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