... Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it?"). This is one of the best films of the Cold War era, and one of Stanley Kubrick's best films.

Peter Sellers as Dr. Strangelove

The Manchurian Candidate

Year of Release: 1962

Director:  John Frankenheimer

Screenplay:  George Axelrod, based on the novel The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon

Starring:  Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva, James Gregory

Running Time:  126 minutes

Genre:  Thriller

Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Harvey) returns from the Korean War with the Medal of Honor and finds himself hailed as a hero, a position which his ruthless mother (Lansbury) and stepfather (Gregory), an ambitious politician, proceed to take full advantage of.  However Shaw and other members of his former platoon, including Captain Bennett Marco (Sinatra), suffer the same recurring nightmare.  Marco becomes convinced that something happened to them in Korea, and his investigation proceeds to uncover a disturbing conspiracy.

This is one of the classic Cold War thrillers.  Despite being made 60 years ago, and being very much a product of it's time, this still feels relevant today, with the central premise of a hostile power influencing democracy is disturbingly prescient, particularly when the chosen candidate is a populist rightwing fool.  Laurence Harvey turns in a great performance as the tormented, brainwashed Raymond Shaw, and Frank Sinatra, who really was a great actor, is fantastic as the haunted Captain Marco.  Janet Leigh doesn't really have anything to do, in her few scenes as Sinatra's love interest, but Angela Lansbury turns in a terrifying performance as the utterly ruthless Eleanor Iselin, who will do anything to gain political power, and seems to have a very unhealthy relationship with her son (which apparently was toned down from the book).  Directed by John Frankenheimer, the film uses skewed camera angles, reflective of Shaw's distorted frame of mind.  The brainwashing itself is played out in almost surrealistic dream sequences. While it drags in places, this still holds up as a disturbing, paranoid thriller, and for a big studio film from 1962, it does get quite surprisingly dark.  The film was remade in 2004, directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Denzel Washington.      

Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey in The Manchurian candidate

The Woman in Black: Angel of Death

Year of Release:  2014

Director:  Tom Harper

Screenplay:  Jon Croker, from a story by Susan Hill

Starring:  Phoebe Fox, Jeremy Irvine, Helen McCrory, Adrian Rawlins, Leanne Best, Ned Dennehy, Oaklee Pendergast

Running Time:  98 minutes

Genre:  Horror

England, 1941: The second year of the Second World War and London suffers under the Blitz, a heavy bombing campaign carried out by German planes.  Teachers Eve Parkins (Fox) and Jean Hogg (McCrory) evacuate a number of children from the city to the relative safety of the country.  They are billeted in the large decaying mansion known as Eel Marsh House, in the middle of a vast, desolate stretch of marshlands.  However, Eel Marsh House is haunted by the malevolent, ghostly "Woman in Black" (Best) who begins targeting the children, particularly the silent, traumatised Edward (Pendergast).

This is the sequel to the 2012 film The Woman in Black, but it has no connection to it's predecessor at all, aside from the titular Woman in Black and the setting of Eel Marsh House, in fact this film is set 40 years after the first.  However Susan Hill, the author of the original 1983 novel The Woman in Black, did work on the story for this sequel.  This is atmospheric enough but it's not really particularly scary at all.  There are a few effective jump scares, but there is nothing here that fans of ghost stories have not seen many times before. The performances are good, particularly from Phoebe Fox as the troubled teacher and Helen McCrory as the stern headteacher.  Jeremy Irvine has charisma as the dashing pilot, with, of course, a troubled past, who romances Eve.  Eel Marsh House is satisfactorily creepy and dismal, and the acres of flat misty marshland make for a bleak, gloomy location which works for the material, and, as so often happens in these films, all the colours look as if they have been washed out.  The Woman in Black herself doesn't really appear that much, but makes herself known in a few effective scenes.  It's not really a very bad film, it's just very predictable, unoriginal and really not very frightening.  Although it is very bleak, and the fact that the Woman in Black targets young children might be upsetting for some viewers. 

She's behind you:  The Woman in Black (Leanne Best) approaches Eve (Phoebe Fox) in The Woman in Black: Angel of Death

Five Easy Pieces

 Year of Release:  1970

Director:  Bob Rafelson

Screenplay:  Carole Eastman (as Adrien Joyce), story by Bob Rafelson and Carole Eastman

Starring:  Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susan Anspach

Running Time:  98 minutes

Genre:  Drama

Bobby Dupea (Nicholson) works on a rig in the oil fields of California, and lives with his waitress girlfriend Rayette (Black), who dreams of becoming a country music singer.  In his spare time, Bobby spends his time bowling, drinking in dive bars and picking up women.  Despite acting the part of a blue collar worker, Bobby has a very privileged background, being a piano prodigy from a very wealthy family.  When he learns that his father is dying, Bobby returns to Washington State to reconnect with his estranged family.

This is one of the key films of the "New Hollywood" movement of the late 1960s to early 1980s.  This features Jack Nicholson, fresh off Easy Rider (1969), in one of his finest performances.  Bobby Dupea is a charismatic, angry, self-destructive and highly intelligent man, and Nicholson conveys that in a subtle, nuanced performance, making a largely unlikeable character fascinating and sympathetic, despite some of Bobby's pretty reprehensible acts.  There are a few moments where Nicholson lets loose with what would become his trademark manic schtick, there are several moments of real emotion.  However it is not a one man show.  Karen Black is impressive as Rayette, Bobby's chatty, working-class girlfriend who genuinely cares about Bobby, despite the horrible way he treats her.  Largely cheerful and good natured, she conveys a lot with small looks and tone of voice.  Bobby treats Rayette with total contempt, frequently cheating on her and seeing her as uncouth, irritating and kind of stupid.  When he goes to visit his family home, he puts her up in a motel because he is embarrassed by her, although she does follow him when she runs out of money.  However, he does defend her when she is mocked by his family's obnoxious friends, which is probably the nicest thing that he does for her in the course of the film.  Susan Anspach play Catherine, Bobby's brother's girlfriend, who becomes the object of Bobby's attentions, and her lacerating speech to him, where she pretty much verbally tears him apart, is a highlight.  Lois Smith is also impressive as Bobby's fragile sister Partita.  This is almost a film of three parts, starting as a gritty portrayal of blue collar life, briefly turning into a road movie about a third of the way through, and then turning into a bleak family drama.  There are also some really funny moments, such as the scene where Bobby jumps in the back of a moving van to play the piano, and the famous scene in a diner where Bobby is determined to get his plain toast in the face of an obstinate waitress.  This was the second film Bob Rafelson directed, following the surreal musical-comedy film Head (1968), starring The Monkees, and co-written by Rafelson and Jack Nicholson.  Here he directs with an almost documentary style, giving each segment of the film a distinct look, from the saturated yellows and golds of the California scenes, to the cool, crisp, greens and dark browns of the Washington scenes.  It all ends on a highly ambiguous note.

"Give me a toasted chicken salad sandwich.  Hold the salad.  Hold the chicken.":  Lorna Thayer takes Jack Nicholson's order while Karen Black looks on.  

 

To Walk Invisible

 Year of Release:  2016

Director:  Sally Wainwright

Screenplay:  Sally Wainwright

Starring:  Finn Atkins, Chloe Pirrie, Charlie Murphy, Adam Nagaitis, Jonathan Pryce

Running Time:  120 minutes

Genre:  Biography, drama

1845:  In the small village of Haworth, West Yorkshire, the three Brontë sisters:  ambitious Charlotte (Atkins), quiet Anne (Murphy) and tough Emily (Pirrie) have delighted in writing poems and stories their whole lives.  However, after their brother Branwell (Nagaitis) is fired from his job as a tutor for having an affair with his employer's wife, he sinks deeper into alcoholism and drug addiction; to make matters worse their elderly father Patrick (Pryce) suffers from increasingly failing health. After she discovers Emily's poetry, Charlotte proposes that the sisters concentrate on their writing, which result in some of the greatest works in English literature.

This British made-for-TV film concentrates on the years 1845 to 1848, focussing on the decline of Branwell and the sister's working to establish themselves as authors.  This is a decent introduction to the lives of the Brontë sisters, and if you have read their work and are interested in knowing something about them, then this is a good place to start.  However, if you are already familiar with their lives than this won't really tell you anything knew.  The cast are impressive, with Finn Atkins, Chloe Pirrie and Charlie Murphy affecting as the sisters, and Adam Nagaitis makes the infuriating, selfish Branwell genuinely sympathetic.  The film uses occasional flashes of fantasy to portray the sisters inner lives, and readings from Charlotte's letters serve as narration.  There are moments when the film's low budget are obvious, and there are several intriguing hints to aspects of the sister's lives which are never really dealt with, particularly Charlotte and Emily's time in Belgium.  I am a fan of the Brontës and, although the film is far from perfect, it is impressive and genuinely moving.  A brief coda showing the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth as it is today I found quite powerful.

   Chloe Pirrie, Charlie Murphy and Fin. Atkins in To Walk Invisible

Zoltan... Hound of Dracula

 Year of Release:  1977

Director:  Albert Band

Screenplay:  Frank Ray Perilli

Starring:  José Ferrer, Michael Pataki, Arlene Martel, Reggie Nalder, Jan Shutan

Running Time:  90 minutes

Genre:  Horror

The Romanian army accidentally blast open the sealed tomb of the Dracula family, inadvertently reanimating Count Dracula's pet Doberman Pinscher, Zoltan, and the Count's half-human servant Smit (Nalder).  Smit and Zoltan immediately set out to find Dracula's last remaining descendent, Michael Drake (Pataki), a psychiatrist who lives with his family in California.  

When you start dealing with Dracula's pets, it's fair to say that probably the last drop has been wrung from everyone's favourite bloodsucker.  This low-budget production has become something of a cult film and it is daft and original enough to provide some campy fun.  There is some fun to be had as Zoltan chomps his way through various campers and recruits a succession of furry fiends (including an adorable little vampire puppy).  José Ferrer is good value as the fearless vampire hunter determined to stop the malevolent mutt, Michael Pataki spends most of the film looking confused as Zoltan's target, and the distinctive Reggie Nalder is effective as Dracula's henchman/dog handler, even if he doesn't really have anything to do except look menacing.  The problem is that Zoltan himself just isn't scary, and it feels as if the film was running short and so they padded it out with endless shots of dogs standing around with glowing eyes and growling.  This is the kind of film that is best viewed after a few drinks, with a pizza and a few friends late at night.  If you are in the right frame of mind you can have fun with it, but it's fair to say that you're life won't be much the poorer without Zoltan... Hound of Dracula.

Who's a good boy?  Zoltan... Hound of Dracula

God's Own Country

 Year of Release:  2017

Director:  Francis Lee

Screenplay:  Francis Lee

Starring:  Josh O'Connor, Alec Secǎreanu, Gemma Jones, Ian Hart

Running Time:  105 minutes

Genre:  Drama, romance

John Saxby (O'Connor) an unhappy Yorkshire farmer lives and works on a farm owned by his ailing father (Hart), with whom John has a difficult relationship, and John's grandmother (Jones).  John deals with his angst by nightly binge drinking and casual sexual encounters with random men.  Against John's wishes, his father hires Gheorghe (Secǎreanu), a Romanian migrant worker, to help with the lambing season.  Despite John and Gheorghe's initial dislike of each other, they form an intense bond.

This is a film in which beauty and brutality, hope and despair exist cheek by jowl.  For all the lyrical shots of the beauty of nature, the film does not shy away from the often harsh realities of farming life.  John Saxby lives a bleak existence, forced to work the struggling family farm due to his father's ill health and his grandmother's age (his mother having seemingly ran out on the family), and his old friends having apparently gone off to University.  John finds release in drinking to oblivion and occasional rough joyless couplings with other men.  He is initially resentful of Gheorghe and subjects him to racist verbal abuse.  However Gheorghe is seemingly the only person who can reach him, and the tentative building of their relationship is genuinely moving.  Josh O'Connor is fantastic in the lead role.  Rarely being off the screen, he has to do a lot with very little, speaking volumes with just a fleeting facial expression or sudden downcast eyes.  Alec Secǎreanu is affecting as Gheorghe, again conveying a lot with very little, as someone who has been through hell, but still is open to kindness and tenderness.  In a post-Brexit Britain, where everything seems to be becoming more divided and more miserable, this is the kind of film that seems more and more essential.

Josh O'Connor and Alec Secǎreanu in God's Own Country

 

Hilary and Jackie

 Year of Release:  1998

Director:  Anand Tucker

Screenplay:  Frank Cottrell Boyce, based on the book A Genius in the Family by Hilary du Pré and Piers du Pré

Starring:  Emily Watson, Rachel Griffiths, James Frain, David Morrissey, Charles Dance, Celia Imrie

Running Time:  121 minutes

Genre:  Drama, biography

Jacqueline du Pré (Watson) achieves worldwide fame as a cellist, coming to be regarded as one of the greatest of all time.  However, her success comes at the cost of her mental and physical health, and threatens the close bond which she has with her sister, Hilary (Griffiths).

This film was released to great acclaim, and both Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths were nominated for Academy Awards, however it was also hugely controversial, with many people who knew Jacqueline du Pré publicly criticising the film for misrepresenting her.  I do not know anything about Jacqueline du Pré so I can't speak about the controversy.  The films most notorious scene is one where Jacqueline sleeps with Hilary's husband (David Morrissey) after seeking her consent.  The tale of the tragic artist is one that is as old as the hills, and looks set to be with us until the end of time.  The key element here is the relationship between two sisters.  As a child, Hilary's talent with the flute far outshines Jackie's on the cello, but Jackie very soon overtakes her, although, apparently, she takes up the cello so that she can be with Hilary.  Lacking Jackie's transcendent talent, Hilary opts for a quiet family life in the country.   Jackie's life is ruled by the cello, despite all the success, wealth and fame, she comes to strongly resent it, hallucinating the instrument's strings fraying and breaking.  Gifted a very valuable cello by her teacher she begins to abuse the instrument, kicking it, leaving it out in the snow and deliberately abandoning it in a taxi.  Her love-hate relationship with the cello is interesting, her musical talent gives her everything, including her conductor husband (James Frain), but it also seems to take everything.  The film depicts certain key events from both Hilary and Jackie's points of view, however it means that Hilary is sidelined throughout most of the second half of the film, and I was left curious to see more about how the events affected her and her family.  Emily Watson is incredible as the charismatic, vulnerable, yet tortured Jackie, giving her a radiance that helps to show how people were drawn to her.  Rachel Griffiths is very good in the quieter role of Hilary, managing to convey a lot very subtly.  Also in the cast are British film stalwarts Celia Imrie and Charles Dance as Hilary and Jackie's parents, and Bill Paterson as Jackie's cello teacher.  David Morrissey and James Frain do well with what they are given as the leading male characters, although they are effectively sidelined by Watson and Griffiths.  The script is well written by Frank Cottrell Boyce although, as you would expect considering it is based on Hilary's book, while the film is sympathetic towards Jackie, it is certainly on the side of Hilary.  Director Anand Tucker directs with a little too much style and visual tricks  for the material, and the film's style does date it as being a product of the late 1990s.  It is a powerful film though, and worth watching even if you are not a classical music fan.  

Emily Watson and Rachel Griffiths in Hilary and Jackie

"The Professor" by Charlotte Brontë

Year of Publication:  1857

Length:  223 pages

Genre:  Romance

 William Crimsworth escapes a miserable job working as a clerk in a Yorkshire mill owned by his cruel brother, to work as an English teacher at a girl's school in Brussels.  He soon captures the attentions of the school's headmistress, Mademoiselle Reuter, who determines his burgeoning romance with the penniless Frances, who is both a teacher and student in the school.

This was the first novel written by Charlotte Brontë and despite her many attempts to get it published, it wasn't available until 1857, two years after her death.  The novel was inspired by Brontë's own experiences as both a student and teacher in Brussels. This novel starts strongly, but falls down towards the middle, however it improves immensely towards the end.  While I did not like this as much as other Charlotte Brontë novels, I still believe it to be a very good book.  This is the only Charlotte Brontë novel narrated by a male character, and the main problem that the novel has is the deeply unlikeable lead character.  William Crimsworth is deeply prejudiced snob, who looks down on women, Catholics and pretty much anyone who is not English, although he does become slightly more bearable as the novel goes on and he begins to lose some of his prejudices.  The novel does have some rich supporting characters such as the mysterious Frances and Crimsworth's cynical "frenemy" Hunsden.  The story is engaging, and packed with incident, and Brontë's prose is as vivid and poetic as ever.  Charlotte Brontë's experiences in Brussels also formed the basis for her 1853 novel Villette, which is told from the point of view of a female teacher.

 

Last Night in Soho

 Year of Release:  2021

Director:  Edgar Wright

Screenplay:  Edgar Wright and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, from a story by Edgar Wright

Starring:  Thomasin McKenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Michael Ajao, Terence Stamp, Diana Rigg

Running Time:  117 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Teenager Eloise Turner (McKenzie) moves from rural Cornwall to the bright lights of London to study fashion design.  Fascinated by the music and the style of the Swinging Sixties, Eloise moves to a bedsit in the Soho area of the city, and finds herself haunted by visions of Sandie (Taylor-Joy) an aspiring singer in the 1960s.  At first Eloise is delighted by these journeys back in time, and uses her experiences to fuel her creativity.  However, as Sandie's story becomes increasingly dark, Eloise's dreams quickly turn into horrific nightmares, which begin to bleed into her waking life.

Probably many people have visions of some fantasy "Golden Age" when everything was cool, wonderful and glamorous, even if it was a time long before they were born.  For modern day teenager Eloise it's the 1960s, but she soon comes to discover that despite the glamour, cool clothes and fantastic music, there is darkness and cruelty.  She comes to London to pursue her dreams of fashion design but almost as soon as she steps off the train, she has a disturbing experience with a creepy taxi driver, and is bullied by the fellow students in her halls of residence, causing her to move into a bedsit.  One of the hallmarks of Edgar Wright films is the visual inventiveness, and this is on full display here, particularly the sequence where Eloise has her first dream which is throughly intoxicating, as Sandie is revealed as her mirror images, and we see Anya Taylor-Joy, with Thomasin McKenzie as her reflection, and vice versa.  Thomasin McKenzie is heartbreaking as the romantic, tormented Eloise, haunted by the past in more ways than one, Anya Taylor-Joy is striking as Sandie, at first seeming the personification of sixties glamour, but who increasingly falls apart.  Former Doctor Who Matt Smith plays handsome, charismatic but dangerous Jack, and Smith is very effective in a throughly villainous role.  Michael Ajao plays Eloise's classmate John, pretty much the only sympathetic male character in the film, and he does invest what could be a very bland part with some real emotion.  There are slo appearances by several Sixties icons: Terence Stamp, Rita Tushingham and, in her final performance, Diana Rigg.  As with all of Edgar Wright's films, music is crucial here, with the stream of sixties classics almost another character.  The film does fall apart somewhat in the final third when it moves into more gruesome giallo horror territory, and at the end there are a few too many coincidences and shocking reveals, but for the most part it works very well, and the film is constantly intriguing, entertaining and sometimes genuinely shocking.  It's about the perils of nostalgia and "Golden Age" thinking, the dark side of glamour and most of all how men prey on women, which is the real horror in the film.

Anya Taylor-Joy and Thomasin Mackenzie in Last Night in Soho

Dead Ringers

Year of Release:  1988

Director:  David Cronenberg

Screenplay:  David Cronenberg and Norman Snider, based on the book Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland

Starring:  Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold

Running Time:  115 minutes

Genre:  Drama, thriller, horror

Identical twins Beverly and Elliot Mantle (Irons in a dual role) are both gynaecologists and run a clinic in Toronto.  The Mantles live together and frequently pose as each other.  The more ruthless and callous of the two, Elliot, often seduces his patients and, when he grows bored, allows the more gentle and passive Beverly to adopt his identity to sleep with the women, without them having any knowledge of the exchange.  This works for them until Beverly falls in love with glamorous actress Claire Niveau (Bujold). The relationship begins to drive a wedge between the bothers who soon learn that "separation can be a terrifying experience."

This film marked a change in the career of Canadian director David Cronenberg who made his name with such gruesome fare as Shivers (1975), Rabid (1977), The Brood (1979), Scanners (1981) and Videodrome (1983), before moving to more mainstream work such as the Stephen King adaptation The Dead Zone (1983) and the remake of The Fly (1986).  With Dead Ringers Cronenberg moved into more complex, psychological material, which didn't necessarily fit into any particular genre.  The most traditionally "Cronenbergian" sequence in the film is a very brief scene in which Beverly has a nightmare of himself and Elliot being attached to each other by a thick, fleshy cord, which Claire proceeds to bite in order to separate them.  While this lacks the trademark blood and guts that Cronenberg was known for, it is possibly his most disturbing work.  Jeremy Irons delivers a career best performance with his dual turn as the twin brothers, delineating the subtle differences in their personalities, making each distinct while showing that they are two separate halves of one whole.  The impressive special effects makes the scenes of the two twins together look seamless.  Geneviève Bujold is a little underused, particularly in the film's second half, but she is good as the woman that comes between the twins.  The film takes place mostly indoors, in the spotlessly clean environment of the Mantle's clinic and apartment, which seem almost one and the same, all gleaming metal and soft lighting, and the opulent hotel rooms and expensive restaurants that Claire inhabits.  As the Mantle's mental condition deteriorates, so too does their  living space, buried under increasing amounts of trash and debris.  The film was adapted from a book called Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland  which was inspired by a true story in which identical twin gynaecologists, Stewart and Cyril Marcus, were found dead together in their New York apartment in 1975.  I can't say anything about the book as I've never read it, but the working title for the film was Twins, after the book, but it was changed to avoid confusion with the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito comedy which came out around the same time.  This is a film which won't be to everyone's tastes, it's slow, and has a strangely alienating quality to it.  Even in the emotional scenes, the way the shots are framed and the scenes performed seem designed to push the audience away rather than draw us in, the sombre classical score by Howard Shore reinforces that feeling.  The film however has a distinctive and impressive chilly atmosphere and will linger in the mind for a very long time after it is over.     

Double trouble:  Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold and Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers

The French Dispatch

Year of Release:  2021

Director:  Wes Anderson

Screenplay:  Wes Anderson, from a story by Wes Anderson, Roman Coppola, Hugo Guinness and Jason Schwartzman

Starring:  Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet, Lyna Khoudri, Jeffrey Wright, Mathieu Amalric, Stephen Park, Owen Wilson

Running Time:  103 minutes

Genre:  Drama, comedy

The French Dispatch, the foreign bureau of a Kansas newspaper, is based in the quirky city of Ennui-sur-Blasé, and presided over by formidable editor Arthur Howitzer Jr. (Murray).  When Arthur dies suddenly of a heart attack, the staff of the magazine prepare one final issue, which will serve as a memorial to Arthur and a farewell to the magazine.  It consists of an obituary, a travelogue feature, and three stories:  A murderer (del Toro) serving a life sentence for double murder proves to be a talented artist, with the help of a prison guard (Seydoux), and attracts the attention of a sleazy art dealer (Brody).  In the second story, an American writer (McDormand) becomes involved in a protest movement lead by a chess-playing revolutionary (Chalamet).  In the third story, a food writer (Wright) becomes involved in a kidnapping scheme while trying to write an article about legendary police chef (Park).

The film is an anthology and what we see is the final issue of The French Dispatch, which is clever and, to my knowledge, unique way of presenting a film.  It has a huge ensemble cast, which also includes Edward Norton, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Christoph Waltz and Anjelica Huston in small roles.  Set in a fictional city, in an undefined mid 20th Century setting, this is a delightful film, everything is intricately designed, and every frame is carefully composed.  The film moves from colour to black and white, there are spilt screen images, quirky captions,  and even a couple of animated sequences.  It feels like a delicately constructed piece of elaborate machinery, where any flaw in the thing and the whole would collapse.  Often when comedy is too carefully constructed and designed, it can work against the humour and feel airless, however this is a very funny film, although, as with most Anderson films, it is more whimsical and witty than hysterical.  The music by Alexandre Desplat helps invoke the Sixties French glamour, and the soundtrack features Charles Aznavour, Ennio Morricone, Grace Jones, Chantal Goya and Jarvis Cocker.  This is very much a Wes Anderson film and if you don't like his work, then this will likely not win you over, I do like his work and I enjoyed this film a lot. The cast is all good, and there is so much charm in this film that it is almost impossible not to be won over.  It's a love letter to journalism, sixties France and French cinema, and I was left wishing that The French Dispatch might put out some more issues.

The staff of The French Dispatch

Halloween Kills

 Year of Release:  2021

Director:  David Gordon Green

Screenplay:  Scott Teems, Danny McBride and David Gordon Green, based on characters created by John Carpenter and Debra Hill

Starring:  Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, Thomas Mann, Anthony Michael Hall, Kyle Richards

Running Time:  105 minutes

Genre:  Horror

Immediately following the events of Halloween (2018), Laurie Strode (Curtis), her daughter Karen (Greer), and Karen's daughter Allyson (Matichak) are taken to hospital to recuperate.  However, murderous Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle) emerges from the inferno of the Strode compound and proceeds to cut a bloody swathe through the good people of Haddonfield, Illinois.  The townspeople desire to band together to stop Myers once and for all.

The original Halloween (1978) worked because it emphasised suspense and tension over blood and guts, the 2018 Halloween which is a sequel to the 1978 film but ignores all of the previous umpteen sequels, remakes and reboots, wasn't great but it was an enjoyable enough rejuvenation of the hoary old franchise.  Halloween Kills, however, is pretty much a bloodbath.  The film tries to make a comment about mob mentality and vigilante justice, but it feels pretty half hearted, swallowing the greens of social commentary to linger over the pudding of gruesome murders.  The violence is surprisingly brutal, even by the standards of the Halloween franchise.  Jamie Lee Curtis is underused as Laurie Strode, who is in hospital throughout most of the film.  Judy Greer is the highlight of the film, providing some much needed heart as Karen, and Andi Matichak as Allyson does as well as anyone could do with a pretty underwritten part.  Some of the kills are imaginative, and a hospital riot is a highlight.  The thing is that the film is so over the top in terms of gore and violence it just becomes funny.  People were laughing at the screening I attended, and you could have some fun with it if you were watching it at the right time with the right audience.  It needs to be watched late at night, after a few beers, with some likeminded friends, for some silly, campy fun.  It's not scary and really not much of a movie.  There isn't really any conclusion,  it forms the centrepiece of a trilogy, with Halloween Ends due out in 2022, and so instead of a satisfying ending, it's like the film just stops.  

   Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney / Nick Castle) in Halloween Kills

Dune

 Year of Release:  2021

Director:  Denis Villeneuve

Screenplay:  Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth, based on the novel Dune by Frank Herbert

Starring:  Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem

Running Time:  156 minutes

Genre:  Science-fiction

In the far future, the most valuable substance in the universe is the "Spice" which makes interstellar travel possible.  The only place where Spice can be found is on the desert planet Arrakis (nicknamed "Dune").  for the past 80 years, the brutal House Harkonnen have held the monopoly on Spice mining on Arrakis.  The Emperor Shaddam IV transfers the rights to Arrakis to the Harkonnen's arch-rivals, the noble House Atreides.  Despite his suspicions, Duke Leto Atreides (Isaac) accepts the assignment.  Meanwhile, his son Paul (Chalamet) has been having strange, mystical dreams of Arrakis, and is on his way to his own destiny.

Franks Herbert's classic 1965 science-fiction novel Dune has baffled and stymied many a filmmaker to the extent that it has been considered "unfilmable".  Cult Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky planned an adaptation starring Salvador Dalí, Orson Welles, Gloria Swanson and Mick Jagger, with production design by H. R. Giger and comics artist Jean Girard (Moebius), and music by Pink Floyd, was aborted due to the planned 14 hour running time and rapidly ballooning budget.  Ridley Scott planned an adaptation, but abandoned it in favour of Blade Runner (1982).  David Lynch finally brought the novel to the screen with Dune (1984), which has had what politely could be termed a mixed reception from critics and fans, although personally I enjoyed it.  The Sci-Fi channel made a three part miniseries based on the book in 2000.    The problem for filmmakers for the book is that it is long, complex and sprawling with a complicated backstory, that is portrayed in the book through footnotes and appendices, but is difficult to portray on screen.  The first thing to be aware of with Denis Villeneuve's film is that it is properly titled Dune: Part One, and it only adapts the first half of the novel, which means that it just stops with no conclusion,  whether or not we get a Part Two depends (at the time of this writing) as to how well this does commercially. This is really a kind of mainstream art film.  It looks beautiful, with Arrakis ranging from bleached vistas, to red-gold deserts, riddled with deadly sandworms, mouths bristling with delicate, filament-like teeth; the chilly grey, Northern landscapes of the Atreides' homeward of Caladan, and the shadowy world of Geidi Prime, home of the Harkonnens, lit boy shafts of light slicing through the gloom.  Denis Villeneuve is a master of beautiful science-fiction, sometimes focussing on visual splendour at the expense of character.  The film creates this richly detailed imaginative universe, with some spectacular action scenes.  This also has some great performances, with Timothée Chalamet in particular impressive as Paul moving from sulky teen to courageous warrior, and Rebecca Ferguson as Paul's mother, Lady Jessica, a member of the mystical Bene Gesserit order, who breaks the most sacred rules of her order for love.  As it stands, this is probably the best possible adaptation of Herbert's prose in to film, if the second part gets made, it could be one of the highpoint of science-fiction in cinema.   

Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Javier Bardem and Timothée Chalamet in Dune

The Last Duel

Year of Release:  2021

Director:  Ridley Scott

Screenplay:  Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Nicole Holofcener, based on the book The Last Duel: A True Story of Trial by Combat in Medieval France by Eric Jager

Starring:  Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer, Harriet Walter, Ben Affleck

Running Time:  153 minutes

Genre:  Historical drama

France, the late 1300s:  Lady Marguerite de Carrouges (Comer) accuses her husband's former best friend Jacques Le Gris (Driver) of raping her.  Her husband, Sir Jean de Carrouges (Damon), challenges le Gris to trial by combat, the last legally sanctioned duel in French history.  However, if Sir Jean loses the duel, not only will he be killed in combat, but Lady Marguerite will also be burned to death.  The film details the events leading up to the duel from the perspectives of Sir Jean, Jacques le Gris and Lady Marguerite.

This is a frustrating film because at it's best it is very good, but it has it's moments of extreme silliness.  The main problem is several of the roles are miscast:  Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Ben Affleck are all good actors but they are just not convincing as medieval French knights.  Affleck, as Count Pierre, Le Gris' patron and friend, in particular plays it like he's in an episode of Blackadder at times.  Jodie Comer however is fantastic as Lady Marguerite, the only character in the film who is in any way sympathetic, and Harriet Walter is good as Sir Jean's mother who hates her daughter in law.  The film looks spectacular, Ridley Scott shows his skill at handling historical epics, and the brutal action scenes are filmed with real dynamism.  The duel itself is savagely intense, and graphically violent.  The film utilises a structure where we are given three different perspectives on the events, and the film does point out who is telling the truth.  We see the friendship of Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris and it's subsequent disintegration, and the troubled relationship between Jean de Carrouges and Lady Marguerite.  The film shows the same events played out in different ways from different perspectives.  Sir Jean sees himself as a brave and noble knight, fighting for what is rightfully his, however others see him as a cruel, brutal bully and a fool.  Jacque Le Gris sees himself as an intelligent, romantic hero, however others see him as an opportunistic sycophant.  Lady Marguerite is caught in the middle, seen as little more than property.  When she tells her husband about the rape, he sees it as an insult to him, and Lady Marguerite's feelings don't really seem to come into it.  When Jacques le Gris goes to the church to defend himself against the charge, he is told that rape is seen as a crime of property, against the woman's husband or father. The rape sequence is brutal, and it is shown twice, from Le Gris and Marguerite's points of view.  The actual events are the same, even in Le Gris' version it is still an obvious rape, but he believes that she loves him really, so what he did was justified, while for Marguerite it is a brutal violation.  The film does discuss the ghastly treatment of women at the time, but not as much as it might have done.  It was written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who won an Academy Award for their previous screenplay Good Will Hunting (1997), with acclaimed writer/director Nicole Holofcener who wrote the scenes for Lady Marguerite, and based on a 2004 book by Eric Jager.  While the film has problems with an inconsistent tone, moving between macho, blood and thunder epic, medieval court politics and dark feminist drama, and there are issues with the casting, it is still worth seeing.  The three part structure works well and the film is never less than interesting.

   Adam Driver and Matt Damon in The Last Duel

Letter from an Unknown Woman

Year of Release:  1948

Director:  Max Ophuls

Screenplay:  Howard Koch, based on the novella Letter from an Unknown Woman by Stefan Zweig

Starring:  Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan

Running Time:  86 minutes

Genre:  Romance, drama 

Vienna at the turn of the 20th century:  Teenage Lisa (Fontaine) becomes smitten by her new neighbour, charismatic musician Stefan Brandt (Jourdan).  When her mother remarries, Lisa is forced to leave Vienna, but, still madly in love with Stefan, she returns some years later to find him.  Stefan is now a celebrated concert pianist. They finally meet and spend one romantic evening together, which proves to have devastating consequences.

This is one of those films where it seems like you could take any given frame, blow it up, and have something impressive to hang on the wall.  Shot in shimmering monochrome, it is incredibly beautiful, the period detail of Vienna is sumptuous, and every frame is carefully composed.  The acting is impressive, particularly from Joan Fontaine as the heartbreaking Lisa, from the wide-eyed lovestruck teenager to the devastated woman who sees her world crumble around her.  Louis Jourdan is charming and dashing as the roguish pianist, and it's easy to see her attraction to him.  Jourdan is slightly affectless in the role, but then Stefan is something of a hollow man.  The film is constructed in flashback, opening with Stefan planning to run away from a duel he is due to fight, declaring "honour is a luxury only gentlemen can afford", but is interrupted by his mute butler bringing him a letter from Lisa, which narrates the events of the film.  Everything in the film is shown from her perspective, aside from the sequences which bookend the flashback, so Stefan is seen only from her point of view, we never find out what he does when he disappears from the tale for long periods of time, although it's fair to say we can make an educated guess.  The centrepiece of the film is the long evening they spend together which must rank as one of the most dizzyingly romantic passages in all of cinema.  Despite a brief running time, however, and the story taking place over a long period of time in which a lot a happens to the characters, it's paced very sedately and the pacing feels slightly off at times.  That being said it is a powerful and tragic film, in which the intricate, polished surface, hides ultimately tragic passions.

Louis Jourdan and Joan Fontaine in Letter from an Unknown Woman

The Awakening

Year of Release:  2011

Director:  Nick Murphy

Screenplay:  Stephen Volk and Nick Murphy

Starring:  Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton, Isaac Hempstead-Wright

Running Time:  107 minutes

Genre:  Horror

The year is 1921 and Britain is reeling in the aftermath of the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic.  Interest in spiritualism is high as grieving people search for any shred of hope.  Florence Cathcart (Hall) is a controversial author who specialises in debunking alleged hauntings and exposing fraudulent mediums.  She is contacted by Robert Mallory (West), a teacher at a boy's boarding school, who wants her to investigate sightings of the alleged ghost of a boy, which might be connected to a recent death at the school.  Reluctantly Florence agrees.  However, as her investigation proceeds she soon comes to believe that the ghost may be more real than she thought, and more dangerous.

This film is essentially an old fashioned ghost story with an additional mystery element.  It's a mostly slow, sedate film that relies more on atmosphere than gory thrills, and it does have a real doom-laden feel to it.  It's set in the years following the First World War and Spanish Flu outbreak, where people are searching for something to hold on to and there was an increase in belief in the supernatural and spiritualism was at it's height, as grieving people were desperate to contact the people they had lost.  Robert Mallory was in the war and experiences survivor's guilt, whereas the school's groundskeeper, Judd (Joseph Mawle) didn't fight in the war and feels guilty and resentful towards Mallory for being seen as a war hero.    The film opens with Florence exposing an elaborate fake seance and, as the fraudulent mediums are lead away by the police, she is slapped in the face by the grieving mother who had paid for the seance, and has had her last hope ripped from her.  She receives angry letters from people enraged by her book which debunks the supernatural and any idea of an afterlife.  However Florence herself has a deep need to believe, and she investigates mediums an hauntings desperately hoping to find one that is genuine.  The film uses a washed out colour palette, and everything looks gloomy, grey and cold, and almost everyone in the (all white) cast looks practically translucent.  The film was directed by Nick Murphy, whose background is largely in television, and indeed it does often look and feel like classy TV movie although it did have a theatrical release.  The script was written by Murphy and horror veteran Stephen Volk, who is most famous for writing the controversial BBC drama Ghostwatch (1992), and it is reminiscent of the works of  M. R. James, Ramsey Campbell, Shirley Jackson and Henry James.  The film falls apart somewhat towards the end where there are several twists that defy credibility, and feel like they belong in a different film, and there is also a disturbing and intense scene where Florence is attacked.  The ghost boy, with his distorted face, is only glimpsed briefly and at first it's startling but let down by unimpressive special effects.  Rebecca Hall is very good as Florence, and the film is worth seeing for her performance alone.  Dominic West is good in his typically gruff, period drama role as the teacher, turned paranormal investigator, even if he would rather be investigating Florence.  Imelda Staunton is as impressive as ever in the supporting role of housekeeper Maud, who is a fan of Florence's work.  Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who is probably most famous as Bran Stark in Game of Thrones (2010-2019), plays a   lonely pupil who forms a bond with Florence.  This is a far from perfect film, but then it is by no means bad either.  It has some great performances, particularly Rebecca Hall's.  It's certainly worth watching if you're a fan of elegant ghost stories.

Rebecca Hall in The Awakening
 

Pale Rider

Year of Release:  1985

Director:  Clint Eastwood

Screenplay:  Michael Butler and Dennis Shryack

Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Chris Penn, Richard Dysart, Sydney Penny

Running Time:  116 minutes

Genre:  Western

19th century, California: A group of independent prospectors, panning for gold, are regularly harassed by a gang of thugs in the pay of wealthy mining baron Coy LaHood (Dysart), who is determined to drive off the prospectors so he can seize their land.  Following a raid in which her pet dog is shot dead, 14 year old Megan Wheeler (Penny) prays for a miracle to save them.  Shortly afterwards a mysterious Preacher (Eastwood) arrives to help the prospectors.

Plot wise, this is similar to endless Westerns in which a lone hero arrives to defend the good and the helpless against brutal villains.  This film however has a strange supernatural angle to it, similar to Eastwood's directorial debut High Plains Drifter (1973).  It is very strongly hinted that the unnamed Preacher is a ghost, although it is left ambiguous.  The Preacher's backstory is hinted at, but never really revealed.  It's even hinted that the Preacher is Death himself.  He seems to appear in answer to Megan's prayer, riding in accompanied by thunder, lighting and howling winds, and he enters the prospector's camp accompanied by a reading if the Biblical verse from which the film takes it's title: "And lo, I beheld a pale horse, with a pale rider on it, and the name of the rider was Death.  And Hell followed him."  As an actor, Eastwood does what he does best, with his squinting glares, and snarling drawl, as a director, Eastwood handles the material with style, often using interesting framing and camera angles, that take advantage of every part of the screen, and the wintery landscapes are beautiful.  The influence of Sergio Leone, who directed the Dollars trilogy that made Eastwood a movie star, is very strong here.  There is also a slight environmental element to the film with LaHood's controversial hydraulic mining technique destroying the landscape, as opposed to the prospectors peacefully panning for gold in the river.  Michael Moriarty plays Hull Barret, the put upon but determined leader of the prospectors, Carrie Snodgress plays Sarah Wheeler, Megan's mother who has become increasingly cynical after she was abandoned by Megan's father, but with whom Barret is in love, and Chris Penn plays LaHood's son and head of the thugs.  Richard Kiel (best known as the metal-toothed Jaws in the James Bond movies The Spy who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979)) has a small role as one of LaHood's heavies.  The performances are all fine, if unmemorable,  they do what they need to do.  Snodgress probably gives the best performance, and the film does build up a fairly complex relationship between Sarah and Barret.  There is a brief but very unpleasant scene of an attempted sexual assault on the 14 year old Megan, although is is stopped and she is rescued by the Preacher.  It sours an otherwise innocuous film, and really serves little purpose.  Despite being an action film, this is mostly quite a slow film, and all wrapped up in a fairly neat, if disappointing climax.  This is not an essential film but, if you like Westerns, you may enjoy it, but if you're not a fan of the genre this will not convert you.     

From Beyond

Year of Release:  1986

Director:  Stuart Gordon

Screenplay:  Dennis Paoli, story by Brian Yuzna, Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli, based on the short story "From Beyond" by H. P. Lovecraft

Starring:  Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ted Sorel, Ken Foree, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon

Running Time:  82 minutes

Genre:  Horror, science-fiction

Dr. Edward Pretorius (Sorel) and Crawford Tillinghast (Combs) create a machine called the Resonator which stimulates the pineal gland in the human brain, allowing a person to see beyond normal, perceptible reality, revealing grotesque monsters.  One of them bites off Pretorius' head, and Crawford is accused of his murder.  Intrigued by his story, ambitious psychiatrist Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Crampton) and Detective Bubba Brownlee (Foree) persuade Crawford to recreate the experiment.  They soon discover that Crawford was telling the truth, and that Pretorius has been absorbed by the creatures and returns hungry for more prey.

This film reunites many of the cast and key behind the scenes personnel behind cult hit Re-Animator (1985) for another take on the works of influential American writer H. P. Lovecraft.  This film, written by Dennis Paoli from a story by Paoli, director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna is very loosely based on a very brief minor H. P. Lovecraft story written in 1920 and published in 1934.   As with Re-Animator much of the material is played more for laughs than scares, and is full of slimy, rubbery monstrosities and gore galore.  There's a surprisingly strong sexual element here as well.  A scene where a monster attempts to assault Barbara Crampton is queasily unpleasant and strikes a sour note on what is otherwise an essentially fun, gory monster movie.  Later, in one of the film's most memorable scenes, the buttoned-up, serious Crampton appears in full leather bondage gear and also, if you are so inclined, there is the sight of Ken Foree in very small briefs.  It's one of those films where everyone seems to be having a ball.  Jeffrey Combs overacts tremendously as the twitchy, bug-eyed scientist; Barbara Crampton is good as ever as the sympathetic if slightly sinister psychiatrist and she conveys well her slow transformation under the influence of the Resonator; Ted Sorel provides a fun pantomime performance as the hissable villain under increasing layers of latex; Ken Foree, who is possibly best known for Dawn of the Dead (1978), is engaging as the likeable tough-guy detective; and Carolyn Purdy-Gordon is fun as the psychiatrist who despises Katherine and her methods.  While the special effects may look a dated today, the gruesome monsters are imaginatively designed and it's all satisfactorily gross.  At a brisk 82 minutes the whole thing keeps moving along.  It's the kind of film that is best watched late at night maybe with a few drinks and a few likeminded friends.  None of it is supposed to be taken seriously.       

Barbara Crampton and Ted Sorel in From Beyond

Enduring Love

 Year of Release:  2004

Director:  Roger Michell

Screenplay:  Joe Penhall, based on the novel Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

Starring:  Daniel Craig, Rhys Ifans, Samantha Morton, Bill Nighy, Susan Lynch

Running Time:  100 minutes

Genre:  Drama, thriller

University professor and author Joe (Craig) is having a picnic in the Oxfordshire countryside with his partner Claire (Morton) when he becomes involved with an attempt to rescue a young boy from an out of control hot air balloon, alongside several other men.  The attempt fails, and one of the men dies, although the boy ultimately lands safely.  Joe suffers a great deal of guilt over the man's death.  Later he is contacted by Jed (Ifans) one of the other would-be rescuers.  Jed has become obsessed with Joe, and is convinced that Joe is in love with him.  Initially Joe tries to gently brush Jed off, but the stalking soon  intensifies to increasingly dangerous levels.

Based on a novel by acclaimed author Ian McEwan, who is probably best known for the 2001 novel Atonement, this is really in it's basic plot a conventional psycho-thriller about stalking, but it is dressed up as an arthouse drama.  It's all very elegant and moves at a stately pace, and there are many long conversations about guilt and the nature of love (Joe lectures and writes about love and his conviction that it doesn't really exist and is just a biological impulse).  It's only really until the end that it moves fully into thriller territory.  The film doesn't really work as a thriller because there is never any feeling of threat from Jed, at least until the end.  There is never any sense that Joe is scared of Jed.  He seems to regard him at first as an irritation, and later as an annoyance.  In fact there is the sense that Joe is more likely to turn violent against his stalker than the other way around.  It's very much a respectable, serious British film, that has the lurid elements that appeal to more mainstream audiences and the somber philosophising and arthouse elements to appeal to more serious minded viewers.  The film is very well acted, with Daniel Craig in particular turning from polite, mild-mannered professor into a seething self-destructive cauldron of barely repressed rage.  Rhys Ifans makes the stalker, Jed, disturbing but also weirdly sympathetic.  Samantha Morton is good but underused as sculptor Claire, Joe's increasingly put-upon partner.  The rest of the cast is full of familiar British actors including Bill Nighy, Susan Lynch, Helen McCrory, Andrew Lincoln (from The Walking Dead (2010-2021)), Anna Maxwell Martin, Corin Redgrave, and Daniel Craig's future James Bond co-star Ben Wishaw.  Not exciting or tense enough to work as a thriller, or particularly involving as a drama, the film feels stretched even at a fairly brisk running time, but the performances are fantastic, it all looks beautiful and, despite it's flaws, it is interesting enough to see how it all turns out.

Rhys Ifans and Daniel Craig in Enduring Love
   

No Time to Die

 Year of Release: 2021

Director:  Cary Joji Fukunaga

Screenplay:  Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, from a story by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Cary Joji Fukunaga, based on characters created by Ian Fleming

Starring:  Daniel Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ben Wishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Ana de Armas

Running Time:  163 minutes

Genre:  Action, espionage

James Bond (Craig) has retired from active service for MI6, but his domestic bliss with Madeleine Swann (Seydoux) is interrupted when he suspects her of selling him out to the evil SPECTRE organisation.  Five years later, Bond finds himself drawn into a race between MI6 and the CIA to rescue a kidnapped scientist from the clutches of SPECTRE, but finds himself in a battle to save the world from a deadly weapon that has fallen into the hands of ruthless terrorist Safin (Malek).

So we have been expecting you, Mr. Bond.  And indeed we have.  Work in the film began in early 2016, and it was originally due to be released at the end of 2019, but was delayed a few months to avoid competition with Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker (2019), but was delayed a couple of times more due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  In fact it seems like I have seen the trailer every time I have been to the cinema in the past two years.  Was it worth the wait?  Yes, it was worth it.  The film has all the traditional elements of classic James Bond:  glamour, exotic locations, plenty of action, humour, gadgets and a megalomaniacal villain, but it updates it to appeal to a modern audience.  The female characters are no longer just "Bond girls", there to be decoration and not much more, they are more than a match for Bond, and are the most complex, ambiguous characters.  Also supporting characters such as Q (Ben Wishaw), Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and M (Ralph Fiennes) have much bigger roles than were traditional.  This is likely to be Daniel Craig's last James Bond film, and if so, this is a perfect way to end Craig's run as 007.  The action is exciting, and, despite having a running time of almost three hours, it's well paced and the narrative keeps moving along.  Rami Malek makes a satisfactorily sinister villain.  Léa Seydoux reprises her role as the tragic Madeleine Swann from the previous Bond film Spectre (2015) and provides the film with it's heart.  Lashana Lynch is good as the new "00 agent" who acts as Bond's partner / rival and possible successor.  This mayn't be the best of the James Bond films, but it is certainly one of the best ones,  the thing is that it's hard to see where the Bond films will go from here, but it will be interesting to see what the future holds.

Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas in No Time to Die
  

A Cure for Wellness

Year of Release:  2016

Director:  Gore Verbinski

Screenplay:  Justin Haythe, from a story by Gore Verbinski and Justin Haythe

Starring:  Dane DeHaan, Jason Isaacs, Mia Goth

Running Time:  146 minutes

Genre:  Horror, drama

Lockhart (DeHaan), an ambitious young executive at a New York financial services institution, is assigned to retrieve the company's CEO from a remote "wellness centre" somewhere in the Swiss Alps.  When Lockhart arrives he soon discovers that the centre's grotesque treatments hide a disturbing secret.

Loosely inspired by the Thomas Mann novel The Magic Mountain, this is an impressively mounted, handsome film, stylishly made, with an intriguing mystery.  There are also some impressive performances such as Jason Isaacs as the sinister head of the institution and Mia Goth as the strange, otherworldly girl who lives in the institute.  However the film is overly long with a running time of almost two and half hours, and there are some gaping plot holes.  Also the lead character, as played by Dane DeHaan, is so obnoxious it's really hard to care what happens to him.  It starts out as an elegant "elevated horror" film (basically horror for people who look down on horror films), but moves into full on gothic horror by the end.  Despite the sedate pace, the film boasts some genuinely horrific moments of body horror, including a genuinely nightmarish dental scene.  There are very obvious parallels to Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (2010), and Phantom of the Opera and even to bizarre sixties TV series The Prisoner (1967-1968).  It won't be too everyone's tastes, but if you have the patience and stomach for it, it is intriguing and beautiful enough not to feel like a waste of time.

    Dane DeHaan in A Cure for Wellness