Tag Archives: 4/5

Island of Lost Souls 4/5

Island of Lost Souls

The is amazing. Whilst there are some slightly better horror movies made in the 1930s (I’m looking at you, Bride of Frankenstein), this is definitely among the handful of really great pulp/graphic horrors of the 30s, before the Hays code kicked in. I’d lump this in with Freaks and The Black Cat as in that class of great 30s pulp horror that still stands up today.

The really weird makeup and dialogue, and memorable setups such as the panther woman, the ‘house of pain’, “The Law”, and the weird mudhut village in the jungle, along with Charles Laughton leering over his creations, the women, and his use of the whip really build to something special.

Here’s to never being in The House of Pain.

Never Sleep Again 4/5

Never Sleep Again

Ridiculously long, but rather glorious documentary about all the movies of the Nightmare on Elm Street series (except the very recent remake). You get actors’ insights, special effects guys, producers, where the seed ideas for each movie came from, you get everything you could possibly want. And it doesn’t flag until maybe the last 10 minutes, where it turns into a love-in about New Line – but even this is redeemed by the closing titles, where various actors from the series deliver the best lines.

This documentary made me realise two things: The Freddy series is clearly the best horror franchise of the 80s; Robert Englund is fantastic.

Got 4 hours free? Watch this.

The Poseidon Adventure 4/5

The Poseidon Adventure

Despite a few cheesy moments (especially in the build-up to the tidal wave), this was pretty damn thrilling. Everyone seemed to be giving it their all, and it kept me totally engaged from the point the tidal wave hit, right through to the end. The part where the old fitness guy helps the young singer to leave her dead brother was quite touching.

Quatermass 2 Enemy from Space 4/5

Quatermass 2

Another great British 50s scifi, dealing with mature themes of government conspiracy and control. It has something akin to the podpeople in Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, but these podpeople are ahead of the curve, and have already taken over government. It really packs a lot into its 80 minute running time, so has some narrative shortcuts that are really massive coincidences, but there’s some great stuff here…the police inspector about to tell all to someone in power, and noticing the alien scar and quickly changing the story, the sinister guards in gasmasks and helmets wielding machine guns, and the realisation the aliens are blocking the pipes with human bodies to stop oxygen poisoning them. A great paranoia piece of the time.

Mark discussing Quatermass on the Talk Without Rhythm Podcast

The Quatermass Xperiment 4/5

The Quatermass Xperiment

Damn fine British scifi, made by Hammer before they went full-horror, with Brian Donlevy doing a great scientist-as-sociopath in his portrayal of Bernard Quatermass, and Richard Worsworth doing a great turn as Victor Caroon, a man slowly being overtaken by an alien intelligence in a performance often (rightly) compared to Karloff’s performance in the original Frankenstein. Some great touches, including rising tension in a zoo where the off-camera monster lurks, followed by the sight of dead, desiccated animals throughout the zoo the next morning, fine music, a documentary style that really serves to make you uneasy. One of the great scifi movies of the 50s.

Mark discussing Quatermass on the Talk Without Rhythm Podcast

Patton 4/5

Patton

A magnificent performance from George C. Scott as the magnificent bastard blood and guts general Patton. Sometimes this gets lumped in with the antiwar movies of the early 70s (MASH, Catch 22) but this is a horse of a different colour, showing the driven, intelligent, bigoted (against what he called ‘cowards’), narrowminded, well-read character that was Patton, presented here as a man of a different age, who was still grounded enough to beat the hell out of the German army. Very enjoyable, and enthralling.

The Dambusters – Dated but excellent war movie, focussing on both ingenuity and bravery 8/10

The Dambusters (1955) 

This movie is based on the true story of a raid by British bombers to take out the dams of Germany, used to power and aid in the steelmaking process, powering Germany’s war machine. It’s dated somewhat both in presentation (the dialogue is clipped, very stiff-upper lip) and certainly in its special effects. It’s also a bit problematic in that the leader – Guy Gibson – has a dog whose name is now quite a severe racial slur (the N-word), and whose presence is throughout the movie – which is a shame as it means they barely ever put this movie on the TV.

However, it’s very stirring stuff, despite being pretty anti-gungho. I really enjoy how technical problems kept coming up, and the boffins or the airmen just shrug and say ‘we’ll work it out’ – and they do just that for each and every seemingly-impossible problem, by sheer ingenuity and brainpower. The attack requires a new type of bombing mechanism – the ‘bouncing bomb’, thought up by Barnes Wallis – one of the great engineers of the war, which has to dispatched at exactly the right height and distance from the target.

The bombers who have already dropped their load go in with each run of the next bomber to help draw flak, and given these men have to fly very low over water at night, with spotlights on, and always unload the bomb in exactly the same position – these guys were sitting ducks and they knew it.

It’s a movie of brave men training to fly at insanely low heights for hundreds of miles just to get where they needed to, and then fly into flak with courage and coolness to deliver their payload. There’s no dflag-waving, there’s no histrionics, just men knowing what they have to do, and doing it. It ends in a downbeat way, with the survivors resting in their bunks, whilst the bunks of the 56 lost men lie empty.

A war movie with a documentary feel, I’d thoroughly recommend this as long as poor special effects don’t bother you.

Rating: Good, 8/10

Movie Review: 25th Hour – excellently made drama about a failed life 8/10

25th Hour

25th Hour examines the last day of freedom of a man before being sent to jail for 7 years. The main character is Monty Brogan, a drug dealer in New York City. He is played by Ed Norton in a really powerful and moving lead performance. The film is directed by Spike Lee, a director I’ve admired and liked for some time, and who I felt had peaked with the wonderful ‘Malcolm X’ – until I saw this.

This movie is essentially a long goodbye, where Monty plays out all the issues he has with his real friends, his business associates, his city and its citizens, and his girl. This is a beatifully-played film, filled with such issues as longing, regret, and ‘what if’, and friendships/love that may or may not be over. It’s a film about goodbyes in that sense, but there’s much more here than meets the eye.

Each of his friends are an important element in showing us the real Monty, and not only him, but how he has reflected on them (in no small way). They feel guilt and remorse in not having stopped him becoming a dealer, for example. There’s no plot other than him saying his goodbyes, but that’s more than enough. The support actors are excellent, and more than match Norton’s intense and realistic performance. The support includes Rosario Dawson as his girlfriend Naturelle, Philip Seymour Hoffman as his thoughtful and reticent friend who is a teacher with the hots for one of his students (Anna Paquin), and Barry Pepper as a pushy stock-market guy who is deeply struck by how he’s let his friend Monty down. These people give brilliantly-acted, blistering scenes that elegantly and dramatically fill in their backstory, and tell you how they got to the here and now.

Also wonderful is the moving interplay of father and son, with Brian Cox playing Monty’s father. How he comes to terms with his son’s prison sentence, and how he tries to lead his son to not go to prison and run, is powerful and striking. It illustrates the nature of fatherhood perfectly (to me at least), of how you care for your child, but can’t engage him as fully and as emotionally as a mother can. But still, you do your best.

There have been assorted criticisms ranged at this movie, particularly suggestion how the 9-11 motif is jammed in, and how this creates jarring scenes and moods that spoil the flow of this movie, but I find it appropriate and fitting. This is a film about New York and New Yorkers too, so to ignore this aspect of New York and American life would be trite, and seem to me a little petty.

The fact that this is a film about a low-life drug dealer that engages your sympathy and makes you think and feel pretty deeply towards this guy, and think on it long after the movie has finished, confirm the quality of film-making here. It’s a film that will have you thinking, and talking about it afterwards, and wanting to get people who haven’t seen it to give it a go.

Also, be aware, it’s a love/hate letter about New York. Norton does a rant about what he hates about NY early on that will strike a chord with the ‘angry man’ inside us all.

I can’t think of any films even close to this in most ways – it is a one-off, done by Spike Lee. Nice work, Spike!

Rating: GOOD 8/10, suitable for older teens upwards.

Book Review: The Dark Tower (the series) by Stephen King 8/10

The Dark Tower (the series) by Stephen King 

This sprawling epic of 4,000 pages, written by Stephen King, consists of 7 main books, and tells the story of Roland The Gunslinger and his friends as they quest to reach The Dark Tower, possibly to save creation.

This is most certainly a recommended read for King fans.  For others, there is certainly entertainment to be had, but you’ll need a lot of time on your hands.  The books aren’t all necessarily self-contained either.  The first book does stand alone as a series of short stories linked by a greater arc, and is a fairly short book.  It doesn’t quite serve as a taster, as it doesn’t have the richness of characterisation that comes in book 2 and onwards, but it’s still nonetheless the perfect place to dip your toes in this particular pond.

Book 2 – The Drawing of the Three – is the book where Roland draws together his quest-friends, helping them in their former lives and bringing them into his world. Book 3 charts their progress as a group (and ends with a cliff-hanger), and Book 4 details part of Roland’s past, and his first love affair.  That makes it sounds bland and wishy-washy, but I believe it’s by far the strongest book in the series, with excellent characterisation, and antagonists that aren’t supernatural and offstage (which is much the case in the other books).

Book 5 details how Roland’s ‘ka-tet’ defend a town against raider-robots after the town-children, and is also quite a good, standalone tale. 

Book 6 is rather weak, and really doesn’t stand alone as a read – it’s really the lead-in to the final book; and you’d only read it if you were invested in the series at this point.  Book 7 is the resolution of the whole saga, and probably the second-best book in the series.

I’ll try not to give spoilers, but here’s the good and the bad of it.

Good things: Major sections of this work were almost wholly unpredictable, both in terms of story and in terms of characters and incidents.  It’s hard to imagine a writer of exciting tales about a travelling quest deciding one of his major protagonists should have no legs, for example. Another good thing is that the ending is about perfect, in my opinion (though there’s by no means universal agreement on this) – I’m a long-time King reader, and he really struggles with endings for his longer stories.  This one was fine, however.

Bad Things: He introduces things from other stories (such as references to Harry Potter, and weapons called ‘sneetches’) or things that take you out of this story, somewhat fracturing the internal narrative (Stephen King is a significant character in the later books!).  These take you out of this story quite a bit when you first get to them. There’s also a little too much ‘deus ex machina’ going on, in that things get resolved by some convenient magic or gobledegook a little too often.  I can’t say more without spoiling the end of book 7, but the death of the final villain is probably the worst instance of this.  And finally, some ofthe major villains in these books – who are built up as near-mythically-powered – are way too easy for Roland to tackle.

Overall, I would recommend this series, but I think you need to decide for yourself at the end of book 2 – that’s the point you’ll know well enough if you want to stay with Roland on his quest.
Rating: ODD 8/10

Videogame: Dantes Inferno (XBox 360) – Excellent gameplay, visuals, artwork, a little repetitive 8/10

Dante’s Inferno (X Box 360 version)

This game involves a crusader cast into Hell to try and rescue his true love, whilst fighting Satan’s minions and descending through all the Circles of Hell.

So much for the story, let’s talk about what was good and bad.  Good, or rather excellent, was both the gameplay and graphics.  This looked absolutely fantastic (though hellishly disturbing at the same time – this really is a game suitably rated at 18), and was rendered smoothly and richly.  The movement and action was excellent, smooth and going exactly where you intended it (with some minor issues aside, when the hero was climbing) and matched the controller precisely – no lag, no ‘I didn’t mean him to do that!’, no significant issues at all. 

In terms of gameplay, if you’ve played God of War, or the recent Castlevania game (or even Arkham Asylum), you’ll have a good idea what to expect.  It was a linear narrative, with some very nice tapestry-style artwork used when giving the detailed backstory of Dante and his activities, and very little exploration outside the linear (but you need to explore, to get various bonuses).  There’s also some problem-solving, which was nicely balanced – it was tricky in places, but usually not so difficult you had to keep revisiting youtube to see how to do it.

The monsters were interesting, but after about halfway through the game, you tend to encounter variants of the same thing.  This leads to the weakness of the game – it is quite a button-masher.  You’re pretty much powerful enough to just go head-to-head with Satan’s hordes in 95% of situations.  Most of the time, that’s fine, that’s part of the fun, but there were times it got a bit too much. The penultimate-to-final level was particularly bad for example, where you have to face 10 very similar challenges, one straight after the other, and after about 6 or 7 it’s old and boring. Having said that, these are relatively minor quibbles, and becuase of the great visuals and fluid gameplay, I’d recommend this game heartily

Rating: 8/10

Movie Review: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein – Top horror comedy, with monsters and comedians really delivering 7.5/10

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

This film marked the final film for several of the universal monster franchises, such as the Frankenstein, Wolf Man and Dracula series, and is touted by some critics (but by no means all) as some sort of low-point.

Junk! This film works a treat on horrific and comedy levels – the monsters are treated with some respect, and not turned into clowns or parodies of themselves (unlike, say, Freddy Kreuger). To me, it marks a going out with a bang, and I consider this probably the best Abbot + Costello film by far. The title itself is a joke – Frankenstein is not a character in this film, much less someone the guys meet!

It’s consistently funny, old-fashioned scary and good for young (probably 6-7 upwards) and old alike, and cracks along at a fair pace.

It’s nicely filmed, nicely plotted, gives the boys time to do their funny stuff, and there’s some crackerjack lines. Example:
“You don’t understand. I sometimes turn into a wolf!”
“You and 20 million other guys!”

Even those that don’t like Abbott and Costello, there’s plenty here to like.