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Reviews
Adventures of a Taxi Driver (1976)
Awful dregs
This was the first film I saw on TV in 2003, in the early hours of Jan 1st (admittedly the little worse for wear after the New Year celebrations! Presumably this is why films like this are scheduled at such hours - the audience is simply too drunk to change channels!). I have to say, it was awful... simply too awful for words i.e. there aren't any words strong enough to describe just HOW awful it was (and therefore quite watchable - in the same way that most of us will stop in the street to watch the aftermath of a traffic accident). It is a perfect example of the pitiful decline of British cinema following the boom years (in terms of talent, at least) of the 60's. Perhaps a relaxing of censorship laws was partly responsible for the plague of "tit and bum" "comedies" that broke out in the 70's, most of which appeared to star the comically ugly Robin Asquith. No Robin is this one however, but Barry Evans, who went on to play the teacher in the execrable racist sitcom Mind Your Language. One thing I will say about him which isn't completely negative is that his physical resemblance to Neil - "Men Behaving Badly" - Morrisey in this film was quite uncanny.
I would recommend this film, despite my criticism of it, to anybody suffering from temporary brain death brought on by New Year celebrations, and to students of the absolutely appalling.
The Changes (1975)
Tea-time horror from the 70's
CONTAINS SPOILERS (not that you'll ever get to see it!)
This was a children's TV series consisting of ten twenty-five minute episodes first broadcast in 1975 on BBC1, and repeated a year later. I have very vivid memories of it, because it scared me half-stupid (and considering I have grown up believing, for instance, The Exorcist to be a comedy, that's saying something!)
Young Nicky Gore wakes up one morning to discover that everybody - her parents included - has gone mad. They are out on the streets smashing up cars, destroying televisions - any mechanical / electrical device you could care to mention, in fact. Deserted by her parents (who decide to flee to France) she is befriended by a group of Sikhs who, like her, appear to be immune from the cause of the madness - the "Noise", disturbing waves of sound which emanate from electricity pylons (or so I remember).
Various adventures in rural England ensue before Nicky - accompanied by various companions along the way (and at one point tried as a witch) - finds the source of the noise in a recently excavated cave system... This is the last episode and things get SERIOUSLY weird! She finds a large glowing red monolith which is crying out in a strange faraway voice "Muni targit! Muni targit!" (Latin for "I stop the World" I believe).
Apparently, it is a very confused supernatural force which has been reawakened by the excavation work, and sensed (I'm guessing here - it is twenty-seven years since I saw it and I was eight at the time!) that the natural order of the planet has been perverted (and indeed, polluted) by the inventions of man since the Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century, and is attempting to revert the world to a time when people were more at one with their environment.
The denouement is something of a cop-out. Nicky prostrates herself before the ancient force, pleading with it to reverse the harm it has caused. And, um, it does so.
The world is free again to poison the land and seas, for superpowers to threaten each other with nuclear weapons, for s/he-who-dies-with-the-most-toys-wins mentalities... Civilisation, it may be concluded, is amoral, but once innocence is lost, it can never be regained. Will wisdom grow in parallel with progress, or are we merely rushing headlong into self-destruction? Thoughts to chew on, certainly.
Note: Much of the location work was shot in Bristol and the West Country.
Life Is Sweet (1990)
"Aubrey's in a coma, he doesn't want any chips!"
A superb example of Mike Leigh's directing method - working with his actors, many of them regulars, making up most of the script as they go along.
No falling empires or coveted magical rings here, just the small victories and tiny despairs of everyday life - Timothy Spall's ridiculous restaurant ("Liver in Lager"??), Jane Horrocks' eating disorder and general estrangement from the world, Jim Broadbent and his grimy little burger van, Clair Skinner's endearingly sensible tomboy plumber... all exquisite little portraits. Best of all is Alison Steadman as the suburban Earth-mother trying to hold it all together.
It shows, above all, that a great film can be about anything really, as long as the direction, acting and script is of this calibre. Ben Hur, it ain't!
Absolutely marvelous - 9/10.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
"Open the pod bay doors, Hal"
It seems rather fashionable these days for film critics to dismiss this film as "pretentious" and "boring" (is it just me, or do critics often appear to represent a homogenous group-mind?) Certainly, it isn't a film that would be considered viable by any production company today, since it has camera shots lasting more than a fraction a second each and a lack of good guys and bad guys running around calling each other... well, let's say casting aspersions as to their relationships with the maternal side of their families.
It never was meant to be a film for resolutely earth-bound dullards with MTV-addled attention spans. 2001: A Space Odyssey was made in a time where experimentation was still possible in the main stream of film making. No, I don't quite understand why Dave Bowman ends up as a giant foetus floating in space either, but I am given the opportunity to interpret this and other images, rather than have everything explained to me by some angry, shouting character.
The humans in this film are mere ciphers. Bowman and Poole remind me of some of the most unreflective and basic humans I have ever worked with (which is saying something, as I work in I.T!) But Kubrick never was much interested in the minutiae of human interaction, (in his films, at least), no, for him it was the bigger picture.
What is suggested here - and remember, it is a story - is that an advanced alien race has assisted our development as a species... initially by teaching us how to bash each other's brains in. This aggression - negative though it may seem - appears to be the quality that leads to our dominance of the planet. It's interesting that we are introduced to Bowman, onboard the Discovery, jogging around the space ship practicing his boxing moves - Man, millions of years later, still throwing punches (note also, the karate bout shown on a TV during the Moon visit by Floyd).
It might be of interest too, to reflect upon that philosopher of nastiness Frederick Nietzche, who wrote something to the effect that Man is not the end product of life on Earth, but merely a conduit to the "Superman" (Also Sprach Zarathustra is the name of Fun-time Freddie's most famous tract, as well as the title of the film's opening - and closing - music, by Strauss. Coincidence?)
The "Beyond the Infinite" sequence, with our Dave seemingly careering headlong into the Pearl and Dean cinema advert (non-UK residents may be forgiven for not knowing what the Hell I'm talking about!) is simply masterful. Why aren't films this ambitious anymore?
Cherish this motion picture, for you will never see its like again.
Psycho II (1983)
Respectable sequel
It was never going to be as good as the original film, but this is none-the-less a well-plotted and tightly structured sequel with solid direction by Richard Franklyn, not to mention a haunting score by Jerry Goldsmith.
Nobody but the late, great Tony Perkins could have played Norman - here in all his twitchy, wry-humoured glory. I sometimes think that, had Psycho not effectively typecast him, he would have made an excellent comedy actor (subtle, as opposed to zany). His performance more or less carries the rest of the cast, particularly when Meg Tilly is at her most wooden, (it appears that she forgets she's even acting in some scenes), and Dennis Franz playing such a one-dimensional low-life. All credit to Robert Loggia though - like Martin Balsam was, he is a talented and dependable supporting actor. Vera Miles's hissing pantomime villain - reprising her role from the original film - is... so-so. Hugh Gillin is the local sheriff - gruff, likeable and always willing to give Bates the benefit of the doubt.
One aspect of the film I wasn't keen on was the graphic violence on display involving knives, but I suppose I have to concede that such were (and are) the times (post Halloween, Friday 13th etc.) and remember that Marion Crane's untimely demise in the original film's famous shower scene was, if anything, even more shocking .
I loved the twist ending, with Mrs Spool getting the bash over the head with the conveniently placed shovel - I have to admit, I almost laughed out loud.
It's a sad story, but here treated with respect. It's a great shame that two more sequels - both very poor - were made.
The Six Million Dollar Man (1974)
Metal limbs and wooden acting
I'm sure I wasn't the only seventies kid to run around the school playground with my pals in pretend slow motion and play-fight making the bionic "da-da-da-da-da-da..." sound. Steve Austin, astronaut, a man barely alive... Of course, the show wasn't very realistic. For instance, how was his bionic right arm attached to his natural shoulder / sternum in such a way that it didn't rip away every time he picked up a car or something? And how on Earth did he manage to co-ordinate himself?? Such concerns matter little when you're an awe-struck kid, however. He was my hero.
Lee Majors - in common with William "Captain Kirk" Shatner - was an actor of somewhat limited range who never-the-less found a role which he made his own and played to perfection, albeit rather woodenly. And okay, so the moustache he temporarily sported was something of a fashion crime, but the flared trousers and hilarious sports jackets were just of the times - the red track suit was cool though.
If it's ever remade as a big budget cinema film - as it inevitably will be - I think it will need to embrace a more complete idea of bionics in order to appeal to today's more sophisticated youngsters (and adults!) i.e. the character would need to be MORE bionic - perhaps even completely artificial apart from his brain / mind.